Building Inclusivity into Business – Lessons from the World of Sport

Earlier this year I wrote an opinion piece about how business leaders can take lessons from elite sport to help their decision-making, performance and management. I explained how I personally have absorbed a number of key principles from my own amateur training as well as exposure to some of the world’s elite athletes through my involvement in some of Central Asia’s major sporting events and organizations. 

In particular, my charitable fund, the Courage to be First Foundation, puts on the Almaty Marathon each year in Kazakhstan, which has grown to become one of Central Asia’s largest sports events, attracting some of the region’s top marathoners, and I’m helped in this endeavour by having some of Kazakhstan’s great athletes on the Board of the Marathon, including cycling legend Alexander Vinokurov.

The lessons that sport have to offer, however, go far beyond elite athletics and high-level training. The reason I and my co-founders decided to launch a charitable fund dedicated to sport and to put on mass participatory sporting events was to showcase the benefits of sport to a much wider audience than previously had access in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and this purpose is central to our activities to this day. 

You can read more in Global Banking and Finance Review.

More recognition of Jusan Bank’s ESG progress

Recently, Jusan Bank received another award for its latest Sustainability Report. KASE, the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, commended Jusan Bank for the report, as part of an its annual reporting contest, an exercise assessing financial and non-financial reporting from a range of Kazakh companies. This comes after PwC Kazakhstan listed Jusan Bank’s report as the strongest of all sustainability reports by financial institutions in Kazakhstan in December last year.

ESG and sustainability has been a big focus for Jusan Bank in recent years and I’m pleased to share further recognition of our progress in this area.

You can read more in the press release here.

The Lessons Elite Sport Holds for Business

Sport and business have a long history together, whether that’s quite directly related to the business of sports, like broadcasting rights and sponsorships, to businessmen taking their career winnings and buying their favourite local soccer club, or to retired athletes like David Beckham monetising their careers and profiles.

There’s another way that I have found sport and business to be intertwined and that’s the lessons that participating in sports teaches, that have applications in a person’s career. I wrote more about this in Finance Digest - check out the full article for more.

The 2024 Almaty Winter Run

25 February saw the 2024 Winter Run in Almaty, Kazakhstan take place. It’s organised by the Almaty Marathon, which I co-founded in 2012, and has become the traditional season opener for the Central Asian running season. The Winter Run caters for all abilities from kids and beginners to national champion level racers, with a kids race, a Nordic walk and a 10km run. You can read about 2024’s edition here.

Jusan Bank tops Kazakh financial services sector for ESG reporting

In December 2023, PwC Kazakhstan commended Jusan Bank as the top-ranking financial services company in Kazakhstan for ESG disclosures in 2023, and the 13th overall company in Kazakhstan. We have focused on reducing our own emissions as well as reducing our portfolio exposure to high-emission enterprises.

There’s an increasing focus on ESG and sustainable business in Kazakhstan and I’m proud that Jusan Bank is helping drive the agenda in the financial services sector.

We’ll shortly be adopting a 2024 climate strategy, which I’ll share more details on in due course.

In the meantime, you can download and read Jusan Bank’s latest Sustainability Report here.

10 years of the Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation

2023 marked a decade since we set up the Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation to develop Kazakhstan’s intellectual potential. It’s a milestone I’m hugely proud to have reached, during which time the Foundation helped more than 27,000 young Kazakh scientists through over 50 projects.

Particular highlights have been our Scientific Internships program, in which we sponsor and support Kazakh scientists to undertake research and internships in some of the world’s leading scientific research institutes, including in the USA, and our successful English language programs.

Foundation Executive Director Aiganym Malisheva and I sat down with our colleagues from the Foundation for a conversation about the decade we’ve had, and our priorities looking to the future, which you can read here.