I spoke with Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO and founder of Chobani (Edelman client) yesterday. He told me that he had recently returned from Mexico where he had signed an agreement with 50 Mexican companies to hire migrants under the auspices of the Tent Foundation, which Hamdi founded in 2016. The NGO’s central proposition is to funnel migrants into the for-profit world by training them and putting them to work.
This is the first time that the Tent Foundation has gone into Latin America, adding to its presence in the U.S., Canada, France, and Spain. The European entities were created to manage the huge influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa in the period 2016-2019. There is a critical need for this type of job placement in Mexico, which has absorbed more than 600,000 displaced people from nations such as Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela in the past five years.
The recent nearshoring of manufacturing has caused a boom in Mexico, with three quarters of employers now reporting a shortage of workers and COPARMEX, the Mexican Employers’ Association, saying that there are 1.4 million job openings in the local market. The Tent Foundation published a study last week which indicated strong support in the local populace for the hiring of migrants, with 74 percent of consumers saying that they would be more likely to buy products from companies that hire refugees.
Important Mexican companies such as FEMSA, Grupo Bimbo, Coppel, and Forvia, joined multinationals Accor, Amazon, HP, Hilton, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Walmart in this initiative. The chairman of FEMSA, José Antonio Fernández Carbajal, said, “We have hired thousands of refugees over the years and have seen firsthand the impact they have made on our company, our employees and our community.”
Ulukaya has a strong belief in the power of business to transform society. He is the living embodiment of the key finding of the Edelman Trust Barometer, that business is the most trusted institution and with that trust comes responsibility on societal issues. Capitalism done well is evidenced by his own life journey, arriving in America as a penniless immigrant from Turkey, finding a way to purchase a bankrupt dairy plant, and building one of the great food companies within a decade. He has done this by paying his workers well (including equity for those on the factory floor), keeping his products affordable (even cut prices last year while others were raising theirs), and pushing for more nutritious diets by offering convenient and tasty options. He has hired migrants from Syria and other nations who have become his best contributors. His personal involvement in the Tent Mexico effort, persuading companies to join Chobani in the labor market integration, is evidence of what one man can do to change the world.
Richard Edelman is CEO.
