Five powerful ideas for global impact from social entrepreneurs, lesson 2

Combine Focus with Flexibility  Mark Ruiz was an executive at Unilever in the Philippines when he had an insight that led him to create the social enterprise Hapinoy with his co-founder, Bam Aquino. Why can Coke products find their way to every rural village, but medicines and financial services do not? Rather than create a new distribution network from scratch, Mark and Bam decided to piggyback off of existing infrastructure – tiny “hole in the wall” stores called sari-sari shops – by formalizing them into a network, thereby creating a channel to get much-needed services such as mobile banking into rural communities. His advice to other social entrepreneurs? Never lose sight of your social mission. Make sure your investors have the […]

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