Culture is the collective influence from shared values and beliefs on the way an organisation thinks and behaves. In a strong culture, it aligns the values and beliefs of the individuals within the organisation and establishes a common set of expectations and trust.

Without doubt, the most important element of good culture is strong leadership. Culture is a reflection of leadership past and present. For culture to be influential, leadership must both be active in living its values and putting them into action.

Culture has uniqueness to it. Investment processes and strategies can look alike but culture is always distinctive. But this carries a big challenge to develop a culture that is effective in drawing focused and cohesive effort from talented individuals.

The reality is that many parts of culture result from the particular history of organisations, and are very often unplanned. Such results may not be optimal to sustainable investment organisations or their performance.