Impact Interview: Smruti Govan
What are you working on these days?
My focus is on working with the team (Global Human Rights Office at PepsiCo), cross-functional partners, and external stakeholders to enhance PepsiCo’s human rights due diligence program across the supply chain. That includes everything from risk assessments and audits to capability building and grievance mechanisms. I am also excited to work on our salient human rights issues and become more involved in industry initiatives that help address systemic issues as well.
What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social impact?
There was no singular aha moment but a convergence of factors that lead me to pursue social impact. My values and passion for dismantling inequities stem from my grandmother's lived experience with gender discrimination as a widow in India and my father's lived experience during apartheid in South Africa, which helped me recognize how law and policy can be effective tools for social change at the systemic level and really inspired my career trajectory.
From a young age, I admired movement leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, who embraced non-violence and civil disobedience and persisted in the face of immense opposition and personal sacrifice in the pursuit of equality and human rights. I had the privilege of visiting Nelson Mandela's prison cell in Robben Island which moved me deeply and has stuck with me to this day. Not surprisingly, Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" strongly influenced me and is one of the most inspirational books I have ever read. (If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend!)
And lastly, the most gratifying, humbling and rewarding thing about pursuing a career in social impact is the opportunity to amplify the voices of vulnerable individuals and help co-create solutions tailored to their holistic needs in order to drive change at a systemic level.
How did you break into the social impact space?
Throughout college and law school I had internships at NGOs like the American Civil Liberties Union, so I have been pursuing a social impact career path from a relatively young age.
I graduated law school in 2010, when the economy was still reeling from the effects of the 2008 recession, and most of my classmates and I were unemployed and struggled to find social impact jobs, as ESG/Corporate Responsibility was just starting to emerge as a field.
I started working at Bloomberg Law and later learned that Bloomberg had a relatively new ESG department that focused on socially responsible investing. I got connected to the main person there and learned that they were hiring, so I was able to transfer to that division, which jump-started my career in corporate responsibility. From there I was able to obtain ESG roles in non-profits and corporations.
Networking and having an open mindset helped me the most during my career trajectory. This is not original advice at all, but through informational interviews and networking, I learned a lot about the ESG field and was able to identify the types of roles I was interested in.
The social impact space is a small, well-connected field so I would encourage others to build and maintain their networks as much as possible, as I was lucky enough to have many people and mentors support me along the way. Also, curiosity and open-mindedness are some good qualities to possess as they can really help identify opportunities that you may not have considered before.
Working in social impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it?
Active empathetic listening, influencing and relationship-building skills are some of the most important skills I have used and continue to use throughout my career.
Driving social impact and long-lasting change requires buy-in and support from various stakeholders (i.e. companies, NGOs, government) and it is important to understand different perspectives and priorities so that you can tailor messages accordingly and help guarantee support for shared priorities. Much of the jobs in social impact involve influencing and socializing others to new concepts/innovations, so it is important to understand your stakeholders' needs and priorities and identify common ground so that you can further progress against your goals.
I think as changemakers and activists within the field, we tend to hold strong opinions or sometimes make assumptions or harbor unconscious biases towards others. It is important to always assume good intentions and to listen with an open mind to different perspectives, as people may surprise you!
This is something I am constantly learning and working on, improving my active listening skills. Tackling systemic issues necessitates engagement from all stakeholders, and I certainly would not have been able to accomplish anything without having listened to my cross-functional partners, external stakeholders and of course my amazing team! (Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say :))
What most excites you about the social impact space right now?
What excites me in general about the social impact space is the increasing focus companies and investors have on ESG more broadly, and impending legislation coming out from the European Union that will motivate companies to focus on human rights due diligence throughout their whole value chain.
When I first started out in this field in 2011, terms like ESG were not well-known outside of the community of practitioners. It is great to see that this is becoming more "mainstream" and seen as something that can not only mitigate risk but add value to the private sector and beyond. It is refreshing to see that the private sector views ESG as integral to their role in being a responsible business and as part of their license to operate.
Additionally, I am encouraged by the breaking down of silos between environment and human rights, as some are starting to focus on the intersection of climate and human rights, i.e. climate impacts on humans, climate justice, just transition, etc. Last year, the United Nations declared access to a clean and healthy environment as a universal human right!
Last but certainly not least, it is great to see the emphasis on intersectionality as a whole, and an increased understanding of how power relations create overlapping and interdependent systems of disadvantage.
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