Building Better Business

How to create a better business

Pauline Tiffen shares experiences of her extraordinary career setting up and consulting for businesses that strive to make a positive social impact – including Cafédirect.

More about Pauline

Pauline has worked actively to make trade fair for more than 30 years: as worker, company director, innovator, advisor, consultant, mentor and writer. As head of TWIN and Twin Trading she led the work to set up ground-breaking companies like Cafédirect and Divine Chocolate, and created linkages for farmers and artisans from all over the world.

She currently divides her time between consultancy with Verité (Fair Labor. Worldwide) and advisory roles in Uganda as Chairperson of the Rwenzori Sustainable Trade Centre, in Amsterdam as a Supervisory Board member of the Transnational Institute a network of radical scholar-activists and progressive think tank for social movements, and in the United Kingdom as Founding Trustee of the Pluto Educational Trust and MD of Ollema Fairer Farming Fund, dedicated to investing in and nurturing solution-finding and status quo-changing social enterprises.

Pauline Tiffen is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fair Trade. The Journal of Fair Trade was founded to bring into one place critical thinking on the fundamental questions about how to make trade fairer to people and planet. What works, what doesn’t, principles, theories and lessons and is available to read and download for free. The Journal is owned and run by a membership Society of people who are passionate about changing the world and rebooting the vision and idealism of the early fair trade movement.

What to expect

Pauline explains why sees recent social movements like Black Lives Matter as an evolution of the fair trade movement and what consumers need to look out for when trying to buy ethically.

We delve into the extraordinary stories of how and why Cafédirect was set up – and the tough decisions that needed to be made for a pioneering business.

And you’ll hear Pauline’s views on why it’s essential to disrupt the conventions of the market.