Purpose Before Profit: Amelia Baxter Of WholeTrees Structures On The Benefits Of Running A Purpose-Driven Business

In today’s competitive business landscape, the race for profits often takes center stage. However, there are some leaders who also prioritize a mission-driven purpose. They use their business to make a positive social impact and recognize that success isn’t only about making money. In this interview series, we are talking with some of these distinct leaders and I had the pleasure of interviewing Amelia Baxter.

Co-Founder & CEO Amelia Baxter founded WholeTrees in 2007 to redevelop solid timber as a sophisticated, sensual, and urban structural product. Her company develops and sells products and technologies that scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st Century. By raising equity investment, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent commercial markets for trees as structure, she has ensured WholeTrees is at the forefront of the utilization of trees in the modern built environment.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I grew up surrounded by forests. My father is an architect who designed and built our house at the edge of a state forest in Connecticut. Looking back, I realize the design emphasis he put on making sure the forest was interconnected throughout our home shaped my early aesthetic sense that the trees were part of my intimate community.

We are children of the 80s, so long unsupervised stretches of hours and days alone in the woods with my tree comrades were a big part of my imaginative landscape. As I got older I came to understand that the community I grew up around, which was 20 minutes from the Architecture School at Yale, was full of a heightened sense of the importance of the aesthetic, and that also informed the way in which I saw the world. Unlike my brother who became an architect, I was not interested in making an impact through design and architecture, but instead through interaction with landscape and management of our natural resources in healthier and more sustainable ways.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

I applied for, and won an award for a business plan competition in 2015 run by the U.S. National Forest Foundation. The competition was for market-based solutions to healthier forest management. We went to the awards ceremony in D.C. and I met the chair of the foundation, Craig Barrett, the former CEO of Intel, and the founder of the award. I told him that more important than the $100,000 we had won would be the advice in his head and I would fly anywhere to meet him for lunch sometime to be able to have some of that advice. And, he said, “Sure, I’m open to that.”

From there we developed a mentor/mentee relationship and he ended up flying me out to his award winning 24,000 acre ranch and resort in Montana. He then spent 48 hours mentoring me. We would go back and forth between his business guidance and exploring the beautiful environment around us. We rode horses through the mountains, and after a session studying my financials, we then went out for (what he claimed) was the best burger in Montana.

We spent time in the forest on this ranch. His own passion for the award was driven by what he was seeing happening to forests from the increase of wildfires to the lack of investment supporting proper management.

It was an incredible 48 hours that changed my trajectory as a leader — and then he chose to invest in the company. Getting to enjoy this ridiculous experience with such a sharp mind and then having him support my leadership through mentoring and investing in WholeTrees was a defining moment for myself and the business. His advice and support and the entire experience transformed my style of leadership from there forward.

We often learn the most from our mistakes. Can you share one that you made that turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned?

When we were first working with the Federal Small Business Innovation Research program, we were encouraged to learn to raise investment to help commercialize the intellectual property we were developing. I realized that investment dollars were one of the greatest methods of bringing an idea much bigger than ourselves to the market and underwent an immersive training that brought us to early regional accelerators and culminated in WholeTrees winning the Cleantech Open National in San Jose, California.

I then took my current state, “fly by the seat of our pants,” operational daily activity, paired it with the big vision I had been trained to speak about and we raised our first round of investment. I consider myself a very realistic and data based person and I was trained to pair that with the passion and vision I have in order to raise investment. What I learned, as we inevitably encountered cash crunches after our first investment, is that it is detrimental to the company and my own role as CEO to allow the passion with which I speak distract investors from the very real risks of the construction industry. This led to inevitable conflicts and concerns with the founders and the board.

Since then, we have always led with a pairing of passion and data with all our contractors, architects and new investors. I learned that it was more important to lead with the data than with the passion. You can be a visionary and passionate entrepreneur, but let the passion burn inside and leverage it sparingly while focusing on the numbers.

As a successful leader, it’s clear that you uphold strong core values. I’m curious what are the most important principles you firmly stand by and refuse to compromise on. Can you share a few of them and explain why they hold such significance for you in your work and life?

The first core value has a poetic symmetry between my respect for authenticity and authentic interactions with my passion for the authenticity of the structure of the tree. We are bringing raw facts to the world in the form of the tree and as a leader I am seeking team members, partners, vendors, and opportunities that allow us to lead with authentic communication, transparency, and the insistence of holding others accountable.

My mother taught comparative religion and she is an ordained minister that taught the Eightfold Path from the Bhuddist tradition which includes the concept of “right livelihood.” The gist of right livelihood is to hurt no one and hurt nothing while creating a livelihood, which is a tricky thing. For our second core value at WholeTrees, we are striving to do the best we can toward right livelihood for our company, society and relationship to the forest.

Finally, one of our core values is humor. Maintaining a team capable of humor that helps facilitate flexibility is a must for WholeTrees’ success. Much as a tree bends and sways, our team must bend and sway to the needs that arise and humor, delight and whimsey all make that possible.

What inspired you to start a purpose-driven business rather than a traditional for-profit enterprise? Can you share a personal story or experience that led you to prioritize social impact in your business?

Building off an innate early sense of the concept of right livelihood, I had the opportunity early in my career to work within a national nonprofit in Nicaragua. This nonprofit brought me in contact with farmers who were changing the way they farm by learning agricultural techniques to reach new markets for organic food and coffee.

I met early leadership from the equal exchange fair trade movement, whose executives came from a small town in Nicaragua, and now led it in Boston. I got to see how this group of dreamers who had been through tremendous challenges, from poverty to war to immigration, came together to create a new way of interacting with agriculture producers and create new markets. Watching the equal exchange fair trade movement form and watching the impacts to real coffee farmers on a real daily basis was very impactful. The differences in standard in living were notable, but the improved standards in living for coffee makers selling directly to fair trade markets was even more impactful.

Getting to know the leaders who applied vision, passion and data to a brand-new solution was very inspiring at a formative age.

Can you help articulate a few of the benefits of leading a purpose-driven business rather than a standard “plain vanilla” business?

First, I’m going to leapfrog over the warm fuzzy feelings that are inherent to working for a purpose-driven business, because those are not economically sustainable alone.

We have found exciting and innovative project opportunities, met investors, and more and more frequently (especially since Covid) have attracted talent through and because of the B Corp movement. A purpose-driven company attracts and supports retention of talent motivated by purpose as well as a whole community of clients and investors.

How has your company’s mission or purpose affected its overall success? Can you explain the methods or metrics you use to evaluate the impact of this purpose-driven strategy on your organization?

WholeTrees was founded as a for-profit business with a triple bottom line, and prioritized in 2015 the B Corp certification, which ensures that its Operating Agreement places social and environmental justice at equal standing with economic gain. Our economic success is intertwined with our environmental and social impact.

We measure this through three sections of KPIs: economic, environmental and social. So, in addition to Revenue, Gross margin and Net Profit — we have environmental goals related to the forest management standards from which we purchase timber, our Declare label and B Corp status, and measuring dollars spent on timber and tons purchased from well-managed forests to incent carbon-smart forestry. For our social impact, we track the number of FTW living wage jobs provided in disadvantaged rural communities by our projects and the percent of revenue dollars spent on regional forest vendors.

Can you share a pivotal moment when you realized that leading your purpose-driven company was actually making a significant impact? Can you share a specific example or story that deeply resonated with you personally?

There are so many.

The first example would be that with every new purchase agreement with a new timber vendor nationwide and every first order of timber from a sustainably managed forest, I see the direct economic impact of creating markets for highest value use of timber. We know we’re paying more for the timber we purchase than most other markets can pay. So, each new forest we touch, and the new markets we have created, is the impact that reverberates through my spirit.

The second example would be observing our annual staff party, where a diverse group of humans from rural and urban settings that are working together toward a national vision — loving that vision, enjoying that vision — come together in celebration. The connections between the two communities and the way they function so smoothly at WholeTrees is a real joy and is the real impact we had hoped for connecting forests and communities to urban environments.

Have you ever faced a situation where your commitment to your purpose and creating a positive social impact clashed with the profitability in your business? Have you ever been challenged by anyone on your team or have to make a tough decision that had a significant impact on finances? If so, how did you address and reconcile this conflict?

When we first encountered the B Corp movement, we were deep in the midst of a challenging time of conflict for the board and founders and it did not seem like the right time to take on such a large task. An executive mentor of mine from Patagonia was lending me wisdom on a weekly basis, and this same mentor was one of the founders of the B Corp movement.

During this mentorship, as he helped me hash out the conflicts at the board level, and how to move above and beyond, he never left a phone call without saying, “You’ve got to become a BCorp now.” It was hard for me to look at everything required for the process during such a challenging time — emotionally, financially, but he insisted. He was a well-respected and highly connected mentor who was very helpful as we progressed and elected to invest time and energy in becoming a B Corp in the midst of this conflict. But the positive strides and reflection it took to become a B Corp during this time was just the balance, sanity and higher vision we all needed to maturely get through the conflict.

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs who wish to start a purpose-driven business? What are your “5 Things You Need To Know I Order To Create A Highly Successful Purpose-Driven Business.”

1 . Wisely select mentors who understand both business and purpose-driven companies. Without mentors who have been through the rapids of purpose driven businesses, you will either have mentors that cut you down to a purely finance reality, or you will have mentors that are too dreamy and don’t make you stick to a business plan. I have avoided these two extremes in mentors and have since chosen to select board members and other stakeholders who have had a capacity to speak to cash flow and operations reality but are grounded in purpose-based businesses. The company started succeeding a lot more once we readjusted the board makeup to have seasoned business professionals who understood the markets and the demand for purpose driven products, materials and aesthetics. Our board was proactive and constructive with this balance whereas prior we perhaps had financial who had never worked in a purpose driven market and we had dreams who had never applied their dream to business.

2 . Align yourself with the B corp movement and invest in the B corp certification process as soon as it makes sense because It forces the conversations necessary with your board and investors from the earliest point forward. When we went through this process, we had to amend our operating agreement and that required a full conversation with the board of investors at the time and the conversation itself was the heavy lift required to align the leaders and decision makers of the company to the type of bottom line we were committed to.

3 . Everytime you find your heart expanding around the idea of an especially exciting opportunity to have impact and mission, notice that and stop — and then bring the opportunity to your finance people (or the financial side inside your head) to make sure that it isn’t just your heart leading the opportunities. In mission-based business you’ll have many opportunities monthly to give and never stop giving. Every choice you make to have impact needs to make financial sense. Be mindful of when your heart is driving you toward something and pause and make sure the dollars work.

For example, during one project, we offered to contribute sculptural trees to an under-funded nonprofit whose mission we loved. But when we implemented the contract, the level of complexity increased from the original price and in the end, we ended up disappointing the client because the scope of the project became so much larger than originally assumed. Had we been running this like a normal contract, we could have managed all of the unknowns properly with the right amount of funding from the start. Instead, we tried to do something with an open heart, and without the numbers making sense, which led to frustrations from everyone including our staff and their staff. When you’re stretching across mission without proper funding — nobody benefits.

4 . Keep your staff, partners and investors committed to the organization and inspire passion by informing them of the impact of the business and the vision of future impact. Then develop KPIs that clearly demonstrate impact for investors, staff and the public so that we are effectively communicating this impact. For example, “how much timber was purchased and how many dollars went to the community.” Make sure stakeholders have access to and are aligned with this inspirational vision and its impact.

For example, this year we’re experiencing national growth across our team and emphasizing quarterly presentations for just this purpose. We’re recognizing that as we grow, it is imperative for our staff in different areas of the country to stay aware of the magic that we are producing. From fabricators to salespeople — we want everyone to be informed and guided by the same goals. For the same reason, we make sure to have our annual staff meeting in person to share that magic and reignite passion for the organization.

5 . Laser focus your impact. Pick 1–3 KPIs that mean that you’ve had an impact and keep building those. Don’t add more levels of impact, because your work will become too diluted and inevitably fail. In addition, you can’t just focus on the mission. Businesses must stay laser focused on their operations, product and mission.

For example, at WholeTrees we have encountered projects with a vision to incorporate job training into the fabrication and installation of timber elements. We have had to say no to these opportunities because we are not a job training entity and that would spread our mission too thin. While we love job training programs, we understand that we cannot properly manage them while serving the needs of the forests we work with and our clients. We cannot wrap in job training to the delivery of a highly sustainable structural product.

I’m interested in how you instill a strong sense of connection with your team. How do you nurture a culture where everyone feels connected to your mission? Could you share an example or story that showcases how your purpose has positively influenced or motivated people on your team to contribute?

We have always sent out our quarterly financial or investor packets to our staff and encouraged transparent dialogue about where we are as a company and where we intend to go. As we grow it keeps changing but one thread remains constant — interest in transparent release of financial and strategic data and encouragement of conversations around them. Even in years when we’re racing to catch up with growth, we prioritize a winter party that brings staff together from different parts of the country. I present at that time the incredible milestones of the prior year and how that results in impact to the built environment and forests to try to instill some of the passion and pride I have in the company to the staff at those times. Now, as we grow, we’re implementing a quarterly meeting.

First, I would say that it is important to be motivated by more than just the mission or purpose. When we have staff members who join us only for purpose, they don’t tend to stay because we are a business and have strong accountability around daily activities, tasks and metrics. We want our staff motivated by purpose, but really we also want our staff deeply connected to their job description because they like the job. Every one of our staff members knows they work for a purpose driven company, but the question day to day is do they enjoy their work. But, it is important to keep staff connected to the awe and delight of the forest. Those who work at the facilities get to enjoy the products in full view of the floor, and we try to make sure that those working in the office have access to field trips with vendors, forests, and clients to make sure the tree remains front and center. Even in our office designs, we have trees in the office to kee[ the material near.

Imagine we’re sitting down together two years from now, looking back at your company’s last 24 months. What specific accomplishments would have to happen for you to be happy with your progress?

Low turnover, and high retention with current staff while new team members and team leaders integrate beautifully into our growing organization. A successful capital package for our expansion to Maine, enabling year 2 of fabrication in Maine as we approach break even in our 2nd fabrication facility. And. continue our trend of year after year growth because for every year of increased revenue we are buying more timber at high prices from well managed forests

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

A movement towards realigning with independent journalism — and independent journalistic integrity. Now that we have social media, we have the opportunity for a really well-educated population and more diverse participation in democracy than ever before. Yet, we are being encouraged to align ourselves with news lacking in journalistic integrity and I don’t see how societies will tackle our climate challenges together if we don’t realign with this integrity.

How can our readers further follow your work or your company online?

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This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!

About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator, and launched and leads an online leadership development community which can be downloaded for free for iOS and Android.