Poverty doesn’t figure into the view from the high-rise offices of Newport Center.
But it’s something the Pimco Foundation has in its sights as it supports employees who volunteer their talents on community service assignments in hard-pressed places around the world.
The foundation is part of Pacific Investment Management Co.—which calls a gleaming Newport Center high-rise home. And it’s been operating the Emerging Enterprise Program, or EEP, for a handful of years now in a long-term partnership with TechnoServe, a Washington, D.C.-based international nonprofit that focuses on microfinance and microenterprise.
The organization aims to provide locals business knowledge and access to talent and capital markets, with the objective to combat poverty in a sustainable way.
The first-wave team of this year’s EEP participants—Alain Mandy and Nicole Holsted—are wrapping up their six-week stint in Peru, where they’ve been working on developing a financing model for providing fertilizer to local farmers and enhancing productivity.
Mandy, a senior vice president based in the $1.5 trillion bond fund manager’s London office, and Holsted, a client management associate in the firm’s Newport Beach headquarters, were recently joined by the second-wave EEP volunteers, Gustavo Guevara and Drew Mena, a project manager in Newport Beach and a vice president in New York, respectively. They arrived in Lima late last month, and the four of them spent a week together in Tarapoto working on transferring the model and discussing next steps. Guevara and Mena are responsible for refining, finalizing and distributing the model.
Paid Leave
Pimco, which launched EEP in 2011, deploys a number of volunteers each summer for several weeks on paid leave to serve as volunteer consultants to clients of TechnoServe.
Employees have participated in projects in various countries, including El Salvador and Nicaragua.
“We decided in 2010 that we wanted to launch an international corporate volunteer program,” said Sarah Middleton, executive director of the Pimco Foundation. “It was a huge research project, looking at different nonprofits in the country and around the world that we could plug into and offer our expertise. TechnoServe … and its mission statement to find business solutions to fight poverty resonated with us. The organization has an amazing track record. So that’s the genesis behind the program.”
Middleton said the foundation and TechnoServe typically get together at the beginning of a calendar year and set out what kinds of services are needed.
“We get promotional materials together, and employees can come learn about the program,” she said. “We make EEP alumni available to talk to employees who might be interested. Any employee who is interested takes the application and has a month to complete it, along with approval from their manager. Applications come in to our team, and we, with the help of human resources and our EEP alum, read and review the applications. And then we invite qualified individuals to come sit for an interview. They’re conducted by the foundation team and the EEP alum. We make recommendations to TechnoServe, and they have the final say in who they select.”
EEP is not only seen as a way to help microbusinesses in emerging countries, but it’s also considered a “leadership development” opportunity and a “retention and recruitment tool,” Middleton said.
“An employee who participates in this program is really working to solve a real problem in an emerging country,” she said. “There is a greater cultural global awareness, and they stretch themselves in ways they never imagine, and they’re gaining greater diversity of thought.
“And employees return—I’ve heard them say this—they return with a renewed commitment to Pimco. They’ve had a chance to step back from their day-to-day jobs for five, six weeks. It’s given them a completely different perspective. And in terms of a recruiting tool, yes, definitely, especially for Millennials. They’re looking for not just a job but an employer who values what they value.”
Executive Vice President John Cavalieri, who participated in EEP last year, said the program is reflective of a valuable corporate culture.
“It’s not just philanthropy, which is admirable and can attract people,” he said. “But it’s giving people the opportunity to do it in a manner that’s supported at the highest level of the firm.”
Cavalieri and Scott Argyres, an associate, spent about 10 weeks in El Salvador and Nicaragua analyzing and developing a strategic plan for the coffee sector.
“Before I went on this, I didn’t know squat about coffee,” Cavalieri said. “I know I like soy latte more than Americano. But I didn’t know anything about the value chain, production, and nothing about El Salvador. You do a lot of independent reading beforehand, and TechnoServe provides resources to get you up to speed on things. But it really starts when you get on the ground. In our case, the project was broader in scope—to do a strategic analysis of the coffee sector, meaning you would diagnose its challenges and propose a range of solutions and ways to overcome those challenges.”
The program affected Cavalieri “across multiple dimensions,” he said.
‘Stretch Opportunities’
One was that his absence created “stretch opportunities” for his team at the office.
“They have to fill that void, and I think quality people rise to the occasion,” he said. “Just as my departure into this project helped me to grow, my void in the Newport Beach office created opportunity for my team members to grow. I’d be on email every day spending about 90 minutes answering questions and giving directions, but they take it from there. And by the time I come back, they’ve now grown into new spaces that gives them the responsibility and lets me take on new responsibilities, as well.”
Another was a broadened, sobering perspective.
“When you’re forced to live and work in an environment so different and frankly so challenging on a day-to-day basis compared to our idyllic environment here in Newport Beach, your awareness of different cultures, different sensibilities—it’s just broadened. It makes you a more well-rounded, sympathetic and aware individual.”
