How New Jobs Can Solve the Border Crisis with Jonathan-Fantini Porter

Featuring Jonathan Fantini-Porte, CEO of the Partnership for Central America

Jeff: [00:00:02] Hello, I'm Jeff Walker. Welcome to System Catalyst, the podcast that cracks the code for making the world a better place. I like to think of today's guest as a kind of secret agent of system change. He works behind the scenes, connecting people at the top of different sectors to solve one of the most dire issues of our country. His name is Jonathan Santini Porter. Jonathan worked in Homeland Security, later as a partner of McKinsey and now as CEO of partnerships for Central America or the PCA. The PCA brings together government officials and corporate leaders to find ways to create new economic opportunities in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More jobs and wealth for those underserved populations will mean less migration at the U.S. southern border, which we all can agree is at a crisis level. The PCA has already led to huge investments in the area. It even brought down migration from Honduras to the United States by half. That's the kind of change one can achieve with successful partnerships. Unfortunately, you don't hear about this on the news, which is always focused on the political angle of the crisis. Then again, secret agents are used to working in the shadows. Jokes aside, I wanted to have Jonathan on the show so he can provide some wisdom on two things he does really well and that are essential to system change. One, addressing the root cause of issues, and two, getting the private sector and the public sector to work together. So if you're interested in doing either of those, keep listening. Thanks, Jonathan, for joining us. And, I'd love to get to know and have the audience get to know a little bit about you and kind of how you came up here in a family. I understand that was first generation Latino refugees and just love to hear a little of that story, and it might relate to some of the things you're doing today. [00:02:08][126.4]

Jonathan: [00:02:09] Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. You know, I think, like all of us or our families in our heritage and our background informs so much of who we are. Professionally. Personally, I'm the son of a first generation immigrant that left his country as a as a refugee. And when I was six, my my father married a woman from El Salvador. And, and her family had come to the United States fleeing civil war, in El Salvador. And so, in a very personal level, I think, at school and among my friends at home and and that and inform this, this understanding of what it is to have to flee your home for factors that are outside of your own control, but then come to a new country and build and create opportunity for your family. And in doing so, create and build a community and a country that that is, a stronger one for it. And in so many ways, that really is the history of this country and that has made this country so strong and continues to strengthen the United States. From there, going to homeland Security after working in Congress and seeing how effective and ineffective in so many ways the management of migration systems can be and operate in the world today, and the opportunity is sometimes lost at the sake of the the challenge. And so how we blend that opportunity with that challenge in an effective way that makes the most of of migration, that seize the opportunity that is there, and also in an effective and logical and humane way, manages migration so that we're respecting, I think, the values that are at the core of this country and at the same time acknowledging the incredible strategic challenges that we face as a country in terms of labor needs, long term strategic competitors across the Americas. And how is we're we're engaging across this region of the world. [00:03:57][108.0]

Jeff: [00:04:00] After a stint in the federal government, Jonathan became a partner at McKinsey. So he really understands the strengths and weaknesses of each sector and how they can come together for systemic change. [00:04:09][9.7]

Jonathan: [00:04:11] The key to an effective public private partnership in this context is really leveraging the strengths of each sector. So the public sector has an incredible convening power, unlike any other sector, leveraging the strength of a head of state or agency and the federal government is unparalleled. And so leveraging that convening power was something that we really I really saw at the personal level and as a core foundation to problem solving. At the same time, you have the ability on the public sector side to implement at scale in a way that the really no individual organization in the private or social sector can achieve. And so that impact at scale and the incredible convening power of public sector are two core foundational pillars to the success of of the efforts that that I've seen, whether it's in the US government or McKinsey or in the social sector. At the same time, though, the scale of public sector impact sometimes comes at the cost of speed. So that's where I think the private sector comes in and is so effective. And where I've seen it works so well in this effort. And so with the partnership that we're running, the partnership for Central America is as an economic development corporation that's running as a public private partnership, that's leveraging that public sector strength of convening and impact at scale with a core social intention, with the implementation and speed and efficiency of a private sector entity. And blending those two has resulted over the last two years that we've run this in, mobilizing 5.2 billion in investments to this region. It's brought digital access to 4.5 million homes, and brought in just over 2 million individuals into the formal economy in the last two years. And so that means bank accounts, but it also means access to credit, and it brings you in relate to the opportunity space that the formal economy can bring. And those those two cannot really be achieved without the blend of public and private. [00:06:17][125.6]

Jeff: [00:06:18] Yeah. And you've accomplished a lot. But let me back up for one second as you were looking at the entire issue of immigration. How did you kind of look at what the opportunities are, the needs are having? There could be the need for closer supervision of our border H-1b visas, you know, B-3 visas. It could be, you know, lots of different things. How did you pick going upstream, I guess, and going to these three countries and saying, I'm going to keep people there and work there. Is that one of the key levers? [00:06:50][31.7]

Jonathan: [00:06:51] Yes. So I think if I can zoom out for a second, you know, when we're thinking about this question of, of migration, we're really thinking about a, a question of the Americas and really the Western Hemisphere. And so if we look at the opportunities of challenges that that exist in, in the Americas and, and beyond, we have sort of a strategic challenge. And then we have a security challenge. And so we certainly have a security challenge. There's a border issue and there's a border challenge that is a major problem that we're facing. We're facing unprecedented numbers of the border. It's an increasingly diverse population of encounters at the border that is changing, really, the dynamic of what the U.S. immigration enforcement system is accustomed to. And so that's that first part, that security challenge that we're facing. Then a strategic challenge. And the strategic challenge really gets into a labor, an aging U.S. population, strategic competitive challenges from strategic competitors in the Western Hemisphere. China being one of them that presents specific long term challenges to the United States. So if we take the security challenge, yes, there's no question we need to enforce policy. We need to enforce our laws. And that means addressing the border is a major problem. And that really requires a congressional act to pass an immigration reform bill that addresses the key strategic security challenges that we're facing. There's no question about that. But I think at the same time, and this is where the partnership comes in and why we chose to really go after this challenge is that we really need to ensure that we're addressing the systemic root cause challenges of what is otherwise a symptom. And so, Secretary Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security, used to say that you can build me the highest role you want on the border, and I'll find you a ladder twice as high. And when you're addressing symptoms, you inevitably face longer term symptoms over and over again. But when you address the root cause of the challenge, you start to see long term results. And I think that's really the the genesis of why we went after this challenge. [00:08:59][128.3]

Jeff: [00:09:01] Addressing the root cause of an issue we're solving upstream is where all the sustainable change happens. And Jonathan's experience taught him that the best way to. The immigration problem is looking upstream and supporting Central American economies. [00:09:16][14.3]

Jonathan: [00:09:18] It's economic development that ensures that we're both countering strategic competitors in the region, and we're addressing the root causes of that migration so that we're giving families an opportunity to build and create communities, strong communities that support their long term growth. And that doesn't force families to leave when you're facing, for example, two 100 year storms in 2020 that caused population where there were 40% of the population, is, is tied to the agricultural sector that needs to flee because of an apex increase in hunger as a result of those two 100 year storms, for example. If you're able to integrate long term sustainable agricultural practices into that community, if you're able to create sustainable economic growth that's rooted in market driven approaches, that creates jobs. As Gary White, who who you had on your show some time ago last year, you know, said you don't solve problems for people. You solve problems with people, right? And so I think that's this, this approach, one example of that, that, that we really are proud of is our work, for example, with with the coffee company Nespresso. And so what we did there is brought together with Nespresso, their CEO gimlet concern and a collection of of about 15 other partners, a project that was focused on regenerative agriculture in northern Central America. And with those 15 partners, it was a collection of social sector partners. It was a collection of government partners, it was a collection of private sector partners. And it was a it was a collection of both public sector and government partners, both in the region and and in the US. We shaped a common strategy around regenerative agriculture. So I think that was the first and most important part of this, creating a common vision of where you're headed. And that's a really hard thing to do. It's really hard to get a group of diverse stakeholders first just in the same room, because often they they have not spoken. And in this region of the world, the social and private sector have been at odds for well over 100 years. And so just getting that group of diverse stakeholders into the room is the first and greatest challenge. [00:11:33][134.9]

Jeff: [00:11:34] And how did you do that? How did you get them together? [00:11:36][2.0]

Jonathan: [00:11:37] I think that the core is and, you know, it's it's another reference to another guest who had a new show. And Mark Sullivan really thinking about models of of storytelling and getting out of macro issues and getting down to the human elements of this. And so when you're getting down to core human questions of common interest, that's where I think that that you can break through barriers that are otherwise limited by the theory or the politics or polarizing issues. And once he identified that folks are in the room and folks are wanting to talk, then the second piece, once that group was in the room, was shaping that strategy. And I think that's really to your point of the the private sector model. So this that's where in some ways a private sector background for someone in a space like this comes in handy because you're understanding how to drive a solution using models and convening elements, really, that I think come from, for example, management consulting and spaces of that sort. [00:12:36][59.3]

Jeff: [00:12:37] It seems to me also so building that because it's an important point to convene, but convene the right people and have an open dialog, it's trust. And so how did you find people who trusted each other to say, people from the government will trust that people from corporates will be there and social workers will be there as well, and listen to each other. [00:12:56][18.7]

Jonathan: [00:12:57] Trust is the foundation of it all. There is no way, I think, to build a common project without a sense that the person standing next to you is thinking about your best interest. You know there is in this region as as anywhere, often a distrust across sectors, different incentives, different motivations. And so when we brought, for example, the partners from communities across Honduras to to link with some of these private sector partners, the first question that I think folks asked in many ways is, why are you here? And in asking that, why are you here? There really has to be a clear understanding from any partner that's coming into a community of their motivation. That motivation has got to be beyond profit. I mean, that's the short of it. Your motivation has to be very clearly set in an understanding of what you're trying to do to build a community. And so that in that sense, a really selective, careful understanding of who the partners that were getting into this was the sort of pre-work that was involved in shaping that that stakeholder group, not all partners. Or equally focused on on social impact. When we think about the private sector at this point. And so finding those gold star partners who are clearly focused on a balance between the profit motivation and the impact motivation was key. [00:14:25][87.9]

Jeff: [00:14:26] You have a team, but it's not that large a team. You know, who act as the catalytic glue to hold all these activities together, project, manage them to set roadmaps in others. I mean, that's a complex leadership problem. Saying, how do I create a team that can do that with a managed ego? It listens. It doesn't try to force answers, right? How do you kind of think about your own organization and its its culture when you're trying to do this? [00:14:52][26.7]

Jonathan: [00:14:53] Yeah, a an organization like this, which really is the Secretariat almost to a wide body of stakeholders. And that, to your point, doesn't try to force an answer, but rather listens and asks the question. It requires often first sort of an understanding that you don't always have to or even know the answer to the question you're asking. But you know that there is a partner out there that knows that answer, and it's having that partner at the table. That is your role. It's not having an answer when you're at the table with that partner. And because of that ethos, starting from a core rooted understanding that our role is to catalyze the partners that we bring in are in themselves, all 50. But then, similarly, the organization that we run and the the colleagues that I work with and I have really the pleasure and the honor, frankly, of working with each of them. Each of those colleagues of mine, or 50 actors as well, themselves. [00:15:53][59.7]

Jeff: [00:15:54] Defined 50 actors. [00:15:55][0.7]

Jonathan: [00:15:56] Yeah, it's a person in that sense that we kind of call within our organization a person that's able to take the individual impact that they're bringing, and in sort of an Adam Smith in way, result in a 50 x return and the impact that they're driving, and rather than it being just a specialization and focusing on building that, that nail, it's a specialization and understanding that there are 50 nail makers at the table here. And each one of them then subsequently deliver 50 x themselves. So that's a it's it's at its core a mindset of capitalization. And so one person delivering 50 X is bringing that impact to programmatic impact for example, or internal sort of operational management of the organization itself. But across that there's an agile understanding that each of those entities are focused on the same very key core objective. And so it gets to that sort of story of, you know, John F Kennedy walk in the hallway of a building once you're walking up to a man sweeping a floor, and he asked him, what do you do? And he says, the man sweeping the floor says, well, I'm putting a man on the moon. And so that's really the the core sort of understanding that each person in our team has. It's a it's a very clear division of responsibilities where that person owns that block to the floor. So that floor is spotless in every way. But at the same time, we have a very clear mission and a very clear understanding of what our shared objective is. And that's where that agile thinking and that agile approach comes into play in the way in which the is both structured, but then also the mindset that we're. [00:17:35][99.1]

Jeff: [00:17:38] All right. In case you didn't, Gilbert, here are Jonathan Santini Porter's top tips on getting parties from across sectors to collaborate. Number one, work with the people who will have the most impact. Number two. Establish yourself as a mediator. Who's ready to listen to everyone? Number three. Focus on sharing human stories instead of making theoretical arguments. Number four. Establish trust by connecting over your shared purpose. [00:18:05][26.3]

Jonathan: [00:18:07] Once you create that collection of partners, there's a chain effect because the greatest partners in the private sector are often working together because they are themselves system catalysts. They know that the ability for them to achieve impact in a private sector perspective can only really hit the maximum when they are partnering with other private sector entities, including competitors. And that's really where it really gets interesting, where you have CEOs of very large fortune 100 and fortune 500 corporations who are part of this effort, who understand that the pie is bigger than the slice that they're currently consuming. And because that pie is large enough for all to benefit from, there's an understanding that by working with those other partners that are at the table, they end up not only benefiting the social impact that that is really the objective at the core of this, but also growing that pie. And I think about sectors, for example, like the textile and apparel sector, which we work in extensively. You have products that are produced in the United States, cotton, for example, core raw materials that are produced in the United States, in California, in Texas, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, across the United States. That core cotton is then shipped to Central America. After having been produced and manufactured in the United States and bundled in the United States. Shipped to Central America, arrives in Honduras, or arrives in Guatemala. Individuals. Individuals who I know well, families and communities that that we work with extensively, then turn that American cotton into the t shirts and the the clothing that I'm wearing today and that we wear across the United States, across the world, and that textile that that manufactured product that is manufactured in Central America is then shipped back to the United States and sold in stores in the U.S.. And so I have stories and friends who who are in Honduras, for example, they don't have a sister or brother who's living in California, who's working in that store. That's then selling the the shirts and jeans that they've manufactured in Guatemala and Honduras. And so that inextricable connection between these, these two regions of the world is tied to an understanding that company that's working in Honduras and a company that's working in the U.S. can inevitably grow a pie by working together. And so having a core understanding that goes beyond just a simple profit motivation and understands that when you're focused on the big picture, you're not only delivering a very clear opportunity for growth in your market and in your sector and for your business, but you're also creating then an inevitable benefit to a community that then grows that pie and creates a more sustainable model for long term economic and business growth for that organization and that community. [00:20:57][169.4]

Jeff: [00:21:00] Basically more jobs in Central America benefits everyone. Instead of dealing with people at the border inhumanely, we support them so that they don't have to migrate in the first place. The partnership for Central America is aimed to create 1 million new jobs in Central America. Just imagine the kind of impact that will have abroad and in the United States. [00:21:21][21.2]

Jonathan: [00:21:22] But I'll say this. You know, this isn't a political effort, and it's an important point. It's an economic development effort. So it's it's irrelevant what administration is is in office. It's irrelevant who the the players are from a political perspective, because at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is drive economic growth in a region for long term sustainability, both for the region and for the U.S. competitiveness. And you think about the Western Hemisphere and strategic competitors. So in that sense, thinking about this as a core economic development effort, our heads are to the ground. If I can just be frank here, our heads are to the ground in driving economic growth and supporting foreign direct investment across this region to support shared supply chains across the Western Hemisphere. There is a separate issue at play here, and that is the inevitable political issue that is at play when we talk about immigration, that inevitably gets into an issue of border enforcement. And that border discussion, frankly, is a separate issue, and that separate issue is relevant, but it is not an issue that is directly connected to the issue here. We're not focused necessarily on the day to day politics of this issue at the border, which the press and our friends in media tend to go to as the rush, an understanding that the border right now is a major problem. And we all understand that. And as Secretary, my orcas and the and our other partners across government and elsewhere have noted, we need Congress to act on a comprehensive immigration reform bill, full stop on that. You've got to get after that. But when we talk about the longer term challenges, that's less flashy, frankly. And what we're doing here is we're doing the work, and we're not necessarily focused on having to communicate what we're doing. We let the results speak for themselves. If you take Honduras, for example, an area that we focused heavily on from an investment in the growth of construction there in that country. And you look at the investments that we've pushed. You take the most recent data on month to month migration from Honduras. There is a 50% reduction from the fiscal year 2024 for fiscal year 2021. 50% reduction from Honduras. Well. And so the results can speak for themselves. But at the end of the day, this issue and it's one, you know, we this group and I give credit to every person and every organization that's taken on this issue. They've gone into one of the most polarizing issues of our time. And rather than trying to polarize it further, have put our heads down and gone at this issue in a humble and deliberative way to solve a problem focused on the long term. So that's really where we are in in some ways, why you might not see us on the front page every day, but we keep at it. [00:24:16][173.3]

Jeff: [00:24:28] That's it for today's show. Please don't forget to subscribe to System Catalyst so you don't miss out on the new episodes. Also, do us huge favor by reading our podcast it leaving us a review. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll catch you all in the next episode. Before we go, I'd like to thank our producers at human Group media. We'd also like to thank our incredible network of partners who are supporting our mission the School Foundation, the Aspen Institute's Aspen Global Leadership Network, Echo and green K Foundation, Maverick Collective, Virgin Unite. She released their own Africa outreach project, Boldly Go Philanthropy, Senior Goals for Global Nexus and New Prophet. If you're interested in becoming a system catalyst, you'll like to learn more about our partners. Please visit System catalyst.com. [00:24:28][0.0]