Bamidele Ali
Bamidele Ali is a strategic and growth-focused leader who focuses on growth, partnerships, investments, and strategic opportunities. As VP of Corporate Development at Origin Materials, he maintains financial discipline and builds partnerships around shared objectives. Ali believes sustainable growth depends on identifying opportunities, understanding risk and allocating resources thoughtfully.
Understanding What the Market Wants
The first thing I have learned is that you have to make sure you have something for the market. Always listening to what the market is telling us about what it needs, how much it needs, where it needs it, and the way it needs to be presented goes a long way in ensuring success.
From a partnership standpoint, I ask whether we can create a win-win for both parties. Both sides need to have the same beliefs about the product, the market and how to approach it. If you do not do that well, relationships can be disastrous.
Communication is equally important. When a strategy or approach changes, both parties need to communicate those changes as they happen. I am big on communication and on doing an autopsy of each other's motivations from the beginning and throughout the process.
Balancing the Short- and Long-Term
When assessing investments, it starts with understanding your buy box or strike zone. Do the things today that fit your current strike zone and keep you healthy, while making right-sized investments toward the long-term strategic goal.
Strategic vision comes from the top, and people have to really buy into it. If you can get those things done well, discipline and innovation do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Reading the Forces Reshaping Sustainable Materials
In sustainable materials, three primary factors drive the market: policy, global supply chains and consumer awareness.
Consumer awareness influences sustainability, along with consumers' willingness to pay for sustainable products. Global supply chains can be disrupted, changing the focus either toward or away from sustainability in certain regions.
Always listening to what the market is telling us about what it needs, how much it needs, where it needs it, and the way it needs to be presented goes a long way in ensuring success.
Wars, trade disputes and economic cycles are also shaping day-to-day purchases.
Making Risk Measurable
At the end of the day, risk comes back to cash flow. What does an opportunity do for our near-term and long-term cash flow? Is it a risk we can take without destroying the business if it goes wrong, or is it a risk where we need to bet everything?
Reputation and credibility are also important. You have to factor all those things into your scorecard. It is about being disciplined and putting a value on the risk-taking you are willing to quantify. The whole organization needs to understand that boundary.
Building the Right Skills
For professionals building a career in corporate development and strategic growth, find something you love, but more importantly, be strategic about the path to where you’re going- think it through, plot your course but be willing to adjust when compelled.
Have a plan for the skill sets you need to develop. I had a boss a long time ago who said, “Develop a skill wheel.” Put a score on every potential function within the business and score yourself from one to 10.
Build skills where you are weakest, whether it is supply chain, finance, operations or product development. Use it to strengthen your position and understanding of growth and leadership.
Staying Ahead of Change
There are macro and micro trends we all have to pay attention to. AI is one of the biggest. Its proliferation across materials, automotive, consumer and other sectors creates an opportunity to use it for real-time data analysis, predictive modeling, operational efficiencies and much more.
Looking at data and watching the rates of change is critical for staying ahead. Now you can do that faster than ever with AI, and if you do not take advantage of it, you are falling behind.
Consumer sensitivities also deserve attention, such as a sustainability focus that varies by region and economic cycle. Paying attention to these macro environmental upheavals, staying in tune with them and trying to predict where they are going and how consumers and customers will respond, is essential to staying ahead.
