Building culture one person at a time

Q. Take us through how the company got started. What was the philosophy in building the organization and what was the role of people at that time?
A. If you go back to 1991, the founding ideal was about impact. The world didn’t need another consulting company. Our founders Jerry (Greenberg) and Stuart (Moore) focused on value, culture and vision of purpose before they had any people in the company. The original purpose has evolved over the years, but it’s all in the same genre: To make a huge dent in the world. In terms of people, the idea was that if you could have really smart people, if you could have a differentiating approach, and you could put those two together, you’d have the ingredients of a pretty great company right there. There was a lot about the relationship between people and talent. That’s why we use “Sapient People” and not employees because we don’t want that contractual relationship; we are in a journey together. People debate if culture can scale or not