Building a Corporate Impact Movement from the Inside Out

When Gainsight decided to launch a social impact initiative, they didn't want a donation strategy. They wanted something that reflected who they actually were — a company built on the belief that business should be human-first — and that could mobilize their peer network to act alongside them.

We came in as a true extension of the core team. Starting with landscape research and stakeholder engagement, we identified Gainsight's social impact North Star: an equitable, human-first Customer Success industry that reflects the diverse world around us. From there, we built the full strategic architecture — mission and vision, brand positioning, program approach, and a custom Programmatic Roadmap designed for long-term scale.

When it came time to launch, we prepared Gainsight's Chief People Officer for her announcement at Pulse — the company's annual conference with 15,000 attendees — working through the deck and the presentation until the story was as sharp as the strategy behind it.

Within six months of launch, Pulse Impact had secured $2.5M in corporate commitments to expand equal access to education and career opportunities.

"Jyah's ability to produce a vision for the future of our impact strategy, world-class content, advice on resourcing to equip my team to run, and coaching was bar none. All this while being an absolute pleasure to work with — she is truly the kind of leader and advisor you see on your calendar and say a resounding 'YES!' Without a doubt would recommend partnering with Jyah." — Chief People Officer, Gainsight

From Sketches to Runner-Up

In 2014, Cienne’s founder came to us with sketches, fabric swatches, and a vision: a women's fashion brand where aesthetics and ethics coexist. Those were nearly her exact words. Everything else needed to be built.

We started at the beginning. Brand strategy, the original brand book, values, voice, and content strategy — the full foundation. From there we sourced and project-managed the creative partners who would bring the brand to life: the creative director who developed the visual identity from logo to packaging to sales tags, and the digital agency that built and launched the e-commerce presence in May 2015. We sourced and led every external creative relationship in the brand's first years.

Five years in, the CFDA + Lexus Fashion Initiative came calling. She called us.

We co-led the brand's participation end to end. Milestones included an NYU Stern MBA case study on manufacturing strategy, formalization of a NEST ethical artisan partnership, an exclusive artisan partnership with a NEST-certified group, and development of a compostable packaging collaboration. We refined the brand's impact purpose, built a five-year impact strategy roadmap across business model, innovation, partnerships and storytelling, and led creation of a 48-page Sustainability Manual.

The brand was awarded a specially created Runner-Up prize for outstanding progress throughout the program. Prior to that, it had been named a semi-finalist for the International Woolmark Prize and received coverage in Vogue, Vogue Italia, The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, WWD, Harper's Bazaar, British Vogue, Vanity Fair, W Magazine, Elle, and more.

The brand closed during the pandemic. The foundation we built together lasted the full life of the business.

"I have had the pleasure of working and collaborating with Everywhere Except throughout the last five years, on projects such as brand development, business strategy, and sustainability for my women's clothing brand. She possesses an unwavering passion and commitment in all that she does, and is a valuable thought partner and creative thinker. Together, we crafted early-stage brand development — internal brand identity, values, voice, and content strategy, from ideation to execution. Her research-based approach, combined with her innovative ideas, allows for brand differentiation and positive social and environmental impact. Her efforts are invaluable." — Nicole Heim, Founder

"Everywhere Except brought us in as a digital partner on the launch of this sustainable luxury fashion brand. We worked side by side for nearly three years. Many talk the talk, but few walk the walk — Jyah is one of those few who not only delivers, but over-delivers on her promise. Deeply engaged in her client's missions, Jyah brings strategic vision, creative acumen, impeccable taste, and unsurpassable integrity to her relationships and work product." — Masha Spaic, Former Head of Integrated Production, Hugo & Marie

Bringing the Next Generation into the Room

A Fortune 500 consumer company's research and innovation team had a problem they couldn't solve from the inside: they didn't actually know their next-generation consumer. Not really. Their existing research reflected an older, narrower demographic — and the consumers they needed to understand, Gen Z, Millennials, people of color, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ communities, weren't in the room.

We put them in the room.

Working directly with the R&D team, we designed and produced a series of qualitative consumer sessions — curating participant lists, managing outreach and logistics, and facilitating live dialogue between their innovation team and the consumers they were trying to reach. Each session was built around a specific product category and consumer profile. The conversations that followed gave their team something no traditional research methodology had produced: direct, unfiltered cultural intelligence from the people whose lives their products needed to fit.

Case study details anonymized at client request.

Unifying a Social Impact Ecosystem

Alteryx had built something genuinely substantive. A DE&I program. Employee Resource Groups. ESG commitments. Philanthropy and volunteerism initiatives. Each program was real, well-intentioned, and operating in its own lane — which meant the collective power of what Alteryx was actually doing was invisible, both internally and externally.

That's the gap we came in to close.

Over six months, we mapped the competitive landscape, surfaced a unified vision through cross-organizational stakeholder engagement, and built a refreshed brand architecture for Alteryx for Good — one that gave every initiative a shared foundation without erasing what made each one distinct.

What they had at the end was something they didn't have before — a shared language. A brand identity, a communications strategy, and an executive voice framework that finally let them organize and talk about everything they'd been building as one coherent story, internally and externally.

Alteryx's internal team took that foundation and ran.

"Jyah brought fresh and innovative concepts to our team, presented a strategy that brought together diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, sustainability, and volunteerism/philanthropy in a way that aligned with our overall brand. She had extensive knowledge on leading social impact strategies, was very familiar with the tech industry, and was able to help us identify our differentiator. It was refreshing to take a step back while Jyah consistently communicated updates and progress — a thought leader, strategic thinker, creative, excellent communicator, and demonstrated how we could tactfully take action on the delivered global plan." — Lori Harder, Social Impact Leader, Alteryx