How to Accelerate Mission Driven Companies

[Music] well good afternoon everybody it's a wonderful opportunity to share such a fundamental part of this sustainable Journey we're going to be talking about Missi driven companies what it means to be a mission driven company with some practical examples from our wonderful panel who are going to share some of their experiences my name is Joel Blake I'm the founder and CEO of the GFA exchange for those who don't know GFA we use AI to democratize access to finance to underserve businesses across the world and evolving a much more sustainable technology approach in order to support those types of businesses but in terms of our panel today you are in for an absolute treat because for me it's always an honor to meet people who are really focused on Mission driven activity and put it at the heart of their business so without further Ado I'd like to introduce first Carol Stern and I'd like to introduce tal Hassan but Carol do you want to just give the audience a little bit of you know 90 seconds about who you are and what you do sure first of all thank you it it's a privilege to be here um I spent 42 years in the nonprofit sector running some of the USA's largest nonprofits the CEO of Unicef and then for the Walton family running their philanthropy before I arrived at a decision that I could have more impact with investment than I could through philanth anthropy and have now come over to your side of the desk welcome great I'm tal I'm the founder and CEO of 4401 we are a carbon removal company we've developed a technology that allows us to take captured CO2 and turn that CO2 into rock deep underground from that process we generate carbon credits which we can then sell or pass on to people who need to Abate their emissions fantastic I mean obviously you know see all to interu we'll get to that in a moment but uh Carol I'd like to maybe just start with you because your experience is is so vast and uh but one of the things I think that we've always um we like to see in terms of research and our panelist and learn a little bit more about yourself was the fact that you your passion for Community has led to impact in many many different ways but the question I'd like to ask you is what do you think is a secret to building communities um and making sure those communities can manifest impact both both internally inside organizations but also externally in the world so especially through my role at UNICEF I had the privilege to work in 45 countries and I think time and again I saw that when we entered into even response work without engaging the community without making it an equal partnership you couldn't achieve what you could otherwise you can't come in pejoratively and I think the same is true for Mission investing Mission driven businesses we have to work collabora with the community to understand their needs and we also have to Define sustainability broader than just climate it is about the people it is about Equity it is about access it is about truly building community and simultaneously if we're going to build it out there we have to build it internally in the businesses we run yeah it's a really good point because often uh sustainable activi is really focused on telling people what they need often the beneficiaries are not actually at the table when the strategies or policies or processes are being made and I think uh for for many of the leaders in the audience it's something to really consider in terms of your governance processes how you really making sure that You' been embedding the voice of the people in those strategy and I in those strategies and I know t for yourself stakeholder engagement has been absolutely crucial to your organization and your business um but how have you been able to ensure that you've been integrating those needs of and the voices of all those diverse stakeholders into your work absolutely absolutely uh stakeholder management is really important especially when you're building the types of projects that we are building for for us we have two main stakeholders that we put out there the first one is is government the second one is community uh just to touch on the government one quickly we need government authorities everyone to be aligned to be able to build these types of projects it requires a lot of thought uh a lot of Regulation you know we can't Mark our own homework we have to make sure that there is a regulator there to make sure that what we are doing is safe for the environment it's we're not causing any damage and you know just to give a story if when we built our first project here in the UAE uh the first kickoff meeting we had we had five different stakeholders from different government entities or Ministries in the room and it was truly a very eye-opening experience to have all of those uh government entities come together here in the UAE and help us make this project a reality was uh really quite uh inspiring on the community side I mean just to Echo what was said there uh Community engagement is really important uh especially for us you know this is a new technology uh there's a lot of awareness that needs to go into this um also what we are finding is apart from just engaging with the immediate Community around us uh we also need to start to go into the universities which we found to be a very important tool uh to show them what we're doing and to even involve them in what we're doing so that helps with the awareness and so for us um the community aspect is actually something which we start before we even do anything on the project we go out there we get feelers we understand what um challenges there are in the community what they are looking for uh what universities we can work with how they can help us and um and then we pull that all together and just try and get alignment amongst everyone I think what I'm hearing there is this sense of collaboration and and and dare I say diverse collaboration and bringing those different ideas those thoughts um and and indeed those needs together in a in a in a different way but we also have to be also cognizant of the fact that when we talk about sustainability we talk about Community people often put it in the charity basket right it's it's something that we'll do down there we we'll help those over there and I think what we really need to really think about is the fact that the world is evolved and the most successful businesses are going to be the ones who look at sustainable activity in a truly commercial sense and if I could come to you Carol because I know that's something that you've really looked at in your previous work and now You' brought into this space this sense of conscious capitalism shall we say what's your views on that well that can I two different examples you know in the wake of the um storm in Haiti the earthquake in Haiti I was then the CEO of of Unicef USA and I had no staff on the excuse me Puerto was Puerto Rico the storm in Puerto Rico I had no staff on the ground in Puerto Rico and I needed to respond and that required me to figure out who I could partner with who I could collaborate how I could make that happen and it took a tripartite of a government agency that could clear some of the customs regulations a UN agency that knew how to respond and then a company and at that time it was it was ups that could actually come together with us and figure out how to get things from here to there and by bringing all three together we were the first ones on the ground in the remote spots and we couldn't have done that with philanthropy alone corporate alone or with government alone so that was true collaboration but when I was working for The Waltons and I had the privilege to be giving away1 hundreds of millions of dollars towards climate change related issues particularly cleaning rivers and oceans I did begin to see that the investment Community was investing in agtec products that were cleaning those Rivers far greater than I was and so really it was by coming together and learning from each other and I have the privilege now to sit in a seat where I am exploring how I can use Investments for purpose-driven programs without giving up concessions you know that you can have purpose and profit you have to be true to the fact that they have to have equal success factors and be equally important but that you don't have to give up one for the other yeah I I I Sly resonate with that even my in my own business you know we set that up purely on the basis that if you can prove out the commercial opportunities for your partners then you can shape longer term Strategic investment into the purposes I mean I'm exploring right now for example the the disability Community which in the United States alone is a $75 billion market and when you bring Health to it that's a $500 billion market and yet it is a a community that has been underinvested in and it's very interesting you talk about you know sense of communities and the way you get different people to work together and how you can help them to be more Innovative uh and I think tal just the very idea of turning CO2 into rock you know absolutely blows my mind and I'm sure it does for the audience as well um but but how is that sense again that sense of innovation really shaped what would be in many people's eyes a very abstract idea you know how have you been able to leverage innovation in that way yeah so no one's ever done what we've done before in this particular type of rock so um we take a rock called peridotite This Rock comes up to the surface in certain parts of the world uh the UAE and Oman happen to be very rich in in this type of rock and no one had ever drilled or injected or mineralized CO2 in this type of rock so we really were kind of world leaders in this and it was very interesting because you know typically I'm from the region I'm from Oman typically we are importers of Technology when it comes to uh uh this region historically we've imported technology and and that's how it's gone and so to have a technology that we've developed ourselves in region um has proved a bit bit of a challenge actually getting that acceptance that hey look you know we we've done this ourselves we've patented this we have multiple patents we have some of the leading geologists in the world working on this problem with us and getting that confidence and so we started with really small Pilots um our first pilot was uh in the height of covid where everyone was at home Sheltering we were a small group of us in the mountains drilling a hole into into these rocks and injecting CO2 captured CO2 into these rocks so um it really was an element of of challenging the status quo and it's been great now to see um especially here in Abu Dhabi at hub71 more of these uh Tech technological solutions coming to light more people believing that they can do this and that they can really challenge the St status quo and there's an interesting concept here where I genuinely do believe that with climate Tech it's probably the first technology challenge that has been properly decentralized so typically you have the Meers of um of Technology typically that would be sat in Silicon Valley and climate Tech is the first sector that I've seen where you are getting companies from all over the world coming up with cutting technology and are able to compete with um people in Silicon Valley and raise funds like as if they were um an international startup no I really I really truly respect that and and something you would say in there about starting small you know you start with a pilot you build that confidence you prove out the value and the impact and then you scale that over time I think that's a really really interesting point and certainly for the audience to take on board um as we start thinking about summarizing I think one of the key things that um I certainly hear from both of you is the importance of really making sure that uh you are driving success as leaders in your organizations but you also are taking a seat and and a step back when you need to in that kind of servant leadership role um so what have you learned if you like and it's a question for both of you really what have you really learned about your journey so far in terms of being a mission driven leader facing challenges understanding how you have to be agile as a person let alone agile in your organization to achieve those outcomes what would you say would probably the maybe one lesson that you've learned from that Journey if I come to yourself Carol I think you have to you know as I said earlier work internally and externally you know I had the privilege when I joined lion tree lion tree is predominantly worked in sports media and entertainment but our founder arier burkoff challenged me to make the legacy of the company more than the fields we work in and he gave me the time to do the homework and the re research and to get to know our teams in our offices around the world so that I could understand our culture and our value and what might need to shift or not shift and then stay true to it in what we would then go out and do that culture aspect is really important it's the internal work as well as the external work and that also ensuring that your organization is brought along with what you choose to do that makes you Mission driven fantastic yeah culture value sticking to that being authentic to that is is really importantly hello I think if I had to pick one there's a lot of lessons learned over these last four and a half years if I had to pick one it would be people um the importance of people uh especially in this journey that we're in we're building something that no one has ever built before it's what we call in the tech um the tech sphere is a white space and uh just to have the right people to come in with that open mindset with no ego to know that you know we are going we are building the plane as we are flying pretty much and to come in with a very open attitude uh being open to feedback being open to learning asking questions you know curiosity it's something which just constantly comes up where we'll get told or someone will say oh we can't do this it's like why can't we do it oh because it's not been done before it's like well that's not a reason so let's let's push that and explore that so I've really uh fi at people is the biggest driver for us and I think for this sector as well moving forward I think what I'm hearing there is that sense of vulnerability we often see vulnerability as a negative but as a mission driven leader it's actually a strength because it builds authenticity authenticity reinforces the culture and values and enables you to really come together as a unified group to achieve that purpose um so just in closing I wonder if I can ask you just what are you currently working on is there one kind of thing activity that you're working at the moment you just like to share with the audience just to kind of really really accentuate what this actually really means sure so so we uh continue to inject captured CO2 here in the UAE we started uh during cop 28 uh with a pilot project with adnoc uh that was um the first direct air capture to mineralization project in the whole of Asia and one of very few in the world um we did that using seawater which was the first time anyone had ever has ever done that um we've now expanded that site so um as of uh recently we've just started injecting on the expanded site and um that is something which we are continuing to build up here in the UAE fantastic well I wish should the very best of looked absolutely car what were youing you know I mentioned the uh disability market and you know as the mom of a child who had a disability I'm very familiar with the kind of the lack of pace of innov ation in medicine until recently and obviously the impact on AI in particular on medicine has been phenomenal so at lantry we are exploring that market we're exploring you know what we could do to have impact but I think if I had a message here today I would just kind of wrap up with a little Story I mean I as I mentioned I worked in 45 countries and at the time I had the privilege to work in the zerie camp and when you work in the refugee camps you know it's a long day and you get up Ear and you work all day and there are always kids when you work for Unicef hanging on to you you know it's like the Elephant Walk you've got kids all over you but there's always some shy kids who walk behind you and on this particular day in the camp I had a child she was probably 12 or 13 years old she had a baby on her hip a younger sibling and a little boy of about three or four who followed us all day long and we had gotten up and started work at about 4 in the morning they were there and 6:00 in the afternoon we're wrapping up we realized we had not eaten all day which meant these kids had not eaten all day and I was struck by that and at one point we had been helping in a tent teaching women how to breastfeed and they had these little biscuits and they wanted us to eat the biscuits and I was trying very hard not to eat carbs so I had kind of pmed my biscuit and stuck it in my backpack so we took the biscuit out and we gave it to this little three or four year-old child expecting him to run off this was a starving child he'll take the biscuit he'll go hide he'll he'll and he hadn't made eye contact he just followed me all day long so for the first time he looked at me and he kind of smiled and he opened up the package and with no one saying anything he broke the biscuit in half and he handed half to the baby wow and 40 of us wept I mean all of us in blue shirts we all cried but I share that because it showed me that if a three or four-year-old knew enough to share the biscuit and understand that we could still build a better tomorrow just imagine what a room like this could do for our world today if we were all Mission driven I cannot think of a more fitting story to finish such a inspiring empowering conversation on please join me in saying thank you to our panel Carol tal and please in terms of your work and what you do think about what biscuit you can give to somebody else thank you very much to [Music]