 Welcome everybody to the final webinar in this current advancing leadership webinar series and today we are looking at the topic of common leadership challenges and solutions. So delighted to have so many of you with us. This is actually a record turnout for this series and delighted also to welcome our two panelists. So I'm joined today by Ibrahim al-Zubi who's joining us from Dubai. Ibrahim is the chief sustainability officer of Majid al-Futaym. He's also a senior associate of CISL and our ambassador for the region. Ibrahim has been with Majid al-Futaym for nearly 10 years and as chief sustainability officer reports directly into the CEO. I'm also delighted to welcome Gillian secret. Gillian recently joined CISL as our director of leadership programs and that follows a 22 year career at the Muller Center where she was CEO. So delighted to have our panelists with us today. A few technical details before we kick off. We have had a phenomenal amount of questions received in advance this webinar. I think we've had over 60 questions. So thank you for those. You also are able to ask questions and add comments via the chat function during this webinar and our goal will be to get to as many of those questions as possible. So please do ask questions. So I mentioned this is the last webinar in the current advancing leadership series and the others in this series. If you're able to join us in March we looked at personal leadership in action and last month communicating for leadership influence and action. So delighted to pick up this topic and just to note that you also get in the email that we send you afterwards. All our webinar series recordings are available on our leadership hub and information about all of our leadership programs can be found on our website as well. So with no further ado I'm going to introduce the five challenges that we're going to address in the next 30 minutes. And point to make is these have all very much been crowdsourced by our community. So these are the challenges that come up most regularly both in our online and face to face programs and through our network of 9000 alums around the world. So we thought it was most appropriate for the last in this current advancing leadership webinar that we handed over to you and actually addressed the challenges that most pertinent for you in your context. So these are the following one of course responding to the pandemic to how do we line up align our personal and organizational purpose to create valuable stakeholders. Challenge three how do we unlock innovation and finance for a sustainable economy. Challenge for that old chestnut how do we get buying from the board for long term goals and challenge five how do we break through gridlock to influence change both within our organizations and beyond. So those are the five challenges that we're going to be covering off and in terms of the format just to say that we will limit the the initial conversations about 30 minutes so that we've got 30 minutes to get to as many of your questions as possible. So with no further ado I would like to just introduced Ibrahim who is going to respond to the first challenge responding to the pandemic. But first I wanted to ask you just to spend a couple of minutes telling us a little bit about the magic Alfie team for those of you who may not know the organization so over to you Ibrahim. Thank you Zoe and it's a great pleasure to be part of this webinar and I hope you'll all find the today's session informative and I hope each one of you with the families as well are well and safe. Much of the game follows founded in 1992 is a leading shopping mall communities retail and leisure pioneer across the Middle East Africa and Asia. It's a really remarkable business story started by one man's vision to transform the face of shopping entertainment and leisure to create great moments for everyone every day. It has since since 1992 till now grown to one of the UAE's most respected and successful businesses spanning into 16 international markets and employing more than 44,000 people. And Tony and obtaining the highest credit rating triple B rating among privately held corporates in the region as well as the first region the first company in the region to get to a company. I'm a CIA and Doris as per sustainability. We own and operate around 27 shopping malls 13 hotels and for mixed use communities as part of our properties business. Also we have a portfolio of retail where we own the supermarket brand car for a number of markets across the Middle East Africa and Asia. Operating almost a portfolio of more than 300 outlets. Also we operate more than 500 box cinema screens and leisure entertainment from magic planets as well as final consumer finance and home consumers and fashion as well as FMB and having representative brands such as the Lego store in the region. That's our brand family just in brief and happy now to take you through the first challenge. Thanks over to the first challenge. Thank you. What I've learned to be honest with you in the last two three months through living and still managing on a personal and professional level the pandemic that we are living in is to be resilient and agile. It's an experience that I learned and think day by day as well as I've witnessed how companies and corporates that agile and resilient corporates took this into consideration. The big difference that they made either by investing in a planet and the planet and the profit and the people as well. So one of the things one of the good examples about the agility and resilience in addition to the health and environment and safety that we implement is something is close to my heart. Our investment in people. If you invest if you're a people company then you're an agile and resilient company. A good example when we had to shut down our box cinema screens leisure entertainment outlets. Instead of we made the commitment that we have a commitment for our people we will not let them down not only keeping them in the job or maintaining their monthly income but also having keeping their pride by giving back to the business giving back to the company to the to the community as well. So we did in such a record time and much for time reskilled and redeployed more than 1000 employees from our leisure entertainment our cinemas to help in our retail business where they were under pressure then and still because of people demanding more online digital platforms to get their consumers goods delivered to them. That was a great and still great experience that showed our value the togetherness. So it showed how we can come together as a company and how can to be agile. The other big example I would like to touch on is the planet. This is something it's an ongoing business it doesn't stop with a pandemic or not. It's something you start now or yesterday and you think of the future assuming and if you're a climate change expert you know we may are heading into a crisis or into maybe an environmental. A climatic pandemic. So what we've done is we thought of the future. And we did we have the responsibility to give more to the environment more than we take. In an easy step we calculated our negative environment impact we found that it's environment carbon and water. And we said by 2040 we want to be a net positive in carbon and water. This includes the embedding climate change risk assessment and modeling in our strategy and priority. This worked a lot and helped a lot into the design and changing the mentality of the way we run business. If something we learned from COVID-19 is business as usual is officially dead. What we do what we need to introduce is a new sustainable business model. If you look at history with the industrial revolution so we looked into amazing huge chefs. And now we are living the fourth industrial revolution. We're talking about digital. We're talking about AI. We're talking about new things that we never mentioned a couple of years ago. I would add as a wrap up to this challenge. If you want to have a successful for IR for industrial revolution, you definitely need to be agile and resilient. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Abraham. So I'd now like to hand over to Gillian to talk about our second challenge that comes up all the time. How do we align our purpose and culture to create value for stakeholders? And just to add Gillian is bringing both her experience as CEO of the Muller Institute where she was for 24 years. Embedding values to develop a service-led organization and leadership institute. In addition to her CEO hat, she's also served on several boards and done her own research, her own master's research into some of these topics as well. So I have to apologize. Unfortunately we have no video for Gillian. She's had some internet challenges today. But I'm hoping that we'll be able to hear her and she can take us through challenge number two, aligning purpose and culture to create value for stakeholders. So over to you, Gillian. My personal purpose really was founded when I was a youngster. It's all about growing and helping others to be at their best. The origins really from my family home as a family of entrepreneurs where we had a business, our own business of growing and a wholesaler for flowers and salad ingredients. And really a family with hard work and business going on, all hand in hand, where we very much grew up with respect for people and with respect for nature. So that really was what founded my purpose. The thought that I could help and be part of something that's growing, helping people and businesses to grow and really supporting others to be at their best. I had the wonderful opportunity in my career to be able to do that and particularly at MOLA where I've been able to help to develop the team there and to develop the senior leaders and the high potential leaders in the classroom. And obviously also working alongside my own family. So my energy and my motivation grows and follows through from my purpose. And at the Institute, the organizational purpose was very much founded from the MOLA Institute, where the MOLA foundation, where the donation originally came from to Churchill College. And Merck McKinney MOLA, the benefactor, wanted to bring all that Cambridge had to offer to benefit business and wider society. And so his purpose in establishing the MOLA Institute was to do just that. The purpose and values of the Merck organization and my own values, we combine those together to very much develop an organizational purpose that we could line ourselves behind, align our strategy to and deliver. The values of the organization were obviously critical. I'm delighted to now be in a role where, you know, values are also central to what I'm doing and that's no surprise. And they're also central to the Cambridge leadership model here at CISL. The values at MOLA were also an important part of what we did. And really they led the way we did things they influenced our strategy, and they influenced the way in which we delivered value to stakeholders. And our purpose at MOLA to inspire individuals to be the best that they can be, to accelerate the performance of the organizations which they serve and to have a positive impact on society and the environment. And through our work, covenanting profits to Churchill College to support the education of future leaders. This is our purpose and one that was really good to align behind and still is for all the team and the staff and the stakeholders. So our customer promise, you are at the heart of everything we do. This was our tangible way of making this real for us. It was a statement that we promised to our customers and we later adapted it so that we were promising it to our staff as well. You have the heart of everything we do. And that means that nothing's too much trouble. We want to be there for you and support you in your development and your growth. So this made it tangible for us and helped us to influence the day to day work of this institute through our customer promise, our purpose and our values. And finally, culture. Culture does stand the test of time and it helps to provide consistency and confidence for the clients. It needs to be evolving. It needs to be agile and it needs to support the delivery of the purpose and the strategy. But you know you can influence culture more than you realise and I think it's very interesting if you look at the headings on this slide. These are the ways that you can look to influence culture both as a leader and as an individual in an organisation. Thinking about the stories that get told, what gets celebrated, the systems, the structures and the symbols and rituals that take place in the organisation. And where the power lies and how the leaders actually behave. And obviously my behaviour as the CEO was very important in influencing that culture and taking it in the direction that we wanted to deliver our purpose and our customer promise. But of course we don't always get it right, but the influence and the noticing of what we're doing and really looking to see if we're achieving that is important. And that's why I just wanted to end with measures because it's important to know whether you're delivering what you're promising to your customers. And we looked at key areas and still do in terms of those external audits, ISO and hospitality assured, but most importantly the business results and if we're delivering to the shareholders and stakeholders. And finally to think about very much what the staff are saying about us and what the clients are saying about us. Are our clients happy? Do they really believe we're delivering what we promise? And that's absolutely essential in terms of really measuring that your purpose and values are really meaningful and that they're not just words on a paper. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Gillian. So moving on to the third of our five challenges that we've heard from you all is how do we unlock finance and innovation for a sustainable economy? And I'd like to now hand back to Ibrahim who's got a few thoughts on this. Ibrahim, over to you. Thank you. This global crisis that we are living all living now, I think it provides us with an amazing opportunity to take a step back and rethink the existing business models we have and maybe identify some gaps and opportunities. Why would we need to do this? There will be a competition on finance and investment, but there will be also an opportunity to access stimulus plans, support investments in the new direction after post-COVID-19. One of the good things that we've done is tackling into green finances. Green finances is an opportunity for people to identify doing well by doing good or public-private partnership or private-private partnership. In the region, we issue with Sukuk. Sukuk is a Sharia compliance bond, so it's a bond, but the difference is it follows the Islamic Sharia when it comes to investment. We decided to be bold and issue the global first pitch mark for a green Sukuk, building two things. One, we are a reputable privately held rated company. And the second part, for the last 10 years, we've been investing and spending in green investments such as green buildings and going into green certifications and tackling our climate change impact and making it as at the heart of everything we do. Having a helicopter view of everything, so you look at it, not as a sustainability practitioner only. You look at it from finance, development, future, corporate development, as well as sustainability. I'm proud of this launch because I was very, very close with an amazing partner of crime in the organization, the people of Treasury. We never thought a CSO works with the Treasury and finance. Actually, the project plan was five months and we did it in five weeks instead because we aligned the target and the objective. We had the previous history and in a span of almost six months, we did two issuance for two green Sukuks, $600 million each. And we were over subscribed by an average five to six times. So we raised $1.2 billion. And at the same time, we had an interest of more than $3.5 billion just for investors interested to do in green Sukuk. And by the way, most of it is not your usual suspects. Most of them, they were investors, but they had a demand for their customers. And because of the lack of supply, we were there. So the demand was there and there was an opportunity and that was late last year. So it wasn't, it was, there was uncertainty in the financial markets. So this is one of the things that a good example to tackle. The other one is maybe the pandemic COVID-19 made it clear food and food security. People were worried about lots of things, their health and well-being. And most importantly, with the lockdown in most of the countries in the world, they were worried if they could put food in the table with their jobs and the food. And not any food. We're talking about organic and healthy food. So what we've done, we had, we just built on the great relationship we have with the local markets, the local farmers and the small SMEs. And we thought of what we can transfer, what about, can transfer our retail outlets, our supermarkets into a small neighborhood farm. So the plan, we did it with a pilot and we started so far with three hydroporics farms. And where we save around 90% of water, we reduce our carbon footprint because there is no transport, the customers can look at it and see how does it grow if we're taking care of it or not. And most importantly, it's healthy as well. And it provides a healthy diet to the customer. So it's, we took care of the planet and we took care of the profit. And most importantly, we took care of people, especially now, with their will-beam and their diet. That's two examples about how you can, and of course, sky is the limit. When you take a helicopter view, you see things you never thought and you could tackle. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you, Ibrahim. Two fantastic examples of unlocking finance and unlocking innovation. And I think unlocking $1.2 billion worth of green finance is certainly a superproof point. So moving on to our fourth challenge, getting buying from the board for long-term goals. As I mentioned earlier, Gillian has got the benefit not only with her CEO hat on, but having served on a number of boards and also actually done her own research a part of her masters. And Gillian, I think you've got seven, six key points you wanted to cover here in terms of how do we get buying from the board for long-term goals over short-term priorities? Thank you, Zoe. So my research and the work I've been doing and my experience really focuses on how does sustainability emerge at the board level? How does it come up? And looking at this through the eyes of the CEO and the senior leader in the organisation, I've discovered that there are really six very key points that I'd like to share with you this morning. First of all, framing is key. Framing as risk and opportunity is really important at the board. The risk of the supply of resources and the risk to the business of not taking heed of the long-term. And thinking about consumer and market pressures. And on the other hand, the opportunity that the sustainability agenda presents us. How we can innovate to create the value and to seize that opportunity to develop new products and services and to change the business model or the value chain in order to take that advantage. Point number two, we must admit here that it's a balancing act. Looking at the short-term and the long-term priorities is always going to be a balancing act. And this is really challenging for the chief exec and for the board. And one chief exec that I interviewed actually said to me, you know, to be honest, unless you deliver in the short-term, you really don't earn the right to deliver in the long-term or to even make those decisions. And this is really playing out right now for every board across the country in the world. Really helping to balance the two together and thinking about how delivering in the short-term can also help you to take those steps to deliver in the long-term and to think about those risks and opportunities. And so this is really important that we can show value in both and that they can both support each other to take the business in the right direction and in a sustainable direction. So point number three, context is everything and timing is critical. And we really do have a very current situation where this is so relevant. Think about what else is on the agenda at the board. Think about this carefully and think about what you're putting your decisions up against for that board to decide what's going on at the time, where is the focus of the board and what's on their mind. And make sure that your proposals speak to these issues and make sure that they're relevant. And the situation we're in with COVID demonstrates that we can be flexible and flex and move forward differently in order to adapt and change because we've been forced to do that. And so really thinking about the context and timing at the moment for boards, how can this opportunity be used to do things differently to contribute to those long-term projects and to make step-by-step journeys towards a more sustainable business. Let's make sure they don't get overlooked and make sure that the conversion back to business isn't necessarily business as usual, but business that can take us towards a more sustainable agenda while still getting the value creation back on the road as quickly as possible. We do need to balance it's a both and not an either or short-term and long-term. Point number four. Let's not talk about sustainability in its own right, but let's integrate it into the core strategy so that it becomes business as usual. And those CEOs where the business that incorporates the sustainability agenda into the strategy so that it was just the way things got done, how to create new opportunities to create value, and the new norm. This was the best way of actually taking the agenda further, making it business as usual, making it part of the everyday day-to-day, but also part of the core strategy in terms of the development of products and services and the overall direction and vision of the organization. So moving to point number five, back to the original purpose and values. These were very much used and came up in the conversations I had with CEOs that they were incredibly important and helpful at the board in terms of making decisions and having discussions. They were used as a barometer for guidance when those tough decisions have got to be made and how to implement those changes. So purpose and values are very much shared, a common understanding across the whole organization and the whole stakeholder group so that those decisions and conversations can have some consistency in terms of what has to be made. Finally point six. Thinking about our stakeholders and our shareholders, our customers and our staff, and the community of course. They all have a point of view and they all have the chance to influence the board agenda if you communicate with them and keep them on board and see what they think. And don't underestimate the influence that the chief executive has as an individual and the values and purpose that he or she has and that they bring to the board table. Those behaviors and values can make a difference in the way they role model and lead the organization and show up at the board and can have a lasting contribution on the way things move forward in those decisions. Thank you. Brilliant thank you so much Jillian so we're moving on to our fifth and final challenge that we hear most often. I'm going to go back to Ibrahim for this one and this is breaking through gridlock. How do we break through gridlock to influence change both within our organizations and beyond. And I know, Ibrahim you've got a couple of points that you want to mention and before we go to questions so it's up to you. Ibrahim we can't hear you. I don't know if you're on mute. I'm mute myself apologies. You know, growing number of people think the answer is to call on the big businesses to help fix the economic and social problems but we still face enormous social environmental and economic challenges as well. Like let's and we forget sometimes the small details that we missed while doing that. Talk about this talk about low hanging fruit this talk about serious problems such as water for example, water more than a quarter of all humankind lack access to even the most basic elements such as water clean water. And this has been part of the SDGs been part of been talked about it's for me this is a pandemic for example and this is it has numbers has database as well as it can open the floor and the platform for SMEs and help them to even to survive the existing and economic situation we have. So, big companies depend on the SMEs for innovations. So we need to understand and accept the fact that SMEs and big companies that are in this together and something we learned by the way, living this, living this time now. If one of us falls, we all fall. And this is something we're all in agreement the whole world agreement if something COVID-19 did something it came it brought the whole work together we are all in this together. So, breaking the to break the unlocks or to open something for the benefits of the business and the planet and the people. And now we all understand it's a fact that if one of us falls we all fall. Also, prevention is better than cure. If we talk about small businesses, if we talk about climate change, if we're talking about food and proper sustainable solutions, it's part of the prevention and part of risk and compliance now. Also, in addition to what Jillian added as well mentioned about balancing, the public now needs to understand and learn more about the gravity of the situation. Having short sentences about and general sentence about a crisis or about a challenge is not enough anymore for any stakeholder be it a board of directors or a CEO or you just your your your customer. So, we need to link now, we have an opportunity to link with a global focus. So, again, if we what we're living now we have the power of global focus. So, not thinking of a local part only we're talking of being part of the global community. And I tell you something I, I think we should use as well. Think to listen to the experts. We all now listen to doctors and scientists for to find the cure and the vaccine. We can use exactly the same thing for any other big factual based on scientific approach. And most importantly, I would say towards the end of how you follow your true north. Personally, I made sure that this is my true north what I do right now. And it did not only benefit me benefited the company I serve the community I am part of and most importantly the planet I live in. So this is in a nutshell, how you can unlock it. But most importantly, again, don't forget to follow your true north. Brilliant. Thank you, you bring what a perfect place on which to end. And as I said, we wanted to make sure we had lots and lots of time for questions. We've covered an awful lot of ground in less than 30 minutes so thank you both so much for that and lovely to see the response in the chat and see that a lot of this is resonating. So moving on to questions. I'm actually going to shop stop sharing this deck and we are going to see whether the wind is blowing in the right direction and we might even be able to get an image of Jillian on on our screens as well. Let's see how we do. Fantastic wonderful super. So as I mentioned at the outset we've we've got had over 60 questions in advance and we also want to make sure that we get the opportunity to respond to some of the comments and questions that you're putting in the chat so do please keep on doing that and we'll keep on on monitoring that as well. So, Jillian I just wanted to turn to you first if I may. And when it comes to aligning purpose and culture to creating value for stakeholders. Now obviously as you can imagine we had a lot of questions in this area and one that I wanted to touch on because we've not we've not covered it yet really is the whole aspect of continuous learning, learning and development and training and the question was now how do you enable continuous learning, particularly when training and L and D is often the first budget cut in times of uncertainty so just interested in your personal experience of how you how you've enabled learning and training when it comes to building in purpose into our culture. I think the important thing there is using all the opportunities that you have available to you when when budgets are limited and really giving people projects and work to do that's going to stretch them and give them opportunities to learn and grow. And also mentoring and coaching throughout that process so that the individual has the chance to feel open to ask questions and to really discover their own place in this learning but also the skill that they're developing and give them the responsibility and the accountability so that they can really, you know test their muscle and grow into that and those opportunities are there in the workplace every day. And you know if you have an organizational purpose and values that that support growth and learning. This is an easy thing to do and it's difficult obviously in business pressures, but actually it pays dividends in the long run. Brilliant thank you so much and and just just a second, second question there around on the whole topic of how do we align our purpose to create valuable for all stakeholders just just on the staff piece again. Just just really your thoughts on on how how do we communicate. So we had a question that came in advance know how do we how do we keep stuff motivated during during difficult times like we're in at the moment. Now what's the role that that that culture plays in embedding sustainability so so perhaps just your thought on thoughts or what's worked for you when it comes to communicating with staff. I think really you know keeping staff engaged in an understanding what's happening is really important communicating communicating and then communicating some more so that they really are clear about what's happening and the difficult the decisions that having to be faced so that they they has a there's a transparency around what's going on and the fear of the unknown and you know can be dealt with because that's always very difficult when things are going through uncertainties nobody knows what all the answers are but if they feel that they have your trust that you have their back and you're with them to keep them in the picture along the way. And very much aligned with the values and purpose of the organization and I think that really helps individuals to feel reassured and they know that the decisions you're taking. They can be reassured even if they're difficult short term that they've really thinking about the long term survival of the organization and the stuff you know for the for the future. Brilliant that's that's really helpful thank you so much. Now needless to say I'm going to turn to you for this one Ibrahim a lot of the questions that have been woven in are related to the challenge of leading in a in a pandemic and I should first say actually I meant to say that this this at the outset that we call this this webinar. Leadership dilemmas and solutions and I want to put a big caveat on that there are not solutions to some of the problems we're facing so now this is very much around approaches know what's worked for for you in your context so so just interested. Ibrahim in terms of some of the challenges. A couple of questions that we had related to responding into a to a pandemic and I'll put a few of those to you and feel free to respond. Firstly what recommendations would you make for leaders as we navigate the next phase of this pandemic and stay true to the promise of change and actually I'll I'll just stop there but I'll load you up with too many questions. Thank you. So we as a business we we have done a lot of work to to ensure the sustainability and the continuity of the business either from compliance and risk assessments and the main flagship that we did a risk assessment is course climate change but having said that we looked at the people and the people with it. So part of the main focus of our sustainability strategies to transform the lives of the people we serve, either their staff or the 500 million plus customers that we said. So we look at it of course it's been a challenge at what we live right now COVID-19 has been a global challenge you've seen some global big countries. They were not under the expectations of their own people while you see other small countries as well. They've done a great job. Also you see two mean or three mean different opinions on how to deal with it as a company. We made sure again what's the clear objectives the clear objectives one our own people the health and safety of our own people and and also the economic stability of the people so we assure that one. The staff went with their income. So they don't need to worry. We don't need to add more mental pressure on them as the mental pressure we already have. Then we provided a platform we utilized on we did a simulation on similar cases and utilize it for the pandemic. A good example of a whistleblower hotline. We use a mental hotline for the staff in case they need any psychological support done by experts with all privacy. The other part is the rescaling using our leadership institute the investment of people in the education the extra curriculum education or the leadership programs that we have the investment in digital and technology that we did. So we did not only rely on as the whole world on digital media to talk as we're doing right now but also record time the same programs that we offered. Physically in our leadership institute in a week time it was the same courses we have it online. So first of all what we did we trusted the experts where we have the organization and when you do that we trust an expert when you listen to them. You can take any or manage and help you in the agility of a challenge. Also we worked on the behavioral change. We did change behavior. We embedded the culture of the organization. We are we have the togetherness and the happiness the bold values we have the passion. Passion is part of our values. So change we needed to change behavior of our customer of our staff to embed it in the customer experience of our own visitors. Also now data is the new cash and we all know that since day one. We started collecting data on the behavior of external what's happening in the world to have a baseline. The minute you have a baseline then you can manage you can you can make your decisions in challenging times based on facts and figures. Brilliant. Well thank you so much. So much in there and interesting to see the point about culture and values coming through and I love your point about listening to the experts. As well I think for me it ties back to what you were saying about thinking about all different types of stakeholders. The point Jillian made as well and your reference to unusual unusual suspects. So so thank you lots and lots of useful useful content in there. And the point about digital and technology is actually something we talked about quite a bit in our last webinar. So thank you. Jillian I wanted to turn back to you because there was a specific question we had about millennials when it came to culture and values and leadership. And I know that this is something that you're really passionate about in terms of aspiring leaders and how do we support aspiring leaders. And I just wondered what your thoughts are in terms of aspiring leaders. And the question specifically that we got was what are the key leadership topics that matter for millennials. So just your thoughts in general really about how we how we support that group. Well I think that group really want to have access to a lot of knowledge and a lot of information and a lot of opportunity. They really want to get their hands dirty get in there and actually experience things for themselves. They want a lot of feedback and they want quite a lot of attention and access so that they can learn from that so that they can grow from that. And they really want the opportunity to move quickly through at pace and to work in their way that they've developed through the technological age that they've grown up in. So they have very different ways of doing things and different aspirations. But it's important that we harness that and turn that to their advantage but also help them to understand the other elements of leadership and so on. So really giving them those opportunities to be accountable and to take responsibility early but making sure that we give them attention and feedback. And we're very candid with them because what they really want is transparency and honesty. But also they want to be working towards something that has a purpose that has a value beyond just the cash value of the work they want to feel they're making a contribution. And I think that's particularly important and relevant on this occasion when we're really focusing on the sustainability agenda. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much. And I think that also ties back to Ibrahim's earlier point about now how do we make sure that our people can continue to make a contribution and Ibrahim your example of re-skilling and redeploying some of your teams. Ibrahim, we've got a question in the chat from Antonio from Brazil, so welcome Antonio. And he's picking up on your point about resilience again. So an opportunity to reflect on that. And his question is, you talked about resilience to overcome this global crisis, but I would like you to talk a little bit more about how to be resilient and adaptive. Is it possible for a regular person to become resilient? And I think, I mean, this one is interesting to me because I remember when we were preparing for this webinar, you were quite frank about how you'd had to dig deep to become more resilient and more adaptive through this process. And wondered what your top tips were really in terms of becoming more resilient so that we can share those with Antonio. Thank you for the question. And I think living a pandemic now shows how you can invest in yourself and how you can work hard to stay standing as an individual with survivors. And if we think about it as on this planet, we have, you think of having no choice. First of all, since day one, I truly believe that we can and we should imagine options for a sustainable future. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We know that we can have a sustainable future. And I looked at it and I've seen people discussing it and relating it to other pandemics. I remember a tweet for the former president, U.S. president, Barack Obama, when he mentioned that we are living a pandemic now. This we cannot afford. And he said we cannot afford having any more consequences of climate denial. This is preparing it. And he talked about the young people. The thing we've done is you need to dive deep into your skills. Personally, in the last three months, I learned and I studied health and safety, for example. And you implemented on your construction site. And it's the same principle, but you need to think of it of a bigger picture. Taking our helicopter review, as I've mentioned, and implementing the same principles. You need to stop. You need to assess and think the source of the problem and have a clear objective and then you act. The minute you have these three points, you stop, think and act. You become resilient by default because you're ready. And you don't rebound and you don't, you don't rebound and you don't become reactive instead of proactive. So that's an important point I learned as well as having a long-term strategy on compliance and risk assessments and be ready. You have to be ready. You need to think of the impacts you are having or your stakeholders having and have a strategy for it. Even a high level one and to implement it in a later stage. You should have something there. And again, we have the baseline. We have the data. You can utilize the data and you can change behavior as I mentioned before. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much. I think sort of listen, stop, think and act are key pieces. I'm a scuba diver. That's the first thing they teach you to save your life. In case of any crisis underwater, you need to stop, think and act. And that saves your life. So take that principle and put it on real life. Absolutely. I think that metaphor works. I'm sure many people have felt underwater over the last few weeks. I'm going to pose a question and perhaps Gillian, you might want to come in on this one. Just picking up on this listening piece for a minute there. So one of the questions we got in advance was how do I encourage leaders to listen and act on feedback? Now, I know that you've also done work in terms of coaching. I'm sure that you've coached many people, not just in your roles on boards. But I just wondered what your top thoughts were in how do we how do we encourage leaders to listen and wondering if that came up in your in your research around boards, just that piece of actually absorbing different stakeholder perspectives. Thank you, Zoe. Yeah, I think really listening is so important. And I think it's particularly powerful if the feedback comes direct from the individual or stakeholder group that's actually wanting the feedback to resonate because if you're faced with a face to face conversation with a focus group of people giving you feedback, it becomes very real. And if they give real examples of the impact of that that behavior and what's happening is a consequence with data and evidence to support that. Then I think it becomes a very real thing for the leader and it's very hard to ignore that if there's evidence and data to show the impact of what's happening. And it's very difficult to then say well actually I'm not going to hear you. So two things one is make sure you've got the evidence and data and the case story to make it real. But secondly, if you can really try and get those individuals who want to give that feedback, either as a focus group or as an individual face to face because I think that's really powerful and then you don't just get the the head side of it you also get the emotional side and that connection with what's going on. Yeah, absolutely lovely thank you so much now and I think that that's probably the same answer from one of the questions that we had in the chat, which was around this whole topic of breaking through gridlock if sustainability is seen as a fad what is the best way to start the conversations with senior leaders I think Jillian your point about how do we make it real how do we get other stakeholders involved how do we ensure that they're connecting both a head and heart level. I don't know if there's anything else that you wanted to add Jillian to that. Well I think if you have the opportunity where you're trying to influence somebody who thinks it's a fad if you have the opportunity to get the data and to look forward and see the impact of this organization or individual not listening. I think it becomes very very powerful and also if you can be creative and think innovatively in your organization. What could you be doing different to take an opportunity from the sustainability agenda, both either economically environmentally or from a societal perspective, and start thinking about innovative ways of doing that and put something on the table at product or a service that might create value, then it becomes very real and it's very hard for someone not to listen. If it's a way to create value for the organization. Yeah, and Ibrahim I think this ties into what you were talking earlier about I know you talk about low hanging fruit. I completely agree with Jillian as well and I think with add to it. We may have lots of low hang fruits post COVID-19, although I'm a bit worried about a revenge pollution, similar to what happened in 2008 after the recession we had, and then the stimulus plans that government started to invest heavily in development just all over the world but low hang fruits of course we can use exactly what we always use you look at you need to translate the sustainability language we have into the language I use with the treasure with the CEO or the CFO you need to show your cost savings you need to show your long term profitability. You need to show your corporate citizenship young people now young people are not only your staff your customers that the decision makers, they will demand to have a corporate to see a corporate citizenship and most importantly as well. The brand reputation, the brand now we look at you talk about agility and resilience. Now, within COVID-19 with the pandemic that will limit we've seen a couple of companies going all the way up the roof with shares and we've seen some companies, the credibility of the companies of the way they handle with their own people. So, if you invest in people before and invest in people now it become into it will reflect on your financial sheets and again, we have a baseline and use the data. Again, post COVID-19, I believe, lots of opportunities, low hanging fruits is the first thing to start with. And by the way, you don't need to go far away for a low hanging fruit. Just look around and provide solution that is good for the community, good for yourself makes doing well by doing good. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. Slightly different question now. And, and Ibrahim Pax will start with your thoughts. Some top tips for leading in a virtual environment across cultures. You talked about the scale of your operation at the beginning. You're such a such an incredible organization across so many areas be interest and countries markets be interested in your thoughts. Ibrahim, I think flexibility is, is a good tip. The way that since day one created to deal like a business continuity committee with crisis management committee we we isolated the decision making before countries so instead of taking longer time, it takes shorter time now, empowering people empowering our people work really really well with us because they know better. So also the digital and investment education we did, we transferred into our offices on the spot to homes. So technically, we did not stop operations. Actually, I was listening yesterday to a webinar in the work government summit, where one of the speakers mentioned that the new workplace now is at home or somewhere else, an average Cisco CEO mentioned that an average of 10 hours a day. A staff is spending on Webex now, which is trust very trusted by government. So we're talking about public sector, 10 full hours working on either they have to or they want to, but still their efficiency is high. So investing in the future and technology is a future, adding it to flexibility and main most importantly, investing in on people. That's that's the tip in virtual and not virtual. It always works. Brilliant. Thank you so much. I'm juggling the fact that we've got loads of questions coming through on the chat got lots of questions in advance and four minutes left. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pose some of the questions and I'm going to give you the opportunity to just spend a minute on the question of your choice so that you don't feel so many. So you don't feel put on the spot. Well, firstly, by the way, I would also like to say that we're getting some lovely feedback. So for example, Eugenio said he has to go, but thank you very much for the great insights about leadership and value so so people are very much appreciating this conversation. So question that we had that I'd love your thoughts on perhaps one for you and one for you, Jillian. So, so firstly, for you, Jillian, sort of picking up again on sort of your board perspective, how do you navigate the short term pressure in your example from the board and protect the well being of employees and just so that I can give that up on on the question that that is then going to come to him, which is not all of us have access to boards and CEOs, and how can we lead for sustainability within our peer group which I think is probably a great question on which to end so so Jillian just just that that that first one for you. I think probably the most important thing in a difficult context like we have at the moment is to really trust your staff to deliver and help you find the solutions. Don't feel it has to be done in a closed room but actually engage them and help them and trust them and their skills to actually help to find those solutions. But also, you know, there are there are going to be some situations where staff are furloughed and people are not at work and that's always very difficult. How do you maintain the well being of those staff who are still working and maybe who are not working during that process. And I think that's a real challenge for organizations at the moment. But what I would say is that, you know, communication is really important at this time and and well being is grounded in people feeling some sense of connection, some sense of community, some sense of compassion and understanding of the situation there in so being able to understand what decisions have been made and what the organization is going through and staying connected with those employees is really important for their well being and also helping them to use their time if they're not fully engaged in work in a way that's developmental for them that helps them to grow in other ways and helps them to keep fully engaged and occupied in a creative way, even if it's not necessarily within the workplace. So really it's a really good communication and engaging as much as possible and checking in all the time. Thank you, Jillian and just just one last one to put in the mix, Abraham, which I think is an extension of the one I just posed you. So one minute left. So we've had the point in the chat so many financial decisions pivot on the price of oil. How do we influence when so much is out of our control so I think that relates to the other question how do we influence wherever we are within within our context. Final thoughts for you before I close. Well, it's a journey so 1000 mile journey and we have to understand that we're not it's like any other investments by the way, if you look at sustainability, it's built it should be embedded in the business, we definitely people now demands customer demands, everyone demands that even the global government they find an SDG they sign in Paris agreement. People are fully aware and again what we're living right now and we with what what crisis what kind of crisis we had what different crisis we had. It showed that agility it's my main part of the businesses business want to stay around and we saw lots of companies ignore this and it just disappeared by the way they did not. They were not investing in the future. And this is what we're talking about is part of the future where you can start with the first step. I am 100% sure each company, a human resource department, a marketing department, they do small steps, and this is where it started. This is most of look at the big giants where sustainability started. And then you do the education is a small step. We are aiming for a net positive. We started with a humble idea of the stuff if we can do a green mall, a green certified mall. So what we're talking about a net positive now started long time ago with an engineer and a project management to say I would like I can save money by doing a green mall. So it starts you have to understand that it's a thousand mile journey, it will need a lot of persistent, it needs a lot of education and lucky for us now, as we said at the beginning is and I will, I will wrap it up here. One of the other sides of COVID-19 business as usual is officially that no longer exist. So there is an opportunity to I to part to be part of the definition of the new business model. Brilliant. Thank you so much. A lovely point on which to end the journey starts with the first step and education is fundamentally important part of that certainly something that we believe very strongly at CISL. So I would like to close the webinar now and firstly thank everybody who's joining us live. Thank everybody who will be watching this recording afterwards and we know that we had over 950 people registered in watching this webinar. So there have been a lot of people that will be looking to the recording afterwards. So welcome to thank both our guests, Gillian and Ibrahim. Ibrahim forgot to mention that he actually launched a book last week which was how to net positive and we'll be sending a follow up email to everybody just in terms of how to access how to access this webinar and what else is available from CISL. So a massive thank you to all of you who joined and to Gillian and Ibrahim for being with us today. So thank you all very much indeed and enjoy the rest of your days. Thank you.