From deep admiration and respect, I thought about how to structure everything that connected me to Jane Goodall before being able to interview her on November 22, 2023, a conversation framed withinSyzygy, The Overview Effect's annual event for positive impact innovation.
As a nature lover, getting to know a figure like Jane Goodall up close is one of the most fulfilling and self-fulfilling experiences that can happen to you personally and professionally. But before delving into all the learnings we gained to implement impact strategies and new business models, I would like to highlight three actions for which I am grateful to Jane for life:
• Her love for nature and her ability to help us understand that protecting nature is protecting ourselves.
• Her efforts to understand animal behavior and demonstrate that humans are not the only animals with emotions.
• Her ability to break barriers in the world of science as a woman with a completely different approach to animal research than what had traditionally been done.
From the thirty minutes I had the pleasure of conversing with Jane face-to-face, I carry with me her chimpanzee hug, by enacting how chimpanzees greet each other through gestures and sounds, and above all two messages that I would like to share:
• The importance of conveying hope and having courage as the only way to face major global challenges and uncertainty. We must teach that there are exemplary companies, existing solutions, and inspiring leaders to spread this hope. Without hope, there is no future.
• Raising awareness through emotions, personal relationships, and love for humanity. When leaders take on the role of CEO or political leader, short-term gains prominence over medium and long-term strategies and decisions. We must appeal to the emotions of great leaders, and if we cannot move them to act based on income opportunities and impact, we must highlight the legacy that each person should leave for their children.
At The Overview Effect, we are committed to spreading Jane Goodall's message to business leaders across various industries to place positive impact at the core of their business models and identify new products and services that generate economic, social, and environmental value simultaneously.
Our purpose of connecting global issues with business models is radical and transformative, and only with hope and inspiration from figures like Jane can we achieve it. I hope that through the video of the interview you can experience how exciting that day was for me and my team. I hope you can enjoy this conversation as much as we did during that moment and all these months afterward.
Thanks to Jane Goodall for everything she has done for humanity and nature, and to her entire team at the Jane Goodall Institute for their tireless work in spreading Jane's voice and also for agreeing to do this interview with us.
