Q&A with Xavier Rubio Franch: On Oceans, Authenticity, and Why Sustainability Needs a New Wave

Xavier Rubio Franch is the Founder and CEO of Old Surfer Communications and the creator of The Ocean Connections, a cultural platform dedicated to connecting brands, science, and society with the Blue Economy. Originally from Barcelona and based in the US for nearly a decade, Xavier spent over 25 years building global campaigns for brands like Unilever, Danone, Mondelez, and Diageo before channeling that expertise into sustainability. Forbes Spain named Old Surfer one of the top five agencies connecting companies and consumers with sustainability, and Success US Magazine named Xavier one of its 25 Changemakers of 2025. He now brings that global perspective to the Anthem Awards as an Executive Judge.

In this conversation, Xavier shares how a life spent surfing shaped his entire philosophy of business, why brands are stuck between greenwashing and silence, what Gen Alpha is really asking for, and why he believes the ocean is the defining cultural territory of the next decade.

You've had a long career in global advertising. How did you end up here, building a sustainability agency rooted in ocean culture?

All of my background comes from the advertising industry. I had the opportunity to work across Europe, Latin America, and the US with major global brands: Unilever, PepsiCo, Diageo, Mondelez, Danone. That was my world for over 25 years.

But my real passion has always been the ocean. I've been surfing my entire life, all over the world. I got married on surfboards with my wife in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. My daughter's name is Ona, a Catalan word that means "wave." The ocean isn't a metaphor for me. It's my life.

When I founded Old Surfer Communications, the idea was to take everything I knew about creativity and strategy and apply it to projects that genuinely protect the environment. Not sustainability as a trend, but sustainability as a real change in consumer behavior. That's what we're built to do.

What are you most focused on and excited about right now?

The oceans. We've sent missions to Mars. We've explored the moon. And yet we've only explored less than 5% of our oceans, which represent a $3 trillion economic opportunity. The balance between conservation and growth is one of the most important challenges of our time, and almost no one is treating it that way.

That's why I created The Ocean Connections, a cultural platform that brings together brands, scientists, and storytellers around the Blue Economy. We have NBA players on the platform, National Geographic researchers, Michelin-starred chefs. The goal is to make the ocean a living cultural territory, not just an environmental cause.

One project I'm especially proud of right now is a documentary rethinking the surf industry. Surfboards are still made with fiberglass, the same aerospace-era material used for over 70 years. Wetsuits are made from petroleum-based neoprene. It's an industry with an image of being in harmony with nature that hasn't updated its materials in generations. We're making all of our research open source so shapers (the artisans who craft surfboards) can start using more sustainable materials without sacrificing performance. That's Blue Economy thinking in practice.

What's the hardest lesson you've learned since launching Old Surfer?

Adaptability is essential. The world is changing constantly, brands are changing, conversations are shifting, and something new seems to happen every week. You have to be able to move with it.

But here's what I've learned: adaptability does not mean abandoning your purpose. If a brand changes its entire positioning every time the news cycle shifts, it loses credibility with consumers and especially with the next generation.

We're doing research with Gen Alpha right now, and what they're telling us is clear: they don't want brands to tell them stories anymore. They want brands to help them become part of the solution to real problems. They want participation, not narration.

So the lesson is this: stay adaptive, but stay anchored. Your core values have to remain constant. That's what makes the adaptability meaningful.

What's overhyped or underrated in the sustainability and brand space right now?

Right now, brands are caught between two traps. On one side, greenwashing, making false or inflated sustainability claims that erode trust. On the other, green hushing, going completely silent on sustainability out of fear of backlash.

Neither works. And that's exactly what our Blue Storydoing methodology was built to solve.

Blue Storydoing is a bridge between those two extremes. It helps brands communicate what they are genuinely doing, grounded in data, activated through credible partners, and connected to real human insight. It's not storytelling. It's doing, turning a brand's sustainability reality into something people can actually experience and believe.

Here's the challenge we solve: someone living far from the coast may intellectually know there's plastic in the ocean, but it doesn't connect with them personally. Blue Storydoing finds the insight that makes it personal, then builds a credible, data-backed narrative around it. And because we've worked across Europe, Latin America, and the US, the methodology is designed to flex. Different markets are at very different stages of this conversation, and the entry point has to match where consumers actually are.

The ocean runs through everything you talk about, as a business, a platform, and a philosophy. Where does that come from?

As a surfer, the ocean teaches you things no boardroom can.

No two waves are exactly alike. Every morning, all over the world, waves are coming constantly, without pause. Your job isn't to catch every one. It's to be patient, read the set, and choose the right wave at the right moment. If you try to chase every wave, you exhaust yourself and wipe out. But if you stop, breathe, and wait, you're ready when the right one comes.

That's a perfect metaphor for the business world right now. There's constant information, constant noise, constant pressure to react. The most valuable thing you can do is develop the patience to observe before you move.

And here's the most important part: the ocean always wins. You can never control it. So you adapt. A chaotic day, a bad swell, no problem. You wait. Tomorrow will be better. If you fight the ocean, you'll have every kind of problem. That's not a philosophy I invented. It's something the water teaches you over and over again.

What advice would you give to someone earlier in their career?

Stability and adaptability have to coexist. That sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't.

When something alarming happens in your industry, the instinct is to react fast, change everything, pivot immediately. But that instinct is usually wrong. The best thing you can do is step back, observe, and understand what something will actually mean for your brand in two months, not in two hours.

Stay curious. Stay ready. But don't confuse speed with wisdom. The ocean doesn't reward the person who paddles hardest. It rewards the person who reads the water best.

Is there a question you'd pose to the IADAS community?

Around 2005, technology was the defining conversation — it changed everything. Around 2015, sustainability became the word of a generation.

My question is this: Do you believe the ocean will be the defining cultural and strategic territory of the next decade?

I do. The ocean connects everyone, regardless of where you stand on sustainability politics. You may have doubts about ESG frameworks or carbon credits, but you don't want to see a sea turtle tangled in fishing nets. You don't want to see plastic on a beach. That's a universal starting point.

In a world that feels increasingly divided, returning to something as elemental as the ocean, something that literally connects every continent, might be exactly the common ground we need. Not ground. Common water.

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