Skoll Scholar 2009/10
Jordyan Edmiston has become fascinated by creating businesses that serve both social and financial goals. After graduating from Georgetown University, she first went to Hong Kong with JP Morgan Chase in investment banking and then joined Qualcomm Beijing in wireless business development. Returning to California, she was managing consumer sales at Kendall-Jackson’s Vérité Winery when the San Francisco-based Kiva invited her to go to Cambodia as a Kiva Fellow to interview recipients of micro-loans and write updates detailing the impact of the loans on their lives.
Her initial four-month assignment expanded to two years in Phnom Penh where she trained micro-finance institutions to make the best use of Kiva’s interest-free capital. She helped create social business plans for Friends International and worked with Hagar International management to integrate business practices with social goals. Overall, she has worked with four microfinance institutions and two not-for-profit organisations—experience that taught her much about the delicate balance between the needs of individual beneficiaries and the broader social good generated by sustainable businesses.
“The Skoll Centre’s social entrepreneurship programme at Saïd is ideal, enabling me to integrate traditional MBA skills with the creative mindset required for successful social enterprises,” she says. “I’m deeply grateful for my selection as a Skoll Scholar, not only for its innovative international programme but also for a chance to work among students who have a broad array of views about applying business practices to social ends.”