Hire for a Person’s Character: Interview with Lance Kawaguchi, CEO of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation
I recently went one on one with Lance Kawaguchi, CEO of the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Lance: In May 2016, my mother was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She fought valiantly for more than six months, and during that time I went back and forth four times from London, where I was living and working, to Hawaii, where I grew up. While the circumstances weren’t great, I did get to spend quite a bit of quality time with my mom before we said goodbye.
During her last week alive, she asked me to make a sacrifice and spend at least five years, sometime before retirement, making a social impact by working in the non-profit sector. We didn’t nail down a specific field, but with my mother having been a longtime school teacher, something that benefited children and provided opportunities to educate were criteria that appealed to me even then. After life changed so drastically in 2019 during the pandemic, I made the decision to leave HSBC, where I was leading a globally dispersed, 700-person investment banking unit, and abide by my pledge mid-career rather than when I was nearing retirement decades later.
My family and I moved to Sydney, and on the first of January, 2021, I started as Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (CBCF) chief executive officer. For the first six months at CBCF, so many people in the community told me, “You're not going to be successful, you're not going to last, you're going to leave us like everyone else,” the latter in reference to the high rate of recent CEO turnovers at the 20-year-old, Australian non-profit organization. For me, that doubt was an opportunity. I took their passion, skepticism and frustration, and used it to instead turn them into strong supporters for my vision.
It was extremely important to me to listen to and serve our community well. That community consists primarily of brain cancer patients and their advocates, including family members and other caretakers, and brain cancer scientists and research oncologists, along with early stage technology companies. Every month, I would sit down with these key stakeholders and ask, “What do we need?”
The community said, “We need treatments.” So we invested A$8 million to sole-fund the attraction of GBM AGILE, after neither the Australian government nor its partners, including CBCF prior to my arrival, made much progress in bringing the innovative global brain cancer clinical trial to the country after years of talk and promises. Then they said, “We need more support for researchers and start-up companies.” So we launched the world's largest brain cancer-specific technology accelerator for A$2 million last year.
Within just the two-and-a-half years since my arrival, CBCF has now distributed nearly A$11.5 million, equivalent to about US$7.7 million. This has funded brain cancer clinical trials, technology development and early- and mid-career research fellowships. The dollar amount represents more than the organization’s prior five years of research funding outlays combined.
Another important change I’ve implemented is to hire full-time employees to help with what's called the National Advocacy Service. It's funding for brain cancer patients and their families to be able to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme and other forms of Australian government assistance. The process to tap into these quality of life and medical financing programs can be very arduous and difficult to navigate. Since hiring this team, we’ve uncovered $32 million worth of benefits for Australian brain cancer families, just through this service. Having people who know how to navigate the system has proven extremely valuable for our patient community.
Additionally, brain cancer hasn't had any net new types of treatments for the past 30 years. And because it's ranked 17th or 18th of most diagnosed cancers, it doesn't get that much awareness. Consistent awareness is what leads to caring. So a lot of my focus has been on this type of education.
Lastly, I’ve been working to expand internationally and build bridges with other brain cancer charities in places like Hong Kong, the Middle East and the U.S. Currently I’m active on the board of eight charities as a chairperson, a member or strategic advisor, bringing as much voice and influence to brain cancer as I’m able. Cure Brain Cancer Foundation’s U.S. affiliate incorporated last fall, and we aim to begin operating later this year.
Adam: What are the best leadership lessons you have learned from leading a non-profit organization?
Lance: One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that if you're a nonprofit leader, you have to be resilient. I use boxing as a metaphor. It's just you and another person, and you have to outwork them and just outwell them. And for me, it's really having that relentless drive. I haven't taken a day off in two-and-a-half years.
Also, you need passion. I'm obsessed with making sure that we serve a community that doesn’t have the luxury of time. As a leader, I must convert that passion into results. That is where the focus needs to be.
It’s also important to use your time and resources wisely. I carefully assess where my time is going to be best allocated. I see a lot of people invest time into things that are not going to bear fruit, and it’s a waste. So I’ve been focusing on the community, what's important to them and trying to move the needle.
Non-profit leaders really need to be steadfast in what they are trying to do. It’s easy to fall into a hole where you are just trying to keep stakeholders happy. For me, if I'm representing an organization for cancer, I'm focusing on getting treatments and taking care of cancer patients and I don't care about bureaucracy.
I see too many non-profits that are so bureaucratic that they talk in circles and they end up doing nothing. I want action. And I want to focus on moving as quickly as possible to get the right results.
Adam: What are your best tips for fellow leaders of non-profit organizations?
Lance: To be the CEO at a non-profit, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades and you really have to know multiple aspects of the business. A lot of CEOs don’t understand that their position is basically a 24/7 job. You have to be a leader, a marketer and a fundraiser. Every weekend I’m working around the clock to raise awareness and I’m often doing interviews at odd hours. You need to be ready to go outside of your comfort zone.
Oftentimes, where non-profit CEOs don't succeed is when they're really strong in one area but not in others. For example, you can be really strong in science. But if you don't blend that with the ability to be in front of people and the willingness to raise awareness, you aren’t going to be successful.
It takes a lot of positive energy to be a CEO and a chairperson. Working for a cancer non-profit, I deal with serious things that are constantly threatening to bring my energy down. Whenever I meet with people, I try to live with their energy, which takes energy. Then marketing takes a lot of energy and constant travel does, as well. I think a lot of people don't realize that this is an all encompassing job. If you try to work part time, you'll get part time results.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Lance: I recommend reverse mentoring. It’s important to have a mentor who you aspire to be like, but having a mentor who is junior to you can also be extremely valuable. The younger generation or people who work for you will see things that you're not seeing day-to-day.
Relationships in general are extremely important. To lead, you need to know what everyone does across the board and what's important to them. What are they personally interested in? I strategize on how I can amalgamate everyone's personal goals, get them to where they want to be personally, while still collectively achieving the organization’s objective.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Lance: First, I’d say care less. As an entrepreneur or CEO, just be mentally prepared with the fact that 9 out of 10 people you speak to will not support you. A lot of people are afraid of failure. But I view failure as part of the process. In fact, the quicker you fail, the better because then you can move on to something that might actually be successful.
Next, manage your time properly. I see too many CEOs who hold three hour meetings. These meetings rarely accomplish much and really just stress out the team. That's not what CEOs should do. What CEOs should do is hire the right person. Empower the right person, let them do their job, and hold them accountable. Simple, right? But for many leaders they want and think they need to be involved in everything. It’s hard, but necessary to pull back.
My third piece of advice is that you need to understand you're a marketer, no matter what. No matter what you’re trying to accomplish, you need to be very succinct, clear and know how to communicate and market whatever it is you are trying to get funding for. You have to be able to sell and share a narrative. People will never support your business or charity unless they actually believe in you.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Lance: For me, it’s all about hiring for a person’s character. I believe skills and education are somewhat malleable. It’s important to develop the ability to see good talent and potential. You’re never going to get a 100% perfect team, but look at character, behavior and morals in an interview first. I think I've been very fortunate. I have good people around me. And we’ve proven we can operate with 70% less people because we have the right ones.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Lance: There’s really two. My mother always taught me not to judge people; just accept them. That lesson has really helped me have a different mindset, especially with brain cancer patients and cancer patients who come from all walks of life. The past two-and-a-half years have been a difficult and, at times, exhausting journey. But I wouldn't change it for the world.
The other lesson my parents taught me was to always be grateful. You might not be rich, but if you start every day with gratitude, you’ll live a rich life. Last week, I met with a woman named Jessica who has stage four cancer. She has tumors all through her spine and brain and she is constantly in pain. But despite this, she rolled into our meeting in a wheelchair with her entire family. She wanted to show up to get a Community Leadership Award.
You might be running late at work, stuck in traffic, or arguing with someone. But no matter how badly you think you have it, you have an option. Someone like Jess, who literally has days left, can't tap out from cancer. She can't just say, “I don't want to show up today.” That's when you have no choice.
Most of the people who will read this have a choice. Always approach life with gratitude and appreciation. And always remember, no matter how badly you think you have it, it can always be worse.
Adam: What can anyone do to pay it forward?
Lance: Number one, take a day off, work, volunteer to help out your community. It doesn’t even matter what charity. Just find a way to make a positive social impact.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Lance: I’m planning a South Pole trek this December to raise money for cancer research and awareness. I’m doing it for CBCF and over ten other charities, no strings attached. We just want to help everyone. Something people don’t understand is that charities don’t collaborate very well. So we want to help multiple charities across the world rally around one cause to raise money for battling cancer globally. It's not for us; it’s for everyone. It's for charities in the U.S., the Middle East Asia and Australia.
Brain cancer has a survival rate of no more than 23%, and that low figure hasn’t shifted upward in 30 years. Yet, in 2021, we were able to get multiple vaccines for a novel virus that no one had ever seen before. So effectiveness comes down to global collaboration, global funding and global awareness.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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