There is a lot of talk about purpose in business, but who really benefits from it? Can the pursuit of purpose drive both profit and human betterment? What is the relationship between purpose and excellence? And how can brand and narrative-based frameworks best drive decision-making and reporting in a world in which the numbers alone usually rule?

In this xChange Paul Skinner and Elaine Roberts will interview Alex Edmans, author of Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose And Profit, published by Cambridge University Press.

Alex’s rigorously evidence-based approach draws on two decades of research enabling him to unpick common misconceptions about the role of purpose in enterprise and the practices which help or hinder us in building purposeful organisations as well as constructing a whole system for conceptualising purpose-driven growth that he calls ‘pieconomics’.

He combines the rigorous empiricism of a world-leading academic with a focus on changing global business practice and a personal approach which embodies purpose and a ‘pie-growing’ mentality.

Alex is Professor of Finance at London Business School and has spoken at Davos and in the UK House of Commons. He gave the TED talk ‘What to trust in a post-truth world?’ and the TEDx talk ‘The Social Responsibility of Business’.

‘The implications are radical and far-reaching’. Will Hutton, former editor in chief of The Observer

‘Alex Edmans’ superb book makes the case, compellingly and comprehensively, for a radical rethink of how companies operate and indeed why they exist.’ Andy Haldane, Chief Economist of the Bank of England.

‘a powerful and persuasive antidote to much of the conventional wisdom of the corporate world’. Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Economics.