Vafa Akhavan, World Pediatrics

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Richmond Leadership Lab, where we dive deep into the stories and insights of inspiring leaders within the Richmond, VA community. Hosted by Christian Mosier and Taylor Quinn, this episode features Vafa Akhavan, the CEO of World Pediatrics. Join us for an insightful episode of the Richmond Leadership Lab, where we explore the incredible journey of Vafa Akhavan, the CEO of World Pediatrics. Discover how Vafa transitioned from the for-profit world, where he was recognized as one of Canada’s top business leaders, into the nonprofit sector, focusing on pediatric surgery and neonatal care. In this episode, we dive deep into the critical challenges faced by children worldwide, revealing that 450 million children under five lack access to essential surgical care – a staggering issue Vafa and his team are addressing head-on. Get inspired as Vafa shares his vision for transforming lives through impactful healthcare solutions. You'll learn about their recent accomplishments, including serving 3,200 children, conducting over 1,100 surgeries, and training more than 2,300 health professionals.**Key Takeaways:**- Understanding situational leadership in the ever-changing nonprofit landscape.- The importance of unity and teamwork in achieving organizational goals.- Strategies for creating impactful change in pediatric healthcare. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe for more inspiring stories from Richmond's leaders.**Resources Mentioned:**- "Canoeing the Mountains" by Todd Bolsinger – an essential read on leadership in challenging environments. Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share! Tune in for more enriching discussions about leadership and growth in our community. To learn more about World Pediatrics, visit https://worldpediatrics.org/If you would like to give to World Pediatrics you can do so here: https://form-renderer-app.donorperfect.io/give/world-pediatric-project/general-donation-form-copy-1-1Richmond Leadership Lab is Produced and Co-Hosted by:Taylor Quinn, CEO - Filmspirehttps://www.filmspirevideo.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-quinn-filmspire/Christian Mosier, President - BenXhttps://benxconsulting.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-mosier/To learn more about RLL visit our site: https://www.richmondleadershiplab.com

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Richmond Leadership Lab, featuring business and nonprofit leaders across Richmond, Virginia. Produced and hosted by Filmsfire and Ben X.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Friends, welcome back to another episode of Richmond Leadership Lab, Richmond's number one podcast. Don't look it up. It's true. Did you know that?

• 0:21Speaker 01

  I did.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  I haven't hearing that a lot.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  Exactly. My name is Taylor Quinn. I am the CEO of FilmSpire. I am joined again with my co-host Christian Moser, head of Ben X Consulting. And at the Richmond Leadership Lab, we get to interview Richmond leaders in both the for-profit and nonprofit world, really ask them about their experience, hear their story, understand how they've developed their leadership over time. And today we have an awesome guest, a very special guest for us. We get to hear, we've heard some people in the for-profit world, and today we're getting to hear from the nonprofit world, and we've got a real winner here. We have Waffa Akvan, who's here with us. He is the CEO of World Pediatric. And Christian and I both have a mutual connection to the World Pediatric, which is great.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  So FilmSpar is currently doing the podcasting services for World Pediatric. We've done some video stuff too during COVID, which was a wild time. And uh Christian handles all the benefits for World Pediatric. So we are excited to have Waffa here today. Uh Waffa is a is a true leader and a legend in his own. So Waffa, thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'd go that far, but but I'd take it as a compliment. No

• 1:34Speaker 02

  It's true, it's true. I saw you w got an award uh 'cause you split time I think between Richmond and Canada, is that correct? Or you have ties to Canada.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  mostly Richmond, but mostly Richmond. I I came down from Canada.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you were named like Canada's one of top Canada's like business leaders, correct? Am I you got an award for that?

• 1:53Speaker 00

  One of the top ten most influential Canadian professionals by

• 1:58Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Beyond Magazine, which is a global

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  business magazine.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  That's that's amazing. Well, Vafa, thank you again for for being here. We'd love to learn your story and things like that, but for quickly, just really briefly, we'll get into world pediatric in more detail. But for people who've never heard of world pediatric, what's the 30,000 foot view, kind of the elevator pitch for world pediatric?

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you. I mean it it's really an incredible organization. Um we work in two spaces primarily. One is pediatric surgery and one is neonatal care, um infant mortality essentially. There are about 450 million children under the age of five around the world that don't have access to surgical care. That results the number of deaths from that are actually five times more than HIV AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. So it's a big global problem. The World Health Organization uh recognized it as such in 2015. So that's one space that we work in.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  And then the other space is infant mortality. There are two point three million babies that pass away every year in the first twenty-eight days of life.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  And that that translates to about 175 million years of life that is lost every year, spread over 71 years. So it's a pretty significant um global issue, infant mortality. So those are the two. So we have programs, we send teams, we do a lot of direct care, delivery care, we do capacity building, training of professionals, and we do transformational work where we'll work with hospitals and uh ministries of health to change policy, etc. So

• 3:35Speaker 02

  That's

• 3:35Speaker 00

  very exciting organization.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  that's great.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Work experience of being in the for-profit world and executive and consulting in that kind of industry, and then you got into this non-profit world profit world. So can you kind of just give us a backstory of kind of even like where you grew up a little bit and then like how you kind of got into being uh kind of in the executive um leadership world and for profit and things like that? Give us your backstory if you don't mind for a little bit.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, happy to. So I'm I'm Iranian by birth. I went to uh boarding school in England at a very young age, you know, typically middle class family that wanted their children to have better education and a better future, so they would send them off to England or France or the US for studies.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  And then from there we migrated to Canada and I finished my high school and university in Canada and began my my career. Um but I think that it's that the lessons of early childhood actually have a significant impact, obviously, on who you are and who you grow up to be. And uh we were a family of faith, we're members of the Baha'i community, and like most nonprofits, I won't I'll bring it back is you know, that most nonprofits are actually born out of a faith uh community, right? And influenced by faith, wanting to do good and wanting to serve others who don't have or can't have. And so that's the environment that I grew up in. And I

• 5:03Speaker 00

  uh learned a lot of leadership lessons actually from my father. And I only recognized those years later. You know, even some after my father had passed away, my parents leading, you know, learning leadership qualities about engagement and being of service to us. Servant leadership was something I grew up with. I didn't recognize it until I read a book about servant leadership. I said, oh that's what my parents were, you know? Um and uh you know having traveled to many parts of the world personally, professionally, I've worked in about um 15 different countries, eight different industries. Half my career was consulting, half of it was executive operating roles. I've worked from you know startup to conglomerate, um

• 5:48Speaker 00

  small cap, mid cap, you know, large cap, you name it. Um and it's it's really been a very um Satisfying, a very fruitful, um and and a tremendous learning experience, you know, because you you pick up a lot of things in different places, different contexts, and different environments. You know, and um I've worked at McGraw Hill. Um I was CEO at the Forum Corporation in Boston. I uh ran the global consulting side of JD Power outside of the automotive sector. So, you know, really great fun stuff, you know.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  That's amazing. So tying back then into the nonprofit world, how did you you know, what experience have you taken? Well, uh two questions. How did you get to World Pediatric? And then with all the experience you've brought in from kind of your experience in for-profit and things like that, how has that translated into being the executive director or the CEO of a nonprofit? How have those skills translated into a nonprofit environment?

• 6:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, great question. Um, you know, I mean, first of all, about six years ago I was, you know, going through that um inflection moment where you're trying, what what I have a certain amount of runway left, and what do I do for that runway for the rest of my life? What do I want to do? Um and I decided that I wanted to migrate to for profit. I mean f uh sorry, to nonprofit. For profit was great, but nonprofit you know is much more mission oriented. Um and I wanted to focus on children because I I really do believe that. Um children are the future. You know, there's 30% of the population, but they're 100% of the future. They grow up to be the future podcasters, the future lawyers, the future plumbers. And if we can impact the lives of children,

• 7:39Speaker 00

  then when they grow up to be the future adults and decision makers, hopefully they'll be focused on how can we improve the world from where it was when we were children. So I joined a board of Children Believe, uh, which is a Canadian nonprofit uh focused on um child education around the world in underserved communities. And I was looking for an operating role and the search firm uh you know, I knew the global head of philanthropy at that firm, and I had told him, as I had told a few others, that you know I was looking for something, and he reached out to me about this job. And uh I was fascinated by the trigger event of surgery. Right. I mean imagine um,

• 8:23Speaker 00

  you know, if you're if your spine is bent a hundred degrees, hundred and twenty degrees, your future is pretty bleak, assuming you even Remain alive, but then you do the surgery, and that surgery triggers a complete transformation of life for that child and therefore the family and the community.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  The patterns over the past 10 15 years, actually, it started with the Gates Foundation in a big way.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  When they started, when uh Bill Gates started and his wife started the Gates Foundation, they brought over a lot of executives from their for profit side into the nonprofit. Because their intention was to bring that rigor, that discipline, that structure,

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  impact, quantifying outcomes, etc., to the nonprofit world. And they were very successful at it. And that was a trend that they began. And most recently, we're seeing a growing number of boards that are looking for talent from the for profit world to come in. Now, the basics are the same. You do strategy, you do operational design, you do organizational structure, you've got human resources, IT. I mean, the the essence of it, the basics are the same. I think what's really different is the purpose. Right? Whereas when you're working in for profit,

• 9:47Speaker 00

  they have lots of wonderful visions and mission statements and so on. At the end of the day, the underlying

• 9:53Speaker 01

  It's for profit.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  is for profit. That's why it's called for profit, right? It's you know, earnings per share, or yeah, etc. etc. And that's fine. Uh but You know, when you look at our organization, World Pediatrics, we we just did a uh an organizational assessment. We had an outside agency come in and do a uh assessment.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  We were ranked um, I think it was about 14% higher than their benchmark, global benchmark, for profit, nonprofit, in terms of uh employee engagement. Like the the mission and purpose of the organization is so strong and so prevalent within everyone. Their commitment and their passion. You know, doesn't matter how much options I got or grants I got when I was at McGraw Hill, you know, it wasn't the same as this experience here. I mean, it's really in your heart and soul. And that's a that's a fundamental difference, right? On the other side, you're bringing a lot more structure and discipline

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  and rigor to how you conduct the affairs of the nonprofit organization.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  That's great. I love that. Love the mission part. You probably got another question.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And how long you've been in World Pediatrics for three? Three and a half years?

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  What was something, obviously, making this transition, and and you sat on a bunch of different boards throughout your career. What was something that surprised you transitioning from for profit to non profit? I'm sure there's some things you expected, but was there anything that's like, oh, that's that's awesome. Maybe the passion was something that took you off guard, or was there anything that surprised you going from

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Um

• 11:35Speaker 00

  To have lived the life that I've lived, it you don't get surprised by much. Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  It takes a lot to surprise me. Um I was um very um uh moved by the impact on me personally uh of the children

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  that we're serving. I don't I don't think I've ever been moved to the extent that I've been moved by. The impact we have on the lives of children. I mean, you know, intellectually, you know, when you're coming in, you know, okay, surgery and this and that.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  But when you're actually there at a cultivation event in Guatemala City, and you know, this mother and child come in, and the mother tells the child, uh, This is the gentleman that runs the organization that helped you, and then that child out of nowhere runs and runs and smacks into you and hugs you and holds you, and you don't know what's going on until later. You know, you can't beat that. I never had Terry McGraw come and hug me like that when Allah said. I mean, he shook my hand a few times, but you know.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  It wouldn't mean as much.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, that that I think was um yeah, perhaps it was a surprise because it was much more than I had anticipated or expected. That impact it would have on me.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Interesting. What would you say being here for three and a half years? You guys have accomplished a lot in the last few years. What are some of the, would you say, the key goals and objectives? Obviously, bring in some more structure, bringing some more, you know, rigor and different things into the organization. What are some key objectives that you see in the next you know three, five years?

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you know, our our goals are the outcomes, the three outcomes that we're trying to achieve is more children in less time with greater impact. Right? And what we realized is You know, the world is changing so much so quickly

• 13:37Speaker 00

  that having a rigid plan is not going to work. Because you need to be able to adjust and you need to be able to pivot. And that's an important part of leadership. I think particularly in the past five to ten years, um you know, there's a lot of conversation around how do you lead um organizations in today's world. And I talk about situational leadership. You know, you've got servant leadership, you've got push leadership, pull leadership, there's a whole bunch of leadership models. And I'm a proponent of situational leadership, because you you need to know the situation you're in and how you need to lead in that particular situation in that particular moment in that particular context. Because things are changing. Who knew that USAID was going to go away?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Right? Nobody anticipated it,

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  really. Right? So I think in you know, in that context, then you set your goals as we have, as What are the outcomes? More children in less time, greater impact. And then what's the plan this year or over the next three years that we want to uh get there? Uh we're focused on those outcomes. We're focused on the three um modes of care uh delivering care, um, empowering care, transforming care. Um we know what those mean. We know we know what those um uh are designed to accomplish. But we're also totally able to pivot and move,

• 15:11Speaker 00

  right? And be somewhat opportunistic because things are changing so quickly, you know, you want to be able to adjust and change and pivot. So, you know, an opportunity comes up to work with the hospital in the Caribbean to turn it into the center a center of excellence for pediatric care. You know, need to you need to adjust, you need to commit resources. Okay, who's going to do it and how much is that gonna cost, and so on and so forth. When you didn't have that as part of your plans.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Right. Right. But whatnot in the five year

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. So our focus is really on it whatever we do, is it consistent with our outcomes? Is it consistent with our values? Right? And do we have the team to and the funds to get us

• 15:56Speaker 01

  make it happen.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  to make it happen?

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  That's that's a great way to look at it. Do you think situational leadership is more important now than ever?

• 16:04Speaker 00

  No question for me.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  No question for me. Um

• 16:08Speaker 01

  I remember we were talking offline a little bit before this at and how, you know, years ago, thirty years ago The planning might have looked a little bit different

• 16:15Speaker 00

  very different.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  than it does today.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Very different. I mean you look at how the markets are responding to the whole tariff question, right, in the United States. Right. And how the bus the business community likes predictability. Right. That's especially the the larger they are,

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  the more they want to be predictable, right? Because they want to they want to go to market on their earnings call and be able to say, this is what we're going to achieve, and either achieve it or you know, overachieve it. That they that's what they want. But that's not the world we live in. So you've got to be able as a leader to adjust to the situation.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  What would you say to other leaders listening, whether it's a CEO or maybe they lead a division or whatever it might be here in Richmond? How can they what what are some takeaways they can take from situational leadership? Because as what what we see a lot, I'm sure you see is maybe there's a lot of new leaders listening in, or there's someone who's been successful and now they're run, they're the president of this, or whatever it might be. What are some tips you would give leaders on how to be or how to have better situational leadership?

• 17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um well the I think. In order to be a

• 17:27Speaker 00

  proficient situational leader, you need to build a career that encompasses different situations. Right?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Like if you if you say, okay, I am going to go and work at um whatever the company is. I will work at a company, I'm going to be there for 20 years, and that's going to be my career, and I'm going to move up the ladder and go into sales or market and end up being a senior executive or maybe even the CEO.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Your situational experience is going to be very limited. If you look at,

• 18:08Speaker 00

  I'm not touting my own experience, but if you look at my experience, you know, working in all of those different industries, all of those different situations, all of those different countries,

• 18:19Speaker 00

  unbeknownst to me, I was developing the competencies and the capacities and the experiences for situational leadership. So I would say look for. Have your career be intentional and purposeful in having different experiences as as you grow. I think that's an important part of the equation.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  And be very, you know, you have to be very mindful of uh the situations you're in. Even if you if you're an entrepreneur and you have your own company, you face different situations. You need to reflect on your experience. You need to account every day, every week, take time. And reflect, what did I learn? What was the situation? What did I learn? What did I do well? What didn't I do well? What mistakes did I make? And take that into account every time, okay. What change do I need to make next week? What change do I need to make next month? Uh, etc.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  That makes that's really good advice because I feel like it's so easy for business owners or execs just to probably you're thrown a a thousand things to do and there's so much to do, but to stop and reflect, I know I have a hard time that because I'm like, I gotta get to the next thing, I gotta do the next thing. But you know, is there a way you found that it's been helpful for you? How do you find ways to pause and reflect and and take time to kind of do that?

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I usually um uh I'm I'm I'm I suffer from the same issue, of course. I'm not dude, I'm telling you. I mean there are times when I don't know where the week went. Right. So we're we're all like that. I think the important thing is To be comfortable with your own imperfections and to be vulnerable with yourself

• 20:02Speaker 00

  so that you can grow and learn. Because if you don't have that constant, I'm at my age, I I still have a passion for learning. I still want to learn. I want to do something different, something new. Um, so um, but typically, you know, I take the morning uh because in the evenings I'm too tired.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  You know, in the morning I'm fresh, you know, I'm I'm um having my breakfast and I'm you know thinking about because I get up pretty early. uh before the family gets up and you know kind of reflect on what's going on, what's happening, um and take that time. It's good to also reflect in in a team environment. Um if you've got a senior leadership team or if you've got a small team in your shop of four or five people, it doesn't matter. Sit together and reflect and learn from each other. Make that a part of your routine once a week, once every two weeks and talk about what happened. And You've gotta give yourself license to do that and you gotta give the organization license to

• 21:01Speaker 02

  We'll be right back after this short message.

• 21:04Speaker 01

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• 21:25Speaker 02

  Your story is powerful, but is it reaching the right audience? At FilmSpire, we create compelling videos and provide marketing strategies to make sure they drive real results. From crafting your message to amplifying it, we help you connect with your audience like never before. Ready to inspire? Let's tell your story. And now back to the show. That's great. That's great. I want to ask you about boards in particular. You know, you've served on a lot of boards, and I

• 21:57Speaker 00

  not a lot.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Well, some, yeah, some.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  But you deal with a board obviously as a nonprofit and things like that. I'm curious, how do you work to make boards and leadership align? I feel like sometimes they can kind of be in conflict, but how do you work to make sure boards and you know um keeping everyone in line or happy or focused on mission? Plus with you guys, I don't know if you've had experiences with other boards where it's been there's been conflict or disagreements, but how do you work to make sure everyone plays along and we're all staying, you know, moving forward on that mission you've you've talked about?

• 22:28Speaker 00

  It's really, really important when you have a board of directors and a senior leadership team to ensure that there's alignment, to ensure there is coherence um between them. I'll give you an example. We right now are beginning our strategic planning process. So we have clarity in our organization that our board is a governance board. And so their primary responsibility is to approve the strategy and the budgets, etc., our plans, and then leadership's responsibility is to execute those strategies and plans, report back to the board, and you know the back and forth that happens as a result of that.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  So in order to achieve that alignment and coherence between the two. The best way is to have them both engaged in the development process. So we are accompanying each other. It's a journey of accompaniment. So, for example, our leadership team will be meeting with our board in the next couple of months to begin the strategic planning process.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  And as you accompany each other as two sides of the same coin, what happens is the discussions will become more coherent and aligned, and what emerges at the other end is going to be something that both have had a role to play in developing, both have had a role in articulating, and both have a clear understanding of what's required to execute, monitor, manage, etc. And so then when you go apart and the board is meeting quarterly and the management team is meeting regularly and executing, when you come back together, there is that common foundation. So that level of collaboration is very important. The other part of the

• 24:28Speaker 00

  question is really the nature of the relationship between management and the board. And management, and particularly the chief executive, of course, has to work on developing that relationship with the board. So you have the officers of the board, obviously. You may have various committees of the board, and those committees will have chairs. So there's a host of relationships that you need to manage. All of that has to be based on the cornerstone of trust. And what drives the trust is transparency. So I, as the chief executive, need to be transparent with my board to the point of showing my vulnerabilities and actually engaging the board. And if you've got a great board like I do at World Pediatrics, an amazing board,

• 25:13Speaker 00

  very open. Uh tremendous amount of trust and confidence mutually. And that that's really important for the umbrella that guides the entire organization to achieve its future.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  How important is it for a leader to be direct, especially like with their mission or with their employees?

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Great question. You know, I I believe in transparency, but I believe in wise and tactful transparency. Transparency there's nothing absolute. You can't be absolutely transparent. Right? Because there are certain things that you have to, you know, it's like I I can't give a filiminion to a two week old baby. They just won't be able to digest. I first of the

• 26:01Speaker 01

  All day.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, unless you have it as baby food, right? Um so th there's some things that you have to be tactful and you have to be wise about. It's not about you holding secrets. It's about you as a leader have to make that decision of how do I communicate this? How do I help my organization, my board, my senior leadership team move forward in this direction, right? What's the best way of communicating? How do I communicate? What's the content of that communication, my behavior, etc. Um So And I think that's an important part of the equation. So you you know, you I do believe that as a leader, um, you need to be present and you need to be uh visible, you need to be responsive. Right? You want to be careful about accessibility,

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  right? And and you're the one as the CEO or the senior executive that set those boundaries, and after a while people will get it. You know, what I can go to Valva with and what I don't go to Valva with.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Now,

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Um But you know, as a leader, you you want to I've always believed that you uh you know you uh you need to be present, you need to be visible, you need to be accessible. Um and that has a great, great impact on the organization.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  I I want to ask a couple quick questions to piggyback on the CEO and and uh failures and and challenges, because I I'm sure it's not just like this for a year or for two years. It's like whoop, whoop, whoop, you know, up and down. Let's do let's start with a challenge and then we'll go to success. So what what it doesn't have to be the biggest one, but what is a big challenge that you face as a CEO? And what what are the key learnings from that challenge?

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a really, really important uh question. I think there are there's a number of challenges obviously that are faced by any CEO. I think there are three that have always stood out for me. Um first and foremost, I would say unity. That's a Primary role of the chief executive is to create unity within the organization towards a common purpose.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  If you don't have unity, you're not really going to accomplish anything. Imagine you're the Philadelphia Eagles or the Kansas City Chiefs, and you're trying to accomplish the greatest accomplishment, which is to win the Super Bowl, but people are doing their own thing. Um and uh you know the quarterback, the uh coach, the general manager is trying to create a sense of unity within the team so that they can accomplish great things. That's very important, I'd say, foremost for a chief executive. The second is the actual team is who do you have on the team, what positions they have.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  That's the primary response, one of the primary responsibilities of a chief executive is to make sure that you have the right team in place to accomplish the goal. Then unity becomes part of that environment that you're trying to create. So that the team can actually achieve excellence. And the third, I'd say, in in my context, having worked a lot in the change environment, is one of resistance as a challenge for a chief executive is when you go into a change environment and you need to change, you need to pivot. Obviously, if it's a significant change, then there'll be a lot of resistance typically in an organization. You'll have three clusters. You know, one cluster is they jump on board and they're

• 29:34Speaker 00

  With you and they want to move forward towards the new vision with the new strategy. There's a block in the middle that are you know kind of wait and see on the fence, see how it goes. And then there's that third category that are really resistant to the organization. So that resistance and how it expresses itself is very significant for a chief executive to overcome. What you learn from all of that is as you go through it. Is not just the importance of those three elements, which is unity, the team, and how to overcome resistance, but also the how to. As you experience more of it, as you pay more attention of it, you're learning

• 30:15Speaker 00

  how to achieve unity. You're learning how to identify a great team and have them work well together, and you're learning how to overcome resistance.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Waffa, what about like something you guys are just really proud of? Like a great accomplishment for at your time at World Pediatrics specifically or anything like that. You guys have made such a big impact,

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  you know, uh, for how many years you guys have been as an organization and then plus your your time there now, but something you're really proud of accomplishment wise.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Um, I'm most proud of the team that we have in the organization. Um We're we're probably one of the most efficient nonprofits in the health sector doing what we do, right? We're not delivering 5,000 vaccines a day, right? Which is a different scale model, right? We're doing very complicated work and we're very efficient. So that I'm most proud of the team and their commitment to the purpose and figuring things out and how we can improve things. The outcome of that is that. We are we have surpassed the peak of the organization in its history.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  We have, you know, we we served uh 3,200 children. Last year we served 3,200 children in 27 countries. We did more than 1,100 surgeries. We sent 97 teams, surgical teams, into the country to do work. We trained um, I think it was about 2,300, close to 2,300 or more than 2,300. Health professionals, about 4,000 hours of training. Our revenue is uh greater than it has ever been in the organization. Um and so you know, when uh but that's all because of the team,

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  right? The most common denominator in all things is the human being,

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  right? Even the AI is written by a human being.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Okay, so it's the common denominator.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  You get that right,

• 32:26Speaker 00

  the rest will flow.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Right? Well, the strategy didn't work. Well, who designed the strategy? Right? Operationally, we're not very good, but who's responsible for the operations? You get the right team together, which is the principle. I learned that from a good friend of mine who was the CEO of um, he retired three years ago, the CEO of um uh Honeywell in Eurasia.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  And he said that the principal responsibility of a CEO is to get the right team together.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  And I've try to practice that ever since is if if I can get the right team do right by the team as the CEO, that's my job, the team will take care of it.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Man, those are some great points.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  I know.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  You might have asked a couple fun questions.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, by all means.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  So if you weren't running Rome Pediatrics,

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  what would you be doing?

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Um I I would be doing something similar. You know, I uh I would be doing something to give back, uh, to serve others. Um I've always had a weakness for the underdog,

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  you know. One of the reasons I don't have like favorite Hockey teams or football teams or I have a favorite rugby team, but you know uh is I I watch I love good games and I always root for the underdog.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  So I want to serve. I would be serving. I'd be in another nonprofit doing something different.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  You know, until I can.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Fafa, can I ask you about you've traveled a lot, you've lived in different places.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  What's your take on Richmond? What do you like about Richmond? Why has it been great for World Pediatric? I know you guys are moving downtown. You guys have made.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  New office. You guys should come by. Yeah, you should come by look at it. It's fantastic. We were just in the in the Richmond biz where they covered us in pictures and so on. So

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. So yeah, what what do you love about Richmond and kind of what's your take on Richmond in the nonprofit world here in in Richmond as well? Love your kind of take on Richmond.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  sure. Um So my friends, you know, after I came down, uh, my friends would ask, you know, what's Richmond like? How would you describe Richmond? I was trying to figure out how do I describe Richmond. And I describe Richmond as a small Boston in the South. It's got that, you know, it's got that rich history,

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  the culture, the you know, uh, the ambiance, the architecture, you know, there's it's very rich as as is Boston as one of the original, you know, town cities in the country, right? Um a smaller version of it, but then it's also in the south. So you got that l kind of that layer of southern charm that's there, which is wonderful, right? So you've got that balance um you know between uh a large environment, but at the same time you s you you know it it's got that kind of pace of the south.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yep.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Uh I lived in New York for five years, obviously very different.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Right. When I first came here, people said um Yeah, you can get anywhere in like ten minutes.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  I said, Yeah, sure. And it w it is true.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  It is true. You can get anywhere in ten to fifteen minutes. It's fantastic. I can get to the airport. I'm not exaggerating when I say from literally from my place to the gate at the airport, twenty minutes.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  I'm at the gateway.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Security's just such a breeze, too.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  No, I remember when I first moved, I would go to the airport like two hours early, and I'd be sitting I'm like, what am I gonna do for an hour and a half? You know?

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Yeah

• 36:06Speaker 00

  And then I had to r learn how to adjust my schedule for the airport.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  And then it becomes nice, because then you don't have to get to the airport, you know, sixty minutes before or whatever.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, you you you come out and you know you're if if you've got checked luggage, it's you know relatively quickly. Yeah, it's wonderful.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  that's great.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  It is.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Well, Waffa, thank you so much

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  for the time.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Pleasure.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  It's been a great conversation. We always end it uh in two ways. I'll let you cover the nonprofit side and then um I'll cover the last question we ask is from the Virginia Council of CEOs, the organization here in Richmond.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  And they ask As a CEO, it can be lonely at the top. How do you deal with that?

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Uh it's your choice to make it lonely or not.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Expand, right? Interesting. Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um you know I've I've got a great leadership team. Um you know the folks you know that have been with the organization, folks that are new. Uh different roles and responsibilities. So you don't have to be lonely. If you are lonely as a chief executive officer, it's probably because consciously or unconsciously you've put yourself in that situation.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  I've got a great board, great board members.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  Just because the terms of the chairs are rotating, great chairs, all different. Um yeah, so it uh I don't feel alone. Um you know I'd I'll I miss my mother who's who's in Toronto.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Um but no, I don't I don't feel lonely. There's a great, great community within the organization, outside the community, outside the organization. We've got I've got ex board members that we're in contact on an ongoing basis.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  We've got partners at VCU

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  that we're in contact with, so why why are you lonely? I mean, you know, if you get a If you got a major issue that you're dealing with, why aren't you engaging with your board and with your senior leadership team? Why are you in the corner being lowly trying to figure it out?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Great point.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  You know?

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Have good self-awareness and yeah, don't don't isolate.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I'm sure there's like there's situations where like not every company has a board, for example. Or but I I do believe like surrounding yourself with the right people. Maybe it's you know the leadership team, or maybe it's the board, or maybe it's like yo, trusted advisor. For sure, however it might be.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  You've got a mentor, you've got a couple of trusted advisors. I mean, there's no reason why, even if you're an entrepreneur and you have your own company, there's no reason why you can't talk to three to five people and say,

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Can I use you guys as my Quasi board as my advisory board. Can we get together once a quarter and I come to you and I we talk about the issues that I'm dealing with and trying to figure things out. So

• 39:08Speaker 01

  It's funny a year and a half ago I established an advisory board. for my company. It's been really helpful. This is like a sounding board. You know? Okay, we're we might go this way or this direction or this direction or this direction. What do you guys think about these or it's been it's been cool to have a sounding board.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  if you're lonely, it's your choice.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Love that.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Oh yeah yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So one thing we do on our show for the Richmond Leadership Lab is uh for our guests, we kind of always ask them what's a nonprofit that they support that they want to give a shout out to, because we make a small donation to that nonprofit. So I think it's safe to say that we would love to make our donation to World Pediatric unless you say otherwise, Baffo.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  The other one is the uh Waffa Akavan Hawaii Fund.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  No, of course. I mean you know, world pediatrics, uh you know, we have a four X gift in kind, so for every dollar that we receive

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  We actually generate four additional dollars of gift in kind.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  So a a hundred dollar contribution becomes five hundred. Right. And and five hundred can get you

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  two hernia operations for children in Haiti.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  You know. So

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  yeah.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  If people want to get involved with World Pediatric or if they want to give, how can they do that?

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Um you can go to our website, worldpediatrics.org. Um there is a portal for you know donations. We of course we welcome all donations. The the more funds we have, the more we do. The less funds we have, the less we do.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  You know, you don't need to be a Ivy League I MBA to figure that one out. And if you want to uh participate as a volunteer, um, there is a contact us page with with email. Just send us an email, we'll be responsive. That hey, I'm I I have time, I can volunteer. We need volunteer with uh volunteers with our events. We need, you know, every time we send a team, we have to pack a lot of supplies. So volunteering and being available to help and learn about medical supplies and packaging them, etc. So volunteerism and contributions on our website.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Always.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  That's awesome. Perfect. I'm definitely going to be re listening to this one a lot. I feel like I got a lot I took away from today. So thank you for joining us.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  I hope it was helpful for your audience and um you know um uh try to make it as real as possible as compared to kind of textbook.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Agreed. I think that's that's how people learn anyway.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  I would I I would I do want to share

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Please, yeah, if there's anything else.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  one shout out to the thing. Yeah, one one thing um um you know my I I would encourage all of your

• 41:43Speaker 00

  I would encourage your listeners to read a book canoeing It's called Canoeing the Mountains. I'm going through that right now.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, tell us.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  It's written by Todd Bolsinger.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  It's about leadership in unexpected terrain. And goes back to situational leadership. And I'm finding it to be the most, I'm about halfway through it, I'm finding it to be the most pertinent content to what I'm experiencing in my world.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  And I would encourage your audience, anybody who's listening,

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  to pick up the book and read it.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  That's great. We'll drop that in the show notes and the description and things like that so people can check that out. I love that recommendation. Yeah. Anything else, Waffa, you want to make sure we mention or shout out or anything like that?

• 42:31Speaker 00

  No, you know, um I'm just uh to to your audience, um you know stay on track, learn, learn, learn, reflect, reflect, reflect.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Love that.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Do it better next time.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Every day.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  Pleasure. Thank you.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Appreciate it.