Wanted: White MBA from Top School

If you are a bright, white MBA who is graduating from a top business school next spring and want to make a big impact on the world, there is an incredible opportunity you have likely overlooked. This job will make a bigger impact on the lives of others than any job in Silicon Valley.

Tony Meloto, head of Gawad Kalinga, is looking to hire white MBAs from prestigious programs to help him rebuild the Philippines after decades of economic imperialism.

The Philippines is rich in natural resources, like coconuts, which foreign companies buy at low rates that don’t enable livable wages for local farmers. They are then processed overseas and returned to the Philippines sold to the Filipino middle class at a large mark-up. It is creating a cycle of unnecessary poverty that needs to be broken.

Tony is working to make the nation self-sufficient. As he told me recently, “Why can’t we produce these products to sell to our own people and in the process provide a living wage to everyone involved?”

As he is making the rounds meeting with government, community and corporate leaders he has found one role incredibly valuable in getting their attention: having a white driver or note-taker from a prestigious western business school makes Filipino leaders more likely to listen and join his cause.

For a nation and culture that has been subjugated by imperialism, there is perhaps no greater sign of success and prestige than having a white elite working under you. With a history of being under the thumb of other nations, nothing sends a stronger message of self-sufficiency and independence than this reversal of power.

Tony believes that with the help of some white MBAs from prestigious western schools he can catalyze a radical change in the Philippines. He can build the support he needs to achieve his dream of making the Philippines a first-world country and bringing dignity and higher quality of life to nearly 100 million people.

It is a fresh take on an old story. So many western professionals dream about going to the developing world and sharing their wisdom with the impoverished, ‘ignorant’ local communities. They dream of being the white knight who comes to save the day. They don’t realize that the best way to make a difference may not be to teach and “fix” communities but to actually serve them and empower their leadership.

Tony is not looking for a white knight. He just wants a white driver.

Are you interested?

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Aaron Hurst is CEO of Imperative, a technology platform helping organizations build cultures alive with purpose. He is also the founder of the Taproot Foundation and author of The Purpose Economy. Follow him on twitter: @Aaron_Hurst.