ZEBRA ECONOMY
This is the Future of Entrepreneurship—
where success is measured not just in dollars,
but in positive change.
The Zebra Economy is a smarter path to Profitability.
Are you ready to build a business that thrives
while making a difference?
Organisations today are struggling with so many challenges that we can safely speak of a poly-crisis. Are you familiar with Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting and Task Masking? All signs ofthe glaring lack of employee engagement.
How can business and policy leaders deal with this?
And above all, how do they build future-proof organisations?
A highway to hell?
Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general called the current economic system a ‘highway to hell’ – urging us to find an exit for as soon as possible.
We all know we live in VUCA world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. But the events of the last few months showed that we can also expect GUBU: the Grotesque, Unimaginable, Bizarre and Unpredictable.
How do we deal with that?
We are convinced that the zebra economy and zebra society can be at least part of the answer and put organizations on the path to new profits. Not only to return on investment, but also to return on sustainability.
Organizations that are inspired by zebras, where everything revolves around collaboration and care for each other, can pave the path to a healthy balance between satisfactory financial results and a strong societal impact and therefore realise double benefits.
We all hope for a brighter future
The future doesn’t just happen. It is not determined by destiny or fate. We shape it by the very decisions we make every day. With a dash of magical thinking and a strong dose of reality, we have the power to make it sustainable and profitable. Many Entrepreneurs believe already that building a Zebra economy is key to unlocking that prosperous future.
In a Zebra economy, businesses focused on impact not only survive but thrive because of their ability to draw high-performing talent, consumers, and capital. Impact investing can also be used as a way to achieve internal, social, and environmental goals without sacrificing financial returns.
What is Zebra Economy?
What is
Back in 2017, Mara Zepeda, Jennifer Brandel, Astrid Scholz & Aniyia Williams dubbed a growing number of companies as Zebras. Named after the striped animal for good reason, they are not only profitable but also purposeful. Tey are opposed to the so-called unicorns reaching over $1 billion in valuation, like de GAFAM-companies. (Google, Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft). The Zebra companies choose for a business model which is very different from that of a unicorn that is just as, if not more, important to the economy.
Zebra companies handle real, meaningful problems that consequently enable them to repair damaged social systems. Zebra companies are black and white. They are profitable yet they contribute to their communities and simultaneously improve them. In such infrastructures, doing well and doing good come hand in hand. One should never be sacrificed to fulfill the other.
Zebras are also social animals which spend most of their time in herds. Their strength lies in their numbers. Likewise, companies that embrace this new infrastructure can form a close-knit group where they share their individual input to achieve stronger collective output.
In our current landscape, Zebras struggle to survive because investors are too focused on finding the next Unicorn. That is very unfortunate because Zebra companies, at their core, aim to create sustainable and profitable businesses where employees and consumers are treated fairly and justly. Best of all, their growth is tied closely to the growth of the community. Zebra business models are more resilient.
The growth of Unicorn companies provides enormous wealth to a select group of individuals or shareholders. Zebra companies, on the other hand, have local communities as the beneficiaries of their growth. As they prosper, the communities they support flourish along with them.