Before we talk about hiring a Chief Purpose Officer, we must pause and ask a harder question: is the organization ready for one?

If the company’s pulse beats for profit alone, the answer is no. A purpose officer cannot thrive in a system built solely to count, not to contribute. The purpose-maker seeks transformation, not transactions. One pursues growth in value; the other, in meaning.

Most leaders occupying C-suite offices today, especially CPOs, are managers in disguise. They are dressed for leadership but wired for management—trained to sustain the system rather than to reimagine it. And when management wears the clothes of leadership, purpose is reduced to presentation.

The right Chief Purpose Officer is not hired through a job posting but discovered through cultural readiness. Interviews should not be assessments of skill, but bootcamps of discovery—probing whether both sides are truly aligned around purpose as a leadership standard, not a branding exercise.

You don’t find the perfect match for a CPO role—you become it. When an organisation reaches the maturity to lead with “why” instead of “how,” purpose stops being a department. It becomes its DNA.