ELENA ZAYAKOVA: RETHINKING THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS

Elena Zayakova brings together two seemingly different worlds: science and creativity. With a background in biology and chemistry, and professional experience spanning sustainability, strategy and the creative industries, she combines analytical rigour with curiosity, and the ability to see connections others might miss. It is this blend of evidence-based thinking and creative problem-solving that shapes her approach to sustainability – helping businesses look beyond compliance and challenge conventional thinking.

Elena has built extensive international experience across the UK, US and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, working with leading organisations including EY, Publicis Groupe, Havas Group and Sage Group, a FTSE 100 technology company. Her experience is complemented by executive women leadership development at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Having recently returned to Bulgaria after two decades of living and working internationally, Elena founded CoreWorks Consultancy to bring global sustainability expertise and practical business experience to the Eastern European market.

Why does corporate sustainability matter now?

Corporate sustainability is increasingly connected to how businesses manage risk, remain competitive and create long-term value. Companies are operating in a world where the conditions for doing business are changing rapidly and sustainability provides a way to understand how these changes intersect. I would encourage business leaders to:

• Anticipate sustainability/ESG risks and opportunities. Understand what could disrupt your business – and what could make it more resilient. Look beyond immediate financial and operational risks to consider dependencies on resources, suppliers, people and technology.
• Make sustainability strategic. Regulations and reporting requirements matter, but they are only part of the picture. Leaders need to understand what sustainability means for their business model, investment decisions, products, and long-term competitiveness.
• Turn ambition into measurable progress. Establish clear accountability, reliable data and the capabilities needed to deliver results.

Where do business leaders most often struggle to translate sustainability into meaningful business decisions?

The biggest challenge I often see is bridging the gap between sustainability reporting and business decision-making. Organisations may understand what they need to disclose, but struggle to translate that information into strategic priorities, investment decisions and operational changes. This is often compounded by fragmented ownership, unclear accountability and data that meets reporting requirements but does not necessarily generate meaningful business insight. The real opportunity is to use sustainability as a tool for better decision-making, rather than treating it as a compliance exercise.

What does it mean to be a sustainability leader in 2026?

Sustainability leaders can no longer operate in isolation or rely on ambition alone; they need to influence how the business thinks, invests and operates. Organisations can build these capabilities by strengthening sustainability knowledge across leadership teams, embedding clear accountability into governance, and creating space for cross-functional collaboration and constructive challenge. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to have better-informed sustainability teams, but to build organisations where sustainability considerations are part of everyday decision-making.

And now to CoreWorks. What inspired you to start your own business?

After more than 20 years working across management consultancy and in-house leadership roles globally, I saw an opportunity to bring together the best of both worlds: strategic perspective and practical experience of what it takes to make sustainability work inside a business. Too often, the conversation stops at regulation and reporting, when the real challenges lie in the decisions behind them – governance, accountability, data, risk and strategy. I founded CoreWorks to work at that intersection. For me, CoreWorks is about combining technical depth with commercial pragmatism – asking the right questions, challenging assumptions, building on what already exists rather than creating unnecessary complexity, and meeting clients where they are in the journey.

What types of problems do you target in your work?

I help businesses make sense of complexity and turn it into a clear course of action. This might mean navigating changing sustainability/ESG regulations, challenging assumptions about material sustainability issues, improving the information available to decision-makers, or identifying risks and opportunities that are not yet fully understood. Often, the challenge is not a lack of information, but knowing what it means for the business and what to do next.

Finally, what is the most important lesson you have taken from working with the pioneers of sustainability?

Throughout the years, I have been fortunate enough to learn from the people who created many of the sustainability frameworks, methodologies and concepts used globally by businesses today. One lesson stands out for me – progress happens when technical rigour meets imagination. Frameworks give us structure, but it takes creativity to see beyond them, connect seemingly unrelated ideas and find new ways to solve old problems.

My ambition with CoreWorks is not simply to transfer approaches developed in other markets, but to adapt that knowledge to local business realities and help our region build the capabilities, confidence and strategic perspective to turn sustainability into a source of resilience and long-term value.

www.coreworksconsultancy.com