Aussie Entrepreneur Wins Global B Corp Champions Award
21 October 2015 at 10:14 am
The founder of Australian social impact investment group Small Giants, Danny Almagor, and his wife Berry Liberman have been awarded a global B Corp Champions Award.
The pair were awarded the top Hal Taussig Award given to the individuals who most embody the aspirational ideas of the B Corp Community at ceremony in Portland, USA. The award is named after Hal Taussig, the founder of the travel agency Untours and benevolent leader in the fight against poverty.
Danny Almagor started Small Giants in 2007 to effect social and environmental change through business.
Small Giants invests in a suite of start-up social enterprises, as well as large-scale social and environmental projects and radically sustainable property development. It became Australia’s first B Corporation in mid 2012.
Certified B Corporations are a type of corporation which use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. Pro Bono Australia is also a certified B Corporation.
Almagor spoke to Pro Bono Australia News about the B Corp award at the Impact Investment Summit in Sydney.
“I think it’s the nature of who we are and the philosophy that we take to our business, which is an all-in – we call ourselves a hundred per cent impact investors all-in. And I think that’s the whole point, B Corp is not an add-on to the business, it’s the soul of the business,” Almagor said.
“And if you truly believe in the work that you’re doing, and if business is an expression of who you are as a human being, that’s what B Corp is about. Then the people who really engage in that expression obviously seem to rise to the top.
“That’s something that we’re very passionate about, is working out who we are and then how do we express that in every business that we’re involved in.”
Almagor was the inaugural Social Entrepreneur in Residence at RMIT, the founder and former CEO of Engineers without Borders Australia, Chairperson of Jewish Aid Australia and on the wisdom council for Hub Melbourne.
His contribution to the community has been acknowledged a number of times including as the Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year, RMIT Alumnus of the Year, a Churchill Fellowship, and an Australian Leadership Award from ADC.
In 2014 Almagor was awarded the inaugural Steve Lawrence Award for making a big impact in Australian social innovation.
The prize is funded by the Steve Lawrence Social Innovation fund, in memory of its namesake Steve Lawrence who was often described as the grandfather of social innovation in Australia.
