10 April, 2026

It was a cold November evening in 1994 when I first had the idea. My eventual co-founder and I were working for Saatchi & Saatchi, running research groups for an anti-racism organisation. What would happen, we thought, if we showed the same ads but replaced the existing logo with a Nike tick?

The effect was marked: the message was more powerful when it came from Nike, and, crucially, people liked the brand more as a result. Something clicked. We’d had an idea that we believed could change business for good (pun intended). We scribbled down a line: “If you want to change the world, do it through business, if you want to change your business, change the world”.

Good Business was born.

Thirty years later, the world has changed, business has changed, but our vision has remained the same. Over the decades I have seen hundreds of clients, projects and partnerships come across our desks, all with that central idea at their heart. It feels as relevant and powerful today as it ever has.

I am immensely proud of the impact we create with our clients, and the transformation we help bring to life. And I’m honoured to have worked alongside such a wonderful and inspiring bunch of people over the years, not least our team today, now employee-owners of our business.

This year marks an important milestone – thirty years – that gives pause for reflection. But if we take a moment to look back it’s only for one reason…

Bring on the next thirty.

 

This story is the first in our series of 30 reflections on 30 years of Good Business, which will run for the next ten weeks on our LinkedIn page and on Friday 5, leading up to our anniversary in June.

 

By Giles Gibbons