 Will I reach my potential? I wonder if any of you have thought about this question, and if so, where it took you. Seven years ago when this question struck me, I was leading a small digital marketing group and worked with a really great team of people. But I knew that in the work that I was doing, it wasn't going to help me build a career that would make the world a better place, and it wasn't going to allow me to reach my own personal goals and aspirations. And so I did what probably anybody would do when their midlife crisis hit them 20 years too early. Started doing research and looking for a lot of possibilities. I applied to jobs and global development, I looked for post-grad opportunities, and I applied to fellowship programs like Acumens. And with every single opportunity that then presented itself to me, I would ask myself, not will I like this, not will I learn something, not does this excite me, but rather, will this help me reach my full potential? That's a very, very different measuring stick. And along the way, even though I got rejected for most of the things that I applied to, I realized that if I wanted to do this, it was really my responsibility. And I think there's a side lesson there. But what I also figured out was that if I wanted to reach mine, I had to go learn and spend time with people and with organizations that had reached their potential. So I decided to spend a year traveling and volunteering my skills around the world in hopes of doing just that. My first stop was in Nepal. Here's a picture of me supporting the Nepal Wireless Initiative. A brilliant program started by Mahabir Pune. He's figured out how to sway the foothills of the Himalaya to the most remote villages with very cheap Wi-Fi. Put in solar powered computer labs in schools, train the teachers how to use them, and then use revenue from trekkers coming through the region to access that Wi-Fi. To create and support those programs, and also create extra revenue opportunities for the schools. From there, I got to spend time with all these inspiring organizations. And I wish all of them could have been with us here today. But one that really struck me was an organization called Wanaka Waste Busters in New Zealand. At its groundbreaking ceremony 15 years ago, the mayor bet $100 that it wouldn't stay in business for one year. It's now the largest employer in Wanaka, not just of people with professional skills, but also those with special needs. And they do that by collecting waste, upcycling it, and using revenue from those programs to fund national education and awareness campaigns about how to keep their country clean. And in this process of spending time with these organizations, I developed incredible skills. Things like operating in ambiguity, working across cultures, working on innovation and doing more with less. But I also learned some more personal skills. Things like empathy, consciousness, and I think selflessness. Things that I think are more important than ever in our interconnected societies. I also picked up valuable experiences, learned what it was like for organizations to scale up initiatives and make hard decisions about shutting some down. And I built an incredible network with impact investors, with global development partners. And of course, I met my incredible co-founder, Dirk Nord, who worked on this problem of how do we get talent into the most remote areas of the world at scale? And so now at SoCAP, I can't help but ask us the same question. With all our investment, with all our ideas, are we capable of reaching our full potential? And of course, we're here because we believe it's true. But what I'll argue is not if we don't have the right experience, the right skills, and the right network to do just that. In fact, if we don't have people to lead us, we won't achieve the progress we want. And this is not just my own observations. The United Nations has said that behind an access to capital, access to talent is a second leading barrier to growth. Fellow SoCAP member of the Aspen Network of Developmental Entrepreneurs has said that in some economies like India and Brazil, that lack of access to talent is the leading barrier to progress. To help make this more real, here are pictures from MamiMade, an incredible organization that we support in Lebanon. They take refugee women in vulnerable populations. They harness their skills in the kitchen, teach them business and hospitality skills. And with those, procure catering opportunities where they're able to use revenue to fund not only their education, but just as importantly, their job placement programs. It was started by a group of engineers, a brilliant and passionate bunch, but they didn't know anything about marketing. They didn't know how to tailor their value propositions to different members. They didn't know what a customer relationship management system or a CRM system was and how to harness that. So they looked to us and we were able to connect them with a brilliant young lady named Ali, who went there, learned about their challenges, and in just a number of months was able to help them develop their sales strategy and also understood that there were some incredible connections for nonprofits like the Sales Force Foundation, where they could get free licenses to CRM tools as a nonprofit. And with those, she was able to help them grow. Another organization very different from an organizational standpoint is eBanks. Operating out of Brazil, it helps consumers now in Brazil and also across Latin markets access products and services online. It's backed by an incredible organization endeavor. It has a global network. It's received pro bono consulting teams from EY. And yet, three years ago, it was a team of 10 people and they didn't have the elbow grease needed to really get to the next level. They needed help with international partnerships and they looked to us and we connected them to Nicole. Brilliant woman with seven years of international development experience in creating international partnerships. Since then, they've grown from 10 people to 120, creating 110 local jobs in the process. And it's that catalytic effect when we align the right capital with the right leaders, with the right skills, that we can truly make new bounds in development. But no organization is immune to this talent gap from small organizations all the way up to the Fortune 50 organizations struggle when they don't have access to quality leaders. In fact, 76% of global CEOs say that a lack of access of globally ready leaders is one of their biggest challenges. And not only that, they don't have plans in place to develop it. And all that said, leadership development budgets are still increasing in corporations at a rate of 15% a year trying to harness these challenges. And it's for good reason. According to famed GE CEO Jack Welch, if you build the best team, you win. And I think we know that here at SoCAP, if we build the best team of global leaders, of entrepreneurs, of impact investors, we too can achieve the goals that we're setting out to achieve. But we have to be real. Small organizations in the field need technical skills. But we can marry that with the fact that large corporations need global leaders. And if you believe in ancient wisdom or sayings to teach us to learn twice, or I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand, then you know that people learn through experience. So let's harness these opportunities. Let's take people that have skills on their own or through corporate programs, connect them to small organizations around the world where they can address specific technical skills, and let's help these organizations grow and create jobs. And when these people return, they'll return with the same skills that I returned with, collaboration, empathy, innovation. They'll return into their companies ready to lead in our global interconnected world. So a few examples of this. Here's a program that we support at Microsoft. It'll send 200 volunteers across the African continent next year to connect people to nonprofits, startups, small and growing businesses, partners, schools and governments. The picture here is a NAND. He's helping startups implement Microsoft's power business intelligence tool, a free software. In just one to two weeks, he's able to help them grow. Yesterday on this stage, Neil Myrick from the Tableau Foundation talked about how they're now extending their data visualization tools also for free to nonprofits, and they have the Tableau Service Corps to follow suit to help make sure that it's being implemented correctly. It doesn't take a lot of time to solve challenges. Here's a picture of Jamie. I think this crowd will really like her story. She got to go work on and monitoring an evaluation project in Latin America with Systema Bay, the Latin American sister company to the benefit corporation movement here in the States. She worked on creating data to convince investors to invest in social enterprises and get social enterprises to commit to being benefit corporations across Latin America. And here's a picture of Ali, the expert here that we sent to Lebanon, a picture of her working in the mommy-made office. And these programs, they're really working. Over 90% of people attribute this as one of the best global leadership experience they've ever had. We partnered with the wonderful organization called the Merging World on the Microsoft Project. They've collected other data from other corporate and individual programs to show that of the participants, almost everybody has gains in dealing with ambiguity. One in the middle that I love is self-confidence. We need confident leaders to step into these challenges and of course, being able to see things from different perspective and solve solutions. Two days ago, I was at the Corporate Citizenship Center conference in DC. They're one of the communications directors at Samsung talked about how these pro bono programs also build empathy. Something hard to measure, but something we all know is vital to creating sustainable systems. But I mean, this is really working. Organizations in the field are saying that 89% feel that in as short as one to two weeks of getting technical expertise, a sustainable difference is made to their organization. 94% are saying that the organizational capability is growing and 100% say that it positively impacts staff through connections, skills, networks, and experience. So this brings us back here to SOCAP. Will we reach our full potential? And my stance on this is we can. But if you think about how the waves of economic growth and sinkholes might affect us, how environmental crises might slow us down, how political issues might create major challenges, behind every single idea, behind every single initiative, at the end of the day, we have people. And if we invest in those people, they can grow and they can lead us to the place that we want us to go. And so for impact investors, organizations that come to you that maybe they aren't ready, maybe they don't need another business plan, maybe they need somebody who can help them implement an accounting system. For those that receive investment, maybe they need help scaling. For individuals listening in, you have a vacation, you have a sabbatical, you have some free time, or maybe you have a gap year. Think about how you could use your skills to catalyze growth in the areas where it's needed the most. And for corporations, you have the greatest asset of all. You have people's brains. And if you can unleash that capital, that human capital for good, they will return more innovative, more engaged, and more ready to take not only themselves to their full potential, but also your company to theirs. So can we reach our full potential? Of course we can. As long as we take the time to develop the people that are capable of getting us there. Thank you so much for your time.