Blog Extract: Courtesy: Cathie Guthrie -  Founder and President of Company2Keep Inc.

Can you recall the pivotal moment in your career that convinced you to never look back? I have a vivid recollection of my moment. 

When you work in the international development profession you routinely experience noble acts of courage and s/heroism as well as the outstanding achievements of individuals and their communities in navigating change in limited resource settings to become champions of their own destinies. Those experiences do leave a mark. They are moving and restorative at the same time. 

But the other of which I speak occurred nearly 20 years ago during the Opening Remarks at a graduation ceremony I had been invited by a colleague to attend. This was no ordinary graduation ceremony. This was the graduation of a small gaggle of young teen girls who had completed a five month internship that had exposed them to the full range of career options in the hospitality sector. 

The host of the event was the Pan Pacific Hotel in Bangkok and the Opening Remarks were delivered by Douglas Louden, the Hotel's General Manager at the time. Douglas had met my colleague at a Bangkok Chamber of Commerce Lunch where, as the keynote speaker, she talked about her work preventing the trafficking of young girls from Northern Thailand for the sex trade. Douglas had learned that girls from families unable to afford to send their daughters to school were at high risk of being trafficked.  He quickly assembled resources for scholarships to keep some girls in school, but his most important contribution, from his perspective, was the work of he and his team designing an orientation and training programme in the hospitality sector for the girls. 

In his remarks the GM described the bumpy road of the previous 5 months, the challenges of working with the girls who had no prior exposure to the city and Five-Star Hotel culture. He even mentioned the problems they had wearing close-toed shoes and in the same breath, he spoke about the tremendous rewards of working with the girls, including the impact on the employees who worked with them. He knew how he would fix the programme to make it a smoother experience for everyone and he was determined to help alter the lives of a lot more girls. He was determined to get every Five-Star Hotel in the city creating the same opportunities for high risk teen girls.

There was nothing about this programme that was particularly innovative, yet the move was extraordinary. Twenty years ago, it would have been unusual for the corporate sector to realize the problem, recognize it as a rights issue, see the business relevance, choose to get involved as the hotel had done and do so with such passion. A financial donation by the hotel might have adequately addressed its moral compass to help fix any wrong. Experiencing the GM's eureka moment and the corporate resolve became my pivotal moment as I discovered that corporations could be constructively engaged on a social development platform in a way I had not previously imagined. The hotel's sight-lines did not end at making profits and it could be a powerful force for change.  I was determined to expand my conversation about children's rights and the business nexus.

Within months, the GMs of a dozen other hotels had jumped on board to offer the programme and over the next five years the programme had expanded throughout the country. The Pan Pacific Hotel exported the model to the Philippines, Singapore and Los Angeles expanding opportunities for high risk young people in those locations as well. Later on, I have since learned, other sectors in Thailand, including health and finance, replicated the orientation and internship model for high risk young people. Thousands of children's lives have been altered because of one man's vision and determination. Douglas Louden, you should be so proud. 

Douglas knew that what's good for children is good for business.