Co-Founder
Global Nomad Initiative
about gni
The Global Nomad Initiative (GNI) is a consulting agency that specializes in design research and strategic planning. Our goal is to listen, learn, and act in a way that facilitates vibrant cultures and stable livelihoods for all migrants. We believe that if we can better understand the wants and needs of those affected by environmental migration, we can design human-centered strategies that encourage cultural diversity and ensure robust human-capital markets.
About my role
From the initial ideation stages through business model canvasing and partner/audience identification I’ve worked to develop a comprehensive layout of the environment we’d like to work in and a distinct position where we fit.
While my partner tackles the dynamics of working with large bureaucratic organizations, I’ve focus on building and understanding of international migratory law, grant proposal development and small business management.
origin story
The Global Nomad Initiative is the brainchild of myself and my business partner, Leah Noble Davidson. After years of doing design research together we decided that we wanted to build an endeavor that focused our skills at one intersection of culture and economy—the movement of human capital.
We looked around and saw an increasingly unsettling trend: Countries that have traditionally been hubs of manufacturing also have populations that are realizing greater economic prosperity. As this happens, low wage and low skill manufacturing jobs have begun growing in other low-cost countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.
The challenge, as we see it, is that these new hubs of production are inherently unstable—that being part of the reason that labor and production costs are so low. To further complicate the issue, these countries are also some of the most climate vulnerable regions on the planet.
When we couple pre-existing instability with the magnifying effects of climate change we end up with populations that have no choice but to flee their homelands in search of refuge. It’s precisely this movement of human capital that led us to ask the question: How might we better understand the skills and cultures of migrating populations in a way that allows us to leverage their strengths for the joint benefit of corporations, communities and migrant populations?
While we’ve temporarily put our work at GNI on pause, it remains an issue close to our heart and a project that we’ll be returning to in the future.
