Advocating for Others from a Global Perspective

Intercultural empathy is the ability to perceive the world as it is perceived by a culture different from your own. For Ansa Edim, MBA '16, vice president and staff board chair at Change.org, a global mindset is just that. “A global mindset means having an understanding of a shared narrative around the world so that we have an understanding of the struggles of other people and empathy. At Change.org, we're dealing with people who don't typically have a voice and we are giving them space to have that voice. So that requires some empathy to their plight,” Edim says.

Edim is the first and only African American executive at Change.org. In this role, she says humility and self-awareness are key. “Self-awareness and humility are so important especially in spaces that are typically led by a dominant group. I'm at the intersection of tech and social justice at a company that is majority white-led. So when you're running companies that aren't led by non-dominant groups or don't have a lot of people from non-dominant groups in leadership, having self-awareness and humility as to how your perspective differs from their perspective is so important for getting good work done. Being able to recognize that another perspective may be more important than your own sometimes. That is self-awareness and that's humility. And that's how we get good business done,” she explains.

Edim describes Change.org as a truly global organization. It is in 22 countries and any one team could have people from three different countries on it. Edim leads a team with people from many different countries, including France, Poland, UK, and Brazil. In order to create an equitable environment, the organization is working on a global inclusiveness project. “We have a global inclusiveness project where we focus on making sure that we're including people who do not have English as their first language. So sending decks out ahead of meetings, making sure that people are speaking slowly, and that we are spelling out acronyms because an acronym in English might not be an acronym and another language,” she states.

Existing in such a diverse market is not without its challenges. “Specifically at Change.org our brand can be seen differently in different areas of the world. Existing as a brand in multiple countries means you're existing in multiple contexts at one time and so you can't be all things to all people. We have decided that we can't be all things to all people. We have to be mindful of the different cultural contexts in which activism plays a role,” she explains.

Edim was in the first cohort of the accelerated part-time MBA program at Maryland Smith. Graduating in 2016, she completed the program in just 20 months while working a full-time job. The premise of the program was two Saturdays a month for two years, and two global trips. Edim traveled to Chile and India during her time at Maryland Smith. “My first global trip, our whole cohort went to Chile together. That was amazing because we got to meet with different business leaders and it was just interesting to figure out how the global economies work while traveling to those countries. Then my second trip, I went to India and learning about the tech sector in India, while in the tech sector, in India was awesome,” she says. She credits the Smith school as contributing to her global mindset by requiring her to travel. She advises current students and alumni interested in a role in a global company to travel and research the connection between the country's culture and its economy. “Think about not just what kind of food do they eat? But how does the food get to the country? Think about how did this come to be and be curious about the connection between a country's culture and its economy,” she explains.

The Center for Global Business is committed to diversity and inclusion and showcasing the experience of minorities and different identities in global business. Edim says “being Black has impacted my mindset and my experience in global business in that my experience as an African American woman is not the center of the story. It's not the center of blackness. When I'm working with colleagues from countries who are also Black, I have to consider their perspective as well and their perspective as Black people in the UK and Germany and Australia and any other country is totally different. It has impacted me in that I've had to learn to decenter myself and my story from blackness.”