Westchester Business Leaders Make the Case for Purpose-Driven Profit

The Business Council of Westchester showcased how social benefit is becoming a business imperative at the Tompkins Bank & Trust Power Breakfast, where leaders from fashion, food, law, and technology argued that companies can “do well by doing good.”

The September 15 seminar, “The Power of Purpose,” sponsored by Tompkins Bank & Trust, featured Amy Hall, Sustainability Strategic Advisor at the Eileen Fisher Foundation; Jeremy Kaye, Co-Founder of Spare Food Co.; Carolyn Sklar, VP of Communications at Danone USA; Doug Singer, Partner at Falcon Rappaport & Berkman; and Jessica Rich, Co-CEO of The Walker Group.
Moderated by Dr. Heidi Davidson, Co-Founder and CEO, Galvanize Worldwide, the event offered real-life descriptions of purpose-driven companies and practical strategies for aligning an organization’s mission, culture and business goals, among other insights.

Singer opened by defining social enterprises as businesses that are “very intentional” about their internal values and the impact they have on employees, customers, suppliers, owners, the environment, and the community. He highlighted benefit corporations and newer structures like perpetual purpose trusts, where the beneficiary is not a person or a charity, but the company’s mission itself. “With a perpetual purpose trust,” Singer explained, “the beneficiary is a purpose, which typically is the perpetuation of a company and its values.” Because those purposes are difficult to change, he said, the structure is designed to protect mission over the long term.

Hall traced how Eileen Fisher layered purpose into its operations over more than 40 years, beginning with wake-up calls on sweatshops and supply-chain conditions. Those pressure points led to deeper work on organic fibers, energy use, and more intentional philanthropy. “This company’s been in place for over 40 years, and this work started maybe four years in, but we’re still evolving and adapting,” said Hall, emphasizing that meaningful change in global supply chains is incremental. “You can’t do it all, and you can’t do it overnight.”

As one of the largest certified B Corporations in the world, Danone USA embeds impact into how it measures success. To understand that approach, said Sklar, “you have to accept a philosophy that purpose and performance are not mutually exclusive. They’re actually core to each other, and they fuel one another.” From sugar reduction and nutrient-dense products to regenerative agriculture partnerships with dairy and plant-based farmers, Sklar said Danone’s mission of “bringing healthier food to as many people as possible” is tied directly to long-term business resilience.

Spare Food Co. was created to address what Kaye called a broken food system, where roughly 40% of food produced in the U.S. never reaches people. The company designs products around surplus and overlooked ingredients, creating new revenue streams for farmers and food manufacturers while cutting waste. Still, there is resistance to Spare Food’s efforts to secure food industry by-products. “Trying to purchase the waste stream from some very large yogurt manufacturers in New York was an impossible task,” said Kaye.

Rich described how The Walker Group became the first company in Connecticut to be owned by a perpetual purpose trust, formalizing its long-standing stakeholder model in which profits are shared among employees, the community, and shareholders. “It’s such a refreshing way to show up every day, knowing that we are working in an organization where, when we do well, everybody does well,” Rich said.

Across sectors, panelists agreed: purpose is no longer a luxury or side project, but a competitive advantage that helps attract talent, deepen customer loyalty, and strengthen communities.