IGD Speaker Series March 5th 2009, speech by Stan Emert
Initiative for Global Development – Business Leaders Working to End Poverty
Rainier Club, Seattle
Thank you, Jennifer [Potter, CEO of Initiative for Global Development].
Symetra Financial is a proud sponsor of IGD. Unlike Microsoft and Boeing, we don’t trade internationally. But we made the corporate decision several years ago to provide our financial support, voice and brainpower to IGD. We want to show leadership to our community and our employees on the important issue of eliminating extreme poverty and improving the human condition.
Dr. Bruce Jenks, Assistant Secretary-General of United Nations Development Program, started out the day by stating that we as a human society may be failing in our efforts to overcome poverty. Dr. Jenks, we can’t fail. The reason is about Abigail.
Abigail is my 6-year-old daughter. She is a wonderful little girl who has me wrapped around her little finger. I want her to grow up in a world where she can thrive; where she can have the opportunity to make a great life for herself; and a world where she can take advantage of new technologies that brings people from around the globe closer than ever before.
Eliminating poverty and helping to improve the human condition will go a long way to bringing peace in the world. As much as I care for Abigail, each one of you has a daughter or son or grandchild that means as much to you. We owe them making our best efforts.
Just this past Friday, I had the good fortune to attend the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition banquet. That mouthful is a tremendous gathering of graduate students from around the world who propose sustainable businesses in developing countries to help overcome poverty.
The winning team proposed 10 cent meals for the poor in the area of Mumbai we’ve talked about today. Others proposed text message prescription drug verification; solar ovens made from readily available and affordable materials; and pedal-powered cell phones, and many others.
None of them proposed a business creating credit-default swaps or convoluted mortgage instruments that takes a team of lawyers to decipher. These students, some of whom were my age or more, proposed enterprises that would responsibly employ people and help their countries.
As different as the businesses were, and as different as the areas where they would be located, each one of the students was asking for the same thing from the business professionals at the competition. We’ve already heard these two words a lot today. The students who were proposing businesses wanted relationships and trust. If those of us in business can help make eliminating extreme global poverty a US national priority, we will go a long way in re-building relationships and re-creating trust of our country around the world.
You can show your commitment by attending the IGD National Summit in Washington DC May 6th and 7th. I went to the first one a few years ago when I was still reading Goodnight Moon to Abigail. Now Abigail reads Pinkalicious and Princess Mulah to me.
In that first Summit, I had the good fortune of sitting next to Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn during one of the sessions. She was voraciously taking notes, learning as much as she could - regardless of who was speaking. And there were people at the same podium who didn’t agree on much. Carly Fiorina and Ted Turner and President Bush and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs are just a few of them.
Speaking of Jeffrey Sachs, I saw him come in the room and was standing not too far from me. He looked like he had a question on his mind. So I went over and asked him if I could help. He said yes – that he had something new he wanted to say and wanted to try it out first.
I was honored to listen, and didn’t find it all that different from what I had heard him say on television interviews before. But that experience showed me that regardless of titles, no matter who we were or what place in society we had, and irrespective of all our other differences, everyone in the huge ballroom at the Willard in Washington DC came together for the purpose of making extreme poverty a national priority.
So, on May 6th and 7th, please bring your voices and brainpower to come to the IGD National Summit. Let’s make sure that business stands tall to build a peaceful world for my Abigail and the Abigail’s in your lives. Let’s make poverty a thing of the past.
On behalf of Symetra Financial, I thank you, and see you in DC!