More than a badge: What leading our B Corp™ certification taught me

Programme director Alasdair McAlley shares his takeaways from a professional services firm’s journey to B Corp™ certification

Leading our B Corp certification, alongside our CEO and other members of the leadership team at PKF Francis Clark, has been the most rewarding work I’ve done in my career. Looking back, I can see how much the process shaped us individually and as a firm.

The workload was considerable. The complexity of evidence was real. Nothing quite prepares you for the breadth of what’s required. But the most important work was much closer to home: bringing people at the heart of our firm – our partners – on the journey.

I’ve worked in professional services for over 25 years and I have enormous respect for what it means to lead change inside a partnership. Partners are the custodians of our firm, its reputation and its commercial future. Asking them to invest time, energy and conviction in something as unfamiliar as B Corp certification – before we could point to a result – required a thoughtful approach and the kind of conversations that build camaraderie.

What I didn’t fully anticipate

B Corp isn’t a sustainability project. It isn’t an HR initiative. It isn’t a finance exercise. It’s all of these things and more, all at once, and that’s what makes it so demanding and ultimately so meaningful.

The B Impact Assessment cuts across governance, community impact, environmental practices, customer relationships and how you treat your people. To do it properly, you need honest conversations in parts of the business that might not talk to each other often. You find gaps you’d rather not acknowledge and you discover strengths you hadn’t recognised.

For us, that breadth was the challenge, and the whole point of achieving certification.

The buy-in question

I’ve been part of many tactical projects and transformation programmes, and I can confidently say that success or failure hinges entirely on a majority consensus from the outset that this (whatever it is) is the right thing to do.

Securing partner support wasn’t a single moment. It was a series of them built into the fabric of our strategy. Some conversations landed quickly. Other developed over time with different framing, different messengers, and the space to let ideas take root.

What I found was that partners who engaged most weren’t necessarily those who already knew of B Corp, the step-changes we could make and the positive impact they create. They were the ones who asked the sharpest questions. Working through those answers together, listening, respecting different views, and understanding the “why,” we saw more and more advocates.

That rigorous and collaborative process made the eventual outcome stronger.

What certification actually means

There’s a version of this story that ends with a logo on our website and a press release. That’s great but I don’t think that’s the version worth telling.

What certification means for us is that an independent third party has looked carefully at how we operate (not just what we say) and concluded that we meet a really high bar. We don’t just look at the bottom line at the expense of everything else: we look to balance people, planet and profit.

That matters to our clients who want to know their advisers are serious about our responsibilities. It matters to our people we want to retain and attract. It matters to anyone who might be considering this journey.

It’s hard, it takes longer than you expect, and it’s absolutely achievable.

Was it worth it?

Without a doubt, yes.

Not because of what it looks like from the outside, but because of what it required of us from the inside. The framework and the process have fundamentally changed how we think about what we do and why. For a professional services firm that prides itself on trust, it might be the most valuable outcome of all.

If you’re curious about what the journey looked like in practice – the process, the people and the moments that tested us – I’ve written about that too (watch this space!). If you’re considering B Corp certification for your own organisation and want to know more, please get in touch.

B Corp™ and the client experience

People, culture and our journey to B Corp™

This blog was written by Alasdair McAlley, programme director at PKF Francis Clark.