San Francisco, August 10, 2021. Today the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) announced that in addition to continuing it’s non-profit operations, it will launch a for-profit B-Corporation subsidiary, SIY Global. The decision comes after SIYLI’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to start the process in the second half of 2021 and begin operations in early 2022.
The Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program was born at Google in 2007, led by the efforts of early Google engineer Chade-Meng Tan and a team of experts in mindfulness, neuroscience, leadership, and emotional intelligence. In 2012, due to the high demand for SIY from external organizations, the program leaders founded the independent non-profit educational institute called Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, SIYLI. Since then, SIYLI has become a globally recognized educational institute, operating in over 50 countries, with hundreds of certified teachers, and tens of thousands of people attending its programs and events every year.
SIYLI’s mission is to make mindfulness and emotional intelligence skills practical and accessible in order to build towards a more peaceful world where people act with compassion.
“While we have operated successfully for almost 10 years as a non-profit organization, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting dramatic shift in how business is done have encouraged our team to reflect on our role in the world and how we can best grow our impact,” said Rich Fernandez, SIYLI’s CEO. “After exploring various alternatives, we realize that we now have an opportunity to profoundly accelerate our mission and amplify our impact by partnering with new investors. Increasing our funding sources will allow us to significantly invest in innovative solutions and new programming. We’re more excited than ever to envision a new future for our organization and our stakeholders while staying true to our values, mission, and vision.”
A B-corporation is an entity whose obligations include community, society, and environmental impacts in addition to traditional shareholder responsibilities. SIYLI’s new subsidiary will apply to become certified as a B-Corporation and abide by its rigorous requirements, ensuring all for-profit practices align with the organization’s values. SIYLI’s non-profit arm will aim to continue and grow its existing efforts to bring programming to community-based organizations, non-profits, as well as under-resourced populations and other social impact-based initiatives.
“Capable and conscious leadership is more important than ever before. Our leaders desperately need to develop human-centered skills such as emotional intelligence and mindfulness to create thriving workplaces and high impact companies. The SIYLI team, along with its certified teacher global community, excellent programming and deep expertise, is uniquely positioned to serve this global need. Establishing a B-corporation will open new doors to capital investment and fresh opportunities for our community to have an even greater global impact,” affirms Cecily Mak, Chair of the Board of Directors at SIYLI.
SIYLI will begin its first round of funding in Q4 of 2021 and will share more details about its new operations in early 2022.
Please direct any questions, funding proposals, or partnership ideas to info@siyli.org.
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