The Story behind why two time Olympian Hugo Inglis joined the Lever Room
We’re excited to announce that pro sportsman Hugo Inglis, one of the world’s best strikers has joined our growing team. Hugo has a background in finance with a long history representing New Zealand with the Black Sticks in Hockey. We sat down with Hugo to find out a little more about what makes him tick.
What compelled you to make the shift from playing professional hockey in Europe to joining The Lever Room?
Switching from playing professional hockey in Europe to joining an impact consulting firm is more similar than most would expect. With my finance and banking background one of my roles at The Lever room is to support the team working with investors to ensure they have the necessary tools to contribute to measurable positive social or environmental impact, alongside financial returns. Pro sports people are heavily invested into their organisation (their team), they have the intention to contribute towards measurable on-field impact, whilst hopefully achieving some financial return. Individual performance is consistently measured using both qualitative and quantitative measures. Insight, science, data and technology are all blended towards managing for future outcomes.
At the Lever Room we take a principled approach towards solving problems and optimising for positive impact, operating at the intersection of research, investment sustainability, and innovation. At the expense of overdoing the analogy, good sports people are often the ones who can problem solve by making a cadence of high quality decisions in an uncertain and evolving environment. I’m hoping I can do something similar in my new work setting. Aside from all the great sports/impact analogies I also had an operation on my back at the beginning of the year to solve a long-standing injury. I love Aotearoa and having had the chance to press pause on playing in Europe I quickly realised that I want to be closer to family and friends and helping to lift up some of the great work the Lever Room has been doing.
Aren’t you supposed to be representing New Zealand in Tokyo right now?
I went into the back surgery relatively optimistic that I would be on a plane in July to compete with the Black Sticks in Tokyo. Instead I was getting on a flight to the beautiful Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The COVID-19 crisis has provided a glimpse into our collective ability to adapt extremely quickly. It has broken down perceptions of change and provided a look at the consequences of natural environment and ecosystem disruption…or destruction. Urban sprawl and the increasing proximity of people to animals have led to a virus spill over and untold consequences. The Olympics not going ahead falls very far down on the spectrum of consequences. What it means going forward, we will have to wait and see. I am really enjoying putting all my focus into work for now and excited about the projects we are lifting up.
I’m so grateful for the journey I have had through hockey - rich experiences, deep friendships, some amazing wins and a few catastrophic losses. To have been fortunate enough to have played with some of my best mates at two Olympic Games, three Commonwealth Games and three World Cups means that whatever comes next I am able to happily walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on the past - “kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua".
What’s most exciting you about your new role?
As Leo said in his landmark speech to the UN Climate Summit “this is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages”. Alongside Covid-19 we face a myriad of global crisis: rising social inequality, unprecedented biodiversity loss, accelerated climate change and more frequent extreme weather events. I think Leo would agree “none of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact.” The next decade has been deemed the Climate Decade and we have been given ten years to deliver the Paris Agreement and keep global warming below 1.5℃. Covid-19 has only accelerated this as central banks around the world have opened the cash register of future generations and are embarking on emptying the coffers to survive today’s crisis. How we spend the money of tomorrow requires foresight and courage to embrace the unknown unknowns. This does not sound all that exciting but the optimism comes next.
The impact space is also brewing its own perfect storm. In the impact investment world we have seen huge allocators of capital changing capitalism as we know it. A few examples:
Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset management company (BlackRock), put the business world on notice with his letter to CEO’s titled the Fundamental Reshaping of Finance.
A gender and generational capital shift is underway. Millennials and females are set to be the recipients of huge quanta of capital as wealth is transferred.
The B Corporation movement and the Business Roundtable shifting corporate purpose from ’Shareholder’ to ’Stakeholder’.
In New Zealand we have seen the government launch the Wellbeing Budget under the Living Standards Framework.
Just last week JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, was delisted from one of Europe’s largest asset managers as a result of links to Amazon deforestation, its response to covid-19 and past corruption scandals. The significance of this is that it has put the Brazilian government on notice, foreign capital will dry up if they continue to allow companies to destroy the Amazon.
We are in a time where the perceptions of fixed structures and systems are flexing. Evolution occurs out of a selective pressure which leads to adaptation. Capitalism is facing selective pressure, the system in its current iteration has not delivered for the all. Increasing scrutiny is being placed on old economic principles like self-interest, limitless growth, profit maximisation and externalities. This idea of externalities baffles me. Things we classify as ‘external’ costs to doing business (ecological destruction, air pollution or social consequences). Aristotle had figured out the tragedy of the commons pretty early on: 'What is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others.’. Society is starting to demand these common costs are internalised as they represent huge capital misallocations and miss-priced risk.
Directing our actions, investments, businesses and government for impact is our best hope for solving the challenges of our time.
We are leaning over a precipice, Greta calls is a ‘crossroads’ and goes onto say "we must now decide which path we want to take”. What really excites me about the Lever Room’s work is that the path is clear. By seeking to solve challenges with a system-wide lens it means we are able to work across the different verticals (climate, oceans, biodiversity, social inequality, etc) and look for points within the system where there is opportunity to leverage the most change.
The term sustainability is being thrown around loosely and quickly becoming somewhat archaic. What exactly are we trying to sustain? Global pandemics, Australian bush fires, mass extinctions? The work with the Lever Room is exciting as we are focussing beyond sustaining what already exists and moving ultimately towards transformational change.
What advice do you have for others wanting to move into the 'impact’ space?
Be curious. Travel and reading helped to broaden my worldview. Whilst there is an uncomfortable irony that it took global fossil fuelled air travel in order for me to experience a multitude of different perspectives I think through reading we also have the ability to understand one another and the systems we live in. So the only advice I have is to be curious and read widely with an open mind.
Considering different models of thinking allows for more opportunity to understand the world, by doing so I have often uncovered that the map is not always the territory. Most of what I considered to be fact was based on incomplete knowledge, failing to take in the different vantage points, sheltering myself from feedback and distancing from the consequences of my decisions. By reading widely and across different subjects one can begin to separate the signal from the noise. As the ‘impact’ space continues to evolve, grounding thinking in time-tested principles can help to solve increasingly complex challenges by asking the right questions.