Leaders Shaping Markets

The initiative

Leaders Shaping Markets builds and supports a community of people who work on changing how the systems that undergird our economic markets work. The initiative was formed by Criterion Institute in 2012 in response to the knowledge that, while much attention has been paid to social impact efforts at the level of the enterprise, far less has been focused on systems change–the work of durably reshaping how large scale systems operate. Flip Labs took over Leaders Shaping Markets in 2014, with ongoing support and guidance from the initiative's founders.

The Leaders Shaping Markets initiative enables the people who have demonstrated a commitment to the work of systems-level change to come together and collaborate. We aim to connect the practitioners and leaders in this space in order to identify commonalities across different endeavors, coordinate efforts and resources, and create tools that can support their work. Together, we are working to better understand how complex systems function, and how best to create lasting change within them.

Perspectives on Shaping Markets, from Criterion Institute »

Shaping market systems

Recognizing that markets and market systems are social and cultural constructions, we ask:

  • How does one go about changing the practices of market systems?
  • What are the strategies that over time create sustainable change?
  • What leadership styles, organizational models and skills development support the long term engagement in systems change?
  • How do we engage with and through power dynamics that keep the existing rules in place?
  • How do we measure impact, both in terms of intermediate shifts in systems and long term affect on social and environmental conditions?

Steering committee

Joy Anderson

President and Founder, Criterion Institute

Rachel Sinha

Co-Founder, Finance Innovation Lab