Reflections of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Legacy on Everest Day
29 May 2023Today - May 29, Everest Day - is one of profound importance. It marks the 70th anniversary of the mammoth feat undertaken by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to be the first people to reach the summit of Mt Everest.
EHF and Hillary Institute CEO, Rosalie Nelson
On this significant anniversary, I am still awed by their achievement; of the seemingly impossible mission to climb the highest mountain in the world. I have the privilege of serving two organisations, the Hillary Institute and Edmund Hillary Fellowship, which have been founded on the inspiration, the values and life of service exemplified by Sir Ed. Right now we are embarking on an expedition that has a bold vision that is, at times, daunting but also exhilarating and radical. Our purpose is to honour and empower the spirit of Sir Ed in all of us.
For us, the legacy of Sir Edmund is not just the feat of scaling Everest, but his inherent values of respect, humility, tenacious leadership, and generosity. His was a life of humanitarian service and partnership; and it continues today through the wider Hillary and Norgay families, and the ongoing mahi (work) they undertake to honour their fathers through various ventures. This includes the Himalayan Trust, which was set up by Sir Ed himself to provide better health and education for remote communities in Nepal.
When the Hillary Institute for International Leadership was launched in 2007, it was from Antarctica with Sir Ed and the then Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Helen Clark as patron. Sir Ed’s vision was to recognise and celebrate transformative leaders mid-career and to support them through ‘The Hillary Step’ - the seemingly impossible ascent before the summit. The mana (prestige, influence, status) of his name within Aotearoa NZ and around the world is one we carry with a sense of pride and purpose. For both the Hillary Institute and EHF, our work is not about us, but those we serve - the people of Aotearoa NZ. Sir Ed said: “The most worthwhile things I’ve done have not been on the mountains, but have been the projects with my friends, the Sherpa people. The 27 schools we’ve established, the hospitals – those are the things I would like to be remembered for”. I see parallels with both the Hillary Institute Laureates and EHF Fellows; this is a community of purpose-led leaders who seek to epitomise the values underpinning Sir Edmund’s life work, and who are motivated by a desire to find ways of addressing and architecting solutions to the challenges we face as humanity.
The inherent values of Sir Ed are interwoven into how the Hillary Institute and EHF work.
An initiative that was beautifully undertaken by our Fellows, including Māori Fellows, was to bring together Sir Ed’s values and kaupapa Māori principles to create a values compass; to encapsulate considerations and responsibilities of living as tangata Tiriti (people of the Treaty). Te Tiriti o Waitangi is part of our constitution; it is enshrined, and is something that is honoured and recognised alongside the values of Sir Ed within this values compass.
What I respect about the concept of the values compass created by our Fellows is that it supports wayfinding as a bi-cultural country, as we face the challenges of today. I find this model very beautiful and one that we can look to, particularly with Sir Ed’s values sitting alongside the kaupapa Māori values.
Image courtesy Royal Geographic Society (with IGB)
There's a quote from Sir Ed that I often draw from: ‘People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things’. This is what I consistently see across both the Laureates and Fellows; they are driven by the desire to make the world a better place. Sir Ed demonstrated incredible courage and tenacity, but - as he always said - it wasn’t him alone on the mountain, that he couldn’t have conquered the challenge without Tenzing Norgay or the expedition team at basecamp. I am continually inspired by the Laureates’ and Fellows’ sense of optimism, their genuine belief that if we collaborate and work as a team, we can create the change that we need to see; that we can reach the summit together.
Metaphorically speaking, the last 16 years has seen the Hillary Institute and EHF embark on the first few phases of summiting a lofty maunga (mountain). We have successfully achieved our first and second chapters - or stages of the ascent - to identify, select and bring together the Laureates, followed by the attraction and integration of 500+ extraordinary Fellows. And now, in 2023, we’ve set up at basecamp to plan what the next phase of our expedition looks like - how are we going to assemble as a team to reach the summit? Fundamentally, this next phase is about supporting the Laureates and Fellows to come together to create those opportunities for systems change and global impact, with Aotearoa NZ acting as our basecamp.
You could say the Hillary Institute and EHF are approaching our own ‘Hillary Step’ - the toughest part of the ascent - when we will need to be tenacious and put our full potential to work. So as I reflect on the 70th anniversary of Sir Ed and Tenzing’s achievement, I ask myself how do we support one another to take that step? And I think the answer lies with the approach taken by Sir Ed and Tenzing. They reframed their thinking and took advantage of the terrain and the resources available to them. They mustered up the courage and the fierce determination to keep going forward because there was no way back. They worked together and utlitised each other’s skills and abilities to find the solution.
It is the same approach that the Hillary Institute and EHF will take as we implement The Mission Studio, our first expedition to build and scale systems transformation for global impact from Aotearoa NZ. We will work together and draw from and activate the wider resources of the Laureates and Fellowship; we will reframe and rethink our approach to find solutions to the complex challenges we’re facing. We will take inspiration from Sir Ed’s attitude of service and partnership, and bring in fundamentally different viewpoints, including indigenous mindsets, to look at how we can serve those that are most impacted. And in doing so, we will provide a really powerful model for the rest of the world that encourages pushing boundaries, embracing creativity, challenging assumptions, and creating transformative solutions - just like Sir Edmund and Tenzing did back on 29 May 1953 when they were the first to reach the summit of Mt Everest, showing the world the realm of possibility within each and every one of us.
-Rosalie Nelson, Chief Executive of Edmund Hillary Fellowship and Hillary Institute.
