Brand Citizens Hires Lauryn Nwankpa as Co-Managing Director

Brand Citizens, the purpose and impact consultancy spun out of 72andSunny, is excited to announce Lauryn Nwankpa has joined as co-managing director and will lead alongside industry veteran Jim Moriarty. With Lauryn, the consultancy heads into a new chapter, focusing on helping brands position purpose and impact efforts as strategic levers that drive value and business outcomes for a broad range of stakeholders rather than “nice to haves”.

Lauryn is a social impact strategist, start-up advisor, investor, and entrepreneur whose philosophy is grounded in pushing brands beyond traditional conceptions of corporate social responsibility to sustain robust practices company-wide. Before joining Brand Citizens, Lauryn was most recently the head of social impact at Dave, a leading industry disruptor for the banking industry, helping millions of members solve immediate financial challenges through interest-free advances, dynamic budgeting and savings tools, and access to the gig economy and full-time jobs.

Prior to Dave, Lauryn was head of social impact at Headspace where she worked to ensure Headspace was accessible, relevant, and affordable to all. Lauryn established Headspace for Educators, Headspace’s flagship social impact program, was a founding member of the diversity, equity, and inclusion task force, and deepened Headspace’s role in the greater Los Angeles community through strategic philanthropic and non-profit partnerships.  

“Impact and purpose at scale for Brand Citizens is really quite simple: how can the most iconic and beloved brands change the world for the better? We’ve seen time and time again that siloed, short-lived and performative efforts won’t cut it - and consumers and stakeholders deserve better than that. I left the tech sector because I wanted a bigger sandbox to play in. I also realised I wanted to work with a myriad of brands and stakeholders to help architect an impact ecosystem that finally tilted the scales in favour of purpose, organizational and systemic transformation,” said Lauryn Nwankpa, co-managing director, Brand Citizens. “ I’m thrilled to join this incredible team that understands the power of brands to shift culture and to help usher in a new way of doing business”.

“Brands and businesses have arguably the greatest impact on modern society and we want to work with brands and leaders that understand that making the world a better place is also good for their businesses,” said Evin Shutt, global CEO of 72andSunny and co-founder of Brand Citizens. “Many of these brands just need some strategic help and Lauryn and Jim are the perfect leaders to do just that.”

With a long list of clients in technology, CPG, retail, and services, Brand Citizens has recently helped brands such as Verizon, Nike, Clif Bar, Regis, Tillamook, and SC Johnson as they pursued delivering more purpose and impact through their brands.