Mark Rampolla is a visionary entrepreneur and the founder of ZICO Coconut Water, a brand that helped create the now $8 billion global coconut water category. After growing ZICO into one of the fastest-growing beverages worldwide, Mark sold the company to Coca Cola in 2013. He then transitioned into investing, co-founding PowerPlant Partners, where he played a key role in the plant-based food movement, including the success of Beyond Meat.
In 2020, Mark made a bold move by repurchasing ZICO from Coca Cola with a group of investors, including Jesse Itzler and tennis star Naomi Osaka. Now, through GroundForce Capital, Mark manages $500 million in assets, focusing on health, wellness, and sustainability investments. His journey reflects a deep commitment to innovation and positive change in the consumer goods industry.

Mark has been been thinking about and focusing on building highly engaged, high functioning organizations since he won the “Mr. Hustle” award as the sixth man on his high school basketball team. He applied it effectively in the corporate world with 300 people at International Paper and at ZICO, built a culture that was all about “running through walls” individually and together for the brand and created an extraordinary culture that delivered exceptional results. He spends much of his time now working with brilliant leaders on how to structure their entire businesses to create high engagement to drive outsized results. But after all of that, and years of reflection and study he’scome to a completely new view of engagement: he now sees that you can’t engage someone who feels trapped. True engagement isn’t about compliance — it’s about choice. When people feel free to be themselves, think differently, and pursue meaningful work, that’s when they light up. Freedom is the spark. Engagement is the flame. When people feel free, they take ownership. They speak up. They care more. Because it’s their work — not just their job it’s their life!

Freedom isn’t a perk; it’s the condition that makes true engagement possible. So, what he loves to focus on how, is not “how do we create high engagement” but rather “how do we create the conditions where everyone has the opportunity for full self-realization?” To learn, earn, contribute and grow? This changes the focus of responsibility from the company to the individual. It encourages, forces, everyone to take full responsible for their life and career. the company creates the conditions; the individual freely engages to grow through and into their zone of genius. If you can figure out how to align that with the value proposition of a business, then watch out world! It’s amazing to see what can happen for both the business and the person!

Join us as we discuss Redefining Engagement Through Freedom

Host: Jo Dodds

What does it take to transform workplace culture in one of Britain’s toughest sectors? Louisa will share how Noble Foods, a fourth-generation family business achieved something remarkable: consistent improvement across all eight pillars of employee engagement while navigating the agrifood industry’s perfect storm of skills shortages, an ageing workforce, and mounting pressure for sustainability.

Noble Foods reduced colleague turnover from 62% to 35%, increased their Best Companies Index score by over 20 points, and returned to profitability—all while their people reported higher engagement than ever before. But this isn’t a story about quick fixes or expensive programs.

It’s about systematic cultural change built on listening, investing in people at every level, and ensuring that purpose and performance go hand in hand. Louisa will share how Noble Foods embedded their TO CARE values across every site, developed leaders from within, created genuine belonging, and proved that in challenging times, culture becomes your greatest competitive advantage.

Join us as we discuss Cultural Transformation.

Host: Jo Dodds

We were talking about employee engagement and productivity, particularly in light of the lockdown and increased home working, and discussing the link between the two.

I was interviewed by Scott McCarthy for his Moving Forward Leadership Podcast. We talked about

• What does it truly mean to have employee engagement
• How employers and leaders can get their employees engaged
• The four enablers of employee engagement

For the complete show notes be sure to check out Scott’s website:
https://movingforwardleadership.com/53

You might also be interested in listening to the interview that we did where I was hosting on my POWER to Live More Podcast – The Power of Delegation.

We were just going into self-isolation at that time and it’s interesting to listen back three weeks later now we’ve got a bit more used (in our house at least) to all of us being at home together all the time.

They asked me about my two specialisms of employee engagement and personal productivity. If you only want to listen to one of those topics then we change over at about 23 minutes.

Bruce Daisley is the EMEA Vice President of Twitter. He joined the company in 2012 having previously run YouTube UK at Google. He has also worked at Emap/Bauer and Capital Radio.

He is a digital advisor to Comic Relief. Bruce runs the Apple #1 Business Chart topping podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat on work culture. His work can be found as NewWorkManifesto.org.

In spring 2019 Penguin Books will be publishing Bruce’s first book, The New Work Manifesto.

Join us as we discuss the future (and present) of work and how any of us can be more effective.

Check out the New Work Manifesto website and, as Bruce says on the show, do get in touch with him via the website or LinkedIn if you have implemented this stuff and have results and feedback to share!

Host: Jo Dodds

Foundation SP are a people-centric technology solutions and change specialist with an award-winning workplace culture. They have

Join us as we talk about FSP being 2 times winners of the Great Place to Work award whilst developing a high performance culture.

Simon is CEO and co-founder of Foundation SP; passionate about people, organisational culture and high performance.

Host: Jo Dodds

Simon won Director of the Year at the IoD Awards in 2010. His organisation’s website says, “Every day, I strive to make Webmart the world’s best print services agency. I am an odd, restless, impatient, malcontent soul in work – there are always better ways to do things! Knowing what they are is the easy bit; getting them done is less easy, but we improve every day, which makes us happy. That and people development. These are the be all and end all of any business. Technology makes the experience people have extensible and scalable.”

Join us as Simon talks about how Marxism complements Capitalism in the modern workplace and how that translates into his organisation and what they do.

And here’s a link to the tour of their very yellow office!

Host: Jo Dodds

This involves using an understanding of the biology of our behaviour to point us towards better ways of doing things and better decision-making.

She’s spoken about her approach to a wide range of organisations and women’s networks, and has become renowned for her inspirational and debate-provoking talks.

You can listen in here to my interview with Rachel Folz where I share my tips to making your survey count to turn your results into real engagement gains.

And so the true implementation of employee voice within an organisation is about asking the questions, but then having the people who’ve answered the questions to be part of the solution.