Last Thursday, in two shifts, about thirty of us set out from Broadway and 116th to Washington D.C. The purpose was to introduce students interested in international development to the leading institutions in the nation’s capital.
Mary Abad, Gerald Su and Mario Lazzaroni, efficiently organized a day brimming with company visits, topped off with an alumni mixer in a hot-spot in Dupont Circle. The trip was generously sponsored by the School through the SIPP/GBA program. Also Columbia Business School Alumni Relations graciously agreed to foot some of the bill for the Alumni Mixer.
We were welcomed by: BearingPoint, the form KPMG consulting group, leader in International Public Service consulting with the mission to help build nations; Chemonics and Development Alternatives Inc, both smaller international development consulting companies; OPIC, the U.S. Government’s export insurer and lender; Inter-American Development Bank, the multilateral institute that focuses on lending to American countries; and World Bank.
Tom Monaco, Senior Associate Director MBA Career Services, accompanied the group. This was the first DC trip to be organized at Columbia Business School and it proved to be a true success. When asked how he perceived the outcome when contrasting it to the traditional investment banking and consultant events on campus, Tom Monaco agreed that there is significant value in organizing these types of recruiting initiatives. However, according to him, one of the hurdles Career Services faces is that students are not willing to work for lower salaries. When choosing between $140,000 offered by an investment bank, or doing something that would involve less money, but be as challenging and more fulfilling, most students choose the investment banking job.
At the Chemonics presentation, Dickran Geurgeurian noticed that “$39,000 a year, if you’re lucky, equals oh, about 20 years to pay off your student loans,” which makes the career choice obvious for many students.
Another reason for the concentration of banks and consulting firms on campus is that they are recruiting monsters and need many new hires per year, whilst the development institutes need a limited number. To illustrate, last year the World Bank received 8,000 applications for the Young Professional program, but after a thorough selection process, hired only 34 individuals.
This competitive environment permeates throughout Washington. At BearingPoint, a recent MBA hire explained that the only way to “get in” is through referrals and lots and lots of networking. It took him six months of talking to everybody in and around BearingPoint, getting a referral from a sub-contractor, to finally get invited for an interview. He was not even a career changer and had four years of work experience at the World Bank – one of BearingPoint’s largest clients. Clearly, obtaining a job in which you can make a difference will be very difficult. But whoever said life was easy?
The highlight was our visit to the World Bank where Dr Mamphela Ramphele, one of the four Managing Director at the World Bank, received us. She oversees the World Bank Institute and The Vice-Presidency of External Affairs. She also leads the formulation of the Bank’s policies on health and education, and is in charge of evaluating progress with regard to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. As a student she played a key role in the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.
Dr. Ramphele is also a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and mentioned that she had a special place in her heart for Columbia Business School since Dean Meyer Feldberg is one of her alums. When asked what the biggest challenge facing the world today is, she eloquently told us about growing global inequality.
Applying the all too familiar 80/20 rule, she pointed out that 20 of the global population owns 80 of the wealth. This imbalance produces anger and is one of the main causes of conflict. She gracefully outlined that we, the students, are the leaders of the future, and that it is in our hands to change policy and narrow the inequality gap. One specific way would be through trade reforms and the elimination of agricultural subsidies. Why, she questioned, is it necessary to grow sugar cane in Europe?
Sean McElduff challenged her by asking what she would say to a steelworker, in one of the failing American towns, who worries about providing food for his family. Dr Ramphele replied that she would address her concerns to the policymaker who does not tackle the long term competitiveness of the industrial structure. Giving subsidies to a dying industry is short term thinking and will not produce the long term structural solutions needed to eliminate the problem at its core.
Nicole Sors, who greeted Dr Ramphele in the South African language, asked how Dr. Ramphele, a black woman, got to this point in her career. Serenity and determination radiated from the fragile elderly lady and she pointed out that not only is she a black woman, she is also from a poor rural background. By staying true to herself and through education, courage and determination, she managed to carve out a niche for herself and contribute to the plight of the less fortunate.
But how can students like us can make a difference, given that it is extremely difficult to enter international development?
In Dr. Ramphele’s view there is much work in the continuum between the private and public sectors. In the private sector, we can work towards fostering entrepreneurship in the developing countries. In the private/public intersection, work can be done on infrastructure projects, and in the public sector there is much room for policymaking improvement. For those of us who are not one of the 34 lucky new hires, it may just be a blessing not to get stifled in a bureaucratic institution like the World Bank. Her basic message was that by believing in yourself and through conscious action, we can all make a contribution.