Last month, we welcomed a new Chief Finance and Operations Officer, Amrish Shah, to the Enviu team. With a strong history in financial leadership and operational strategy, Amrish has already begun to apply his global perspective, combining it with his keen attitude to building organisations that drive system-changing impact.
From commercial to impact
The path that Amrish took to Enviu is a winding but deliberate one. A management accountant by training, he spent the earlier part of his career moving across sectors and different organisations, looking for new challenges and environments that allowed to grow. In 2021, Amrish took a more significant shift, stepping away from the commercial world entirely and into the impact and sustainability space. First working with Climate-Kic, then with Metabolic and his drive for this sort of work has not stopped since.
“Working in very new types of organisational forms. And that felt great for me, even at that point in my career.”
First experiencing the venture-building nature at his time at Metabolic, Amrish was again drawn to this similarity within Enviu’s model, and it wasn’t a sector that he wanted to miss out on exploring once the opportunity came up.
Finance as a foundation for impact
Asking about the role of finance within a company is always an interesting question, let alone within an impact organisation such as Enviu. Amrish chooses not to separate the financial health of the company from its main missions; he sees them as two key parts of the same working machine.
“Every organisation needs two things to thrive: people and their ideas, and financial capital. Without both, it’s very hard to drive your objectives.”
Amrish also acknowledges a tension that often arises from an outsiders view of this sector from the outside, disagreeing with claims such as non-profits shouldn’t make enough money to allow flexibility, and not just keep the lights on. It is this financial sustainability and stability that Amrish has driven for even within the first couple months of his start.
What success looks like
Amrish’s goals for the next few years reflect his thinking of the importance of finance in the impact sector. First, he aims to build stronger financial reserves so that Enviu has the headroom to really drive what we want to change. Second, Amrish wants to develop an operating model that works cohesively throughout the different domains and teams of Enviu; one that gives clarity and consistency without stripping away the autonomy from the local directors. This framework would give people the freedom to do their work to the best of their ability, not constrain them. Enviu’s history has a lot of energy through its organic growth, but Amrish is eager to plan for what comes next.
“At some point, in order to manage the complexity of a growing organisation, you want to define some guardrails.”
Third, and most importantly to him is the people. He wants Enviu to be a place where talented individuals don’t just come to do good work or fight the “good fight” – but a place that they come to grow and be challenged, build careers much like his own that mean something.
“That people love working here. That they feel it gives them the opportunity to have impact, to challenge themselves, and that there are real pathways for them.”
This is not a small ambition for Amrish, but organisations such as Enviu offer things that others can’t: proximity to real decisions, variety in work, and the feeling that what you do really matters. The goal isn’t just to attract people that care about impact – it’s letting them invest into an organisation that invests back into them.
Keeping his eye on the ball
Amrish is also honest about the challenges that may arise with the work ahead. The funding landscape for sustainability-focused work often remains sensitive to political and economic shifts in a way that requires constant adaptations and alertness. What may feel like a year with a lot of momentum, can often change direction quickly and organisations within the impact space are being built for that reality.
As Amrish also acknowledges, operating across multiple countries adds another layer of complexity. Different regulations, environments, cultures, and ways of working requires clear structure, strong local relationships and an organisational approach that knows when to align and when to let those on the ground have their freedom with work.
There are also internal challenges that Amrish aims to tackle. Legacy issues that take time to untangle as well as processes that need to catch up with the ambition of the company and it’s people’s ideas. There is also the simple fact that building something that wants to be durable takes time, even when the direction is clear. Amrish wants to see the full picture and is excited by it rather than daunted. This combination of clarity and optimism is exactly what Enviu needs.
Outside of work Amrish plays football and tennis, reads on the weekend or whenever he has the times, and takes every opportunity he can to “chase the sun”. He also has three teenage sons who keep him, in his own words, “reasonably well grounded“. Welcome to Enviu Amrish!
A thank you to Mark
With the welcoming of Amrish, we also had to say a goodbye and thank you to Mark Cremers, who is stepped down from the CFOO role at Enviu. Mark joined at a moment when Enviu was financially fragile and lacked the structure to grow sustainably. He leaves us in a stronger position including improved financial health, Mark also created a dedicated Impact Measurement & Management function and an Internal Operations team. Of his colleagues he said:
“The most complementary management team I have ever worked with – different personalities, different skills and expertise, but all with the same drive and big heart full of impact.”
Thank you very much Mark for all your work behind the scenes that made everything in front of us possible.
