The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (3 page)

"Tell me why you want to be a banker," he suggested after introducing himself.

I looked at him for a moment, not knowing what to say. Being a terrible liar, I told him the truth.

"I don't want to be a banker," I said. "I want to change the world. I'm hoping to take next year off, but my parents asked me to go through the interview process. I'm so sorry."

"Well," he said with a grin, shaking his head, "that's too bad. Because if you got this job, you would be traveling to 40 countries in the next 3 years and learning a lot not only about banking, but the entire world."

I gulped. "Is that really true?" I asked, my face completely red. "You know, part of my dream is to travel and learn about the world."

"It is really true," he sighed.

"Then do you think we might start this interview all over again?" I asked.

"Why not?" he shrugged, raising his eyebrows and smiling.

I walked out the door and closed it, counted to 10, walked back in, and introduced myself with a big handshake.

"So, Miss Novogratz," he smiled. "Tell me, why do you want to be a banker?"

"Well, ever since I was 6 years old, it has been my dream ...... I started.

And it went from there.

Miraculously, I got the job, and thus began 3 of the best years of my life. I moved to New York City and, after completing the credit training program, joined a group called Credit Audit, a division of 60 young bankers, most just out of university, who would fly first-class around the world and review the quality of the bank's loans, especially in troubled economies. The first time I ever left the United States, I landed in Singapore; the second, Argentina. Life had become a dream.

In Chile, we would spend the day reviewing loans made to copper mines and industrial concerns. In Peru, I came to understand the danger capital flight presented to already unstable economies. In Hong Kong, we studied the great trading houses such as Jardine Matheson and saw firsthand how Asia was rapidly changing. It was a stunning, privileged education. I began to see myself as a wanderer and a wonderer, a true citizen of the world. But no place changed my life like Brazil.

The minute I landed in Rio, I felt I'd arrived in a magical place that somehow already lived inside me. We walked off the plane and across the tarmac in a light summer rainstorm while just beyond us there was not a cloud in the bright blue sky. Though our job at the bank was to write off millions of dollars in debt that would never be collected, the Brazilians there were friendly and warm, never taking themselves, or us, too seriously. I worked till late during the week, always to the dismay of my Brazilian colleagues, who tried hard to explain that "Americans live to work while we work to live." I used the weekends to explore.

I remember walking along Ipanema Beach with a friend, both of us wearing black bathing suits with colorful wraps around our waists. We came across a woman dressed completely in white, wearing a turban, standing at the edge of the ocean. She was cracking eggs on the sand and then throwing flowers into the waves to see if they would come back or float out to sea-part of a fertility ritual. I loved that these rituals lived alongside an economy with such potential for growth and change.

That same weekend I wandered the hillsides of Rio, talking to whomever I met in the favelas, or slums. Though I felt people staring at me, some with anger in their eyes, I wanted to know this country, not just its wealthy places. The chasm between rich and poor was stunning. I'd never experienced such poverty alongside such wealth before, and I'd also never felt such a strong desire to make a difference or felt so fully alive.

A few weeks later, still in Rio, I met a 6-year-old boy named Eduardo who lived on the streets. I brought him to my hotel room, gave him a bath, and then treated him to a hamburger at the hotel's fancy poolside cafe. The hotel manager approached and asked me firmly to take the child outside and never do such a thing again. Street kids were one of Rio's biggest problems, he told me disdainfully, and I had to be careful or they would find a way to steal everything from the hotel and hurt its residents. I told the manager I'd take full responsibility and Eduardo and I stayed until he had finished eating, though it was clear that just the sight of the child made the manager uncomfortable.

The street kids were a perfect embodiment of the poor as outsiders, as throwaway people in a world that didn't want to see them. I wondered what I could do to change that in some small way. The bank doors were closed to the poor and working class. Because the commercial banks were writing off millions in bad debts to the richest sectors of society, they were in no mood to try lending to the poorest. I suggested to my boss that an experiment, even a small one, to lend to Brazil's working class might actually provide better results than lending to the rich. He patted me on the head and reminded me of the poor's lack of collateral, the high transaction costs of making small loans, and the culture of poverty, which would result in no one repaying-insinuating that I was naive and misguided.

The conversation went from bad to worse. I disagreed with him on the culture of poverty and repeated my idea for an experiment. He told me the point was moot and that I should think about how and if I wanted to pursue my long-term career goals at Chase. I was among the most productive of the young bankers, he told me, but added, "You laugh too loudly and dress like Linda Ronstadt. You are friendly with everyone, and I worry that executives might mistake you for one of the secretaries."

The conversation boosted my determination to explore a different kind of path, one where I could take my newly learned skills and use them to help people who would never have the opportunities this man had. I didn't want to become old at 35 and knew instinctively that a combination of service and adventure could lead to a life of passion and constant renewal.

"If you don't change," my boss added, "in time, the culture will change you anyway. So make it easy on yourself and combine your work ethic with a more professional style."

I swore to myself that I would never acquiesce to mediocrity-and I couldn't imagine stifling my laugh in order to succeed. The problem was that I loved being a banker. I just wanted to find a way to influence the bank to give more people a chance to become customers.

Since that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, I began exploring in earnest the possibility of working internationally in banking for the poor. A friend told me about Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, founded by an economist named Muhammad Yunus in 1976, which lent poor women tiny amounts of money-sometimes as little as a dollar-to improve their businesses.

Since they had no collateral, poor women would form groups of five and guarantee that all would pay. If one did not, then all five would lose the privilege of borrowing. To address the question of high transaction costs, Grameen Bank charged higher interest rates. And it enjoyed nearly a 100 percent repayment rate, a lot higher than we were seeing in our collateralized portfolio to the wealthy!

Twenty years after I first heard of microenterprise, Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after successfully loaning billions to the poor and starting a social movement around the world. Many commercial banks now also have a part of their portfolio dedicated to microfinance and are doing it successfully and profitably. None of this was thought possible 20 years ago; change doesn't happen overnight.

In exploring other organizations involved in microenterprise, I chanced upon a nonprofit microfinance organization for women based in New York City. Run by a woman investment banker and a powerful, global board of women professionals, it seemed perfect, except for one thing: I'd never seen myself as focusing on women's issues. I'd been raised in a rough-andtumble family with four brothers whom I would wrestle to the ground until they grew bigger than me. When I was 9 and living in Kansas, my dad once had me race the players on his inner-city football team. In short, my worldview had little place for complaining about women's status. I was expected to fight to be just as good or better than the boys.

I tried to imagine myself telling my uncles that I was leaving a wellpaying job on Wall Street to work for a nonprofit women's organization that would send me overseas. They would think I'd lost my mind. Why would I give up a chance at making it? I admitted that the title "international banker" had a nice ring to it, and a small part of me feared risking my career and giving up my job title. But the promise of adventure and making a real difference had always been the internal force driving me. And there is no time like the present to start living your dream.

The woman who started the nonprofit microfinance organization had worked on Wall Street herself and had a reputation for being tough. I wrote her a letter, telling her that I believed one important way to solve poverty was to link grassroots organizations to the resources and skills of mainstream corporations. I wanted to be a bridge, I explained earnestly, an instrument of peace wrapped in a love of financial statements, of telling stories through numbers, of trying to build companies through strategic financing and management support.

In retrospect, I think she must have laughed at the dramatic description of my dreams, but she agreed to meet. As I sat in her office, surrounded by richly textured tapestries from around the world, I realized that I wanted to grow up and be much more like her than like my boss in the brown polyester suit. She was committed and passionate, visionary and strong. And her world was fascinating.

"I would love to work with you somehow," I told her, adding that I would do almost anything to be sent to Brazil to help build systems to make loans to low-income women. She listened carefully, said she would think about it, and told me that the organization was in an expansion mode but still learning. I went home with no job offer, but with dreams of working in Rio.

After a few days, she called me to have lunch. At a fancy Midtown restaurant, she told me she had good news and bad news. The good news was that she would like to hire me. I just about jumped out of my chair to hug her. The bad news, she said, was that there was no place for me in Brazil. Instead, I was needed in Africa.

Africa? My heart sank. This wasn't in my plan at all. I loved the passion of Latin America. Africa?

I knew nothing about Africa, hadn't even studied it at university. My impressions of the continent were from the movies Born Free and The African Queen-beautiful animals and spectacular vistas or hot and steamy jungles where missionaries worked. Africa? I didn't think so.

I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights, for the woman quickly added that my job would be very prestigious. I would be an ambassador to African women with an office at the African Development Bank. My job would be helping local country organizations across West Africa get started. There would be travel and building things and working with people across national lines. That all sounded good.

Still, I couldn't help but feel queasy. "I think I'd like to do this, but I need to consider it for a few days," I said, unable to hide my mixed emotions.

"You will love it there," she assured me.

To complicate matters, my boss's boss at Chase offered me a "once in a lifetime opportunity," a position working closely with him that would be challenging and visible. He didn't care that I dressed in pleated cotton skirts instead of blue suits with bow ties; in fact, he seemed to like the renegade part of me, the bartender who liked talking to people and the Catholic girl who knew how to scrub a kitchen floor, making sure every corner shined.

The opportunity appealed to my ego, though I knew somehow that if I took the job it would delay for years my dream of changing the world. When we were in our teens, my younger brother and I had a recurring conversation about how best to make a real difference. He thought you should make a lot of money and then move from a place of power and influence. I argued that you had to start early, understand how change happens, and build relationships and credibility over a long period. Over the years, I've watched in awe as his life plans have unfolded, but I had to be who I was.

I gave notice to Chase and accepted the job in Africa. I still didn't really understand what being an ambassador meant, nor did I have a clear picture of what the organization did except lend to poor women for small businesses. But I was confident I would figure something out when I got there; and if I didn't, I would come back.

The truth was, I knew I couldn't return to New York until I'd done something real. I'd turned down one of the most powerful officers in the bank. And if it wasn't the Chase executive, then it was my parents I didn't want to let down. I loved them for accepting my choice even if they didn't understand why I'd traded a job they were proud to describe to their friends for something in Africa I could barely articulate myself.

I began reading everything I could find on Africa and studied the microfinance organization's global offices. I discovered how little was actually happening on the ground, and it challenged me to think about how much I could do. In the meantime, I gave away nearly everything I owned, including the antique furniture my mother had given me. Of course, I kept my guitar and a boxful of poetry books, both of which I deemed essential for saving the world.

Though I was supposed to go to Cote d'Ivoire, my new boss informed me that I was to first fly to Nairobi to attend a women's conference, where I would meet a lot of African women in the network and get a better sense of the organization itself. I could imagine Kenya much more easily than Cote d'Ivoire, especially since the film Out of Africa had recently been released (I didn't have a clue about how little Kenyans cared for it at the time). Starting in Nairobi might be a gentler introduction to the continent.

I remember making my way through the streets of Nairobi for the first time, stunned by the gentle shower of purple jacaranda flowers floating around me in Uhuru Park. Nairobi looked much more modern than I'd imagined, with its tall buildings and wide streets. What struck me most was the feeling of the air around me, which seemed to swirl gently and kiss my knees as I walked. In only a few hours, I had fallen in love with this place, too.