Subscribe here: https://tinyurl.com/signupforpurposeIn Pursuit of Purpose was born out of a turning point in my personal and professional life. After completing the integration and growth initiatives following the sale of my company, I found myself at a crossroads. Having achieved significant personal and professional milestones, I realized I had reached a point of "enough"—enough money, enough career achievement, and enough sacrifices made for the business. What I sought next was deeper fulfillment—more meaning, more purpose, and greater impact.In Pursuit of Purpose is dedicated to exploring how purpose serves as the foundation of our lives and as a powerful force for creating meaning, flourishing, impact, and better results in both business and life. Through my (admittedly novice) writing, I delve into topics such as:-> Aligning life and work with intention.-> The science of happiness and how to cultivate joy.-> Strategies for navigating change and living with purpose.Malcolm Gladwell suggests that writing is a calling—an activity with a higher purpose, a way to fulfill ourselves as human beings. He says, “It’s part of the way in which we fulfill ourselves as human beings.”While I’m no Malcolm Gladwell, I strive to offer a similar opportunity for reflection. By sharing my experiences and insights, I aim to connect with those curious about growth, intentional living, and the intersection of purpose, joy, and meaning. Together, we can explore how purpose can guide us, connect us, and drive meaningful impact in both our personal and professional lives.For more insights and reflections, visit derekfigueroa.com.

North Star Strategic (NSS) is not your typical advisory firm! We were born out of a deep desire to give back and a passion for embedding purpose at the heart of organizations. Our mission is clear: to help purpose-driven businesses achieve greater results and make a lasting impact in their communities and industries.As a team led by over 30 years of executive experience in purpose-focused leadership, we guide our clients in aligning their strategies with values that drive both financial success and meaningful change. At NSS, we work closely with small and medium-sized businesses, nonprofits, and trade associations to build empowering, hands-on partnerships. Together, we foster sustainable, purpose-driven growth that resonates beyond profit—strengthening our clients' impact on their people, communities, and legacies.

Fig & Co. is an investment firm with a dual focus: - Impact Investments: Supporting promising companies that align with a social purpose, creating meaningful and lasting impact.- Majority Acquisitions: We partner with companies that have a proven record of profitability, particularly in the pet, manufacturing, fitness, outdoor recreation, and food industries. Our ideal acquisition targets are Denver-based companies with revenue of $3– $15M, positive free cash flow (FCF), and EBITDA of $750K—$3M. We prioritize partnerships with founders and owners who value continuity, legacy preservation, and employee retention, ensuring a seamless transition and sustainable growth.About Fig & CO:Derek Figueroa founded Fig & CO following a successful sale and exit, intending to commit the second half of his career to giving back and promoting purpose-driven leadership. He uses the experience gained over 30+ years to help leaders to align their strategies with purpose to create lasting impact and achieve greater results. He serves as Principal of North Star Strategic, a purpose-driven advisory firm, and President of Fig & Co., an investment partner. Previously, Figueroa was the President and CEO of Seattle Fish and Lombardi Brothers Meats. Board service includes former chair of The National Fisheries Institute and The Colorado Restaurant Foundation, co-founder of the non-profit Sea Pact, and previous leadership positions with CO Restaurant Association, Project Angel Heart, Colorado Restaurant Association, and Seafood Industry Research Fund. He has been recognized by the Colorado Restaurant Association, Denver Business Journal’s Forty Under 40, Titan 100 CEO award, Leadership Award Finalist from Vistage, and Volunteer of the Year by the National Sports Center for the Disabled. He holds an Executive MBA and a Master’s and Bachelor’s in finance from the University of Colorado. Derek lives in Denver with his wife and four children and enjoys spending time outdoors.

What happens when you wake up in your mid-fifties and realize that something is missing, that you are not living your definition of success? That realization was the prompt for me to make intentional space to realign my time with my purpose and aspiration, while really understanding how I was investing in my most important relationships. After 34 amazing years at Seattle Fish Company, I felt an insatiable pull to prioritize purpose, family, mental/physical/spiritual health, new challenges, alignment, impact, and relationships. I worked with our new ownership over six months to exit with a strong leadership team in place, and with my reputation and relationships intact. These intentional four months helped me gain clarity on my purpose, re-discover what truly brings me joy, dramatically improve physical/mental/spiritual health, connect deeply with my family, and align my time with my purpose and values. I’m looking forward to leveraging this insight into work that has meaning, significance, and contribution to the world.

Seattle Fish Company (a Founders Company) purchased Lombardi Brothers Meats as a strategic acquisition to enable a credible and ready entrance into the meat space in the Rocky Mountain West. Responsible for integrating the company into the Founders community, fostering a high performing and trusting culture, strategic and operational leadership of the business, championing a clear vision and strategic plan to meet business objectives while creating a foundation for long-term success, and driving select integration into Seattle Fish Company. Notable activities: - Source the opportunity and work as a member of the deal team and board to identify and quantify potential synergies, perform hands-on due diligence, evaluate key personnel, and drive an informed investment decision. - Envision and execute a post-close integration plan to include work with seller to successfully exit, creation of meaningful targets, authentic work to engage employees and customers, define and re-establish brand promise, and deliver on select integration with existing Seattle Fish resources. - Establish new governance, a three-year forward plan, first year objectives, a re-enforced leadership team, and employee communication. - Proudly retained 100% of our employees and customers throughout the transition - On track to grow volume by 50% while dramatically improving EBITDA, customer experience, and employee welfare. About Lombardi Brothers:Lombardi Brothers Meats has proudly served the Rocky Mountain region since 1947,distributing the finest cuts of high-quality beef, pork, lamb, and other proteins to tablesthroughout the Colorado front range and local mountain communities. The company prides themselves on their close relationships and partnerships, focus on the local community, world class product and quality, and the team of dedicated and knowledgeable employees.

Led the company effort, in partnership with IB Class VI Advisors, to sell third generation, family-owned Seattle Fish Co to the Founders Group of Food Companies (Founders) in November 2021. Continue to serve as President and CEO of Seattle Fish under Founders post sale. Led the post-close continuity of the business and integration to Founders. Used Seattle Fish as a platform company to purchase Lombardi Brothers Meats as a bolt-on acquisition. Exited in March 2024, 2.5 years post sale and after a six-month transition in order to more closely align my work to my purpose and to establish a family office of my own. Provide strategic and operational leadership while collaborating with the Founders family office, Armand Agra (subsidiary of Founders) board of directors, executive team, employees, and other stakeholders to establish and deliver on long-range goals, strategies, and plans. Achievements: - Successfully manage the post-close transition of the company. Retained all employees & customers, kept strong culture developed over 105 years, re-enforced brand promise with an eye on customer experience, and adapted strategic plan to integrate new opportunities for the business. - Adopt family office governance, reporting, cadence, and collaboration with sister OpCo’s. - Grow revenue in first year by 5%, EBITDA 17% - Led (in collaboration with Founders deal team) the company side strategic acquisition of Lombardi Brothers Meats in November 2022 to add 1.2 million pounds and growth potential. About Founders:Founders is a family-owned company that invests its own capital and applies operating know-how to build a group of thriving food businesses and exceptional partnerships we can all be proud of. Founders’ partners combine 30 years’ private equity experience in over 80 companies.

Served as Board Chair for the leading US seafood trade association. Notable acheivements: - recognized as the first graduate of the Future Leader Program to lead the organization. - worked with 20 year CEO on his planned exit and created a multi-year succession process that resulted in a new CEO being named in 2023. - Guided industry response to Seaspiracy to counter negative and misleading information - Commissioned a review of diverse and far-reaching activity to weigh efficacy of action, and work with Officer Group to focus on most accretive activity aligned with member value. - Delivered a call to action for our industry during the annual Global Seafood Market Conference The National Fisheries Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to education about seafood safety, sustainability, and nutrition. From vessels at sea to your favorite seafood restaurant, our diverse member companies bring delicious fish and shellfish to American families. NFI promotes the US Dietary Guidelines that suggest Americans include fish and shellfish in their diets twice per week for longer, healthier lives.NFI and its members are committed to sustainable management of our oceans and being stewards of our environment by endorsing the United Nations Principles for Responsible Fisheries. Our investment in our oceans today will provide our children and future generations the health benefits of a plentiful supply of fish and seafood tomorrow.From responsible aquaculture, to a marketplace supporting free trade, to ensuring the media and consumers have the facts about the health benefits of fish and shellfish, NFI and its members support and promote sound public policy based on ground truth science.

Provide strategic leadership and collaborate with the board of directors, board of advisors, the leadership team, employees, and other stakeholders to establish and deliver long-range goals, strategies, and plans. Strong builder of purpose driven culture, operational excellence, and customer intimacy. Recommend the sale of the company to a third-party investor, position the company for sale in two years, and execute a sale to an aligned family office. Directly manage COO, CFO, Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, and Research and Development Chef. Achievements: • Recommend sale of the company to third party investor to allow for future growth, company and founder legacy, business continuity, and mitigation of risk. • Prepare the business for sale: implement enhanced governance, re-enforce leadership team strength / management depth, invest in employee engagement, define and institutionalize brand promise, solidify customer partnerships and agreements, deliver consistent and improving financial performance, and reduce all dependence on the ownership family. • Led the company side of the sale and successful transition (M&A) (in partnership with IB Class VI Advisors) of this third-generation, family-owned company to The Founders family office in November 2021 on an aggressive sixty-day close schedule while maximizing enterprise value, retaining 100% of the employees, and providing continuity of brand and commitment to customer partners.• Navigate impact of COVID on the business. Mitigate temporary loss of 50% of revenue in March 2020 and deliver positive EBITDA in 2020 and a record year in 2021.• Grow revenue by 25% and improve EBITDA return by 280%.

Led all growth and revenue generation activities for the organization with a significant emphasis on profitable growth. Demonstrated significant leadership to develop, implement and deliver a comprehensive strategy that aligns to corporate strategic goals. Represented the organization with clients and internal / external stakeholders of the company. Served as a member of the Executive Team and advisor to the CEO. Achievements: • Grew sales by $14MM • Launched strategic communication plan to maximize market research efforts, convert market research into brand messages, assess messaging resources and discern their efficacy, ensure message fidelity to core brand messages across all communication platforms, and drive future communication and marketing objectives. • Developed and implemented comprehensive mapped sales process to facilitate growth of profitable sales

Provided day-to-day leadership and management to the organization while driving / inspiring the company to achieve and surpass business goals and objectives. Led the execution of strategic objectives by collaborating with the leadership team to develop, communicate, and implement measurable goals and action. Developed, motivated, and led high performance leadership teams in a success-oriented, accountable environment. Represented the organization with clients and internal / external stakeholders of the company. Served as a member of the Executive Team and advisor to the CEO. Achievements: • Support top line growth of 300% while creating scalable systems.• Drive an evolution from a people and institutional knowledge dependency to a process-oriented framework that still allows for flexibility, appropriate risk taking, and agile decision making. • Successfully negotiate three successive Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA), with Teamsters Local 455, which covers 70% of the workforce and with terms that benefit both union employees and the company.• Honor the founding values and spirit of this long-standing, family-friendly enterprise while focusing on continuous improvement and stand-out customer service to support ongoing growth.

Provided both operational and programmatic support to the organization through leadership of the finance unit, as an advisor to the CEO, and member of the Executive Team. Reported directly to the CEO on all strategic and tactical matters as they relate to management reporting and insight, budget management, cost benefit analysis, forecasting needs, systems support, the securing of new funding, and strategic planning. Achievements: • Arrest corporate losses in my first year through improved business and financial clarity management reporting, and actionable insight. Supported consistent and profitable returns throughout this entire period while creating and engaging family ownership in regular financial governance. • Increased equity 265% and Net Working Capital by 65%, • Developed and implemented \comprehensive financial controls, budgeting process, and transparent reporting to support business growth, leadership decision making, and forward planning.

Seafood Nutrition Partnership is a 501(c)3 with a mission to inspire a healthier America through partnerships and outreach to raise awareness about the essential nutritional benefits of eating seafood.We address the health risks associated with low seafood consumption through partners that provide health and nutrition guidance. Through our education efforts, we aim to:— Build awareness about the essential nutritional benefits from eating seafood at least twice a week.— Help Americans gain the skills to select, order, and prepare fish and shellfish.— Inspire a healthier America by promoting a nutrient-rich diet that includes seafood.​ ​The National Leadership Council is comprised of thought leaders that support the mission of Seafood Nutrition Partnership and come from fields that include seafood, fisheries, aquaculture, nutrition, healthcare, public health.

Executive Committee, co-leading the fundraising committee. Additionally, served as one of six members of the succession committee who successfully screened, evaluated, hired, and onboarded a new CEO to lead the organization.

Sole vendor representative on the Executive Committee to provide strategic advice, governance, financial oversight, development, political lobbying, and direct work with the association CEO. Additionally - the executive committee led the effort to successfully screen, evaluate, and hire a new CEO to lead the organization after the planned retirement of a twenty-year veteran. The (CRA) is a non-profit membership trade group founded in 1933 serving as the advocate for the Colorado foodservice industry.

Fish Bark LLC was founded in 2012 as a collaboration between Seattle Fish Co., Lauren Sternberg, and Derek Figueroa. The company pioneered high-quality, nutritious pet treats by repurposing seafood processing by-products into innovative commercial products. Focused on sustainability and addressing food waste, Fish Bark blended purpose with creativity to deliver impactful solutions for pets and the environment.

Sea Pact is a group of leading North American Seafood Companies dedicated to driving stewardship and continuous improvement of social, economic, and environmental responsibility throughout the global seafood supply chain.

Seventeen year volunteer, specializing in sit ski and bi-ski, recognized as the Volunteer of the Year. The National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) is one of the largest therapeutic recreation agencies in the world. The NSCD offers a variety of year-round sports and recreational adventures. In the winter participants enjoy alpine skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, Nordic hut trips, snowshoeing and ski racing. Additionally the NSCD offers year-round rock climbing and kayak lessons. In the spring, summer and fall we offer sport ability clinics, rafting, canoeing, special camps, therapeutic horseback riding, mountain biking and camping. All programs are designed for individuals, families and groups and are available for all disability and diagnosis, all ages. www.nscd.org