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 heroism as well as the outstanding

achievements of individuals and their communities

and 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 event I speak of occurred nearly

20 years ago, during the Opening Remarks at a

graduation ceremony to which I had been

invited by a colleague.

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 exposed

them to the full range of career options in

the 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 industry 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

Five-Star Hotels in the city creating the

same opportunitiesfor 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 for the corporate sector to realise

the problem, recognise 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 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 that other

sectors in Thailand, including health and

finance, replicated the orientation and

internship.

A 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.