Rob Dobi
Many companies today declare a corporate purpose and subsequently find that translating it into strategy, culture, and daily decisions is difficult. Underlying that challenge is a critical question: Who will ensure that a purpose commitment is operationalized?1
In response, companies seeking to institutionalize purpose are creating a new executive role. Cisco, Deloitte, Virgin Atlantic, and others have appointed chief purpose officers (CPOs), signaling that organizations are increasingly recognizing the need for dedicated leadership of these efforts. (See “What Every CPO Must Do.”) Our study of 56 of these emergent leaders reveals that individuals can take markedly different approaches to the role, depending on how purpose is conceived at their organization and the degree to which it has been operationalized.2
We identified four leadership archetypes that reveal distinct ways in which purpose becomes operational and examined the conditions that enable or constrain their impact. Different types of CPOs face distinct execution barriers that can cause purpose to stall. In this article, we’ll look at each leadership profile and explain how to determine which aligns best with current organizational needs.
Four Types of Purpose Leadership
Of the four distinct types of CPOs we encountered in our sample, the largest group (39%) was the visionaries, who aim to inspire shared meaning and emotional connection. About one-fifth were activists, who confront institutional contradictions and use purpose as a moral compass, while one-quarter were architects, who strive to institutionalize purpose through governance and systems. PR strategists were the smallest group (16%); they prioritize crafting coherent narratives that align brands and communication. We’ll look at each archetype in turn.
Visionary CPOs often emerge in smaller, family-owned, or founder-led organizations. In these settings, values are often deep in the company’s DNA but not explicitly articulated or translated into strategy.3 For these leaders, purpose is an ethical and social obligation that must be lived collectively but not necessarily communicated outward. They inspire others to embrace and embody the organization’s purpose, fostering collective commitment to executing a purpose-driven strategy. They translate the company’s core values into a shared sense of meaning for employees. Their leadership is deeply personal, and they identify closely with the organizational purpose.
Visionary CPOs prioritize helping employees connect to purpose on an emotional level. Their storytelling is unscripted and relational: It surfaces in conversation, in shared rituals, and in how employees describe their own work to one another. They may host reflection circles, where employees share how their work connects to the company’s purpose; run coaching sessions focused on aligning personal and organizational purpose; and hold offsite retreats that give teams space to explore why their work matters and how it contributes to fulfilling the company’s purpose. One Danish fashion company holds weekly meetings in a park to reflect on its social impact. Small rituals like these sustain collective reflection and strengthen what one leader called the “emotional glue” that binds people across the organization.
These types of CPOs tend to cultivate influence by building personal connections and informal networks rather than via formal authority. They participate in company sports, join lunch conversations, and use everyday interactions as opportunities to reinforce shared meaning. Many view such a relational approach as the optimal way to create soft power and trust. By weaving purpose into daily relationships, visionary CPOs allow it to diffuse organically to become part of how people experience belonging and identity at work.
These leaders also seek to empower others to lead, recognizing that making purpose a shared responsibility helps facilitate organizational change. Many create cross-functional teams that host purpose dialogues, pilot new practices, and surface dilemmas for senior leaders to address.
Visionary CPOs may find it challenging to be seen as a strategic peer in the C-suite, given that purpose work often does not yield immediately tangible outcomes. Several study participants noted that their work was initially dismissed as “nice to have” rather than essential to organizational performance. Over time, most visionary CPOs learn that their own credibility depends on demonstrating how purpose advances business results. To achieve that, they must balance the work of translating moral conviction into measurable impact with efforts to maintain the human connection that makes purpose stick among their organization’s internal audience.
Activist CPOs work on the front lines of corporate transformation. They are most often situated in large, complex organizations characterized by conflicting stakeholder demands and sensitive issues. When such organizations are confronted with commercial pressures, political tensions, or inertia, they often struggle to uphold their stated values. The goal of the activist CPO is to challenge the status quo and ignite new energy. They see their role as reminding people what the organization stands for, holding it accountable to its purpose, and confronting drift and ethical blind spots.
Their leadership style is bold and unapologetic as they ask uncomfortable questions to probe whether decisions are prioritizing profit over people and purpose. One CPO urged the board to withdraw from a lucrative but ethically questionable market; another paused a multimillion-dollar product launch because it conflicted with the company’s stated values.
Some activists push for change beyond organizational boundaries, seeing purpose as a vehicle for systemic change. As one said, “I want to help change entire systems. … If this is how capitalism works, then let’s rewire it.” These leaders may run awareness initiatives like climate science briefings and social justice workshops, aiming to focus attention on the organization’s role within broader society.
The greatest challenge for activist CPOs is maintaining legitimacy: They must balance moral conviction with strategic credibility in order to push boundaries but avoid being labeled as troublemakers. Their credibility may also be questioned if some stakeholders see them as showing inadequate commitment to particular issues. Too much advocacy risks alienating leadership, while too much caution may erode trust among employees.
Failures occur when conviction turns into confrontation. Activists who push too hard without building coalitions risk marginalization. Without organizational support, isolation and moral fatigue can set in, turning purpose advocacy into frustration rather than transformation.
Activist CPOs who achieve sustainable cultural transformation build alliances while gradually shifting organizational logic and norms. For example, one CPO described how they consistently asked in meetings how decisions were connected to the organization’s purpose. It took years, but their colleagues eventually began proactively applying purpose as a decision-making filter in investment and strategy discussions — without needing to be prompted. Another noted that consistent questioning, once dismissed as idealism, eventually became part of how strategy meetings were framed. Activist CPOs’ influence is slow but transformative. They move the discussion away from asking whether an action is necessary and toward considering whether it aligns with the organization’s identity and values, and ultimately, its purpose.
Architect CPOs typically operate at the upper levels of large multinationals. In such environments, a formal purpose statement usually exists but has yet to be fully understood and adopted across the organization. Architect CPOs primarily identify as institutional changemakers who build the structural foundations that enable purpose to become relevant, durable, and measurable. Rather than relying on bottom-up engagement, they strive to hardwire purpose into the systems that drive performance. In doing so, they demonstrate that a strategically embedded purpose can endure beyond the tenure of any individual leader.
Architect CPOs focus on alignment between purpose, strategy, structure, and performance systems. For instance, from 2017 to 2019, Lara Bezerra was the CPO at Roche Pharma India, while also leading the division. She linked incentives and performance metrics to patient outcomes and community impact, ensuring that purpose shaped how success was defined and rewarded.
Architect CPOs’ work often involves redesigning policies, restructuring the organization, and building decision frameworks that help maintain alignment between values and commercial priorities. Most such frameworks track both financial indicators and metrics that evaluate sustainability performance or social impact so that they can show evidence that values-based decisions are aligned with the health of the business.
Sustaining momentum can be a challenge for architect CPOs amid bureaucratic inertia, competing priorities, and limited resources. Progress can be invisible and results easily overshadowed by short-term pressures, so they must learn to strike a balance between conviction and pragmatism.
PR strategist CPOs excel at crafting a cohesive narrative around purpose. The role often takes this shape in large, dispersed, brand-driven organizations where the purpose must be communicated consistently across geographies and stakeholders. PR strategists construct a deliberate, repeatable story designed to align how the organization is understood by employees, customers, investors, and the public. They align internal commitments and external reputation around a shared pro-social story that’s intended to engage and influence key stakeholders, foster identification with the organization’s values, and motivate behavior consistent with its overarching purpose.
Most such CPOs come from backgrounds in communications, marketing, or branding and view themselves as the storytellers of purpose — responsible for how it is articulated, shared, and believed both within and outside the company. Their appointment often signals a formal public commitment to purpose.
PR strategist CPOs look for creative ways to make purpose visible and credible. Some amplify employee voice through storytelling campaigns that highlight personal purpose moments and are curated, produced, and shared at scale. Others integrate social commitments into product portfolios or employer branding. These CPOs succeed by making sure the purpose is known and valued in people’s daily work.
However, while PR strategist CPOs understand the power of purpose to inspire stakeholders, they often lack the authority to embed it structurally within their organizations. Their challenge is legitimacy and reach among internal stakeholders. They are expected to build belief but are not always empowered to reshape the systems that sustain it. These leaders risk becoming figureheads who are powerful in communication but peripheral to real change in settings where purpose work is not actually mature and purpose remains confined to messaging rather than embedded in decisions and visible in actions. In the worst cases, storytelling replaces structural action, leading to “purpose-washing.” This misalignment can give rise to moral and identity dilemmas as CPOs try to reconcile their professional role as guardians of corporate purpose with actions that contradict the values they are meant to uphold. Over time, such tensions may precipitate personal and organizational identity crises, eroding both ethical integrity and institutional coherence.
Which CPO Type Fits Your Organization?
In deciding what kind of executive is best suited to lead the purpose initiative within an organization, senior leaders should ask themselves, “Are we trying to renew culture, realign strategy, or rebuild trust?” Our Purpose Leadership Fit model is a simple and practical way for boards and CEOs to identify the type of purpose leader who can help them move forward. We’ve found that organizational types often correspond to a particular stage of maturity, certain purpose objectives, and a particular type of leader. The four scenarios below set out the fit; the challenges each leader will face are summarized in “CPO Archetypes Approaches and Challenges.”
1. At smaller, founder-led, or early-stage organizations beginning their purpose journeys, the job to be done is to build purpose awareness and drive cultural renewal. The focus here must be on forging an emotional connection and engaging employees.
Best fit: Visionary CPO
Success factors: To build credibility and influence beyond inspiration, the visionary CPO should prioritize developing a small set of credible metrics that demonstrate how purpose affects outcomes such as engagement, retention, or customer advocacy. They should invest in informal, trust-based mechanisms (such as rituals, narratives, and peer networks) that anchor purpose in daily behaviors and decisions.
2. Large or complex organizations undergoing change where leadership is open to confronting profit-principle tensions are developing maturity in operationalizing purpose. In these settings, a CPO must drive accountability and challenge established norms to align purpose with action.
Best fit: Activist CPO
Success factors: Activist CPOs must build coalitions that span functions and hierarchies. They need to establish structured yet psychologically safe spaces for employees to voice misalignments. Their most important role is to secure visible sponsorship from senior leaders and governance bodies to sustain their mandate.
3. Multinational corporations with more maturity in their practice are typically integrating purpose into strategy and governance. Here, the CPO needs to more deeply embed purpose into systems and measures of outcomes, such as performance metrics.
Best fit: Architect CPO
Success factors: To ensure that their frameworks take root, architect CPOs must emphasize simplicity, clarity, and relevance at every level of the organization. They should design dual-KPI systems and governance structures that institutionalize purpose without creating unnecessary bureaucracy and link incentives to stakeholder value, not just financial returns.
4. Large, brand-driven organizations that have a mature, authentic, and well operationalized purpose practice must still build credibility and stakeholder trust as part of their competitive positioning. CPOs have to skillfully communicate purpose to build trust and keep internal culture aligned with external reputation.
Best fit: PR strategist CPO
Success factors: Communication must align with substantive progress. PR strategist CPOs should collaborate with HR, operations, and strategy to ensure that the stories they share are grounded in action and include concrete outcomes to make abstract values tangible.
No single leadership type fits every situation. The choice depends on how mature the organization’s purpose already is and whether the immediate work is to shift culture, confront contradictions, build systems, or sustain credibility.
Most organizations define purpose statements but falter when it comes to embedding purpose in strategy and execution. Our research suggests that this is a leadership gap. The four archetypes — visionary, activist, architect, and PR strategist — offer different approaches to the challenge of how to make a purpose commitment durable inside an institution.
As organizations move to appoint a CPO, they must ask: Which kind of leader is needed now? What work must they do? When will the work change? What support will enable them to succeed? The leaders who get this right will understand that their job is not to embody purpose permanently but to institutionalize it so thoroughly that their own archetype, in time, becomes unnecessary.