Corporate purpose

Embedding your corporate purpose into your governing structure is not just about articulating your mission. It’s about delivering it.

An embedded purpose can sustain a founding vision as your company grows and expands. It can reduce the risk of mission drift and culture shift as the company encompasses new voices and moves in new directions. It can provide an anchor for strategic decision making, safeguarding the mission in the face of challenges and opportunities.

If you’re setting up a new entity with a purposeful focus, we’ll help you to find the right legal form to support your vision.  If you’re part of an established business looking to embed your purposeful or ESG commitments, our team of experts will advise on the best governance structures to cement your corporate purpose and take into account the needs of your stakeholder groups.

How we help

Our team includes some of the country’s leading specialists in legal structures that deliver purpose, from traditional social enterprise-style models through to new, innovative approaches that will transform your ideas into a structure to suit your needs.

Options that we frequently advise on include:

  • Becoming a certified B Corp, including the advising on the legal requirement and what this means for directors’ duties.
  • Mission-locked forms like community interest companies (CICs) / social enterprises. We’ve been advising social enterprises since the earliest days and we originated the CIC model in a proposal to government.
  • Adding a golden shareholder, who is not entitled to a financial return, but can have a veto right over strategic decisions that could compromise the corporate purpose.
  • A steward-owned structure, where voting rights are limited to those close to the mission rather than to third party investors.
  • The legal aspects of employee-owned structures.

We’re a proud partner in Purposely, a free online tool that provides guidance and template documents for new organisations looking to embed purpose.

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Meet our team