NOLEEN MARIAPPEN

NM: Thank you Lady Anita, it is a privilege and an honour, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

NM: Some lyrics come to mind… ‘I’m just a small town girl…’ at least I was, and I guess a lot of what people associate with being small-town values are ones that I hold dear. I would probably be summed as having global experience and vision with small-town values. My background is one in organizational psychology, and that start my career saw me working with a number of projects and businesses to facilitate improved systems, processes, growth, profitability and more. I learned early on that ‘getting’ the complexities and nuances of business comes quite naturally to me, so I put my skills and abilities to the test, and began my entrepreneurial journey. It’s one that I’m still on, and alongside being a founder and shareholder in companies across industries internationally, I also consult with private, public and nonprofits particularly in the areas of strategy, growth and impact.

NM:

So much has changed with regard to what is considered important, or essential, so much has changed about the ways that we interact, and indeed the ways that we do business. What I would warn against is somehow getting caught up in a wave of feeling that everything needs to change, that it all needs to be new, that we have to wipe clean the slate of the old because we assume that only the new is relevant to deal with new or different contexts or challenges. I would say, that the measures that we need to be taking to stay relevant are:

• re-assess what you’re able to offer the world, and what’s important for the market, and find that sweet spot where these overlap

• foster creativity and innovation to work not just on new solutions, but to apply the old, in ways that are relevant for the new

• develop and practice critical thinking skills to assess and vet what you’re exposed to

• work toward being able to see the smaller details and their impact on the bigger picture, and fostering a growth mindset

• consistently make an effort to learn about and understand the people, motivations, and drivers in new markets

• build a professional presence that is true to you, and that is credible and relatable

• build effective partnerships with those who are aligned with your goals and can help amplify impact

NM: Everyone can contribute to the UN SD goals and toward making the world a better place, and key to this is simply having the willingness to do so. There are so many people out there making a difference every day, either of their own volition or as part of an organization, and the main difference is that in some instances the activity is coordinated and/or recorded, and in others it is not. I would say do whatever you can, and if you have the ability to work with an organization that works toward strategically achieving any of the goals that you feel strongly about, then find a way to. This will allow for your efforts and resources to go much further and increase the chances of sustainable impact. Being a contributor is amazing, but where it is possible to have an increased and perhaps longer-term impact by working collaboratively and strategically, then this is what we should aim for. Working in this way, the same amount of effort goes much further!

NM: There are two apps that we are launching which are projects of the social enterprise and that will support nonprofit partners globally so we encourage everyone to check it out and help support some good causes. The first is Success in 4. This app is based on science, but strips the methods down to help users build habits for success in 4 simple steps in under 4 minutes a day. The other is SaferWAYS, an app that aims to collaboratively offer access to support, resources and reporting for those in unsafe situations or anyone affected by crime directly or indirectly.

NM: We need to be working collaboratively, not just to develop shared goals, policies and directives- but to start taking coordinated strategic action to achieve more together. Think tanks and monitoring panels are great, but these need to operate alongside action groups and with a level of accountability to ensures that there is a certain degree of correlation and agreed proportionality between the efforts undertaken and measurable, sustained impact over a period of time.

NM:

Bold by Peter Diamandis Start With Why by Simon Sinek

NM: I could say that I would work toward pleasing others less in my early years and be more confident about what I wanted to do, but honestly, I feel like those behaviours were all a necessary part of my learning… It helped me to discover what I did and didn’t want, and to discover what motivates me. On a slightly different tangent, after the last year that we’ve had with the world in lockdown, one thing I absolutely would have wanted to do more is to see people more often and travel more. I have missed that!

NM:

NM: Thank YOU!

NM: https://www.linkedin.com/ in/noleenm/noleenm.com saffaglobal.com inspirationforgood.com successin4.com saferways.com