Meet McDonough’s New Executive in Residence: Eleni Gabre-Madhin

We spoke with Eleni Gabre-Madhin, Georgetown McDonough’s newest Executive in Residence, about what she hopes to accomplish at Georgetown through her expertise in innovation, engagement with students, focus on the global entrepreneurship market, and beyond.

What institution or previous line of work are you coming from? 

Before joining the faculty at Georgetown, I was chief innovation officer in the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Africa Bureau in New York for three years. There, I founded and led timbuktoo Africa, a bold $1 billion initiative positioned as the largest blended private-public financing facility in the world, to support tech startups and the innovation ecosystem in Africa. Before the UNDP, I founded and ran blueMoon, Ethiopia’s top private agritech incubator and seed funding platform. Previously, I was the founding CEO of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), the first commodity exchange of its kind in Africa, which achieved trading of $1.2 billion in its third year and transformed the livelihoods of more than 15 million small farmers. I have also worked as a senior economist at the World Bank, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., as well as at the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, Switzerland.

What are you most looking forward to about your work at Georgetown McDonough?

As I support and advise Georgetown Entrepreneurship, I am most excited to engage with students who are not only top-notch academically, but also committed to the university’s mission to make the world a better place. My passion is to help them move forward in their entrepreneurship journeys, ignite their startup passion for solving real-world problems that matter for humanity, and in particular, bridge their interests in Africa and other emerging regions with concrete opportunities.  

What are your areas of expertise, and which topics are you most passionate about? 

I am an economist by training, but my career has spanned across research, policy, institution-building, business, technology, and entrepreneurship. I have always been fascinated by new institutional economics and have focused on the interaction between economics, law, institutions, behavior, social constructs, norms, and transaction costs, specifically applied to market institutions. I have had the privilege of not only analyzing commodity exchanges, but designing and building a national exchange with its own unique and innovative model and scaling it to a multi-billion dollar business. More recently, I have been focused on the process of disruptive innovation itself and have been immersed in the world of startups, venture capital, and building startup ecosystems that can unleash massive impact for humanity.  

How would you describe your work philosophy? 

I once heard the late Professor Yujiro Hayami describe himself as a “pedestrian economist” – that is, someone who walked around observing how the world works and was inspired to study and brainstorm solutions to real-world problems. That is very much my core philosophy across my career. We need to get down on the ground, truly understand the nature of the problem, even fall in love with a problem, and be driven to find a workable solution. 

Related to that is the deeper concept I have always embraced, which is that success comes from the love and passion with which we apply ourselves – the love of purpose, the love of people, the love of God – to whatever we choose to do.  The secret is to only pursue things one loves.

What is your favorite quote and why? 

My favorite quote is often attributed to the late South African President Nelson Mandela, but it is actually a passage by Marianne Williamson: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.”

I have often quoted this passage because I believe we are all on this earth to fulfill a higher purpose and that we each have greatness within us.

What do you hope to bring to the McDonough community? 

I hope to bring all of my passions and the varied experiences that have taught me invaluable life lessons across my career. I also want to contribute to shaping McDonough’s efforts on entrepreneurship and expanding its footprint in Africa, which I believe is the most exciting place on the planet today for young people to engage in innovative startups. There is so much to do and so much ingenuity and raw talent. I also hope to learn from this incredible community of thinkers, scholars, and doers, and to grow as a professional.