S1, E41: Being the Chief Impact Officer at Chobani: Corporate Impact at Scale

Nishant: [00:00:00] I do feel like that this is gonna be one of the few stories, the few businesses that’s out there. That will ultimately tell the story of how you actually can bridge profit and purpose together as one.

Georgi: Did you know the average person will work 90,000 hours in their lifetime? What if you could use those hours to find fulfillment and become a disruptor for good?

Welcome to the Work That’s Worth It. Podcast. I’m Georgi Enthoven, and I’m here to demonstrate that an ambitious, meaningful, and rewarding career is not just a dream, it’s achievable. Each episode we’ll dive into conversations with global change makers who crack the code on combining income and impact.

If you’ve ever felt like you were torn between a paycheck and your purpose, or maybe you simply yearn for more purpose, you’re going to be exposed to the m. Vicious humans who have done it themselves ready to make your work worth it. Let’s get started.[00:01:00]

Our guest today, NAMP Roy, certainly knows how to land in powerful. Places. But as you’ll hear from this interview, his sweet yet effective demeanor is unusual for someone who has accomplished so much, and especially in the corporate world. And I’m so happy that I get to shine a light on someone where success overlaps with kindness.

We definitely need more role models like him on season one, episode 31, I talked to Dr. Christina Dean about fashion sustainability and her entrepreneurial journey. At the time, she shared that if she could give advice to her younger self about wanting big impact, she would say, go have your impact in one of the companies with the largest market share in your industry, versus spending time in a small not-for-profit or social enterprise on the fringe, just like fashion, the food industry.

And your grocery shelf is largely dominated by a handful of brands. Since that interview with [00:02:00] Christina, I’ve been excited to talk with Nhan because he’s doing exactly that at Chobani, leveraging the influence of a major brand to do good in the industry, all the way up the supply chain. His career has hit many impressive milestones from serving in the US Air Force after nine 11 to working at Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis, and then moving to USAID where he helped coordinate disaster relief in Haiti.

But it looks like his work in the corporate role as Chief Impact Officer is where everything comes together for tangible impact at scale well beyond just Chobani, but transforming a whole industry. Han, so lovely to have you on the work that’s worth it. Podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Nishant: Thank you for having me.

I wish I had this resource when I was looking for my next gig

Georgi: right out of the bat with a compliment. That’s amazing. Thank you so much. Well, I know that you are the chief impact Officer at a major consumer brand that probably [00:03:00] most our listeners have to know and have. Purchased working from a phenomenal location in New York City, actually currently offices in soho.

For many people I work with. You have a dream job. What gets you personally excited to get to work?

Nishant: Well, it, it is a dream job, Georgie. I get to wake up every day. I, and I get to look at what are some of our societal challenges and how do we go out there and use the power of business in which to go and solve for them.

And we’re not, we know we’re not gonna be able to do it alone. And the other fun part of the job is finding the right business partners, the right non-for-profit partners, the right government partners to bring together. On this journey to go out there and address food insecurity. In our case, like we as are a food business, we started with yogurt, as you know, and we’ve scaled since to making coffee creamers, to making oat milk.

We have a [00:04:00] ready to. Eat meal service that we just recently bought called Daily Harvest. We have a coffee business that we, we purchased called Lalo. And in each and every one of these brands, each and every one of these businesses, they’re actually have a very simple framework for us, which is that they’re all providing delicious, nutritious, natural, and accessible food.

And now that we are behaving not just as a yogurt business, but more as a food business, we’re trying to get our. Brand out there to provide that food to those that need it most. And so every day we’re thinking about what are the right partnerships in which to go and structure. Can we get other like-minded brands that have similar standards to us that they only wanna provide wholesome, that natural ingredients that they can go and provide to their customer base?

Can they partner with us in our journey in which to get more wholesome and natural food? To those that need it most in communities.

Georgi: Yeah. So it sounds like [00:05:00] working in a company that is aligned on values is what gets you excited.

Nishant: Yes. Yes. And the

Georgi: possibilities of what you can do with the brand.

Nishant: The possibilities are endless.

I, I think one really remarkable thing that I learned when I first got here was that if you go all the way back to Chobani’s founding in 2005, the average amount of sugar in the yogurt category in the United States of America was around 43 grams of sugar. It’s, that’s like 13 sugar cubes if you were to count them out and put them into a cup of yogurt.

So you’ve seen this precipitous decline from 43 grams to 16, and it really makes you ask the question like, what happened? And really truly Chobani is what happened it as Chobani’s continuing to grow in terms of its market share, that accessibility component allowed for more folks to appreciate, oh, I can actually get a better offering of higher protein, lower sugar, and as a function of [00:06:00] it.

Our competitors actually reformulated their food and then new entrance into the yogurt category actually had to come up with better quality food then. So it’s been a race to the bottom, if you will, of sugar. And now we’re actually starting to see even more protein enter into the category. And, and what’s even more exciting as of today, I can report that Chobani is the number one yogurt business in the entire country.

Georgi: Oh, congratulations. And what actually sounds exciting about this, and I’ve seen this from other brands like Allbirds, is if you change the industry, the standard. You get to, if you change your company, you get to change a whole industry and ultimately that’s good for consumers that may, you may lose your competitive advantage on that one aspect, but the brand still gets so much positive equity because of the decisions that they’ve made and then have that influence on for all consumers of all brands.

Nishant: [00:07:00] Absolutely. One example, by the way, Georgie, that is, uh, outside of this sugar piece, and we can talk more about this later in the podcast, but one really other, other remarkable movement that I think this business has led has been the RBST free movement. So there is, there is a hormone that’s actually injected into cows to help improve milk yield.

And one of the things that Chobani had said early on. And our founding story was that we will actually pay farmers a premium to give us RBST free milk. And if you look at the, the spec today, and if you look at, if you were a new business that you were gonna enter into the dairy category and wanna know go make yogurt or cheese, or any of these sorts of things, RBSD free is now the industry norm.

This has been a movement that so many have bought into, and it’s really the power of business that’s kind of influenced a lot of this. Change in movement.

Georgi: Yeah. I would love you to [00:08:00] share what is a Chief Impact officer and actually what that means for you at Chobani. ’cause I feel like we’re all running for the grocery store to get our yogurt, but I want to know a little bit more about your role as Chief Impact Officer in this large brand.

Nishant: So the entire company is actually impactful in so many different ways. And what my role is, is I’m helping as a coordinator of all those various different efforts. So you have, from the food formulation, we’re continuing to strive for a reduction in sugar, increase in protein. Again, going to the natural and nutritious side of, of the food that we make.

We’re looking at our packaging, trying to make sure that we can get the best delivery mechanism out there, move all of our packaging to being recyclable. And then once we’ve also looked at the packaging as well as the food formulation, we’re also looking upstream. We’re saying How can we have an impact at the farms?

We, the three biggest ingredients that [00:09:00] we’ve source are milk fruit. Coffee. And as I look at those three commodities, how can we actually lean in with farmers so that there’s a lot of ebbs and flows in different cycles? How do we lean in with those farmers to make sure that they actually have some form of stability and the partnership that they have with us and the co-ops and ultimately that they go work with, are successful and impactful and that they’re taking care of their people and they’re allowing themselves to grow in a a very sustainable way.

And then finally. As we’ve done with have, we’ve done with making the food, we’re also looking at how can we actually have an impact in the communities in which we call home. And Hamdi’s always said this like is, once you lean in with your people, you lean in with your community, you lean in with your product, the profits will follow.

And for us, when it comes down to the work that we do. Profits have followed, and it’s been about the work on addressing food insecurity and hunger, and so [00:10:00] the chief impact role, you get to work with all the different facets of our business. From the upstream supply chain to the addressing food insecurity side of the house, to even the food formulation.

It’s a really, really fun job.

Georgi: That, uh, you are smiling and that is one of the good indicators that you are excited to get to work. But I, I wondered if you can share a little bit about your decision to work in a large corporation. You are obviously somebody who’s focused on impact and how is working in a larger corporation or you know, consumer goods company been the right vehicle for you?

And how did you get to the making those decisions?

Nishant: Okay, that’s a great question. I will actually take you all the way back to the year 2000 I was at in high school here in Great Neck, New York. Getting ready to graduate, I’m not sure what I was gonna go do. I just knew I was not ready for college, and so I ultimately enlisted actually in the United States Air Force.

I joined the [00:11:00] military and if you remember from history, just a year later. The nine 11 events happened, and that changed my, it changed so many people’s trajectories, but mine in particular, where I had found myself deployed to Afghanistan later to Iraq, and a lot of other places throughout the Middle East.

And when I came home, I wasn’t quite sure what I was gonna go do. I, I had left my military service in 2004, so just four years later. And I was looking around, we’re now just on the cusp of 2005 because I’d gotten called back for one other exercise, military exercise, and I enrolled in school at St. John’s University in Queens and just wasn’t sure what I, what I was gonna go do with these skills that I had developed while in the, in the military.

I took an internship with President Clinton who had just set up his foundation and I was learning just a great deal about how he thought about the [00:12:00] world, how he thought about impacting society and why, and I was at the same time, really eager to go finish my four year degree in just two years because I saw all of my.

Friends earning and doing really, really well with their lives. So I didn’t have a straight path, I’ll say, to start with, to get here to Chobani, but it’s first started with this discipline that I developed in the military and I really started to think about reframing the way that I started to approach tasks and jobs and responsibilities.

And I took that framing. To my internship with the Clinton Foundation, which ultimately led to an offer of a full-time job. And then I separately got an offer of another full-time job at Goldman Sachs and I wasn’t sure what I was gonna go do. And at that point in time, the Clinton Foundation was a pretty flat organization.

President Clinton saw, I was kind of wrestling with this, this decision, and he said to me, what’s the problem? I don’t understand. Like you. It sounds like you wanna [00:13:00] go and work at the foundation, but at the same time you have this offer to go work at Goldman Sachs. He actually looked at me and he said, you know what?

Why don’t you actually forget both? You should go to law school. And I said, I said, why law school? He said, you have more lived experience than your contemporaries. And, uh, having served in the military and you can take on even greater responsibilities at a young age, you need a framework in which to think about problem solving.

And nothing better than a legal training to really put together a framework for yourself. I said, sir, with all due respect, I, I just spent the last two years finishing up my four year degree. I’m ready to go make some money. And he said, I understand. How about we bring in my friend Bob, Bob, uh, I did not know this about him, was a former partner at Goldman Sachs and he happened to be a Rhode Scholar as well as, uh, somebody that had gone to law school with President Clinton.

He comes in, he hears the fact pattern, and both [00:14:00] he and Bob. Immediately come to an answer and they said, the kid goes to go work at Goldman Sachs. And President Clinton said You got there really quickly. Why? Why? How did you come to that conclusion? He said, because I see that Nishant’s passion is an impact.

It’s an, it’s an wanting to do good. It’s the higher mission and what the non-for-profit and the government sector, which. Typically executes this mission does not have is anyone that really fully understands the bottom line. How do businesses operate? How do you create a sustainable book? And if you learn from the best and the brightest in the world at Goldman Sachs on how businesses run and operate, you can take those fungible skills and bring them to the non-for-profit, the government sector, and ultimately.

You will be an unstoppable force.

Georgi: I have to pause you for a second because this is so interesting and I often am, when I’m working with young people, they’ll have ideals of good companies, bad companies, and when you think of the [00:15:00] 90,000 hours in our career. It’s this journey that allows you to play in a bigger realm as you’re stepping up each opportunity.

And a lot of the people that I have talked to who are focused on impact have taken jobs in top consulting firms or banks to broaden their skills. And I recently had a woman on the podcast who was able to share that. Working in consulting in her case, gave her a set of rules to, or it, it allowed her to sit at the table with the knowledge of the financial side of a business where she could now participate on a level that she had never been able to before.

And so I love that you’re sharing the story again, not that everybody should go work at Goldman Sachs, but there’s something really meaningful about understanding how businesses operate. In order to have your impact. So that’s my quick little side pause, but I would love to get back [00:16:00] to what happened next.

Nishant: So I ultimately chose to go work at Goldman Sachs. I went there just before the financial crisis. The financial crisis happened, and I saw across all of Wall Street, a lot of the senior leadership was. Changing. It was either being turned over or what have you. That just meant for us. I was at the low on the totem pole.

I was an analyst, and that just meant for us that we were gonna be taking on more and more responsibilities as those vice presidents and associates that were waiting in the wings for their chance in which to excel and take on more responsibilities. They were taking on those responsibilities head on.

In the midst of this crisis, as I was learning more and more about the financial sector, I get a call from a friend of mine. Who was at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and he was running the agricultural portfolio. And if you remember, at that point in time in history, bill Gates had a really great relationship, still does with Warren [00:17:00] Buffett and Warren Buffett had that point in time, committed to actually giving away a lot of his capital.

To the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The portfolios that they wanted to lean in on were agriculture and education, and the gentleman that called me up was running the entire agricultural portfolio. He just got nominated by President Obama to run the USDA’s chief scientist position and the research education economics division specifically.

He said, come join me in government. I said to him, Raj, his name is Raj Shah. I said, Raj, what do I know about agriculture that I can add value to you? And he said, it’s not about that. You’re gonna learn a great deal of things about how government works, how we can bring some efficiency into the work that we do, and how we can actually provide cleaner, healthier food in our system and address food insecurity across the country.

And I said to him, let’s do it. So I. [00:18:00] Left just after the financial crisis had stabilized and met him at USDA, and then probably within five months of him leading that function at USDA, president Obama came along and said, Raj, we thinks very highly of you. We want you to now run an agency that no longer exists called U-S-A-I-D, the US Agency for International Development.

And Raj then looked at me and he said, I need you to come with me to U-S-A-I-D. And then within the first week or so of the job, I was off to Haiti because this massive earthquake had made, uh, impact where it took the live lives of over 200,000 folks. In Haiti. So my trajectory I could never have imagined starting with the United States Air Force, then going to Goldman, working at the Clinton Foundation, going to Goldman, and my, now finding myself over at USAID was already zigzagging left and right.

The one point of connectivity, at least for me, was that [00:19:00] USAID is an organization that’s focused on building up systems. So when the military goes into these kinetic environments. And we clear the way and we wanna establish local capacity building so people set up their own markets, set up their own value chains.

It’s generally U-S-A-I-D that’s helping with that capacity building. And so I was able to have like a very full circle moment for myself where I got to see how we can stabilize. An environment and then later build it back up. And that was a really cool kind of full circle moment. And then I got to even channel some of the private sector skills that I developed along the way at Goldman to figure out how financial institutions can come into play or how markets can be created in these different countries.

Because as these markets grow and progress, they now can become trading partners with the United States of America and other countries. And that’s ultimately what the goal is of USAID, is that they don’t have to always be. Getting supported by US [00:20:00] government, but they can also learn some of the skills that we learned as a country quite quickly and build up markets that they can self sustain over time.

Georgi: Yeah. So you ended up at Chobani, which is where you are now, and how are you able to use your desire for large impact and structure in within this organization? How does that satisfy your itch for impact?

Nishant: This place is amazing. So I’ve, I’ve been really fortunate. First off, I got here because of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn. I got a random friend request from the people team here and they said, Hey, your profile is quite interesting and eclectic. Would you wanna meet our founder? And I said, absolutely. I wouldn’t wanna go and meet your founder. And I sat down with Hamdi, who walked me through how he was thinking about the world and how he thinks about the, what the force of business can actually be on providing impact.

He shared with me how he was invested in this [00:21:00] coffee business, how he has a feta cheese business that no one ever talks about. Still. He’s got a non-for-profit called the Tent Foundation, which is focused on getting private sector businesses to hire refugees. He said, come and join me on this journey.

Come become my chief of staff, join the board of LA alone, get involved as the treasurer for tent. And so the journey started there and I got to really learn a great deal about how he thinks, about how business can be this force for good. How can we use our innovation, our technology, our learnings over the last 20 years to apply.

To making a better society, to we’re offering better food to more people. And after about five years, five and a half years of doing a Chief of Staff job with him, he kicked me outta that job and he said, you’re gonna go and become our Chief Impact Officer, and that means that I really want you to be engaged with government stakeholders.

I want you engage with other businesses and I want you engaged. With non-for-profits. And at the same time, [00:22:00] I want the people that are in our offices in soho, in our offices in Minneapolis and Cincinnati, I want them to care about why hunger is on the rise in this country and how we can reduce hunger collectively with all of these partnerships will ultimately develop.

So that’s been the, that’s been the, the case of, of impact as I’ve come here and evolved in the function in, in the role.

Georgi: Yeah, so it was pretty enticing, but something is just occurring to me. You talked about how these different opportunities are connected by sort of adding depth of your personal portfolio and also structure, but what’s interesting, especially in the time we’re living right now where people are having a really hard time finding jobs, is people kept finding you and you were making your life interesting because you are interested and you aren’t competing with.

Thousands of applicants for these interesting roles. There’s a way that you are [00:23:00] able to develop yourself so that you are interesting for these people who are creating great impact all through these different experiences, like these are not, you know, small experiences with somebody that’s having a small influence in their community.

These are, you’re having conversations with people with large influence and I don’t know what, you know, your thoughts on that of. Being interesting. Don’t worry so much about being the right fit, but how do you be, how do you become yourself?

Nishant: Yeah. I, I would say, first off, thank you for saying that. Truly.

Yeah. I, I would say how I kept myself interested and interesting, if, if you will, is I never, I continue to have a thirst for knowledge and I have a very, uh, simple framework, and it’s not dissimilar from your framework that you’ve articulated in the Seven Cs, but my framework is as simple as this, whatever job I will [00:24:00] take in my life.

I will focus on three things. One, is it a mission that’s beyond just the optimizing the profitability and so forth? Is there a real mission to this organization and can I see this organization providing some level of disruption? So that’s one that’s very critical to me. Two is. Am I learning from the team and am I around the best and the brightest in the world like I was at all the different organizations that I’ve worked at previously and continue to, and do I feel like I’m actually adding value in in the process?

So that’s two. That’s like, do I actually feel like I’m learning continually and do I actually feel like I’m actually contributing to the conversation? And then three, am I being rewarded for the work that I go do in the private sector? It’s as simple as, am I getting paid?

Georgi: Yeah, I’m dancing, I’m dancing.

This is so important for a lot of the people who are impact, impact driven, like you’ve gotta be able to earn money to get onto a bigger stage.

Nishant: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and you may be studying social [00:25:00] impact at your educational institution today in the hopes of going to join a non-for-profit as you come out.

Or you may wanna go into some other organization or government. Those are all great, and we live in a time in which there’s, there is some uncertainty. But I would say the, the third piece is what is your nexus to power? Uh, what is your nexus to actually influence getting some of those things done? Those are the three big things that I wanna go and focus on with any job that I ever take in my life and.

In the case of this, I would, I would encourage for those that are studying right now in school, you’re wondering what you’re gonna go and do next. You’re trying to understand or make sense of, there’s been substantial cuts from the federal government on non-for-profits, on government agencies. Um, I mentioned one that doesn’t even exist anymore.

Folks that are ATS, that are studying economics, quantitative econo economics typically went to USAID or the Peace Corps or some of these other places. That [00:26:00] doesn’t mean that the need is any less. It means that we need to reinvent ourselves and provide that level of skill. Actually either to private sector organizations or to multilateral institutions like the World Bank un there’s a a great deal of responsibility that I think each and everyone us has to go and continue this work.

And this is not the first time in history in which you see the, the acronyms get kind of reinvented, right? We learned about CSR. And that got later reinvented or rebranded as uh, ESG, and then that’s even being reinvented and reimagined as, uh, impact what it’s, it’s whatever the new name may be, the work continues.

Georgi: I love that you shared that, like the responsibility to collectively hold that into lean, into the impact you can have has not changed. If not, maybe it’s even growing, but the vehicles of how you do that may change through your career. You’ve. Touched on many different [00:27:00] types of vehicles, and it’s not if it’s for-profit or not-for-profit or government, it’s where can you land the impact that you would like to deliver and you personally, how can I be stimulated and around, you know, magnificent people, magnificent minds that help push me further.

Nishant: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Georgi: Now I have a question. How can young professionals evaluating companies, how can they distinguish between opportunities with genuine impact integration and others that are doing it for PR purposes? Like on the outside, it may seem like impact is a part of the business, but how do we actually know that it’s integrated into each cell?

Nishant: I’ll speak. Look, I’ll speak from a Chobani perspective. I, I’m not sure how to look at other businesses when it comes down to this. ’cause I, I do try to stay very much focused on how we think about it as a business. And for us, when I think about a topic like food insecurity, there is a real. Desire to go and address hunger in the communities in which [00:28:00] we call home.

So in upstate New York, in Muskegon, Michigan, and Twin Falls, Idaho, and in Philadelphia. And if I look at each and every one of those communities, I first collect baseline data to understand what is the scope of the problem, the magnitude of the overall problem, and then we separately look at what are the different mechanisms in which you’re getting food out to those that need it most.

In the case of. The country. If you go to any food bank, they’re, they can actually tell you a very similar number. They’re trying to solve for 15 pounds of food per individual, per month. And so for us, what we’re saying is you can plug in 15 pounds of food and it could be full of a lot of the food that you see that’s out there is pretty miserable.

It’s full of saturated fat, it’s full of preservatives, it’s full of, uh, artificial. Flavors, ingredients, et cetera. Us as a brand, we’re trying to make sure that we cannot partner. With other like-minded [00:29:00] businesses, with food banks, with farmers, that we can get more wholesome food to the two and a 15 pounds per individual per month into those communities.

And so when we look at our impact, we see what are the ways in which we’re actually executing that mission. In some cases we have opportunities in which we can continue to grow and invest in other opportunities. I think we’ve actually had a great deal of reach. So to go back to your question, I think we look at two very simple metrics.

Are we increasing the reach in terms of the number of people we’re feeding, and then are we increasing the coverage? So I’m not just reaching them with a cup of yogurt. I’m actually helping them reach not only a cup of yogurt, but also access to other types of food that the USDA would even recommend that those folks get access to or anybody would get access to.

Uh, that’s quite rich in nutrient density.

Georgi: Yeah. So you’re raising the bar, but how do, how do young people find. Companies that are actually doing that level of work that you are doing, [00:30:00] how do they screen for companies that are genuine and authentic about the impact that they are saying they do, are doing?

Nishant: I would encourage them to look at their impact reports in interview with, uh, people that were previously in those organizations. When I say look at those impact reports, you can read through and see. The metrics that they provide, whether or not it’s just a reach conversation if they’re, uh, focusing on food insecurity and they may not necessarily be talking about coverage.

You can see what they’re trying to do with their system. I would say look at their leadership. Has their leadership spoken about this topic or issue in the past? Does the board care about those sorts of things? How do they align with. Some of the big parties like an FMI, the Food Marketing Institute, you know, you hit you.

You look at retailers, they create a great deal about food waste and they wanna, they work with FMI to go and talk to bigger [00:31:00] organizations like the White House and other folks in government. On that very topic, the leading supporter of FMI, who are those leading supporters in FMI? I think that requires some diligence on everybody’s part to see.

How are, do you know that you’re actually going to work with an organization that’s been really true in putting real money behind the work that they say that they’re doing, because some of it could be some marketing fluff that’s, that’s for sure that happens and it’s unfortunate, but it are some real true supporters of these causes and businesses that are leading this effort.

Georgi: Yeah. So you brought about uh, uh, this idea of fluff and I wanna talk a little bit about the tension that you probably sometimes have to deal with in your job. So I’m sure that there are times where the financial goals of the company are in conflict with your impact goals. Can you share a little bit on the sort of what that means for you and your role, and how do you resolve that?[00:32:00]

Nishant: Absolutely. So as I shared the one of the beauties of working as a chief impact officer, you’re not just kind of viewed as like, oh, that’s the do good part of the, the business. Like everything is part of the do good part of the business. We’re just collectively working on the strategy together. So this tension exists every day, not only in the execution, but also in the planning effort.

So give you one example. There is a product that much, the chagrin of our finance team and much the chagrin of our commercial team. Actually for that matter we’ve developed. But it is purely for impact purposes. We’ve learned from our partners at the American Red Cross. We’ve also learned from our food bank partners across the United States of America that the number, top three requested item that that happens after a disaster is protein and milk.

Specifically people want access to milk. It’s one of the most requested items in food banks in pantries across the entire country. Well, many food banks and [00:33:00] pantries don’t have access to fridges, and if you think about the context of a disaster, access to electricity is actually quite challenging. So what do you do in those circumstances?

Well, one thing that we have done, again, using the power of our innovation using the uh, power of our purchasing power and the suppliers that we have, is that we brought together our partners and we created a product that is superior. To regular milk in the sense that it’s actually got 50% more protein, 50% less sugar, and actually has six grams of fiber in a milk product that is shelf stable, meaning that it doesn’t require refrigeration.

Once you open it up, it does require refrigeration, and you have a same shelf life as if you opened up a gallon of milk that you bought at the regular corner store. But this product is distributed at food banks. And in shelters that are run by the American Red Cross completely for free. We designed it so that it’s completely for free.

The tension that [00:34:00] exists for us is that it takes, it takes money to go and make that product. That’s time on the lines. The other tension that exists is that we have to make products for our customers, and it requires line time. So I am. And sometimes I’m actually prioritizing a product that I’m gonna give away for free in terms of that production against a line or against the product production of something that I’m selling to a customer that I, that’s paying me.

Georgi: Yeah. Such an interesting example. And also I. Knowing that you have experience in the financial sector probably allows your company to give you that responsibility of sorting through the right priorities at the right time. So you do hold the impact and the income piece of the business at heart. And the other thing I like about the examples that you’ve just shared, which I think is so important, is often, especially young [00:35:00] people that I work with are looking for a purity test.

And they may say, okay, Chobani, yes, the yogurt, but it comes in plastic containers. And what I think is important about the role that you’re playing is the impact you can have as enormous and. You are working to improve systems that you already have, and as you improve it, your impact is significant, but it’s not going to be perfect.

And if it was perfect, it might be mean. You are not in business at all. And being able to hold that sensitivity about how do we keep the business profitable and have the maximum impact. And that is obviously quite a skill.

Nishant: It’s an everyday struggle as a, as I said, and even that example that I gave on RBST Free Milk.

That started with us paying that premium and then it graduated into, and because of these economies of scale, it actually graduated where we don’t have to pay that premium anymore. So that’s, that’s something that you can, you [00:36:00] can really do this with the power of the purse, with the power of our, your purchasing behavior, whether it be consumers or businesses.

It’s realistic to actually impact, to have this, have this level of change.

Georgi: Yeah. Well, I know we’re, we’re, I could talk to you for hours, so Interesting. Your background and all the experiences that you’ve had and the people you’ve got to work with. But I wonder, at the end of the day, what makes your work worth it where you are now?

Nishant: For me, it’s simple. This business has a motto where we wanna provide good food for all, and what gets me up every day, what lights me up? What wakes me up at three 30 in the morning is me thinking about how do you actually get good food for all? And seeing not just that our market share is growing and that’s wonderful, but that.

Through our efforts, our collective efforts, not only are we getting more nutritious food out to those that need it, and that’s all of us. We all need it. It’s also the philanthropic side of the house, uh, that’s continuing to scale and grow as our business [00:37:00] grows. And it’s also the simple fact that as we scale and grow, we’re actually having more upstream impact to the farmers, to the people that are in our communities.

So that that really just lights me up every day when I think about good food for all.

Georgi: Yeah. That’s so exciting. Well, I feel honored you said yes, to come on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here, and I hope to keep in touch.

Nishant: I feel honored that to be on the podcast and I, again, I really do wish when I was going through all of these zigzags of decisions that I had something like this to to reference and to know that I’m not alone too.

Yeah.

Georgi: Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

Nishant: Thank you.

Georgi: Here are my hot takes from this episode. First, understanding finance opens up doors as you move up in your career. Nishant’s Goldman Sachs finance background gives him confidence and credibility in corporate boardrooms that purely mission-driven professionals sometimes lack, allowing him to advocate for impact [00:38:00] initiatives that actually get funded.

Second, the reality of corporate impact work involves a constant tension, like Nishant’s example of prioritizing. Free disaster relief products, overpaying customers. Being able to see the big picture and have influence over the decision makers is key for this role. Third, the idea that you can transform an industry through market leadership.

In my book, I talk about your sphere of influence, often being way broader than your actual business role, especially when you’re trying to solve a real problem in the world and it’s greater than any one company. Through Han’s work at Chobani, they have influenced the sugar reduction significantly, not just at Chobani, but across the whole industry.

So if you are looking to have a significant impact within a major market, don’t ignore working within a large company. And there are so many major brands that. [00:39:00] Don’t use their market leadership to better an industry or the world. And perhaps that’s just the opportunity for you to zoom in on. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of work That’s Worth it.

Remember, every conversation we share is designed to empower you to build a career that’s truly worth your time and energy. There are future disruptors out there just like you, who would appreciate the conversations in this podcast. Please support me by spreading the word and sharing this episode with a friend or two.

Or visit my website@georgienthoven.com. That’s spelled G-E-O-R-G-I-E-N-T-H-O-V-E-N.com. Until next time, ask yourself, what problems am I solving and are they worth my valuable time? Your intentional choices today can lead to exponential impact tomorrow. Thanks for listening.