Pauline Mwangi — Entrepreneurship Manager

Growing up, Pauline Mwangi and her siblings worked long hours alongside their parents on the family's small coffee farm in rural Kenya. Their hard work paid off, and they earned enough during the 1980s coffee boom to put all 10 children through college.

 

“I wanted to be number one in my class,” Mwangi says. “I wanted to escape tending coffee and living on a farm the rest of my life.” She achieved her dream and earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture economics and a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from Kenyan universities.

 

Mwangi went on to work in the microfinance sector, but jumped at the opportunity to join TechnoServe in 1999 because it offered business training that is critical to entrepreneurs’ long-term success. She is currently running TechnoServe’s “Young Women in Enterprise” program.

 

She is passionate about inspiring and empowering young women to create a better future for themselves and their families. “Women in Kenya are especially disadvantaged as they have limited access to business knowledge and commercial financing,” Mwangi says. “My desire is for the story of Cecilia Katungwa, the 22-year-old winner of last year’s business plan competition, to be the story of every girl.”

 

Katungwa, who credits Mwangi and the YWE program with giving her the confidence and skills to start her knitting business, now dreams of growing the business and serving as an example to other girls in the Nairobi slums.

 

Mwangi’s dedicated work is winning her worldwide recognition. She was selected to participate in the 2007 Fortune/State Department International Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership program in Washington, DC, which paired participants with Fortune 500 CEO mentors. Like them, Mwangi hopes to make the best of the opportunities she’s been granted. “Making a difference will be the natural outcome,” she says.

 

 

Joana Freitas and Rory Campbell — Volunteer Consultants

On a beach beside a 16th-century fortress wall, Joana Freitas and Rory Campbell saw that Ilha de Moçambique (an island off the northern coast of Mozambique) could become a world-class tourism destination and thus benefit its low-income communities. A UNESCO World Heritage site, Ilha (as it was known to centuries of traders) held beauty and a rich, multicultural history. The challenge was to convince international investors and also introduce changes to improve infrastructure damaged by decades of civil war and neglect.

 

Freitas, a McKinsey & Company consultant, and Campbell, a product manager for L'Oreal, were taking time away from their careers to be TechnoServe volunteer consultants. Their goal was to design a tourism industry development plan for the island, part of TechnoServe's broader effort to develop the tourism industry in northern Mozambique (with the support of the Ford Foundation), to bring much-needed jobs and business opportunities to residents.

 

After conducting on-site analysis and research, Freitas and Campbell presented plans to potential investors and government and community representatives, identifying idle buildings that could be converted into high-end hotels, detailing the infrastructural challenges, and showing that development was achievable. The two also met with the tourism minister, outlining measures vital for growing the island's tourism industry.

 

"We brought an approach to problem solving that was well received," Campbell says. "I feel that there is an unstoppable wave of progress to follow."

 

The experience changed them as well. "Being able to work for something that is worthwhile, for people that would not have access to a lot of help— it's a real privilege," Freitas says. Campbell concurs: "More than once, we had to pinch ourselves and say, 'This is our job.'"

 

 

Mirko Puente — Business Advisor

Mirko Puente joined TechnoServe/Peru as a consultant to small and medium enterprises, leaving behind a promising career in a Peruvian investment firm due to his keen sense of social justice and a need to give back to the country. Puente has committed himself to helping people capitalize on business opportunities in the mining community of Cajamarca, where he develops program proposals and facilitates market links for his various clients.

 

"Once, while on the road to a faraway community, I suddenly became ill, and when we arrived at the village I was surprised that no medical or hygienic facilities existed," Puente recalls. "This experience helped me realize that the basic necessities taken for granted in cities simply do not exist in rural areas, and this strengthened my resolve to do my part so that these communities may have basic services such as water, electricity and sewerage."

 

Puente's dedication and commitment to Cajamarca has earned him the respect and friendship of his clients and his team.