Dismantling Global Poverty Systems With Gretchen Villegas
In this episode of the Intentional Leader podcast, we embark on a captivating exploration of Gretchen Villegas's extraordinary mission to dismantle global poverty systems. As a dedicated global development executive, Gretchen collaborates with vulnerable communities worldwide, aiming to dismantle the ingrained structures that perpetuate poverty and empower these communities to thrive. Join us on this inspiring journey as we delve into Gretchen's remarkable story and uncover valuable insights into how we can collectively strive towards creating a more just and equitable world.
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Dismantling Global Poverty Systems With Gretchen Villegas
Welcome to this episode of the show. This is the show where you discover the stories of everyday people like you who become extraordinary leaders. You'll learn some lessons from their lives, lessons that you can apply to become the best leader that you are created to be. When you become an intentional leader, lives are changed.
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I'm pleased to have our guest, Gretchen Villegas. Gretchen is a global development executive. A lot of you are saying, “What is a global development executive?” She is one that is working with vulnerable communities around the world that are suffering from poverty and trying to work with organizations, both profit and nonprofits, to break down the systems that create that poverty and drive them to a place where they can flourish. It is an incredible topic for us to talk through.
Gretchen, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me here.
It is our pleasure. It's great to have you. We start every episode with the same question. We ask our guests to walk us through their professional careers. I know yours has some interesting pieces as you were in the Peace Corps and such. Do not just walk us through your career but also the leadership lessons learned along the way. Tell us about Gretchen.
Learning Leadership From Children
You're right. I started out in the Peace Corps. You can almost imagine the 1960s Peace Corps where you show up with no running water and no electricity. You are there for two years, not sure how to speak the language because it's the tonal language. I was in Suriname, South America. Thank goodness for the children who took patience with me and taught me the language.
They gave me some of the tools that I needed so that I could start listening and understanding how the culture and the community were working together and what they saw as their needs so they could grow in their lives and figure out what they needed to succeed and grow. I really thank the children every day for everything I learned from them.
When you say children, what age group are we talking about here?
Any of the children that could walk were at my windows, banging on the window. I was the only White person that was in their village since they were born. They were knocking on my window. That's how I learned how to say the greetings of good morning. That's how I learned how to ask for different things to figure out how to live, where to wash my dishes and cook, and how to do everything. We're talking 2 years old all the way up to probably 16 or 17. I was so grateful for that because that was my first six months. After that, I was able to start communicating with the adults within the community.
Did any of those children know some English or was it finger-pointing and trying to figure it out?
It was finger-pointing and trying to figure it out. It was taking me by the hand and showing me.
That's an interesting piece. What do we learn from the children in that? What is the lesson there about communication?
It’s that you don't have to have a language in order to communicate with one another. You can communicate by signing and trying to show people what you need. It takes wanting. The children really wanted to communicate with me and wanted me to understand how they lived. They wanted me to be able to speak their language, so they took the time and effort and had the patience to teach me. It was amazing. I did not understand patience before I learned it from them. I didn't understand nonverbal communication and how to teach somebody something when I couldn't speak the language. It was an amazing six months of discovery for me.
That's an awesome story. Pick it up from there.
Global Development As A Bridge
After those six months, I had the tools and was able to sit in the leadership meetings and whatnot. From there, we moved on to really understanding that the leadership wanted to build a school and they wanted to bring in piped water. They did not want someone to come in and do it for them. Those things that they couldn't get there in the village, they wanted to do the work. They wanted the piping. They wanted the cement. They wanted the wood. They wanted everything that they couldn't buy, which was right there but they couldn't get. We were able to put together a proposal and go to the Dutch embassy. The Dutch Embassy was able to fund those things that they couldn't bring in, those resources.
What I realized along the way, because I didn't understand it when I came in, is what global development was. You started with that question. That was my question. What was my role? At first, I thought, “They're going to ask me to come in and bring them money because I'm from the United States and bring them all of these different things to make life better.” That's not what they asked for.
They asked for a bridge. They asked for access to those items that they needed in order to make it so that women did not have to walk for water a mile away and carry it on their heads. They asked for the items they needed to build the school so their children could have the teachers there that they needed to teach them. I realized I was a bridge. I was a person who could bring together resources that that community needed to reach their dreams and their goals. Global development and my role was a bridge. That was my purpose.
I like that. There are incredible lessons there. I love the aspect that they wanted to be self-sufficient. They weren't looking for a handout. They were looking for access, in a way. That's where people are across the world for the most part. People want to achieve. People want to be self-sustaining. Sometimes, they need some assistance to overcome things they can't overcome themselves.
That's right.
Where has that led you? I know that global development is a huge piece for you. What are you doing? How can our audience become a part of what you're doing?
After that, I went and spent fifteen years abroad. I want to add that in there because there were so many learnings that came with that. I decided to take on opportunities that let me live in Latin America and East and Southern Africa for fifteen years, managing US government contracts. I managed teams in different countries.
I continued that same learning journey as I went through Honduras, Colombia, Malawi, and East Africa before I came back to the United States. As I went through country by country, it was like learning all over again in every single country. It was that set of questions in every single country that I used over and over again to say, “I'm the guest. I don't know everything.” I was responsible and accountable for everything because I was the representative in each country at a very young age. I was supposed to know everything but I knew the least when I entered the country. Everyone who I hired and everyone who worked for me, I had to rely on them.
That was really important to my leadership journey before I came back to the US to the executive leadership positions I held because that taught me that I may have been in charge and I may have been accountable but I didn't know everything. Had I not had the smartest people around me who could help me grow as an individual in cultures and environments where I didn't know everything, I wouldn't have accomplished or I wouldn't have been successful.
When I came back to the US, and I've been here since 2014 working in executive leadership positions, I understood and knew how to bring together teams of people who are not like me. I needed to find leaders who could lead different types of expertise and different types of personalities that could do different things than I could do to bring together teams that were really strong and solid. I learned from each one of them along the way, and that was uncomfortable. I had to be uncomfortable, but I knew that because of what I had learned in the field. That’s what's brought me where I am. That’s why I ended up being a CEO at a quite young age because I was okay with that.
There are so many leadership lessons to unpack in things that you shared there. One of the things that stands out to me is the aspect of going to those other countries. You said you had to do it multiple times when you were coming in without knowledge and owning that even though you had a leadership position. I want to challenge our audience here for a second. It's easy to know that story from Gretchen and say, “That's not me because my jobs are in the US. I know the US.” It's not about what country it's in. It's about the fact that every organization has its own culture.
Every organization has its own ways that they do things and people who have been there longer than you are worth listening to. It's the humility of leadership to realize, “I don't have all the answers nor do I need to have all the answers, but I need to ask a lot of questions to find those answers.” Let me ask you this to go a little bit deeper on that piece. You go to these other countries and you are asking a lot of questions even though you're their leader. How do you delegate and build them up to lead when you're learning for the first time how they do it there? How'd you handle that transition?
Building Trust And Delegating In Leadership
Number one, it is taking time to build relationships in executive teams. You bring together your senior leadership or your executive teams in these countries. You need to build that trusting relationship. You need to spend the time building that up and learning about people and their strengths, their comfort levels, and whatnot. As you're building that trust, you need to be able to let people own different aspects of what you're pushing forward in the organization.
Dismantling Global Poverty Systems: You need to spend time learning about people, their strengths, comfort levels, and so on.
The way I did that was a lot of discussion around, “This is the whole picture of what we need to do.” I was very transparent and open about, “This is the North Star. This is the entire goal of what we are going to accomplish in the next 5 to 10 years. What part of this is most exciting to you? What part of this would you like to own? What is this that you have experience in or you would like to learn about?”
It was creating a plan with each individual where it was a part of what they knew already, but it was also a part of, “You’re from Uganda. You're from Tanzania. You're from Colombia. I bring in some skillsets and perspectives from the United States and a different educational background. What can I provide to you? What can I give to you to help you grow and learn?” It was that support and bringing that together that they trusted me and saw that I invested in them. That brought a real trusting relationship together. Since I invested, they invested in me. Meaning, they were not going to let me down. You invest in one another. It's give and take.
I love that. I know there are a lot of leaders who say, “I ask my people, “What do you need from me?” and they never have an answer.” It seems to me as though these people you're working with had an answer. In part, it’s because you tapped into the vision piece first of, “Here's the big picture. Here's the vision. What are you passionate about?” When they find that passion, great things come from it. I'm curious about other cultures with these people. It sounds to me that when you asked them the question, “What can I do for you? Where can I help you grow?” they had answers. A lot of times here in the US, we don't. What's the difference? Why did they have an answer to that question?
They had answers. It’s the mission. It's the heart. The projects we were working on were about breaking cycles of poverty or systemic poverty. Most of the staff, those of us coming together and leading these projects, came from villages or have relatives in the villages where this poverty is still prevalent. It's very close to home. When you're working in this nonprofit work and it's that close to home, it's personal.
Let's fast forward a little bit with the work that you're doing. I know you're working heavily with nonprofits and for-profit partnerships to do what you're talking about, to break these systems of poverty and vulnerable populations wherever they would be. Talk a little bit about that work, how nonprofits and for-profit partnerships come together, and what they might look like.
More than anything, it's important that nonprofits and for-profits come together in looking at some of these very big challenges that we have facing us globally. This is in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. It doesn't matter where you are. When we're looking at climate change, food insecurity, conflicts, and migration, all of this is affecting everyone everywhere. It includes the environment, the economy, and many social systems that we all live within. That’s where vulnerable communities live, but also, that's where the supply chains are. That's where companies are ensuring that they have supply and demand and they can make their revenue and their profits. People have jobs, and people need jobs in order to have livelihoods.
Today, more than anything else, it's very important that nonprofits and for-profits come together in looking at some of these very big challenges that we are facing.
What we're looking at is that for-profit companies have business ideas and a lot of expertise in looking at how to make markets work for everyone but also that feeling of giving back. I have seen so much of that coming forward from corporations and the for-profit side of wanting to give back, the expertise, community engagement, funding, and part of the profits as well.
On the nonprofit side, there's that footprint, whether it be in the US, Europe, or emerging markets, of that trust with the communities, and yet we have philanthropy dollars going down. Why some of that? It's because there's not enough money to go around. The question of, “Where's that innovation? Where are those efficiencies?” Many of them are lying within the for-profit or the private sector.
When you bring together the for-profit efficiencies, innovations, and expertise and bring together the footprint, knowledge, understanding, and trust these nonprofits have in the vulnerable communities, you've got a great opportunity to bring them together and create some sustainable outcomes at the end of the day.
What I really like is most people, and I'll put myself in this boat too. When we think about profit and nonprofit partnerships, we think of cash or resources. You're right. We can't “throw enough money” at it to fix the problems. I don't think many people or corporations think about their knowledge and their skills that are transferable to help these groups. As you've begun to navigate these partnerships, how do they get formed? What does an engagement look like with one of those partnerships?
Let me throw a few examples out and then I'll give you one that I've worked on. For instance, you may be working in alternative energy and solar panels. There's Engineers Without Borders. Engineers Without Borders is a great organization that has lots of engineers that do alternative things. One of the things they're doing is working with many schools around the world to bring the expertise in to say, “There are companies willing to give their expertise to go to different countries to say, “Let's put some solar panels in schools so that they can have electricity and they can be studying longer hours during the day. They can have air conditioning in some of these places where it's too hot to be in these schools. They can be pumping water out of some of the wells where otherwise the wells, some of them, are not able to bring the water out because it's gone too deep.”
There's been some amazing opportunities that have happened around alternative energy with solar power. That is thanks to these companies with engineers that have allowed the expertise of their engineers to engage through Engineers Without Borders to give their time. They haven't had to give money. It's been all about their expertise and their travel. It's been amazing to watch.
There’s Doctors Without Borders. There's another one. You have doctors, dentists, and ophthalmologists who can travel and do pro bono surgeries. You have big medical facilities that are footing the bill. They're footing the bill with their foundations, but the doctors are giving their time. Otherwise, there would be children in some places, including the United States, who still wouldn't have some of the surgeries that they require. It's amazing.
I’ll tell you one thing that I've worked on that's been super exciting. At Heifer International, we were able to work with Cargill Animal Nutrition. Cargill Animal Nutrition has set up biosecurity measures. These biosecurity measures are really important for all humans but also animal feed supplements. When I was at Heifer International, we were able to collaborate with a lot of the programming done in three different Heifer communities. There is one in India, Mexico, and also in Kenya.
We were able to work with the US government and leverage over $30 million of US government funding along with the expertise of Cargill in biosecurity to run programs in these 3 countries of Mexico, India, and Kenya to bring biosecurity information to smallholder farmers who were raising small cattle or small ruminants like goats, poultry, and whatnot around how to keep animals safe and not sick. What was happening was that those rural communities were butchering the animals locally, and unfortunately, they were getting sick. In the local communities, people were getting sick and dying.
Number one, we were able to leverage US government funding to make that happen with expertise from Cargill Animal Nutrition. We embedded that expertise into a large nonprofit, Heifer International, in other countries. We were able to help people have healthy food and reduce mortality rates for animals and people as a result of the entire project. That, to me, is amazing.
That is an incredible story. When we hear stories like those, especially that one right there, that invigorates people. They're like, “What's my next step? What do I do with this?” What role are you playing in trying to be a catalyst or liaison for profits and nonprofits? If somebody's reading this and saying, “I want to get my company plugged in,” where do they go? What's their step?
Gretchen's New Company And Support For Corporations And Nonprofits
I believe that we are at a turning point. We are at a turning point where we are seeing for-profit and nonprofits come together to make this happen. I want to be at the forefront to help people make that happen. If you are a corporation, for-profit, or nonprofit and you want to move forward in something like this, please reach out to me.
Dismantling Global Poverty Systems: We are at a turning point right now, where we are seeing for-profit and nonprofit organizations come together to make things happen.
I've launched a company. It's called Nexus Strategy and Growth Partners, LLC. You can find it on LinkedIn. If you click on Contact Us under Nexus Strategy and Growth Partners, LLC, you will get to my calendar. You can also go on LinkedIn under Gretchen Villegas and click it there to also get to my calendar. I'm more than happy to talk through your ideas of how you would either like to have your employees engage or any ideas you'd like to have. I can either help you figure out how to move forward or link you to another organization that can help you move that forward. I believe that that is going to make a difference as we move forward to break those cycles of poverty.
Speaking At The United Nations And Involvement In Circular 100
What is the next project in front of you? Where are you going next with this?
First of all, I will be speaking at the United Nations on September 13th, 2024.
Congrats.
I’m very excited. I'll be moderating a few panels as well as speaking. I’m excited to be talking about a nonprofit I'm involved in, which is called Circular 100, which is upcycling for biomass. I am getting those for-profit and social enterprises involved in all of that upcycling as well as talking about for-profit partnerships globally and growing my business. I'm hopeful that all of that will come together and that I can be a resource to anyone ready to move forward.
With you speaking at the United Nations, it makes me feel that countries around the world are starting to look for partnerships and collaborations. How broad is this push for these for-profit and nonprofit partnerships?
Importance of Public-Private Partnerships in Global Development
It is very important. Everyone is in conversation about public-private partnerships. If you look up public-private partnerships, it really is about, number one, governments know that it's important that the private sector be involved in the decisions that governments, civil society, and community-based organizations are making. Private sectors are being asked to come to the table.
It's very important that corporations talk about it internally and how corporations want to engage overall, whether it be within the United States or globally, whether you would like to work on your own supply chains with your own expertise, or whether you would like to keep it at arm's length and be contributing but not within your own supply chain. It’s at an arm's length through a foundation or whatnot.
You have a voice. Corporations have a voice at this time. The evaluations and the governments are seeing that without the private sector, innovation, and influence, things aren't changing. It really is an all-hands-on-deck. There are open conversations happening everywhere. It's a turning point. It's a great time in history, in my opinion.
We've been using the words for-profit, nonprofit, and corporations a lot, but I really wanted to zero in that this is not about large corporations alone. It could be a small mom-and-pop shop. It can be the solopreneur who has a passion for driving these different pieces. Leadership is influence. We're talking about influence. Influence is behavior and behaving like a leader. I want our audience to know that no matter what size of the organization you're in, even if you're a solopreneur, you can take that step.
With that question on this, small business entrepreneurs usually make a lot of connections where they are locally through their Chamber of Commerce and things like that. No one's on an island by themselves. We know other people of the same size, framework, and things like that. Are you seeing those types of companies come together and form their own partnerships to say, “We've got 15 of us from 5 different companies in total. Let's go to Gretchen and see what we can do.” Are you seeing some of that or has it been a big business So far?
We're seeing some of that. For instance, if you look at the US Agency for International Development, the World Bank, some of the larger multinationals, and the United Nations, they're going after the larger corporations because there's more money behind it. You see, for instance, the migration happening in Central America. Their working with the United States government is quite a number of large corporations coming together. There are 10 or 12 of them that come together in a round table and have been giving advice and support to the US administration on what should be done. There's quite an influence happening there.
However, if you go down to organizations like Common Impact, Taproot, and some of the smaller ones, that's where you have some of the smaller social enterprises. Those are smaller solopreneurs and whatnot, those who have in mind giving back to the communities. Their purpose is to make income but to give back to communities at the very same time. That's where the coming together of many at the same time, and we call them B Corp sometimes as well where they have B certifications, and that leadership, and it really is leadership from social enterprises, has come into play.
I talk about Circular 100 as a nonprofit. Under Circular 100, our plan is to bring together not necessarily B Corp certified but social enterprises that will influence bringing the biomass or the waste product from all of these commodities that are going to waste. People are not going to have enough food at the end of the day, but we need to be doing something with it. We need micromanufacturing. We need jobs to be created worldwide with it. The influence of those smaller micro manufacturers and the social enterprises is what's going to make the difference. That leadership from the social enterprises is coming up stronger, in my opinion, than the large corporations.
That's a charge to all you small businesses out there. You can have an impact. Don't think small. Think big with the impact of it. That's awesome.
Especially climate change. Think of it. Climate change.
Whichever way we can play it out. It has been great to have you. We finish every episode of the show with the same question, a quick tidbit. What is something our audience can intentionally do to be a better leader?
Relationships. Do not forget that relationships really matter. You may have your task list and your to-do list but do not forget to spend time with your relationships.
Relationships matter. You may have your task list and your to-do list, but don't forget to nurture your relationships.
That’s a great tip. People make all the difference. It has been great to have you. We hope that you're blessed in the work you continue to do in changing those systems of poverty around the world. Thanks a bunch. Have a great day.
Thank you.
Important Links
Gretchen Villegas - LinkedIn
LinkedIn - Nexus Strategy and Growth Partners, LLC
Contact Us - Nexus Strategy and Growth Partners, LLC
