Cherrie Atilano:
Every day I always ask myself, is this decision making me sleep peacefully at night? Because if it's disturbing my sleep, no, I don't care doing this, you know? And my hope to wake up with great optimism and great excitement to be alive because you're doing another something good, you're changing life.

Andrew White:
Hello everybody and thanks for joining me for the latest episode of Leadership 2050. I'm your host, Andrew White from Oxford University's Saïd Business School. My guest today is an agricultural activist and change maker who is set out to change the lives of farmers in the Philippines. Cherrie Atilano is the founding farmer CEO and president of AGREA Agricultural Systems International. It's a for-purpose agribusiness that aims to eradicate poverty for farming and fishing communities to alleviate climate change and create food security in her home country. One of the World Economic forums young Global Leaders of 2022, Cherrie founded her business on the core belief that dignifying the agricultural sector is key to its productivity, sustainability and being the point of change in the food system. I caught up with Cherrie back in September. I began by asking her to tell us a bit about her background and her business.

Cherrie Atilano:
Oh wow. It's been a journey of around 24 years now. I started teaching farmers at the age of 12, Andrew, growing up in a sugarcane farm, and right now I'm advocating as an ambassador for nutrition of the UN and running my own company, AGREA, as well as AGREA Foundation and nonprofit attached to my company. For the past 24 years I think what's inspires me in every day that I do and what brought me here and advocating it consistently, it's really about how to change the lives of small holder farmers, especially in the Philippines where most of them are earning below a dollar a day or just earning like $60 every month, and that's below the poverty threshold level.
So I'm still unlocking the challenge and the opportunities to that. But in our company in AGREA, we work with 30,000 small holder farmers in the Philippines and we're really trying to work on how to graduate them from poverty in 20 months. That's like a life mission. I've been working for the last eight years and the foundation also is working so hard on promoting farm schools all over the country. So we work hand in hand with the government in training thousands of farmers and especially those farmers who couldn't read and write, those farmers and children of farmers who never been to school, those women in the farms that they don't have legal entities of right ownership. So those are the kinds of reasons, kind of a lot that I'm working on lately.

Andrew White:
It sounds amazing and it sounds really interesting work because sometimes you hear people who are doing very high level advocacy and it's so abstract, but from what you've just described, it sounds like it's right where the rubber hits the road. It's looking at things like how do they set up the companies which give them the right of ownership. If you don't know how to read and write, how do you trade properly your produce so you can work all year, create an amazing crop, and then I guess you don't know how to get the best price for that. And then so it's really going into the mechanisms that keep people in poverty and it's super interesting. You've almost found something that unlocks and unlocks within a specific timescale as well.

Cherrie Atilano:
And it wasn't an easy start, Andrew, right, because we're talking about business all the time, but how do you really start a business with great intentionality? I think as a little girl growing up in a sugarcane farm, I never used sugar for so many years now since I was 15 years old. It's like my little activism in there because I could feel like it really started from why people in the sugarcane farm are living like this for so many years. Why little girls like me are not in school and still working in the sugarcane farm and the vicious cycle of poverty are still there.
So I really see that I need to do something and it's like a dream growing up. One day I'll start to have my agribusiness and this agribusiness will be the most innovative, the most inclusive, but at the same time, real and true. They're really providing solutions and just picking people up from the bottom to reach their potentials and open more opportunities for them. And it's not easy maintaining the business landscape and at the same time creating massive tangible impact that you can feel and see are an act of life balancing intervention all the time.

Andrew White:
So let me take you back. You talked about the power of intention and intentionality. So I'm guessing there were a lot of people like you who grew up in very similar circumstances, but something in you saw the world differently, something in you saw that the world around you could be different. Were there triggers? Were there people? Were there situations that when you look back over the course of your life, was there certain things or certain people that really kind of woke you up and enabled you to see the problem but also the vision, the intention that things could be different?

Cherrie Atilano:
It's a combination of people and circumstances actually happened. I think it started that I really grew up in a very happy home, loving home and very generous home. My parents are very giving. However, I lost my dad when I was three years old and my mom put me in a scholarship center because my mom said, "You really need to go to school so that you'll not end up working in a sugarcane farm because papa is not there anymore to provide." My father was into sugarcane farming, massive farming of sugarcane, and then my mom said, there's no more breadwinner. So that's one of the triggers. And then observing around me, I think I grew up that I read a lot of books and I'm kind of well-educated thanks to my mother, and I observe a lot of things around me. That every weekend I would go to the sugarcane field, plant sugarcane, play around in the irrigation system with other children.
And I would always ask them that there's no future for them. They don't have parents like my parents that would really push them to go to school despite there's no money. So my mom was so wise, and then I think Andrew, one of the most inspiring thing that happened to me when I was six years old, every Sunday my mom would always cook a lot of food and we'd distribute it to our neighbors. And then one time, because I was a child, I was six, I was enjoying playing with my playmates and then my mother said, disturbing me, "You need to stop it because it's lunchtime. We need to distribute food." And then I told her, "I heard they not going to eat if we're not giving them food. Why are you doing this?" I'm still playing. I'm like a stubborn little girl. And then my mother really just sat me on and pushed me on the wall a bit to talk to me in a very quiet, silent moment.
And then she was holding my hands and then she told me, "You know why we're doing this? Because it's good for you. Even if you don't have money, you don't feel you're poor because you always have food on our table. So going to our neighbors and distributing food on a weekend is not a chore. It's like more of a responsibility to share what we have." And then my mom grabbed my hand and then she told me, "This is the shortest distance alive, the distance between your brain and your heart." And she asked me to measure it using my hand. And I was like, inching it through. Inching it through. And then my mother said, "If you don't know how to connect this distance between your brain and your heart, forget about your existence because it doesn't matter. You really need to connect this because I don't want you to be successful. I want you to be significant and to be relevant."
And from then on, six years after, because my mom put me in a scholarship center, I read a book about bio intensive gardening and the book says, "If you are poor, 100% of your income goes to food. The only survival in the sugarcane farm is to grow your own vegetables." Oh my goodness, Andrew, it was life changing for me. I brought that book home, that was my first business pitch to my mom. I told my mom, "Mom, you better buy me a bike because every weekend I'll teach farmers in sugarcane farms." And then my mom said, "Why are you going to teach farmers in sugarcane farms?" You want me to be significant? You want me to be relevant? This book is an answer. How this people will save from poverty and things like that. And then automatically, my mom just bought me a bike and we kept biking for four years teaching very, very poor people, tenants and peasants in sugarcane farms at the time. I was around 12 years old when it started.

Andrew White:
Wow. That's an amazing story. And your mom sounds an amazing person and I love the way she sat you down on the wall. And then sometime later you go back and you say, "I want the bike." And so she gives to you, give to her, or you ask for her from her. And so it's got a wonderful cycle about it. Very powerful moment in your life and a powerful sense of service. When you kind of fast-forward to where you are today and you look around the world, I think your mum, you, you're embodying a certain type of leadership and it's about leading at the level of a system. It's about business for good and how business can transform, and it's not platitudes and statements, it's kind of a real kind of on the ground movement and transformation. Could you just talk a little bit more about that and just a little bit more about how this approach is relevant to the future of different worlds, different parts of the world?

Cherrie Atilano:
Yeah, I think it starts always with if I want to do something, if I wanted to dedicate my life to be a business woman, what would be my greatest why? And if it's clear to you, and if you have great clarity of your greatest why, how can I do it? How can I convert it into action? How can I put it not only in my heart and in my talk, but really walking it? And I think Andrew, in all the things that we do, I always focus on intentionality. So after answering your why, what's your great intention? And for me, it's always talking about transformation, not just transaction. So every time we work with our farming communities, even when we work with our clients and customers or consumers, it's always about are this intact in our intention? Are we just doing straight transaction to them, which is we are not contributing to every transaction.
We want to contribute in every transformation that we do. And for me, that is really necessary if you have as a very strong answer and clarity from the onset. And then another set of intentionality in how to transform things to be better. And another one, I think that is very important in this kind of leadership that I've been going through, every day, I always ask myself, is this decision making me sleep peacefully at night? Because if it's disturbing my sleep, no, I don't care doing this. My sleep is more important and my hope to wake up with great optimism and great excitement to be alive because you're doing another something good, you're changing life, you're doing something that can transform the ecosystem is another thing that's actually making me so excited to live up and wake up every morning and to go to my office and talk to my team that we have that same kind of excitement, that it's all about caring, it's all about going out there, not just creating impact, but measurable impact that we can replicate and we can inspire more leaders out there.

Andrew White:
Super interesting. And I was also struck when you were talking and as you talked about the intervention, that not everybody would've wanted this to succeed. There would be some people in the system that were probably quite happy with the prices that they were paying for sugar cane and you're talking about moving money around and bringing more money to those farmers. So you must have faced resistance or things weren't always easy. Or when you try and change a system, not everybody's happy with you. I'm guessing.

Cherrie Atilano:
Of course there's always like you're going up, people are pulling you down. Maybe every morning, their wish is just for you to fall and that come up. But I think these are all part of the tension, the aggression, the challenges, the obstacles, because not because of that, we cannot come up with something more holistic. And another one, Andrew, is like, I'm a strong believer of what Confucius would always say, make your enemy closer so that they can harm you less. So for me as a leader, I know there are this people that all they want is just to advance their personal benefits, but at the end of the day, I always believe they're still a human being and if I can work with 1% good with that person on top of that 1% good and see the commonality and build it in a more harmonious way, it's really about building what we call ecosystem building.
In the ecosystem there are always prey and predators and you cannot just have, not removing other, because it's an imbalance in the ecosystem. It's really like how do you work together? Sans ego, sans logo, just to make things happen. And everyone is having the benefit, not all in a bias way that I have all, I have more, she wants more or he has less. But it's really about clarifying how much is it that we really need and how much is enough, right?

Andrew White:
Yeah.

Cherrie Atilano:
Because I'm always having, a lot of my friends in the business sector would always, even in the government, I talk a lot with the government people and a lot of times they would always ask me, share, can you share a dialogue?

Andrew White:
Right.

Cherrie Atilano:
I'm like, wow. I am known now to sharing dialogues, especially Andrew, very difficult dialogues that no one will have the conversation. No one is afraid. It's like it's so afraid to even deal a conversation, open a white elephant in the room. So I think it's a gift that I can handle dialogue. It may be business people, government people and people who are really having this kind of stresses and challenges in the system. But at the same time, I always say that we already live in a world that is complex and complicated and we need to have really big and bold commitment to make it happen, but it needs to start from us and how we can accept that we better need to have a dialogue. We need to talk and define in building that system what is enough for the system to exist harmoniously, what is enough for us and what is enough for the people we work with, and we work for?

Andrew White:
Yeah, I mean just as you're talking, what comes through to me is on the one hand, somebody might see you as an enemy, but you don't see them as an enemy and you reach out. So there's something about a deep and powerful sense of communication. Communication probably understates what you're doing because it's deep relating and inspiring and leading them. But also on the other hand, you've got the creativity to find solutions. And I love what you're saying is when is enough, and almost how does the system understand what is enough? So that deep relating on the one hand, but then the creativity on the other hand and these things come together. So I guess my question is if I'm a farmer now today and I'm in poverty and I start working with you, what does that look like for me?

Cherrie Atilano:
That's a very inspiring question, Andrew, because when I started doing this intervention to farmers, I basically live in a farmer's house, understand them, wake up at three o'clock in the morning, sit a cup of coffee and then end the day with them also. It's really about understanding how did they exist because the society would always judge that, oh, the problems in our food systems are actually the farmers because they're not educated, things like that. And the problem goes on. But I told them they're actually the solution, the center for solution. If I see them as problem, then we are the problem and we're contributing to make that problem bigger. So when you are a farmer, you come to us and be part of us, you are asked to plant a seed in the first day. You are asked to dream on how you can become a local leader and an inspiring leader in your own community.
So when, for example, in our farm school, some people may find it weird that when you come to our farm school, we teach you the power of meditation, vision boarding. The farmers for the first time would write their vision board sometimes even if they didn't know how to read and write, at least you have this exercise. For example, can you please close your eyes and see the things around you and what are your resources and how can we progress from your resources? And second one is really teaching them the power of dreaming and visioning. Because I think the problem is if you are too poor, your brain is wired always how to survive on a daily basis. It's like a chicken scratching on the ground and whatever you get immediately you chew. So it's a very busy kind of living because it's survival. So there's no one really ask them to, can you sit down for a moment and review your life?
If there's still hope and dreams you want to achieve, this is the place you will achieve it. So it's really enhancing that power of dreaming and it's really shocked them actually to do that kind of exercise. And in every farming communities we approach, it may be urban gardening with the women who are victims of domestic violence that our nonprofit is working with. This is working across sector and across ages. It may be a young farmer and old farmer. So it's really about dreaming. And then next to that is, so what are the resources around you? You told me a while ago, you're poor, but enumerate me the resources around you. And the farmers start low. I have a piece of land I got from agrarian reform. I was a tenant before, now we have piece of land. I have 100 coconuts in there, 10 bananas in there, 20 chickens in there.
And I asked them, "Are you poor with all of this?: They couldn't answer me straight that they're poor. So there was a change of mindset and gratitude in that manner. Because for us, we cannot implement a project or a business that is transformational if our farmers are not embedding the kind of mission that we're trying to do and the ways we're doing it. So it starts with dreaming, visioning, being grateful around you. And when you see that the resources around you build gratefulness around it, then we can talk about business, then we can talk about the technologies. Because you can get them all you want as long as you have the right attitude towards them.

Andrew White:
Yeah, I love what you're saying because you're taking Maslow's hierarchy of needs and literally either smashing it to bits or turning it upside down and-

Cherrie Atilano:
Oh, I love that.

Andrew White:
... Starting with self act actualisation, which is a deeply human thing and our capacity to dream and our capacity to be grateful and all of these things. And it's just wonderful to hear that perhaps some of the traditional ways of working don't work and actually we need something different.

Cherrie Atilano:
Yes, yes. I totally agree. I actually love smashing the Maslow because how can you self-actualise if you're poor and you don't have food in your table, but these people, they should have food on their table, they have the resources to make it happen, but they don't have the vision and the dream and the inspiration to even see that they deserve it, that they need to be dignified and respected in the first place.

Andrew White:
So there's something also wonderful about what you're talking about, that it's very easy regardless of who we are and regardless in some ways of how rich we are, to get stuck, to get stuck in the transaction. And there's something about serving each other in terms of how do we to stop and breathe as you were describing and move into that place of dreaming. So can I kind of fast-forward or perhaps come to where you are now? You're in Oslo, you've just got back from the UN General Assembly, so you've clearly been seen as somebody who's a change maker and you're starting to move in different worlds. Could you talk a little bit about the, I suppose let's call it the policy world that you're moving in and what kind of work you're doing there?

Cherrie Atilano:
Oh, it's interesting. From UNG, now I'm actually here in Oslo to talk to private sectors on how making the farmers not as clients, but as partners in not just moving policies, but really transforming our food systems. So what I've been busy especially the last two years through the pandemic and moving forward, achieving how we survive after so many crisis. We're actually working on four major crisis now, the crisis in food, fuel, fertilizer and finance. I think the last problem in finance, they said, "Oh, there's scarcity, there's inflation, and all of this." There's just so much money in the world, it's just really about to distribute it properly to the right intervention. And food is of course something that's really close to my heart because it touches on climate change, it touches on women. When we unlock potentials on women, we can definitely feed 100% of the world healthy and more nutritious. And the biggest policy that we're working now is really pushing and changing the narrative that it's not only about food security.
We need to talk right now about food and nutrition security. As I am a nutrition ambassador of the UN, it's really about food is not enough. We really need to require and demand for nutritious foods because for the last 50 to 70 years, there's so much drop in the quality of our food. There's so much drop in the nutrients of our food because we bastardize and we really destroy our nature, our forests, our soil, and our water that are the best sources of how nutritious food could be achieved. So those are the big policies that we're pushing on. And another one is on a country level. I'm always telling in the UN, every time we have meeting or a gathering, it's so good to push policy on a global level. It's so good to really release big statements, but the fight is on the ground. How do encourage that all of these things that we discuss on top level are actually actualized on a country level intervention?
How can we inspire the local leaders in every government, in every country part of the UN to have a buy-in that the better develop their food and nutrition security plan as a country and the better say that, hey, the problem in food is not only a problem of the Department of Agriculture or it's also a problem of health. It's a problem of environment. It's a problem of energy because food is a biggest consumer of energy. It's a problem of labor and employment. It's a problem of social welfare. So making sure that we're breaking a silo that before food it's just like, okay, give it to the Department of Agriculture, this all the food security. But now with food and nutrition security, we need to work together because our food is challenged with climate change and now it's challenged by these four Fs, the food, fuel, fertilizer, and finance. That's a global crisis that we all share and experience.

Andrew White:
I mean, what you're saying, I can see where the challenge is, but finding the solutions across a complex ecosystem of companies and people is hard. Do you see certain individuals standing out as those who are really able to bring about change? And if so, what are they doing? What skills do they have to bring about change at that level? Yeah, what skills does it take to bring about change at the level of such big ecosystems?

Cherrie Atilano:
For me, there are two individuals that are actually inspiring me. One is Paul Polman who's really, of course the former CEO of Unilever, who really rallied the private sector that we really need to put sustainability in the process of our business, doing business that is business as usual. Working on the bottom line of money is not enough, but really how do we bring externalities, the factors of our impact socially, the factors of our impact environmentally. So I guess he's really a person for me that I admire the most on how now private sector are really signing up the nature positive by 2030 and signing up on how we better our leadership to not only make more money and more money, but how to distribute money considering externalities around us.
Another one is Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of Nestle, I'm always into women empowerment and she's like showed us the way on how to get there, high up there, balancing the act of being a wife, a mother, a corporate person, but also reminding a lot of women that we have a space and we have a chance to actually have a microphone and speak up. So those are the two leaders that I really admire the most in terms of especially the private sector movement and the women empowerment movement that we have. And these two are actually touching on the agriculture sector. For example, Unilever and even PepsiCo, of course you see all their product out there, consumer brands, but actually they are forcing on how to really check the entire value chain going up last mile to the farmers on how we affect change. Of course it's not easy until now, the solution and it's not there. But it actually challenged everyone across the supply chain, across the value chain to check every points of intervention if we affect change in the process.

Andrew White:
It's interesting that the two people you mentioned both come from business, and my next question was going to be about what kind of leadership do you think we're going to need to see more of over the next 10 years or even 20 years? And I guess I can half answer it because what you've said concurs with what's really come through in previous episodes of this podcast, is that a lot of the change is coming from business. There is an awakening to what business could be and what it could be is not what it's been in the past, that it can actually be a force for change, not just internally in terms of how it operates, but in terms of, as you said, how it brings the externalities in and how it thinks about its role in the world and the impact that it has.

Cherrie Atilano:
Yes, because for the longest time we always see business like the bad guys, but now with one decision of a leader in a business, it really creates change in the entire supply chain. It also pushed so much policies in the government side. And for me, your next question about what kind of leaders we want to have is if the business sector now or the private sector are actually putting so much resources on making change in all the courses that we do is really challenging the government in how they match it in terms of policies.
How they you match it in terms of intervention of the ground. Because no matter how much the private sector will do, if the local leaders, if the country leaders and government leaders will not put a match into it or even go beyond to it and be a leader that is more compassionate, more inclusive, and really seeing through that they're there for service, not to be served, right? They're there because it's a public service, they need to provide public service and it's because the public will serve them. So shifting that mindset of a lot of our politicians need to happen.

Andrew White:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you. I think the more I observe the world, the more I see in many ways there's a group of business leaders who are more outward looking, understand the system, understand how to make change more than a lot of government leaders do. And in many ways the governments are lacking, which is curious because it's meant to be the other way around. The government set the policy and the businesses respond to it.

Cherrie Atilano:
Because right now-

Andrew White:
It's super interesting what you're saying ... Sorry, you were going to say something else.

Cherrie Atilano:
[inaudible 00:30:09]. You work a lot with food and nutrition security, you really see that most of the leaders here who are providing intervention, pushing for policies are the private sector. And now the government is really lagging behind on supporting this, creating policies, but at the same time also supporting in terms of budget and resources, in terms of allocation. So this is a kind of mindset that I'm really looking for the future leaders. Sometimes I'm actually having this bubble in my head, what if a CEO will run a country, not just a typical grown up from a ladder of political experience, but what if a private sector, a CEO [inaudible 00:30:49] would run a country and be politicians? So there's always like, how is it going to happen? How the risk would be mitigated, but at the same time, what kind of innovations coming from fresh mindset of leading a country?
So I'm also fascinated with that. But at the same time, Andrew, I really admire a lot of people. I couldn't name names because there's so much that I admire in the civil society organizations that I work with, amazing, amazing people. For me, these are the daily leaders. They may not have big, big names, but they really disrupt the system, if not because of their voice, if not because of their activism out there. If not because of really raising the issues with bold courage, strength, and braveness, some of the issues will never even progress. So I really admire those people in the activism side and how they activate the problems and issues in a more positive light. But also a lot of them are really working and showing the way on how it can be done and the business and private sector could work hand in hand with them.

Andrew White:
This is all super interesting. Cherrie, thank you so much. We're coming towards the end of our time together and I want to end with you like I've ended with everybody else. And I've got seven questions, which are just meant to be quickfire and end the whole podcast in the same way. So the first one is, which leader from history inspires you most?

Cherrie Atilano:
Mahatma Gandhi.

Andrew White:
Very good. And then what leader from today inspires you most?

Cherrie Atilano:
For me, Paul Polman.

Andrew White:
And then what book has made the most impact on your leadership?

Cherrie Atilano:
Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Andrew White:
And what characteristic do you look most for in those that you promote?

Cherrie Atilano:
Compassion, of course, sans ego, and authenticity is very important for me and determination to make it happen. Lastly, is hope. Hope. A leader that could provide hope.

Andrew White:
And when you look at the younger generation of employees that are coming through, the people who are leaving school and leaving university and coming into the workforce, what are you most inspired by when you look at them?

Cherrie Atilano:
I'm inspired by their sense of speaking up and not tolerating that this is not working. They always just pick up their mind and really do what they want to do. And hopefully the sense of entitlement of younger people, because everything seems accessible to them, will be put more to good use.

Andrew White:
And then you used the word hope. What makes you hopeful about the future?

Cherrie Atilano:
Well, it's doomsday coming. What makes me hopeful? I think as long as we're alive, we can create change in every way possible where we are. And we always survive no matter how difficult situations will be. And that's what makes me hopeful. And what makes me hopeful is now with all these challenges, and they're saying like doomsday's coming, is how do we give hope to other people when there's no hope? How do we have a sense of not only existing, but really living and sharing positivism to every single out there? And for me, it's just now showing kindness that would provide hope to people.

Andrew White:
And then finally, it can't be easy doing what you're doing. Where do you go for inspiration and renewal? Where do you go to find a place of calm or to find new energy?

Cherrie Atilano:
Oh, I'm so lucky. I live on a farm and on the beach. For me, nature is such a big refuge and a source of recharge all the time. And another one, actually, every time I'm in most difficult situation, of course I love meditation and exercising, but it's really going to the farmers, Andrew. Every time I'm in difficult situation, I always go to the farmers, just have a coffee and sit there under a tree and just listen to them and getting plans from them, getting dreams from them and getting source of inspiration and hope from them. So the simplest thing, the simplest conversation, and the simplest interaction is my source of inspiration. And okay, we need to move forward because this person behind me is like a bigger problem than me.

Andrew White:
My thanks to Cherrie Atilano. My name is Andrew White and you've been listening to Leadership 2050, a podcast from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. Don't forget, you can find all our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And please do take a moment to rate us and review us. If you'd like to hear more from Saïd Business School exploring leadership and how the business world is re-imagining the future, please visit Oxfordanswers.org. Leadership 2050 is produced by Eve Streeter, original music is by Si Begg. Our executive producer is David McGuire for Stabl Productions. In the next episode, I'll be talking to Peter Flavel, the CEO of the private bank Coutts. Until then, take care, and many thanks for listening.