The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Global development executive discusses bridging the gap for vulnerable communities

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Global development executive discusses bridging the gap for vulnerable communities Gretchenvillegas.net About the Guest(s): Gretchen Viegas is a global development executive with over 25 years of experience in the field. She specializes in mission-driven, innovative programming for vulnerable communities through partnership development, impact scaling, and revenue growth. For the first 15 years of her career, Gretchen lived and worked in Latin America and East and Southern Africa. In the past decade, she has been forging partnerships between non-profits and for-profits to do business for good. Gretchen is passionate about finding solutions to global challenges and believes in the power of collaboration to create positive change. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss interviews Gretchen Viegas, a global development executive with extensive experience in the field. Gretchen shares her insights and experiences working in emerging markets and developing nations, where she focuses on helping vulnerable communities gain access to necessities such as clean water, food, housing, and education. She emphasizes the importance of listening to the needs of the community and working together to find sustainable solutions. Gretchen also discusses the role of for-profit and non-profit partnerships in addressing global challenges and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Key topics discussed in this episode include the impact of poverty, homelessness, and lack of clean water on communities worldwide, the need for collaboration between for-profit and non-profit sectors to address global challenges, the importance of empathy and understanding different cultures, and the role of youth in driving positive change. Key Takeaways: Global development is about partnering with vulnerable communities to help them access necessities and improve their quality of life. Collaboration between for-profit and non-profit sectors is crucial in addressing global challenges and achieving sustainable development goals. Understanding and empathizing with different cultures is essential for effective global development work. The youth play a significant role in driving positive change and shaping the future of global development. Businesses can make a profit while also making a positive impact on society and the environment. Notable Quotes: "It's not about showing up with the answers or with money and resources. It's about listening to what's important to the community and being a partner in finding solutions." - Gretchen Viegas "We need the for-profits and the innovation and creativity, along with the nonprofit boots on the ground, to come together and solve the big challenges we face." - Gretchen Viegas

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, I'm host Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.

There you go. There are all these things that makes an official welcome to the show. As always, the Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harsh as your mother-in-law, because, you know, she never liked you anyway. She wanted her to marry Bob. Bob turned into, you know, he was at Wall Street. He ended up being at Wall Street and stuff, and you're still stuck at McDonald's. But the great thing is if you listen to the Chris Voss Show, you can get out of that job

and, you know, get a much higher pay, more successful job because we have these amazing people that come on the show. And if you get really smarter, maybe that stepmom will like you some more or better. I don't know, something like that. Anyway, we have another amazing guest on the show. Today we have an amazing young lady we'll be talking to about everything that she does. We have Gretchen Villegas is on the show with us today. She's going to be talking about her insights and experience as a global development executive.

And some of the insights she's going to be bringing you is she's been executive leader with over 25 years of experience in global development. She specializes in mission-driven innovative programming for vulnerable communities through partnership development, impact scaling, and revenue growth. She lived and worked in Latin America and East and Southern Africa for the first 15 years of her career journey, and for the past 10 years or so, she has been stateside, forging partnerships between nonprofits and for-profits to do business for good. So, not business for evil? Is that you decided to do it for good, Gretchen?

It must be for good. Absolutely. That sounds like a good thing in the world because, you know, you don't want to be Dr. Evil. It didn't turn out well for him in those movies. So, Gretchen, give us a.com. Where can people find you on your interwebs? Well, I'm actually a.net.

So it's GretchenViegas.net. That's where you'll find me. There you go. .net that captures everything on the World Wide Web. Exactly. You can't say that anymore, the World Wide Web? I don't know. I'm out of touch.

So Gretchen, give us a 30,000 overview in your words of what you do and how you do it. That is a great question. So, I am a global development executive, which means that I work in emerging markets or developing nations with non-governmental organizations or non-profits we enter communities right vulnerable communities where they are lacking necessities such as clean water not having food those are Those are two good things that are really important to have. Exactly. Or housing, right? Or schooling. And support that community in finding ways to find access to actually those necessities and looking for basically a dignified life, right? Yeah. I mean, you'd think with all the riches we have in the world

and billionaires we have in the world, and I think we're better off as a world, at least with money and resources, than ever before, and available, being able to get things to different places on this planet. You would think that we would have solved poverty, homelessness, starvation, and clean water.

But, you know, I mean, you look at, I mean, even here in America, you look at places like Flint, Michigan and other places. And even here we have, you know, kids, you know, it finally came to the point that schools had to start giving kids breakfast because they weren't showing up with food. That's right. Having eaten. And it affects how they grow and learn. Tell us a little bit about your journey. What got you into doing these humanitarian efforts?

What shaped you? Yeah, that's a great question. So when I came out of my undergraduate degree, which was international studies, I was just interested in what was outside the United States, right? I really didn't know what to do, but I knew I was interested in what was outside, and I wanted to travel. So I went into the Peace Corps. Oh, there you go. Yeah. And I got that piece of paper telling me where I was going to go and said Cerna.

Where's that at, by the way? That was exactly, Chris, what I said when I got the piece of paper. And I looked at it. I was like, OK. At that time, we didn't have our Google phones. We couldn't look up the map. So I had to actually go get the encyclopedia and go, okay. I thought it was Africa.

Sounds kind of French-ish. Right? Yeah. It was South America. You know those tiny countries right above Brazil? It's that one in the middle. Oh, really? So it's South America then, huh?

Yeah. So formally colonized by the Dutch. So it was formerly Dutch Guyana, that was Suriname. And it was independent in 75. And when I showed up there, they sent all the Peace Corps volunteers into the Amazon, where there was no running water, no electricity, no road running into the village. And to get out there, you rode this cattle truck up to, yes, a cattle truck. So imagine planks of wood, right? Metal bars. You get out, dug out tree log with a boater on the back. And guess what they told me? What? I'm not joking here. They told me, take off your shoes because if for some reason someone has a cut on their foot

or something, you will have to move very quickly to jump into the boat. So the piranha don't bite your feet. Whoa. Whoa. That's, that sounds like my aquarium. I don't know. Yes. and it was true it was true

but imagine this you're going for about 20 minutes and all of a sudden there is this clearing and it is these absolute beautiful rocks and there's this opening and it's a beautiful dutch reform church it's 600 people with these thatch roof huts and children running along the banks and it's just this beautiful village you know that you only see on tv yeah wow and it's in probably clean air too very much but there's other problems that come with it, right? Like clean water, having to walk a mile to go get the water that you can drink out of the spring, not having a school built so they're outside with the teachers. Can you just get some out of the Coke machine? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

And I had to learn how to cook over wood fire. And do you know how much it hurts your eyes to cook over wood? Oh, yeah. If that smoke gets in there. Oh. But I had some great learnings, let me tell you. Yeah. We haven't paid the gas bill at my house for a year after Coke.

Wait, that joke doesn't make any sense. We haven't paid the gas at my house, so we've been doing the wood thing, just like I did in Boy Scouts. But, you know, we've got it down. The landlord's upset that we're still doing it in the house, though. I think the fire marshal said, whatever. This joke is just going too far. I'm just running down the road with this joke. Making shit up as I go along with it. I do know that if you're using wood inside the house, the wall has to be completely charcoaled, and you are going to be in trouble by your landlord. Yeah, yeah. He's going to come by and say, you can't be doing this in the hut with the thatch hut with the grass roof, eh? Yeah, it's expensive, the real estate here, so that's kind of where I'm at.

Yeah. But, yeah, don't start a fire in the house. No, no? Yeah. It's expensive, the real estate here. So that's kind of where I'm at. But yeah, don't start a fire in the house. No, no, no. But there are some great lessons from there. I'm really grateful I had that opportunity because, you know, number one, I didn't know what global development was. And what I learned there was it's not about showing up, right with the answers. And it's not about showing up with stuff with with money and resources. It's it was about first of all, I had to learn the language. So thank goodness, the children were patient enough with me. But after that, it was really about listening to what was important to the community and being a partner

with the community and helping the community figure out where could they get the resources they needed where they could pipe the water in from the spring, right? And where could they get the resources they needed to build that school that they so much needed. And, you know, that's where I really found my purpose, which you were asking about, which was, you know, I could be that bridge. I could listen and I could figure out, okay, I could partner and figure out how I could go find resources that were needed. There you go. Be a bridge to the world.

That's my new coffee cup and shirt. I'll be over. I love that message. You know, I think maybe I can assume that we both come from the era. I know a lot of it was espoused. I remember Bobby Kennedy talking about it. Ripples of Hope speech in South Africa. One of my favorite speeches, my favorite speech of all time.

And back then, a lot of people went in to the peace corps and it gave americans a a understanding of the global world outside of america you know and i think a lot of that's been lost people quit doing it i think as much and it created a nationalism in america or a and kind of an isolation of mind in america where you know i mean most people couldn't find america on the globe these days where's america at is it the north or the south you're right it's that intercultural you know it's it's you know when you're a volunteer you go you go to experience what that culture is but you also bring it home you bring home what it's like

to be there so that it's not mysterious it's not foreign and you understand you i think you gain more empathy for people absolutely that. That's exactly right. You're spot on. Because you see how other people live. I remember I was busy building my own empire and coming from being poor to having a buck or two and building companies. And I remember 9-11 really changed me because it really woke me up to kind of the narcissistic sort of isolationist mindset, the asshole American, as they used to call it if you've seen the movie, that era of that, which I think is still prevalent. And it woke me up and I'm like, wait, I thought we were the greatest country in the world. Like, people hate us?

Like, for serious? They're flying planes into buildings? Yeah. And that's when my politics really changed that's when i started really trying to understand what was going on in the world and not just the narrative that i was being fed by president dick cheney and who's making money at halliburton running a war the and so i started looking at you know what's going on who are these people why are they angry and i need to understand these people are in the world that want to come destroy me.

And it helped me gain a lot more empathy. It changed my politics. It changed my outlook on the world. And it's made my worldview a lot richer, my understanding of life a lot richer. And so I think it's really important everybody should do that. In fact, I'm advocating for the, for the people. It's 2024 people in April.

I'm advocating for those. It's actually May 1st. It's May 1st. Amazing. Yeah. I'm actually advocating for those people supporting Hamas. They're throwing violence at our colleges to be shipped over to Hamas country so they can just see what it's like for fun. I mean,

we need a new peace corps for Hamas to send all those kids to Hamas. It's complex. You know, our world today, you know, and you talk about global development, right? I mean, we've got climate crisis, we've got conflicts, and we have hunger. And it's all connected. Isn't it interesting that we've had that for so long of a time? You know, like, you listen to Bobby Kennedy's speech in 1960, probably, what was it, 7 or 66 maybe when he gave that speech? 65?

It was after John's death. Yeah. So it was after his assassination, I believe. And I can't remember, actually, the speech, but it was somewhere in that timeline. And it had to have been 66 or 67, maybe. No, it couldn't have been earlier than 65, I think. But, you know, he talked about the Peace Corps in that thing and how important it is to understand internationally. Yeah.

Where did you go from there after you started learning to be a bridge to these communities? From there, I came back. I got a master's degree from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, which was what I call my alternative MBA, because it was all about practice. And so, was all about writing proposals for grant funding, doing the budgets, and budgeting all the activities and whatnot. So all that you do through a master's in business administration, but one step further, which was how do you actually actually how do you work through all of that working with teams of different cultures throughout the world right because basically you have to put that together knowing that you will be executing that in different cultures in different places right with different

governments so it was it was it So it was good. It was insightful. And I have to say, I use it. I mean, after, oh my gosh, what, 20 some years, I still use it every single day. So very helpful. After that, I wanted to go back abroad, right? And I, you know, refused to just remain in the United States. And, you know, it was like, okay, how am I going to get a job? You know, Land O'Lakes, the butter company, right? Yeah. Okay. So Land O'Lakes, the butter company at the time had an international arm that did only international development for dairy cooperatives. And they implemented it with mainly money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or the U.S. Agency for International Development. And so I communicated with someone from there.

And I said, look, you know, I, I, I know, you know, I, I just came back from Peace Corps. I have my master's degree. I know I don't have a whole lot of experience, but, you know, please, you know, give me something. Let me try. And I said, you know, we have this consultancy, you know, why don't you go to Nicaragua and, you know, see what you can do we need some business plans because we want these dairy cooperatives to be able to export their cheese to the u.s and why do you just take this it's like 45 days just go see what you can do you know paid me hardly anything and i said i don't care just just give it to me just let me try here's the thing they

didn't tell me they had already sent three people that yeah three people like that had already tried and you know couldn't get them to do that so So I didn't know that. Send her on that suicide mission that three other ones didn't come back from. But here's the thing. No, but here's the thing. I asked for it, right? I asked for a chance, right? Because I couldn't get it anywhere else.

And, you know, I was so determined that I didn't want to just settle for a job in the U.S. because I knew if I just took an entry level position in the U.S., I would get stuck. Because usually you go through, you get in the U.S. and you just kind of start going through, you know, level after level. So I went and I had, you know, I spoke Spanish, but not that well. And somehow, you know, here's me out there driving in my little Yaris car. Imagine, blonde, 20 something, you know, trying to get out of paying my extra fees when I'm stopped on the side of the road. And somehow we were able to write our business plans and we were able to get the certifications

that we needed. It did take a little longer than 45 days, but mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. And so you beat out the three priors that couldn't get it done, and you got it done. That was awesome. Got it done. Got her done. And so we built some trust, and I was very, very grateful for those who were in Land O'Lakes.

They really advocated for me. And I was able to actually move into a deputy chief of party role which is basically all of operations into columbia now is there free butter that comes with that is it like a butter compensation program yeah no but i did i did get a job out of it you know so i was very grateful but i uh honestly i was grateful because i had I had a mentor out of that situation that, you know, it was still an old boys club at that time. You know what I'm talking about. Was it the Indian lady on the land of lakes? Sorry, I had to do that joke, even though I think they removed her.

They did. And you know what? She was a very beautiful Indian lady. I thought that was so lame. I loved that logo, actually. She was beautiful. But yes, she was removed. I would have dated her. I just thought it was, you know, it reminded you.

I mean, I didn't think there was anything offensive about her being Native American on there. I actually thought it was, you know, I felt like it was an honor. Yeah, it was a homage to a better time before us. White people showed up and paved everything and polluted all the air. And that was what cooperatives meant. Lando Lakes is a very strong cooperative, multi-billion dollar structure. But it's really for the people. That's why Lando Lakes grew like it did. That's one of the big challenges of America. Hi, we're from America for the people. That's why Land O'Lakes grew like it did.

That's one of the big challenges of America. Hi, we're from America and the government. We're here to help you. Worst thing anyone will see here. There was a point in your time where you were having to learn to drive on the wrong or right side of the road. Tell us a story about that. So that was going into Africa. At one point, Land O'Lakes didn't have any additional work in Latin America.

So I was moved into Eastern Southern Africa. And when we went into Malawi, of course, British colonies. And yeah, so we're learning how to drive on the opposite side of the road. I don't know how your depth perception is, but yeah, I, first few times I drove, it just felt so strange. I, it depends on, it depends on how much I, it depends on how much I have to drink, but don't do that people. It's a joke. The attorney makes me say that. So there you go. Oh, my gosh. Put it this way.

The first time I drove, everybody just moved out of the way. And I think they just gave me permission since I was a foreigner. But yeah, it's very strange to drive on the other side of the road. Yeah. And having the steering wheel on the other side, too, I imagine, as well, where you're like, what's going on here? This car's broken, clearly. It just feels, yeah. it just feels strange, really, really strange. So tell us what you do now, who you work with, who are your prospective clients? Because this goes out on LinkedIn and places. Who are the prospective clients you're looking for in the

work that you're looking to do for them? Yeah. So at this time, I am in transition. I am looking to move into another, hopefully, C-suite position with a global development organization. I have a background in systems approach and design thinking, but especially around working with vulnerable communities, right? I have background in agriculture, value chains, economic growth, food security. I love to work with teams. I do a lot around strategy, especially around looking at, for instance, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, right? Whether you're for-profit or a non-profit, everyone is working towards solving some of our big challenges, right? Through the sustainable development goals, whether it is our climate crisis, our food insecurity, whether it's the conflicts that are happening, right? Our, you know,

gender and inclusiveness, youth inclusion, all of those. And so I'm very good at helping a team move through a strategy to reach, say, a 2030 goal and putting impact analytics around that goal and taking it to the point of looking at the ecosystem and saying, okay, how are we going to reach that impact target, right? So what is our big goal, right? How many million, right, people do we want to support at the end of the day? And how many hundreds of millions of dollars do we need? Where are the for-profit, non-profit, and community partners that we need to bring to the table? And my expertise really is bringing in those diversified revenue sources and partnerships to say, okay, if we're going to tackle some really big challenges, Chris, we need many different diversified viewpoints and diversification of skill sets and revenue streams sitting at the table to make it happen. And I've had some interesting conversations lately. I'll just kind of throw a few out there. I think you'll have some ideas too. Circular economy economy the circular economy is very interesting lately reduction of waste that that is that is a very

interesting topic lately that especially the private sector is coming forward with a lot of innovative creative products and ideas for sure water water as well you know if you are in the for-profit sector and you're coming up with these creative innovative ideas and you and you really want to you know make inroads with the the non-profits you know now is your time to start speaking loudly because these are the big bets that everybody's talking about right now. This is the time when everybody needs to be coming together. And that's where I want to be. So if you're a nonprofit or you're a for-profit and you want to be at the forefront of bringing people together to start working on some of these big issues, that's who I want to

work for. There you go. There's a lot of that going on. I mean, just about every company now is embracing these sort of things. A lot of the youth, the Gen Z folks, they want to see the companies they work for and work with sustainable and taking care of the planet better, taking care of people better. They seem to be more interested in, when they're not on TikTok, they seem to be more interested in, shots of fire, Chris. That's okay, the government's shutting it down soon,

but no, I love TikTok. That's just a joke, people, calm down. Talk to your mom, she'll hold you for a while. But it's going to be okay with TikTok, trust me. But yeah, they want something better, and so a lot of companies now are realizing that their vision, their company mantra, their mission has to be something beyond just like, let's make a bunch of money for investors, shareholders and stuff. And they're like, you know, let's have an impact on the world and be better, do better, et cetera, et cetera.

At least some companies are. I'm still wondering about some other ones. Doing business for good. Doing business for good doing business for good and you're right it's it's the current generation they they're not standing down you know it's business for good but here's the thing and this is the truth you can make a profit and do business for good. Definitely. Definitely. And you probably make more of a profit. There's a lot of companies that do that. I mean, there's, I think, I can't think of the shoe company, but there's a shoe where every time you buy a shoe, you give away a shoe.

Yeah. Is it Tom's Shoes? I believe so. Tom's Shoes. Yeah. Yeah. They give you a shoe. Yeah, absolutely.

Different things happen. And here's the thing, and I really believe this, right? These challenges that we have today, right? The climate crisis, the conflicts, the hunger, okay? And there's many, many more, right? But these big conflicts, they cannot be solved just by humanitarian funds, right? Or the nonprofit world, right? Or what the UN is doing. We need the for-profits and the innovation and the creativity along with the nonprofit boots on the ground to come together. That is going to solve it. And come together and prioritize the access of both the funds and the creativity together. That will solve it. Most definitely. I mean, I love the concept of what you're talking about here

because it'll make all the difference in the world. Are there any, while I'm looking over your website, are there any programs you have that you do there or imagine you do speaking engagements and different things? Yeah, absolutely. If you go to my website, you'll see that I am listed on Innovation Women. So I am available for speaking engagements. I also have strategy certification.

So I can definitely customize any strategy facilitation that you'd be interested in. But in all honesty, I'm looking for a team, you know, I'm looking for a home. I really want to be part of something that makes a huge impact on where we're moving in the future. And something that's important to me is to be mentoring, Chris, some of those youth that you're talking about. you know I have 25 years of experience and I have three daughters and I hope that there are people who are who are going to be stepping up and teaching my daughters and leaving them with wisdom and advice and I want to be able to do that for others right in my next 10 to 15 years so So I'm hopeful that I get that chance, right?

There you go. Have you moved down to Columbia University yet? I feel like there's a lot of people that need to join the police force down there. I'm going to stay away from there for a few more weeks, and maybe it'll be quieter by that time. You're a little out of hand right now with the violence. Yeah, and I'm not going to bail anybody out of jail. I really think i really

think you probably have to if you go the i really aren't there certain governments that force people to go to the peace corps or you can do that or you can do military service is there certain countries that do that there definitely is military service for sure is Israel, I think Israel. Yeah. Yeah, they do. They do. And actually the UK does. Yeah. The UK has, you must do military service. Various actually do. And the thing is that you don't have to go into the Peace Corps to have this type of experience. You know, there's lots of different types of opportunities. You can, you know, there's missionary opportunities, but there's also, it's interesting right now, I've been researching quite a lot on this. There are quite a few social enterprise companies right now that actually offer this type of experience for a fee. So you can

actually go and build schools or you can teach a class or whatnot, and you can go experience different cultures and whatnot in a safe environment, right? And have these experience shorter term and actually give back to that community. So there's lots of opportunities. And I'm sure you're aware of some of the sustainable travel that's been popping up. That as well. And that is thanks to our younger generations. There you go. They're making the difference in the world, people. They are. And that's an excellent thing that needs to happen, of course.

They are. We need more of that. Final thoughts and pitch out on people on how they can reach out to you get to know you better the handshake with you find out if they're a fit for what you're doing and your.com or.net in this case yeah absolutely just go to my website So it's G-R-E-T-C-H-E-N, V as in Victor, I-L-L-E-G-A-S dot net, like World Wide Web. My phone number and my email is right there. Please reach out to me. I'd be happy to have a call with you if you need some advice or if you just would like to talk about some issue that you're having currently. If you'd like to talk about, if you're interested in getting involved with some social impact or nonprofit work, I'd be happy to talk with you about that. There you go.

Let me know. Well, thank you for coming on the show. It's very insightful. We learned a lot. And maybe we can encourage more people to join the Peace Corps and learn where things are on the map. I probably should go do that because, I don't know, it might be fun. I don't know, Chris.

I think we should just sign you up to go out in the Peace Corps and, hey, you know. I may have to, depending on who gets elected in 2024. Maybe traveling or in an underground bunker, one of the two. Okay. It'll be the Chris Voss show from underground. We'll have to resurrect the resistance show from four years ago. Yeah, we love democracy, damn it. Remember, we just had Eddie Glaude Jr. on the show yesterday.

So we talked about how we are all stewards of democracy. We need to make sure that whoever holds that baton for the next four years is a lover of democracy and freedom. So there you go. Thank you very much, Gretchen, for coming on the show. And thanks, Madis, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4ChestChristmas, LinkedIn.com, 4ChestChristmas, Christmas 1 on the tickety-tocky. That was a crazy place on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, FortressCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com, FortressCrispFoss, CrispFoss1, OnTheTickety, TalkingEllis, CrazyPlace, and the Internet. Thanks for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.