Acumen Fund Community members gather to discuss the Blue Sweater in Nairobi, Kenya.
Blair Miller manages the Fellows Program at Acumen Fund.
Over the course of the past few months, we completed the interview process for the 2011 Class of Acumen Fund Fellows. Through the process, we got to meet bankers, doctors, artists, investors, microfinance experts, brand managers, development workers, academics, and entrepreneurs, all of whom shared a vision of creating social change through market based solutions. In total, we have interviewed 56 candidates in 9 panel interviews across the world (Nairobi, Karachi, Mumbai, London, San Francisco, New York), and have leveraged the knowledge and expertise of over 40 advisors, entrepreneurs, Fellows alumni and partners to help us recruit this next class of Fellows.
Having been the only Acumen Fund team member to interview each of these final round candidates, my biggest takeaway is that leadership is not only critical, it is essential for the growth of the social enterprise sector. We are at a moment in time where, the world’s biggest problems have real and tangible solutions. The missing middle that can bridge the gap between problems and solutions is the talent, the real leaders who have the financial and operational skills, the empathy and humility, and the influencing skills to create lasting change. This is the corps of social sector leaders that Acumen Fund has been building through our Fellows Program, and I’d like to give you a taste of the inspiring community we’ve been able to build to date.
What are we looking for? – Insight into a current Fellow:
During my recruiting trip, I also spent time with each Fellow at their current field placements. Let me give you an example: Sarah Dimson, (a Ghanaian American) and Fellow in our current class, has positioned herself as a key part of the management team at AMC, one of our housing investments in Pakistan, run by former Fellow Jawad Aslam. She is bringing her experience from low income housing in Los Angeles to Lahore and has a vision of returning to her roots in Ghana to continue her passion for low income housing development. I have no doubt that when Sarah does start her own housing management company, this global perspective and connection will allow her to redefine housing for the poor in Africa.
What do they do after? – Insight into a Fellow Alumni
I also had the opportunity to spend time with many of our Fellow Alumni, all of whom are doing incredible things in the social sector. For example I met up with Ram Hariharan, from the class of 2009. Ram was trained as a financier in India and was placed in Kenya during his fellowship at a start up company called UHEAL, providing laser eye treatment for the poor in Nairobi, through a cross subsidy model. Post-fellowship, Ram has joined an enterprise called Bridge International Academies, which is providing affordable private education to slum dwellers in Kenya. They have 7 schools set up, which will grow to 25 in the next year and then 75 in the following year, with the goal of reaching 1 million children in the next 6 years. Ram’s role is similar to a COO, building Bridge’s systems and processes. Ram is doing what we had hoped the Fellows Program would lead him to: leveraging the experience and knowledge he gained at Acumen Fund to identify and realize promising opportunities to create positive change at the bottom of the pyramid.
The Ripple Effects of our Talent Investment:
However, Acumen Fund’s Fellowship is not just about the individual. It is about the collective community that is created, as a result of these individuals who have the moral imagination to show the world that the impossible, is in fact, possible.
Let me tell you what I mean. I spent my last day in Kenya with Suraj Sudhakar, Fellow Alumni who worked at Ecotact during his fellowship, and is now working at PeePoople using innovative solutions to address the sanitation issue in the slums in Nairobi. In addition to his work at PeePoople, Suraj has become close friends with, and mentor to a promising group of young men in Kibera who are now running TedX conferences in the slums and recently hosted a book club meeting for Jacqueline. I attended the book club meeting along with around 150 other people, the majority coming from in and around Kibera. We were also joined by Jocelyn Wyatt (Fellow Alumni, now working at IDEO on their social impact work), Catherine Casey (Fellow Alumni, now working as Innovations Manager at Acumen Fund, a role akin to Jacqueline’s Chief of Staff), and Gamuchirai Chituri (current Acumen Fund Fellow). As we crowded into the hot and small conference facility in Kibera, surrounded by young people who believed change was possible, the significance of our work in the Fellows Program became so apparent. These were the very men and women who will go on to lead patient capital and social enterprise sectors one day, and I felt fortunate to be standing amongst them.
While Acumen Fund invests in social enterprises, our investment in individuals is equally invaluable to our goal of solving the problems of global poverty. Building a community of individuals with the empathy to see through the eyes of the poor, the boldness to imagine a new world, and the competence to execute with real business acumen, could perhaps be one of Acumen’s greatest legacies.
Stay tuned for the Class of 2011….
Tags: AF Fellows