QS Scholarship Winner: The Social Responsibility of Businesses

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“Companies and corporations need to be responsible and commit to the improvement and development of our communities. They have made fortunes at the cost of our forests, polluting our rivers and seas, and exterminating our natural resources, so now people expect solidarity from these corporations and big companies,” says QS Community Scholarship winner, Jorge Ordoñez R de la Gala.

It is both the strength of Ordoñez’s convictions and his ability to follow through on his sense of social responsibility that made his scholarship-winning essay stand out.

While working for one of Mexico’s biggest marketing and advertising companies, Ordoñez founded EVOMEX, a company which strives to recover abandoned public spaces in Mexico City, such as the Cuauhtémoc district park, Jardín Ramón López Velarde. The company’s concept is to work with private companies (who exchange financial backing for publicity in unconventional spaces) and the government to develop community projects that the government is simply unable to carry out on its own.

Indeed, part of the social responsibility Ordoñez attaches to business stems from a belief that, “we can no longer expect our governments to do everything.” Plans to improve what he describes as the, “terrible condition” of Jardín Ramón López Velarde now include a skate park, a running track and two soccer (football) courts/pitches. Ordoñez hopes EVOMEX will soon widen the reach of both its business model and development projects, but has decided to pursue an MBA to improve his management of the company as well as to explore new opportunities.

Professional development and the value of entrepreneurial independence 

Ordoñez will study his MBA at the University of Strathclyde Business School in Scotland, a challenge he believes his level of professional maturity is now ready for: “I've had the opportunity to analyze my weaknesses and areas of opportunity and I know this MBA will help me become a better professional.”

In reaching this point of self-reflection, Ordoñez places great importance in the entrepreneurial experience he has gained from starting his own company: “I believe the only way to develop professionally – and completely as you are – is by having your own business. This will allow you to be yourself and won’t limit you in the way that working for someone else will. Although I've worked in very important companies to gain knowledge and experience, there is nothing I value more than entrepreneurial independence.”

The incoming MBA student traces his entrepreneurial motivation to his father, who he says was always his own boss. Having now tasted the lifestyle himself, Ordoñez can fully appreciate that, “you never stop working; it’s not an eight-hour job,” and identifies, “perseverance, social skills and hunger for success,” as three basic requirements for anyone with entrepreneurial ambitions of their own.  

However, this QS Scholarship winner is keeping an open mind ahead of his MBA at Strathclyde Business School, a program to which he was attracted by the school’s international approach. “I know this MBA will open new opportunities for me either in Mexico or abroad,” Ordoñez surmises.

In whichever direction his company goes in the future, it seems unlikely that Ordoñez will lose his sense of social responsibility. The words of Vladimir Putin may often prove divisive in different parts of the world, but Ordoñez finds value in the 2007 interview Russia’s president gave to Time magazine in which he said: “We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, (and) on whose account he or she has become so rich.”

Advice for other MBA scholarship applicants: “Timing is always important; make sure you apply for scholarships on time so you have enough time to check them a few times. Search all your options, national and international. You will surely have something interesting to share in your essays, based on your experience, the way you think and your plans for the future.”