‘Am I doing enough?’ Maria Eitel opened her lecture on 10 December with the question she still asks herself, and her reflections on what motivates her to be one of the most innovative and important individuals working in international development.

The CEO of the Nike Foundation is interested in change and power, and how change occurs. She told MPP students that she only realised this was the linking theme of her varied career when she had already held several positions, including as a TV reporter, as deputy director of media relations for the White House and as a group manager at Microsoft. She went on to set up Nike’s first Corporate Responsibility department, helping to turn around the fortunes of a ‘company that was going through very significant trauma’ due to sweatshop scandals in the late 1990s.

It was on the back of this success that Eitel personally persuaded the leaders of Nike to venture into the extraordinary and use the Nike foundation to invest in what she has coined ‘the Girl Effect’ to fight poverty worldwide. She described to the class how she persuaded initially reluctant board members to make an enormous commitment to a complex problem outside of the factory walls, and try ‘to move the needle on an issue’.

As well as information and experience, Eitel conveyed passion and clear practicality in approaching huge issues to the students in her lecture. ‘It was an insightful talk on how Nike Foundation’s bottom up approach of empowering teenage girls in Rwanda through education will have a ripple effect of poverty reduction for many generations to come’, said MPP student Wanjiku Nyoike. She looks forward to applying the tips she gathered ‘when working with disadvantaged communities in Kenya.’

Maria Eitel is CEO and President of the Nike Foundation. She was previously Nike, Inc.’s first Vice President of Corporate Responsibility.

Find out more about the Girl Effect at www.girleffect.org