Disruption AND Sustainable Leadership with Andrew Liveris

Ilham Kadri: Hello, everyone and welcome. Welcome to another episode of AND is the Future. Today, I'm thrilled to be speaking with Andrew Liveris, the former CEO of Dow Chemical Company and an expert on purposeful and forward-thinking leadership. In addition to his 14.. 15… 20 years of experience as a CEO, he is a scientist, an engineer who is passionate about finding solutions for the biggest problems humanity is facing.
Andrew, believe it or not, has advised not just one but five United States presidents. And if that's not enough, he's also the best-selling author of Make it in America and recently launched his new book, which I read, Leading Through Disruption. And I had the great pleasure of getting to know Andrew when I was at Dow.
He has been my big boss, if I could say it this way, and I remember traveling with him in the Middle East and learning much, frankly, from the big and the small things about leadership. And when I was participating in this HIPO potential Dow program Andrew put in place, Andrew was accessible with his wisdom, experiences and especially some sobering ones.
That's what I remember, especially the ones out of the 2008-2009 crisis after the acquisition of Rohm and Haas. He's now a great friend and a role model, obviously, like always, and I'm so excited to welcome him to the podcast today to have a great conversation about disruption AND sustainable leadership.
Andrew, thank you so much for being here with me.

Andrew Liveris: I'm just so thrilled and excited and beaming with pride listening to you, Ilham. You're amazing and can't wait for our conversation.

Growing up in an ethnic family unit

Ilham Kadri: So, I'd like to begin by learning more about where you came from and what inspired you. You talk a bit about your upbringing in the book, Andrew, describing yourself as a ‘raw, introverted, unconfident Outback boy’ who grew up in Darwin, Australia. And gosh, when I read this, I had to read it again and again, because obviously, I have not met that younger version of you, Andrew.
For me, you are one of the best speakers, the most confident leader I've ever met. So, I'm curious, can you tell us more about that little boy I'm interested by? And what exactly puts him on the path to becoming the leader you are today and eventually the CEO of a global chemical company.

Andrew Liveris: Thank you, Ilham. Like  many of us who've had the amazing good fortune of being the sons and daughters of people who took a major risk and bet everything, in my case, Greek immigrants, grandparents from a very devastated island after World War I and World War II in Greece, they came to this remote part of Australia.
Not by design, by accident.They did very low-end, menial labor to make some money. And then I was the beneficiary of that, and so growing up in that environment in Darwin was a very primitive location as I was growing up.
No TV, you know, no modern conveniences. And so, I grew up in a very much ethnic family unit that really understood and respected hard work and, you know, only say something when you have something to say and, you know, really, the values of support and humility. And I think this sort of background, plus its location in Northern Australia, many Asian people there, many Indigenous people, I understood different cultures as a young person.
And so that boy, I spent a lot of time reflecting and learning, and I was given the gift of a good brain, so I consumed books.
I remember when an encyclopedia Britannica salesman, when, one of those salesmen knocked on my door, on the door of our father's house, my mother's house, and they were trying to sell 12 volumes of these books, and I was there looking and listening to what my father would say. And he said, ‘no, no, we can't afford it.’
And I went up and begged him, ‘daddy, daddy, please, let me have these books.’ And he said, ‘only on one condition. That you read every single one of them.’ So, I spent the next six months reading 12 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. That upbringing then, you know, brought tragedy. My father died. We were stranded with not much money.
I had to be the man of the house. My two younger sisters. I started working at age 14, 15. So, that maturity, That sense of ‘I’ve got to achieve so that the family can have a life’ came to me as a young man. And I never thought for a second, you know, I would go on to do what I ended up doing. But I brought attributes: a value system, a sense of adventure, maturity, collegiality, friendship, loyalty, resilience, being always optimistic that there's a better way - I brought those all through that period. Now, I say all that now with the wisdom of my years, but at the time, it didn't feel like that. And really, it was the magic of joining Dow, this great American storied multinational that taught me the other attributes that you now see in me. Leadership attributes, which I'm sure we can talk about.

[00:06:22] Ilham Kadri:To switch gears as the CEO of a chemical company, I know you would agree like many industries, science is part of the problem, the problem of emissions and resources, consumption, etc.
But it's also importantly part of the solution. And I loved what you said in the book, and I'll quote you. ‘Using chemistry to make a positive difference in the world was always my North Star. I saw chemistry as a noble science. The combining and recombining of 118 elements to create something new, powerful and miraculous.’
I think our audience, specifically the Syensqo crew, will love it. Because believe it or not, when I moved from the U.S. - where I was running a company over there - to here, the first, you know, frank feedback was, ‘oh, chemistry, you are polluters. You are part of the problem.’
I said, look, we may be part of the problem, but we are part of the solution. Really pushing chemistry as a science which is at the service of humanity has always been a bit your North Star. That really resonates with us. Can you expand on what you mean by that?

Chemistry is part of the everyday 

Andrew Liveris: I was just entranced at how we can distill down everything to the periodic table and the elements and how it constituted everything. It was us, we humans, chemistry, it was the environment, that's chemistry.
And then the mathematics behind chemistry when you get to quantum levels and the very, very, very infinitesimally small can also be defined by the very, very, very infinitely large. I'm just fascinated by how mathematics, physics bring chemistry to life. That's also in the domain of music, that's also in the domain of the arts. And so, I kept seeing these intersections as a young man, and I kept on saying, ‘look, everything can be defined by chemistry.’ And yet, fast-forward to when I joined Dow, and then beyond that, I had the experience you had, which is, it was seen as pollutive, it was seen as toxic. And I just didn’t - how did we lose our way from you know, Madame Curie and the glorious Solvays?
So, how did the Herbert Henry Dows, these inventors who were in the class of Edison, in the class of Westinghouse, in the category of Einstein, these amazing chemistry inventors that gave us modern life. So, I saw this as at Dow during my time. I studied this very hard and I said, when I become - if I become CEO, which I did, I am going to become the company's CTO.
I am going to get rid of the administrators and celebrate the inventors, celebrate the entrepreneurs that got us here in the first place. And then more than that, I'm going to educate our stakeholders on the power of chemistry. And you're doing this so brilliantly in your wonderful roles you have.So, educate by engaging the stakeholders but not complicating it. Keep it simple. Keep explaining it. Be a teacher, educator, and then with the regulator, help come up with partnership models that get better regulation. And there's so many things that we did with the Human Element campaign that you so kindly talked about that changed Dow's culture as you've done, changed Dow's culture by changing the way we think about ourselves. 
So, culture is one person at a time. And we were at the time when I became CEO, a manufacturer of products that, you know, people will buy them at the right price, to an innovator that uses chemistry for solutions. 

Andrew Liveris: So, I think that mindset is the way I see chemistry to this very day. 

Explaining the mindset of the 5 Ds

Ilham Kadri: And we thank you for this because there is a lot of pressure on many industry leaders and you know, new CEOs succeeding you. Because I think, you know, people see the dark side. While I think chemistry is just a science, and the carbon or the Mendeleev table or chemistry is not the enemy. 
We are agnostic to which molecule, we just want to bring solutions, responding to the unmet needs and the most challenging pressure humanity is facing.
And when I read the book, you talk more specifically about how disappointed you were when people reduced Dow to its profit, dismissing its incredible legacy of scientific innovation and advancements. And that leads me to something very close to my heart, which is business and sustainability.
And you mentioned that if you want to achieve a zero-carbon future, businesses have to take the lead. You have a compelling section in the book about what you call the five Ds of corporate responses to ESG, which culminates in the era of DO, an era we're in right now. So, can you explain Andrew, the five Ds to our listeners and how important this era of action is?

Andrew Liveris: I think the modern era that you're a CEO in and the next generation of leaders, CEOs and leaders of institutions, the new abnormal, this constant uncertainty environment, the new paradigm where 20th century institutions are failing us, and we have to create new ones, the new reality of leadership vacuums…
I speak to the new context that society is now really demanding, the change that we all have to respond to. And what I thought of as the era gone by was where the cycle and the five D's, which started with, you know, let's call it denial. There's no problem. We're good. Don't bother us. The phase that came after that, when people didn't stop complaining about whatever you did, whether it be chemicals or otherwise, which is defiance. No, we know best. Okay, here's our science. Just accept our science. 
To the one that eventually had to come. So, I'm really going through decades here - 60s, 70, 80s, 90s -  that had to come, which is, we're engaging you. We're going to have a debate. your view, my view. Which, as we turn into this century, we started to get with, you know, things like, the Paris Accords and, you know, things that became big conferences like COP for the climate issues.We came to the discussion of the fourth D, that cycle now is very fast.
It is not decades. It is really very fast. So, now what that means is the new leadership model, the new solution mindset we've just talked about is contextual leadership.  It’s all about managing the adjacencies. And the adjacencies are these new uncertainties: environmental, social, governance, digital, geopolitical.
These are all now slipstreams that are colliding into the body of work called leadership. And if you don't absolutely bring those together and absolutely figure out how to make them a strategy and an action, you won't get to the fifth D -we should do something about it. And what has happened is the enemies of the good, the people who want profits in 90 days, the financial owners, or the bureaucrats sitting in government systems that you're getting rewarded for changing nothing and being basically just a pure bureaucratic regulator. Those middlemen or middle people in the era of the 20th century, they could get by because they basically, you know, we had leaders that basically came in over the top, you know, that made big changes anyway and reacted to crises. We've lost those leaders, we don't have them anymore. 
I can't speak of one 21st century political leader that I admire and I think this is a very big time for institutions like yours and business in general to step up and define why sustainability is a strategy and why it actually creates a new profit pool. Why absolutely taking the risk and being a first mover is actually the way you get that profit pool.
Witness Tesla, Elon Musk, and what he's done. Witness Jeff Bezos and Amazon. These new business models where you step into them and take the risk, bet the company, and make the sustainability, diversity inclusion, geopolitical engagement, making governments your partner, being the first mover in making those things happen, is the doing part.
And being first mover, I think you'd have the biggest risk but also the highest reward. But you will get people to say, ‘I want to work for that company. They're engaging me. Not with the wallet, not with the brain, but with the heart. They have passion. They want to be part of the solution and they're demonstrating by taking the risk.’
You can be a fast follower and still be okay, but if you're laggard, you will die.

Ilham Kadri: Absolutely.

Andrew Liveris: You will lose the license to operate. And I think this is the mindset of the 5Ds, but also this notion of a new leadership model, which is what the book is all about. Which is, we can't deny, the disruptive era we're in. We have to embrace it.
And then we have to take the risk. Personal risk like you do. Company risk like your board and you are doing, and I have a whole section on boards. I mean, this whole discussion about engaging and being enlightened is not a woke fad. It's the modern reality of this century to absolutely overcome the disease of short-termism.

Recreating yourself as a leader

Ilham Kadri: Yeah. And obviously, you give us beautiful leadership lessons throughout the book. In particular, your advice on leaders needing to operate in multi-dimensional spaces and challenge business comfort zones. And I've seen it - I've been a CEO now for nine years, probably.
But in the past five years, my job has changed completely. Can you explain that further? And what do you think makes a good leader? And what can young leaders listening to you today learn from your experience, Andrew?

Andrew Liveris: I actually use this in the book and it's not just a leadership lesson, a CEO lesson, but it's a life lesson. It's absolutely, totally to take this amazing thing in our head, which we don't use as much of it as we should and, and discipline it and teach it, teach yourself how to absolutely compartmentalize and manage multiple work streams and know which one comes to the front of the brain at what point in time.
And then, when you realize that you don't have an answer, you can't see the answer, you've done everything. And leadership is a lonely job. You've got to basically do almost a multi-dimensional, existential thing.
My daughter has taught me spirituality and meditation, and she's an amazing person in that regard. And the gift of mindfulness. So, what I've trained myself to do as a leader, which is what I really encourage young people to do, is to train yourself to lift yourself out of the moment and rewire your brain to project the moment that you're trying to create.
So, embrace the reality but also look at the moments you're trying to create. Make some choices, then engage yourself in the new you. In other words, you're recreating yourself and all the people around you see it. You are being watched every minute. You know that. I mean, your body language, your tempo, your words, you know, what you eat. I mean, you are whose company you keep. 
A leader by definition has to be transparent, accessible, available, and vulnerable but confident in changing themselves, I can count- you said, nine years and the last five years in particular, this dynamic era you're leading in. In my era, which was, let's say roughly 2003 to 2018, I can count six times I totally changed myself

Ilham Kadri: Wow.

Andrew Liveris: To do what was needed by my stakeholders at that moment in time.
And yet the most amazing thing about it is, I don't think many people saw it as something that I purposely did. It just became the way I operated. And by the way, I've done that in a 43-year marriage, okay, with my wife. I've done that being the father of three amazing, now young adults. So, it does apply to your lesson and I do think this is what 21st century leadership is.
It's contextual and it's really reinvention and something you grew up with, walking in other people's shoes. And having the humility of understanding you're a person, not a profession. You're not defined by the title, you're defined by the acts you undertake. And this is the way I learned to do it.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, that's inspiring. And I do remember, without going into much detail, that loneliness. Because it's true, it's part of the job. And frankly, even vulnerability, it's something we hear more of these days and in my generation, But you were one of the few leaders and role models I met in my career who already put it on the table for us at that time.
And I think I remember a fascinating conversation I had with you. I'm not sure where it was, probably on a trip between Dubai and, and Riyadh or wherever we were going for your Sadara big project. And at that sobering moment, 2008 or 2009, you were buying Rohm and Hass, the valuation of Dow was lower, you know, became lower than the one of Rohm and Hass.
And, and I do remember every single word you told me. About what you've done and the museum you went to and the discussion or the insight you tried to do, like getting out of the moment and having a vision of success exactly as you describe it today. And it stayed with me, frankly, and I've never told you this, so it stayed with me.
And in those times where I felt lonely in a crisis and you know, I remembered what you said about really getting out of the moment. This is not personal. And go and find that wisdom and that vision of success to be able to really, you know, go through the crisis, right? So, thank you for that.

The epidemic of short-termism

Listen, in your book, you discuss the epidemic of short-termism in business, which I really, you know, really appreciate.
And I paused when I was reading that chapter. And how businesses need to move away from quick returns and focus also on long-term innovation and vision. Can you elaborate a bit more on that and elaborate on the power of disruption and how you can achieve that, you know, yourself?

Andrew Liveris: I think the indications of the modern era is that we all have ADD. We're all living in the digital, you know, communication world. So, we are at the beginning of the S curve of the digital revolution. And, you know, the asymptote that we seem to be climbing as we go into the world of AI. Of course, we're learning how to tame these amazing technologies, but it's not unlike a hundred years ago, the invention of electricity and the steam engine.
These technologies were being introduced and society was embracing them. And what was very clear is that the democracies of the world encouraged entrepreneurs but also the autocracies, like the Soviet Union, invested in science. So, invention for society, invention, unfortunately, for bad things like war. This is humanity.
This is what humanity does with technology. Humanity invents and then applies, and applies to improve itself, you know. Electricity, air conditioning, all the things. And then uses that technology to attack itself and fight itself. So, now fast-forward to this era, we have exactly that. I mean, Mark Twain's famous quote, right? ‘History doesn't repeat, it just rhymes.’
We have the rhythm of history upon us, where these amazing technologies are being invented, and they're being invented in entrepreneurial systems. But they're being leveraged and used by bad actors, and geopolitics and regulators are not working on finding a way to apply them equally.
So, that's the world of, you know, regulation. Then we have the world of the owners. The financial owners are basically saying, ‘I don't want you to use the capital to invent something that I won't see the profits in in 10 years. I don't want you to build a Sadara where I won't see the profit for 10 to 15 years. I want the profits now because I'd rather take the capital and allocate it to something that gives me a return now or one year.’
So, our institutional owners have portfolio managers that are rewarded on one-year returns. So, the pension funds, the mutual funds, you know. And so what's happening with the public enterprise model between the regulators being short-term and not understanding what they're regulating and the financial owners being short-term, we are seeing what I consider inequity in capital distribution.
The money people are getting richer. The people who invent are not being rewarded. And the people who are not accessing the technology are being left behind. So, short-termism is stripping capitalism of the very idea that everyone should benefit from uplifting people from poverty.

Ilham Kadri: Absolutely.

The need for inclusive capitalism

Andrew Liveris: This notion that I have in the book called inclusive capitalism is really to try and bring air cover to purpose-based businesses who really see that if I invest capital and people and effort into something that benefits all stakeholders, then by doing that, I educate and then I earn the right to operate in society that allows me to make more profit in the future by creating a barrier based on my knowledge, my IP, and my invention.
Now,  if I said that that was working in the public domain, I’d be lying. Elon Musk he's also challenging the business model of his time, challenging the way the board looks at it, the way the owners look at it.
So, we all have to do that. And that takes courage. That takes basically courage to say that I am not going to manage just for the short-term profit. I'm going to manage the long-term, totally available, accessible market I'm creating by taking a technology risk. Now, if it was as simple as doing it just the way I just said, more companies would be doing it.
The reality is, more CEOs are being fired, more boards are abdicating. So, what is ending up happening is private capital is taking its place. Sovereign wealth funds, family offices, private equity. It's quite amazing to me that private equity is now the new long-term owner, right? 

Andrew Liveris: So, what I propose in the book is solutions for managing short-term, long-term dynamics. And it starts and ends with buying stakeholder buy-in. Your communities, your board, and then ultimately your communities that involve investing in you, like the financial community.
That last one is the hardest. I had my activist attack. I talk about it in the book. I figured out my way through it, but the activists are there just to make money in the short-term. So, you've got to find a way to deflect them, make them think that they won, like I did with the Dow-DuPont deal, but still do what you're supposed to do anyway.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah and frankly, I'm sure for the Syensqo and our ex-Solvay employees this will resonate a lot with them because we call it responsible capitalism but actually, I very much like inclusive capitalism. And you give a great example of your experience working with Biden, by the way, on the Infrastructure Bill, which you call a near-perfect example of inclusive capitalism. And our audience will remember that we at Syensqo are now building a billion dollar battery line in the United States of America with the IRA, but we are participating in those infrastructure build up, which I believe are going to be more inclusive in the future.

The importance of human revolution 

So, let us switch gears. You talked earlier about growing up in a diverse community At Syensqo, we talk about One Dignity because I realize even if I've been, you know, successful in many things in my career, frankly, I always failed in diversity, right? And it's not because there is a woman at the top that the problem is resolved. And I look back even with that, when I left the Middle East, my successor was a woman, but frankly, she didn't last long.
So, it's not sticking. You were talking about diversity, inclusion, and equity. Can you tell me more about how your experience growing up in a diverse community has influenced your leadership approach? And how do you build teams and how can we do better?
Andrew Liveris: It’s one of the most critical topics of our era. Think about the advances of humanity in, you know, the time we've been on the planet. Think about the advances of the Industrial Revolution, and now think of the advances of the Digital Revolution. The human revolution has been left behind.
We have not elevated humanity such that equality is a constant and an accepted practice. We have to talk about it as if it's an initiative and as if you have to earn the right to be treated equally. That is terrible and that needs to be overcome by role models that absolutely say that absolutely equality,it doesn't matter the color of your skin, you know, your sexuality, your gender, none of these things matter.
It's who you are, what you demonstrate from a value system and your capabilities, and that I am blind to any prejudice on that, and I will treat you and pay you equally. We still have it in advanced societies, like the United States, and in Europe where gender pay quality is not there. It's a disgrace.
And what formed me was, as I've already indicated, growing up in a diverse community where I was blind to this notion that someone was different because of the way they looked or appeared. And you know, I think I'm accepted in lots of places because I treat everyone equally, as you said earlier. But you look at the Middle East and you look at, you know, my current work in Saudi Arabia and people say to me, ‘why are you working with that regime because of human rights abuses?’
I said, how can you say that? Okay, name me one part of the planet that didn't have human rights abuses in its history, or even in its current future. Look at the United States with what happens with, you know, African Americans and minorities. So, the way you find answers is to be at the table and push the view that there's a better way.
And so that's what I'm doing in Saudi Arabia, is helping them recreate their society. And you know, with your background, you understand what that means for women, right? And what absolutely, totally will change there. And, if there's a willingness to change, you should be willing to risk yourself.
You should put your reputation on the line, okay? My Brisbane Olympics job,  My 15 employees, it just turns out that 13 of them are women, including the CEO.

Ilham Kadri: Good for you.

Andrew Liveris: But think about- so when I say that, they say, ‘oh, you gave access to the women ahead of the men.’
I said, no. We hired the best for the job. It just so happens that 13 of the people we hired were women. And I think this mindset shift, you know, I so lament the generation that felt subjugation was the way, whether it be male or female. Or whether it be majority- minority, we've got to remove that language from our persona.
And I think the way we do it, Ilham, is to role model it, but also to put yourself out there and force that change to occurI do think institutions like yours and Dow and IBM that I'm on the board of, Aramco, which is doing it. Saudi Aramco is doing this. Driving diversity and inclusion. We've got to move it like sustainability. It isn't an initiative, it's a strategy.

Ilham Kadri: Wow.

Andrew Liveris: Because it creates value. Having a diverse point of view.
And generationally, by the way, you remember, you were one of them. I brought young people into the management group so we could hear the voice of the demographic generation coming behind us. So, there's a lot of dimensions of this. There are great role models out there. I'm not going to stop.

Ilham Kadri: I think I need the audience to hear this. You know, you've been always telling everybody, including in your succession planning, that being different, it doesn't matter. You want the best for the job. Meritocracy matters, and then you go on, and I think that's, frankly, the DNA which you crafted in many of us at Dow.

Hopes for future leaders

You are not just an inspiration for leaders today, or even the past like me, because, you know, we're going to leave our seats to others, but also for future generations. Following you in 2018, the Andrew Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership opened at the University of Queensland, your alma mater, right?
The academy aims to provide the environment and program to create creative, empathic, problem-solving future leaders who tackle challenges with courage, innovation and transformative thinking to create that equitable and sustainable future you were talking about. So, to end this episode on a positive note, Andrew, and it was all positive, by the way, what are your hopes for your kids and grandkids?
What are your hopes and advice for the leaders of tomorrow who are listening to you now?

Andrew Liveris: All great leaders have to be optimists, okay? And I end the book with a whole chapter on optimism that speaks to the question you just asked. And there I bring back your first or second question on science. Our generation is introducing, the next generation is managing, the third generation behind that is embracing a new revolution on how humans will live and work and play, not just on this planet, but on other planets. 
They will live longer, healthier. They will absolutely, totally embrace this notion that machine and human will interact and probably intersect and probably in some way marry with prosthetics that are intelligent, with things like Neuralink that Elon Musk is working on that'll help disabled people function as normal humans, that maybe even add to our intelligence. 
These massive tectonic shifts in the definition of a human is what my kids and grandkids will see. And what I want for them is that they embrace it with hope and opportunity to enable them to have a happier and joyful existence by making sure everyone has access to it. That they leave no one behind. That they are givers. They are philanthropic. They are people who extend hands to people who can't access this.
That they're not privileged and entitled. That they are ubiquitously egalitarian, and fair, and thoughtful, and that they have impact. Because as we go to 9 billion people, if we don't reverse the things that the previous generation, mostly mine, but one even before that, for a hundred years or so did, ignoring the ecosystem of where we are and what we need to create, then their hopes and dreams will not be there.
And I know there's a lot of anxiety about that. I know a lot of people are worrying about that.
But having said that, if we can create this academies built to do this, leaders who see this as a way to absolutely reverse it and to create a positive impact, that's what I'm teaching my kids and grandkids, and hopefully, hopefully with some degree of success.
But that's basically my act two. Ilham. Dow was my act one, this is my act two.

Ilham Kadri: And we loved your act one, and we will even more like and love your act two. Thank you so much for this insightful and inspiring discussion, Andrew. 

Ilham Kadri: So, you again demonstrated why you are one of the most astute business leaders of today, and thank you for sharing the wisdom, showing our listeners what forward-looking leaderships look like, and that successful leaders don't fear change and uncertainty, but find inspiration and motivation in disruption.
You say givers, philanthropists, they eat last with a joyful existence. So, thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Liveris: Thank you, Ilham. I finished where I started. I'm so proud of you.