Twenty-First-Century Leadership to Fight the Code Red for Business aims to equip a cadre of leaders with the tools they need to stop using fossil fuels for energy, electricity, and transport to reduce their carbon footprint. Inspired by 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari, the book offers an important addition to the canon of literature for leaders who want to cultivate a sustainability mindset. In straightforward prose, the author outlines what’s at stake amid the climate crisis and the social, physical, and economic calamities that will follow if leaders don’t act. The book also highlights three disruptors—technology, geopolitics, and governance—that need strategic action. The four key traits that set apart a twenty-first-century leader include: • an appreciation for mobilizing science as part of business strategy; • an urgent need to make an impact on the code red for business; • a sustainability mindset that prioritizes the planet and people over profit; • a willingness to embed the Twenty-First-Century Board Leadership Model in the business’s agenda. We can either ignore science, as the nineteenth-century-mindset leaders have done by making profit their foremost priority, or become relevant, twenty-first-century, science-led, sustainability-mindset leaders dedicated to saving the planet.
Despre autor
Dr. R. A. Fernando is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, having completed a postgraduate certificate in sustainable business in 2008 and a master of studies in sustainability leadership in 2014. He holds a doctor of business administration degree from the European Business School, which he earned in 2016. He has an MBA from the University of Colombo and is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). At the INSEAD Business School (France), he completed both a diploma in international management and the Advanced Management Program. He has been an executive in residence at the INSEAD Business School since 2010 and is a visiting faculty member of the INSEAD Advanced Strategy for Directors program and the Aspiring Directors program. In 2010, Dr. Fernando received a US copyright for his work at Cambridge University for the concept of strategic corporate sustainability. In November 2015, he published Strategic Corporate Sustainability: 7 Imperatives for Sustainable Business (Partridge), based on his work at Cambridge University. In 2017, he created the ILA Future Directors program for the Institute Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs, which set the foundation for the Twenty-First-Century Board Leadership Model, which was created on June 17, 2020, and the Twenty-First-Century Board Leadership Model Master Class©, which was launched by ILA in Luxembourg in September 2020. Today, the Master Class is building a new cadre of twenty-first-century leaders in Luxembourg, Ireland, and Sri Lanka and is to be expanded to many nations as a key supplement to the existing knowledge of those people in positions of leadership who want to be relevant twenty-first-century leaders. The book Twenty-First-Century Leadership to Fight the Code Red for Business is the culmination of this journey to build future-ready twenty-first-century leaders. Dr. Fernando is the chairman and CEO of Global Strategic Corporate Sustainability Pvt. Ltd., His career with multinationals spanned 1981–2007 with Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, and Smith Kline Beecham International, covering Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in CEO / business development positions. He was the first CEO of the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology, 2008–2011, and operations director of the Malaysia Blue Ocean Strategy Institute, 2011–2016. He was the UN Global Compact focal point in 2007–2011 and set up the UNGC Sri Lanka Network. Dr. Fernando serves on the boards of Global Strategic Corporate Sustainability Pvt. Ltd., Dilmah Ceylon Tea PLC, Aitken Spence Plantations Ltd., LOLC Holdings, Ceylon Graphene Technologies Ltd., Habitat for Humanity, UN Global Compact, and Ceylon Asset Management Ltd. In September 2007 he won the Global Strategy Leadership Award, presented to him by Professor Renee Mauborgne of INSEAD at the World Strategy summit in Mumbai. In February 2020, he won the World CSR Leadership Award. Dr. Fernando is deeply committed to and passionate about creating a cadre of twenty-first-century, science-led, sustainability-mindset leaders to make an impact on the code red for humanity and business.