Category Archives: Blog

When Merrill Joseph Fernando was born in 1930, he was a colonial subject of the British Empire. His homeland, the island of Ceylon, produced rubber, cinnamon, and Ceylon tea. Tea production was under the control of the British who had established large plantations and controlled the process, from planting to packaging to store shelves. Although Fernando had considered law school, he began work in the tea trade. He was among the first group of Ceylonese to go to London to study tea tasting, a profession then dominated by British expatriates. […]

Zahi Khouri’s peaceful childhood ended abruptly when he was ten years old. Born in Jaffa, Palestine, his family joined thousands of other Palestinians a decade later as they were driven into exile in 1948. The family settled in Lebanon; Khouri pursued his education in Germany and France. After moving to Richmond, Virginia, in 1967, he worked for various multinational corporations in New York City, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Then in 1993, Oslo Peace Accords were signed. The agreement, brokered by Norway after secret negotiations between Israel and […]

Juan Andrés Cano describes himself as a “professional entrepreneur,” one who began by selling candy at school. Today Cano isn’t selling a product, but is working directly with businesses and entrepreneurs to enable them to follow ethical principles and to create sustainable peacebuilding solutions. A law degree from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and a Diploma in Culture of Peace from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, gave Cano the foundation he needed to start Semilla Consultores Ltda, an ethics consultancy based in Bogotá that works with […]

Paul Polman boyhood’s plans didn’t quite work out as he hoped. Growing up in The Netherlands, he wanted to be a doctor. But Dutch medical-school openings were determined by a lottery system and he wasn’t picked. “I still wonder what my life would have been like as a doctor,” he told Management Today in a 2011 interview. Instead Polman studied for the priesthood in a Carmelite seminary before earning an undergraduate degree in The Netherlands and then coming to the United States for graduate work. He received an MBA in […]

Poman Lo has been mastering adult achievements since she was a young girl. A native Hong Kong, she was named Hong Kong Outstanding Student at 14. A year later, she won the Angier B. Duke Scholarship, a merit scholarship to Duke University. By 19, she had graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. In 2000, she joined her family’s business, Regal Hotels International, becoming vice chairperson and managing director of the group’s twenty-five world-class hotels in Hong Kong and mainland China in December, 2013. Lo has followed […]