21. Leave a Legacy

A slightly different blog this time. I’m very fortunate to have had the opportunities that I have had, to travel and to experience financial services in over 25 countries. During the last thirty years I’ve met visionaries, talented and gifted people. These people have followed their convictions with passion and dedication. They have and they will leave a legacy.

Professor Yunus: The Nobel Prize winning leader of Grameen Bank, popularising microfinance with a mission around the world.

Fasle Abed: A contemporary of Professor Yunus, but the leader of Brac, the World’s largest NGO, providing finance, education, healthcare, enterprise development, and the founder of more than a dozen highly successful commercial enterprises, impacting positively on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Brac is committed to economic as well as social innovation and has programmes working with the very poor across Asia and Africa.

James Mwangi: The Group Managing Director of Equity Bank, from whom I’ve learned hugely. Equity Bank is growing to become one of the biggest and most successful banks in Africa based around banking the majority. Its foundation has provided a wide range of transformative services reaching millions.

Stuart Rutherford: One of the most insightful, mild mannered, but passionate and driven people I know. Much of my thinking around financial services comes from time spent with Stuart whilst I was in Bangladesh and learning from “The Poor and Their Money.”

Graham A.N. Wright: I worked with Graham for many years, his passion for the power of the market led approach influenced all we did in MicroSave. The impact of the capacity, the people that have been built on understanding how and why financial services work is difficult to measure. 

Michael Joseph: Without doubt, Michael has been one of the critical success factors for M-Pesa, and therefore, the success of mobile money around the world.  In this journey he was facilitated by the foresight of Njuguna Ndung’u, then the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya and an incredible implementation team.

Alan Gibson and David Ferrand: For translating the making markets approach into the financial sector deepening programmes which have been a quiet influence on financial sector development across the continent.       

There are so many gifted people, and I’ve only spared a few words for this small number. These are some of the people who knowingly and unknowingly have influenced the work that I do, that have put passion into my endeavours. Those to whom I owe a debt of gratitude that can’t be measured.

But the point is – that many of us, certainly those who can, should seek not only a financial reward, a comfortable retirement perhaps, but we need to leave the world a better place at least as far as our efforts are concerned.

To leave a legacy is not normally a conscious decision, so how do we do this?

a.       It is in the institutions you build:

b.       It is in the people you build:

c.       It is in the capacity that you develop:

d.       It is in the changes you inspire:

e.       It is in the people you inspire:

f.        It is in the mentoring that you provide:

It is in what we give back.

It is hard to measure your legacy or impact, you are too close to yourself after all. But there will be moments in time when you feel that you have a legacy. This could be when a team comes together to support a team member, it could be when you are lauded for work you completed years ago, it could be when you receive recognition from your peers.  It could simply be recognition from the people who matter to you.

Be mindful of the legacy you want to leave behind and work towards it, selflessly, for it is not for yourself you leave a legacy, it is so that you have given your life a purpose, and you can look back and say – “I did good”. 

The challenge for all of us is “what can I do to leave a legacy? How can I be a positive influence on the lives of people? How can I follow in servant leadership?”

If this reflection speaks to you… speak to me so that we can inspire change, together. 

David Cracknell 

Additional reflections in this series can be downloaded from www.firstprinciplesinfinance.com