After reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about professionals undertaking nonprofit work to make career changes, either voluntarily or involuntarily in this economy, I thought it might be helpful to share my own story. My business represents the marriage of my corporate career with my parallel work in the nonprofit sector. As I described in an earlier blog entry, I began my career as a research associate at the Harvard Business School, during which time I developed a business plan to provide homecare services for frail senior citizens. I moved to New York and was soon working as an investment banker in the financial institutions group of Goldman Sachs. My clients were insurance companies, which helped build expertise that would prove critical when I would start my own business. While at Goldman, I volunteered my annual vacation allowances, four weeks at a time, to charitable projects. In one year, I traveled to Stavropol, Russia to work on a project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Stavropol is located about 600 miles east of Moscow and is the location of Avtovaz, the manufacturer of the famous Russian car, the Lada.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Avtovaz lost its principal export market as Eastern European countries began to deal with some of the environmental issues that were the legacy of communist rule. At the same time, they lost their domestic market to more fuel-efficient Volkswagens. Unemployment in the region soared to 40%. Avtovaz Bank, the financing arm of the car manufacturer, sought to convert the company’s financials into U.S GAAP to make them comprehensible to foreign investors. At that time, Avtovaz was in discussions with both Fiat and General Motors. (This was more than one decade ago.) My responsibility was to teach classes on bank accounting and risk management for 40 hours a week for several weeks to an association of Russian bankers. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. This photograph, by the way, was taken in Stalin’s bunker. It had been sealed since World War II and had only recently been accidentally discovered by school children playing. In the photograph I am flanked by the Mayor and by one of my escorts. The photographs of the “three heroes” (Lenin, Marx and Engels) were placed on the wall to inspire Stalin.