- Welcome to the Skoll World Forum
on Social Entrepreneurship,
coming to you live from Oxford, England.
And I'm delighted and honored
to be welcoming here, Sally Osberg, onto our sofa.
Now until the last year,
you were president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation,
which you set up and developed,
with Jeff Skoll, 20 years ago.
And you, Sally, are a true entrepreneur.
And in fact, just before this,
I'd been going for a walk with Bill Drayton,
who is the founder of the field,
the whole field of social entrepreneurship,
and of course, of Ashoka.
And he was talking so full of admiration
for your entrepreneurship, for you creating the Foundation,
and for you staying true to the values
and not flip-flopping, as other foundations do, he said.
And you not only set up the Foundation,
but also the Skoll Centre,
here at Said Business School in Oxford,
the Skoll World Forum, the big gathering of people
who come together in Oxford every year,
from across the world,
as well as the relationship with Sundance.
And of course, selecting, supporting, and celebrating,
now, at your time, over a hundred social entrepreneurs.
But always challenging and always creating alliances
in order to scale change.
But you're also a deep thinker and a thought leader,
and you crystalized a lot of your ideas
when you wrote Beyond Better,
which you co-authored with Roger Martin,
to really dissect the role of social entrepreneurs
and the factors which enable success.
And you did all of this
to, using a phrase that you like to use sometimes,
to bend the arc of history in the right direction.
And indeed, words are so precious to you,
and you use them with such care, and it's so interesting
to have somebody who is so deep inside knowledge
and so deep inside expertise
and knowledge of whole civilizations,
and at the same time, a changemaker who wants change
and wants it with a sense of urgency.
And I think that's your unique contribution,
is that you're able
to bring these two whole worlds together so beautifully.
And I'm wondering, as you now have stepped down,
and it's about a year since you've stepped down,
and you've come here for the first time,
not as CEO of the Skoll Foundation, how has it been for you?
- Well, everybody's been asking me that Emily,
as you might imagine. - Yes, I can.
- And I used to say at the Skoll World Forum,
I always had a parallel universe experience,
because I was so aware
of what was going on behind the scenes.
I was in green rooms, I was with Jeff Skoll,
I was at the preparatory meetings, I was in rehearsals,
so I often didn't get to just participate as a delegate
and feel that sense of community,
those ad hoc conversations that are so rich.
And this year I was able to do that.
At the same time,
because I'm still so aware of what it takes
to pull off the Skoll World Forum,
I said I used to have a parallel universe experience,
this year it was an out-of-body experience.
So I felt I was sort of looking down
at this magnificent creation.
At the same time,
I was very much feeling part of the community.
I was welcoming the Skoll Foundation's new CEO Don Gips
among the audience, saying you inherit such a jewel,
and yet this is a moment of change in the world.
And we trust you, we welcome you, we embrace you,
and I was part of that welcome too.
- And is it a bit hard though,
because you're no longer making the decisions,
you're handing over the mantle?
- You know though, it's really, I think,
such a beautiful thing, to see how the team has carried on,
how they've come to some really ingenious solutions
to the old ways we did things.
I always used to, as you know well,
since you were right there with me as a coach and a friend,
for the Skoll Awards Ceremony, and Jeff too,
we were always together doing that.
Last year, of course, Jeff wasn't there,
so we had to adapt to that.
And this year, of course, I wasn't gonna be there,
so they came up with this brilliant, brilliant way
of introducing the new social entrepreneurs,
and that is asking a Skoll Awardee from the past
to do the honors with each of the new Awardees.
That was-- - It was great,
'cause they had that connection.
They chose them so carefully,
so each new Awardee was sort of welcomed
by somebody who could mentor them,
who had a real link in terms of their work.
- A link in terms of the work, but also had met the person,
knew the person a little bit.
So it was so clever and so thoughtful.
And so my great gift this year
has been to see the team, the values,
the work continuing, flourishing, changing, adapting,
and just being there, feeling so proud and so hopeful
for a brilliant, brilliant future for the Foundation.
- And over your time, how have you seen the whole concept
of a social entrepreneur change?
- Well it's interesting, because right from the start,
with Jeff Skoll's and Roger Martin's encouragement,
we decided we had to be very clear about what we were after,
in identifying social entrepreneurs.
And so from the beginning,
we were looking for people who had the wherewithal
to really drive change,
to take upon themselves a status quo
that was not working for too many people
and often contributing to their suffering,
at the very least marginalizing
a big section of the population.
So that imperative to drive change
was always part of our definition.
Not everybody believed that or thought that,
so we felt we had to really articulate it
and be clear about that.
And today, it's as if the field has caught up.
So a lot of people talking about systems change.
A lot of people acknowledging
that it takes more than an individual,
it takes more than one organization,
that there is a constellation of actors
who are complicit in the existing status quo,
but who have to also be activated, engaged,
and brought on board, as you work to change the status quo.
So it's as if the field has caught up.
And now I think it's important
for the Foundation to push forward,
because it always has to look for the bleeding edge.
- It's interesting,
'cause when I was interviewing Peter Drobac,
who's head of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship,
here in Oxford, his understanding of social entrepreneurship
was also to include those actors
who are working within the state,
as well as working within business,
intrapreneurs who are working for big companies.
So it was a very embracive field,
but people who were using entrepreneurial methodologies
in order to tackle the big challenges.
Is that your feeling as well?
- Yes, it is.
And you mention how carefully I like to use words, and I do,
but even I get a little frustrated
and a little frustrated with all these terms.
This is an intrapreneur, that's an entrepreneur.
This is entrepreneurial, this a philanthropreneur.
This is a systems entrepreneur
this is a, goodness, commercial entrepreneur.
And just like you, I wanna say look,
this is entrepreneurs working together.
These are entrepreneurial people in whatever context,
whether it's government,
whether they're entrenched in a business someplace.
Christiane Amanpour spoke in the closing plenary,
and she talked about coming up from being a desk clerk
and being kind of a go-to person in the early days of CNN.
And just creating and always seeking opportunities,
and now you could see this woman
took on her opportunity and dream to be a journalist,
with that entrepreneurial zest.
And so that's really the quality, I think,
that has always sparked and driven change.
- And do you think, therefore, that the Foundation
should perhaps think about being broader
in terms of not just supporting individuals,
and doing more to work with governments?
I know you already do lots of work
with governments and with businesses,
but even so, do you still feel this vision
of selecting and championing individuals
and groups of individuals working within small businesses,
mainly nonprofit, but also for-profit,
is the best way forward?
What are your thoughts?
- Well I think that one of the big ahas for me
is I really learned
what makes a successful social entrepreneur,
was how important it is for social entrepreneurs
to connect with and partner with and change and develop
the capabilities and capacities of governments.
- In order to scale.
- In order to scale
and in order to guarantee the sustainability,
because at the end of the day,
in the commercial space, you're a customer.
In the civic space, you're a citizen.
Without that citizen-wide impact of social ventures,
you never get to scale and you never get to sustainability,
because unless citizens embrace this change
and think about any really significant change in the world,
you don't get anything that's going to endure.
- And yet at the same time,
you still need those individuals to spark and to take risks,
to do where government is not yet ready to go,
in order to prove that models work.
- Yes, yes, you do, but you can't just assume okay,
government's gonna take this on, and job over.
In the US and in civil rights,
well civil rights all over the world,
you can get laws, you can get laws on the books,
you can get laws changed.
Most nations have laws against child marriage, for example,
but the culture may persist,
the underlying poverty may persist,
and child marriage continues.
So you have the legislative victory, but that's not enough.
So you've got to drive that behavioral change
and ensure that the culture itself
embraces the new paradigm.
- Yeah, there's so many different areas
where you still need these social entrepreneurs,
at different stages of the game.
As you say, even after the state has,
at least theoretically, embraced things through legislation.
- And I wanna go back to what you said though,
should the Foundation broaden its mandate?
Should it be looking for intrapreneurs, should it be?
I'm not going to try to influence my successor
and where the Foundation wants to go.
That's for him and the team and Jeff
to get their arms around.
I will say this, however,
there are already organizations doing all these things.
They're identifying early-stage entrepreneurs
and social entrepreneurs.
They're identifying high-impact,
high social impact businesses
with impact investors and impact investment criteria.
They're organizations that are looking
for intrapreneurs working in government,
who've made some massive changes
from within the ranks of civil servants.
And so I think it's incumbent on all of us
to understand that ecosystem of players.
We don't have to do it all.
There are others who're doing it.
And so we can lift up their work,
we can learn from them, we can connect with them.
And I think there's plenty to go around,
we do not have to be the octopus that tries to grow arms,
I think it's probably starfish that grow arms.
But anyway, we don't have to do it all.
- But you're still planting seeds, well more than seeds,
because you are going for enterprises
which have already proven successful,
at that point of inflection.
- And we do that because in the early days,
because we did the landscape work.
And at that time,
Ashoka was really focused on early-stage entrepreneurs.
And we saw this gap in the market,
where those who had come through those early stages
and were really primed
to move up the next J-curve or S-curve,
and said that's where we can add value,
as a foundation, as an investor.
- Here I have you,
with all these different parts of the ecosystem,
which are connected, enabling,
and encouraging, and supporting
all these different shoots to grow.
So please help me, Sally.
- [Sally] And it's also they're helping the shoots to grow--
- [Emily] Well more to grow.
- [Sally] But they're also--
- Mmm, the roots! - Putting down the roots.
And there was a wonderful, wonderful metaphor that came out,
in the panel I had the privilege of moderating.
Marc Freedman, who is a remarkable guy working in the US
on intergenerational exchange,
and really starting to reconceptualize
the older generation as an asset,
with its wisdom, its experience, its ability to contribute,
whereas at one point in its life,
person might've been too busy
to contribute beyond the self and the family and that focus.
Marc will be reviewing David Brooks's new book,
which tells this story, apparently,
of a fellow who decided he would eradicate a bamboo growth
that was growing out of control.
And so he hacked down the bamboo,
and he threw all kinds of weed killer on it.
And he then slapped a lot of concrete over it,
and bamboo, gone.
Well in a matter of weeks, the first crack in the cement,
there's the bamboo shoot coming up,
right through the cement.
And I tend to think, and Marc's point,
was that's social entrepreneurs.
That's these agents of change.
That is the green shoots that are coming up,
no matter where the challenges are toughest.
And it sounds naive and maybe a little overly-optimistic,
because heaven knows,
there are these massive challenges in the world,
and a lot isn't going in the right direction,
to say the least.
But that generative capacity
and that human resilience
really continues to blossom all over the world.
- And what's so nice
is when people come to the Skoll World Forum,
throughout the year,
when they've been, by themselves, battling,
or in their small communities.
And they come here,
and you just see people feeling energized by the community,
by the global nature
of people working on so many different problems,
and yet, with so much that unites them.
- So much that unites them.
And they're friendly, they're open,
there's a generosity to this community that I just love.
And it doesn't matter,
I might be walking down on the street,
lot of people are new, they have no idea who I am,
and will just strike up a conversation.
And I'll have no idea who they are,
and turns out they're new to philanthropy,
or they're trying to get an organization off the ground,
or they've been working in media to identify these stories.
And so it's just a gale of fresh air.
- And through this whole adventure
that you've had at the Skoll Foundation,
what have you learned about yourself?
- I think that someone said to me
a long time ago, Emily,
that you have to lead through your strengths.
You can't model yourself on this leader or that leader.
You can't be someone you're not.
And so you have to summon the best that you have
to bring to your leadership, and be mindful
of where you have a tinny ear or a blind spot,
and make sure you have that talent around you.
- So is it a confidence to know where you are weaker?
Is that what you learned?
- That's what I learned, but I also learned
that I'm never gonna be a sorta technocratic leader.
I'm never going to have a million data points
at my fingertips.
But I could be authentic, I could be hungry to learn,
I could connect with people.
I could tell the truth when I needed to tell the truth,
I'm strong in that way.
I'm not going to put up
with anything that's not honorable.
I'm ethical, I have integrity,
and so I could work with that.
And I'm also not driven by ego, for myself.
I have an ego, and I have a healthy ego,
but it's an ambition.
My ambition is to see Jeff's vision realized.
And my ambition is to ensure
that these people have the wind at their backs,
so that they can get done
what they're trying to get done in the world.
And that sense of something bigger is very humbling,
but it's also very inspiring,
and that's kind of what I continue to learn.
- That's fantastic.
Sally Osberg, thank you so very much.
- Oh Emily, thank you!
And thank you for being my partner and friend,
and such an inspiration in journalism,
and such a comrade-in-arms for all of us.
- Thank you.