Occupation:
Digital sustainability expert
Interviewer:
Kirsty de Garis
Location:
Montreal, Canada
Date:
January 2023
For an issue that explores the theme of hopeful leadership, Eliane Ubalijoro was recommended to me by a trusted friend whose worldview and broad education I value immensely. “She will blow your mind,” my friend told me.
Eliane gives herself whole-heartedly to empathic leadership. In her multi-dimensional career she works with smallholder farmers in Africa as well as technologists and world leaders, to envisage a better planet for us to share for generations to come. Eliane works at the intersection of human capital, social capital and natural capital, understanding each from a granular, practical perspective as well as a philosophical approach. She embodies the future of leadership as a unity of head, heart and hands.
One of the many things I love about this conversation with Eliane is her openness to learning, continually challenging herself to look inward for a deeper understanding of her own responses as well as those who she works with, to work towards increasingly positive results for people and planet. Perhaps this commitment to lifelong learning and adaptability is the organic answer to what a thriving 21st-century leader must do: park the ego at the door, listen actively, and move into the big questions with curiosity and vulnerability in equal measure.
In May of this year, Eliane will relocate to Nairobi, Kenya, to take up the role of CEO at CIFOR-ICRAF: a global agroforestry research institute that seeks solutions to transform the way land and renewable resources are used to produce food for a world with a growing population. Eliane leans into the unknown with characteristic enthusiasm: she gives herself warmly to the moment, and invites familiarity and discomfort into her every day.
KIRSTY DE GARIS: You’re a woman in leadership in many different sectors and there are so many strings to your professional bow. It would be wonderful to begin with your background and where your interests intersect,
