How to Make a Meaningful Career Pivot with Randy Kurtz

Your purpose is to make a difference.

Randy Kurtz is Executive Vice President at Opportunity International where he is focused on improvements to agriculture and education for those living in poverty around the world. In today’s show, Randy shares how he pivoted from a successful career in the restaurant industry to investment banking to founding his organization that is focused on ending extreme poverty for good.

Key Takeaways:
0:00 Intro
1:09 Randy gives a brief overview of Opportunity International and his position in the company
2:21 Randy talks about growing up on a dairy farm and his first job working at IHOP and how his career grew from there
5:45 Randy talks about the route he took that was so different than many and how he went straight to business school without an undergrad degree
8:38 Randy talks about his financial background and the various companies and industries he worked for and in. 
11:18 Randy talks about the examples in the world he was seeing that really made him think about what he was doing and how he could find his true purpose
12:49 Randy talks a bit about his Christian faith and the reason he turned down meaningful jobs to pursue his dreams
16:28 Randy goes in depth on what Opportunity International does as a company and every aspect of agriculture and education that they strive to help build upon 
20:40 Randy talks about the challenges they face in the various countries they work in and how they overcome them
24:21 Randy explains why 90% of their clients are women and how much it helps in efforts to grow each sector

Resources Mentioned:

University of Chicago - The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is ranked among the best universities in the world, and it is among the most selective in the United States.

IHOP - IHOP is an American multinational pancake house restaurant chain that specializes in breakfast foods. It is owned by Dine Brands Global—a company formed after IHOP's purchase of Applebee's, with 99% of the restaurants run by independent franchisees.

Citigroup - Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in 1998; Travelers was subsequently spun off from the company in 2002.

The Wall Street Journal - The Wall Street Journal, also known as The Journal, is an American business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese.

Goldman Sachs - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City. It offers services in investment management, securities, asset management, prime brokerage, and securities underwriting.

Salomon Brothers - Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street during the 1980s and 1990s.

Quotes Mentioned:

"I was reading The Wall Street Journal every day and I was talking with other people in my community at my church, and I felt like I had other types of work that would be more appealing to me, something that was a little bit more white collar, if you will, or, you know, strategic."

"I saw some examples out there in the world and I began to think about is what I'm doing now my my full purpose. And so my calling really became to find a role where I could have the kind of impact I was having in investment banking. But to have it in a way that helped people who really needed the help, to help those in poverty in difficult situations."

"In many of these developing countries, the borrower is a woman who is more responsible, more able to pay back, and that's the nature of microfinance. And so our gender story is very strong. In education, one of the things that we find is as schools get bigger, they can then have more girl students. When family incomes are stretched, it's the girls that don't get to go to school."

#GlobalDevelopment

#Microfinance

Guests Social Media Links: 

Website: https://opportunity.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randykurtz/