KIM OGDEN Title: Chief Operating Officer, Agape International
For 14 years, Bain & Company partner Kim Ogden made an impact on her clients. Since leaving the firm in 2003, Ogden's been busy making a significantly different type of impact.
"The transformation stories blow you away," says Ogden, who serves as COO of Agape International, which opens and operates facilities in India for children who have been orphaned as a result of AIDS. "When some of the kids arrive, they look like they're at death's door. Within three weeks of proper medical care and nutrition, they are different children."
Founded in 2003 by Executive Director Lynne Guhman, Agape International (www.agapeintl.org) has opened five orphanages, a 20-bed hospital and a school in the Hyderabad area. To date, the orphanages house about 200 children, nearly a third of whom also have AIDS, for which they receive care in the hospital. The organization also provides AIDS education services in India, which boasts the largest orphan population and the highest rate of HIV infection in the world. Children frequently forsake any attempts at education to care for terminally ill parents and then are left parentless (and in some cases, HIV infected) when their parents die. Guhman launched the organization following a trip to India, which inspired her to quit her job and move to the country. She met Ogden while giving a presentation about Agape International during a trip to Boston, where Ogden was wrestling with a possible career change.
Ogden joined Bain in 1989 after graduating from Harvard Business School. She chose consulting over a career in non-profit then, figuring that she could revisit that decision later. In 2002, her office head suggested that Ogden, who at that time was helping to lead the firm's healthcare practice, take a sabbatical to pursue some non-profit work full-time. "Bain was terrifically supportive," she recalls. As a mother, Ogden knew she wanted to work with children in need. She also realized she had a desire to help kids in developing countries.
"I loved my job, which made it difficult for me to move on," she says. But Ogden says that the 9/11 terrorist attacks about 18 months earlier helped solidify her decision. "I realized that life can be short, this was something that I wanted to do and that I needed to go do now," she recalls.
The most surprising aspect of the transition from consulting to non-profit sector was the number of challenges, including government requirements, that obstruct execution. "As a consultant, you sometimes think, 'Well, just do it,'" she says with a laugh. "But it doesn't work that way in the real world."
Yet Ogden, who works from her home in the Boston area and travels to Agape's India facilities at least twice a year, summons all of her consulting skills in her new role. "Consulting taught me a lot of things," she explains. "It taught me how to run a cost-efficient operation—we run an orphanage for 45 kids for $16,000 a year."
Ogden also remains connected to her former consulting colleagues. Last summer, the daughter of Ogden's former office head spent two months volunteering as a teacher in Agape's school. Next summer, Ogden's two oldest children plan to do the same.
Her mothering instincts are warmed by those plans, yet she continues to fire on all cylinders. "Our goal is to add two to three new orphanages per year," she says. "We're really a start-up. So, the questions are: When do we get big enough to add people? And which people do we add first? These are the same core operation and strategy issues that I dealt with at Bain. Now, I get to apply them to our own endeavor."
If you know a former consultant pursing a passion or unique endeavor, please email your suggestion to ekrell@sbcglobal.net .
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