From Human Rights Law to Start-ups: how I turned my vocation into my ambition
By: Gabriela Mora Mora
Tags: Impact Investing, Tech For Good, Social Impact, Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship

Leave the world better than I found it.

What a cliché millennial aspiration, I know.

And how could I achieve this ambiguous -and ambitious- goal?

The answer became clear at 17 years old after working as an assistant for a Nashville-based NGO called Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbours.

There, I realized how lawyers could impact peoples’ lives on both a micro-level (counseling individuals) and a macro-level (politicians and judges through policy and jurisprudence).

I wanted their power so I decided to become a lawyer.

During law school, I fell in love with research. With evidence. With narratives. With persuasion. With impact.

Presenting my Human Rights graduate thesis at UNESCO headquarters next to Costa Rican’s Vice President: Ana Helena Chacón and UNESCO director Pilar Álvarez.

I published articles on young people’s activism and women empowerment, as well as volunteer in political campaigns.

But as the daughter of Costa Rica’s Minister of Education, I witnessed just how difficult it was to implement change through politics.

I didn’t want to be dependant on big bureaucratic state structures to create change.

I was young, impatient, and determined to make an impact.

So at 22 years old, I made my first attempt at social entrepreneurship by creating a commercial liaison between indigenous chocolate producers of the rural zone of Talamanca and stores in the capital of San José.

Some photos I took during the project in Talamanca, Limón, Costa Rica.

The total lack of a marketing strategy killed this project, I definitely learned that my strongest asset was my ability to persuade individuals or businesses to support causes or people I believed in.

I was meant to convince.

And so I did.

I won an international human rights competition, which led me to a congress in Paris to discuss the impact of social media and tech on global human rights.

Later, I was accepted into the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where I explored cases against the Latin-American States (governments).

And after this, my biggest dream came true.

THE UNITED NATIONS!

25 years old. I was working in my dream job as a Strategic Partnerships Assistant at UN Women in Bangkok.

I absolutely LOVED outreaching to strategic partners and potential donors as multinational companies and embassies to invest in women’s economic empowerment initiatives.

From data-driven research on the garment sector in South-East Asia to organizing the High-Level Panel of Economic Empowerment of Women at the CSR Asia Summit. I actually wrote a piece about it for the UN Women’s official website.

But the project ended and I came to Bali where I started to explore the ecosystem of co-working spaces, masterminds, and skill-sharing talks.

Immersed in this ocean of interesting and young entrepreneurs, I was fascinated…

The world of tech, business, innovation, and remote work seemed full of endless opportunities and growth.

At the same time, I was struggling with the limited number of humanitarian NGO jobs, their super low salaries, and passport constraints.

And then I began to question myself:

Why did I choose a career only based only on vocation and not on ambition? How come entrepreneurship was so fascinating and yet I didn’t take that road?

But then I thought that it might not be too late.

26 years old. I realized business development and digital marketing were the closest to what I used to do in my previous roles in strategic communication and the perfect way to enter the business environment.

Before, I was “selling” a cause to private stakeholders to fund social projects. In marketing, I would be “selling” a product or service to potential customers.

One week later, I landed a job with a US digital marketer. This led to other opportunities with a San Francisco digital marketing agency for e-commerce and a Brussels-based SaaS Startup.

All of these experiences in business development and marketing were perfect examples of how remote work creates job democratization to competent people from third-world countries without the limitation of geographical borders.

One year later, I traded my Sustainable Development Goals readings for books and podcasts about entrepreneurship, business development, and marketing, featuring Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, Mike Maples, Bill Gates…

-Clearly, not everything was quality, I even became addicted to some trashy shows like Shark Tank.-

I couldn’t believe how I evolved from a square human rights lawyer who only knew how to use Word and Powerpoint, to a digital marketer building websites on Wordpress and Squarespace, executing email and social media campaigns and performing market research…

From lawyer to a digital marketer: my tech-savvy evolution

All of these, while executing data-driven marketing tactics that helped clients drive 40% quarterly revenue growth and reach almost 6 figure annual revenue.

Up to this point, I was still attending talks about automation, e-commerce, blockchain, design, artificial intelligence, etc. as well as Lewagon Coding Bootcamp presentations on innovative apps that students were creating.

I felt an insatiable thirst to understand and be part of what business, entrepreneurship, and tech meant in the modern world, as well as in the future.

So, a few months ago I jumped on a plane to Europe. There, I started to co-work from impact-hubs, assisted gatherings on how for-profit businesses and impact investing could create long-term and sustainable change.

And then it hit me.

The two worlds I was extremely passionate about — the impact world and the business world — could merge.

That I might not have to choose between my vocation and my ambition.

That it’s not as black and white as non-profit with impact or for-profit with no impact.

That there’s a world out there of socially and environmentally driven companies, businesses and investors.

That it’s not as black and white as a human rights lawyer or a marketing executive.

That I could find a business development or partnerships executive position where I could bring my skills in building alliances and sales to help businesses grow.

That I could employ my strategic research and persuasive outreach abilities to implement data-driven communication strategies to empower businesses that I believe in.

And today, at 27 years old, my question is:

Which remote company can I help to leave the world better than I found it?

If you know someone who might resonate with my mission, feel free to share my article ;)

Here are my Linkedin, Facebook and Email.