Originally published at Workshops Work. Available here.
March 10, 2026
As her classmates chanted the purpose of business (spoiler: to make money), Philippa White couldn’t help but feel like she’d wandered into the wrong room, as the business school black sheep.
She’d grown up watching her uncle bridge worlds in apartheid South Africa – endlessly curious, fascinated by people and possibility, and the doctor of Nelson Mandela. He taught Philippa something that no business school curriculum was ever going to: the return on being more human. Today, she takes this conviction into boardrooms across the world.
We got into what happens when people genuinely care about each other at work, and what it costs when they don’t. As Philippa will tell you, connection and belonging isn’t the soft, smushy stuff in business, it’s by far your greatest asset.
✨✨✨
If you miss the “workshops work” podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/
