Reflecting on a legacy of leadership
On the 24th of August, 2020, the non-profit organisation at which I am the C.E.O., turned 20 years old.
Of course, in these COVID times, we were not able to have the types of commemoration we had planned even just a few months ago. However, luckily, we’ve had the chance to do quite a bit of press about the Foundation, its successes, its legacy and so on.
Of course, being a family foundation (the Cropper Foundation), much of the conversation kept going back around to the idea of legacy — what did the founders want when they started this foundation and have we lived up to it.
Again and again, the concept of leadership as a legacy kept coming up as a core value of the foundation. I’ve had the chance to think about it quite a bit over the last few weeks and in the interviews I’ve had to do in commemoration of the anniversary…but first the background:
The Foundation was started by a husband and wife — John, an Englishman that came to Trinidad to study agriculture, and Angela, a daughter from a family of 12 siblings who grew up in rural Trinidad. They met at the University of the West Indies, then a hotbed of political and intellectual fire in the early days of Caribbean independence and quickly established stellar careers. John went on to be an accomplished agriculturalist and was responsible for several landmark initiatives throughout the Caribbean. Angela went on to serve in several high profile international civil servant positions including the interim executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, head of governance at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and later assistant secretary-general and deputy director of the UN Environmental Programme.
However, as their international careers wound down, tragedy struck when their only child died at university in late 1998. Both John and Angela were devastated and this fast-tracked their plans to start an organisation to give back to the Caribbean that they loved so much. In 2000, along with some of their closest friends, towering intellectuals in their own rights, they launched the Cropper Foundation, a mechanism for collaboration and cooperation for the sustainable development.
Just a year later, tragedy struck again. While Angela was away, her husband, mother and sister were murdered in a case that shook the entire country. Angela rose to national prominence through her evenness and humility throughout the process, even publically calling for the removal of the death penalty as she and her late husband didn't believe in it. After these events, she persevered, continuing her work in Trinidad and Tobago and around the world, soon after going on to co-chair the Assessment Panel of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment for which she would share the 2005 Zayed Prize.
When I met her as a nervous intern at the Foundation more than a decade ago, she made me a cup of tea just to say hello. In the years after, as she became sick with cancer while continuing to serve as UNEP’s advisor for the Rio+20 conference, she continued to give unerringly for the public good before passing away in late 2012.
Much of how I see leadership has come from my experiences within the foundation. Humility, collaboration and service above self have grown to be some of my key guiding principles that I think align quite well with the ideals of sustainability leadership. After all, we can only solve problems if we approach with empathy for everyone’s point of view, understand that we don't know everything and that there is often the greater good that we’re fighting for.
Above all else, I’ve benefitted from an unending emphasis on paying it forward. As Angela’s own mentor Lloyd Best told her “the first responsibility of leadership is to create new leaders.” Especially as we have the privilege of benefitting from the chance to study and work with an institution like Cambridge and in our own networks, I really do think we have to always think about how we use what we learn for the benefit of everyone else, and how can we keep the door open once we’ve gone through.
