In a recent interview with CampdenFB, chief executive of the global tea company Dilmah and Dilmah Conservation Dilhan C Fernando, talked about the companies’ strategies and actions for handling the consequences of COVID-19. In the interview Fernando, the youngest son of Dilmah founder Merrill J Fernando, went beyond the short-term effects of the crisis on his family’s business. He also unequivocally advocated for a shift in the economy post-corona: “The economic system in which we operated tolerated externalities that in a post Covid-19 world must be considered intolerable. (…) Our advice is therefore that we should not resume business as usual but form a ‘force for good’ on the understanding that good is a norm and should not be an exception. (…) We need to be significant as family businesses and reject the narrow and unsustainable direction that most of the world has pursued pre-Covid. We need to focus on a fresh definition of business that emphasises purpose in social, environmental and economic context.”

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