David Zilberman (Beahrs ELP Co-Founder) and Mio Katayama Owens (Beahrs ELP Director)
We lost a dear friend and supporter, Lisa Dreier, who passed peacefully on November 11 after a courageous battle with breast cancer. She was 57.
Lisa was an intellectual entrepreneur and a leading thinker. She was a friend of the Beahrs ELP from its inception. After traveling throughout Latin America and South Asia as a young person and working at the Environmental Defense Fund, she attended the Goldman School of Public Policy. Then she encouraged Professors de Janvry, Sadoulet, me, and others to start a policy program targeting developing countries. Her enthusiasm and clear thinking convinced me there is a market for programs like the Beahrs ELP and, later, a master’s program like the Master of Development Program (MDP), which would develop in the Rausser College and is now in the Goldman School of Public Policy.
After graduation, Lisa managed the Hunger Task Force of the United Nations Millennium Project. Dick Beahrs was a member of the Task Force, as well as Dr. Pedro Sanchez, who was a major contributor to the Beahrs ELP. They admired Lisa, and we continuously looked for opportunities to integrate her into our program. We enjoyed meeting her and learned much from her about being a development practitioner. While many of us in academia are pursuing grand ideas and strategies, Lisa emphasized the importance of practical opportunism and the ability to build multidisciplinary networks of collaborators to achieve one task at a time. Speaking with us, she always stressed the importance of understanding and knowledge of reality essential for producing new ideas for change. It’s not enough to develop ideas and have the knowledge you need to sell them to multiple parties. This insight contributed to communication in the MDP.
Lisa was also pragmatic. She realized that development needs to be based on collaboration between the public and private sectors and between developed and developing countries. She established the Food Security and Agricultural Initiative in the World Economic Forum, managing it for 12 years between 2005 – 2018. Her efforts led to bringing the challenges of global development and poverty to business leaders, and she mobilized resources to develop global teams to address major challenges. Her initiatives and leadership have facilitated significant investment and collaborative efforts to enhance food security and poverty alleviation across the world.
During the last four years, Lisa provided outstanding and highly appreciated modules on Systems Leadership to the Beahrs ELP. Lisa developed this approach to generate collective action, channeling the energy and activities of multiple stakeholders to solve common problems. This system is built on empowering the individual, understanding the interests of different groups, and analyzing and understanding the dynamics of the systems integrating these groups and their evolution over time. The Systems Leadership approach is ideal for emerging leaders such as Beahrs ELP participants, who need to identify strategies for effective collaboration. Unsurprisingly, Lisa’s teaching has received strong and supportive feedback.
Lisa Dreier, pictured top left, during a virtual session of the 2021 Beahrs ELP.
Dick Beahrs, who has known her through the UN Hunger Task Force and the Beahrs ELP, considered the Systems Leadership to be one of the most essential and invaluable skills: “Lisa was not only brilliant, but she also knew how to build a consensus and build collaboration when addressing seemingly intractable problems.”
An African proverb noted that "when an elder dies, it is like a great library burning to the ground." Tragically, Lisa passed away in the prime of life, but that same admonition applies to all that she taught us. We all have a responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure that her iconic insights on the benefits of Systems Leadership are expanded and carried forward. Lisa’s multi-stakeholder approach will continue to be one of the collaborative leadership elements of the ELP.
The Beahrs ELP family mourns the loss of Lisa, and we will treasure her memory and continue to pursue her ideas and methods.