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consciously different in a sea of otherwise similar companies. ‘Trad VC is done’, their website declares, ‘This is Cause Capitalism in action’.
Elio Leoni Sceti, one of the two founders, is
a charismatic packaged goods veteran with experience in 25 different categories behind him, who today balances his role at The Craftory with a seat on the AB InBev Board. He sees recent change in the relationship between consumers and brand choice as a key part of the more fertile soil for challengers today, and a key impetus for the founding of The Craftory:
“We came to realise that in this huge category of Consumer Packaged Goods a new set of consumer preferences had been born – preferences for purpose-driven brands that were actively changing something which would turn society, consumers, the whole planet, into a better place. Not for everyone, but for a significant proportion of people. We called these the consequences of consumption.
“And for the first time we were seeing brands, instead of selling consumption – ‘Buy me because I clean better’ – starting to sell the consequences of consumption: ‘Buy me because I don’t have slavery in my supply chain’. Or ‘Buy me because
I don’t pollute the environment’.”
His co-founder, Ernesto Schmitt, whom Sceti
met when they worked together at EMI, has a very different past. Schmitt describes himself as a serial tech disruptor who is now simply responding to
210 'This time is genuinely different'