Our Business Development Manager is also our Social Impact Manager.

At most companies, those two roles would be in different buildings. Possibly different value systems. Business development is about growth, revenue, new clients, commercial outcomes. Social impact is about people, communities, and purpose. The assumption is that they pull in opposite directions and that the job of leadership is to manage the tension between them.

We combined them into one person. Not as a cost-saving measure. Because at Sharesource, they're genuinely the same job.

Why that's not as strange as it sounds

Every time our BD Manager wins a new client her Social Impact Manager persona has more work to celebrate. Because every new client means new roles. Every new role means a skilled professional in Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, or Bogotá gets access to a career that genuinely changes their life and often the lives of their family and their broader community.

The commercial outcome and the human outcome aren't in tension. They move together. More business means more impact. Full stop.

This isn't a coincidence of good intentions. It's how the model is designed. We built Sharesource around the idea that offshoring, done properly, is one of the most effective ways to democratise opportunity. It gives talented people in emerging markets access to meaningful, well-paid work with employers who genuinely invest in them. The only way that scales is if the business scales.

So growth isn't a compromise of the mission. It is the mission.

The myth worth dismantling

There's a persistent idea in purpose-driven business circles that commercial success and genuine impact exist on a sliding scale. That as one goes up, the other comes down. That profit is a necessary evil to be managed carefully so it doesn't corrupt the good stuff.

We understand where that instinct comes from. There are plenty of companies that use the language of impact as a veneer over entirely conventional business practices. The scepticism is earned.

But the answer to that problem isn't to be suspicious of revenue. It's to build a model where the revenue only flows if the impact is real. Where the commercial incentive and the human incentive point in exactly the same direction.

When our team members in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Colombia thrive, when they're growing, engaged, delivering excellent work, our clients renew, expand, and refer others. Retention drives revenue. Community investment drives retention. The loop is tight and it's real.

What this looks like in practice

It means our BD conversations and our impact conversations happen in the same breath. When we're thinking about which clients to pursue, we're also thinking about what kinds of roles create the most meaningful opportunity for our communities. When we're reporting on business performance, community impact is part of that report not a separate document that lives in a different folder.

It means the person asking "how do we grow?" is the same person asking "who does that growth serve?" That's not a bureaucratic quirk. It's a signal of how seriously we take the idea that these things belong together.

The question we'd put to others

If you pulled your business development strategy and your social impact strategy out of the drawer and laid them side by side  would they be pulling in the same direction? Would growth in one automatically mean growth in the other?

For most organisations, the honest answer is probably not yet. And that's okay, it's a hard model to build. But we think it's worth asking, because the businesses that figure it out aren't just doing good. They're building something that actually lasts.

We'd love to hear how others are thinking about this. Where does commercial success and genuine impact naturally converge in your work and where does the tension still show up?

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