Leadership2050 edition 21: Profitable Growth for Good – the Adara Group

Welcome to the 21st edition of the?Leadership2050?Newsletter in which I introduce the first of a number of case studies that focus on the concept of?profitable growth for good. There is a simple question that I would like to pose in framing this concept:?If you sold more of the products and services that you offer, would the world be a better place?

In the last newsletter (edition 20), I framed what I meant by this statement in terms of 1) the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 2) views from the philosopher A.C. Grayling and 3) the words of the psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman.?

So, let’s look at our first example: the Adara Group from Australia. Before I jump into the detail of what the Adara Group does, I want to let you know why I chose this company as the first example. Sometimes, to understand something, you need to go to somewhat of an extreme point of view. For me, what the Adara Group does is to combine two things that, in many people’s minds, are at polar extremes. On the one hand, the Adara Group is an investment bank, competing with all the other investment banks for deals and, on the other hand, it is a development agency, working in some of the world’s poorest regions. I need to make it clear that this is not a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity tagged onto the operations of a major company, but rather, an organisation that has two parts, where one part funds another. Below is a description of the operation of Adara, in their own words:?

Our mission is to bridge the world of business and the world of people in extreme poverty. The Adara Group consists of an international development organisation, Adara Development, and two corporate advisory businesses, Adara Partners and Adara Advisors. We have two very different parts, but one shared purpose: to bring quality health and education services to communities in need.

Adara Partners is a boutique corporate advisory firm, providing independent and conflict-free advice to Australian companies. Adara Partners acts as a trusted adviser to boards, senior management and significant shareholders of public and private companies. Adara provides independent advice, second opinions, complex commercial problem-solving and capital-raising advice.

From ASX 100 companies through to private entities, the unparalleled experience and perspectives of Adara Partners have enabled key decision-makers to confidently work through complex issues and make sound decisions.

As a BCorp? and participant member of UN Global Compact, we are committed to meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability, to balance profit and purpose. We align our work with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Our international development arm, Adara Development,??works with partners, governments, and communities to bring quality health and education services to people living in some of the world’s remotest places

Informed by more than two decades’ experience, we design and scale programmes across Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, and Remote Community Development. We are also committed to sharing our knowledge to maximise our impact.

Alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals?

GOAL 1: No Poverty

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being

GOAL 4: Quality Education

GOAL 5: Gender Equality

GOAL 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals

So, as you can see, the Adara Group has combined what many people consider to be 'oil and water’ or, in other words, things that cannot be combined. I recently interviewed the CEO, Audette Exel AO, who is a deeply inspirational leader, and discovered more about the work she leads:?

‘We want to go to "this is my team and that's your team”. And we want to stand on hills and throw stones at each other, when, at such a complex moment in our history, engagement across divide is needed for the kind of existential problems that we are now dealing with. We must lift way beyond our families, our communities, our companies, our nation-states into global thinking. And the only way we can do it is to get out of polarity, but we’re tracking??further and further to polarity.

‘Adara represents, for me, a manifestation of that. I wanted to prove to myself, first and foremost, that you could engage across the divide, that an investment banker could be as magnificent as a midwife who works 20 days, walk down a road, and puts her life on the line every single day to help others. I wanted to show that there’s a chain. When we hold ourselves in chain together around the world, amazing things can happen. And that's exactly the way that Adara manifests.’

The interview that I carried out with her, for the next series of my Leadership2050 podcast, left me deeply inspired, not just by the operation that she has created, but also by the worldview that she has that underpins this. I don't use these words lightly, but I genuinely believe that how she is leading is an approach that is much needed in the world today. The quote below gives an insight into this worldview and how it manifests, both as a leadership approach and as an organisation:?

‘I believe profoundly in the magnificence of human beings, and I'm a bit of a counter-view. At this moment, there's an awful lot of darkness and despair. But I think this period in our history is going to be defined by the magnificence of humankind, not the malevolence. And the reason I believe in magnificence is [that] I watch them interact... Well, firstly, I watch their brilliance. I watch our Senior Clinical Advisor, who is a brilliant neonatal nurse specialist, working day and night to make sure that we can figure out how you deliver a breathing device, blended air and oxygen without electricity, in remote settings in Uganda. I watch her, and then I watch the investment bankers poring all over mergers-and-acquisitions deals and working to a standard of absolute excellence, because our panel, the Adara Panel, are the best in the business. And believe me, you can't deliver mediocre work to the best in the business. And what I love to see is [that] the thing that unites them is purpose.’

In summary, when answering the question?‘If you sold more of the products and services that you offer, would the world be a better place?’,?I have no doubt that, in the case of the Adara Group, the answer is a resounding YES! I am not suggesting that all investment banks and all development agencies structure themselves in this way, but rather, that there is something about the way in which Audette leads that speaks to a new archetype of leadership that is needed for the 21st century. We have a lot to learn from her.?

Do listen out for the next series of my Leadership2050 podcast series, which will be launched in a few weeks’ time, when you can hear the full interview with Audette.?

Finally, you may be interested to know why I am writing this Newsletter. As a Senior Fellow of Management Practice at Sa?d Business School (SBS), University of Oxford, my research and teaching focuses on how leaders transcend 21st century challenges such as disruptive technology change and the climate crisis; also, how they create cultures that are diverse, inclusive, resilient and high performing, alongside the ongoing challenge of delivering profitable growth. At Oxford, I direct the Oxford Advanced Management and Leadership Programme and, in this capacity, work with leaders from many geographies, industries and governments. All this has given me a deep understanding of how good leaders create value and bad leaders destroy it, as measured from multiple perspectives. One could argue that never before has this been so important on a global stage; hence why I am undertaking this work.?

? Dr Andrew White February 2022?