GRLI appoints Mark Drewell as CEO

The Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Drewell as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with effect from 1^stJanuary 2010. Mark brings a broad range of business, academic and NGO leadership skills to this new post which has been created by the Board with the expressed purpose of increasing the scale and accelerating the impact of the GRLI’s work.

The GRLI’s Secretary-General and founder, Anders Aspling will step down from an operational leadership role but continue to serve the GRLI on a part time basis.

Commenting on the appointment, Pierre Tapie, Chairman of the GRLI Board and President of ESSEC Business School said “The work of the GRLI as a community of action is focused on creating a new generation of globally responsible business leaders. Our new CEO has the skills, knowledge, experience, networks and energy required to rapidly expand the reach and impact of our work.”

The GRLI is a Brussels headquartered global coalition of 62 companies and business schools/learning organisations focused on developing a next generation of globally responsible business leaders. It was founded in 2004 upon the initiative of EFMD (the European Foundation for Management Development) and the United Nations Global Compact. Its scope of activities includes thought leadership, advocacy, best practices benchmarking, and educational innovations.

For further information please contact Martine Torfs at the GRLI Management Centre, martine.torfs@grli.org or Anders Aspling, Secretary-General of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative, anders@aspling.net.

Mark Drewell’s profile follows below.

MARK DREWELL MA (Oxon)

Mark (47) was born and educated in the United Kingdom studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. His career commenced with five years in the City of London in mining finance. In 1989 he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa and joined diversified industrial company Barloworld, rising to spend a decade on the group executive committee as head of Corporate Affairs, Investor Relations and Group Marketing. His many achievements in the company included being co-founder of the Middelburg Forum which was the prototype for the South African Peace Committees through which business played a vital role in managing South Africa’s first post apartheid elections; launching the re-naming and re-branding the company across 8 operating divisions and 32 countries; and leading the company’s early adoption of triple bottom line performance measurement. Under his leadership in 2004 Barloworld became a founding partner in the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative. He played a powerful role in the GRLI’s development at both an intellectual and practical level, serving as the first chair of the GRLI Foundation from 2006-2008. He left Barloworld in 2007, moved to Cape Town and co-founded 3 Laws Capital (www.3lawscapital.com), a deep sustainability asset management company with a venture capital focus. He is also a director and founder of The Elgin Distilling Company (www.malus.co.za) which is currently launching the world’s most exclusive new terroir spirit.

Mark has always believed that business people should use their skills in broader society as well as in pursuit of the success of their own business success. He has a deep understanding of the challenges confronting leaders and is a regular speaker and lecturer on the changing shape of business in the 21^st century. He is a senior associate of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and Chairman of the Swedish-based World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child Foundation. He has served as Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Board of the University of South Africa’s Centre for Corporate Citizenship; Chairman of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (South Africa’s largest indigenous environmental NGO); Chairman of the board of Imhoff Waldorf School and served twice on the board of San Francisco headquartered International Association of Business Communicators which is the world’s 14 000 member professional association for business communicators.

Mark is married to Yolanda and they have four children Francesca (9), Christopher (7), Cassandra (5) and Nicholas (3).