As I bound my breasts and put on men's clothes, I remember thinking how crazy I was. In two years, I went from being an executive in the 'c-suite' of a large real estate finance company in New York to disguising myself as a Bangladeshi man so that I could go look for land in the rural areas of southern Bangladesh. So what made me give up a high-paying job at the top of the corporate ladder, donate everything I owned to charity, and move to a developing country that few people can locate on a map ? In a word: passion.
I was making money in New York, but I wasn't maling a difference. I had reached the top of my chosen my career field by age thirty and was bored. I wanted to change my life so I could do something I loved, and make more of an impact on the world. But it was a lecture that I attended at the Cornell Club that really sounded the clarion call for me. Stuart Hart, a professor at the Cornell Johnson Business School, gave a lecture about alternative energy in developing countries; he threw out a statistic that I could not belive when I heard it: he said that of the 6 billion people in the world, 4 billion live in poverty. It shocked me to the core of my being. I considered myself a well-educated and well-known how most of the people in the world live made me question everything that I knew.
That talk set in motion a series of events that led me to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship to Bangladesh where I did a year of service and spent some time examining my priorities. When my Fulbright ended , I realized that I could no longer return to my old life and that the time had finally come to spread my wings and jump. I had the idea to create sustainable boutique resorts before I left New York (it combined my interests in environmentalism, real estate, design, and travel), but I certainly never thought that I would start in Bangladesh! After living in the country for a year, however, I realized that there was a demand , among the foreigners and Bangladeshis already living in Dhaka, for the kind of high-end socially and environmentally responsible product that I wanted to create.
I strategically chose the location for my resort and then started looking for a site . I flew to Jessorem put on a sari, and hired a rickshaw to take me around the countryside. Village tea stalls were the best source of information about the local area. Normally the exclusive domain of men, I was invited to sit, take tea, and share information about my country, my family, and what I was doing in Bangladesh. After the local leader had determined that my quest was worthwhile, he would take me around and show me several pieces of land that might be available. While the search was fun and the scenery breathtaking, I soon realized that I was getting the bideshir dam (foreigner price quote) for the land.
I was making money in New York, but I wasn't maling a difference. I had reached the top of my chosen my career field by age thirty and was bored. I wanted to change my life so I could do something I loved, and make more of an impact on the world. But it was a lecture that I attended at the Cornell Club that really sounded the clarion call for me. Stuart Hart, a professor at the Cornell Johnson Business School, gave a lecture about alternative energy in developing countries; he threw out a statistic that I could not belive when I heard it: he said that of the 6 billion people in the world, 4 billion live in poverty. It shocked me to the core of my being. I considered myself a well-educated and well-known how most of the people in the world live made me question everything that I knew.
That talk set in motion a series of events that led me to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship to Bangladesh where I did a year of service and spent some time examining my priorities. When my Fulbright ended , I realized that I could no longer return to my old life and that the time had finally come to spread my wings and jump. I had the idea to create sustainable boutique resorts before I left New York (it combined my interests in environmentalism, real estate, design, and travel), but I certainly never thought that I would start in Bangladesh! After living in the country for a year, however, I realized that there was a demand , among the foreigners and Bangladeshis already living in Dhaka, for the kind of high-end socially and environmentally responsible product that I wanted to create.
I strategically chose the location for my resort and then started looking for a site . I flew to Jessorem put on a sari, and hired a rickshaw to take me around the countryside. Village tea stalls were the best source of information about the local area. Normally the exclusive domain of men, I was invited to sit, take tea, and share information about my country, my family, and what I was doing in Bangladesh. After the local leader had determined that my quest was worthwhile, he would take me around and show me several pieces of land that might be available. While the search was fun and the scenery breathtaking, I soon realized that I was getting the bideshir dam (foreigner price quote) for the land.
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