In this episode of Leaders for Better, we sit down with Daragh Anglim, Head of Impact at Broadlake, one of Ireland’s most ambitious impact-driven investment groups, and a certified B Corp.

Broadlake operates on a simple but radical investment premise: 3X the size, 10X the positive impact. These aren’t separate goals; they are intrinsically linked. As Daragh puts it, there is no 3X without 10X, and no 10X without 3X.

In this conversation, Daragh unpacks what that actually means in practice: how impact gets embedded into portfolio companies, how Broadlake spots genuine impact alignment before bringing a business into the group, and why the hardest challenge in business today isn’t starting something purpose-led from scratch, but transforming existing businesses from the inside out. He also makes the case that the real opportunity, “the gold”, lies not in new impact startups, but in how we change the businesses that already exist.

Can you explain Broadlake’s 3X 10X ambition?

When we talk about 3X 10X three times of size, ten times the positive impact, they are intrinsically linked. There is no 3X without 10X, and there’s no 10X without 3X. We don’t do 3X three or four days a week and 10X on Thursdays and Fridays. 3X 10X is just part of how we run our business.  

When we talk about 3X driving 10X, 3X gives us the fuel as we grow and as we scale, it allows us to have a more positive impact. We are very fortunate that the businesses we are currently in, predominantly in the health and social care space, have a concrete and demonstrable social impact simply by delivering their services.

How has this ambition helped differentiate Broadlake from competitors?

It helps us attract and retain top talent. We have 5,000 people worldwide.

Those people want to feel like they’re working for a business that is focused on positive environmental and social impact as well as being commercially successful. So that helps us retain talent. At the same time, we have seen top talent increasingly coming to us because of our focus and impact. So a good example of that is that we recently filled about 10 to 11 senior positions across the group, both in Ireland and the UK, and every single one of those people who came for an interview mentioned impact as one of the reasons they wanted to work with Broadlake or with a Broadlake group company.

There is always a tension. There’s always competition for capital, for investing in 10x initiatives, 3x initiatives. But the reality is, we never make decisions that are either 3X or 10X; all of our decisions are made with a 3X and 10X lens. 

What does embedding an impact mindset actually look like in a portfolio company?

We are about four years into our 3X 10X journey. It doesn’t really have an end.  

We have already overachieved on the 3X side, and we are very close to achieving the 10X, in our first three-year iteration of it. We are now almost into cycle two of 3X 10X. But it’s really a mindset, it’s a way of thinking about growth and impact and having positively impactful businesses.

We measure 10X through what we call our HAVE Positive Impact Charter; four pillars into which all of our businesses have plans, with KPIs, measurements or targets that they track their progress towards 10X. The HAVE Positive Impact Charter stands for

Under each of those four pillars, every business has three KPIs. Those great KPIs have targets and measurement metrics, and they report on themmonthly.

For a new business coming to Broadlake, we spend a lot of time with them, helping them understand how core impact is to how we do business, how they apply the HAVE Positive Impact Charter to their business, and how to craft the metrics and measurements with them.  

How do you assess whether a business is truly aligned with your impact focus before bringing them into the group?

For existing businesses, we have a sense of how we are changing people’s lives through the services we provide: taking children out of crisis, taking families out of crisis, reducing waiting lists, and things like that. For a new portfolio company, they often don’t think that impact is one of the first things we’ll look at with them. We do due diligence to make sure they are the right fit for us. And then we focus on the people involved in that business, from the founder-entrepreneur to senior management, ensuring they are personally and values-wise aligned with a focus on growth and impact.  

If a business isn’t focused on growth and impact, we probably won’t progress with them. So, by the time we bring them into the group, they know about our focus on impact, and we quantify social impact with them very quickly. 

Broadlake lives by the motto ‘no finish line, just forward’ – tell us more about that mindset?

We describe ourselves as a year-one company. We are fortunate to be owned and operated by our original founders, both phenomenal entrepreneurs, both 100% focused on growth and impact. But we are now growing to the scale that while we’re still year one, we are kind of growing up a little bit.   

We still want to maintain our entrepreneurial rigour and mindset, but we are putting in place structures, processes, and people that allow us to scale quickly while maintaining them.

How do you identify leaders who will flourish in that environment? 

We have a thing called SWAF when we hire people: Skill, Will, Ambition and Fit.

When we advertise a job within any of our businesses, lots of people who apply will have the skill, the right qualifications. What’s more difficult is the other three.

We sometimes say that we’re looking for people like us, but you don’t need to be like us. We don’t want clones of ourselves; we don’t want people from a generic talent pool. But to fit in Broadlake, you do need a level of ambition, energy, and flexibility, because we are still very much evolving. If you come in with a rigid mindset or a kind of steady-state mindset, Broadlake is probably not the right home for you.

How does being a B Corp certified business change the decisions that you make day to day? 

The essence of B Corp is that we changed our constitution to remove shareholder primacy and to place the environment, society, and stakeholders on the same level as shareholders. That is the most important thing for us as a B Corp. 

For a lot of people looking at an investment group, businesses run by entrepreneurs looking to scale quickly, there’s an assumption that it is all being done to drive value for a few shareholders.

For us, the first thing in the B Corp journey was really the legal change – that statement of intent – and the types of businesses we wanted to create. And we changed all the constitutions about a year and a half before we actually got them certified. 

And for the businesses themselves, it is a great way to understand where they’re at on their impact journey relative to international organisations that operate to these high standards. With the new B Corp standards, where you’ve got to be doing it or not. It’s going to be really challenging for all of our businesses, but really exciting. Because it means that the standards that we say we’re living by are externally verified, independently verified. 

How do you tell the difference between a business that’s genuinely impact-driven and one that’s just quite good at talking about it? 

Identifying the differences between greenwashing and someone who’s really living to impact a purpose or living to purpose is difficult. I think the first thing that gives it away is how they treat their people. If they don’t really care about or really invest in their people, then all the other stuff is kind of a tiny bit shaky.  

The second thing is looking at how they treat their supply chain, customers, and service users. Again, the way you treat people and the people you buy from, where you choose to spend your money, I think, is very telling.

What’s your vision for the future of business in Ireland and globally? 

Over the last couple of weeks, I have spent a lot of time with phenomenal social entrepreneurs and impact-focused businesses. And what struck me with them was that they are set up to solve a specific environmental and social issue. Their core, and almost their reason for being, is to do that. And they will become hugely successful businesses — people will want to work for them, they’ll be brilliant. If you think about it, these are entrepreneurs kind of on the outside of the establishment. 

Then you’ve got all the entrepreneurs inside the establishment, or the existing businesses. For me, the opportunity is: how do we change those businesses from the inside? How do we create successful businesses in the traditional sense – revenue, EBITDA, profitability, employing people, contributing to tax and scaling, and proving that you can run a really good business in the traditional sense, while also integrating that focus on making society better, helping to contribute to cleaning up the environment. Ultimately, moving beyond negatives to net zeros to positives.

But that’s where it’s really difficult. It is much easier to set up a new business that has purpose, impact, whatever you want to call it, at the heart. It’s much more difficult for existing businesses to start to look at their total operations, how they engage with people, what they produce, and for them to fundamentally change that, while also keeping the company alive, keeping people employed, and all the good stuff companies do. 

Are there any leaders that inspire you and why?

Sycophantically, I really admire Pete Smith and BrianCrowley, the two founders of Broadlake. They are phenomenal entrepreneurs with an impact heart at the core of what they’re trying to do, and I think if I didn’t admire them as leaders, I wouldn’t be working with them.

I was recently at a conference where Eamon Ryan was speaking. It struck me that, as an Irish leader, he has a clear sense of where he wants the country to go, while at the same time trying to be as accommodating and collaborative with all stakeholders, regardless of their viewpoints.  

I hadn’t heard him speak in a while, and I think that we are missing people like him in political life. You don’t have to be a Green supporter, but people who have a very clear vision of where they think things should go, while at the same time were able to listen to others, take other people’s viewpoints and look for some kind of, coalition, collaboration that would bring people with them. I think that’s the type of leader I like.  

What does B Corp in action look like at Broadlake?

We are launching the Broadlake Foundation in the next couple of weeks. The Foundation is focused on working with high-potential, impactful organisations to help them scale their impact – bringing our 3X thinking to their 10X activities. We will provide a million euros per year, plus 2,000 hours of expertise from across our business.  

While a million euros is a huge amount of money, the real value is in the access to our people to help scale these high-potential organisations; everything from time with our CEO mentoring, strategy, branding, marketing, finance, commercial, technology, people and culture. We are bringing the expertise from across our ten businesses to help these impactful organisations scale.  

About Barden 

Barden is a partner-led talent advisory, recruitment, and executive search firm, with practices across Accounting, Legal & Tax, Technology, Transformation & Change, and other strategic business appointments.

We are passionate about people and work with organisations and individuals who believe talent decisions truly matter. We are proud to be B Corp Certified, using our business as a force for good. Innovative, ambitious, and united by shared values, we are a team of uniquely different personalities who are relentless in supporting each other and those we work with.

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