Good afternoon!
My name is Veneta Ilieva. I am a Ron Brown Fellow 2002-2004, and I hold an MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
“What Fulbright gave me and what I can give back” is a question I’ve been pondering ever since I wrote my application form for the Ron Brown Fellowship program more than 10 years ago. It is also a question that I have continued to ask myself over the years, including when I had the privilege to sit on several selection committees.
The answer has changed over time and if I am to summarize my stance today, the question of “What Fulbright gave me and what I can give back” distills to a question of values. And “values”are elusive as they have both tangible and intangible aspects.
The tangible aspects are relatively easy to capture. As some of the previous speakers noted, they include things such as the privilege of getting education or doing research at some of the world’s finest academic institutions, spending an extensive amount of time in a different cultural context, acquiring technical, presentational or other skills and, probably the most important of all, becoming a member of a network, or in my case as a Ron Brown fellow – three networks. In terms of giving back, we can surely measure our professional and personal achievements – through our job positions, the research we do or the projects we participate in, and their impact. We can also measure the number of members of a network or the results of the cooperation happening within the network.
So, in terms of giving back along these tangible dimensions, I know that I have done well. And the fellows that I know in this audience have also done well.
Personally, I have had the chance to participate and contribute toward the development of Bulgarian mortgage lending, capital market, pension reform, a major IPO, and the establishment of several Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are only some of the contributions that the team of the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, of which I was a member, made to the Bulgarian economy. And, as most of you know, the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund created the endowment with which America for Bulgaria Foundation operates today. I think that the America for Bulgaria Foundation does not need any introduction to this audience, as we all know who they are and what they do.
However, in the past year I switched from banking to the world of nonprofits. And this has required another serious shift in my thinking and perception of values and impact.
So, for me today, the intangible dimensions, although difficult to quantify, are where the real value of the Fulbright experience and network is hidden. There are many aspects of that, but I want to focus on just one, which isa direct result of my personal experiences.For, by being exposed to a different culture I was forced to challenge my assumptions about almost everything – from the taste of food, to decision-making and motivation. It is a well-known fact that by challenging our assumptions we are forced to discover and expose our values. And values inform the decisions we make and our choices in life. So, my Fulbright experiences also helped me to scratch the surface, uncover and begin to better comprehend the values of rule of law, human rights,respect for diversity, transparency and accountability. In a way, these are the values supposedly engrained in the constitutions of many countries in the world. And I tend to believe that these represent some of the values embraced by the members of the Fulbright network. Or, at least, I have not yet met a Fulbrighter who would not embrace them.
Yet, values, if we do not live up to them, are just empty words.
As mentioned earlier today, we live in a tumultuous world. When the financial crisis started, I knew that most likely there was going to be social unrest. However, I never expected the lines of division that appear in Bulgaria today, including racial, xenophobic and other. And for me in divisive times, if you know your values, you’d better take a stand.
The way I currently see it, the values I mentioned before and especially rule of law, human rights and respect for diversity are being challenged. So, to me the question of giving back has become the question of:
-What can I do to help invigorate our civil society?
-What can I do to promote these values among the people I communicate with?
-How can I serve as a resource for others who have chosen to fight these battles for us all when they are in despair?
And while I know that I do not have many of the answers now, soon I certainly will because I want to.
Thank you.
Veneta Ilieva, CFO- Trust for Social Achievement