What if work was designed for flourishing, not fear?
Eleanor Allen on audacious goals, human potential, and why the water sector may be the perfect place to start.
In conversation with Annyse·Eleanor Allen, P.E., NAE·CEO, World Flourishing Organization
Some people are drawn to the impossible. Eleanor Allen, P.E., NAE -engineer, executive, ultra-cyclist, and CEO of Flourishing Work Alliance - has built her entire career around it. Opening Series 2 of our Meaningful Conversations podcast, Eleanor sat down with Annyse to talk about audacity, the science of human flourishing, and why the water industry might just be where it all comes together.
"Big, wicked, complex problems — things we don't know how to solve — are where life feels most alive and most exciting."
Choosing the Audacious card
When Eleanor drew the Audacious card, it resonated immediately. The word has personal history for her. Through her time as CEO at Water For People, which serves communities across nine countries, she applied three times to the Audacious Project, a prestigious $100 million grant for nonprofits tackling the world's hardest problems. One of her boldest proposals: bringing clean water and sanitation services to every single person in Rwanda.
She didn't win the grant. But that didn't diminish the ambition. If anything, it captures something essential about how Eleanor moves through the world, whether she's leading a global nonprofit, sitting on corporate boards, or competing in ultra-cycling events that push the human body to its limits. The audacious pursuit, she says, is what makes the work worth doing.
From water to business for good — and beyond
Eleanor's career has followed a distinctive red thread. Starting as an engineer and rising through senior leadership at firms including Arcadis and CH2M (now Jacobs), she eventually moved into the CEO role at Water For People, then on to B Lab Global, the organization behind the B Corp certification, which holds companies to rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. The common denominator? Using the power of business as a force for good, with accountability to all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
Now, in what she describes as a meaningful new chapter, Eleanor has found the thing that pulls all of those threads together: human flourishing at work.
"The culture we work in every day is what makes it worth being there or not. And we can change it."
The science of flourishing
Through the World Flourishing Organization, Eleanor is applying findings from the Global Flourishing Study — a landmark piece of research from Harvard and Baylor University — directly to the workplace. The study is significant in its scale.
- 200,000 people interviewed
- 5 years duration
- 23 countries representing 63% of world population
The research identifies six things’ humans need in order to truly flourish and Eleanor's insight is that all six are achievable at work, not just at home.
- Happiness: A sense of wellbeing and positivity
- Financial stability: Security and material sufficiency
- Purpose & meaning: Knowing why your work matters
- Character & virtue: Acting with integrity and values
- Health: Mental and physical wellbeing
- Close relationships: Trust, belonging, and connection
"None of these are part of most organisations' KPIs," Eleanor notes. "But they have a measurable impact on financial performance, on retention, on creativity. And on the human experience of showing up to work every day."
Why the water sector, why now
Eleanor is clear that there is no industry better placed to lead on this than water. The people who enter the sector do so with a profound sense of mission — most came in because they wanted to solve one of the world's most fundamental challenges. That intrinsic motivation is already there.
The barrier, she suggests, is often the systems those people work within. Engineering culture - rooted in precision, in being graded on correctness from an early age - can inadvertently suppress exactly the traits that solving big problems requires: creativity, boldness, vulnerability, and the willingness to say "I don't know, I need help."
"What would be possible if everything was set up for flourishing instead of fear? So many systems are set up based on fear - over-regulation, a terror of mistakes - and it limits everything."
The fear, she explains, gets baked in over time. One cautious decision leads to a cautious policy, which becomes a cautious culture, which the next CEO inherits without understanding why it exists. The original reason fades. The system remains. And people learn to manage themselves in psychologically unsafe environments until that becomes simply what work feels like.
Change is possible — and it compounds
The encouraging news is that flourishing spreads. Eleanor has seen it in practice: when leaders create the conditions for even a few days of genuine psychological safety and human-centred focus, what emerges from those moments can be extraordinary. The challenge is consistency over time and sustaining that intentionality long enough for people to believe it is real, and not just another initiative.
The business case is real too. Less turnover, greater productivity, more innovation, and people showing up as their whole, authentic selves - these are not soft outcomes. They are competitive advantages.
And crucially, this isn't just for CEOs. Eleanor is emphatic on this point: every individual contributor, every project manager, every line manager has more influence than they realise. Flourishing does not require a top-down mandate to begin. It requires intention from wherever you sit.
If we can help the humans in the water industry to truly flourish - to feel purposeful, connected, creative, and well - the downstream impact on what we collectively achieve for communities and ecosystems around the world could be extraordinary. Eleanor Allen is betting her next chapter on it. And if her track record is anything to go by, the audacity is entirely warranted.