Growing up in a small West Virginia town, Jake Harriman was taught to value compassion, think big, and believe anything is possible. He carried those ideals with him to the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated with distinction, as well as on the four operational deployments he led as a U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Commander: two combat tours in Iraq, where he was awarded a Bronze Star, and disaster relief operations in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. While in Iraq, Jake realized that terrorism will never be eradicated without addressing the root causes that allow violent extremism to spread, such as poverty and global instability. Inspired to make a difference beyond the battlefield, he pivoted his focus from military service to humanitarian efforts, embracing the fight against global poverty.
In 2008, Jake enrolled at Stanford GSB, where he pursued an MBA with a fervent resolve to create change. That same year, he founded Nuru International. Nuru, a Kiswahili word meaning “hope,” is a nonprofit organization that helps rural communities in conflict-impacted regions develop sustainable agriculture businesses, with the goal of ending food insecurity and providing economic stability. They’ve since added the Nuru Collective, a group of locally run organizations in six African countries, and have reached over 360,000 people through 315 agribusinesses to date.
When Jake returned to the U.S. after living and working overseas for 15 years, he was dismayed at the political division prevalent in the country. In 2020, he founded and became president of +More Perfect Union (+MPU), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to heal divisions in the country by bringing together people from different backgrounds for service projects, social gatherings, and civic engagement. +MPU now has “brickyard chapters” across the country where members gather to build connections and trust while serving their communities. “There’s always something bigger than you out there,” Jake says in a 2021 interview.
