Stewardship Journey

I'll be honest. I wasn't really sure what Stewardship in a business sense meant. So I glibly wrote 'Stewardship is what Stewardship does' on the learning wall at the inaugural Stewardship Edge programme organized by the Stewardship Asia Centre and delivered by its CEO Rajeev Peshawaria.

Shortly into the course, we refined this definition to 'harnessing human energy towards the creation of a better collective future' with the objectives of developing sustaining long-term value creation by balancing the needs of all stakeholders, society, future generations, and the environment.

Part of the course included a period of self-reflection on our individual purpose and personal values - being honest with ourselves regarding the values we would want with us on our desert island, and being authentic about our level of emotional integrity. We were each challenged to define our personal stewardship purpose before looking at what it might mean for the organization as a whole.

"Harnessing human energy towards the creation of a better collective future"

We weren't abandoned to our own thinking during the course, we had a thought-provoking keynote address by Temasek's CEO Dillan Pillay, giving a powerful endorsement of sustainability and stewardship as a key plank of Temasek's developing investment approach. I had first encountered Dillan 18 years ago when he was a partner at a Singapore law firm, advising our private equity consortium on a contested hostile bid for a large iconic listed firm. Even then I was amazed at his uncanny memory and recall - which have only been honed to a finer point in the intervening years. My practical take-away from Dillan's talk was in response to a question I posed to him regarding impact measurement and decision making, he suggested adding actual carbon costs to evaluate a company and adjusting the cost of capital accordingly.

We were also joined by Ilaria Chan, dialing in late at night from San Francisco a week before her wedding, to talk about her own stewardship journey. Ilaria is associated with Grab, she is Group Advisor for social impact investments, but also part of the Owl Ventures and Goodwater Capital ecosystems. She enthusiastically took us through some of her EdTech and Digital Health venture capital investments, highlighting the possibility of doing well by doing good.

Ahmed Mazhari (President, Microsoft Asia) described how forward-thinking companies like Microsoft are building stewardship into their DNA, and Munib Madni (CIO, Panarchy Partners) outlined his approach to responsible investing through his B Corp certified fund management company. In addition to using carbon-adjusted returns, in the same vein as Temasek's Pillay, Munib breaks down his portfolio review into 'purpose' and 'impact'. As a fund manager, he also explained that half of any performance fees (or 'carry') earned by the team go to a charitable foundation.

An old friend, Professor Arnoud De Meyer - formerly the founding Dean of INSEAD's Asian Campus (my alma mater) and more recently President of Singapore Management University, challenged us to embrace stewardship-driven innovation, governance, and scalability in our businesses. He also has written extensively on business ecosystems, echoing perhaps Michael Porters 'cluster' approach to business, which today can lead to a material reduction in waste, and ultimately perhaps a greater push towards a circular economy.

Professor Lawrence Loh from NUS Business School outlined the new paradigm of Stewardship based governance, to make up for the inadequacies of the traditional 'agency' approach to corporations. Many countries are starting to implement stewardship codes, putting a collectively greater responsibility on non-executive directors to take both a broader view and a deeper dive into the purpose and pursuits of company boards and management teams.

We also had fascinating sessions on data protection and stewardship over digital assets delivered by Professor Simon Chesterman (Dean of NUS's Faculty of Law), and Professor David De Cremer (author of 'Leadership by Algorithm') lifting the lid on recent trends in Artificial Intelligence and encouraging us all to be digitally upskilled (easy enough in Singapore with its comprehensive Skills Future program).

The dominant harmonic during the course was on purpose-driven leadership, which resonated among the participants. Food for thought as we all try and implement strategy and growth during these unprecedented Covid times.