Forgiving the debt would-by freeing up resources that could, in turn, be used for education, infrastructure, health care, and more. Even a slate of showy benefit concerts would never solve the problem. “The $125 million we raised with that show was less than what African countries were paying in interest on the debt every day,” says Bono. Musician Bob Geldof, the creator of the Live Aid concert, walked him through the math. What appealed to Bono, perhaps even more than the mission, was the strategy behind the effort. Photograph by Fabrice Coffrini-AFP/Getty Images
His career as a lobbyist might have ended there, Bono says, were it not for the kindness of Summers’ chief of staff, Sheryl Sandberg, who stepped in to help.īono poses with Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in January 2015 to mark the 10-year anniversary of Red. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, stumbling through his prepared pitch. And so in the late 1990s, the rock star found himself in the office of then–U.S. The campaign was inspired by the biblical decree that every 49 years, debts should be forgiven and slaves freed Bono was moved by the notion-it spoke to his deeply held Christian ethos. For Bono, the “lobbying” effort began with the global Jubilee 2000 initiative, a campaign founded by British economist Ann Pettifor to ask world leaders to forgive the debts of the poorest countries by the turn of the millennium. Fewer people have been more effective at shining a stage light on poverty, particularly in Africa, and in influencing governments and large corporations to work together to alleviate it. Lest you think Bono is some dilettante celebrity hobnobbing with the Davos crowd, consider the man’s record. Two, remind people that they are essential to the mission. The line reflects a classic scrimmage call from Bono’s leadership playbook: One, spread the credit liberally for every success. Says Bono: “I don’t think the American people understand how many lives they’ve saved.” Later he reformulates the message, spinning it into a clever political tagline: “If you’re a taxpayer, you’re an AIDS activist.” Its passage brought global attention to an illness that was on its way to becoming a deadly, uncontrollable pandemic. It remains the largest financial commitment of any country to combat a single infectious disease. Had she heard? “Your father, he was part of this,” Bono says, referring to the creation of Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) in 2003, the legislation that has earmarked some $60 billion in the fight against AIDS to date. “I have for about a week.” The world is now on track to eliminate the AIDS epidemic by 2030. “You know, I do want to call your dad,” he says. “Absolutely beautiful she was!” Then he leans in for the drop. “I saw your sister last week, swollen with child,” he says to Barbara Bush, talking about her twin, Jenna Bush Hager. Bush and granddaughter of the first President Bush, whom Bono wickedly prank-called from U2’s Zoo Tour concert stage in the early 1990s. It’s young Barbara Bush, the daughter of former President George W. 14, World’s Greatest Leaders) finds a potential ally in the crowd.
Bono relates the news as if he is an infectious-disease expert, not a rock star.
He claps a fund manager on the shoulder and says warmly, “We are winning the fight against AIDS.” Statistics pour out of his mouth like so much small talk as he welcomes the 30 or so gathered VIPs: The United Nations had just issued a report showing that new HIV infections have fallen by 35%, AIDS-related deaths by 41%, and millions more people than expected are getting life-saving medication. There, in a curtained, pop-up sanctuary, behind rows of chairs and rigging equipment, Bono embraces House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. As throngs of U2 faithful rush the arena for the July 2015 concert, the band’s 55-year-old front man is at a makeshift meet-and-greet three floors above and a world away. But that’s not the crowd Bono is working. It is the fourth night of the Innocence and Experience Tour in New York City’s Madison Square Garden, a multimedia spectacle with two stages, a catwalk, and an untold number of cathedral-high digital screens-a pageant of rock-and-roll theatricality that feels justifiably epic for a band that has sold 175 million records, won 22 Grammys, and notched the highest-grossing world tour in history. “Why isn’t everyone proclaiming this to the hills? Isn’t this big news?” Bono, lead singer of the Irish band U2, is working the crowd. Here’s what business can learn from a music legend. What’s his secret? An ability to convince others that they are the true leaders of change, not him. Bono: I Will Follow Irish rock icon Bono leads a widely acclaimed, data-driven, global organization that influences governments, rallies C-suites, and raises hundreds of millions of dollars for people living in poverty.
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