Building on its long history of working with clients across government, business and civil society to solve some of the world’s most pressing global challenges, APCO Worldwide launched APCO Impact, which will serve as the company’s global nerve center, supporting and accelerating its work on sustainability and social impact, Founder and Executive Chairman Margery Kraus announced today.
“Sustainability, climate action and matters of equity and justice—these issues are complex and interconnected,” Kraus said. “The solutions we find require new ideas, integrated approaches and unconventional partners. This is the advice we give our clients, and we are investing and reorganizing to better support the integrated solutions we feel are so critical to making progress.”
APCO Impact will coordinate and integrate global efforts around a set of key service areas, including corporate purpose, ESG, climate and sustainability, equity and justice, and philanthropy and nonprofits.
Social impact leader Denielle Sachs will lead APCO Impact. Sachs helped launch McKinsey’s first-ever social sector practice and became the company’s first head of corporate citizenship, before starting her own firm. “Organizations that are driving the conversation today around sustainability and social impact are looking to the future, taking a systems-based approach, centering equity and justice, and bringing new and diverse voices to the table,” said Sachs. “They need a radically different toolkit to help them see across trendlines and around corners, which APCO Impact provides.”
APCO Impact will draw on expertise from across APCO’s global footprint and bring together staff from the Tembo Group and Global Philanthropy Group, two boutique philanthropic and social impact firms acquired over the past year which deepen APCO’s bench in management consulting and philanthropic strategy. Key leaders of APCO Impact include Heather McGeory on Climate; Charlene Wheeless and Elle Arlook on Equity and Justice; Julie Jack on ESG; and Judit Arenas on Gender Equity. APCO Impact’s global operations are led by Jen Butte-Dahl in North America; Charlotte Higgo and Danuta Slusarska in Europe; Dr. Joyeta Ghoshal in India; Stephanie Tan in South East Asia; Elaine Yang in China; and Nic Labuschagne in the Middle East and Africa.
To further strengthen client support, APCO has formed a subcommittee on impact and sustainability within its International Advisory Council, which includes former elected politicians, leaders of business and industry, academics, world-class journalists, NGO and non-profit pioneers, diplomats and policy experts. New subcommittee members include Kathy Calvin, former president and CEO of the UN Foundation, and Julie Katzman, former executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank.