THE BUSINESS CHIEF INTERVIEW

A SPORT BUILT ON SPEED, Jeff Dodds is playing a long game. The Chief Executive of the world’ s only all-electric motorsport championship brings with him a career spanning automotive, media and telecoms. He has worked with Volvo, Honda and Virgin Media, and developed a background that blends commercial rigour with an instinct for disruption. In 2023, Jeff took on the sport’ s top job. The appointment connected his years in media and telecoms with a sport he had long been drawn to.“ I had an itch to do something different,” Jeff explains.“ I wanted to do something really purposeful that I felt passionate about, and I have a passion for motorsport. You put those three things together and this would be it.” The series, now in its 12th season, races across 10 countries and is backed by manufacturers including Porsche, Jaguar and Nissan. It is the only motorsport championship to have held a net zero carbon footprint since its inaugural season. For Jeff, this headline achievement is just a starting point.“ When I arrived here three years ago, the business was very proud of its number one ranking in the Global Sustainability Sports Index,” Jeff explains.

“ My challenge back to them was: that is amazing, congrats – very low bar. Sport is a very low bar.” His response was to shift the benchmark entirely.“ My challenge to my team is often when they say,‘ We think this is a really good idea,’ I’ ll normally say to them,‘ Okay, so how would we test that?’ Because if we can test it without breaking the business and learn a load of stuff and iterate it, that’ s a great win.” Formula E pursued certification as a B Corp, a designation awarded by the non-profit B Lab to companies that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency. Certification requires meeting a minimum score across five areas including governance, workers, community, environment and customers, and must be independently audited every three years.“ The reason we went through the B Corp process was to pitch ourselves against the 10,000 other companies in the world that are reaching a threshold that’ s way beyond where sport is,” Jeff continues. The series also holds a BSI Pathway to Net Zero certification, issued by the British Standards Institution, which independently verifies an organisation’ s carbon footprint calculation and reduction roadmap.

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