Student Testimonial
Erin Layburn, MBA 2005
- 2004 SMIF Fellow
- Employer: International Finance Corporation
This past summer I was able to intern at the International Finance Corporation/World Bank in Washington D.C. I have always had an interest in the nonprofit sector and, based on previous work experience, realized that many nonprofits have the passion and ideas but not necessarily the business skills to effectively reach their goals. Gaining these skills and applying them to an organization working on poverty alleviation and international development was part of my motivation for applying to business school at Stanford.
With the help of SMIF, I began to make this dream a reality and accepted a job working in the Private Sector Development group of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank. The Private Sector Development (PSD) group aims to provide opportunities for the poor through enabling entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprise development.
My team for the summer was focused on reforming the "investment climate" in developing countries. This involves improving the legal and regulatory frameworks, strengthening governance and overcoming bureaucratic inefficiencies, and improving access to key financial and infrastructure services. A good investment climate is essential for promoting economic development, creating job opportunities for entrepreneurs, women and young people and, in general, helping the poor lift themselves out of poverty.
My role for the summer was to lead some marketing and strategy efforts which the team had not had the manpower to focus on. I started off the summer working on several marketing projects that were already in progress. I helped develop and implement an internal marketing campaign for the PSD's new website. I also assisted in developing the marketing strategy for the release of the PSD's annual report "Doing Business in 2005: Removing Obstacles to Growth", (an annual study that benchmarks regulatory performance and reforms in 145 nations worldwide). Both projects were a useful way for me to learn about what the PSD group was working on and to develop relationships with other members of the team.
As the summer moved on, I began leading my own projects and became more involved in strategic planning and new product development. One of the concerns voiced by senior managers in the PSD group was that many of our materials, such as the "Doing Business" reports, were incredibly useful to governments and institutions like the World Bank but that we needed to do more to help business associations, NGOs and small and medium entrepreneurs who were working on reforming the investment climate from the grassroots level.
I worked on identifying the target audiences and through many conversations with representatives from all over the world, assessed their needs and how the IFC/World Bank could add value. Once I had gathered this initial data, I worked on the "business plan" for a new online resource center with these constituencies in mind. We had found out that NGOs, business associations and other reform groups were in need of educational and training materials on business climate issues and communications materials from successful reform campaigns.
I created and vetted the strategy for this resource center and then began the process of implementing various components of the online site. By the time my summer internship had ended, we had created the first in a series of educational cartoons; completed an online game which would teach people about the various components of business regulation and what they could do to reform it, and collected communications materials and case studies from various organizations around the world to share with others.
It was great to work with other incredibly passionate IFC/World Bank employees but be able to bring a different skill set based on my experiences in my first year of business school. It was an amazing opportunity to work and interact with people all over the world. Even within my own office I would hear people speaking in many different languages - many of which I could barely identify! My summer showed me that as a business school student I could really make a difference in a nonprofit and in the world.
