Description

In Chapter 9 of 11 in his 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag host Erik Michielsen, East African venture capitalist and conservation investor Josep Oriol shares how private sector, for-profit investing can create a next generation of role models by building business success stories. Oriol is a graduate of the MBA program at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business.

Transcript

How Investing in East Africa Creates a New Role Model Erik Michielsen: With so many nonprofit, focus economic development initiatives happening in Africa, what gets you most excited about the four- profit work that you're doing? Josep Oriol: I think we have very much more simpler deal. We are not modeled by complex difficulties to assess development goals. We don’t have to deal with corrupt political officers. We don’t have to engage with them in the same degree. We are investing in people who are driving the change from the grassroots in the society. We’re creating role models and to me, that’s probably the most exciting element. You're investing in some guy who works very hard and if he goes well with this business and becomes relatively successful, relatively wealthy. Now, you got a half of thousands of children looking at him and saying, “I want to be like him”. I no longer want to be like this minister or this prime minister who always taking money out of the common folk. Well, I want to do something valuable and create jobs and be successful. And if I can help a few people to achieve that, then I'm done.