Shell LiveWire at the ANDE Global Conference 2025: Partnering to support local economies across the world

Over three days in September and October, members of Shell LiveWire and our partners gathered in Riviera Maya in Mexico to attend the ANDE (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs) Global Annual Conference. ANDE is an international network of enterprise support organizations (ESO) that focuses on the development of small and growing businesses, and the conference is the largest platform of its kind, bringing together ESOs, global funders and corporate leaders to exchange learnings from the field, have insightful conversations about best practices and sector trends and make meaningful connections. 

Shell is one of ANDE’s key partners and a sponsor of the annual conference. We share a common goal: supporting local economies with a view to promoting sustainable and equitable development. This has been part of Shell LiveWire’s agenda since it was launched in 1982, and over the years, we’ve grown to become a leading pillar of the ecosystem. As part of our partnership, Shell LiveWire’s implementing partners are members of the ANDE network, and the conference is a wonderful opportunity for them to learn from their peers and make alliances within the ecosystem. 

This year, the theme of the event was ‘Building Tomorrow’s Ecosystems’. The Shell LiveWire team as well as our partners led a number of insightful sessions. In the talk Advancing ESO Impact: Insights from Shell LiveWire, program managers from Shell and ESO founders spoke about their learnings. Adriana Macías Diaz and Fernanda Aguilar of Chum Chum, a Shell LiveWire Mexico alumna, talked about their experience of building an enterprise that turns food scraps into quality sauces and seasonings in Entrepreneur Journey: From Waste to Taste and also exhibited their products. 

We heard deep insights from ESO leaders, Aura Romero of New Ventures in The Trillion Dollar Opportunity: Scaling Inclusive, Social and Sustainable Procurement and Vandré Brilhante, President, CIEDS in What’s Up with Brazil: Innovations and Insights from a Growing Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Participants. Ahmad Azuar Zainuddin, CEO, Satu Creative, Shell LiveWire’s partner in Malaysia, shared his thoughts in the session Innovation for Impact: Human-Centered Insights to Unlock Innovation. For Ahmad Azuar, the conversations he had with Shell LiveWire partners were a highlight because he got to hear how they run the program in their home countries. “Sometimes when you're in an ecosystem, you're in a bit of a bubble or echo chamber,” he said. “We had a reflection in Cancun on how we could improve and do better.” 

The talks and conversations we participated in at the conference left us with a few thoughts.

• One, the conference reaffirmed our belief in having a program that’s global yet local. A major reason we’re able to demonstrate impact and stand out in the enterprise development space is our commitment to running fit-for-purpose programs that benefit businesses working in diverse circumstances.
• Secondly, the conference gave us the opportunity to get a sense of the best practices in this space and, in the process, revise our own working to stay relevant. We’re pleased to say that the benchmarks that the conference presented validated the excellent quality we’re delivering.
• Finally, the conference underscored the need for ESOs to evolve to meet new challenges that arise within the impact sector. And we’re confident of helping ESOs respond to these challenges by effectively building capacity.