On the Speaking Circuit

It's already November and I haven't posted in several weeks.  I've been busy selling the house, ready to move to a 55+ adult community, fighting some physical ailments, and facing a pending delicate neck operation in 3 weeks.

Last month I received an invitation from an old high school and college friend, David Gill, PhD, who teaches business ethics in the Global MBA program at St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA.  There were 21 active participants who asked a lot of questions.  We spoke about bribes and how they work overseas and dealing with managers from other cultures who have different social values than we do.  It was a very spirited discussion.  I came away from the discussion with much better clarity when it comes to having to pay bribes - sometimes it really isn't a bribe but a ransom when a third party is preventing you from completing a legitimate task.  I'm not talking about paying bribes to officials to beat other competitors who are trying to win lucrative new contracts.

This week I received an invitation to speak at the Hass School of Business at UC Berkeley.  The microfinance investment series is the brainchild of Sean Foote of Labrador Venture Capital of Palo Alto, CA.   This is the third year I have spoken to his class.  This year was a little different in that the talk was televised to 10 other universities in the US.  Very spirited group of students who were very interested in what actually goes on in the field at the micro-level.  The questions continued via e-mail the next day.  We discussed loan delinquencies, defaults, gender issues when making loans, are women really better risks than men, where growth occurs through the Balance Sheet and not really through the Profit and Loss Statement, and so forth.

On to ailments.  I was having some neck issues that the doctors now find are damaging my spinal cord and reeking havoc with the nerves affecting my left arm and leg.  After 3 months of physical therapy and exercises, improvement has been minimal.  It's time to surgically remove 4 bulging disks in the neck.  Not a walk in the park, but I should be back on my feet in a few weeks.  A forced vacation.

Comments

[Ramon Kolb]

Hi Kendall,

Hope that all went well with your surgery, and that you are on the way to recovery.

Interesting (re-)reading, your comments about bribery. Personally, my experience is, that paying a bit extra to "grease the skids" to get a legitimate task done, is something that is quite widespread and common. When I lived in Nicaragua in the mid-90s, getting stopped by the police and paying them the equivalent of $2 to be on your way was common. I can't call this bribery, as the salary of a policeman was about $80/month. For him, this was survival.

Taking this is step further, I'd be interested to hear your comments on the Ponzi-esque scheme that the Kiva lenders were confronted with that led to the demise of Mifex in Ecuador. They were basically inflating the loan amounts that were requested from Kiva by about 35%, which was used for administrative fees. Needless to say, when their secondary funding sources dried up, they couldn't pay back the loans to the lenders even though the borrowers paid back the loans in time and without problems. I (naively) thought that the interest on the loans paid by the borrowers was or should be sufficient to run at least cashflow neutral...

Hope you're recovering well, best wishes for the holiday season.
Ramon

[Jill Kirshner]

Hey Kendall,

Just came to read your blog for the first time in a long time and learned of your medical preoccupations. I'm sure that I should be commenting something interesting or provocative about the microfinance world, as my fellow KivaFriend, Ramón, so often does, but for now, all I'm going to do is wish you well and say I hope you have a speedy recovery.

Best,
Jill