At the start of October Murli Padmanabhan our Director of Growth visited Kenya, to share knowledge and meet like-minded social enterprises.
Murli has lived and worked for two years in Ghana in West Africa, however he’d never been to Kenya. This trip was a great opportunity to return to the world’s second largest continent and learn from peers.
First up Murli visited Livelyhoods, a social enterprise based out of Nairobi. The organisation shares a number of the challenges that Pollinate Group faces serving neglected communities. Murli spent time in the field with their sales agents and had opportunities to discuss their business model, finance and payment plan options. He was most impressed with their direct sales model.
He also saw products in action like an ethanol fuel cookstove (pictured below), which is part of a Green Development Project in Kenya.
“It was great to meet the team at Livelyhoods and see what’s happening on the ground for them. I have to thank everyone involved for making the visit so interesting.” Murli shares.
The second part of Murli’s visit was attending the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation annual conference. The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is a global venture philanthropy firm supporting early stage, high impact social enterprises. They have supported Pollinate Group for the past three years to build capacity and scale our impact.
Murli enjoyed the chance to interact with fellow leaders at the conference and work on solutions to internal and external challenges and problems people face in their own ecosystem.
Sessions at the conference included scaling strategy, which was presented by Bill Rodrigeuz the Managing Director of the Draper Richard Kaplan Foundation, who is also currently on our global Board of Directors.
Other highlight sessions for Murli covered the anatomy of a brand, recruitment and organisational development and behavioural change and change management.
“This was a wonderful conference for me and I returned back to Bangalore with so many great takeaways not only for myself, but our entire team. I also look forward to continuing to engage with the people I met,” Murli says.
When asked about his experience in Kenya, Murli shares, “Kenyans are welcoming people and during my interactions over the week, I was greatly impressed by their hospitality and openness in sharing ideas. They are very approachable and open to various thoughts and opinions. They are also keen learners and always willing to learn from people from different cultures and countries.”
Thanks Murli for your collaboration with other social enterprises and sharing this experience with our audiences.
We also thank Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation for creating this opportunity for Murli and supporting social enterprises to meet peers, share knowledge and increase our impact.
Pollinate Group is known for our collaboration and we’re always looking for opportunities around the world to work with like-minded individuals, organisations and foundations to address the issues of poverty, gender equality and energy access. Get in touch!