BRUSSELS — Former Burson-Marsteller EMEA COO Katarina Wallin Bureau has left BoldT to start her own consultancy, focused on the intersection between corporate purpose and business performance.

Wallin Bureau becomes founder and managing partner of Rise, which already has executives in place in Brussels and London, and is backed by European technology and VC firm Cronos. 

"Against the backdrop of the intensifying global debate on the role of business in society, our goal is to help organisations rise above business as usual," said Wallin Bureau.

To assist companies successfully implement and measure progress, Rise has developed a matrix-based approach tailored across geographies and industries. 

“The benefits are real but there must be commitment and an engagement from the top levels of the corporation to transform the business to enable those benefits to be reflected in the balance sheet” said Geoff McDonald, a former Unilever executive who helped lead the transformation of the Anglo-Dutch giant through its corporate purpose strategy and has joined Rise as senior advisor.

Joining Wallin Bureau and McDonald at Rise are Robert McLeod, former editor-in-chief and CEO of global regulatory risk specialist MLex, and Mayssa Badr, a marketing and communications specialist who was most recently senior director at BCW.

Wallin Bureau joined BoldT as a partner last year, where she reunited with former Burson colleague Jeremy Galbraith.