"The Role of the Private Sector in Economic Development; The Case Study of Rwanda" with Michael Fairbanks, Co-Founder, the SEVEN Fund, and former Chairman of OTF Group :: CID Special Event :: Events :: Center for International Development at Harvard University (CID)

CID Special Event

"The Role of the Private Sector in Economic Development; The Case Study of Rwanda"

Speakers: Michael Fairbanks, Co-Founder, the SEVEN Fund and Former Chairman of OTF Group

Thursday, 1 May 2008
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM, Dinner served
Perkins Room, 4th Floor, Rubenstein Building, HKS

President Kagame of Rwanda decided to focus on universal prosperity as its main tool for reuniting a country torn apart by genocide. Using the private sector as the engine for growth, his government, with advisors like Michael Fairbanks and OTF Group, set out to upgrade its industries (in coffee, tourism, tea, among others) to compete in the most sophisticated global markets and create high and rising salaries for its citizens. Michael Fairbanks, author of "Plowing the Sea", founder of international strategy firm OTF Group and current leader of the new Seven Fund will talk about Rwanda's transformation in key sectors, and enterprise solutions to poverty in action.

Biography:

Michael Fairbanks is the Executive Chairman and founder of The OTF Group, a software and strategy consulting firm based in Boston. It is the first Venture-backed US firm to focus on developing nations. Mr. Fairbanks was a US Peace Corps teacher in Kenya, a Wall Street Banker and has, over a twenty year career, advised scores of Presidents, cabinet members and CEOs in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia on business strategy and export competitiveness.

His current projects include working for the President of Rwanda to improve the prosperity of all Rwandan citizens by increasing the competitiveness of that nation's tourism, coffee and agro-industry sectors; and advising the Minister of Finance of Afghanistan on private sector reforms. He co-authored Harvard Business School's landmark book on business strategy in emerging markets, entitled Plowing the Sea, Nurturing the Hidden Sources of Advantage in Developing Nations, with a forward by Michael Porter. Business Week Magazine said, “Plowing the Sea points the way toward creating prosperity in developing nations”, the Boston Globe named it one of the ten best books of the year in Politics and Economics, and Exame magazine, Brazil’s leading business weekly, called it one of the ten best books of the decade. He co-conceived and contributed to the global best selling book Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, with Sam Huntington and Larry Harrison at Harvard. His next book, edited with Malik Fal and Marcela Escobari-Rose, contains essays by OTF colleagues from around the world. It is entitled In the River They Swim: Essays on Private Sector Development.

His work has been translated into a dozen languages including Korean, Mongolian, and Serbian. He was a visiting fellow at the Hoover institute at Stanford, a lecturer at Harvard, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. He has degrees in Philosophy and Biochemistry from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University in Pennsylvania, and African Politics from Columbia University in New York City. He served on the Commission on Globalization with, among others, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jane Goodall, and Joe Stiglitz; advised the Private Sector Commission at the United Nations; and FORTUNE Magazine named him one of the 150 Smartest People in the World. In 2006, his Alma Mater gave him its highest award, a Doctorate in Humane Letters for his “accomplishments and devotion to Social Justice.”