What happens when one person decides that waiting for change is no longer an option?

When Mark van Baal looked at the climate crisis, he saw a problem that seemed impossible to influence. The world’s largest oil companies appeared untouchable. Governments moved slowly. Consumers had limited power. Most people accepted that meaningful change would have to come from somewhere else.

Mark chose a different path.

With no background in finance, shareholder activism or corporate governance, he bought a single share and walked into a world few outsiders ever enter: the boardrooms and annual meetings of the world’s most powerful energy companies.

What started as a simple question – why aren’t oil companies aligning their business models with the Paris Climate Agreement? – became Follow This, a global shareholder movement representing thousands of investors and challenging companies such as Shell, BP, Chevron, Equinor and ExxonMobil.

The journey was anything but straightforward. He was dismissed, underestimated and told repeatedly that one person could not influence corporations worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet year after year, support for Follow This grew. Institutional investors joined the movement. Climate resolutions gained momentum. And some of the world’s largest oil companies were forced to respond.

Then came the backlash.

In 2024, ExxonMobil took the unprecedented step of suing Follow This in an attempt to stop climate resolutions from reaching shareholder ballots. For many, it would have been a reason to step back. For Mark, it was proof that the movement had become impossible to ignore.

His story is not just about climate change.

It is about conviction in the face of resistance. About challenging systems that seem too large to change. About turning a lone voice into a global movement. And about what becomes possible when someone decides to act instead of waiting for permission.

At the Change Makers Breakfast, Mark shares the personal story behind the public mission: the doubts, the setbacks, the unexpected victories and the lessons learned while taking on some of the most powerful companies in the world.

Because every movement starts with a single voice that refuses to stay silent.

Every movement needs a first story.

For the inaugural Change Makers Breakfast, we welcomed Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s. Not because he built one of the world’s most iconic brands, but because he demonstrated something much more powerful: that business can be a vehicle for change.

Long before terms like ESG, stakeholder capitalism and corporate activism entered boardroom conversations, Ben was asking a different question:

What if success was measured by more than profit alone?

What began as a small ice cream business grew into a platform for social impact, proving that companies can be commercially successful while standing for something bigger than themselves. Throughout his journey, Ben consistently challenged the idea that businesses should remain neutral observers of societal change. Instead, he showed how entrepreneurship can become a force for progress.

During an intimate and candid conversation Ben shared the personal story behind the public success. Not the polished version, but the lessons, doubts, convictions and decisions that shaped his path.

What resonated most was a simple but powerful idea:

Business is not on the sidelines of change. It can be one of its most powerful engines.

The conversation explored the role of values in leadership, the responsibility that comes with influence, and the importance of measuring what truly matters. It reminded everyone in the room that meaningful change rarely starts with institutions. It starts with individuals who are willing to challenge accepted norms and persist long enough to bring others along.

That morning set the tone for the Change Makers Breakfast series.

Not a stage for celebrity entrepreneurs.
A platform for people who turned conviction into action.
People who refused to accept that things had to stay the way they were.
People who used their voice to create change.
And that is exactly why Ben Cohen was our first Change Maker!