Priya Haji is the award-winning leader of World of Good, a nationally distributed fair trade gift & accessories company with more than 1,000 retail partners including Whole Foods and Wild Oats. Priya knew she wanted to build a company that impacted women on a global scale and started developing the idea during her MBA program at the Haas School of Business. It wasn't until she was traveling the world, meeting women artisans, that she learned their universal challenge to achieving economic sustainability was access to large, stable consumer markets. Since 2004, World of Good has worked with more than 5,600 artisans in 34 countries who, as a conservative estimate, are responsible for more than 22,700 dependents. In addition to starting World of Good, Inc., Haji is the co-founder and Board chair of the World of Good: Development Organization, a 501(c)(3), focused on both improving the quality of life for artisans worldwide and strengthening global wage standards. The World of Good: Development Organization has developed a revolutionary web-based tool, The Fair Wage Guide that allows a producer or buyer anywhere in the world to calculate a fair price for their product. World of Good, Inc. also donates 10% of its profits to the World of Good: Development Organization and that money is reinvested in artisan communities in the form of schools, fresh water wells and medical equipment. As a senior at Stanford, Priya Haji co-founded Free at Last in East Palo Alto, a national model program to address substance abuse related issues and served as its Executive Director for eight years. With $10 million in special investments and a team of 60 the organization grew to span services reaching 3,000 people per year. For her work with Free at Last, Priya was recognized by the DoSomething Foundation, MTV and Mademoiselle Magazine as one of America s Ten Most Outstanding Young Leaders. |