Intrapreneurship: changing the world from within organizations

Jonathan Wong: We have an economy in dire need of innovation.

Pavitra Raja: Welcome to Let's Fix It, the podcast from the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum. From the townships of Cape Town through the streets of Sydney, we are talking to the leading social innovators to find out how they're fixing some of the world's biggest problems.

Jonathan Wong: You have to be ambitious. You have to be fearless.

Pavitra Raja: On this episode, we dive deep into the minds of two very creative people who are bringing about change within huge but vastly different organizations - the United Nations and Nike.

Subscribe to Let's Fix It on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts and do take a minute to like, rate and review us. I'm Pavitra Raja at the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Join me and learn from some of the world's brightest minds who are quite literally fixing it.

I love my job. Every day I get to speak with some incredible people who are literally changing the world for the better. These are people who have spotted a serious issue in their community and have done something about it. That usually means that they have started something from the ground up: lighting up lives via accessible, renewable energy; making education systems more equitable and inclusive; bringing ancient culture to life via cutting edge technology. These are the world's leading social entrepreneurs.

Now change happens within large organizations, too. In both the public and private sectors, they create products, schemes and policies that change our lives for the better as well. Usually it's the 'intrapreneur' that is to thank for this. A social intrapreneur is someone who behaves like a social entrepreneur whilst working within a large organization. Social intrapreneurs are ambitious employees who want to leverage their firm's resources to create positive social and environmental change. And this episode is all about how that happens. How are these individuals using entrepreneurial spirit and applying it within an organization to change the world for the better?

To learn how intrapreneurs create change in large scale institutions, I went to the biggest one, the United Nations. The U.N. employs over 77,000 people in over 190 countries. So how is change made there? I sat down with public social intrapreneur Jonathan Wong. Working in a large institution myself, Jonathan has been a huge inspiration. He is the chief of technology innovation at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific - ESCAP for short. And I started by asking him what is he trying to fix.

Jonathan Wong: I suppose the short answer - it's a big problem - is the economy. As I see things if we look back on history, entrepreneurs have been a source of innovation and economic dynamism. We've seen entrepreneurs create jobs, create solutions that have lifted millions of people, billions of people out of poverty. But it's not always been good news, right? You know, through the industrial revolutions, we've seen CO2 emissions increase in step with the industrial revolutions, we've seen income inequalities growing at an alarming rate. We see great income inequalities even today. So I suppose the problem we're trying to fix, I'm trying to fix, kind of in a very small way is the economy. But really looking at how the economy can benefit both society, environment as well as the economy, or people, planet as well as profit. So in a nutshell, that's what I'm trying to fix.

Pavitra Raja: Not a small task. So we have intrapreneurs at the Schwab Foundation. We have entrepreneurs in the Schwab Foundation. Both kind of similar minded, but one working within systems, already existing systems like the public sector, private sector versus others, kind of operating beyond but again, working in partnership. Do you think fixing the economy is easier for social entrepreneurs or for someone like you?

Jonathan Wong: In many ways you have to kind of - and I suppose that's why I'm an intrapreneur, you know, I work within large scale organizations trying to create change from the inside. And if you make the breakthroughs, the scale of these organizations support you to create that systematic change that you spoke about. But at the same time, you need that inspiration from the social entrepreneurs. You know, it's almost a story that that inspires politicians, business leaders, to actually think differently and act differently, to reshape the economy as I mentioned to work better for people and planet as well as profit. So I think it's a bit of both and you need to kind of come at it from both sides in that respect, but kind of top down and kind of grassroots up as well.

Pavitra Raja: You mentioned you see yourself as an intrapreneur. Let's break that up a little bit. What does the word intrapreneur mean to you?

Jonathan Wong: For me, it's something about trying to create change and promote innovation within a large scale kind of organization or a big piece of the system, if you like, be it government or a corporation, as opposed to an entrepreneur who's starting something themselves. But what I think I'm good at is working within large scale organizations, navigating the complexities and trying to create that systemic change kind of from the inside for want of a better word.

Pavitra Raja: You talk again a little bit about your journey as a public sector intrapreneur. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Did you always know you were going to work for the UN?

Jonathan Wong: I've never had a career path in mind. I honestly mean that and people honestly don't believe me. This is why it's been quite scattergun. You know, I've worked in an NGO, I've worked in the private sector, I've worked in the public sector, I've worked for government, I now work in a multinational organization. It kind of shows that there's no real kind of strategy around where I'm going. But what I've always believed in is the point I mentioned right up top around the need to kind of reshape the economy, to better serve people and planet. And that's always been a kind of a theme throughout all the organizations I've worked. When you talk about my journey and how I ended up here, it's about working out what you're good at and what you aren't good at. You know, as I mentioned, thank you for calling me an entrepreneur. I have several failed entrepreneurial ventures, but what I quickly realized was that I was actually quite good at working in bigger organizations and driving change.

So I suppose my intrapreneurial journey started with the NHS in the UK, which is in terms of kind of staff and people, I think the fourth largest organization in the world. And that was kind of my first break in intrapreneurship really was getting the job at the NHS where I set up something called the NHS Institute for Innovation Improvement, which is trying to drive change within this very complex organization, bringing in private sector thinking to deliver better health care services and bringing some innovation and technology as well. So that was kind of my first step into it and kind of after a few years there, I saw a very attractive job at DFID - so the UK Department for International Development - and I took on the role as head of innovation there. And I suppose probably the next logical step was the UN. It was more kind of working out as I kind of moved on in my career, what I was good at, being very honest about that. But also having that common theme and those principles and that objective. Throughout any organization I worked in that if I could still work on that topic and that agenda, I'd be happy doing that, whether in NGO, private sector, multilateral or indeed government organizations.

Pavitra Raja: Coming to the UN right now like this is often perceived and stereotyped as quite a large bureaucratic organization, which is generally very difficult to change or shape. So have you been operating as an entrepreneur in this space?

Jonathan Wong: I'll try to be honest as possible without kind of losing my job. The reason I moved to the UN, it was a very deliberate move in many regards. I mean throughout my career kind of working in developing countries, I often saw that development only happened well with the buy-in of a political and business elite. I've been in an aid organization like this where you've seen aid in a humanitarian context, worked very well in the development context. There are other actors that you have to engage with, and I very consciously, of course, didn't want to pick up the whole piece of that pie.

But I did wonder, actually, what would it be like actually supporting governments to drive that change? And of course, there's no better platform for that than the U.N.

You're right. The U.N. is a very bureaucratic organization, sometimes necessary, sometimes not. Many organizations are the same. Having been in the private sector and people say to me, Oh, the private sector is so efficient and kind of responsible, saying, Well, actually not always the case. I think every organization has their quirks and intricacies in that respect. But in terms of he U.N. role I work and I mentioned the importance of this commitment, I think the first thing you look for is that place of commitment. If a government is serious about supporting social entrepreneurs and they give you that commitment, you'll see the UN system very quickly shift around that, where they will start prioritizing the agenda.

I think sometimes when you're pushing agenda from within the U.N. that governments don't quite fit into, things are more difficult to do. But when you have that kind of perfect storm of the demand coming to you, serious commitment at the highest level and the supply and the intelligence from within the U.N. to meet that, things can move quicker than you would even imagine.

And if I look back on my seven years now in the U.N., if you'd have asked me back then that by now we would have supported the Social Enterprise Act in Thailand, we would have integrated social entrepreneurship within the development strategy of Indonesia, that we've developed the Impact Investing Fund for Bangladesh, that we have all 10 economic ministers of ASEAN signed up to the Inclusive Business guidelines, the first set of guidelines of its kind in the world. I would have laughed at you that none of this would be possible.

That's just a few examples. So this would have been, things can move quickly with fiscal commitment. The second point I would make is, is linking this to the bigger picture. And this is something I've learned the hard way actually within my time in the UN. This was my first UN job and I'll give an example. I met with the finance minister of a country that I won't disclose, and I was trying to convince he or she of the importance of promoting and supporting social entrepreneurs. And he or she said to me, 'Jonathan, why would I care about this small segment, this tiny segment of my business community when I've got SMEs, corporations, mainstream investors, traditional banks to deal with. Why should I care?' Embarrassingly, I went to be quiet. And I kind of went away and reflected on it. And what came back to me was, you need to link this to the bigger picture. Maybe if I had that time again, I wouldn't be talking about the needs of social entrepreneurs, but how social entrepreneurs could create a whole different model. What some perceive may be kind of very niche actually is part of this bigger picture and that solution as well.

Pavitra Raja: Absolutely. Moving away from social entrepreneurship, social innovation as concepts to the social economy, which is something that we see play out. That is some of the work that we've been doing together. Would you like to give us a little bit of a gist on some of your work with the Schwab Foundation of the Forum on the social economy as well?

Jonathan Wong: I think certainly Davos this year felt like a kind of breakthrough, that these ideas were infiltrating the mainstream, if you like. it didn't feel as niche as it was before.

I mean, you had the chair of Deloitte, sat there talking about social economy. You have the EU there talking about their road map and action plan for the social economy. So all of a sudden, you had kind of these mainstream institutions really advocating for this agenda. And of course, that's linked to the part around the bigger picture.

So, no, it was great that they actually made it into the agenda. And again, this is credit to you and the whole working group as well. in kind of driving this change forward. And of course, WEF is a very influential platform. Big media coverage. Big social media coverage. Again, big messages. Other parts of the multilateral system do listen as well, be it the UN, the World Bank, whoever it may be. These messages get picked up. And I think WEF's really important in doing that in actually putting agendas like this front and center is certainly helps my agenda working in the UN that, you know, big organizations and influential organizations like WEF are talking about the agenda I'm working in.

Pavitra Raja: That's always reassuring to hear and I know that we've a long way. This is really the start of something that we are working on together. You talked a little bit about this idea of becoming mainstream, but it's not quite there yet. You talked a little bit about what can be done to to make this move forward, but who are the partners? What do you need to really move the needle here?

Jonathan Wong: I opened up with we're trying to fix the economy, which is that biggest challenge in the world. I kind of pivot constantly between trying to look at this big picture and then just trying to pick up the specific piece that I feel that me and my organization can pick up. And to your point on partnerships, I really at the moment focus on supporting governments, put a sensible policy in place to promote social entrepreneurship, social economy type stuff.

I feel that the UN is well placed to focus on that. But of course, if you want a systematic change, I go back to my point earlier, you need the buy-in from the political and business elite for good developments happen and that's where partnerships with the organizations like WEF and the Schwab Foundation come in really handy because you're too driving by change with the business community, you're bringing the policy agenda and governments to the platform as well.

And of course, you need the NGOs there as well. You have these partnerships. And of course a big part we focus on is the academic rigour around all this. The mainstream kind of economics, shall we say. You know what your tools and metrics are: you can play with interest rates and you can play with public spending. You know, you can tweak the tax rates. You know, your metrics. Are you looking at inflation, GDP for the social economy? Do we know what our tools are and do we know what metrics are? And is there a playbook as to if a government said, okay, I get it, social entrepreneurship is important, what should I do? Could we answer that question in a logical way with a well thought-through framework, with an evidence base? The answer is probably not at the moment because many of the policies that I mentioned earlier from the Thai Social Enterprise Act to the impact investment strategy in Bangladesh, are really in their infancy. So I think certainly in terms of partnerships, certainly business, government, NGOs, academia as well, if we're going to create this framework for the governments, a social economy that's more kind of science than art, shall we say, I think the academic rigour is something that we really focus on going forward and working on what policies work and what don't in what contexts.

Pavitra Raja: Might do something here. Because I think you and I have some understanding of the social economy and social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship as a concept. Perhaps, let's go back to a very introductory question: why does the economy need fixing? I think that's something maybe we should answer.

Jonathan Wong: Innovators and entrepreneurs have been a source of innovation in economic dynamism. You know, they've created jobs. They've lifted people out of poverty. But as we've seen through industrial revolutions, CO2 emissions have been increasing in step with the revolutions. You know, income inequality is growing. And really we're at the point now where I think there's this recognition that we have an economy that needs to work better for people and planet as well as profit.

I think what the pandemic has also shown us is that really the the story of the haves and have nots. You know, we've seen some tech companies' share prices soaring while the very, very poorest people have been unable to make a living and don't have those social safety nets. Now, to me, that is not an economy that works and that is an economy that needs fixing. And what the pandemic, on top of the point I raised earlier about the need for the economy to benefit people and planet, as well as profit, shows that we have an economy in dire need of innovation. In my mind, there's no question about that. And there is evidence around that. And this is why it's kind of a fix, if you like, that I'm so focused on, because it could be so impactful if we could shift and pivot the economy to again, to work best for people and planet as well as bottom line.

Pavitra Raja: Why does this cause move you so much? Because there's a reason you created shifts within such large institutions that we get that you figured out that it's something that you're good at. But why does that need feed you? Why do you do what you do? What fuels you every day to wake up in the morning and 'fix' in quotations the economy?

Jonathan Wong: The reason I want to fix the economy, I call this a tale of two ports. I was born in England in a city called Hull. It's one of the poorer areas of the UK and was when I was growing up. But my family are from Shenzen in China. Now, when I was younger, I spent my time between Hull and Shenzhen. So, every summer holidays, 'oh, we're going to Shenzhen again just every single time we go there!'

Back when I was growing up, I don't know if you know about Hull, it used to be a very thriving UK port. Huge fishing industry. Huge. Just very economically sound. You know, happy people. People had jobs. And in time that deteriorated. So as I was growing up, I saw Hull deteriorating into one of the poorest cities in the UK. And that got me thinking about the economy. You know how economics works. You know how something so good could be so bad so quickly

At the same time, when I went to Shenzhen, I'm not going to give away how old I am, it was literally just a fishing port at the time, like a tiny fishing port. It was like a little village there, you know, nothing else. You look at Shenzhen today, it's known as the Silicon Valley of Asia. All the unicorns are coming out of there, tech startup haven for Asia. And it just got me thinking about the economy a lot more. And I'd see firsthand some of the environmental degradation that came with development, but also some of the huge inequalities that happened when people were moving into poverty and people moving out.

It wasn't a conscious thing - knowing that I wanted to fix the economy or look at how we could innovate for a new economy. But I think somewhere in my mind it was always there, and I think it was only probably later on in my career that I actually could articulate it and be more conscious of why I was working on a specific agenda. But no question, it was very much to do with my upbringing. Again, having that reflection from the West and the East, to be very crude, seeing different cultures, but seeing economic development happen in very different ways, different trajectories in two different cities. So I suppose that's kind of what fuelled my curiosity for this agenda.

Pavitra Raja: Any personal advice that you'd give to someone trying to be an entrepreneur?

Jonathan Wong: You have to be ambitious. You have to be fearless. You also have to be very humble.

The problems that I work on haven't just appeared when I started working on them. I entered this space at a point in time. And maybe even the end goal of the problem I'm trying to solve, maybe won't happen in my lifetime. I'm very humble about that. But you have to think about what you can do on that journey and be very humble about what piece will you playing this grander picture?

I mean, you look at economic development as it's happened, you know, everything from women's rights to labour rights, then companies talking about CSR, now it's moved on to shared value, stakeholder value, ESG has been mentioned. Hopefully next will be the social economy. Will it be my lifetime? I don't know. I hope so. But it's being very humble about that. But but not discounting you can make a really positive change.

So I think you need to be a bit humble sometimes as well and just recognize these problems have been around for a long time. We may not be the ones to fix it right now, but we can have a huge impact in being a piece of the jigsaw.

And certainly that humbleness helps you with the point you raised earlier on - partnership and collaboration - it's certainly going with a humble approach, recognizing that you are just one part of the system, doesn't dominate a whole agenda. You know, you can then work with business, NGOs, academia in really co-creating something quite special.

Pavitra Raja: I think that's beautiful. And and one thing that you mentioned a little bit about being an entrepreneur is that context is king, but you really need to see which organization that you're in and how to operate that and have, as you said, strategic patience, but also have the humility to know that some of these problems, as you say, might not be fixed in this lifetime. What needs to happen to fix this problem?

Jonathan Wong: I really hone down on the particular thing that I think the UN is good at, which is the government engagement and enacting policy change of the SDGs. And for me that's broadly around social innovation and entrepreneurship.

Now what success looks at in my mind is when governments are putting in place again sensible evidence based policies that support sort of social entrepreneurship and social economy. That's what it looks like to me. And then when you start seeing people benefiting from these policies.

So to give an example, in Thailand, we have a royal decree that gives investors in social enterprises a 100% tax break in investments in social enterprises. You know, people say policy doesn't really play out, but actually something like that piece of legislation actually could play a really catalytic role.

I see my job as sharing that then with a broader community like WEF, the business community, the social entrepreneurship community, engage the rest of the community and hope that we can move forward in a systematic way with full transparency around what each party is doing is kind of how I think about it.

Pavitra Raja: That was public social entrepreneur Jonathan Wong from the United Nations. Are you too excited to fix the economy just like Jonathan? Let us know on social media. Our Twitter is @SchwabFound.

You're listening to Let's Fix It from the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, where this week we're talking to intrapreneurs and finding out how they make change in some of the world's biggest organizations.

We'll be back just after this short break.

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Pavitra Raja: You're listening to Let's Fix It. And this week, it's all about intrapreneurship. Before the break, we heard from Jonathan Wong, who talked about his experience in creating change in his role at the United Nations. Now, you might be wondering, hey, I work in a corporation. How do I create change here? Not to worry. We've got you covered. We went to one of the world's largest companies, Nike, to learn how they 'just do it'.

Corporate social entrepreneur Sam McCracken is one of the most generous people you will ever have the pleasure of knowing. From working at the distribution centre to becoming a general manager, Sam's journey is truly a unique one. He is the visionary leader behind Nike N7, which is bringing sport to indigenous youth across North America.

When I sat down with Sam, he just couldn't wait to tell me all about his journey and his 25-year career at Nike.

Sam McCracken: My given name is Sam McCracken. I come from the Assiniboine Sioux tribe on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana. If you don't mind, I'll just translate what I said. I said, welcome, relatives. I honour my great grandfather, whom I'm named after and my clan of the Assiniboine tribe, where I come from in Montana. The introduction is just part of our culture, historical traditions that we want to always welcome our relatives forward, no matter where they are to any conversation I have outside of my community.

Pavitra Raja: This beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this. N7 is an incredible brand and it has so much of you in this in the brand as well. And I want to know a little bit about that and also your own journey as a social intrapreneur. So maybe let's get started with the question I ask every social entrepreneur and innovator that joins this podcast. It's what are you fixing? And, you know, the Schwab Foundation looks not just at the problems, but what are the root causes of the problems. We're very interested in that, and that's what's special about this community. Sam McCracken, what are you fixing?

Sam McCracken: It's really about access to sport. Because I work at the largest sports fitness company in the world, I have a very interesting platform to be able to give back to the community I care most about, which is my indigenous community in North America.

What I'm trying to fix is how do you bring sport and all of its benefits to address, more importantly, the health disparities in our communities. Type two diabetes is running rampant. Mental health is really an important component to us surviving through everything that we've been through, the historical trauma and the genocide that happened way before my time. Sport is something that brings communities together and it brings folks together. So that's been my platform. That's what I've lived off of for the last 20-plus years, is really laser focused on indigenous communities in North America. But really, how do you bring sports to them.

Pavitra Raja: Tell me a little bit about your journey in realizing the importance of sport and why is it so important for all communities to have access to it?

Sam McCracken: Well, my journey has been very unique in a corporate environment. I started working at Nike in 1997, unloading containers in the warehouse, and then I got a call from my own community who were looking to use Nike product as incentives to promote physical activity. And I took that concept and idea, thinking if my community wanted access, why wouldn't all communities in North America want that same access? So with that, I wrote a one-page business plan and presented it, and in July of 2000, they accepted the opportunity for me to become the Business Manager for Indigenous Communities, Nike.

With that started that whole journey and it just continued to evolve and progress in a way that I couldn't fathom. I just was just on the ride, taking day by day, but truly staying passionate about the one purpose that I had was representing indigenous communities at Nike. And so through that journey, I've had a great opportunity to really leverage the power of the Nike brand, more importantly, to inspire and enable 1.5 million indigenous youth to participate sport physical activity. And that's been the mission and vision of my work since day one.

The work of N7 has contributed an excess of $8 million back to bring sport and all of its benefits to Indigenous communities. I want to get that number to 10, 12, 14. So I'm still driven for that.

And it really started with a conversation I had as a young man with my grandfather who was sending me off to go to live in California. I was living in Montana. He really talked about seven generations and what that meant.

And so I reflected back on that conversation when I started this journey with what is now known as Nike N7 and then the N stands for Native or Nike, either one, depending on who we're talking to. But the seven always stays grounded in the foundation of the work, and that means In every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on seven generations.

And as part of that conversation I had as a young man, my grandfather explained to me that I was in the middle. I look back three generations for guide instruction to focus and learn from the people who came before me. And then I look forward three generations, I hope a positive change if we make an impact or make a difference in generations who come after me to allow our community continue to thrive and prosper with that same mentality.

And then just a part of that journey. It's all about relationships, you know, when you work in a corporate environment, relationships are critically important and trust is something that manifests itself. The community has to trust you, that you have their best interests at the forefront, and the company has to trust you to allow you to do the work you need to do to create positive change, are bring sport and all of its benefits to indigenous communities. So that trust factor for me has been really critically important and I think I've garnered the trust of not only my community but my company as well.

Pavitra Raja: That's incredible. And you've kind of been that middleman almost, right? You've been able to serve your community, but you've also been able to serve this organization that has given you so much, which is quite a unique place to be. What did it take for you to be that person? What was your journey? What's your success been? What has been the strives as well in this path in founding N7?

Sam McCracken: I'll use a little bit of a sports cliché, and that's passion. You have to be able to maneuver through the challenges that may face you, but continue to stay positive that you know that you're doing the right thing on behalf of both entities. And that's where, again, we'll go back to that trust thing.

So I continue to have the trust of the company to allow me to manifest my ideas and my concepts that I knew what my community meant, what I knew what my community wanted, and then garner that support, whether it's through physical support, like them coming in and helping me figure it out, to financial support, where they're providing the resources to be able to do the work that I felt needed to be done.

I think the future is bright for the next young generations of intrapreneurs that are going to come into corporate America Not a traditional Harvard graduate with a multiple degrees. I am a blue collar guy that rolls up his sleeves and unloaded. But one thing they couldn't take away was my passion and my vision for what I knew I wanted to get done. And I think you tie those two things together and it's a recipe for success.

Pavitra Raja: When you came up with this N7 idea and you took it to them, how did they react and how did that change take place in the organization?

Sam McCracken: Well, I think from a reaction perspective, I think they they didn't react in any particular way. They just gave me the freedom to be a social intrapreneur in a major corporation and make sure I had the resources I needed to be able to do the work. And I think part two of that with the community side now, it's access - always being accessible to them so they feel like they're part of your journey. And really important for me to have those two components where a community has access to me, whether it be a phone, email, whatever, I'm going to reply and I'm going to be part of it. And then being visible in the community. So going out and visiting and participating and seeing the next generation of social intrapreneurs out there and talking to them, crossing over into the Nike side too, giving interns opportunities to work for me and work with me and work on N7 and feel part of what we call internally is the N7 family. And it's really we try to keep that family mentality there so everybody feels like their voice is heard and they're participating in all decisions that are made. Ultimately, we're making the right decision on behalf of the community.

Pavitra Raja: You've got this unique capability to speak to your own community, but also take their needs to a different market and also speak to that market, which is quite a unique skill set. If you don't mind me asking, what do you think is one key ingredient you need to build trust?

Sam McCracken: I think the one key an individual needs to build trust is be who they are. I don't think if you talk to anybody who knows me, they know who Sam McCracken is. They know who I am. They know what I represent. And they know my core values. I think that's the kind of the secret sauce that. I don't try to be somebody that I'm not. I never forget where I come from. I come from a rural Indian reservation in Montana that keeps you very humble, keeps you very appreciative of what you have. And I think that's part of the DNA and the personality of any good social-preneur. Yes, they're going to have some drive, they're going to have passion, they're going to have a vision, they're going to have all of those things. But I think the secret sauce is being humble about all of that and making sure that you're bringing people along the journey with you. This didn't happen alone. A lot of people down the road helped me. And they still a lot of people still help me move forward on this journey to make N7 what we could envision what it could ever be.

Pavitra Raja: If there's one piece of advice that you'd also share with folks who are wanting to become a corporate social intrapreneur, who are in an organization that maybe can give them resources, but they don't really know how to access it, or can give them a powerful, but they're not sure what to do with it. What would be something that you share with them as well?

Sam McCracken: I think, you know, one of the things that I always tried to do and my guidance would be, only on the corporate side, on the philanthropic side a bit different. To be a corporate social intrapreneur, you've got to show how they're adding value to the business. And I think one of the things that we've done, if you think about the employee resource group and then the N7 brand, one of the things I've tried to do is marry the two together and have the public view of N7, the brand marketing of N7, it's the employee engagement arm of the employee resource group. We want to engage our employees in the work we're doing on N7 and we do that through our employee resource group.

And then knowing that you're adding value to the corporation, I think that's really important. So I think the initial plan and you start to build that plan to present to whoever the one advice I got from from a great leader was make sure it's all on one page. When you put something on one page, then you have to have a conversation. And when you have a conversation, the individual you're having the conversation with, I truly see the passion you have for what's on that one page. You know, you see people with their resumes and then, you know, it's multiple pages. Tons of accolades. All that kind of stuff. Business plans, decks of 20 plus pages, so and so forth. If you can package it up on one page, then you get to the next phase, which is writing the strategy and the plan.

But to get to be a social entrepreneur, you got to get the idea over the top. And I think that was one of the things that that helped me. I didn't know how to write a startup and I didn't know how to do any of that stuff. But I could put together a pretty compelling one page document, and then I can also represent who I am or what I wanted and have that passion that I had to give back to my community.

Pavitra Raja: We talk about sustainability as a concept, whereas Nike at N7 sustainability is just part of every everyday language, everyday work. It's not a distinct concept. Can you explain that to me a little bit? Because I think that's quite fascinating.

Sam McCracken: When you respect your culture and you're going to respect things that surround your culture, from us culturally, Mother Earth, the Earth is something that's very sacred to us because that's where we get our food and our water and everything comes from at some form or fashion from the Earth. And if you don't protect it and take care of it, then you're going to lose you're going to lose access to something that's vitally important to you to survive. And so as I started to build the manifesto, for N7, it was just natural for us to ingrain that cultural value of protecting Mother Earth into the core values of what N7 is as a brand and as a philanthropic effort. Sustainability is not a word in our culture. It's a way of life.

Pavitra Raja: What needs to happen, do you think, for you to feel like you're close to fixing the problem or attempting to fix the problem?

Sam McCracken: Yes, that's a really difficult question because if I knew the answer, I'd already fix it. So I think it's just continuing to learn and to continue to support and listen to the voice of... we have a saying at Nike, we listen to the voice of the athlete, and then instead of, we listen to the voice of the community. So the community really tells us what their needs are because there's no way that I would know what the needs were in 500-plus communities in the US and 600-plus communities in Canada what their needs are.

So you really have to listen to that. So in order to fix it, you got to be good listeners. I think that would be my words of advice to anybody trying to fix anything is you got to listen and learn first before you attempt to fix anything.

Pavitra Raja: Is there something that N7 is working on that's exciting you personally. I know you just got back from a sabbatical. What are you really looking forward to.

Sam McCracken: Coming back, I'm just full of energy, you know? I'm just I'm just ready to go, ready to get back - the team sees that.

In corporate America, everything changes. So we've changed the way we operate. Everything's changed because of the economic headwinds that are out there and all the different things that are in front of you. And I think those are all exciting things for someone who has passion and a vision for what they want to do. And I look forward to moving the agenda forward. And then who's the successor? I'm excited to... I think that next generation and draft off their energy what they see for our community. And who's that next indigenous leader that slides into the chair that Sam McCracken sat in for hopefully 30 years.

Pavitra Raja: That was Sam McCracken from Nike N7. Want to hear more ways social innovators are fixing it. Then check out our website. SchwabFound.org. Hey, what are you waiting for? Just do it. Thanks to our guests today, Jonathan Wong and Sam McCracken. Please subscribe to Let's Fix It wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating or a review.

This episode of Let's Fix It was presented by me, Pavitra Raja, and produced by Alex Court with thanks to Amy Kirby and Jere Johansson for editing and Tom Burchill for sound design. Special thanks to our partners WhatsApp Foundation, and thanks also to our executive producers, Yoko Schmidt and Francois Banerjee. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more inspiring stories.