Why 2 CMOs left their jobs to start a women-led collective for ‘people and the planet’

Amanda Hill and Nicole Vollebregt had both been in the industry some 25 years before they met. Hill spent 13 years at BBC Studios and latterly became the first-ever chief marketing officer at Harrods. Vollebregt rose through the ranks of Adidas, first to become its vice-president of global marketing and later senior vice-president of global purpose.

Hill explains that she and Vollebregt met somewhat serendipitously at an entrepreneurs initiative for mentoring students. “We were on the same team and I just thought that she was amazing and wanted to be her friend, so I wrote to her to ask if she would like to help with another project I was working on. I knew how to do the strategy side and bring in relevant voices, but I asked Nicole if she would like to run the foundation.”

The project in question became the Wildstar Academy – a foundation set up by renowned wildlife filmmaker Vanessa Berkowitz to encourage indigenous and underrepresented talent to take up careers in wildlife filmmaking. “In many ways, it became our first client. A few projects like that snowballed into us realizing that we should start an agency,” explains Vollebregt.

The pair are passionate that the bedrock of We Are on Purpose is the very idea of purpose itself. “In both our careers we often felt that purpose ends up shunted to the side, or it sits in a separate department and is not really baked into the heart of what an organization is doing,” says Hill.

“Now we’re here, we’re ridiculously busy and I think it gives real insight that there is a need for this. That purpose can play, and deliver and execute.”

In addition to Hill and Vollebregt, the wider We Are On Purpose team is women-led, with experience in organizations ranging from the EU to Saatchi & Saatchi. Hill says they never wanted the team to be big, offering an alternative to the likes of larger corporations and agencies, and retains a core team while growing a wider collective based on expertise.

“It’s an interesting business model because you’re not overburdening yourself with headcount. Instead we can reach outside ourselves to solve particular problems as they arise, whether that’s a campaign around mental health or a project we’re working on that involves formerly incarcerated people in the US.”

However, it also gives the team a flexible way of working, which has not only been crucial over the last few years, but has allowed the team to “scoop up the amazing women we work with.”

Hill and Vollebregt say that by their own observations, traditional models of working have left so many women of childbearing age, at the peak of their careers, inclined to leave the industry because they can no longer maintain the ways they are required to work, with the pandemic acting as a watershed moment for “women leaving the corporate world.”

“It’s not that we ever said we exclusively wanted to work with women, but naturally because we are women founders we get a lot of women reaching out to us wanting to get involved,” says Vollebregt.

She adds that many women who leave traditional corporate roles to raise a family think the second act of their careers will be “a little bit of freelancing to bring in some extra money, but we want to show that it can be the best period in your career.”

“You don’t have to have a big team around you, or the packaging and paraphernalia of a corporate existence.”

The pair believe that their approach to building We Are On Purpose will be crucial for a sustainable future. “We talk about balance, and the need for it. We talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and our very strong beliefs around that.

“We want to be a home for people who also believe in those things, because we believe that is what will make organizations successful and in the future be able to hire and retain top talent.”