Written by Alvin Hew
SIS Group of Schools, Board Director

Working towards a collective better future to leave this world in better shape for the next generation.

Organisations can do well by doing good – this was the key message from the Steward Leadership Summit, which was held at the Shangri-La Singapore on Wednesday. 

“Steward leadership is born out of a desire to pursue an agenda beyond a commercial one, and it permeates every part of the organisation, from its operational model to its strategy and corporate culture.” said Mr Rajeev Peshawaria, Chief Executive Officer of Stewardship Asia Centre (SAC), a non-profit organisation set up by Temasek Holdings. 

Stewardship Leadership 25 (SL25) was launched by SAC in collaboration with the INSEAD-Hoffmann Institute, Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and The Strait Times Singapore. He added that, “The goal is to create a better future for all stakeholders, including the society, the environment and future generations.”

The almost 100 organisations considered for the award included a mix of multinational companies (MNCs), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises. The selected organisations also included SIS Group of Schools who made the Top 50 and were finalists for the Top 25 in Asia.

Steward leadership is the genuine desire and persistence to create a collective better future. This means creating a profitable win-win-win growth wherein employees, shareholders and society-at-large all thrive together.

Speaking at the summit, Temasek Holdings chairman Lim Boon Heng said a mindset shift is needed to drive everyone to work together towards “creating that collective better future”. He added that this better future requires everyone, regardless of their role in society, to step up to play their part and do the right thing. “This will help ensure that we leave this world in better shape for the current and future generations,” he said.

Mr Peshawaria said the diverse list shows that SMEs can also make an impact, even though it is more challenging for them with their limited resources. “It is heartening to see the smaller players saying, ‘we will not have as big an impact as, say, Microsoft, but we will do the right thing’,” he added.

The Top 25 included three of Singapore’s largest banks – DBS, OCBC and UOB and 2 well-known real estate developers – CapitaLand and City Developments, global banks BNP Paribas and UBS as well as companies such as Ayala Corporation from the Philippines, Sunway Group in Malaysia, Tata Consultancy Services from India, and Faber-Castell headquartered in Germany.