A 30-year career in corporate marketing turned out to be the perfect platform for Katie Doyle’s second act: importing handicrafts from Africa to sell in the U.S. market.
But unlike her career at Clorox Co. and McKesson Corp., where she was vice president of marketing before taking early retirement in 1998, Ms. Doyle’s new career isn’t about maximizing profits for corporate gain.
Instead, her company, Virunga Artisan Products, directs all its earnings toward helping two charitable causes: protecting the central African habitat of endangered mountain gorillas, and improving the lives of villagers in remote locations in Rwanda, Congo and Uganda.
Virunga Artisan Products imports products to sell in U.S. boutiques like hand-carved wooden bowls, candlesticks and gorilla statues, as well as hand-woven baskets from a women’s cooperative in Uganda.
All the proceeds are split between the villagers who make the products and the International Gorilla Conservation Program, which is working to protect the remaining 700 or so mountain gorillas in the region.
“Running my new company is basically a full-time job, but the rewards are incredible,” says Ms. Doyle. After Virunga Artisan Products succeeded in selling 400 Ugandan baskets, 60 women walked miles with no shoes to dance for her as a thank-you gesture. “I felt like the queen,” says Ms. Doyle, who goes to central Africa three or four times a year.
“I feel like I can help transform this region, but I am realistic that it will take time,” Ms. Doyle says. “But at least I can go to sleep at night knowing I’m making a huge difference in a very small part of the world.”
Photo by WSJ.
No comments yet.