Myriam Sidibe

Because we need to create new kinds of value for people, planet and profit.

And this is what I came to speak to you about.

I've been working at this space for decades, at the intersection of public health and global brands.

I'm an author, a longtime campaigner on ethical business, and you know what excites me the most?

It's when I get companies to dream up their mission in a way that they can help solve a global problem, whilst being great for their business.

And let me show you how that works.

So first, I never expected to be working in a corporation trying to solve a global problem.

I grew up

at dinner table, where the main course served was justice.

Me and my younger siblings were raised between refugee camps and UN report briefing.

And every night was a lesson in inequality and possibility.

This is us living in rural Mali, next to Timbuktu.

And it is in places like this that I grew my conviction that I wanted to make a difference for the most vulnerable in this world.

Years later, when I went on to do my doctorate in public health, I came across a staggering fact.

Over one million people could be saved by something as simple as hand washing with soap, and mostly children under five.

And yet only one person in five washed their hands after the toilet.

Oh well.

And a massive opportunity for a bar of soap.

So fueled with all this conviction and this desire to save lives, I joined the world's largest soap manufacturer, Unilever.

In countries like India and Bangladesh, where child mortality was obscenely high, soap was already in eight out of 10 households.