At the Rose Cafe, it was great to have Keith Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee Roasters, lead a discussion on coffee and his company’s approach. Even though I am actually not a huge fan of coffee myself, I was still excited to hear the leader of a company discuss his beliefs and philosophies. He began the discussion by displaying a clip of a TED talk video, where a speaker stated that what separates the the most prominent and successful individuals and companies, such as Martin Luther King and Apple, is their emphasis on answering the question of “why”: these individuals and companies carry out actions and build products based on their convictions and core beliefs. I actually found this statement to be remarkably profound, since I had always viewed companies as entities that were simply profit-seeking and profit-maximizing by building out as elite of a product as possible. However, I can definitely see how consumers often make decisions based not purely on the product itself, but also the way in which the company’s values and beliefs align with their own.

Mr. Lemnios stated how this mission-driven attitude shapes his approach to running Sun Coffee Roasters. His mission is to provide farmers that the company partners with and their families with quality wages, as well as opportunities in education for individuals to leave the cycle of farming from generation to generation if they so choose. I was deeply impressed by this mission-driven approach, and I feel many companies in today’s era would be better off by having such an attitude.