A Word with Reggie Dodge

Posted 27 September 2022 in EMpower News   |   Share

Recently, EMpower’s President & CEO Cynthia Steele spoke with Reggie Dodge, Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel at Emso Asset Management, and member of EMpower’s UK Board of Directors. They spoke about parallel paths in emerging markets, breaking gender barriers in nontraditional fields, and more. 

What are the synergies or parallels that you see between Emso and EMpower?

I think the primary synergy is a passion for emerging markets and recognising the development opportunities in emerging markets—the ability to try to help individuals, communities, and countries is what both EMpower and Emso try to achieve day to day. 

Emerging markets work (charitable and otherwise) attracts professionals who welcome a diversity of approach: people who can identify similarities and synergies but also appreciate differences. It’s a very specialised area, and I think it benefits from unique skills—skills which the staff at EMpower demonstrate daily as they work with different grantee partners. It’s a giant, interesting, challenged world out there, and it’s wonderful to work with people (at both EMpower and Emso) who are keen to explore that world, and have a positive impact on it. 

I'm keen to know what you find inspiring about the work that we're supporting within, for, and by young people?

The list is long actually, so I'll have to edit myself! From the very beginning, what really struck me is the way that EMpower executes its mandate. EMpower’s mission is so multi-faceted. It’s not limited to the impact of the grants themselves (though the grants are essential). It’s about helping organisations to grow and develop over time. EMpower doesn’t just hand money over and say, “good luck with that.” I love the longer-term commitment EMpower makes to its grantee partners, which really encourages institutional development and evolution. I sometimes describe EMpower as a sort of “incubator.” And that concept is really essential to EMpower’s DNA—that idea of support which promotes growth over time. 

Beyond the funding commitment, EMpower also provides impressive institutional support both by helping to broker engagements and dialogue between charitable entities within a country, and by brokering engagements and dialogue between charitable entities which engage in similar missions in other countries. As a result, organisations can benefit not only from EMpower’s knowledge and experience, but from the knowledge and experience of fellow charitable initiatives. We all know the transformative power of networks in our own businesses, and EMpower enables the power of networks for its 120+ grantee partners. 

By way of example: with grantee partners offering opportunities to women to become taxi drivers (i.e., nontraditional employment initiatives) in India and Colombia, EMpower provides a forum for the exchange of information, experiences, and challenges. The organisations may come from different geographies and cultures but they're trying to execute similar paths to empowering their community. To have all of those resources—EMpower itself, fellow grantee partners within their geography, and fellow grantee partners in other countries—is tremendous. To be able to have access to that much idea flow is almost better than money. I won't say it is better than money, but it must come a close second! 

The idea flow concept is also something time and again that our grantee partners say is what they really value. It's not just that we think they like it, that's what they've told us in surveys. 

I am struck by parallels between advancements for women in finance, especially at senior levels (which is a scarce or relatively rare subset), and how that tracks with the work that EMpower has done. Not only to promote opportunities for women and young women overall, but particularly in male-dominated fields where they will receive better pay, have more prospects, better security, etc. I’m curious to know what you might see in that dimension?

You rightly note that it remains a challenge in developed markets for women in senior roles, certainly in finance and in many other fields. An element of having to break down barriers still exists. These barriers exist in society, but also in our own minds. And it starts young. I think it it’s very important that the messaging in society is that girls (and boys) can do anything they put their minds to. The movement toward encouraging girls to enter STEM fields is an important part of that change. My mother would have been a marvelous engineer but such opportunities just didn’t exist for her in the 1950s.   

We all need to continue to chip away at these societal barriers which exist around the world.  This is yet another area of EMpower’s work that I find inspiring. EMpower chooses grantee partners which have as part of their mandate some element of support not just for marginalised young people, but for girls and young women—whether it’s supporting an organisation which combats human trafficking in Vietnam, or an initiative to boost women in nontraditional fields, like plumbing, in Ghana. These efforts change lives—and changed lives change lives. The multiplier effect is astounding.     

I think the other thing that's really important is that a number of initiatives supported by EMpower involve sport. I have always been offered opportunities to engage in sport, and I think sport is a particularly important component for girls and young women so they can understand their bodies as something other than an object that is looked at and judged—sport provides a feeling of personal strength and agency, and ultimately self-confidence. It also provides opportunities for teamwork and the application of discipline—all of which provide a solid foundation as we progress through life’s many challenges. I think the influence of access to sport in the lives of girls and young women is underestimated, and I’m heartened that it is one of the prongs of support offered by a number of EMpower’s grantee partners.

Finally, I think it's really important to get men onboard the fight for gender equality. EMpower messages to each of its grantee partners the importance of inclusiveness and training of both genders, and I think this is the only way we're going to get there in the end. It can’t be “us” versus “them.” If everyone can move together in the direction of equality, I’m confident that some day we will get there.