As business plans go, it was one that seemed highly unlikely to succeed.

Make no mistake, the idea was noble — to set up a business and use its revenue-generating side to support a non-profit organisation that would help tens of thousands of people living in impoverished areas of the world.

But as Audette Exel admits: “Eighteen years ago the idea of running a business to support a non-profit, people thought it was really crazy.”

However, if it was going to succeed anywhere in the world, Bermuda was probably the best bet. Over the years the island has proven to be fertile ground for business innovation and turning pioneering flights of fancy into reality. Bermuda’s international business sector and reinsurance industry are testament to that.

And so it was to prove for Ms Exel and her vision, which became a reality and yearly touches the lives of 50,000 people living in poverty.

Ms Exel is the founder of The Adara Group, which started in Bermuda almost two decades ago under a different name. It has since channelled $10 million of its own revenue, and $20 million in worldwide donations, to help communities in Nepal and Uganda.

On July 18, Ms Exel will be back in Bermuda to give a public talk at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute on the work of Adara. She will reconnect with old friends and colleagues and nurture the network of support that continues to back the group’s work.

“If it was not for Bermuda I would not have been able to get it off the ground,” she said.

“Because Bermuda is such a small and warm community, and because I was the girl who ran the bank and people knew me, everyone gave me a shot and people came out of everywhere to help in those early days.”

Ms Exel worked in Bermuda for 14 years during the 1990s and 2000s. She came to the island as a lawyer and eventually became managing director of Bermuda Commercial Bank. She was also chairwoman of the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

Originally based in Bermuda and known as the Isis Group, Adara consists of two corporate finance advisory businesses and Adara Development, which is the international non-government organisation focused on health and education for women, children and communities living in poverty.

The two corporate finance businesses are “the funding engines of the non-profit”, explained Ms Exel, who now lives in Australia where Adara is based.

“I’m still advising companies on mergers and acquisitions, and advising some of Australia’s biggest publicly listed companies.

“All the money we make doing that goes across to the non-profit. I have some of Australia’s most famous and biggest bankers working with me.”

Ms Exel said her background in law and banking allowed her to build the Adara business model, and being a senior businesswoman helped her bridge the communication gap between the non-profit community and the business community.

She said in the early days the Bermuda corporate community helped by giving the business to the group.

“The Bermuda reinsurance community, the banking community and others gave us work so we could generate revenue to fund the non-profit. That was critical to getting the model off the ground.

“The other thing was the amazing people in Bermuda who stepped up to donate directly to the non-profit. So business has covered all the core support cost, emergency costs and research.”

As previously mentioned, the business has now brought $10 million of revenue for the non-profit work of Adara, to add to the $20 million from donations around the world.

“In the early days the vast amount of donation support came from people across all walks of life in Bermuda. People liked the idea of what we were trying to. On the business side and the non-profit side we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Bermuda,” said Ms Exel.

When asked to explain in what ways companies and corporations benefit from getting involved with the Adara Group, either through its business units or direct association with its philanthropic side, Ms Exel noted that back in the 1990s: “You were not seeing the world of business, as part of its mandate, doing something good of the community in the world. That’s changed a lot now. Businesses are much more thinking about their responsibility in the community.

“A lot of this comes from the internet, there is so much transparency, people can see what businesses are doing.

“It has become a very powerful thing for a business to be viewed as a good community member. It’s powerful for business in terms of attracting the best and keeping the best staff.

“It’s powerful for business in terms of working with its consumer group. People don’t want to buy products from companies that are doing terrible things in the world.

“There has been an enormous shift in businesses recognising that it’s good for their bottom line to behave well, to be embraced by the community and to be seen as part of the community.

“The support we have had comes from a place where businesses and business leaders want to do good.”

And Ms Exel added that younger people are seeking out companies to work for that align to their own values concerning global and humanitarian responsibilities.

“One of the reasons I have so much optimism for the world is because I love millennials and gen-Ys. They are unafraid and they are values-based,” she said.

“They have a global perspective and they want to live in a world where they can contribute. So they are joining companies that are doing great things, or they are building companies with values and purpose built into their base.”

In Bermuda, Adara has a strong relationship with insurer Aspen. The eight-year old partnership extends beyond the island to Aspen’s global operations and offices.

“Their partnership, on the non-profit side of our work, is the number one team building thing that they do inside their company worldwide,” said Ms Exel.

The company and its staff around the world have donated millions of dollars to Adara’s work. Aspen’s support allowed Adara to build a hospital in Uganda that saves tens of thousands of lives every year, according to Ms Exel.

“For Aspen, as a global corporation, it has become this centrepiece of how they project their values to their staff and to the wider world. It’s a fantastic example.

“Groups of people from Aspen go down to our projects in Uganda once a year. It is a powerful example of how a business and non-profit partnership can work.”

Running the business engine of the Adara Group is Ms Exel’s main job. She is chief executive officer of Adara Advisors and Adara Partners. However, she said: “Uganda and Nepal is the centre of my heart every day; the work and the people.”

Adara Development has hundreds of people working as teams in those countries. And while Ms Exel visits the countries when work allows, and gets involved with the humanitarian work, she said: “My biggest job is to make deals and earn money for our work.

“Yes, I’m there in Uganda and Nepal as much as I can be, but Adara has so many brilliant development specialists who know this work better than me and have spent their lives learning about service delivery to people in poverty, so they are the ones in charge of the work. But for me, it completely fills me up to be on the ground and with the team.”

It is tempting to view Adara and Ms Exel’s as the story of a business leader who decided to give back to the world. However, Ms Exel said: “The truth is I’m a social activist by origin, for as long as I can remember.

“I’ve always been appalled by the social inequity of the world. I thought my life would be about human rights law and fighting for social justice, and I figured out during my law degree that if I did not understand power, capital and business, how I was ever going to change the world. So my business journey was really a journey of learning.”

Adara was a way to bring together those two parts of her world, providing a way to bridge between the public sector and private sector, the non-government sector, the media, the rich and the poor. If we don’t bridge that divide we won’t heal the world.”

This month’s talk at BUEI is titled Bridging Worlds, and will trace the story of the Adara Group from its beginnings in Bermuda to “bridging the world of Wall Street with the alleyways of remote Nepali villages, bringing the world of privilege with the world of poverty”.

Ms Exel hopes the talk will attract “anyone who loves a good story, about the dreams and disasters and a journey of joy and tears”. The Adara Group takes its name from a star that was once the brightest in the night sky when it was closer to the Earth millions of years ago.

“Adara is a star, one of the brightest in the sky, and that’s perfect for us as we are truly a global organisation now,” said Ms Exel.

And as she prepares for a return trip to Bermuda this month, she said she felt an immense amount of gratitude for the island as it was the place that allowed her to launch what is now the Adara Group.

Reflecting on what Adara means to her on a personal level, she said: “It has enriched my life beyond measure. I consider myself to be the luckiest woman in the world to have seen it before it began, been a part of the whole journey.

“I feel a great sense of good fortune and gratitude really. Eighteen years later we are touching so many lives. It’s been a beautiful journey and I can’t imagine my life without it.”

Audette Exel’s talk at BUEI on July 18, starts at 7.30pm. Tickets are available at the BUEI gift shop, or by calling 294-0204.