Leila Janah

Dancing is my therapy. I also try to meditate every morning and take several two-hour yoga classes a week at my favorite yoga studio, Urban Flow.

I love dancing and practiced ballet for ten years until I realized I wouldn't make it professionally - then I started taking salsa classes. I learned to dance samba in Rio and Salvador when I lived in Brazil.

I love adventure. When I'm not working or on the road, you can find me in my favorite spots around the Mission neighborhood of S.F., kitesurfing in the Bay or dancing.

I'm the founder and CEO of Sama Group, a family of social enterprises - Samasource, Samahope and SamaUSA - that are working to alleviate poverty by connecting the global community to opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and here in the U.S.

Sama means 'equal' in Sanskrit; I chose 'Samasource' because I thought it really reflected a value that I had and that I wanted the company to have, which is that everyone has equal capabilities and deserves an equal chance.

I think what travelling has done for me and for many generations of my family - my grandmother was a great example - it's really highlighted for me how similar we all are and how many values we all share as people on this planet.

I really love travelling to places where I get to learn something new about a new group of people or a new place. Learn some history, contemplate some business ideas, and sort of get off the beaten track a little bit.

True leadership isn't about having an idea. It's about having an idea and recruiting other people to execute on this vision.

I used to think my job as a CEO meant managing metrics and meeting goals, but I've realised now that's it's about managing my board and employees.

I used to think that the worst form of discrimination for women was being hit on or hearing something disparaging. What's even more challenging for young women is a very senior male who will take an interest in you, who see themselves as father figures or mentors.

It's really helpful to be physically engaged in something that's completely different from my day-to-day work.

We have people from places like Oracle, Microsoft, Intuit. Sama plays a huge role in why people leave lucrative careers to join a social enterprise.

Technology is a tough realm to navigate as a younger woman who is not married. It can be hard to cultivate professional relationships because you have to be conscious of how to engage potential investors.

The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work, which isn't considered 'sexy' among donors who want to fund a preschool or cure a disease.

The core concept of Samasource is essentially that technology helps us unlock human talent wherever it may happen to reside. That we should no longer be victims of the birth lottery. That no one should be stuck in a poor place where they don't have a job simply because of an accident of birth.

I own a shameless number of ethnic necklaces acquired at local markets in developing countries or inherited from my grandmother. These have seen me through meetings in Davos and visits to refugee camps.

My personal style comes from jugaad, a Hindi word meaning doing more with less.

Samasource's largest clients are technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Getty Images, and TripAdvisor, which contract with my company rather than a traditional outsourcing company in order to participate in 'impact sourcing' - conscious efforts to reduce poverty by moving money into places that need it.

Social business lies in the spectrum of possibility between the traditional, profit-maximizing business, which directs little to no profit to doing good, and the traditional charity, which relies mostly on donations to sustain itself.

So often, we leave the selfless side of ourselves for nights and weekends, for our charity work. It is our duty to inject that into our day-to-day business, into the work that we do, to improve corporations, to improve civil society, and to improve government.