S13E21: Scaling to 10X impact within a year, with Sebastian DiGrande (CEO, Plastic Credit Exchange)

An episode of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast

S13E21: Scaling to 10X impact within a year, with Sebastian DiGrande (CEO, Plastic Credit Exchange)

We're continuing our season on "business as a force for good", Richard Medcalf speaks with Sebastian DiGrande, CEO of Plastic Credit Exchange (PCX). PCX was founded in the Philippines, one of the epicentres of the plastic pollution crisis, and the first in the world to establish a Plastic Pollution Reduction Standard and create a fully traceable offset platform to responsibly recover, process, or recycle plastic waste. Prior to joining PCX, Sebastian was the EVP of Strategy & Chief Customer Officer at Gap Inc..

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

  • How Sebastian came across his mission almost by accident, and why he believes in the power of serendipity.
  • The journey that allowed PCX to scale up their impact 4X impact in under two year, with now 100,000 tonnes of plastic diverted.
  • The importance of harnessing the "jealous neighbour effect".
  • The "one conversation" question, and why it matters.
  • Sebastian's journey into "the land of misfit toys and battered children": how he turned a "peripheral" team into a bold, strategic unit that would lead the way to a more competitive future for his previous firm.

"It wasn't that we had a massive talent gap, it was that the talent was suppressed."

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Transcript

Sebastian DiGrande
It's me being genuine about what I don't know. Yes. I bring a lot of skills and expertise to the table from my, you know, decades of work experience and senior relationships, etcetera, etcetera. And that's very valuable. but I'm still learning about the plastic waste crisis itself and the science behind it. I'm still learning how to be the leader of a small venture backed startup operation, right, and what it means to build the infrastructure to scale an operation or the team in particular. And then ultimately, that's the last piece, which is building the right team.

Richard Medcalf
Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast. I'm Richard Medcalfe, founder of Xquadrant, and my mission is to help the world's top CEOs and entrepreneurs shift from incremental to exponential progress and create a huge positive impact on our world. Now that requires you to reinvent yourself and transform your business. So if you're ready to play a bigger game than ever before, I invite you to join us and become an impact multiplier, CEO. Sebastian Digrande had a great career in strategy consulting in corporate America. And then recently and almost by accident, Rivendell up as chief executive of plastic credit exchange. It's a small business that's aiming to revolutionize and bend the curve on the plastic waste problem that exists so much, especially in our oceans. We get into the story of how this happened, the serendipitous events that led him to this new opportunity and how he's going about building a scalable platform how it's already seen 4 eggs impact, in in their mission over the last couple of years, and how is aiming for 10 eggs more in the year to come? We get into many areas, that are pivotal when you need to not just build a technology platform, but change demand, win hearts and minds, do something that nobody has ever done before. And we look at what, how you might use that. the jealous neighbor effect, the one conversation question which I introduce. And then we also go back into his part. and look at some of his turnaround stories, how he took a peripheral team in a multinational, a team that was not really considered as valuable or even core to the business. And how do you turn that little team into who a bold a dynamic, significant part of the organization that had confidence and was able to add real value. And in fact, it wasn't a little team. It was a whole division. So enjoy this conversation. We look at impact. We look at turnaround. We look at strategy. Sebastian Degrande. Hi, Sebastian, and welcome to the show.

Sebastian DiGrande
Thank you. Glad to be here.

Richard Medcalf
I'm gonna dive straight in because one thing I know about you, Sebastian, is that your goal, one of your ultimate ambitions, is to be a catalyst for bending the curve as you put it on the plastic waste crisis. So we'll get into what you're doing in that space and the impact you're looking to make. But take me back, there's always a pivotal moment in people's lives when they go all in on a topic. And so I'm curious, what was you, what made you go? You know what? Plastic Waste is so important that I'm gonna double down on this and make it my mission.

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. I think that as you describe it pivotal moment was a bit of a combination of both personal and professional change for me. I had a moment in my professional career where I was leaving sort of a traditional large scale corporate role and feeling pretty fortunate about the career path I'd had and and and thinking very deeply about what I wanted to do with, let's call it, the last big chapter of my professional career and and what would give me give that meaning. on the personal side, you know, I'm the father of 3 boys, who are all very active My wife is active. We are scuba divers. I've always loved the outdoors. I had these moments when I would go scuba diving all over the world where I'd be down under the water, and the sunlight would be shining through the water. And I'd see this shimmering kaleidoscopic color, colorful scene And it was beautiful, and then I realized the reason for the kaleidoscope was microplastics floating in the water. And it was incredibly disturbing. And so that combination of professional challenge and seeking the next thing where I could leverage my skills that developed throughout my career, again, something that I felt was impactful. And then my passion my personal passions and my sense of urgency around one of the biggest crises on the planet that really wasn't being dealt with in any meaningful way, it just sparked for me that there was an opportunity to combine those 2 things leverage my skills and and drive an impact in a space that that needed it, quite quite dearly.

Richard Medcalf
So so did you, that moment identify this as a problem and start to search for how can I be involved, or was it more of a serendipitous moment where anything else came up and you said, oh, that sounds meaningful.

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. You you stole the word from right out of my mouth, which is you know, my life has been full of serendipitous moments, and and this was one of them. I I didn't exactly seek out this opportunity directly what happened was through the network of relationships I've developed throughout my career, which we can come back to and talk about later, I was introduced to the founder of a nonprofit that was already doing work in this space, almost on an advisory capacity just to meet and get to know each other. A woman based in the Philippines of all places, and she had already built what I described as a bit of a proof of concept of how you can apply market forces to to addressing the plastic waste crisis. And when we started talking, my consulting brain started to go into high gear, and it started to dawn on me that this might be a domain where I could have outsized impact by applying my skills and experience and partnering with her effectively to drive impact in in, again, in a place where I had particular passion and interest.

Richard Medcalf
So why were you introduced?

Sebastian DiGrande
So it's a longer story, but I'll try to keep it tight, which is in my prior career, when I was working at Gap Inc, actually, through the founder's family. I met someone in the investment community, who was super fascinating, very smart. In some ways, was surprised I I was in a corporate role. We used to take after we met, we started taking every couple months, we'd take a walk around the San Francisco downtown area chatting. And after I left that job, we stayed in touch. And he was so generous with his time and his interest in who I was and what I brought to the table that he insisted on continuing to in introduce me to other people that were in worlds that I knew nothing about. I had never been a startup guy. I had never worked in Venture Capital, and yet he introduced me to founders and investors And over time, one of the people he introduced me to was a founder who happened to be Filipino and was friends with this other person. So it was sort of 3 degrees of separation that brought me to an introduction to the founder of PCX. Nannette Medved who who I'm now very close with, and we always joke about how we've we now finish each other sentences in most in most meetings and conversations.

Richard Medcalf
Got it. So, yeah, I was what I was curious about really in that was, yeah, whether you were, like, looking for something in this space. Like, that's why you got introduced. So but it sounds like you just made a contact who wanted to get you out of the corporate world and into something more fun.

Sebastian DiGrande
I think I think as with most of the the big changes in my life, it wasn't something that was engineered to a level of specificity of 3 decimal places. Right? It was directionally I knew the direction I wanted to go. in terms of new challenge, new opportunity, as I like to describe, I'm sometimes a bit of a masochist for challenging complexity. and and something that had meaning and impact, right, that I felt would give me more purpose than the roles I had been in most recently. And that is what directionally led me led me towards the opportunity that I found.

Richard Medcalf
Great. Perfect. So then it's fast forward. tell us to tell us about PCX. What, what are you up to?

Sebastian DiGrande
So so PCX is, actually a pretty amazing, opportunity to bend the curve on the plastic waste crisis. So Our mission overall is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and essentially building a future where no plastic ends up in nature. And the way we do that is we've developed the world's only fully transparent global marketplace, digitally supported through a blockchain registry that enables traceable solutions to take plastic waste out of nature. at scale. I I kind of sometimes half jokingly describe it as the Airbnb of plastics. So Airbnb's role is to give you access to a wide range of opportunities of places to stay on your holiday or what have you. and to do it in a very trusted and transparent way. Similarly, we provide corporations, institutions, and individuals an opportunity to fund community based projects that provide not just plastic waste diversion, but socioeconomic benefits for poor communities that do the work and to have access all over the globe to to driving that impact and to do it in a very trusted and verifiable and transparent way.

Richard Medcalf
So when you came in, so first of all, just context, how how many years have you been on this project at this point?

Sebastian DiGrande
Oh, oh, it's only been a year and a half a little chilly. I'll take a lot longer.

Richard Medcalf
Okay. And so where did you where would you came in? Where were you? And where are you now? you know, how would you look at the difference?

Sebastian DiGrande
So when I came in, we were basically taking, as I described earlier, a bit of a proof of concept that was sitting in a nonprofit in the Philippines. and trying to figure out how to essentially extend and amplify the impact globally. Since then, we built a digital platform launched it, went to a public blockchain registry. We've, more than quintupled the capacity of plastic waste diversion projects in now 6 going to eight countries around the world, and we quadrupled the impact. We've now diverted in total almost a 100,000 metric tons of plastic waste globally in our history. 50,000 of that just in the last 6 months. so we are accelerating dramatically. Having said that, 100,000 sounds like a lot, it's still, honestly, just a drop in the bucket. So we are right at the very beginning of the group in here in terms of driving impact in a world where roughly 10,000,000 metric tons of plastic is entering nature and entering the oceans specifically every year. So it's a long journey. It's the be it's the early innings of that journey, but we're really encouraged, by the progress we've made, but also what's happening around us from a regulatory perspective and the UN process. And I can go into more detail on all of this but we really see a tipping point coming for action and impact, and we feel like we are a a player that can be the catalyst for that change.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. That's beautiful. So I'm gonna bring forward one of my questions I always love to ask on the podcast, which is what does multiplying impact look like? for PCX. So where would you love the the organization to be in 2, 3 years time?

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's one of the reasons, honestly, Richard, is one of the reasons I was intrigued by your podcast, it is the title itself in Impact Multiplier because it actually is at the core of why I took this role. I believe that I personally and we collectively at PCX could build a platform and a solution that had the potential for multiplicative impact, right, for scalable exponential impact. So what, to your question, what's the vision? We have a roadmap and a vision to be delivering 2,000,000 tons of plastic waste diversion downstream, you know, post consumer plastic waste diversion from nature within the next 2 years. we actually are launching a challenge, and I'd like to put that out there for everyone. We're launching a challenge that in the next year, we'd like to divert 1,000,000 metric tons of plastic waste from nature. and I believe that we can get to a place in the next 3 to 5 years where through a combination of the reduction of upstream plastic consumption by corporations and addressing the downstream plastic waste diversion, we can bend the curve on the plastic waste crisis and move towards a world where no plastic waste enters nature. I truly believe that is possible, and it's not because plastic itself is an evil material. It's quite useful. It's simply been mismanaged up till now. And there is a there is a path, and I believe PCX is again, one of the catalysts and one of the solutions to get us to that in state, where no plastic enters nature.

Richard Medcalf
So I love it. I love the vision and I love the impact that it makes. What what are the levers that you need to be pull pulling to create that multiplication impact because, obviously, additional Rivendell stuff is is one thing, and you can figure out adding a design. But where are you, but where do you get that that's the impact to it. Right?

Sebastian DiGrande
The tipping point, look, I'm a I'm a technologist at heart, and an economist if I'm in my training. I actually believe the technology is very simple, and very clear as to the enablement that PCX provides through our marketplace and through our blockchain registry, that's the easy part. The harder part involves human beings. Right? It involves awareness understanding trust and engagement. And it requires a tipping point of participation, and I describe it as a bit of the triggering of the jealous neighbor effect, where if we can convince and we we already have some tremendous corporate partners Pepsi, Starbucks, L'Oreal, Colgate Palma, of others that are taking action, but that action still is on a fairly small scale. localized small scale. If we can get to a tipping point of significant participation on a regional and global scale, with a few of those key high profile partners and individuals who have a significant voice. you will see this flywheel of activity start to take off and engagement and participation. We've seen it in other industries, even in carbon markets where honestly the application of this model is much more challenging and much more complex than it is in plastic. there's already been a an inflection point there. In plastic, that inflection point, I believe, can happen much easier and much faster. And that ultimately is the the opportunity to drive significant impact, but it but it involves people and and mindset and trust. that's really what it comes back to fundamentally.

Richard Medcalf
So what I'm hearing is that it's not so much about the building out the platform in new levels of detail. It's more about catalyzing the ecosystem, right, the getting the market adoption, getting people leading forward and wanting to do this. It's an influence challenge.

Sebastian DiGrande
That's right. I mean, there's always the foundation platform that you need, right, without the plat form of the technology and the business model and all of that, you know, nothing can happen. But but the secret sauce comes back to people, relationships, and trust, right, that would would be the catalyst of of true success and impact.

Richard Medcalf
So how are you gonna need to grow and develop to multiply your own impact Sebastian because I always believe that the leaders, the lid on the organization, right, as we expand our own sense of the possible, our own skill set, our own mindset, then we became capable of greater things. So what's that for you? How might you need to change?

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. I'd say it's it's always a combination of factors here. Right? So, for starters, it's me being genuine about what I don't know. Yes. I bring a lot of skills and expertise to the table from my, you know, decades of work experience and senior relationships, etcetera, etcetera. And that's very valuable, but I'm still learning about the plastic waste crisis itself and the science behind it. I'm still learning how to be the leader of a small venture backed startup operation, right, and what it means to build the infrastructure to scale an operation or the team in particular. And then ultimately, that's the last piece, which is building the right team. no one and nothing succeeds without the right talents, but also the right chemistry amongst the talent. that is pursuing that goal. And so what I need to spend most time on these days is that it's building a team that shares the mission, but also shares the approach and brings a combination of talents together that will allow us to acute on the strategy and the plan that we have. That is my role as the CEO is to is to basically, you know, create the recipe and and put all the right spices in the soup, so that it tastes right and that it and that it delivers on on the on our objectives.

Richard Medcalf
What you didn't say in that was actually anything around influencing, so which I'm interested about. Is it because actually you believe that the team is gonna be the the one to make that happen. Do you or do you believe that, actually, you've got that one nailed, or is is there also an area Rohit is it's it's a big challenge?

Sebastian DiGrande
No. No. I think I think it's a very fair I think it's a very fair callout. I think, in a sense, as a credit to my founder, part of the reason she was intrigued, part of the reason she was intrigued, by partnering with me and bringing me on in this mission is that between she and I, we have a pretty intriguing network of relationships out there. She through her long history working in the space and having spent time in Asia, me through you know, 20 years as a management consultant building C suite relationships and then as a corporate leader and a and a public company board member, you know, understanding what it means to operate at that level and to drive influence and develop true relationships and deliver real influence in in at that level. so, no, that is absolutely a part of what I need to do. it's a big part of my job, I probably almost assumed that it was a given, right, in in the way I was answering your question. So --

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, it's helpful. And and it's, yeah, as you said, you've already got all that stuff. It's just that I always like to say, we never have enough influence for what we're trying to achieve because otherwise, we'd already have achieved it. So there's, like, always at next level. One of the questions I love asking people is, you know, what's the one what's the one conversation that could change everything if you got it?

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. That's a really good question. It would it would be one of 2 different things, honestly. One would be, I mentioned sort of this tipping point of anticipation and jealous neighbor effect, being able to sit with, and I won't name a specific individual but to be able to sit with a very high profile leader who is in an industry where plastics is at the heart of their business model and products and delivery and have the light go on for them about the amount of impact that could be delivered by participating and partnering with us in in the supporting the projects that we bring to the table and having that person then use their reach and influence to explain to others the value and impact that can be delivered. That to me could make all the difference in the world. on the flip side, there's because of the nature of the space we're operating in, being able to get global leaders together, and maybe this is an even more magical request. we're participating in the UN process called inc process for a global plastics treaty. but being able to get our global leaders to align on a truly balanced market based solution to the plastic waste crisis, and explaining that and having them fully understand it. And, again, for the light bulb to go off for them where there's alignment and in how regulatory frameworks are developed around reducing plastic waste production that would be, again, a dream come true for me, and for us as an organization.

Richard Medcalf
I hope you're enjoying this conversation. This is just a quick interlude to introduce you to 2 transformative programs that we run. The first is Rivendell, my exclusive group of top CEOs who are committed to transforming themselves, their businesses, and the world. It's an incredible peer group and a deep coaching experience. that will push you to new heights, no matter how successful you've already been. The second is Impact Accelerator, a coaching program for executives who are ready to make a big leap forward in their own leadership. It's regularly described of life changing and no other program provides such personal, strategic clarity, a measurable shift in stakeholder perceptions, and a world lass leadership development environment. Find out about both of these programs at xquadrant.com/services. Now back to the conversation.

One of the things that I I often do, I have a community that I belong to, one of the things that we like to do is a game could be called Hey yo, and it's basically just to make that request. You know, like, who do you know? You know, who's got who knows this person? Who knows somebody that fits this bill? And it's amazing when you put start to put that out, the magic that happens. So I appreciate you. Like, the more you speak about that, about what it be in the room with these kind of people, who do you know who's progressive for thinker and has got their whatever their big company.

Sebastian DiGrande
It's a really good call out, Richard. we we actually are about to launch, a campaign as I think I hinted at earlier, which is a campaign to remove a million metric tons of plastic waste from nature. but to have individuals who have a high profile who are respected to to join us in this in this journey and in this mission and then to pay it forward and tell the people in their network that they too should should join the party as it were. this is something we're literally about to launch next week, that we are hopeful will almost have a bit of a viral effect, right, once we're able to get some of these key influencers involved in in the mission. So --

Richard Medcalf
Well, yes. And what comes to my mind, I wonder, is there is there somebody who single handedly can address a million terms?

Sebastian DiGrande
Yes. There would be. you know, there's a certain largeecommerce marketplace out there in the world that I think everyone is familiar with Their founder who's no longer directly leading the company, has expressed his interest in environmental causes. such as plastic waste reduction, and I'm referring to Jeff Bezos, he alone could take action as an example that would probably could meet that goal and exceed it single handedly, and set an example and set a precedent that would that would potentially forever change the trajectory, of what we're able to deliver.

Richard Medcalf
So I'm just putting a little bit here, but it's really interesting to think about these things. a great believer in the eightytwenty rule. Right? But when you're doing eightytwenty rule, would you realize that, like, you know, there's 1% that's gonna account for 50%. And so it's like, wow, just like, imagine if you just managed to get those, like, 1% or the 0.1%, that's gonna be representing so much. So, yeah, so this is exciting. I'm excited. yeah, but for me, that's how you multiply, right, is is multiplying is Sometimes, actually, by going up the curve, we're not going down the curve trying to do with everybody. Right? It's really kind of focusing as as I'm sure you know, is a as a gist and consultants, but, it's good to be reminded sometimes on, yeah, if I made 5 calls, those really scary ones you don't really wanna make. because you might get it. It won't blow up and you don't work.

Sebastian DiGrande
You know, it's funny. You call them scary. I love those calls because, of course, they are low batting average, kind of discussions, but the ones, and I remember this from my consulting career, the ones where there's a connection and it clicks and it's genuine can be life changing, right, and can be incredibly impact full. And that's something I learned to get comfortable with in my own skin, that, you know, why not why not give it a shot. Right? So -- So let's let's let's go back in time a little bit.

Richard Medcalf
I know you have a story I'm I'm really intrigued about, and a story of the land of misfit toys and battered children. So, kinda sounds slightly scary. or it's like some freaky version of Toy Story or something. I don't know where we're gonna go, but, yeah, tell us about tell us about this. Okay. It does sound like he did. He was a huge turn around and part of your leadership journey.

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, that reference, probably dates me quite a bit to the old days of of Christmas specials, animated Christmas specials, but, yeah, look, when I left a 20 year career in consulting and went into a corporate role. I went into kind of an odd role in a corporation in that So I went to Gap Inc, which is a large vertically integrated apparel retailer, but I went in as the chief customer officer and head of strategy and my role was to oversee all the teams that were doing work on the digital ecommerce enablement of the customer experience, the in store customer experience, build out a customer centered culture inside the company, But when you operate in a company whose main sequence and core business is designing manufacturing and distributing clothing, and you and your team's role is to work on futuristic thinking about digitally enabled customer experience you are by definition leading a team and this was several hundred people who were viewed as an interesting additional support function to the core business. And so when I arrived given the challenges the corporation had had given where the centers of power are in the merchant functions and in the store operations teams, the teams that I led in product management and digital and, data and analytics and those sorts of domains were to be blunt, viewed as 2nd class citizens that were you know, nice to have and you would go place orders with them when you needed when you needed something. And so those teams by extension viewed themselves as outsiders, really not welcomed into everyday meetings about the core operations of the business, you know, planning meetings, Monday meetings where you're going through the performance over the weekend, These are the things that were the lifeblood of the business. So when I described my team when I arrived as the land of misfit toys and battered children, They were afraid to speak up. They didn't believe they had a voice. They didn't believe they could have impact and influence in the organization, they were order takers. And my job was to change that. It was to create an environment, a culture, and to generate a platform for that team that encouraged them and showed them that they could have real impact, and to deliver on that impact ultimately for the organization because it was so needed in the --So so what's your road map?

Richard Medcalf
Like, if somebody was listening to the podcast and they've got exactly that challenge, what would you kind of what would be the road map? What did you do?

Sebastian DiGrande
I'll give you I'll give you 2 or 3 things that were critical to that journey. 1st and foremost was deliver something visibly impactful right away. Like, don't wait. Find something as small and as seemingly meaningless as it might be, show that you and your team can deliver real impact to those who really matter in the organization. In our case, it was doing something very small on the e commerce platform in terms of the customer journey and how quickly pages loaded on the e commerce platform that transformed the com the conversion rate and delivered several $100,000,000 of impact, which actually is not small, but it was a small change that was highly visible and that showed that we could do something impactful. So that's point 1 because that starts to give you platform and credibility on which you then have more oxygen to do other things. The other side of it is with the team themselves. is giving them the confidence and a and a means to the confidence to take risk, to take on more challenge to feel like they had an opportunity to drive impact. And the and one of the silly ways I did that, we would have a quarterly off-site every every, every quarter, with my team, and I would be on stage. And one of the ideas I had with my leadership team was we launched something called the breaking bad award. And the breaking bad award was we would nominate 3 or 4 teams that had worked cross functionally across the organization, meaning they were weren't just working within their teams, but they were working with the core teams in the brands, in the merchant organizations, what have you on a challenge that was not their day job. an opportunity or challenge they identified. And in most cases, whatever they tried to do, whatever solution they tried to come up with, they failed. but they learned something, and they communicated what the learning was. And we would bring these teams on stage, have them talk about what they did, And every quarter, one of those teams would win the breaking bad award. We gave them a nice white lab coat. They would all sign the lab coat. We would go out to dinner. It was a silly thing but it was an important thing to signal that our culture was encouraging, risk taking, was encouraging going outside your own box, sticking your neck out and trying things, testing things, experimenting with things.

Richard Medcalf
Love it. So, okay, so deliver something visibly impactful, get the team the confidence to take risk and actually really make that visible.

Sebastian DiGrande
And celebrate that risk taking. Right? It obviously controlled risk taking, but but celebrate it and encourage more of it so that people understood in what was a very historically hierarchical organization that I no longer wanted us to operate that way.

Richard Medcalf
Got it. So was there a third point on your road map?

Sebastian DiGrande
I think you mentioned 3. Oh, you know, as a derivative of the second one is identifying I called them I called them un unpolished diamonds in the organization and elevating them. So partly related to the point about hierarchy. I at first came in naively believing that I had an organization where we had a massive talent gap. It wasn't so much that we had a massive talent gap. It was that the talent was being suppressed. And so by spending time with my team at all layers of the organization by encouraging risk taking through the breaking bad award, I was able to identify about 3 to 5 people at lower levels of the organization who were wickedly talented had tremendous ideas, had the potential to drive amazing impact, And I gave them a stage. I gave them a platform. I asked them to take on special projects and then put them out there in front of the organization in front of the leadership to show what could be delivered by people that supposedly were too deep in the organization have that kind of responsibility. And I think that was another mechanism both to just be good at developing talent and encouraging risk taking, but also to drive significant impact that otherwise wouldn't have been delivered through the normal course of business.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. love it. I love the, yeah, often I hear people say that. Like, I'm in this organization. There's just not enough talent. Right? And I think often, It's like, yeah. Well, is it just that we've taken a load of plants, not giving them any sunlight water and The nutrients many years, and now they're looking a little bit with it.

Sebastian DiGrande
Yeah. And I have so many examples, several specifically, not just for my time in that role, but even in consulting where I would see these, I call them kids at this point because I'm so old now, but, you know, these young professionals who would come in and think that they were only allowed to, you know, look through this small knot hole in the fence. And when you exposed them to sunlight and gave them a platform and encouraged them to speak their mind the amazing things that they were able to accomplish. And in many ways, several of them have by far surpassed what I've accomplished at this stage. Right? I'm so proud of what they've become that goes well beyond what I've become. Right? And and that's that's the beauty of of the opportunity to to mentor and to and to create opportunity for people.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Beautiful. Well, Sebastian, I've really enjoyed this conversation. We've we've covered a lot of ground. You know, we've, we've looked at just this whole idea of what it really takes to multiply, something so important at scale where you really need to change hearts and minds along the way. we've looked to those pivotal moments in your journey. I then got very specific here about what do you do when you have an organization that's a little bit second rate or senior second citizens and that, and you want to kind of help them to actually step up to a new level, and I love the breaking bad award is one way to, kind of actually incarnate that and make it something tangible in people's experience. if people wanna find out more about you or about what PCX is up to? Where should they go?

Sebastian DiGrande
They should go visit pcxmarkets.com, which is the gateway into our PCX markets platform where you can literally log in with an email and take action in the moment and drive impact against the plastic waste crisis. and if you wanna reach me directly, by all means, do at sebastian.degrande@pcs dotcom. I am very accessible, especially to anyone who wants to support our mission, and who would like to talk more.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect. Well, hey, Sebastian. I really draw that conversation and look forward to following along as you multiply your impact and get to, 1,000,000, 2,000,000, 10,000,000 tons, of fasting per reduction. So thanks for what you're doing.

Sebastian DiGrande
For the time, Richard. I enjoyed the conversation.

Richard Medcalf
Well, that's a wrap. If you received value from this conversation, please do leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Redidly appreciate it. And if you'd like to check out the show notes from this episode, head to expodrant.com/podcast, where you'll find all the details. Now, finally, When you're in top leadership, who supports and challenges you at a deep level to help you multiply your impact. The cover more about the different ways we can support you at xquadrant.com.

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