Exclusive interview with Andy Wales, SABMiller

Since 1996, Forum For the Future’s Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development has been training the sustainability leaders of the future. Each issue, we track the career of a Forum alumnus.

Andy Wales Class of: 1998-99
Currently: Global Head of Sustainable Development, SABMiller

Why I chose the MProf?
I had just graduated in Development Studies and English Literature and saw myself working for an international NGO like Oxfam. I did the Masters as a way to sound out how I could make a difference. But I found that, if you really want to change things, business offers one of the most dynamic, focused and practical institutions.

What I learnt
What makes the MProf a pinnacle of course design is the network you can build and access, both through your peers and through the six sectoral placements [in business, government, NGOs and so on]. For me, the placement at Interface Flor really stood out. They had a lot of vision, and were realistic about the challenge they’d set themselves: to be the leading example of industrial ecology. A lot of it was due to the tone set by [its founder] Ray Anderson. He was never shy to ask himself questions that he couldn’t yet answer.

Career to date
If you prove yourself in business, you move quickly. I went to Interface Flor as Sustainability Manager, and then Director, and was there for four years. Then I worked for Severn Trent as Head of Corporate Responsibility, looking at opportunities for renewable energy from organic waste streams. Now, I’m Global Head of Sustainable Development at SABMiller, one of the world’s largest brewers (think Pilsner Urquell, Peroni, Grolsch…). One of the major challenges we face is water scarcity, with global demand expected to exceed supply by 40% in 2030. You can’t have good beer without good water, and so we’re working with WWF, with the German development agency GTZ, and with local governments, smallholder farmers and communities, to ensure the future of the watersheds which are so necessary to our crops. We’ve got programmes running in Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Tanzania, South Africa and the Ukraine.

My next steps
I’ve joined up with two fellow alumni from the Masters course, Matthew Gorman, now Head of SD at BAA, and Dunstan Hope, a Director at Business for Social Responsibility, to write a book called Big Business, Big Responsibilities. It’s going to
be published in June by Palgrave Macmillan. When we met on the course, ten years ago, we were all very hopeful about what we could achieve through business. The nice thing is, we still are.

Advice for future leaders
The most valuable thing I learnt from the MProf is that by working together we can do so much more than if anyone tried to do it on their own. One movement setting out to prove this is the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. We’re a group of 600 from across the world, with influential roles in business, government 

8 February 2010

Anna Simpson