Andrew Kassoy was not a revolutionary by temperament. His bearing was deliberate, his language restrained, his approach systems-focused rather than confrontational. Yet the work he chose and the institutions he helped build reshaped how tens of thousands of companies understand their responsibilities. Profit, in his view, was not the enemy—just incomplete. It needed to be balanced with purpose, and constrained by values.
Born in California and raised in Colorado, Kassoy once imagined a future in elected office. His childhood ambition was rooted in a belief, passed down from his grandfather Ruby, that society’s rules could be rewritten to serve more people more justly. But it was in private equity that Mr. Kassoy began his career. Sixteen years of leveraged buyouts eventually exposed him to a contradiction he could not ignore: the most powerful engine of economic growth often treated people and planet as costs to be minimized. After the attacks of September 11th, he began searching for another path.
That search culminated in 2006 with the creation of B Lab, a nonprofit he co-founded with two longtime friends. Their goal was ambitious: to rewire capitalism. Their tool was technical but transformative—a certification called the B Corporation, awarded to firms that met high standards for social and environmental performance. The B Corp label would become a signal, not of perfection, but of commitment to a broader view of fiduciary duty.
Under Mr. Kassoy’s leadership, B Lab grew from a startup idea to a global movement. Today, more than 9,000 certified B Corps operate in over 100 countries, and thousands more use B Lab’s standards to guide internal reform. Kassoy also spearheaded the push for legal recognition of “benefit corporations” in the United States—an innovation that codified the obligation to consider stakeholders alongside shareholders. Delaware, the nerve center of American corporate law, eventually embraced the model. So did multinational giants like Patagonia and Danone.
Kassoy knew that credibility mattered.
“People have to be able to look at these businesses and say: they’re doing something different,” he said.
But he also understood that movements endure only if they institutionalize change. His focus, especially in his later years, was on systems: rules, incentives, accountability. His critique of OpenAI, published months before his death, argued that even the most promising technologies must be governed by structures that serve the common good.
He often quoted Kung Fu Panda to explain life’s ironies. But his own path revealed a deeper wisdom: that durable change is less about heroic CEOs than about new defaults, new norms. In building B Lab, he tried to make it easier for business to act decently—and harder not to.
He is survived by his wife, four children, and a movement that continues to grow.
