Dambisa Moyo: How Boards Work

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Beatrice Di Caro: From the World Economic Forum. I'm Beatrice Di Caro, and this is the Book Club podcast. In this episode, we're talking to Dr. Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian born global economist, co-principal of Vestaca Investments and a New York Times bestselling author with five books under her belt. Her latest book, How Boards Work and How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World, examines the traditional role of boards and suggests how they can adapt to the needs of a 21st century marketplace. She credits her early years in Zambia for giving a springboard to the world of global economics. She now holds a doctorate in economics from Oxford, a master's from Harvard, and serves on a number of boards herself, including the 3M Corporation, Chevron, Conde Nast and the Oxford University Endowment Investment Committee. Dambisa is a prolific writer who has been published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Barron's and the Harvard Business Review. My colleague Julie Masiga interviewed her and started by asking Dambisa what led her down the path of book writing.

Dambisa Moyo: You know, in a way, it's kind of accidental. I think people who I went to highschool with in Zambia, I think they're like me, still quite shocked that I've actually built up a career as an author because I was not a great writer. But I think what was really catalytic for me is realizing that being an author has given me a space to share ideas and really to make arguments without getting caught in sort of a lot of, you know, here and now, it's very often you can be on a video call for 5 minutes. You're not able to really get through to the nuance of many arguments and why certain things might work and why they might not. And I think that for me, being able to sit down and write a book that's 300 pages gives me the opportunity to really analyze different angles and to really offer my perspective without getting shouted down, as can often happen in the social media world in which we live. So for me, it's an accidental career, an opportunity. I've been very lucky in terms of the success I've had around it, but at the same time, it's been in many ways life changing for me to have that opportunity.

Julie Masiga: Brilliant. And when you come up with these ideas for your books, what's your writing process?

Dambisa Moyo: So, you know, for me, what has been very helpful is I read a lot. I read a lot. And there's not much that I won't read. Meaning I think too often people approach a book with their ideas baked and the and that's and it works. You know, people are quite ideological, as I said. And to me, ideology is very much the enemy of growth. We need to be less ideological about many things because it's proven time and time again that very often we're wrong about how society actually works. And so when I think about how I come up with ideas, it's just that I read widely. I'm not saying I don't have strong views on certain things I do, but I try very hard to think about, wait a second, I think this and of course, I'm tainted by where I was raised and what I did. I didn't go to do a Ph.D. in the teaching war in China. I did my page at Oxford. So obviously my lens for how I think about the world is very much shaped by the background that I have similarity having been at Harvard or worked at Goldman, etc. My worldview is shaped by the experiences that I've had. But I try very hard to make friends and read this South China morning post. I tried to visit other countries, listen to what other people were saying. I don't need to go to other countries very often, especially now in the West, which is so fractured. People are either one way or the other. I tried desperately to hear other people's arguments, so I think very often you'll find that people aren't dumb and they they have their reasons. And so for me, before I rush out to write the next book, I try very hard to think about counter views. People who are against growth. Why are they against growth? Why is it not obvious that growth is a good thing? I tried to really adapt and understand their perspective.

Julie Masiga: Yeah, but from a sitting down and writing perspective in the sense of the actual nitty gritty for all those writers who are halfway through their novels, what do you do when you put on a computer, open a blank page and there's just nothing in your head?

Dambisa Moyo: Okay. So first of all, I bow down to people who write fiction. That is a whole different kettle of fish. That's for the Nobel Prizes winner type of thing. Because I think building characters, imagining something that doesn't exist and you know, yes, you can draw on your family experiences, etc., but being able to write a book that is fiction is, I think, one of the hardest things to do. I am not in that field. I am a non-fiction writer. So every day I wake up, there's an economic crisis. Oil prices are prices and interest rates have moved up. Foreign exchange. That's where I derive my information and my sort of information set. But still, how do I think about writing? And I would say there's one thing that I've learnt to do over the process of ten years of writing books and having some, some success at it, which is more and more I think about what is the 30 minute speech or 15 minute speech I would be giving on this topic if I had, I don't know, students, professors, policymakers, presidents in a room. I only have 15 minutes to make my argument. What is the argument and what are the three or five supporting points? That's how I think about my idea gaining sort of traction and sort of moving on from there. So that's how I do it. And it's look, I didn't I didn't start out right to make this my first book was very torturous to write. But over time, I'm not saying it's easy writing a book, but it's definitely for my way of approaching a book and how the chapters fall out of what I think is the big message of any book is very much thinking about, Well, when I have to do a 30 minute speech or a 50 minute speech to an audience, I want to to be interested, you students or whomever. What is it that I'm going to say? I have 15 minutes, so what am I going to say? So I work from the back as opposed to starting off from a blank page.

Julie Masiga: So to your benefit as a non-fiction author is that the events are already there. Things are happening in the world, in the economic sector. So what you do is weave your own ideas and perspectives into established fact. Let's put it like that.

Dambisa Moyo: Yeah. Well, I mean, the way I would think about it is that a lot of the variables, GDP and inflation numbers and foreign exchange, etc. are exactly that. They're outcome variables. They're not exactly telling us. They're telling us where the price of something is at a particular moment. They're not telling us about underlying trends. They're not telling us about social change or economic change that might be, you know, underpinning the movements. So, again, if you think about tactics versus structure, this lot of the noise, it's a lot of moving data points. That's more tactics here and now. But what about the structural changes that are occurring? You know, I'll give you a specific example. According to the United Nations, India is going to be the largest economy by population this November. If you are not paying attention and you're looking at data, you might miss that. But that's a very big deal for how the world will evolve, how we'll address inequality, how we'll address climate change. It's a big deal, but India is going to have the biggest population in the world. It's surpassing China. But so that's a structural change. So I think there's a narrative, a structural narrative that that I focus on in my career as being as being sort of storytelling so that people don't just get excited about what's happening in the market at this moment, but really trying to understand what are the big changes that are occurring that are going to influence the world going forward.

Julie Masiga: I know you've written many books yourself, but what's one book you'd recommend other than the ones you should?

Dambisa Moyo: Yeah. You know, I get asked this question a lot. I think for me it would be just in terms of the things that I'm interested in, which is ultimately about human progress, I think I'd have to go back to 1776 Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations. I still think it's really fresh thinking in terms of that enlightenment period and thinking about how to look and evaluate economics and economic structures. But I think more importantly, it was also really an amazing sort of leap forward in thinking about why some countries, some nations succeed and others might not. So for me, that would be to this day, almost 300 years later, you know, centuries later, it's the place I would go to.

Julie Masiga: Do you think it still rings true in terms of all the tenets or does it need updating? Is it a classic piece of literature? That's one of them.

Dambisa Moyo: I think it's its baseline. I mean, of course, there are other dynamics. I mean, if you think about 1776 socially, how we interacted, but economics was a completely different place. You didn't have the sort of global system of finance and sort of multilateralism that has subsequently come to dominate. So I think, of course, there are sort of aspects to what Adam Smith posited. But I think fundamentally when we look back and strip away a lot of public policy and a lot of human made institutions and policy tools, I think, you know, really looking at the basics of capital, labor, so capital including things like land, but labor, the use of your population, the sort of talent, education of your population, and then this wild card of total back to productivity, these other factors that are supposed to be catalytic in driving capital labor. I still think the baseline of that classic and thinking about long term success of a country in a nation I think still holds two.

Julie Masiga: Years and five books. Which one of them has been the most significant for you personally and professionally?

Dambisa Moyo: So I think in terms of just giving me the opportunity to to be more of an author and to be more engaged in the issues that I'm interested in, it was certainly dead aid. That was definitely catalytic. My first book looks, I think, in many respects. It was very fortuitous that, you know, the book happened to come out at a time when people were just very critical and re-evaluating many other things that were looked at, it was 28 into 2009, looking at the financial crisis. There were questions about the systems globally. What about this growth? What's going on with the world? And I just happened to be publishing my book in January 2009, which was also questioning something that was viewed very much as a sacred cow. So that was very you know, I would love to take this to take credit for predicting or being designing. The timing wasn't like that. It was very fortuitous that and I think the question of aid and how we actually engage with poorer countries, I think was just another thing that was that raised question that that really did catalyze my career as a board member because a lot of companies in particular were interested in solving these problems of inequity and underdevelopment, but they have a different approach than just handing out aid, for example. So that would definitely be, I think that in terms of a shift from an equilibrium, I was going along happily in one way and then jumped up in a different way. That would definitely be that book.

Julie Masiga: What are some of the things that have surprised you in your research for your books?

Dambisa Moyo: I think for me the biggest shock would be two. One is for sure that the price of the barrel of oil is only $100. And I say that because when I, you know, partly for my board work, but also just being able to travel. When you see how much effort goes into bringing a barrel of oil up from the waterbed or from digging a well somewhere, the costs that go into the technology, the risks of fatalities, I'm shocked that it's just $100, the cost of clean up, etc.. So that to me is shocking, but it's true for many other things. I used to be on the board of a company that, amongst other things, made beer. And I always found it interesting that you can go to a bar in New York and say, hey, can I have a cerveza, you know, a beer from Mexico? And it would be no more than $5 and $5 for a beer, which has come all the way from Mexico. They had to be produced. Somebody drove a truck over the border. There were all these infrastructure costs and it was still only five bucks. I think there are so many of these types of things. The fact that you and I can be on this call, we're having a call right now. It's costing pennies. How is that possible? It should be super expensive for me to call my mother, but now I call her shamelessly all the time. It's basically free. I'm like, it's possible, but it's free. So I think these types of things continue to just amaze me that, wow, you can get something, you know, across the world for what? What is pennies on the dollar as high quality? High and reliable quality.

Julie Masiga: Okay. And with this latest one, why do you think it's important to talk about boards now?

Dambisa Moyo: Oh, I wrote it during the pandemic. And I think one of a couple of things. One is that it's not written only for corporations, really. It's supposed to be a roadmap for any type of board, a board for supporting a government, as I do for the Trade and Investment Department for the UK, but also for boards, NGOs and endowments, as I also am involved in. And why was it important? It was important because certainly for corporations, there was a backlash around and there has been. What's the role of the corporation? You know, what is the motivation? And, you know, you will be aware, I'm sure, that in 2000, 19 companies themselves, through the Business Roundtable, have changed what their utility function is and what their role of the company is. So that was already underpinning, and I wanted people to better understand what the constraints of decision leaders are. Why is it that companies don't just hand out cash? What is going on in the boardroom? What are they guided by? And, you know, I talked about those three areas, strategy, succession, in particular the CEO, but also issues around is energy, as we called it back then. So obviously changing its name. And I think that's why I was motivated to write the book. I think it was very important for us, and it continues to be very important for us to understand that if we really are serious about addressing the problems that the world faces, climate inequality, growth declines, geopolitics, etc., we need everybody at the table. We cannot start saying, Well, we don't want corporations there or we don't want government there. We don't want NGOs, everybody. This is so serious. Everything is so serious now. We need all hands on deck. But many of these organizations have constraints. But I think it's really important for people to understand what these businesses are coming with, boards are coming with in terms of their contributions and how that is going to play a big role for society. So that's why I was motivated to write the book.

Julie Masiga: So I'm curious to know as a black African woman inhabiting spaces that are typically not very diverse, what has been your experience? Have you handled it? Have you changed or adapted or not to follow through with your own plans, visions, dreams?

Dambisa Moyo: Yeah. So look, I think the good news is that, you know, the world has moved quite quickly on these issues. I think that that, you know, certainly ten years ago, 12 years ago when I joined my first corporate board, I was a bit of a novelty black woman from Africa. But the good news now is that it just looks bizarre when you see any form of an institution, public policy, business, not for profit that is not reflective of society, which in other words, means more diverse. And I think that that's a great thing because we need that talent from everywhere. What I think has changed is that the bar is higher for everybody. You know, I kind of joke that, you know, ten years ago, 12 years ago, I had a PhD and two masters. I'd already done my PHD at Oxford, I'd done my master's at Harvard. And I had worked at Goldman Sachs for nearly ten years that, you know, at that time, it was still people would still package me being on a board as, oh, it's because she's a black woman, that that is kind of becoming less relevant now because there are plenty of people who look like women, men, young people, people from different backgrounds, you know, racially, not just black, but Latinos, Asians who are eminently talented and qualified to contribute to solving the biggest issues that the world is facing. And so, if anything, I think it's great that the bar is higher now and that more and more the questions of race and gender and origin are becoming, to my mind, less important. And we're looking for talent. And the fact that the talent can be in inhabiting somebody who comes from Africa or from Asia is becoming an important contribution. But it's not the only reason people are being selected into roles of, you know, important decision making. But I think that's a great thing for the world.

Julie Masiga: That's interesting. I recently read an article that suggested that there might be a backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion. So do you think that there might be a backlash?

Dambisa Moyo: I don't believe that there's a backlash, to be honest. I mean, I think companies are trying to compete in a very aggressive world. We're now in a time of high inflation. We're in a time of geopolitics being very aggressive. When I sit in boardrooms, both for corporations, but also public policy rooms, people are trying to solve complex problems. The best way to solve complex problems is to have all the best ideas, the most hardworking, innovative ideas and people around the table. And I think this notion that the most innovative and hard working people only look in a particular way is very old school. People need to understand. And what's going on in China and India and Africa and South America. I'm doing some stuff with the Commonwealth in Britain. We need to understand what's happening across the Commonwealth to over 50 countries. The notion that, you know, 12 white men of a certain age are going to understand these aspects I think is very passé. And I don't know any room where that would be acceptable now for purely utilitarian reasons, it's not because they're doing anybody any favors. It's because these companies want to succeed. Governments want to compete. They want to be successful. And so I don't think anybody's doing anyone any favors. I think we're just in a world where people realize that if you want to be a sports team and compete, you need the best people, the best known footballer, best defender, the best shot taker. And it doesn't matter whether they're white or black or male or female, you want the best team. And so that's what people are looking for. And look, I'm not saying at all that we've reached Nirvana. We've got a lot of work to do. But the attitude of decision makers is a better recognition and that more of an acceptance and understanding that the diversity is going to come from everywhere and that we need to be very aggressive in how we get out there to recruit talent and make sure that all voices are being heard. And this is an existential crisis for how we solve any multitude of issues: growth or inequality or climate change. We need the best people. You know, climate change is at its heart, a science problem. We need the best scientists. We need the best minds to help us think about how to generate energy and to solve things and make sure that we don't destroy the planet, for example. So yeah, I'm much more sanguine about where the world is today. I generally am a glass half full person, which means I'm always looking for solutions and a way forward. I'm not really interested in sort of a woe is me type of thing. I mean for sure that we have a history, well documented history of people who look like me being discriminated against. But I think it would be a missed opportunity for younger people who happen to look like me too. To think that the world hasn't changed or that things are not potentially getting better. I think that they are getting better with a lot of work to be done. A lot of work has been done. Know. I'll give you one quick example. When I first joined corporate boards, I was the only black person, the only woman that would be, you know, even on the boards I served on. Now, on some of the boards, half of the board is women. You know, it's dominated by people from different backgrounds. And that is what it's going to take for us to compete globally. And it's not just true for corporations. It's true for NGOs. It's true for the government, and true for the endowment. At Oxford Endowment, if you want to compete and to win, then you better reflect society, the stakeholders, investors, regulators. And that's just good business sense. It's not sort of some big shouldn't be some big cryptic surprise , it should be obvious and it took us a long time to get here. But I think the momentum is only in one direction to continue in this path.

Julie Masiga: So I'm aware you're born in Zambia and you've come a long way since then. If you don't mind just sharing with all our listeners your journey from Zambia to here and then explaining how you've changed as a leader.

Dambisa Moyo: Yeah, look, I mean, I was born and raised in Zambia, my formative years definitely in Africa, and I'm grateful for that. It helped, you know, now that I've lived in many countries, I've traveled to over 80 developed and developing democratic and non-democratic. I realize that I was very lucky because I grew up in a country that wasn't quite ideological about the way the world should be. If you spend time in the United States, for example, Americans are raised on sort of a great dose that the most important thing is liberal democracy and market capitalism. And essentially everything else is wrong. But I suppose if you were raised in China, you would believe in state capitalism and prioritizing democracy and that everything else is wrong. And in a way. Growing up in Zambia at the time that I did was very fortuitous because we weren't really indoctrinated one way or another. In fact, we were not in an aligned state. Back at the time I was growing up. So I feel very fortunate because I feel like I'm able to assess and maybe be quite inquisitive about the issues that I'm interested in public policy, politics, geopolitics, economics, what works and what doesn't with growth and inequality and some of the big issues that the world continues to face without the burden of feeling that there are some constraints into what is right and what is wrong. I'm very open minded, I think, in terms of how we approach these big issues facing the world with its climate change or inequality or growth or debt. So I think that's been great. You asked me how I approach leadership or how I think about things? I think really one of the big lessons that I have, I'm still very much a novice. And I'm trying to learn more and more about this idea of mixed mental models. So I think that one of the problems with education is that not only are we taught to be quite ideological, as I just intimated, but I think also we're very quick to pick subjects. So my PhD is in economics. The way I look at the world, the price of oil, the price of a loaf of bread is very much influenced by economics. And I think this whole field of mixed mental models, of which Charlie Munger is a big sort of leader in the thinking, really, it challenges us to look at the same problem from different angles. So instead of looking at the recent COVID 19 pandemic only in the lens of it being a health care challenge, I think it would have been beneficial to look at it as a geopolitical issue, as an economic issue, anthropological issue, sociological issue, as we've now come to realize it had many, many knock on effects, but I think we were not very, very good in general at addressing everything from climate change to issues of progress and growth in looking at these issues and different lenses. And so for me, that's where I spent a lot of my time and that's what I find quite interesting.

Julie Masiga: Absolutely. On a completely different note. What's the best advice you've ever been given?

Dambisa Moyo: Best advice. Gosh, there's lots of advice. I think, you know, the best advice is that no one is coming to help you. As negative as that sounds, I think very often it's very easy to sit in your room at home or as I have done, and to say, well, why has nobody telephoned me to tell me that this board opportunities are available or that I should apply to do my thing at Oxford or whatever? And it's very easy to go down a road where you start creating negative narratives. Again, just to be clear, because I know we live in a world where people take one little sound bite and misinterpret. I am not saying that they are not racists and misogynists out there. What I am saying is that rather than assuming that the world is against us and things are negative, I always try to find a path towards achieving my goals and trying to solve problems as opposed to problem identification. So it goes back to the piece of advice that not everybody's trying to get you. Not everybody hates you. And I think that the more that we can think about the fact that we are probably the most interested in our lives and our careers more than anybody else's, I think the faster we are to to finding ways to try and solve the things that are big in the macro sense in the world, but also the things that are on the smaller way. Interesting, and the goals for me as an individual. I'm not saying that doors haven't been slammed in my face and that people are always helpful. No, they're not. But I think I think for me, it's really that understanding that I have to lean in. I need to create a body of evidence that I that I am equipped to be in these rooms and that I do have something to offer and that no one is going to sort of call me or send me an engraved invitation just because they think Dambisa might be nice or she's a black woman or she's from Africa. Nobody in the decision making role who wants to really solve these problems over the long term is going to offer opportunities without there being some expectation that then we take initiative for our careers and then to try and address these issues.

Julie Masiga: Yeah. And some women say that you knock on many doors and then some get slammed in your face and some women say, go ahead and break the door down. So my question would be, when the door is slammed in your face, what's your strategy? How do you get into those rooms? Like, practically speaking, if you are advising a younger woman, what do you do? What steps do you take? How do you equip yourself?

Dambisa Moyo: The door gets slammed in my face all the time. And what that means is I just have to try and get more information about why I'm not getting certain opportunities. How can I be better equipped so that I can compete? But it's a much better approach, I think, than for me to say, Well, I've done all this stuff. The world must be against me because I've gotten this far, because a lot of people, not just people who look like me, a lot of people who don't look like me have actually taken a flier and have invested and have given me opportunities. Make sure that you're equipping yourself with the tools in your toolkit. Match what it is these organizations are looking for as an example. We need to invest in our own careers and to lean in to use a Sheryl Sandberg's term to really understand what organizations are looking for and if. And even then that's not a guarantee that you're definitely not going to get opportunities. But I think that that's where, you know, getting critical feedback. We all think we're great, but you know, maybe very often we might be sending off a signal that we don't want to get critical feedback, but we do need feedback. We need the feedback that will say, Hey, Dambisa, you're great at X, Y and Z, but you're not very good at these other things with I like to call them my person, the board of directors, my friends, my family, asking them, honestly, what am I good at? What am I not good at? Asking your boss honestly means giving people the space to be able to give you critical feedback without them thinking you're going to sue them or you're going to accuse them of racism. And I think or whatever that list of things might be. So for me, I think, you know, for young people, that's what's worked for me. So I think again, really borrowing into understanding, borrowing and understanding what organizations are looking for and understanding what you bring to the table and where that matches I think is really important. And if you find that you are not eligible, no, doesn't mean never, it means not now.

Julie Masiga: Okay. So to circle right back to the beginning, speaking about you as a black African woman, and why is it so important to have that female perspective or and more than that, a person of color who's also a woman on a board. Like what? Unique perspectives they bring and how do they enrich the whole board experience?

Dambisa Moyo: Yeah, look, I think it is about perspective, it's about approach. I mean, it is clear as far I mean, certainly in my generation, I don't want to talk about other generations. I can speak about the generation that I grew up in. Girls and boys were taught quite differently and how we show up in different environments, quite different. I mean, thankfully that's changing in many ways around the world what opportunities women can have. And I think there's a lot to be said about the fact that if you look around the world, we've had not only women political leaders, but you've had across Asia. Even Africa has had three female presidents. But in business as well, we've seen, you know, the CEOs of automobile companies, of finance companies, one that, you know, a bank, a Bank of America, CEOs of mining companies. We've got the CEOs of energy companies, women. And I think that is a perspective there that is quite important. It doesn't mean that they're not doing all the other things that we'd expect from any leader, but they are something additive around their own experiences about how women compete, how women progress. So I think more and more, as I said earlier, I think those issues will dissipate as being barriers because I think people recognise in a 21st century company we want the best talent at the table in terms of race and origin. So I think as I said, I'm very optimistic. I'm very sanguine that these types of changes are already afoot. But there's always, always much more to be done. Always.

Beatrice Di Caro: That was author Dambisa Moyo speaking to Julie Masiga. Thanks for joining us on the World Economic Forum Book Club Podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast and best of all, leave us a review. Don't forget to join our book club on Facebook, which is coming up on 200,000 followers. And to discuss podcasts, please join the podcast club also on Facebook. And of course, please search out our sister podcasts, Radio Davos and meet the leader wherever you can get your podcasts. This episode of the Book Club podcast was presented by my colleague Julia Masiga and myself Beatrice Di Caro. Production was with Gareth Nolan and big thanks to our podcast editor Robin Pomeroy. We'll be back soon, but for now, thanks for listening and goodbye.