A Lifelong Pursuit

Josh McManus is known for problem-solving and turning big ideas into pragmatic action. He brings the best of both for-profit and non-profit solutions to help businesses thrive while building a better world. His projects range from reorganizing a $7 billion family of 150 companies to help stop the population loss in Detroit, to stimulating an entrepreneurial ecosystem that helped transform Chattanooga into one of the country’s most innovative and fastest-growing cities.

He’s worked with the C-suites of many of the country’s most significant businesses and nonprofits, including Ford Motor Company, Quicken Loans, United Way, and the Knight Foundation. This year, he’s helped Ford Motor Company through his partnership with Civic with strategies, content, and cultural interventions to navigate the transitions to autonomous, electric and connected vehicles. Last year, he helped Ford drive positive change with a transformative announcement of $1 billion of real estate and strategic investment in their home city of Detroit.

Josh previously served as Quicken Loans and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert Chief Operating Officer to create a “for more-than-profit” approach to organizing and accelerating his portfolio of businesses, real estate, and sports holdings.

Prior to his work in Detroit, Josh co-founded CreateHere, an entrepreneurship and cultural change organization that sparked over 10,000 new enterprises worldwide, and championed the world’s largest community visioning process, with over 26,000 surveys collected.

Josh began his career by problem-solving with private foundations and public institutions in post-industrial cities first in Atlanta and eventually in Chattanooga. Along the way, he earned business degrees from Georgia Tech and the University of Tennessee.

Josh’s work and ideas have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Economist, Entrepreneur, GOOD, The Huffington Post and even Garden and Gun. He’s been recognized nationally as a Next American Vanguard and internationally as a Marshall Memorial Fellow.

Josh McManus

Josh McManus is the CEO of First Principles, a transformation design agency that supports significant organizations in navigation of major change, and the founder of the For-Purpose movement which helps companies work at the intersection of moral imperative and market imperative. A student of and practitioner in the art of reinvention throughout a multi-disciplinary career, Josh is known for being able to diagnose and positively disrupt the trajectory of companies, communities, and institutions. 

His past projects range from reorganizing a $7 billion family of more than 100 companies in service to market and moral outcomes, to problem-solving in challenged post-industrial places like Akron, OH, to founding an entrepreneurial ecosystem that helped Chattanooga, TN become a magnet for talent and commerce. He’s worked in and with the C-suites of many of the country’s most significant businesses and nonprofits, including Ford Motor Company, Rocket Mortgage and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

Through a five-year partnership with New York-based CIVIC, Josh has helped Ford Motor company with strategies, content and cultural interventions to navigate the transformation of the company and transitions to electric, constantly connected, and increasingly intelligent vehicles. He also helped Ford drive positive change with the transformative announcement of Michigan Central, a $1 billion real estate and innovation investment in their home city of Detroit. 

Josh previously served as Rocket Mortgage founder and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s Chief Operating Officer to create and trademark the “for more than profit” approach to organizing and accelerating his portfolio of businesses, real estate and sports holdings.

Prior to his work in Detroit, Josh co-founded CreateHere, an entrepreneurship and cultural change organization that sparked many new entrepreneurial ideas, championed the world’s largest community visioning process with over 26,000 surveys collected, and graduated over 50 fellows trained to make positive change in their community.

Josh began his career by problem-solving with private foundations and public institutions in post-industrial cities, first in Atlanta and eventually in Chattanooga. Along the way, he earned business degrees from Georgia Tech and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Josh’s work and ideas have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Economist, Entrepreneur, GOOD, The Huffington Post and even Garden and Gun. He’s been recognized nationally as a Next American Vanguard and internationally as a Marshall Memorial Fellow.

Peter Goldwasser

Peter Goldwasser, Esq., has two decades of experience working across the public and private sectors, advising companies, nonprofits and individuals on how to make a positive impact on the toughest issues. He is known for a leadership style that clients and colleagues characterize as authentic, creative and empowering. From providing counsel to executives on social, political and business affairs, to working on the ground with community stakeholders, his focus is always on finding the central space where progress happens—building coalitions that transform challenging, diverse and often conflicting ideas into concrete strategy and actions. Peter brings the best of both for-profit and nonprofit solutions to help clients thrive and achieve success for the communities and customers they serve. 

Prior to founding PNG Group in 2016, Peter served as Deputy Director at Cities of Service, a national nonprofit of Bloomberg Philanthropies that helps mayors amplify the knowledge, creativity and service of their citizens. Before that, he provided strategy on fundraising, organizational growth and impact advocacy to Girl Rising, a global advocacy nonprofit that uses the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education.

From 2010 to 2013, Peter served as Chief Program Officer in the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning under former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where he directed multi-agency efforts addressing education, immigration and anti sex-trafficking. His work on the Administration’s signature Chronic Absenteeism Task Force involved the creation of the largest in-school mentoring program in the country. 

Before working in city government, Peter was General Counsel at the nation’s premier cycling and pedestrian advocacy organization, Transportation Alternatives, where he developed and implemented its legislative, political and partnership agendas, creating safer, greener and more equitable communities.  Under his leadership, the organization secured the passage of several landmark pieces of legislation including  “Bankers & Barristers for Bikes”.

Peter is an avid supporter of public libraries and serves in various leadership positions at the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL). In 2015, he created the library’s junior board, which he subsequently chaired for five years, as well as launching  BPL’s national Literary Prize.  From 2018 to 2020, he chaired the NYC Board of the national nonprofit Back on My Feet. He holds a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and received his BA from New York University. 

Peter lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and daughter where he can often be found running, biking, attempting to garden and exploring all sorts of hidden parks.

Tara Poole

Tara Poole is an analytical, highly adaptable professional dedicated to mission-driven outcomes. With a background in business and nonprofits, she values community input as much as the bottom line. Tara specializes in human-centered projects with tangible results and cross-functional collaboration.

Tara’s past projects include consulting for nonprofit executives and for-profit leaders interested in social impact, creating tools for entrepreneurs, and building company culture in a tech startup.  She has experience in project management, OKR tracking, research, designing quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, defining and measuring impact, and the creation of a business planning curriculum. 

Prior to joining the For Purpose team, Tara was the Director of Operations and Development at Glass House Collective, a creative placemaking nonprofit, where she handled most of the organization’s behind-the-scenes work, from managing grants to assisting with program development to strategic planning. She’s been told she has a talent for creating masterpieces from spreadsheets that kept the projects on track and the funders happy. 

After college, Tara spent several years backpacking around the globe, teaching English as a second language. She holds degrees in Economics and Business from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and at Chattanooga. Tara believes that her MBA is best put to use combining economic and social value to build a bigger pie for all.

An avid fan of the arts and the outdoors, Tara happily resides in Chattanooga, TN, where she often leads her husband and two daughters on adventures involving cultural events or waterfalls.

Zak Enzminger

Zak Enzminger is a researcher, writer and strategist with a background in marketing and consulting. His interest lies at the confluence of public and private partnerships, and the rich seam of meaningful value that can be derived from this process. 

He grew up as a modern nomad, living in seven different countries across the Middle East and Europe, and speaking three languages at home. As a result of this cultural osmosis, he has a fascination for how the forces of history and culture shape the world we live in — leading to initial studies as an archaeologist at Brown University. Currently, he is a masters student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) concentrated on strategy, cybersecurity and statecraft. 

Prior to working with the For Purpose team, Zak began building a career in New York, first as the fifteenth hire at a small startup, where he ran policy-focused programming and worked with thought leaders from Think Tanks to major journalistic outlets. Subsequently, he accepted a role at the marketing/consulting agency CIVIC. He has worked on projects for Ford Motor Company, IBM and Google — ranging from developing a corporate sustainability platform, integrating innovation into product technology, speechwriting for C-suite executives, and building partnerships with local community groups and educational institutions. Zak has also worked with a range of clients as a freelance strategist and ghostwriter, such as with Pathwayport, a insurance Saas provider, and Fruitful, a fintech financial planning platform. 

In his free time, Zak is an avid reader of history, a workout nut and an outdoorsman (when his class schedule permits).