by Dan Vermeer, Associate Professor of the Practice and Executive Director, EDGE
If there’s one thing that has been constant in the 14 years since EDGE’s founding, it’s perpetual and disruptive change. The energy sector has faced one upheaval after another—from the fracking boom to industry contraction, changing geopolitics, workforce transition, project finance and fundraising rollercoasters, and an accelerated push towards energy transition. Meanwhile, climate and sustainability leaders in adjacent industries have also witnessed a rapidly evolving regulatory, consumer, and investor landscape generating many new risks and opportunities for firms.
Navigating change is always a challenge for leaders, but the scale and pace of change happening at the intersection of energy, sustainability, ESG, and climate in the recent past is dizzying—and is likely to continue to accelerate. How do business leaders maintain a focus on operational excellence while anticipating a future that will look very different—in some known, but also many unknown, ways?
I believe that one essential tool is cultivating a peer learning community—a trusted group of professionals whose insight and ideas you value—and the time and space to explore big questions about how to envision future possibilities during times of change. Leaders may cultivate peer networks for many purposes—for example, executive mentorship or industry-specific collaborations. However, we’ve discovered that, for big-picture thinking and new ideas from different corners, it is valuable for a leader to have a learning community that brings together relevant perspectives and examples from outside his/her organization and industry.
Since 2009, we have curated discussions with a community of business leaders for the purposes of learning from and with them. When EDGE was created as a Center, Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard encouraged us to create an Advisory Board composed of senior business leaders across industries who could advise us on trends and priorities in the world of practice. Over time, this group grew to around 20 members, representing energy and utility companies, investors and venture capitalists, manufacturers and consumer goods companies. What we quickly learned was that the members of this group had a desire to learn from each other as well.
We envisioned a broader purpose for the group: what if we thought about this group not as a one-way source of advice to us, but as a dynamic community of business leaders that benefited from exploring urgent energy and environment industry trends with other leaders from diverse industries? The Board membership was quite unique, covering several adjacent industries and representing many different functions; it was not like other industry events where Board members were already engaged. Reimagining the Board as a learning community allowed us to sustain this vibrant peer group for over a decade, and provided clarity about both the content and the quality of interaction in the group over time. In recent years, during meetings that we convene twice each year in different cities, we have explored topics such as emerging energy technologies, new regulatory developments, the climate and energy funding landscape, investor expectations, and decarbonization trends. We have showcased the latest Duke faculty research on leadership topics such as game theory and goal-setting. We have invited guest speakers and panelists from fields as diverse as policy think tanks, consulting firms, and marketing agencies; toured facilities like Greentown Labs Houston and the California Academy of Sciences; and explored real-time business case studies with group members.
The members of our learning community, originally called the EDGE Advisory Board, leave these meetings with compelling new insights about industry dynamics as well as leadership practice that they take back to their companies. By hosting these conversations, we also learn about evolving industry practices, and can bring these insights back to the classroom and research efforts.
As we look forward to EDGE’s 15th year, we have recently rebranded the learning community to better reflect its purpose. It is now the “EDGE Executive Council”. This year, we intend to add several new members to this group—and are looking for seasoned leaders from diverse industries who are collaborative, open-minded, and curious. Council members don’t require a Duke affiliation, but must be enthusiastic about the role of higher education in tackling the climate and sustainability challenge. The value of the Council—for Fuqua, EDGE and the Council participants—emerges from our in-depth strategic conversations, and the trusted relationships and sense of community that grow over time.
Would you like to join us? We welcome you to nominate yourself of another senior colleague to be considered for a role in this Council.
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