Backing impact with skin in the game: inside The Impact Class

It is easy for a company to say it cares about impact. It is harder, and far more meaningful, to put its own resources behind that claim. The Impact Class is how we do it: each year, a cohort of leadership mandates for mission organisations working on climate and other clear-impact causes, run pro bono. It is our way of making sure impact is a commitment we bear a cost for, not a line we add for the brand.

Why impact needs skin in the game

The gap between caring about impact and acting on it is where most good intentions die. Statements are free. Commitments that cost something are not, and that cost is exactly what makes them credible. We believe the organisations solving the hardest public-interest problems, in climate, accessible health, and beyond, deserve the same leadership rigour as any venture-backed company, and often need it more, because the cost of the wrong leader there is measured in mission, not just money. Yet these organisations are frequently the ones that can least afford top-tier search.

The need is acute in exactly the places that matter most. The green talent gap is widening every year, with demand growing at roughly twice the rate of supply, which means mission organisations are competing for scarce, fast-appreciating talent against far better-resourced employers. The Impact Class is designed to put serious search capability behind the organisations least able to buy it.

Why a cohort, not a one-off

We structure it as a named annual cohort, the Impact Class of a given year, rather than scattered favours, for a reason. A cohort creates accountability, because each year's class is a public record of what we actually did. It creates focus, because we choose deliberately where to spend the effort rather than reacting ad hoc. And over time it creates a community, because the leaders and organisations in each class share a context and can find each other, which compounds the value beyond any single placement.

This mirrors how the best things in our field work. The strongest networks are built deliberately over years, and a recurring, named programme builds one around impact specifically. The Impact Class of one year becomes a reference point for the next, and the leaders placed through it become part of a growing network working on the problems that matter.

What it reflects about how we work

The Impact Class is not separate from the rest of what we do. It is the same work, the same rigour, and the same networks, directed at organisations that move the world rather than only the market. It reflects a belief that runs through the firm: that talent decisions are strategy, and that the organisations working on the problems that matter most deserve the same seriousness we bring to any client.

How we choose each class

A fixed number of pro bono mandates a year means we have to choose, and how we choose is part of the commitment. We look for organisations where leadership is genuinely the binding constraint, where a single excellent hire would change the trajectory of the work, because that is where our particular capability does the most good. We look for missions with clear, real-world impact in climate, accessible health and adjacent public-interest causes, the themes we believe build a stronger India and a stronger world. And we look for teams we can serve well, where the role is hard enough to deserve a serious search and the organisation is ready to make a senior hire count.

We treat each class with the same rigour as any commercial mandate, because a pro bono search done casually helps no one and a mission organisation can least afford a weak hire. The leaders we place through it become part of a growing community working on the problems that matter, and over time that community is part of the value, beyond any single placement. The number is deliberately finite, because a commitment we can actually keep is worth more than an ambition we cannot.

Impact that costs nothing is easy to claim and easy to doubt. Impact backed with real resources, a fixed number of mandates a year, published and delivered, is something else. It is a commitment, and we intend to keep it, one class at a time.

Sources

Figures cited across these essays draw on the following public sources, current as of 2024 to 2026: ManpowerGroup on AI skills as the hardest to find globally; LinkedIn talent and Global Green Skills 2024 data on AI and green talent demand versus supply; CompTIA on organisations struggling to hire AI developers and time-to-fill; CB Insights analysis of why startups fail; U.S. Department of Labor and Harvard Business Review on the cost of a bad and a failed executive hire; market analyses (IMARC, Grand View and others) on the AI in drug discovery market; and industry reports (Zinnov, ANSR and others) on India's global capability centres. Specific figures should be refreshed to the latest available before external publication.