B Team Headquarters (The B Team)

History

B Team Headquarters was founded in 2013 by Virgin Group billionaire Richard Branson and Harley Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz as a coalition of businesses and advocacy organizations across 470 cities in over 73 countries. Branson and Zeitz founded the coalition to campaign for businesses to prioritize environmentalism and left-of-center socio-political issues. ²

In 2014, The B Team partnered with Global Witness to organize a project titled the Great Ripoff Map to document crimes committed by anonymously owned companies. ³ It subsequently launched its Beneficial Ownership Transparency Working Group initiative, which hosted monthly meetings to discuss policies that would restrict the ability of companies to be anonymously owned. The working group claimed that if companies do not have to publicly disclose their ownership, then criminals will use business entities to “shield corrupt activities.” ² The Beneficial Ownership Transparency Working Group was organized in partnership with Natura, Unilever, Transparency International, Global Witness, Global Financial Integrity, and OpenCorporates. ⁴

Also in 2014, The B Team co-founded the We Mean Business Coalition alongside BSR, CDP, Ceres, the Climate Group, the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. We Mean Business Coalition works with businesses and advocacy groups to develop strategies to eliminate carbon emissions to align with the environmentalist goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. ^{5 2}

Advocacy

B Team Headquarters advocates for businesses to deprioritize profits in favor of environmentalist initiatives. It advocates for businesses to restructure their operations with the goal of reducing carbon emissions, and for charitable organizations and governments to develop technologies that remove atmospheric carbon. ⁶ Additionally, it advocates for businesses to adopt accounting principles that include social and environmental accomplishments as opposed to conventional profit and loss accounting practices. ²

In 2018, The B Team presented its “Responsible Tax Principles” to the United Nations (UN) to encourage businesses to maximize the amount of taxes they pay because it claims the revenue can be used to fund social and environmental causes. It publishes a list of principles that include requirements for businesses to create a board-approved tax strategy to ensure compliance with all applicable tax laws while agreeing to not engage in activities “whose sole purpose is to create a tax benefit which is in excess of a reasonable interpretation of relevant tax rules,” or to engage in activities that would lower their tax liabilities, such as choosing to operate in jurisdictions with lower tax rates. ⁷

In May 2025, The B Team reported 28 companies “formally” had adopted its Responsible Tax Principles and claim that “many” other companies were partially adopting them. It provides participating companies with a self-assessment method to determine compliance across 37 “principles” that are based on a company’s commitment to refusing to minimize its tax liability. ⁸

Funding

The B Team Headquarters reported receiving funding from Andre Hoffman, Allianz, Emmanuel Faber, the Ford Foundation, the Ingka Group, the Laudes Foundation, Novonesis, Salesforce, and Virgin Unite. ⁹

In May 2024, the Ford Foundation announced that it awarded The B Team a $3 million, five-year grant. ¹⁰

Leadership

Leah Seligmann is the CEO and chief change catalyst for B Team Headquarters. She previously worked as chief sustainability officer for NRG Energy and as a consultant for Blu Skye Consulting. ¹¹

Financials

In 2024, The B Team Headquarters reported $3.6 million in total revenue and $3.5 million in total expenses, including $1.3 million in salaries and compensation of employees. ¹²