What non-profit leaders can teach corporate leaders – and vice versa

By James Ashton

WHEN Doug Gurr swapped leading Amazon UK for the Natural History Museum last autumn, it was an eye-catching career move.

Gurr was trading the futuristic for the ancient, bidding farewell to Amazon’s cutting-edge developments in biometric payments, home robots and delivery drones to embrace instead the Natural History Museum’s centuries-old collection of plant and animal species housed in a striking “cathedral to nature” complete with gargoyles on the fa?ade.

There was also a stark financial comparison. Since 2016, Gurr had run the UK arm of an enterprise which takes a mere three hours to rack up the ￡92m of annual revenues of his new employer – and half of that comes by way of a government grant.

Less important for someone who has clearly earned well for a long period was the huge pay cut he must have agreed to if he is to receive something in line with ￡265,000 a year his predecessor Sir Michael Dixon commanded.

But the biggest change of all – and one that business leaders rarely make during their executive careers – was going from the private sector to the public, non-profit arena.

I should qualify: business leaders do often combine the day job with charitable roles. Gurr himself is chairman of the British Heart Foundation and trustee at the National Gallery as well as the Landmark Trust, which restores historic buildings and makes them available as holiday lets. He is also a former chairman of the Science Museum.

It is just that making the full-time switch has occurred far less frequently, when really it shouldn’t have been so. Gurr’s skills will come in handy as the Natural History Museum seeks to digitise the vast majority of its 80m objects that are not currently on display. In turn that should simplify its mission to create advocates for the planet by capitalising on its collection, scientific research and worldwide audience.

For a long time these two leadership tribes were seemingly oil and water: one, with shareholders to please and profit to produce; the other, campaigning for a cause. Only now is it clear they have much to learn from each other.

In my book The Nine Types of Leader I contrast Dame Helena Morrissey with Winnie Byanyima. Both are campaigners, eager to right wrongs that they have encountered personally and professionally. Dame Helena founded The 30% Club while running funds firm Newton Investment Management to boost female representation on FTSE100 boards after knowing what it felt like to be passed over for promotion earlier in her career. Byanyima, who as a girl lived under Idi Amin’s brutal Ugandan regime that saw her politically-active father in and out of jail, poured her efforts into leading Oxfam International for many years.

Where this duo differs is that one campaigns alongside a profit imperative while the other fundraises to achieve her goals.

“We’re not a charity” used to be a putdown for those accused of not acting in a sufficiently business-like way. Yet the rise of profit with purpose, egged on by the wall of money flowing into environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds, has ensured CEOs don’t quite see things that way anymore.

This trend has been mirrored by what might be labelled as purpose with profit. Charities are being forced to act much more commercially to achieve their aims, picking up more slack than ever from the cash-strapped state.

Recently on my Leading podcast I interviewed Javed Khan, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, the UK’s largest children’s charity. He related how his team was coping with a ￡50m drop in income – in part because Barnardo’s 700 shops had been closed and face-to-face fundraising suspended during lockdown – just as demand for services spiked. It was a challenge every bit as demanding as anything faced by a corporate CEO during the last year.

Business leaders should be inspired by charity bosses whose great clarity of purpose harnesses the passion of a workforce - which often includes a large volunteer component - and forges partnerships to maximise impact. For their part, charity leaders, for whom trust is paramount, can learn from the financial discipline and good governance that corporate life demands.

It means that Gurr’s improbable transfer from London’s Shoreditch to South Kensington should be far from the last of its kind - in either direction.

James Ashton speaks and writes on leadership and business.

jamesashton.co

@mrjamesashton

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