Brian Linton (LinkedIn, Twitter) started out as a kid who loved fish and wound up founding United By Blue — a company that’s focused on cleaning up the world’s oceans. Despite starting the business in a recession, he’s thrived and learned lessons along the way about becoming a leader, building a focused business, and not losing sight of what’s really important. 

“When you look at the world, the world doesn’t need sustainability at this point. It needs to get better. And so we want to be a part of helping the world thrive.”

All of us hope we can change the world for the better, and some of us even wind up creating businesses with social change as a founding pillar. 

But building a socially responsible business, sticking to those tenets, and keeping the company profitable for the long haul? That’s a difficult task. How do you maintain your give-back structure if the model doesn’t work for the bottom line? How do you compete in an increasingly crowded field? What do you ultimately want your company to stand for? Brian had to answer all those questions and more. But, in the end, he made United By Blue a company that not only fulfills him personally but is financially successful and is helping lead the charge toward a more environmentally friendly and healthy world.