As I pen this piece, I am preparing for my first Annual General Meeting as Group CEO under a new Chairman of the Board. I hand over the baton and welcome Mr Edmond Brincat as Group Chairman. Together we shall Link the Boards and the Executive team. I shall call this 'The Link'.
It has been ten years since I was approached to Chair and lead the Group into a transformation mode towards a company and business model that is built to endure, that is future-ready and that remains an investment of choice for our owners and their heirs.
The first initiatives centred around 'Governance'. This was way ahead of the current trends towards what is coined the ESG obligation of corporations. It would have been easier today than back then, to introduce and give a true meaning to the word which is widely used but also abused generally.
Businesses are as good as their people. People can be great assets but can simply walk out into a sunset never to return at sunrise. Family businesses worldwide seldom survive beyond the third generation principally because of ownership wrestling with leadership and stewardship.
Businesses can be built to endure the future by attracting and retaining the best talent in the best interest of the owners. That was the Genesis of my journey with the Group. Governance.
Today, I confidently and proudly say that the executive management and the 270 people in our folds here in Malta, in our Italian setup and those driving trucks on the continent, are all among the best around. All are fantastic colleagues and friends. Together we have built a respected leader both in logistics, and the business community.
So, as I said, today there is a strong move in the corporate world towards ESG. E stands for Environmental obligations. S stands for Societal obligations. G stands for good Governance. Even if this has been coined in recent years, the vision I had for the Group was, since those earlier years, already based on these principles. I used the acronym PPP, standing for Profits while respecting People and protecting the Planet. No business can thrive on a dead planet! Same principles as the now more explicit ESG.
Incidentally a few days ago, a post spread virally on the social media. It was a prose of praise towards one of our drivers who stuck behind this cyclist for a stretch of road, keeping the distance and only overtaking when it was safe to do so. We are trained to do this. But this athlete was super impressed.
This is a conscious behaviour that resonates with the Orange culture. This was one of the initiatives we worked on incessantly and untiringly. Just one small example of how we contribute to our Societal obligations. I can go on with how we do things around here – equality, inclusion, promoting well-being through healthy road-sport, among so many more.
I will soon announce an initiative that should help mitigate further our environmental deficit through fuel emissions, for which we feel helpless until truck manufacturers innovate further into environmentally friendly hardware. But till then, we have invested heavily in solar panels. The next move will be even more altruistic.
This is The Express Link…
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Accounts Clerk
EXPRESS TRAILERS SIGNS MOU WITH MALTA'S CUSTOMS