Rony Cepeda Mekosh

From equity in education to second chances in employment

From education policy to employment social enterprises

Prior to Fuqua, I spent a good chunk of my professional career in a niche area of finance and education policy, where I worked with school district CFOs to make spending/funding more transparent and equitable. Despite (or because of) that work, I knew school systems were deeply inequitable (i.e., school to prison pipeline) and that some of the children who grow up in our country might need a second, third, fourth (and so on) chance.  

Now in my current role at REDF, I work with social entrepreneurs whose employment social enterprises provide those second, third, fourth chances to those who need it. I feel that this is the perfect “other side of the coin” to my previous education work. Whereas education is considered the vanguard for creating economic power, employment social enterprises provide those additional chances that every human being deserves – and sometimes the first chance for those who immigrated to the U.S. or haven’t gone through our education system. 

How I spend my days

As Senior Manager of Capacity Building, I work to ensure that the social enterprises in our investment portfolio have the tools and knowledge needed to scale their impact and become more resilient organizations. This looks like providing one-to-one advising to social entrepreneurs as well as developing tools and resources for the field at large. I also help lead our due diligence efforts so we can learn about the organizations we are working with and how we can best support them. 

A recent impact highlight I am proud of

As an intermediary and funder, it is important for organizations like REDF to continuously consider the weight of their asks on their partners and grantees. One of my proudest works at REDF has been to shorten our due diligence process from 6-months to something that can be completed within 1-month. This not only saves us time, but also gives back time to our partner organizations and allows us to get to the core work of helping them scale sooner. Capacity builders have a role to play in ensuring processes respect both the expertise and time of partner organizations – a concept I have written about here. 

A resource I recommend to impact professionals

It is common to see impact organizations fill out a logic model and sometimes funders require it. However, seldom is the same asked of impact leaders. I think there is much to learn by filling out our own personal logic model and comparing it to the logic model of the organizations with which we work. This can lead to insights such as: What are things about work that excite me because they relate to my personal logic model? In what areas do I need to extend my expertise? Creating your own personal logic model and comparing it to logic model of the organization you work with (or want to work with) is an exercise I highly encourage of any leader in this space.  

My tips for those pursuing a career in impact

While in your MBA program, you’ll probably be “custom recruiting” (proactively networking with organizations about individual opportunities, rather than applying for roles that come through the business school recruiting pipeline) and it will feel like you are swimming upstream.  Many of your peers will be on that more traditional recruiting path, and this might lead to feeling isolated. But I promise you there are opportunities out there. Surround yourself with friends who are also custom recruiting who can motivate and support you.  During my recruiting experience, I found it important to anchor myself on my logic model and values. Always keep a list of organizations that meet your criteria and look at whom impact investors are funding – sometimes those are organizations that will need great talent like you! Reach out to alumni working in your desired area of impact and ask them to share the names of organizations doing cool work from their point of view. Don’t lose hope – the world needs leaders like you.