The Dinner Table Revolution: How Neil Gaught took the purpose debate global

Rather than confining his inquiries to conference stages or boardrooms, Gaught took a different route: he hit the road — and the dinner table. Partnering globally with multinational market research giant Ipsos, and facilitators locally, he embarked on an unconventional world tour that became known as the CORE Dinner Debate Series. The format was refreshingly simple. In 17 major cities, from London to Beirut, Toronto to Singapore, Gaught invited 20 influential leaders from business, academia, civil society, and government to an intimate, Chatham House Rule-governed dinner to discuss the barriers preventing businesses from adopting models that genuinely serve all stakeholders.

While Gaught did deliver keynotes and conduct workshops along the way, his real objective was to listen and learn. What stood out was not only the candour with which guests spoke — protected by the informal setting — but also the remarkable consistency of the challenges they identified. Across continents and sectors, leaders voiced common frustrations: short-termism baked into capital markets, an entrenched shareholder-first mindset, regulatory inertia and an overwhelming sense of systemic complexity.

The initiative attracted an impressive range of participants. Senior executives came from household names such as Unilever, Mastercard, Walmart, BlackRock, Maersk, and Aviva, as well as disruptors like Lyft, Ripple, and Dig Inn. Academics from institutions including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Copenhagen Business School brought intellectual heft, while NGOs such as the Clinton Foundation, Ashoka, Oxfam, and the UN Global Compact offered critical social and environmental perspectives. Government officials from New Zealand and Denmark also lent their voices.

Importantly, the conversations were not exercises in corporate virtue signalling. Participants openly acknowledged the contradictions within their organisations and sectors. The dinners served as safe spaces to interrogate hard truths and reflect on whether, and how, their organisations could adapt to a world demanding more responsible and regenerative forms of capitalism.

The insights Gaught gathered — from Auckland to New York, Copenhagen to Dubai — would later form the backbone of his second book published in 2021, CORE: The Playbook, a practical guide for organisations serious about making purpose actionable rather than ornamental.

The tour’s success was measured not only by the quality of its insights but also by its authenticity. Gaught largely self-funded the initiative, refusing corporate sponsorship to maintain independence. Conscious of the tour’s environmental impact, he also financially offset the carbon footprint of his travel. The result was a project that embodied the very principles it sought to explore — credible, committed and quietly radical.

As debates over the future of capitalism rage on, the lessons from Gaught’s CORE Dinner Debate Series are as relevant as ever. True change, it seems, might not come from grand pronouncements or glossy ESG reports, but from candid conversations around the dinner table — followed by determined action.

A list of all the organisations represented by senior leaders who contributed to the 2018/19 Core Dinner Debates series:

Business
Arla Foods International
Aviva
Bank of New Zealand
Banque Libano-Française
Blackrock
Blom Bank
Cedenco Foods
Centrica
Circular Norway
Community Clothing
Coop Danmark
Decathlon
Canada
Dell
Dig Inn
Douglas Pharmaceuticals
Fonterra
Fiera Capital
FransaBank
Gaz Métro (Canada)
Hawkins
HP
IBM (Blockchain)
Inter Ikea Group
IPSOS MORI
Investment Fund for Developing Countries
Kordia
KPMG
Leon
Lyft
Maersk
Marks & Spencers
MasterCard
Nordic Impact
Novo Nordisk
NTD (Norden ) Apparel Inc
Ørsted (pka DONG Energy)
Portland Trust
Pearson
Ripple
Société Générale (Canada)
SourceTrace
Sumitomo,Corporation of Americas
Unilever
Visa
Walmart

Academia
American University of Beirut
Cambridge University (CISL)
Copenhagen Business School
Cranfield Business School
John Hopkins
Metropolitan University, London
Säid Business School, Oxford
Harvard (Shared Value Initiative)
Questrom School of Business Boston University

NGO’s and multilaterals
Ashoka
B Corps (UK)
Business Fights Poverty
CARE
Clinton Foundation
Conference Board of Canada
DAI
Danish Institute for Human Rights
DEVEX
Ethical Trading Initiative
Forum for the Future
Foundation Stéphan Crétier
InterAction
InterAmerican Development Bank
International Rescue Committee
Global Communities
Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
Nesta
Oxfam
Save the Children
Sustainable Brands
Sustainatopia
The Sustainability Curriculum Consortium
The World Bank
UNDP
UN New York
UN Global Compact
US Chamber of Commerce
US Green Building Council
Vital Voices
World Cocoa Foundation
WWF

Government
New Zealand Trade & Enterprise
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark

List of host cities:
Amsterdam
Auckland
Beirut
Berlin
Brussels
Copenhagen
Dubai
London
Montreal
New York
Oslo
Paris
Philadelphia
Singapore
Sydney
Toronto
Washington DC,