Shawn Askinosie is an author and the founder and CEO of Askinosie Chocolate. His book, Meaningful Work: A Quest to Make Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul, takes readers on their journey to self-actualization and is a guide on how they can discover the secret to purposeful business. Oprah Magazine also named him one of the 15 Kids Saving the World and Forbes one of America’s 25 Best Small Businesses. Shawn joins Gwen Hassan to share how children are exploited in the cocoa bean industry and how Askinosie See more +
Compliance professionals are often overburdened and underserved. The role of a compliance officer should not be seen solely to ensure compliance within a company, but also to train and advise. The work of the CSR and ESG departments must be disseminated throughout the organization. It is particularly important that these departments are led by lawyers, as they are uniquely positioned to advocate for change in a credible way.
Askinosie Chocolate is a company that sources its cocoa beans directly from the farmers instead of middlemen like most other chocolate companies. They also pay farmers 55% more than farm-gate price and provide advance payments to help finance farmers’ harvest operations. This approach is called “direct trade” and is intended to create a more direct alignment between the chocolate maker and the farmer. This model also helps mitigate issues such as conflict minerals and child trafficking in the supply chain, which can occur when beans are shipped through multiple intermediaries and their origins are not transparent. See Less –