Redefining Business Success

Anne St. Peter has long rejected the common presumption that one must choose between a meaningful career and a prosperous one. As a senior executive at Omnicom Group, she often envisioned building a company that measured success not only by its financial performance, but also by the good it created in the world.

“I was a working mother with two kids, and I dreamed about creating a workplace where people could have meaningful careers, raise families, serve their communities, have a stake in the financial value that they create and work for clients with whom they felt a shared sense of higher purpose,” she said.

It sounds almost utopian, but in 2008, St. Peter did exactly that when she co-founded Global Prairie with healthcare executive Douglas Bell.

“I now know how powerfully purpose and performance reinforce one another,” she said.

On Nov. 13, St. Peter will speak in the Jordan Auditorium at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business as part of the Dean’s Speaker Series. She will be joined by Notre Dame alumnus Chris Marquis (ND ‘92), the Sinyi Professor at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and award-winning author of “Better Business: How the B Corp Movement Is Remaking Capitalism.” Marquis recently published a New York Times guest essay, “I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down.”

At first glance, Global Prairie might appear to be a typical, albeit quite successful, global marketing firm with a stunning catalog of creative campaigns and strategic engagements. But a closer look reveals that the company promotes its “PurposeFirst” business approach even more prominently than its impressive client list.

“We launched Global Prairie with the fundamental belief that business could be a force for good, and on the bedrock principles of the emerging B Corp movement,” St. Peter said.

The B Corp movement began in 2006 when a group of investors founded the nonprofit B Lab to identify companies that met social, environmental and governance standards. B Lab began scoring and certifying these beneficial corporations as Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, ultimately creating a global network of like-minded organizations that could mobilize across regions and nations to drive local governments to adopt policies that prioritize people and the planet within economic systems.

B Lab’s evaluations have evolved and crystallized over the years to address how businesses impact five key areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. Each of these areas is further broken down into numerous specific topics, such as employees’ financial security, land and water management, data privacy and security, and justice and equity. The combined rating becomes the company’s B Impact score.

Today, nearly 11,000 Certified B Corps exist across the world, and Global Prairie has the highest B Impact score of all of them. Among the businesses vying for B Corp status, the median assessment score is 50.9, and the threshold to achieve certification is 80. Global Prairie lapped the threshold, earning 192.9 points in its 2025 assessment.

“What makes me proudest isn't the score, but the commitment of my co-founder and our employee-owners to use the business as a force for good,” St. Peter said. “When you think about it, we have nearly 200 employee owners who want to be financially successful, but also want to create value for their community.”

It’s easy to see how Global Prairie, which is 100% employee-owned, received such high marks from B Lab. All of its employees receive premium benefits — including a unique infant-at-work policy that allows parents to bring children up to 7 months old to the office — share in an employee stock ownership plan as well as a matching 401(k), and are encouraged to spend 117 workday hours volunteering for civic causes. The company donates 10% of its annual profits to philanthropic endeavors in the communities where its offices are based.

St. Peter has also been intentional about the company’s client roster to ensure its PurposeFirst approach is reflected in the work itself. Consequently, Global Prairie often partners with universities, nonprofits and foundations, healthcare providers and life sciences companies.

“Our philosophy and B Corp standards are highly attractive to companies that probably will never be able to become a B Corp,” she said. “And frankly, our success speaks for itself.”

Global Prairie’s financial success is not unusual for a B Corp. Researchers at B Lab have found that B Corps perform just as well financially as non-B Corp counterparts in the same industries. In some circumstances, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, they actually perform better. They are also more likely to grow both their workforce and revenue.

“It certainly challenges the assumption that somehow being a responsible business is a financial compromise,” said St. Peter, who is not at all surprised by these findings. After all, she and Bell launched Global Prairie right on the precipice of the 2008 financial crisis. “We were tested truly before we even found our footing, but we grew through that financial crisis and then again through the pandemic. Caring for our employees and building a strong business are not competing priorities.”

Naturally, St. Peter is drawn to Mendoza’s mission to Grow the Good in Business and has long admired the Rev. Edward Sorin’s desire to see Notre Dame become a force for good.

“This generation has the opportunity in front of it to redefine business success,” she said. “Mendoza students have a wonderful advantage because they’re being challenged to think about both the competence to succeed, and then the courage to do what’s right.”