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Driven to succeed and always looking for the next challenge, Lisa Cescon may one day be considered one of the country's top performing CEOs, but it won't be for a company without ethical guidelines.
An accomplished financial and operations manager, Christchurch-born Cescon (40) recently returned to New Zealand following 15 years working overseas, where she held positions as diverse as being the deputy managing director of Warner Home Video UK, to helping set up an organisation in Cambodia that helped and prepared former prisoners to successfully return to society. A CV featuring such varied management roles may be unusual, but Cescon says that she dedicated the first part of her career to more traditional business goals, such as "making shareholders rich," but is now turning her skills to projects that directly help those in need.
"I've always been socially active. I'm interested in the fact that all people have skills and have abilities and should have wealth. It was never just meant for a select few, it was meant to be shared with others. That would be one of my philosophical outlooks on life and it would drive what I would get involved in now," says Cescon.
Almost immediately after returning to New Zealand last year, she was approached about the possibility of becoming the new CEO for World Vision New Zealand - the aid organisation that helps raise money around the globe to help fund development in the world's poorest countries. The role seems a good fit for Cescon and she is confident she can help guide the organisation towards its objectives.
"It's a great organisation. There are 110 staff here who are passionate about the work we are doing, about getting rid of extreme poverty and how that can be done," she says, although admits that some minor changes to the organisation's structure need to be made. "We actually want to get rid of any hierarchy and the bureaucracy that we may have. We want to make it more creative, more innovative, work together more as a team."
But where other business leaders may use careful planning and financial diligence solely to improve company profits, Cescon believes the same management techniques can be used to benefit people in need. Five years ago World Vision New Zealand raised around 30m a year, but Cescon is confident that the organisation can soon increase that total to 60m. To get to this amount, Cescon says the organisation also has to totally revise how and what media it uses to reach people.
"New Zealanders are very, very generous but they need to know how to give so how do we communicate with them? If the face of media is changing, how are we going to be part of that? What is the vehicle? What is the channel? That to me is quite interesting."
Even more of a culture change is the increased advocacy role Cescon believes World Vision needs to play.
"World Vision has been very good at bringing the stories from overseas to New Zealanders who want to help, not only financially, but with their voice," she says. "How can we petition the Government to bring about change overseas as far as trade goes or child protection or the spread of HIV and AIDS in the South Pacific? That's an area World Vision will move more into during the next five years or so."
The goals may sound lofty and difficult to achieve, but Cescon has a track record to back her determined nature.
"I am definitely a change agent. I like to go into organisations or work with people that need to move from A to B and I'm very good at seeing the vision of where we need to get to. Obviously I have all the skills needed to get us there and I'm very keen to get groups of people in to help us get there. That's what I like, I get bored very quickly and when I'm bored, I'm a nuisance."
Although she initially trained as a chartered accountant, Cescon moved almost directly into management roles, but found she was too young for the jobs she really wanted in order to be satisfied in her work.
"I felt that I had the skills but my character wasn't in line with the roles that I had. I'm very adventurous and I like a challenge. I get bored very quickly, so I felt I needed to do something completely different, to wait until I grew up a little bit really."
Cescon's interest in theology, different Christian world views and classical Greek led her a divinity degree in Auckland, of which she completed two out of the three years before moving to England and completing it there. Although she says she did not intend a long OE, Cescon "got trapped in the UK" and ended up staying for 10 years, working in a number of management roles. The longest and most high profile of these was starting as finance director for Warner Home Video UK and eventually becoming deputy managing director.
"I had been really successful, I had skills in business that were just making the shareholders rich. I wanted to use those skills to help others that didn't have anything, to give back to society. I felt that I had been very lucky, that I had been blessed."
She then began volunteer work for a homeless organisation in London that brought people in off the streets and helped them get on their feet.
Then, after six years at Warners and despite the company's attempts to keep her, she moved to Cambodia.
"I didn't have family so I felt that I could go. I chose Asia because it was close to New Zealand and Cambodia becase it is quite destitute, a very traumatised county full of corruption, bureaucracy and it is desperately poor. I thought I would go there and see what I could do."
After taking five months to learn the Khmer language, Cescon began using her experience in leading teams in pressured environments to work with a number of aid agencies.
She then took on the project of establishing Prison Fellowship (Cambodia), using her expertise to set up systems, policies and strategies for the organisation, including a micro-finance scheme, vocational training and social welfare projects.
Her philosophy, in business as well as in life, is to bring change by helping one person at a time.
"The reason why is that it never stays at one person, it is always contagious. That one person doesn't live in isloation, especially in a place like Cambodia, which is community-based. By helping one person you eventually help many others."
The possibility of losing sight of your goals, and the one person you are trying to make a difference with, was the biggest challenge in Cambodia, she says - that, and coruption.
"The country was very corrupt, everything ran on corruption and you had to contunally remind yourself that things can change. If you lose sight of that then you want to pack up your bags and go home," she says, adding that the Prison Fellowship refused to pay any bribes.
"You cannot bring long-term change if you pay bribes. It doesn't change people or their behaviour."
Cescon worked for four years in the country and returned to New Zealand once the right staff and systems were in place and she felt the project could continue running successfully. She describes the role as "totally consuming" and worked long hours for at least six days a week to see it through. Then, after returning to New Zealand for some time off, after an absence of 15 years, was approached about the CEO position at World Vision New Zealand having been back just one day. Cescon laughs about the timing now and admits that her experience and the challenging role are a good match.
"I think what excites me about World Vision is that I am really passionate about the work it does around the world. I am totally confident that I can take any supporters overseas, any government officials to any of the community projects that we do, show them what we do and be completely confident that they would be blown away by what we achieve every day in terms of community development, health, education, water, technology, agriculture and micro-finance," says Cescon. "By helping one person you eventually help many others."
A Global Vision Of Aid
Christchurch-born Lisa Cescon says she looks for a challenge in the roles she takes, but as the recently appointed CEO for World Vision New Zealand, her work now has a global outlook. "That's true, but World Vision is a very complex organisation, a federation that works in over 100 countries, so our local team isn't doing everything by itself," says Cescon. Her last role was helping to set up Prison Fellowship in Cambodia, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) helping prisoners re-enter society. She spent four years there and doesn't regret her decision to leave London's corporate life behind. "I sure there were moments when I did have doubts, but only in passing. The Cambodian experience was work where it was making a big difference in the lives of people that were desperately poor."
Were you anxious about coming back to New Zealand?
"Only over what kind of work I would get, because it is so small here compared to London. I wanted a challenge, to work somewhere where I could bring change. I was thinking about CEO roles, but I was thinking I would probably have to work in the commercial sector. Then, I'd only been back here a day and someone called me up about the World Vision role.
It must have seemed tailor-made for your skills.
"Absolutely. They were specifically looking for someone who had a business background, someone who wanted to bring about change, because change was needed. Also, it is the largest NGO here in New Zealand that works with international development. World Vision receives from New Zealanders about 60 per cent of the total private donations for aid and development."
Did you have any knowledge of World Vision beforehand?
"I had done some research and I'd seen their work overseas. I was very, very impressed by their development work. It is a Christian organisation that is child-focussed and does community development work. It works in communities for 15 to 17 years, working at the speed of community, so the community owns the project. I really like that development model and so I didn't even look elsewhere [for a job]. It's a very professional organisation and doesn't waste money. It takes the supporter promise - which is to send as much money overseas as possible - very, very seriously and so we send overseas over 75 per cent of every dollar we receive."
