What do Prince Harry, Lil Nas and Simone Biles all have in common?
Hint: Chief Impact Officers
Although these three people seem to have little in common aside from the fact that they are all A-list(?) celebrities, they do share a unique thread: they each also happen to be Chief Impact Officers.
Yes, you heard me - Lil Nas X is not only a Grammy Award-winning musician, he is also a Chief Impact Officer. At Taco Bell, no less. 🌮
Tell me more, you say?! No problem - who doesn’t love a little celebrity chat anyways.
First: Little Nas X, who teamed up with Taco Bell in 2021, officially becoming their “CIO” after working at a local Taco Bell only 5 years earlier, before hitting it big with his music career. Talk about going full circle. As part of his new role, Lil Nas X supports the Taco Bell Foundation's mission and announces awards to recipients of the Live Más scholarship to enable them to pursue their creative passions ($7 million was awarded to 725 students in 2021); more recently, the rapper and Taco Bell teamed up with Ashoka, the social entrepreneurship non-profit agency, to give other ambitious young people a chance to pitch their ideas for social change through the Ambition Accelerator (a program funded by Taco Bell’s Unlocking Opportunity Initiative).
Next up: Prince Harry, who became CIO of BetterUp in 2021. BetterUp is the unicorn corporate mental health services startup out of Silicon Valley. As Harry describes his role, his “goal is to lift up critical dialogues around mental health, build supportive and compassionate communities, and foster an environment for honest and vulnerable conversations.” BetterUp is part of Pledge 1%, donating 1% of company equity, staff time, product, and profit to their communities. BetterUp tripled its valuation to $4.7bn when they raised their Series E in late 2021, after Harry joined.
Finally, gymnastics powerhouse Simone Biles, who joined Cerebral as their Chief Impact Officer in 2021 - the company, a mental health telemedicine business, only started in 2020, but has already raised $462 million and was most recently valued at $4.8 billion. Biles will be serving as the “face” of the brand, and her goal is to help break the stigma and expand access to mental health resources.
No doubt these celebrities will increase awareness of the companies they work for / their respective impact programs, but it’s yet to be proven the level of real “impact” these celebrities will have in their respective roles (other than arguably boosting their company valuations). Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the “Chief Impact Officer” role is becoming more and more commonplace, following the generational shift of the innovation economy's responsibility to drive scalable change in our society.
Kasey Lundquist