Sustainable AND Profitable Leadership with leadership expert Clarke Murphy

According to leadership expert Clarke Murphy, great leaders must be moonshotters, possess empathy and have a high LQ (not just IQ)! What does that mean? Clarke explains everything in his fascinating discussion with Ilham. They talk about what it takes to be a sustainable leader, his new book on the topic, advice for young leaders and so much more. 

Timestamps
1:49 - Upbringing and interest in sustainable leadership
5:50 - CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates
11:25 - Leadership and humility
13:37 - Book on Sustainable Leadership
21:24 - The LQ versus the IQ or even EQ
25:44 - 100 percenters versus moonshotters
28:52 - Passing the dinner table test
30:38 - Discovering the empathy gene
33:02 - Advice for young leaders
34:19 - Love of the ballet and the arts

Clarke Murphy, the former CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates is a leadership expert who advises the world's top companies on leadership strategies that fuel profitable growth and value for all stakeholders. He has also just published a bestselling book called Sustainable Leadership: Lessons of vision, courage, and grit from the CEOs who dare to build a better world, which is essentially a handbook on how to become a true, sustainable leader.

For additional details about the podcast, show notes, and access to resources mentioned during the show, please visit https://www.syensqo.com/en/podcast

Transcript

Ilham Kadri: Today I'm very happy to welcome Clarke Murphy, one of the great voices in sustainable leadership to the AND is the Future podcast. Clarke is the CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates, and he has also just published a wonderful book called Sustainable Leadership: Lessons of vision, courage, and grit from the CEOs who dare to build a better world, which is essentially a handbook on how to become a true, sustainable leader. So I'm really looking forward to hearing his wisdom on this topic. Thank you. Thank you, Clarke, for being here today.

Clarke Murphy: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited and, and really appreciate it.

Ilham Kadri: So Clarke, you have become obviously one of the foremost voices in sustainable leadership, and I'm interested to learn a bit more about how you got there. I know you grew up in an Irish American family. If my homework is right and I would like, you know our audience to hear what was your upbringing like, and was there a specific moment in your life that really sparked your interest in leadership? And maybe I already know your moment. It has to do with sailing, right? Can you tell us more?

Upbringing and interest in sustainable leadership

Clarke Murphy: That's right. So I'm the youngest of five children, and which, you know, they say lots of things about eldest and youngest children or even middle children, but I'm a classic youngest child. As I joke, I compete with every one of my siblings every day. Even at 60 years of age, all I wanted to do was play in the touch football game or do the things they did. And so I pushed and pushed and pushed to compete with them as a little, as a little boy. And you know, some of those were wonderful and some were painful as you try to do those things, but we were, our family was long on love and education and short on cash. And so everybody started, you had jobs when you were eight or nine years old and have been, you know, working ever since. But one of our great passions, my father was a great, was a naval officer and, a great sailor. And we grew up in the water. And back in the day when you did exactly what your father told you, when, every time he told it to you, we spent every single weekend on the water whether you liked it or not. And so, I have spent a lot of time, on the ocean and seen the changes in the ocean that probably resonated most with meI spent a lot of time racing sailboats. We've done seven Transatlantics and the grown children have now done a lot of these races with me and we're crossing the Atlantic number of years ago  and we'd hit in the previous two crossings. Each time we'd hit a whale, one in the middle of the night, one early in the morning. We're doing the boat, comes to a, goes super fast to stopping in the millisecond and there are all sorts of issues I won’t bore you. But the only thing I ever worried about in my life of sailing is hitting a container. And so we're sailing across the ocean. This trip had been particularly foggy for five days. You couldn't see much night and day. And, early in one morning I'm at the wheel, which is a good thing out of going extremely fast, with a big colorful sale. The spinnaker out front. And I see a whale breaching about a hundred meters in front of us. And I scream whale and I flip the wheel of this boat. Really big boat going fast over to Winward. And the boat kind of goes into like a car, skid on ice where the car's going sideways

Ilham Kadri: Yeah.

Clarke Murphy: and we're skidding down the ocean like this, and we look over it as we miss the whale by maybe three meters and we realize it's not a whale, it's a 40 foot steel container

Ilham Kadri: Oh, wow.

Clarke Murphy: Which had clearly been out there for probably 10 years if you're covering barnacles on steel, it's been out there a long time. So we almost died. And, and when, if you hit a container, you don't survive because the impact you sink in two or three minutes is no way. And the people below are trapped, et cetera. So we should worry about the level of plastic in the oceans, but we also have tens of thousands of containers that have fallen off container ships that are bobbing around just below the surface. And it took, you know, I'm embarrassed to say cuz my children were, are so forceful around the environment and other things.It took that from my awoken moment to say, oh my gosh, we have so many issues in the air and the ocean on our land. What can I do about it? And my business is leadership. You know, I'm not a scientist. I'm not in Congress or parliament. I'm a leader and I help clients pick leaders. And so our focus starting in, after that incident and then eventually meeting Lisa Kingo at Davos was about how do we, we have hundreds and hundreds of sustainable leaders like you, Ilham, and what you've done at Solvay and other places in your career, but we need tens of thousands.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah.

Clarke Murphy: my pivot was, how do I help Boards and CEOs and institutional investors pick and train and retain great, sustainable leaders.

CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates

Ilham Kadri: Yeah. And, and it's a beautiful, you know, story and thank you for sharing it with us. It comes from that wow moment, you know, and, by the way, you are not the first competitive sailor to come in this podcast and there are lots of similarities with my other guests. Uh, earlier in the year we had them, Ellen MacArthur and as you probably, already know, she has an incredible story of what inspired her to focus on the circular economy today, and which also came from that key moments when she was out sailing like you. So, it's a lovely stories, which are inspiring us. You are the CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates, you said? You know, I have leadership, I'm not scientists, but, but Russell Reynolds Associates is a leading executive search and leadership advisory firm that helps companies find obviously the right leaders, right. And attract them and retain them. Can you tell us a bit more about what you do and what your clients want these days? Is sustainability in the top of the agenda? Because I'm sure the leadership companies are looking for has changed quite a lot over the past, probably five to 10 years, right? 

Clarke Murphy: Exactly, and a great question. So, so for decades, we recruited for our clients, either a replacement person because something went wrong, or expansion, we bought a European business, we're gonna open in Asia, we're gonna, you know, do something in Brazil. And in the last two things have happened in the last, since the financial crisis where boards of directors found out they may have picked the wrong leader in a good market and found out in a crisis they weren't perhaps the best leader. So we've ended up doing a lot more deep assessment of executives for boards over multiple years. But as importantly, I think since the financial crisis and then certainly accelerated by the pandemic, the type of leader I think evolves over time. So in the, in the, at the 20 years ago, the turn of the millennia, it was the vision thing and the internet and e-commerce and automation. And then it was offshoring and efficiency, and then it was crisis and cut costs and capital allocation, capital preservation. And a couple of things have happened now, looking at the pandemic and now at the, the energy crisis in the world, certainly in Europe on the continent is this sense of agility. How quickly can you pivot in a rapidly changing world, whether it's cyber, energy, war in the Ukraine, hybrid working, the different desires of the millennials and Gen Zs. So agility, number one. Number two, linked to that is we talk about dealing with ambiguity. The concept of you have your three year business plan when you came out of Business school and first went to work and we're gonna execute against that versus, and, and, and if, if I can't deal with ambiguity, then my level of decisiveness, which we look at, they're all linked. It's gonna be thrown off and you're not gonna succeed as a leader. So these sense of be able to pivot, be able to make decisions without all of the information, and be decisive about it as a good leader. So I think, I think everyone would kind of understand that, agree with it. The one thing that I think is different that not everyone agrees with is we grew up in a hierarchical world where the CEO was the final decision maker, was kind of theoretically the most experienced and perhaps the smartest person in the room. But the pandemic showed us that the day of hierarchy, I think is gone. And a phrase you will have heard me say before. Leadership, I think personally, my personal opinion was when you led, Ilham Kadri says, I will lead. Here's the decision. I think in today's world, particularly post pandemic, where people discovered the empathy being if they hadn't already is leadership is creating followership,

Ilham Kadri: Mm-hmm.

Clarke Murphy: and I think the hierarchical days have collapsed into more flatter organizations, at least in the West and will people follow you. And as I say, if they're not following you, you're just taking a walk alone, right? So you need to create followership. So I think this sense of the modern leader has evolved very quickly. And the last thing I'd say is this communications. And it may be you are or you're not. You happen to be a good communicator, but if you weren't, you can get help from those who help you communicate well. But you could have everything I just talked about and strategy and operations, but if you're unable to communicate with your stakeholders, employees, consumers, shareholders, and your own board, we can have all the other stuff and still fail. You know, we look at the recent changes at Adidas and Disney, part of this is around communications as well. So I do think the nature of a leader has shifted.

Ilham Kadri: Absolutely. And I love the leadership is about creating followership. And you're right, we are seeing it in every crisis. I mean, there is, I think, a motto or a proverb in France alone, you go faster together, you go further, right?

Clarke Murphy: Yes, a hundred percent

Leadership and humility/empathy

Ilham Kadri: That's the power of togetherness. I know you, you would agree that good leaders must achieve this power of the AND. And I remember when I joined Solvay, I think it was one or the other, you don't cut cost because you are gonna grow. I said you can cut the bad cost, but you reinvest in a good cost, right? It's talent management is your decarbonization investments and be sustainable AND profitable, daring AND caring. Strong leaders can be vulnerable and can show vulnerability without you are not a robot. And, and of course, that's what this podcast is all about. Would you say this ability to achieve this AND is one of probably the most important things company are looking for when they're recruiting future leader or current leaders?

Clarke Murphy: Yes. And it's interesting, we're doing a project right now where, very simply the board, because of the leadership crisis, they have had talked a lot about humility and ego in the next chief executive. And finally one of the board members said, okay, well hold on. Aren't CEOs ambitious by nature? And everyone talks about humility. Do you, Russell Reynolds and Clarke Murphy actually think you can recruit a really good, strong CEO who's humble? Do they do they go together and our reaction was absolutely, particularly in this crop, this decade of leadership, You can still be decisive. You can still be an independent thinker. You can build consensus. You can reinforce the culture of a company and be humble. It's about others succeeding, even though you're at the steering wheel, and I actually think that is the CEO of today and tomorrow, and that may shift if there's some major growth mode or another major crisis. But in this moment I think humility, empathy, intelligence, communications, leadership, they're not, they're not separate. They are well combined. I think it's super important. And then, and then lastly, this role, which we will obviously come to now about sustainable leaders, and what does that mean in everything else that I've talked about.

Book on Sustainable Leadership

Ilham Kadri: Yeah. And in our company we talk a lot about resilience, right? And, and how we can go with one or the other crisis and staying grounded and balanced, and stay at your best to help your people to be at their best. And you just published this fantastic book called Sustainable Leadership. And I'm blessed. I'm lucky because I got a handwritten message, which I highly recommend to everyone. And by the way, we are very proud to be mentioned in the book. Thank you. And I really like the story you tell in the introduction about that chance meeting at Davos that inspired you to write this book. For our listeners who haven't had the chance to read it yet, can you tell us more about that moment?

Clarke Murphy: Yes. So, um, I was meeting with Lisa Kingo, who I did not know who was running United Nations Global Compact, which as you know, well because Solvay is so active, is the private, the 11,000 private companies around the world, companies around the world that are helping the private sector achieve sustainable development goals. Two of my partners, Simon Kingston, Hans Roy, so you gotta meet Lisa, she's amazing. And so we, long story short, we were sitting in a snowy day in day in Davos and it was January of 18, and she said, in 18 months, I have to get up in front of the UN General Assembly for the 20th anniversary of the development goals and talk about the progress, which in essence is not progress. How did I get this job and what the heck am I gonna say to the whole world about the goals we set out for ourselves 20 years ago and in a brainstorming session as governments were retreating, including the American government at that. From the Paris Accords and other things and doubting this concept of ESG, which will come to in a minute. A phrase I really don't like, you know, it really comes down to leadership. And if you look at so, or Sanofi or Mahindra Steel or OCBC Bank in Singapore, Natura and Brazil, Pepsi in America, Duke Energy in America, what was the difference that they were making profits and investments and thinking long term in a quarter to quarter world, it was about leadership. So can we analyze if those leaders are built differently from normal commercial leaders? Were sustainable commercial leaders different than commercial leaders. And the answer, we, so we interviewed 55 pioneers, the 55 CEOs all around the world that the UN agreed to as the most successful, sustainable leaders. And they had profits and they had growth, and they had change in transformation. And were those people different? And guess what? We interviewed them, tested, et cetera. They were different. They all, but 88% of 'em spiked on specific competencies that were different in in than a normal commercial CEO or C-suite who we meet every day

Ilham Kadri: Wow, this is a great story. And you pronounced the AND several times: profits AND growth and change and, you know, and sustainable AND profitable thinking short term and longer term. So, in the book you talk about four key traits that a leader must attain to become a true sustainable leader. Can you share with the audience, can you elaborate on those characteristics and explain why they're so important? 

Clarke Murphy: and I'll try and give a really quickly. If you're a leader or a board member, what, how do you look for this? So it, to make it a little bit practical? So the first is what we call multi-level systems thinking. Systems thinking is complexity quite simply. And so you already have a process industry, with commodities at Solvay, your global, you have emissions, you have clients, you have standards, and you have regulation. So it's already a complex business, and then Ilhan becomes CEO and says, we're also gonna be a sustainable complex business. So this is not everyone can take a complex business and overlay environmental or community or social issues on top of all that. So it's really about complexity. And what do you look for? You look for conceptual thinking. Not everyone can pick the four or five inputs out of the 50 they're getting as a leader to say, I have to focus on these, I prioritize these, and I deprioritize those and seeing through all the complexity to make progress. So the first is systems thinking. You look for conceptual thinking and, and the ability to do that. The second is long term activation. So if you are really successful, like, I mean, incredibly successful and you're off to an amazing start. The greatest results of your actions at Solvay will be seen when you're gone.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah.

Clarke Murphy: And not every leader in a quarter to quarter, year to year world can handle that. So long-term activation, and we all talk about being long-term and strategy and all this kind of thing, but not everybody can handle the really long term, which is the credit's gonna come when I'm gone. The next CEO or even the next one might get the credit. The third is stakeholder inclusion. And again, we talk about an inclusive world. I don't mean DE and I inclusive, I mean, would you work with your biggest competitors in the process industries to solve an issue? So one of the stories we tell, I tell your story, but also Mayor's Shipping who says the whole industry should develop a clean engine. There's no value creation in the engine. So competitively, that's not a problem. Or BP says, we're gonna bring our regulators inside the company to see what we're working on early, which is high risk. But it's a risk worth taking because then we could get approvals faster later. And interestingly, what do we look for in this, this stakeholder inclusion? You'll laugh. It's what we call sociability and it's not going to the cocktail party. I can get in a room with a group of people. I can extract their best ideas. I can, I can be the decider. But I will bring them with me that what you said earlier about the proverb of run farther together than running alone. And, I think ecosystems get so much more done. And the last is disruptive innovation. And again, we always talk, we have to innovate, but many people, if they have an idea of thought and we look at scanning of trucks and, and Adida sneakers and give the examples where, what if their innovation, the first go round actually doesn't work? Can you step outside of your preconceived notions about what you thought would be innovative and keep going? So you talked about resilience. We look at persistence and resilience as it relates to innovation. So it's not the creative thinking only of disruptive, it's, I will keep pushing to innovate beyond my first failure, I will, I will stay strong and committed. So these four things, systems thinking, long-term activation, inclusion, and disruptive innovation. All these executives hugely spiked on those topics, more than the average executive would.

The LQ versus the IQ or even EQ 

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, those are the magic recipes and it resonates a lot with me. And one of my favorite parts of the book, Clarke, is when you talk about the LQ, which was probably something very new, the learning quotient Um, Because everyone talks about IQ and even EQ, where you have emotional intelligence as a leader, but maybe fewer people have heard and have focused on the LQ and being okay with, with not knowing all the answer. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Clarke Murphy: Yes, obviously the world's changing very quickly on, on any topic from business model to strategies to clearly sustainable, profitable operations, and so, the senior leader, I think is learning at the same time about things, whether it's cyber or sustainability as the VP or the principal or the EVP, and this sense, again, of a flatter organization and followership when a leader is seen as learning, committed to learning alongside the executive team, I think that can be very inspiring. If a leader is not learning all the time in today's world. You're gonna go out of business. And so not only do we need to learn as leaders, I think a CEO who sets a framework that everyone on my team needs to be learning and the company has to be learning that we're gonna adapt. And that's the LQ. If you've got a high LQ as a, as a leader, and as a culture, you know you're gonna win because therefore you're gonna be, excuse me, you're gonna be at the edge of learning the whole time. And I that's a new determinant of both culture and leadership.

Ilham Kadri: Absolutely. And I think I told you this story a while ago, maybe my grandmother in Morocco was illiterate, taught me to learn and learn and relearn

Clarke Murphy: Yeah, exactly.

Ilham Kadri: I took it with me and part of that is learning from the younger generation, right? I'm big believer in that I take part in reverse mentoring and you know, and I always say that the CEO is preparing our companies for them, you know, and while we put that stone in the cathedral, and I liked what you were saying about that in the book. Can you elaborate for our listeners?

Clarke Murphy: Yes. I mean, I think we say in our firm, the pre partners actually own the equity of the company. They are the future. They are the valuation of it. So, excuse me. I think it is very important that the next generation and, and one thing I was struck by in all these interviews over these several years was that the powerful, the famous, the huge balance sheet, small balance sheet, all these sustainable leaders were what I call aggressive listeners.Like they were like, you were the only human being in the world. And their radar about listening, whether it's a changing nature of their consumer, the changing nature of their employee or the changing nature of the markets. Aggressive listening is not you and me in this podcast. I'm saying listening on a 360 around. 

Ilham Kadri: Yeah.

Clarke Murphy: and they, I think there's a great divide for good intentions mostly of the leaders who give the speech, make the commitment, talk about the future, talk about sustainability, have a town hall, and go back to the strategy meeting, as opposed to like diving deep repeatedly into the bowels of the new or the bottom of the organization. Cuz many of the young people hear the speech but don't see the actions.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah.

Clarke Murphy: And in fact, what we're seeing is obviously that generation is fired up to be active. In initiatives and progress. So this sense of listening to the next two or three generations, but like really listening and then bringing them with you to, to act. And I think that it's not just listen to the next generation, it's not just involve them. I think there's a disconnect, not intentional between some of the CEOs and, and senior leaders and the ops part of the organization.

100 percenters versus moonshotters 

Ilham Kadri: And I love what you said. I mean, you are putting a better language on it. And you're right, the tone at the top is not enough through webcasts or a town hall. You need to deep dive. And on that point, I also really like what you said about the different types of people, between, you call them the hundred percenters, the moon shotters and the fence sitters. So I'm  trying to make it my language. Can you explain each one briefly and tell us why we should all strive to be Moon Shotters?

Clarke Murphy: Yeah, so to me and the people we met, the moon shotters said the electric sense of urgency needed to make progress, to start actions. Cuz I think many people are paralyzed thinking they have to solve all of the world's issues in one company in one year, just pick one or two. But the moonshotters say, I'm committing to this and I don't have all the solutions or all the answers like this. We talked about the mayor's shipping. They say we're gonna build clean fueled engines, but there's only enough methanol two years ago when they started this, they committed, several billion dollars to clean engines and shipping uses the bunker fuel, which is the bottom of the barrel, literally the worst fuel in the world. And they said there's enough methanol to fuel these engines for a month. But I can't solve creating the engine and finding the fuel. Somebody else will sense a market and do that, and that's exactly what's happened. Okay? So they're saying, I'm gonna shoot for the moon and I don't have, I may have the engine to get there, but I haven't figured out where I'm landing or what happens then? But somebody will help me figure that out. Moon Shotter go, okay, the a hundred percenters, which we all know say, okay, we're gonna get to the moon. But I need to know exactly all the answers of the weather up there, the landing pad, you know, what I'm going to eat, what I'm gonna drink, how the engine works, how I take off all that. And guess what? They spend so much time getting to a hundred percent. The Moonshotter is already on the moon, and I'm still at 99%. And the last is the fence sitters that I think are the most dangerous part of all of this, which is, they sit there, and by the way, it's hysterical. I interviewed people in probably 15 or 18 languages from different languages and different cultures around the world, and everybody uses the same phrase, fence sitter: India, China, Brazil, France, Germany, America. t's very funny. And the fence sitters say, Hey, if this works out, I'm with you, but I'm gonna stay quiet on my little fence if it doesn't work I'm gonna go on the other side of the fence and say, I knew this wasn't gonna happen, but I'm good. Okay? And, and, Thomas Burble, the CEO of Access, said it best. He said, reach up, grab them, pull 'em off the fence. Say either you're in or you're out, and you'll be measured on that. Or they have to exit the organization because they're the quiet negative that hurts progress. So

Ilham Kadri: yeah.

Clarke Murphy: So Moonshotters a hundred percenters and fence sitters in every strategy. There's all three.

Passing the dinner table test 

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, and I love that. And we're engineers. Engineers, they like, that's the hundred percent right type of plan. And I challenged the team, you know, because we don't have all the solution, actually we have 25% of our plan between now and. We know it, but we don't know yet the solution, but we, we are, our faith is science. So we believe in that. So I think many people will see themselves there. I also really loved what you said in the book, Clarke, about passing the dinner table test. And I really relate because I have a 16 year old son and often say each of us have, their own Greta at home because he often says, mom, why you are not doing it? Doing more right? And he looks at the sustainability sustainable solution percentage. Why 53%? Why not a hundred then? So I have to pass the dinner table test too. Can you tell our audience a bit more about that part of the book?

Clarke Murphy: Well, having personally failed that test a number of times. When we're sitting on these podcasts talking about global businesses or going to meet our shareholders or the town hall and our company. And then you go home and have dinner with your own children. And Julie's suite of Accenture, uh, and Leaf, the chair of, of uh, uh, AstraZeneca, AANH Hind of Mahindra Steele all said the same thing, as I do that the dinner table test is as persuasive and action oriented as an, as every institutional investor in the world, because you can't disappoint those you look at every day, and, and they've spurred all of those people to faster action. And me and myself included.

Discovering the empathy gene

Ilham Kadri: I love it. And as you always say, sustainability is a lot more than the environment. It's also very, very much about caring about people and, and being an empathic, kind leader. And your team told us, we did some research and kindness came back, very loudly about how kind leader you are. And at Solvay we call it the dare and care principle, where we encourage our leaders to tap into the human side of leadership and care to their team while at the same time strive for great performance with the great ambitions. What are your thoughts and insights on the more empathic side of the leadership Clark?

Clarke Murphy: Yeah, so lots of discussions. I mean, I obviously, people are wired differently.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah,

Clarke Murphy: and some have risen. And I, as I again, joke about the discovering the empathy gene in the pandemic, if some a leader didn't have it or didn't think it was allowed. Bernard Looney is an amazingly articulate about listening skills and, and the softer skills of leadership that resonate and, and run in the world today. But so I think that, you, back to what I said earlier, you can care and you can be a strong-willed leader. At the same time, I think of sustainability as the, and I think words matter. Sustainability is the umbrella that talks about, equality, oceans, education, hunger. Every discussion I have just rotates around climate change, which is the urgent topic. But all of those other things feed into a more sustainable world. And by the way, we have made progress against mortality rates in childbirth. We've made progress against global poverty. We've made some progress around hunger, though, with climate change, the hunger issues get worse, not better. So, and ESG, which is a measurement acronym that has lost its way. It's become an America political three letter word. We, instead of a four letter word, um, and it's misinterpreted. So I feel very strongly we should talk about sustainability because it's that umbrella of all those things I just talked about, and we have to make progress against all of them.

Advice for young leaders 

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, I love it. And it's indeed holistic word and companies like ours need to have a holistic agenda. What advice Clark would you give to the young leaders of tomorrow?

Clarke Murphy: So, um, to the extent you are able and on this podcast, most everyone has worked in two continents of the world, but it's striking. The careers that have accelerated the fastest around sustainability, they have been resident and worked in two continents of the world. I think it's very important to solve global issues. Speak up. That doesn't mean yell, it means speak up and say, count me in. What can I do? Uh, so I would say speak up respectfully, not yelling. And I think that's where institutional investors have got in trouble. They've been yelling at companies and boards instead of working with them. But that's another discussion. And take on the most difficult project. Find out what's the toughest one, and some of these issues we've just talked about are, and get on the tough project. Don't be afraid of the tough project. The toughest ones give you the most experience, the most visibility, and ultimately later the most confidence is.

Love of the ballet and the arts

Ilham Kadri: Yeah. Wow. This is a great recipe for success. So now, before ending this fascinating, you know, conversation, what do you enjoy doing outside of promoting sustainable leadership and running a big company and having some tests at the table? I heard you are on the board of the New York City valet and really enjoy enjoying the arts. Is that right?

Clarke Murphy: Yes. So I would say the two things in aside from our, uh, family, my wife and our four grown children, we spend a lot of time in the outdoors, a lot of time either hiking mountains or or on the oceans of the world and always have, I'm an ocean guy and I married a mountain woman, so we're very. And, and living in New York City, we felt having children be in the outdoors was super important. And the other half of life for me is the arts. I find that in business, the other side of the brain, is so powerful for me to stay energized. So I'm on the board of Carnegie Hall and the New York City Ballet. And you know what I find interesting in big cities, particularly New York, people are like, well, what do you do? And, you know, where'd you go to school and where are your children? What are they doing? You go to the ballet. And New York City Ballet, they were all about. Did you see her dance last night? Did you see that was the best interpretation, the enthusiasm for creativity and creation? It is just inspiring and seeing musicians and violinists, I'm not one. I find it drives me to try and be better at, of who I am and what I could do in the. Because I don't have those talents and to see their enthusiasm strictly for the art and not distracted by more material things, I find reassuring.

Ilham Kadri: Actually, it makes us less busy minded. I have a violinist. My son is a violinist. And the joy, the emotions which triggers in you, right? It just outstanding and invaluable. Well, thank you Clark for this fascinating discussion for your generosity. I must confess to you, you wrote a book I would have loved to write myself. I'm proudly jealous, but at least already, so I'm part of it. And we read this again and again with my team, so you are truly a catalyst helping,business leaders of today across the world to achieve that power of the and the AND and make their businesses both sustainable and profitable. We learn so much and we're so inspired. Thank you very much.

Clarke Murphy: Well, thank you