Our Story
Joanna Durr & Justine Foo
PURPOSE PARTNERS
It was over dinner in Atlanta in 2005 when the idea came to us. "Purpose is a lens."
We had worked together on purpose since 2001 - when the concept was just emerging in the business world - and we were starting to explore launching something together. A lens perfectly captured the clarifying power of purpose in both directions - helping you see a vision and future more clearly and helping you focus on the small things that matter in the day to day. Helping organizations see through a lens of purpose has connected everything we've done professionally over the last two decades. It has also been at the center of a collaborative intellectual curiosity that continues to inspire and energize us.
Our passion for purpose took root at BrightHouse, a small consultancy in Atlanta founded by Joey Reiman, an early advocate for organizations finding their "why". Joanna was a recent business graduate, and Justine had decided to pivot away from academia and apply her neuroscience background in a new arena. During our five years there, we developed our own perspective on a path to purpose that uncovered an organization's distinctiveness, authenticity and relevance. Surrounded by a cadre of creative and strategic thinkers, we recognized the importance of operating at that intersection - inspiring ideas while also connecting them to the practical reality. We soaked up conversations with academic thinkers from a full spectrum of disciplines - grounding us in the importance of connecting purpose to fundamental human truth and needs. And we listened to executives and leaders from a variety of profit and non-profit, large and small, organizations - taking away core lessons around how purpose can inform growth.
From there our paths led to different professional spheres - with a common connecting thread of bringing elevation and motivation to life in real ways with organizations and their stakeholders. As a Senior VP of Purpose, Joanna worked at the C-suite level in a multi-national Fortune 100 company - implementing purpose across functions, connecting it to strategy, and using it to shape communications and how an organization tells its story. As a Director of Insight, Justine explored the stories that connected stakeholders to brands and organizations - translating a deeper understanding of motivation into advocacy programs and more engaging experiences. As independent consultants, we helped a variety of organizations - from small tech start-ups to a 100+ year old manufacturer uncover their purpose and define their guiding principles. We worked with individual leaders to embed purpose personally, and top executive teams to identify new opportunities and talk about change as an authentic evolution of where the organization has been.
Along the way, we had countless conversations with people - from senior executives to recent college graduates - about their own sense of purpose. In 2024, we adapted our process for uncovering organizational purpose to individuals - helping reframe how they think about purpose in their own lives and connecting them with the strengths and positive impacts they bring to the world. In 2025, we were invited to be Fellows at Emory University, where we are focused on understanding the purpose mindset in young adults who will be the next generation in the workforce.
Today, Joanna and Justine both live in Asheville, NC - where they share a love of the outdoors, great food and good music.
Joanna Durr
Joanna is a results-driven business leader and storyteller who has helped shape many purpose-driven organizations.
Over the course of her career, Joanna has galvanized companies to outperform their competitors, supported senior leaders through major change initiatives, and engaged and energized employees to create productive and cohesive workplaces. Uniquely, in the area of purpose, she has worked as both a consultant and an executive operator with Fortune 500 companies including Newell Brands, The Coca-Cola Company, NCR, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and The Home Depot as well as start-up organizations across diverse industries.
Joanna spent much of her career with Newell Brands, where she led marketing for the $2.5B Home & Family business, that included the Rubbermaid, Graco, Calphalon, Levelor, and Goody brands, as they pivoted toward purpose. Ultimately, she became the Senior Vice President of Purpose for the company, where she partnered with leaders to develop business strategy and change-management programs that ensured strategic and operational alignment with the company’s purpose.
In 2022, Joanna Directed the feature-length documentary, Why is Mona Lisa Smiling? The Reimagination of the Corporation. The film was produced by FORTUNE Media and Brand New World Studios. It explores the shift toward purpose-driven business and stakeholder capitalism. Joanna and the film have been featured at numerous business conferences and events, as well as screenings at top business schools including Harvard, NYU, Emory and Cornell.
Prior to her executive experience, Joanna spent more than a decade with the consultancy BrightHouse, a BCG Company, where she was a pioneer in developing processes to uncover, identify, and articulate the concept of purpose in a business context.
Joanna is acknowledged in the business community as an expert in purpose and is often invited to speak on the topic with key influencers and decision makers. Her efforts have positively impacted broad aspects of business, including mergers & acquisitions, marketing and brand strategy as well as employee engagement, recruiting, and training.
Her personal life and interests further reflect her passion for purpose. She has chosen Asheville, North Carolina, as her permanent residence because of its immediate access to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and lively music, food, and art scene, as well as her extended family. She is a seasoned traveler, having visited and worked in over 30 countries, gaining inspiration from people everywhere she goes.
Justine Foo
Justine has helped organizations gain deeper insight into the people they employ and serve for over twenty years. With an advanced academic background in system dynamics and the brain sciences, she brings a unique perspective on what drives behavior. Her experience in the business world, mostly as an independent consultant, spans a broad range - including organizational and individual purpose, strategic planning and conducting employee insight to shape leadership development, branding/marketing, and advocacy programs.
Justine joined BrightHouse in 2001 after deciding to leave academia. Her focus initially was at in the emerging area of neuroscience and marketing. Called "the world's first neuromarketer" by New York Times Magazine, she was one of the first people in business world to operate at this intersection - conducting and presenting on neuroimaging research in the scientific community, while also counselling marketing teams at companies like Coca-Cola and Turner Entertainment on how to navigate through bias in consumer research.
While also working on purpose at BrightHouse and deepening her belief in purpose as an elevating organizational lens for engaging all stakeholders, Justine decided to pivot away from neuromarketing and scientific research to focus instead on stakeholder engagement more broadly. After leaving Atlanta, Justine joined Brains on Fire, a creative agency with a passion for elevating organizations through word-of-mouth movements. As Director of Insight, she helped develop identity and advocacy programs for Jason's Deli, Best Buy, and Caromont Health among others. She also advised their leadership teams in codifying their distinctive culture into a set of guiding principles.
Since 2009, Justine has worked on a wide variety of projects as an independent consultant - from helping executive leaders for a regional health system translate stakeholder research into strategies for patient-centered models of care - to helping shape a development program for a multi-billion-dollar construction company to train its next generation of leaders. As a senior consultant with Giant Leap Consulting, she has also led strategic planning for over 25 NSF-funded research centers since 2010 - helping them get aligned on how to approach their research and broaden its impact through education, innovation and outreach.
Justine fell in love with North Carolina as an undergrad at Wake Forest and currently lives in Asheville with her husband and two children. When not wearing her "business" hat, she enjoys being outside in the beautiful mountains. She is also a lover of American roots music and has enjoyed one of the best gigs in the business - working with the talented Tedeschi Trucks Band - since their debut in 2010.