Social Impact Tech: Jacqueline Corbelli of Sustain Chain On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact

An Interview With Jilea Hemmings

Don’t build tech for the sake of tech. That is not helpful and will absolutely slow us down. Stay awake to the tendency you have to show you are the smartest person in the room. These technologies can very often, unconsciously, turn into vanity projects.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacqueline Corbelli.

Jacqueline is an entrepreneur operating at the intersection of business, technology, and change management. She is CEO, Founder and Chairman of BrightLine, the market leader for connected TV audience solutions. At the same time, she is leading the charge to unify and accelerate private sector sustainability as founder and creator of the US Coalition on Sustainability and SustainChainTM.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I didn’t have an easy childhood. My family was torn apart. We were broke when I was 13. They say that hardship builds character. I like to say that it made me who I am, so I’m not afraid to take a chance, or do something that others wouldn’t try. I learned at an early age not to worry about what others think but to do what I needed to do. That’s why I built SustainChain, why I am persevering, and why I know I am doing the right thing. We are running out of time in the race to save the planet.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

It’s really tough to choose from the many wonderfully interesting experiences that I’ve had over the years, and to be a woman in those experiences adds another important dimension for me.

At some point in my career, I made the realization that I am in my fiber an agent for implementing major change and that there’s a recognizable pattern to unlocking what’s possible. I was deeply inspired by Jeffrey Sachs’ book, The End of Poverty, which was the first time I came to know about the Millennium Villages Project, an integrated economic development program designed to address extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Jeff’s conviction around breaking the cycle of poverty through a top-down and bottom-up approach literally mirrored my personal experiences and prior successes with tackling the challenge of driving holistic and highly complex organizational change in the private sector.

Through a series of fortunate events, I had the opportunity to work with Jeff during the final five years of implementation of the Millennium Villages Project (2011–2016). During a coffee conversation with Jeff in a village in Senegal, Jeff said to me, “I’d like you to lead it.” I was in complete shock and nearly fell out of my chair. It was a surreal experience and the beginning of a whole new chapter in my life.

Change management in business was never a dream for me — it was a gift because it prepared me in many ways to apply it to other big problems, maybe even at the world level or at least try to if I was given a chance…and here it was. I told Jeff all the reasons why I didn’t think he was thinking straight and he said, “That’s exactly why it must be you.” To this day that moment seems like a dream sequence, but it was real. Leading this work taught me about the special challenges to making world change happen.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mom and my grandmother helped me discover my inner strength, and nurtured a courage to go beyond ‘trying’ to become whatever I dreamed. They taught me to be daring, to have fortitude, and to not give up. When I was eight years old my mother said to me, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can and can’t be when you grow up.” And after the trauma of having to completely start over and becoming our sole provider after a messy divorce, she implored me to “never rely on anyone else for what you need in your life and always be able to stand on your own two feet.”

Over the years, many other people helped me along the way. They fed the fire in my belly, mentored me as I tested the bounds of my personal abilities, and contributed to my victories in many ways that helped me build the confidence to push for greatness. I’ll be forever grateful to them all.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Shortly before graduating with my master’s degree from Columbia University, I was trying to figure out what my life would be about, what it stood for, and whether I could make a greater difference in the world as a private citizen or as a member of government. So I called Henry Graff, my history professor at the Columbia University School of International Affairs, who gave me the best advice on how to make the biggest impact that still influences my actions today.

He said, “We historians tend to explain things that have happened in the past, not so much how to manage the future, but I’ll say this: your best bet for maximizing what you can accomplish in the world is to know what you would immediately do with the opportunity if and when presented to you, know exactly how you would respond in that moment… and to do that you have to ‘stay on the mark’.”

What he meant by his words is that the best you can do is be prepared to act — set your sights on something, be on the lookout for the opportunities that bring you closer to achieving it, and then be ready to make the very most of it. I remember feeling then and as I do now that this advice is both pretty profound and straightforward, at the same time. I am as determined as ever to have clear goals and stand ready to translate them into extraordinary outcomes if and when I spot a moment to do so. It’s shaped the biggest accomplishments in my life.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I feel strongly that pure chutzpah trumps most. The time I spent leading complex company-wide change management programs at a firm called Aston Associates is a great early example. Aston worked exclusively with large financial institutions, but I hadn’t yet experienced anything at that point that could have prepared me for the work I would be doing for the next 12 years of my life. I started out as an entry-level associate and became president over time. It was pure chutzpah that made me think I was ready to advise hundreds of senior managers at financial institutions on how to redesign their businesses and products.

This trait has served me well over the years, including when I started BrightLine. How does a banker of 15 years think they can move into a completely different industry — TV advertising — and completely disrupt it to make it better for consumers?

Second, focused determination. Starting BrightLine introduced me to the difficulty of becoming a startup entrepreneur. It’s mentally, emotionally, and physically taxing. Focused determination is the reason the work doesn’t literally consume you. It’s the key to being able to prioritize well, stay firm on decisions, and avoid being overwhelmed by the possibilities. Without this, BrightLine wouldn’t exist today and I wouldn’t still be its CEO. Being a disruptor in an industry ripe for change is invigorating but it’s also excruciating. Determination gets you through those moments.

Third, humility. Being daring and determined can be a pretty dangerous combination if it’s not balanced by humility. It keeps me grounded. Staying humble and listening with open curiosity are what provides meaning beyond the pure financial or personal successes we might be lucky enough to achieve. Starting a nonprofit organization called the US Coalition on Sustainability is a perfect example of wanting to combine my expertise and experience in change management, with the desire to build and deploy a state-of-the-art technology called SustainChain to serve the public good.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive social impact on our society. To begin, what problems are you aiming to solve?

We’re at a defining moment in our fight against climate change. Now more than ever before, trillions of dollars are spent on the sustainability technologies, infrastructures, and processes required to rebuild industry supply chains. But these actions are deeply fragmented, disconnected, and lack visibility to the actions of others. We’re not going fast enough to move the needle on sustainability.

But what if businesses of all sizes and across industries, had visibility into the actions, products, solutions, and partners best aligned with their sustainability priorities? And what if the most advanced digital technology could be infused with artificial intelligence and machine learning to help them do that in the quickest, cheapest, and with the greatest impact and scale possible?

As someone who has been operating at the intersection of business, technology, and change management for decades, I realized the “template” already exists to accelerate private sector sustainable development. That’s what led me to create SustainChain.

How do you think your technology can address this?

SustainChain is a free, public utility platform that unites the full ecosystem of innovators, investors, industries, and nonprofits working on today’s most pressing sustainability challenges. Think Meetup, meets LinkedIn, meets Kickstarter for sustainability.

When users join SustainChain, they create a profile that reflects their sustainability challenges, the solutions they are exploring or already offer, and any partnerships they may need. SustainChain’s machine learning capability then surfaces the most relevant products, services, and solutions based on a user’s priorities and target outcomes, and guides them toward the actions that can advance them in execution. Whether you’re an innovator looking to scale your product, a business looking for sustainable supply chain partners, or an impact investor looking to fund nascent technologies, we encourage them to actively pursue the possibilities that SustainChain generates.

At its core, SustainChain is an automated system for sourcing, implementing, and scaling sustainability solutions. Ultimately, it’s designed to bring simplicity and efficiency to organizations’ ability to attack their sustainability challenges and allow them to act in the quickest, most informed ways possible.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

I’ve always felt an inner need to somehow be “part of the solution.” I figured out over the years that I have a knack for taking on big problems, allowing myself to believe I can improve them, and producing outcomes that are considered ‘additive’.

Through my work with Jeff Sachs on the Millennium Villages Project, I developed a ground-level understanding of the complexities involved in effecting world change. I also directly observed the basic disconnect that exists between what world leaders were asking the private sector to do and businesses’ lack of clarity on how to deliver those outcomes.

Through this work, I then had the wonderful opportunity to meet Amina Mohammed, who is now Deputy Secretary-General for the United Nations. Having both worked in the private sector and spent time together in the trenches of African development, we connected on the necessary ingredients to creating a more economically and just world, especially the role of business in being a force for good.

How do you think this might change the world?

Saying important things about how the world really needs to change, making personal commitments to help get things on a better track, and having all the good intentions in the world, are a beautiful reflection of our humanity. But getting incredibly complicated things done without the tools, resources, and know-how is not possible. We are at a point with climate change where very specific things must happen globally, in a very particular way and we are literally in a race against time.

The US Coalition on Sustainability’s mission is to help accelerate the scale and progress we can make toward rebuilding industry supply chains. We will not crack climate change without this. SustainChain was literally designed and built to do it by connecting vast networks of vast networks to take concerted action to change the way they source, build, and deliver their products and services.

Today, over 1,300 organizations have joined the SustainChain platform — and its ability to connect members across industries and stakeholders is now faster and easier because of the new machine learning engine that powers it. If we can grow the community exponentially, we might just be able to change the world.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

If I let my mind wander, sure. That can happen with any truly powerful piece of learning technology in the age of AI and deep fakes. That said, SustainChain is specifically designed to be a tech for good. Will bad guys hack it and use it to flip the script on sustainability? I can’t predict that, but I can tell you that if humanity’s commitment to securing a sustainable future is real and we continue to leverage the best technology has to offer, we have a better than 50–50 chance to make a positive impact. In any case, we can’t afford not to try.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

1. Technology must be flexible. Scalability is crucial and friction kills. Technology should be incredibly simple to use, and highly intuitive. Facebook succeeded because it was easy to use, at first anyway.
2. Make it as enticing as social media. Take the page out of the social media playbook that keeps us all wanting to engage 24/7 and combine what we are already doing with what we should do. It’s how we can turn our behavioral tendencies and impulses toward changing the future.
3. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Avoid making new versions of existing tools and platforms at all cost. Be clear on the value of the technology and the problem it’s trying to help solve. It must be additive to what’s already out there.
4. Use state-of-the-art technologies and build consciousness into the design. Build something so that it helps protect us from our worst impulses. As humans, we tend to revert to old behaviors, so whatever we’re doing to check the box on 1, 2, and 3 has to be designed to be persistent and always “on” and not “one and done.”
5. Don’t build tech for the sake of tech. That is not helpful and will absolutely slow us down. Stay awake to the tendency you have to show you are the smartest person in the room. These technologies can very often, unconsciously, turn into vanity projects.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I would share that you will probably never be more inspired than you are right now about the things that you feel must change in society. That is, you will likely not be more passionate than you are right now, and you will never be more fearless or have more energy. If you care about it, you must act because as sure as day turns into night, we simply will not create a sustainable future for humanity fast enough without your bold, fearless, dedicated leadership and intense, persistent action. It’s needed NOW and on a scale the world has never seen.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

I think I would have to say Kendrick Lamar because he exudes a humility, purity, and integrity that shines brightly through in his craft. He’s also special in that he is a passionate truth teller, and channels that truth by infusing his creativity and his art with it in ways that are often profound. These are incredibly unique qualities that I find rare, beautiful and inspiring. It gives me hope that ‘good’ can forever conquer ‘evil’. That hope feels more important than ever in the world these days. I’d love for him to see what we’re up to at the US Coalition on Sustainability too :)

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Learn more about the US Coalition on Sustainability on our website and check out The DaVinciTM Report, our first documented snapshot of the SustainChain community. The report includes data on members by user type and industry representation, the sustainability challenges and priorities selected by users, and the solution types they’re providing or seeking to address. And of course, we invite organizations of all sizes, across industries to join our community on SustainChain.

You can also follow our work on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.

About the Interviewer: Jilea Hemmings is a staunch believer in the power of entrepreneurship. A successful career revamping Fortune 500 companies was not enough for her entrepreneurial spirit, so Jilea began focusing her passion in startups. She has successfully built 6 startups to date. Her passion for entrepreneurship continues to flourish with the development of Stretchy Hair Care, focusing on relieving the pain associated with detangling and styling natural black hair. For far too long, people with tender heads have suffered in pain. Until now.