This week, I had the incredible opportunity to arrive in Mexico City for my Leadership in Action (LiA) program. Despite the city’s recent World Cup loss, its vibrant culture continued to thrive. For the duration of my summer, I will be participating in my LiA with Rennueva, a recycling center in Mexico City. Rennueva’s current goal is to expand its business to Quintana Roo. Initially, I was hesitant about this project because I thought my interests in architecture, law, and business would be irrelevant to its environmentally focused mission. However, after meeting with the company’s CEO, Hector, I realized how incredible an opportunity this would be.
Our first assignment was to “write down our dreams.” Initially, my groupmates and I were surprised because, like most scholars, we expect to jump straight into work. But this assignment allowed us to truly question why we were doing the work. It also helped us see each other through an empathetic lens beyond just coworkers there to achieve a common goal.
After completing this assignment, we received the project information we were looking for: to develop a business model to scale Rennueva and its stakeholders. While I have always had an interest in business, this was the first time I, along with my peers, was given full control. Instead of just giving us busy work that Hector and the Rennueva staff may not have wanted, he gave us serious trust to position the company as we saw fit.
Our second, and current, assignment was to create a stakeholder map. At first, when I heard this would be our assignment, I was unimpressed. However, when Hector explained the entire process and its importance, my view quickly changed. The goal was to think about every single plastic item that impacted the daily lives of Mexican citizens and, from there, list them as possible revenue sources. That meant researching the producers from buttons to bags. Through that research, we would also need to consider the governmental laws and the business production cycle to figure out where our contact points will be. While this assignment is currently ongoing, I am super excited to dive deeper into such important and complex fields and share the results we find.
So grateful to the Laidlaw Foundation alongside all the Laidlaw Scholars, Mentors, Program Directors, Rennueva, and the MakeSense team for this thrilling opportunity. Please consider staying tuned to the constant updates that will occur throughout my next 5 weeks.
Gracias por leer,
Adios!