Alia Malik, OnPurpose Associate

Social responsibility is in my culture, that is my family’s culture. My father worked for the United Nations. We travelled around the world with that. My mother works with handicraft artisans, promoting local culture and local livelihoods.

For various reasons, I’ve met I don’t know how many Nobel Laureates. I guess there’s been so much around me of people that are giving this amazing service. Working in development or social enterprise has been natural and tempting and easy, really. From that angle it was the obvious thing to do. When I graduated it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to work in a normal job because I didn’t really know anyone who did… I didn’t know what that looked like.

I have come back to social enterprise because I can get fired up about it — about making change, whether it is large or small. I love the challenge of innovating. I am at my best when I have freedom to do it my way. Thankfully there is a lot of space for that in the sector.

Alia Malik, OnPurpose Associate