Who Are You Without the Business? Finding Your Next Chapter with Mark Griffin
Mark Griffin MBE, Founding Partner, PurposeFused
Listen to Episode #029
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Episode #029
Who are you beyond the business you’ve built? And how early should you start exploring what comes next?
In Ethical Exits #029, Hannah Sandmeyer talks with Mark Griffin MBE, founding partner of PurposeFused and a Founder Performance Partner, about the identity and purpose work founders can begin years before a sale.
Mark shares how he helps founders clarify what matters across their whole lives, imagine a next chapter that pulls them forward, and strengthen the teams that will carry the business into its future. They explore succession, employee ownership, and what success means beyond the transaction.
Drawing on his international rugby career and his own experience stepping back from Play Rugby USA, Mark offers a perspective on preparing both the founder and the business for change.
About Mark Griffin
Mark Griffin is a founding partner of PurposeFused and a Founder Performance Partner who helps founders navigate succession, ownership transitions, and the question of what comes next. His work starts well before an exit, with the person behind the business and the life they want to build beyond it.
Through PurposeFused, Mark works with founders and leadership teams to align people, purpose, and performance. He helps founders explore how their identity has become connected to the company, clarify what matters across their lives, and prepare the people who will carry the business forward.
A former international rugby player with the USA Men’s National Team and a former banker, Mark is also the founder and former CEO of Play Rugby USA. He brings more than 25 years of experience across sport, business, and social impact. His own experience stepping back from an organization he built gives him a personal understanding of the challenges he helps other founders navigate.
For Mark, preparing for succession is about more than making a business less dependent on its founder. It is also about helping that founder imagine a next chapter they genuinely want to move toward, rather than waiting until the transaction is over to ask who they are without the business.
👉 Read more about Mark, and his work at PurposeFused.
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At Ethical Exits, we champion profit-for-purpose capitalism, leveraging business as a force for scaling philanthropy and meaningful change.
Each guest is invited to spotlight a cause or organization they want listeners to know about.
Mark highlights Play Rugby USA, the organization he founded to use rugby as a vehicle for youth development. Through sport and mentoring, the program helps young people from underserved communities build confidence, develop life skills, and expand their sense of what is possible.
He shares the joy of seeing young people he once coached return as coaches and staff themselves. He also encourages listeners to explore sports-based youth development programs in their own communities, where good coaching can create opportunities that extend far beyond the field.
