Richard Branson on Shinola and The Dignity of Work
After decades of recognition for his success across industries, and with a net worth of an estimated $4.8 billion, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is in the enviable position of being able to call a meeting with nearly anyone he wants at any time. All of that access makes it feasible to consider that Branson has seen his fair share of business plans, CEOs, and innovations, ending in both triumph and failure. Which is why it takes on considerable merit when he champions the efforts of a single company with a mission he truly admires, as he did recently with Detroit-based brand Shinola.
“While the overwhelming majority of people want and need to work in order to live, we also want to find fulfillment and happiness in our work,” Branson writes on his Virgin.com blog, “We want it to have purpose. We want to know what we do when we get up every morning can make a difference.”
Shinola, Branson surmised after meeting the team last year, understands this, and places the dignity of work directly at the core of its business. It’s why the company has focused as much on creating great product – ranging from leather goods to bicycles to their increasingly popular watches – as they have on reestablishing Detroit as a reputable place to work and live.
Of Shinola, Branson writes, “They want their team to be proud of what they produce, and happy to work in a community-minded company.”
He even goes so far as to credit Shinola among the “new start-ups, people young and old, keen to revitalise their town” who have turned Detroit from a bankrupt city into a hub on the rise through their “desire to make change for good.”
And in case you were wondering if this is all just lip service, Branson is clearly banking on Detroit continuing its upward trajectory as a beacon of action and development: his Virgin Atlantic airlines is beginning flights to Detroit in June.
Shinola founder Tom Kartsotis will be at FTF: Conference 2015 on June 11, where he will share more about his company’s mission to maintain the dignity of work in everything it does. For more information on purchasing tickets to the event, click here.
