Leila Janah
Leila Janah
Leila Janah is the Founder and CEO of Sama and Laxmi, two companies highlighted on Fast Company’s 2016 Most Innovative Companies list that share a common social mission to end global poverty by giving work to people in need. She is also the co-author of America's Moment: Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age, a book by Rework America: A Markle Initiative...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinesswoman
Date of Birth9 October 1982
CountryUnited States of America
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I believe there is no other way to create decent livelihoods for the world's poorest people than to connect them to global markets as producers, and on fair terms.
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I grew up believing in meritocracy and the American dream. My parents came here from India. They had no connections. My brother and I went to public schools, and both of us succeeded.
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Many people don't think that the poor in the developing world can do work on a computer. They won't say it explicitly. But they think it's too sophisticated.
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Much like the opportunities that factory work provided for working-class Americans in the last century, microwork will provide opportunities for marginalized people in this one. All they really need is basic literacy, a cheap computer, and an internet hookup.
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I love dancing and practiced ballet for ten years until I realized I wouldn't make it professionally - then I started taking salsa classes. I learned to dance samba in Rio and Salvador when I lived in Brazil.
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I love adventure. When I'm not working or on the road, you can find me in my favorite spots around the Mission neighborhood of S.F., kitesurfing in the Bay or dancing.
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We spend billions on international aid annually, but we don't find ways to connect people to dignified work. I realized that if we don't think about ways to harness private capital to solve problems, we're leaving large amounts of money on the table and doing ourselves a disservice.
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We think the way out of poverty is to view the poor as producers, and the Internet is probably the most efficient tool we have for tapping this capacity. Because you don't need roads. You don't need customs officials who are friendly. You don't need to manage shipping and delivery schedules. You don't have to worry about tariffs.
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Dancing is my therapy. I also try to meditate every morning and take several two-hour yoga classes a week at my favorite yoga studio, Urban Flow.
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It's much easier for people to compare wages or identify bad employers or discuss bad labor practices in the Internet economy than it was in, say, a factory environment, where that stuff wasn't usually published or available.
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The best way to make employees happy is to set realistic goals and achieve them. The big job is to make sure those small steps are pointing us in the right direction and demonstrate at the end of the year that they all add up to something pretty great.
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We know what happens when a woman earns money. She is far more likely than a man to spend her earnings on the health and education of her children and to invest in improving her family's standard of living.
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Through my studies, I became increasingly disillusioned with the international aid system. I think we systematically deny poor people the chance to engage as equals in the global economic order. At best, we give them handouts or tiny loans and hope they will suffer a bit less from extreme poverty. We don't view them as equals.
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Every woman that dies or loses her baby on a threadbare cot in the heart of Uganda, while her sisters on the other side of the world enjoy first-class care, is a threat to our collective humanity.