“You are indeed the biggest champion and understand what we are doing more than many others in the company. You live it and breath it. To now make the knowledge available to many others, and hopefully create the momentum for biggest change is a very noble cause. Thanks for doing that. Purpose is indeed closely linked to wellness and not many people see this yet. Again you are a pioneer here. You will enjoy the challenges and opportunities and you are well prepared for it. We will see each other still but already thanks for all you have done for this great institution. We will benefit from it for years to come” (Paul Polman, CEO Unilever, June 2014 – on leaving Unilever).

Geoff’s background in teaching, HR, marketing, communications and sustainability is considerable. During his 25 years with Unilever (a global corporation with a turnover of £50 billion, 170,000 employees in 90 countries around the world), his experience has been truly global working across Africa Middle-East and Turkey, Australasia and Asia, Europe and the Americas.

His HR experience has spanned leadership and talent development, organization change, capability development, with particular reference to marketing, and business transformation with purpose at its core. Early in his career he was responsible for graduate recruitment and development, talent, acquisitions and development across Unilever’s emerging markets. Under his leadership he developed Unilever’s global talent and leadership center of expertise. More recently he has devoted his time, energy and effort to leading ground breaking work where the HR function has played a central role in transforming Unilever’s business model with purpose at its core.

Today Geoff is a very much sought after speaker, inspiring and provoking Organizations to put purpose and wellbeing at the center of everything they do. His experience in Unilever, under the pupilage of Paul Polman, allows him to provide very practical insights and speak on how to go about truly embedding PURPOSE and address the taboo associated with wellbeing (particularly mental health) within a large global multi-national Organization. With this experience come some real learning’s on what may or may not work. He recently had the opportunity to engage with Pope Francis on how we create a more sustainable and inclusive economy through his work with the Global Foundation.

He has spoken at Cambridge, Oxford, Bologna, Warwick Universities as well as corporate events across Australia, Europe, Japan, North America, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Geoff is devoting a significant amount of time consulting to Organizations, helping them define and embed Purpose as a driver of growth and profitability. He was recently appointed as strategic advisor to the Global PR and Communications firm Burson Marsteller in the area of Corporate Purpose and Organization Change. He too consults on how to address the stigma linked to depression and anxiety in the workplace, with a particular emphasis on raising awareness of these issues and providing some practical strategies as to how one might go about addressing this growing modern illness.

Geoff is a very active campaigner for breaking the stigma associated with Mental Health in the Corporate world and has participated in a number of BBC programs and campaigns regards this subject, as well as writing of articles for Huffington Post, FT and HR related journals. He previously convened a meeting with David Cameron and CEOs from Footsie 100 Companies to address their role and agree actions to break stigma in the corporate world. He too provided some support the Royal Foundation (Prince William, Harry and Kate) in their mental health campaign. He was recently appointed as a Trustee of Family Links, a Charity promoting and educating parents and teachers to develop emotionally healthy children and young adults. He is also a trustee of the Global Campaign It’s a Penalty- combatting the exploitation of young children around the world.

Geoff is married with two girls and loves the outdoors, he is a passionate cyclist and swimmer and has completed a number of ultra cycling and swimming events.

Topics that Geoff speaks to and Advises on include:

*Bipolar world of business – profit and purpose

*Leadership for the new normal

*Wellbeing and mental health in Corporates – how to break the stigma and put wellbeing at the centre of how you grow your business, attract and retain talent

*HR’s role in embedding purpose within an organisation the size, scale and complexity of Unilever

*The Unilever story of purpose driving growth and profitability

*The challenge facing educators and young people in preparing pupils/students/themselves to achieve their employment ambitions in a very competitive world – how to meet this challenge