Janti Soeripto: Business’s Role in Global Crises
‘Perspectives’ is a joint project of The Beautiful Truth and Leaders on Purpose. During the 6th annual Leaders on Purpose CEO Summit in September 2023, The Beautiful Truth conducted interviews with influential corporate leaders and thought leaders. The goal was to gain insight into their perspectives on purposeful business and answer the question: what actions should our businesses take in the current historical context?
Janti Soeripto is President and CEO of Save the Children US, a leading humanitarian organisation for children. The charity has changed the lives of over one billion children in the United States and worldwide. Before working for Save the Children, Janti spent nearly 20 years in the corporate sector at companies including Kimberly-Clark and Unilever. She discusses how business can step up in humanitarian crises.
“There is both a moral imperative and an economic value to investing in early education for children, ensuring they grow up healthy and safe.”
How can business step up in humanitarian crises?
Organisations can no longer say: “We didn’t know that was happening,” because everything happening worldwide is instantly available online for everybody to see. Humanitarian responses – rebuilding countries after conflict, helping people strengthen livelihood skills, keeping girls from being married off before the age of 18, making sure that children under five are not dying of diarrhoea, pneumonia or hunger – these are things we have solutions for today. They’re not even that expensive.
Shockingly, the world spends five times as much on bottled water than it does on humanitarian responses. Businesses have a responsibility to apply their resources and talents to these causes, not only to expand their potential markets but also to engage their employees so they feel they are positively contributing to the world.
The world has experienced a lot in the last few years. What are some of the contexts in which Save the Children is working?
The pandemic disrupted everything that organisations could have foreseen or planned for. Hundreds of millions of children had a massive gap in their education – not just in their academic learning but also in their social and emotional development. This has impacted the most vulnerable children: girls and minorities who are put to work or married off at a young age and won’t come back to school. We want to ensure we catch these children and prevent them from falling through the cracks.
“When you look at the facts and what has worked in previous years, the business world has a significant opportunity to step up.”
On top of all the challenges brought on by the pandemic, we’re also facing the devastating challenges brought on by increasing global conflicts, as well as climate change. Nearly 200 million children are living in the world’s most lethal war zones, the highest number in over a decade. In 2022 the Ukraine war broke out, which required us to not only step up and respond to the immediate needs on the ground, but also deal with the additional impact of food insecurity around the world.
And, since October 2023, we’ve been working tirelessly on the crisis in Gaza, where children are taking the brunt of the increasingly dire situation. Our teams are working around the clock to support children and families there, but the context is the most difficult we’ve ever worked in. Aid cannot get in, famine is looming, healthcare and schools are non-existent, nowhere is safe. Then, of course, there are the crises in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – the list goes on.
How have expectations of business changed over the last few years?
Expectations for businesses have gone up. What’s particularly important for companies to realise is that if they want to attract and retain their talent, particularly younger generations, they need to be responsible businesses that do more than just look at their bottom line. But in addition to the capabilities, resources and presence that businesses have in many conflict-affected countries, they also have political leverage.
There is both a moral imperative and an economic value to investing in early education for children, ensuring they grow up healthy and safe. It will allow talented people to reach their full potential, ultimately leading to stable and prosperous countries.
Sometimes, people say we’re naive as humanitarians – maybe we are. But when you look at the facts and what has worked in previous years, the business world has a significant opportunity to step up.
