Building Businesses with Purpose and Profit with Rachel Bernier-Green

Brian Thompson chats with Rachel Bernier-Green, founder and CEO of the Economic Justice Consortium, a Chicago-based firm that helps mission-driven businesses sustain and amplify their impact through financial and operational excellence. A recovering public accountant turned social entrepreneur, Rachel has dedicated her career to closing the racial wealth gap and redefining what it means to lead with purpose and profit.

In this episode, Rachel shares her journey from climbing the corporate ladder in public accounting, to running a social enterprise bakery that partnered with Whole Foods and Starbucks, and now guiding other entrepreneurs in building sustainable, values-driven businesses. She opens up about burnout, courage, and the lessons learned from failure, as well as how she helps clients reject hustle culture and build wealth for their communities.

Episode Highlights

Mission-driven businesses focus on impact and income.

Rachel defines a mission-driven business as one that “has a focus other than profit maximization.” Whether seeking to improve the environment, society, or treatment of employees, mission-driven businesses aim to make a positive net impact.

“People think if they have a greater purpose, they also don’t need to focus on profit,” Rachel said. “If you lose that focus on profit, your mission ceases to exist.”

Turn loss into leadership.

Rachel’s first entrepreneurial endeavor came when she left a toxic corporate environment and turned to baking as a stress outlet. Her bakery partnered with regenerative farms and hired previously incarcerated individuals, creating jobs that reduced recidivism in her Chicago community.

Nine years after starting her first company, a combination of a tragic ceiling collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately led to the business's closure. While it felt like a failure at the time, the experience led her to a bigger purpose — founding the Economic Justice Consortium to help other mission-driven businesses build sustainable success.

“There are some things you can only learn by going through a business that ends,” she said. “I do think that business needed to come to an end for me to do the work that I’m doing now, which will have a much more significant impact on the world.”

Track your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Economic Justice Consortium offers fractional CFO services and consulting services for operational systems and big-picture strategy. The firm also relies heavily on the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) strategic framework, which breaks down specific objectives based on the larger company mission and vision.

“We actually utilize our task management tool to track those objectives,” she said. “It incorporates a level of accountability. There’s an internal dashboard that the entire team has access to in real time, and they can see whether we’re on track or not on track with any of our OKRs.”

Rebuke hustle culture.

Rachel recommended the book “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Chicago professor Devin Price, which challenges the culture of overwork and redefines productivity. The book explores how the American work culture is misaligned with data science on productivity and has transformed how Rachel approaches her work and her expectations for her team.

“Hustle culture is very damaging on so many levels,” she said. “The book challenged me so much I had to sit down and come back to it because I had always prided myself on my work ethic and putting in the hours.”

Resources + Links

• Xero accounting software

• “Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine” by Mike Michalowicz

• “The Great Game of Business, Expanded and Updated: The Only Sensible Way to Run a Company” by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham

• “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price Ph.D.

• Rachel Bernier-Green: LinkedIn

• Economic Justice Consortium: Website, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok

• The Purpose Profit Shift Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS Feed

• Brian Thompson Financial: Website, Newsletter, Podcast

• Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes

About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast

Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and Certified Financial Planner® who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit.

On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.