{"id":4741,"date":"2006-11-01T12:30:38","date_gmt":"2006-11-01T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=4741"},"modified":"2017-06-27T13:07:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T17:07:21","slug":"former-president-of-peru-challenges-audience-to-address-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2006\/11\/former-president-of-peru-challenges-audience-to-address-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"Former president of Peru challenges audience to address poverty."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI visited Peru the day that Alejandro Toledo<\/strong> assumed the presidency in 2001,\u201d said Victoria Kenny<\/strong> (MA \u201906), coordinator, USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program for the College of Business Administration. \u201cI remember seeing his picture on that day, dressed in indigenous clothing. It made an impression on me, as did the poverty I saw around me in the little town where I was supposed to be on vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From
From left, Juan Pablo Trigo, managing director, Citigroup; Alejandro Toledo; and Maria Jos\u00e9 Monti, director, Global Transaction Services, Citigroup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kenny was one of nearly 100 people to attend a Special Event Herbert A. Wertheim Lecture given by Toledo in the MARC Pavilion on October 16, 2006. Chapman School Dean Jos\u00e9 de la Torre<\/strong>, who knows Toledo and was able to bring him to the campus, made a detailed introduction to the assembled guests: corporate partners, students from the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC), Executive MBA and Master of International Business (MIB) students, and many area Peruvians. Toledo, whose term as president ended this year, spoke at length on the topic, \u201cEconomic Stability and Democracy in Latin America,\u201d and then fielded questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cA number of the members of the Chapman School\u2019s Latin America Forum also were present,\u201d said Natalia Sol<\/strong>, director of corporate relations, whose office coordinated the event. \u201cThese individuals are chief executive officers for Latin Am\u00e9rica\u2014or their equivalents\u2014or for major multinational corporations, and much of what Toledo said was directed at their concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toledo personalized the issue of poverty.<\/em><\/p>\n

The heart-wrenching poverty Kenny witnessed in Peru was a theme echoed in Toledo\u2019s talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis message was, if you want to make a difference, do something for poor people,\u201d said Maria Jos\u00e9 Monti<\/strong>, director, Global Transaction Services for Citigroup and a member of the EMBA Advisory Board, who is from Argentina. \u201cHe said, if you work in a democracy, you need to avoid or change poverty because poverty doesn\u2019t help anyone, and I agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toledo\u2019s own experience provides a dramatic example of both poverty and personal success in overcoming it. One of sixteen children\u2014seven of whom died because of poor nutrition\u2014he was the son of a bricklayer and a fishmonger. As a child, he worked as a shoeshine boy. After studying at the local state school, G.U.E. San Pedro, he received a one-year scholarship to the University of San Francisco, completed his bachelor’s degree in economics by obtaining a partial soccer scholarship and by working part-time pumping gas, and went on to receive two master\u2019s degrees and a PhD from Stanford University.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe defined himself as a statistical error,\u201d Monti said, and Kenny recalled that he explained that he was \u201cvery fortunate, being the one in a million who had a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk weaves the personal and the political.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he said about democracy and stability really impressed me,\u201d Kenny said. \u201cI had a concentration in international business when I got my degree in Latin American studies; I am interested in whatever has to do with Latin America and democracy and progress in that region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis personal testimonial is what struck me,\u201d Monti said. \u201cIt was powerful to see a person born into such poverty who developed himself. He helped us realize that people from government and companies can work together to reduce poverty, and that if companies see poverty as a market, they can still make money. Also, it was good to listen to a political leader who shows balance, someone who is not a demagogue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI visited Peru the day that Alejandro Toledo assumed the presidency in 2001,\u201d said Victoria Kenny (MA \u201906), coordinator, USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program for the College of Business Administration. \u201cI remember seeing his picture on that day, dressed in indigenous clothing. It made an impression on me, as did the poverty I saw around me in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[763,1722,1869,1982,2639],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28470,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions\/28470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}