Joanna Yarrow Keynote Speaker

Expertise in sustainable business & ESG; sustainable living, communications & engagement
Chief Impact Officer - Human Nature
Global Head of Sustainable & Healthy Living for IKEA (2017-2020)

Joanna Yarrow's Biography

Joanna Yarrow is one of the UK’s most trusted & compelling voices on leadership, agency & systems change.

Her career spans business, creativity, place & public engagement, giving her rare credibility with senior leaders navigating complexity, scrutiny & transition.

She was formerly Global Head of Sustainable & Healthy Living at IKEA, where she helped shape global purpose-led strategy at scale – evolving the company’s approach to sustainable living so it became more accessible, affordable & desirable for millions of people.

She later became Chief Sustainability Officer at M&C Saatchi, introducing the Group’s first strategic approach to people & planet across a global creative business. During this period, she also co-founded M&C Saatchi Life, pioneering new models at the intersection of creativity, culture & positive impact.

Across her work at IKEA & M&C Saatchi, Joanna operated across 30+ international markets, working with global leadership teams while remaining deeply grounded in local context. This has given her a rare ability to translate ideas across cultures, sectors & scales, bringing global pattern recognition together with hyperlocal, human insight.

Joanna is now Chief Impact Officer at Human Nature, a campaigning development company designing neighbourhoods that make sustainable living easy, attractive & socially normal – shifting the focus from individual behaviour change to system & place-based transformation.

Earlier in her career, Joanna founded Beyond Green, a pioneering strategic sustainability advisory practice focused on how and where we live – from masterplanning, city strategies & regeneration projects to large-scale lifestyle & behaviour-change programmes, including national energy & water-saving campaigns with Procter & Gamble & the Energy Saving Trust. Alongside this, her work in journalism, broadcasting & public engagement helped bring environmental & social issues into the mainstream.

Across all her work, Joanna is known for translating complex global challenges into clear, practical leadership action, combining intellectual rigour with emotional intelligence & real-world decision-making.

She speaks regularly to CEOs, boards, investors, policymakers & creative leaders navigating uncertainty, backlash & transition – particularly when the old playbooks no longer work.

How Shall We Live? – From consumer choice to system design

Explores how leaders can redesign products, services, organisations & places so sustainable behaviour becomes normal, desirable & commercially viable.

Moral Ambition in a Time of Cynicism

Addresses leadership when doing the right thing is under fire, focusing on courage, credibility & integrity in messy contexts.

Agency Under Constraint

Shows how credible, human-scale action unlocks momentum even when systems feel stuck.

The Places That Shape Us

Demonstrates how where we live determines how we live, positioning place as policy.

Leadership Without the Safety Net

Offers practical frameworks for confident decision-making when certainty is unavailable.

Culture Is the System

Explains why change fails when culture is ignored, & how to redesign systems so change sticks.

CHAIRING, HOSTING & MODERATION

Joanna is an experienced & trusted chair and moderator for C-suite panels, investor & policy roundtables, fireside conversations & flagship conference sessions. She is particularly valued for her ability to hold intellectual rigour without ego, create psychological safety & navigate disagreement constructively.

ADVISORY WORK

Joanna undertakes a small number of advisory roles, supporting organisations navigating strategy under climate, social & reputational risk; purpose, credibility & governance; & place-based & systems-change approaches.

She brings rare cross-sector authority on leadership, agency and systems change, shaped by senior roles spanning global business, creativity, place and public engagement.
She draws on experience leading sustainable living strategy at IKEA to show leaders how to make purpose-led transformation practical, scalable and commercially credible across international markets.
She offers board-level insight into embedding people and planet strategy inside complex organisations, informed by her work as Chief Sustainability Officer at M&C Saatchi and co-founder of M&C Saatchi Life.
She helps leaders navigate complexity, scrutiny and backlash, translating global challenges into clear decisions and actions when legacy playbooks no longer work.
She brings a distinctive place-based lens through her role at Human Nature, showing organisations how systems, neighbourhoods and culture can make sustainable living the default.