“It’s rare, you know, to have people like you! Sector Switchers!”
I nodded appreciatively at my smiling coworker, despite that being the first time I had heard the phrase.
Sector switcher?
It sounds kind of fun, I thought. Like a name for a spy. “Agent Sector Switcher.”
Sadly, I am not a spy (though I do have a white knit cap with stitched big, bold letters that read “CIA”, so I already have the uniform).
The actual meaning of the term, at least in that instance, referred to someone moving from the private sector into public service. Reflecting back on that conversation, I wondered what that identity meant for me, and for my new fellowship position.
But let me back up for a second.
Once upon a time when I was in college, I studied bio-engineering with a focus in global health applications. I loved the field, and ended up moving into the pharmaceutical space to improve clinical trial and quality. During that time, I volunteered with my company’s consulting arm for nonprofits and multilaterals. It was then that I fell in love with international development. It reignited my desire to work full-time for health equity, and I decided to apply to Global Health Corps.
Fast forward a few months of my stuttering through interviews in Spanish, submitting a Leave of Absence form to my employer, and saying goodbye to my family and friends of many years, and I am sitting in the spacious, marbled headquarters of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is a regional bank that aims to reduce poverty and inequality in Latin America. It is the single biggest source of development financing for the region – through a series of loans and research grants, the IDB works directly with many Ministries of Health, national and local governments, and private industry to promote social equity and improve millions of people’s lives. Specifically, I’m supporting two projects within the Social Protection and Health Division.
It was around the time that I was settling into my position that someone referred to me as a “sector switcher,” and it began to change my perspective.
I absolutely recognize that it’s extremely rare for someone working in global health to hail from the private sector – especially from pharmaceutical companies. As I’ve learned, for some people, “Big Pharma” doesn’t exactly give them warm and fuzzy feelings.
And honestly, I understand. I get it, because for years I felt the same way about the private sector. When I was studying bio-engineering and global health, I eyed suspiciously for-profit industries with (what seemed to me) their relentless push to improve the bottom-line. I remember being openly dismissive of people going into lucrative careers that, in my view, were not contributing to the greater good.
But when graduation rolled around, I knew I had very limited knowledge of how to run an organization, and how to manage people. After taking a job and working at a for-profit company – and having met genuinely kind, passionate people who are contributing to make a great product, or ensure quality control, or some other purpose – it helped broaden my perspective a bit.
It helped me see how the development sector, the nonprofit sector, and private industry have so much to learn from each other. In addition to funds, private companies can offer sector-specific and functional knowledge that can fuel nonprofit operations in improving health or supporting local businesses, which in turn provide companies incredible opportunities to learn and grow themselves.
And we already have seen countless examples of well-thought, constructive partnerships in public / private partnerships that have made significant strides in improving global health.
Mega companies such as Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and others collaborated with USAID to donate over $6 billion worth of drugs to combat neglected tropical diseases.
There’s also the famous case of collaboration between Coca-Cola and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. It all started when the Global Fund realized they were struggling to get lifesaving medication to remote clinics in Tanzania. While traveling to these locations to figure out what to do, the team noticed they always came across bottles of Coca-Cola at every tiny convenience store. The soda company had built such a strong network of local distributors in their supply chain that they were able to reach these far-removed areas. The executives at the Global Fund ultimately entered into a partnership with Coca-Cola to learn more from their expertise in supply chain management. After the project, the Fund was able to deliver medication to more than 5,000 previously unserved clinics.
Obviously, these collaborations were successful and have played a key role in improving health outcomes. That being said, it’s worth acknowledging that it takes a significant amount of work to successfully manage these partnerships. It means different organizations (with different internal structures, visions, and cultures) have to reach consensus. Together, they have to define their strategy and shared goals, establish a clear structure for communication and responsibilities, and navigate varying levels of bureaucracy, all while maintaining the flexibility and autonomy needed to operate successfully.
But to collaborate on the macro-level, we have to bring that attitude of collaboration and openness on the micro-level.
DC culture is really great, but one of the not-so-great things is the immediate question of “So what do you do?” It’s easy to bucket people into categories, and some of those categories are judged more harshly than others (on every side!)
But it’s time to socially, politically, ideologically step outside our comfort zone. It honestly feels uncomfortable to talk to people who, as you may have believed or possibly still do, are one of the “Bad Guys.”
For the most part, however, there’s an incredible potential to collaborate with each other – and if nothing else, learn from each other.
Why? Well not to get too sentimental (too late), but we need each other. Our world has become too interconnected and too small for us to add yet another reason why we shouldn’t associate with So-and-So because How-Dare-They-Think-Such-and-Such.
If we are serious about improving lives of people who are the most vulnerable, we need to achieve real, lasting results. And that will likely mean engaging with people who are coming from a very, very different place.
So let’s all be “sector switchers.” It’s time to burst our collective bubble and make some changes. We’ve got work to do.