She’s got the inside scoop. Ben and Jerry’s has become one of the most politically active brands, from calling out systemic racism to supporting LGBTQI rights. Anuradha Mittal, chair of the company’s board of directors, has been key in each of those decisions. That’s not even her main job, though (crazy, right?), since she’s also the founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, a think tank advocating for food security and land rights around the world.

Here, the 54-year-old shares how she’s using ice cream to make a difference, ways to survive the rocky road of corporate activism, and why she’s glad the company doesn’t promote vanilla stances.

When someone asks what you do, what do you say?
Oh God, that’s one of the toughest questions. I look at people and smile first, because I don’t know. I’m a researcher; I work with Indigenous communities around land rights… I’ve been on the board of Ben and Jerry’s since 2007, and I’ve been the chair of the board since 2018.

What work do you do at the Oakland Institute?
We work at the nexus of agriculture, development, and human rights. Food is so integral to each of our lives, and at the same time, it is a global issue in terms of relationship to the land. Raised in India, there’s a connection to land. It is a relationship to territories, which is about spirituality and where your ancestors are buried and where your herbs are. At the Institute, we explore those land rights and what they mean around the world.

How does working with Ben and Jerry’s align with your personal mission?
I work with an incredible cohort of people who have spent their lives dedicated to socioeconomic justice, racial equity issues, and human rights issues. It’s a moral imperative that, for a business to be relevant today, we have to deal with issues that impact our society.

What does that work look like?
The independent board is responsible for product integrity as well as the social mission. For instance, the flavors that are planned are a coming together of, “How can we do value-led sourcing? How do we link it to a social mission so it can promote a cause?” For Change is Brewing, the coffee is sourced from a Black-owned business and cooperatives in Honduras, and we partnered with Cori Bush.

Are you not worried about alienating customers with different beliefs?
Well, this is not a PR [stunt]. This is a company which had [already] been talking about what is wrong with the policing system and the prison system. When we came out with [our support of] dismantling white supremacy, that was [after] many years of introspection, of partnering with groups, ranging from Color of Change to the national Advancement Project, to talk about racial equity. When we’re thinking of a product and what we want to see happen in terms of justice, it’s not driven by, “Oh, we’re going to upset some people.”

B&J has done so much work around racial equity but less around reproductive rights. How do you choose which issues to focus on?
Each of the issues we work on are not about spreading thin, but going deep. There’s a lot of time spent in learning rather than just coming out and taking a position. Whether it is our commitment to LGBTQI rights or speaking out for human rights, [it’s] the same thing as coming out and supporting the march for abortion rights. It might not be as vocal as you think on other issues, but we clearly took a stance.