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The listening exercises in Business Spotlight Übungsheft (p. 5) are based on the article “Manager with a mission” (Names & News, p. 9). Here, we provide you with the audio file and transcript.
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Manager with a mission
The Dutch chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely was created in 2005 with the goal of eliminating exploitationAusbeutungexploitation in the cocoaKakaococoa industry. Many cocoa farmers live below the poverty lineArmutsgrenzepoverty line, particularly in West Africa, where most cocoa comes from. The company’s current CEO is 51-year-old British manager Douglas Lamont, who was previously the headhier: Leiter(in); Direktor(in)head of the drinks brand Innocent. Lamont describes three steps to running a company with a social mission.
The first is to offer top quality. “If you want to change the world, you have to have a great product,” he told the website Raconteur. The second step is to commit tosich auf etw. festlegen, sich etw. verschreibencommit to a goal, even if that means making counterintuitiveim Gegensatz zur (eigenen) Intuition stehendcounterintuitive business decisions. Tony’s created its Open Chain collaboration platform, through which anyone, even competitors, can buy Tony’s cocoa beans at cost priceSelbstkostenpreis, Einkaufspreiscost price. “I’m the CEO of the mission, which is to end exploitation in cocoa,” he says. “I’m not the CEO of making Tony’s Chocolonely as big as it can be.”
Finally, it’s necessary to think beyond one’s own organization and build a community that governments must take seriously: “I’m only interested in change at scalein der passenden Größenordnung; in großem Umfangat scale.”