Adrian Appo OAM On Key Learnings From Aboriginal People In Business & Creating Social Outcomes

Adrian Appo is a Gooreng Gooreng man from South East Queensland, Australia. Adrian joined a Philanthropic Trust in July 2020 as the First Nations Lead to develop and implement a First Nation investment strategy and a 10 year spend down strategy.

Adrian is often referred to as a social entrepreneur with extensive experience in both the First Nations space and establishing ‘green field’ start ups. This has included founding Chief Executive Officer of Ganbina (a highly successful Indigenous school-to-work transition program empowering Indigenous communities to achieve true social and economic equality); founding Co-Chair of First Australians Capital (established to provide development and capital to Indigenous social enterprises); founding Board member Children’s Ground and founding Board member Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE).

His current directorships include The Salvation Army Australian Territory Board and Audit & Risk sub-committee, Impact Investing Australia Advisory Board, Equity Trustees Indigenous Advisory Committee, BP Australia Indigenous Advisory Committee.

Adrian served in the Royal Australian Air Force and is a graduate of the University of Sydney, Melbourne Business School, Harvard University and the Fairley Leadership and Williamson Leadership Programs.

He has been awarded the Defence Service Medal, Centenary Medal and Order of Australia Medal.

Adrian discusses the evolution of indigenous founded social enterprises, obstacles inherent to the sector, and incorporating an effective social agenda into your business.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Adrian, you were served an OAM back in 2011 for services to Indigenous youth. In 2014, you were one of the inaugural AMP Tomorrow Makers award recipients, amongst many other awards. Could you please share a little bit about your background and what led to your passion in social enterprise and providing strong support for First Nations people?

[Adrian Appo] - I'm a Gooreng Gooreng man from South-East Queensland. I kind of grew up in fairly humble circumstances as a country boy. As I had progressed in my career [and I think by this time I was serving with the Royal Australian Air Force] I was actually looking at my life and how my career was progressing, and it was going really well.

But I just had one of those moments when I was sitting down and reflecting, and I was actually in the lounge room talking to my wife who is non-Indigenous, and I actually said, "I think I owe more to the Aboriginal community than just being successful."

To my amazement, she actually said, "yes, I think you do." Then I started to think about how I could actually influence others and help them on their journeys. Hence, I moved away from focusing on my own career pathway and started to look at how could I actually empower others, especially Aboriginal youth at that stage to actually find career pathways.

It's been an incredible journey, Adrian, and some amazing achievements there. You were one of the Co-Founders of First Australians Capital, which I mentioned earlier, and you're also the Founding CEO of Ganbina, and both of those organisations have supported hundreds of Indigenous Australians. You now work for this anonymous trust that continues to support this area of development. Can you please share a little bit more about this current line of work that you're involved with, and the projects that you work in?

Certainly. I have to say Tom that the way I have actually directed things I've been involved in is really looking at how can we make systemic change, by being involved in programs, organisations, and influences that make sustainable change for impact. It's one of the things that actually drew me to my current line of work to be working for a foundation. The foundation that I'm actually working for is quite sizeable. It's strange that it's anonymous, which also appeals to me because it's the humbleness of the foundation founder and the organisation itself.

It's not about us, it's about the change that we can make. For me it was, "how can I step into this space and do an absolutely great job for the organisation," but also, "how can I step into this space, and actually influence philanthropy generally with working better in the First Nation space?"

That's a great mission to have there, and I'm sure you've taken a lot of learnings from that, Adrian.

How are Indigenous businesses unique in the way that they operate, and what differentiates them from social enterprises and mainstream traditional businesses?

That's a beautiful question, because one of the things that we tend to do is actually separate business, and normally when we're referring to businesses we're talking about the private sector, a company where investors are actually getting a return or a small to medium business where the owner is actually getting a return. This is opposed to a social enterprise where it's about the community getting a return.

The interesting thing is that in the Aboriginal spaces that I've found and that I've worked with through First Australians Capital, from a sector perspective, there is very little delineation between the outcomes derived by private business in the Aboriginal sector, or the more traditional social sector business.

Explaining that, what we've found is whether it's social sector business, or whether it's a private sector business, the majority of Aboriginals in each of those spaces actually has a social agenda. They're either looking at creating more employment, they're looking at looking at preserving culture, or they're looking at caring for the environment and the land. When you actually look at that, there's very little delineation, and we started tracking this and what we found was 95% or more of Aboriginal businesses actually had this agenda.

I'm calling from Turrbal and Jagera land here in Brisbane today. If we're to look at the 60,000+ years that our Indigenous Australians have sustained the land, and how you've talked to me about how they integrate that sustainable element of providing support for community within their businesses, it just makes complete sense and aligns with that.

Adrian, where do you see ongoing opportunities then to support First Nations people to thrive in business and help close the horrendous gap that exists?

I think in the first instance Tom, we have to recognise, "why have our financial services and frameworks and our economic structures excluded Aboriginal people from enterprise and business?"

When we look at this, what we actually see is that there's two primary things, [the first being] the involvement in business and therefore the early business development, but then also access to capital, especially in that early stage start-up.

That's not different than most other people when we look at the social enterprise space, as there'll be a lot of social enterprises and businesses saying, "we have exactly that same difficulty". But unfortunately, it's magnified in the Aboriginal space.

That makes sense. What are your observations then of that broader social business sector across Australia, and what needs to be done to grow this movement in general?

I think the broader social sector movement in growing needs to take some of the lead from the Aboriginal sector. It's about having a broader view of what is a social outcome. In many cases in the social sector, to get established and started, social enterprises are looking for funding, which is normally providing, "what is your social outcome?"

More specifically we fall into the trap, especially in Australia, with that social outcome in regard to employment. It's about employment, employment and more employment. What we actually know is that there are far greater social outcomes to be derived. There is the climate, environment, land, water, sea management, culture.

There's a whole range of social parameters that we can actually attach to a social enterprise.

I think that if there is learning and there is an opportunity, it's to look at the Aboriginal space.

Great point there, Adrian. What's one piece of advice then that you'd be giving to an early stage social entrepreneur or someone who quite simply has an idea and is keen to get out there and create some impact with it?

There's no definitive answer, that's one thing. There's no one definitive piece of advice that's actually going to make you successful. But if I was to apply my own learnings, and I'd have to hold up my hand and admit that I've been remarkably successful in the things that I've been involved in. If I was to look at why those successes have come, the advice that I would give to other people and even to a younger me, it would be if you really believe something, consolidate that in your thinking. Because at some stage, you're going to have to explain what you're trying to achieve and bring others along on the journey.

Consolidate that belief in your heart, because that is going to have to sustain you in the ups and downs of your journey, and there will be downs. Ultimately, if you really believe it, just get out there and do it, and don't let other people tell you what you can and can't do.

That's a great piece of advice that Adrian. In many ways, I'm sure you've learnt that on your own journey, right?

Definitely!

You've had the benefit of working with many different social enterprises over the years in different projects. I'm keen to hear what inspiring projects or initiatives you've come across recently, which are creating really great positive social change.

There's a couple. Obviously, First Australians Capital, which I was a part of founding, and this is that thing about you've really got to believe in something. Now that it's into its fourth year, I'm actually seeing what it's doing with Indigenous businesses and Indigenous enterprises and how it's actually changing the future for Aboriginal people.

I've always been a very big advocate of not saying it's Aboriginal business, it's Aboriginal people in business, and this is very much the opportunity that First Australians Capital is actually moving forward.

The sorts of things that they're actually releasing into the Aboriginal business space are things like a young Aboriginal farmer, that's actually producing A2 milk, and it's kind of the premium milk that you can get out there, or even Aboriginal people who are actually launching tech platforms.

We are moving well away from what we normally perceive as traditional Aboriginal business, as that can be wrong. Eco tourism, the arts, and all that sort of stuff is really great, but we shouldn't be confined to that.

That's been hugely exciting, just to see what they're doing generally. There's the guys around the Firesticks Alliance, who have introduced the cool burning practices, which as you may or may not know is a cultural burning and is a 60,000-year-old practice. It's now finding applications in our environment, in terms of both restoring a cultural practice, but also through the cool burnings we are limiting the damage that hot burns cause. We know the evidence of that through just that December-January period of last year, and I think we're now starting to ramp up the concerns for what will happen towards the end of this year.

Absolutely. That's hugely relevant, and it just shows how well that Indigenous knowledge can be applied, in this case to really mitigate the risk of severe bush fires. There’s so many cultural learnings there too.

I'll just add in there, Tom, as I've kind of stepped more in and looked into the space, there's also the application of regenerative farming. The more I dug into that, the more I realised how much I didn't know, and one of the things that I've seen as the benefits of regenerative farming is that even if we were to go carbon zero right now, we still have got carbon locked in the atmosphere.

It's only through the process of drawing down that carbon into plants that we can actually release the carbon that's actually already up there. Regenerative farming is one of those processes that can actually do that, and I just thought that that was amazing. Maybe this is the next frontier.

I've got to say, related to that Indigenous space, I certainly learnt a lot from Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu book, which really unveiled that deep Indigenous knowledge in agriculture and farming. That was a big read for me, have you come across that?

Certainly! I've not been directly involved with Bruce and Dark Emu, but certainly with Black Duck Foods, which is his enterprise that's exploring re-introducing native growing practices around grains. Replacing the high-water water usage that would be needed for wheats and the likes through planting native grasses, which are obviously more conducive to the Australian environment and rainfall. I think these are the new opportunities that are being released into the space now, recognising that there is so much value not just in terms of Aboriginal people for their arts and dance, which was kind of where it was normally confined.

There's this whole lot of exploration and extensions of what Aboriginals have been doing for thousands of years, that have got applications right now. The other side of it is farming and burning practices that are actually beneficial and not damaging to the environment.

Great points there, Adrian. To finish off then, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

Actually, there's a couple of books that I've come across. I'm a fairly avid reader, but there's a couple of books that I actually came across which I thought were very pertinent if you want to actually step into the space and learn from others. I'm 57 now, and I'm still learning, and I don't think I'll ever stop learning. One book I'd recommend is a book called The Power of Unreasonable People. It was actually written by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan, and it talks about how social entrepreneurs can create markets and change the world, and I think that's exactly what we're talking about. But you have to be cautious with power, and I'd actually recommend another book which I found fascinating, and it's called Finishing First With Ethics, by Fiona Ritchie. I think you need to have those balances. It's okay to have the power and the drive to do things and make change.