I recently interviewed former USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today led one of the largest agencies in the United States government, and leads one of the largest foundations in the world. Raj Shah spent five years as USAID Administrator, where he led roughly 10,000 people and oversaw a $20 billion budget. Raj is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation and is the author of the new book Big Bets: How Large Scale Change Really Happens. Raj, thank you for joining us.

Raj: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. 

Adam: Excited to have you on. You grew up right outside of Detroit and you did your undergrad at the University of Michigan, before going to med school at Penn. And instead of pursuing a career as a practicing doctor, you went in a different direction. You went to work for the Gates Foundation and ultimately pursued a career in public health and public service. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Raj: Sure, well, thank you for mentioning Detroit and Michigan (Go Blue!). I grew up in an Indian-American family in suburban Detroit. My parents are first-generation immigrants. They came to this country without any real resources but with a strong commitment to education. And my grandfather actually was an accountant in India, and he emptied his retirement account to buy my dad a one-way plane ticket to go to the University of Arizona for an engineering degree. And there was just a belief in my family that America is this amazing place. If you work hard and play by the rules you could really provide for your family and capture opportunity. And a real commitment to education. Frankly, if you were good at school and Indian-American, you were either going to be an engineer, which there were quite a lot in the Detroit area, or you were going to be a doctor. And those were the career paths I thought were available to me. I ended up in medical school and was enjoying it, but I always had this passion to explore public service and politics in particular. So I did some things. I worked on a local mayoral race in Philadelphia, I started an organization with my then girlfriend, now wife, to get South Asian Americans more involved in politics. And then, after getting rejected by the Al Gore presidential campaign three times, on my fourth try they said I could come and volunteer in Nashville, Tennessee. So I hopped in the car after I took my board exams. And we drove, my then girlfriend drove, 14 hours to get to Nashville, and I started on a presidential campaign. And that was a really big moment for me. Because first leaving medical school was hard. It was particularly hard for me, without knowing where the road would go. And then joining a campaign was hard. I'd never done it before. I was considerably older than most of the other volunteers who were all high school kids. And I felt totally out of place until things got going. And I actually got a job on that campaign and made some great friends. And then, when we didn't quite win that election for those of you guys out there that remember, I ended up meeting some people who connected me to Bill and Melinda Gates right when they were starting their foundation. And that became a pretty important experience for me.

Adam: A lot to unpack there, a lot we can dive into. Something that you mentioned, which jumped out to me, you really wanted to work for the Gore campaign, you applied three times and got rejected three times. Fourth time you applied, they said, “Okay, we'll take you.” Most people, when they apply to something and get rejected, that's it. In your case, you kept applying and applying and applying until they finally said, “Okay, we'll take you.” Can you walk listeners through that process, what you took away from it, and what anyone can learn from it?

Raj: I was in medical school at Penn and I was also doing a degree at the Wharton School of Business. And I kept frankly spending my extra time )of which there wasn't that much) going down to Washington DC to be involved in different policy projects and political types of things. So I was meeting people and that networking was quite relevant to all this because I never would have done that had people I was meeting through those activities not encouraged me to. A friend of mine who worked for Al Gore said, “Raj, they're staffing up their campaign in Washington, DC, you should apply and you could be a volunteer, and I'm sure it would be well received.” So I applied and then got the rejection letter. And that happened a few times, as you pointed out. Then Gore was actually not doing well in the campaign and so he shook things up, and he let go of a lot of his staff. And he moved what was left of the campaign to Nashville, Tennessee, and said, “Look, I'm gonna run from my roots in a place I grew up.” And my friend reached out again and said, “This is crazy, but you should try one last time because they're shaking things up.” And so I sent another letter in and then got a call back that said, “We're not going to pay you but if you come down, we'll put you in” – it was Al Gore's mother's best friend's pool house –  “and we'd love to have you as a volunteer. And honestly, you would have thought, as a kid in school at the time, I acted like I had won an election myself, I was so excited. But then I went to my advisors, and I was on a scholarship at Penn, and they said, “Gosh, you really want to risk your scholarship. You should be doing peer-reviewed research and advancing your medical career.” But I had one advisor who said, “Raj, this has been your dream since you were a little kid, like hop in the car and give it a shot.” His name was Sandy Schwartz. And I'm very grateful he was my mentor, as in the name of your podcast. And between Sandy my wife, Shivam, and my friend who encouraged me to make that last application, it all worked out really well.

Adam: A lot of great lessons there. The power of relationships, you were able to develop great relationships on that campaign that propelled you to the job with the Gates Foundation, propelled you to this highly successful career in politics, outside of politics. But it was a relationship that ultimately got you in the door. Not taking rejection personally. How easily could you have said, “They said no to me. All right, I'm done with them. They said no to me twice. They said no to me three times, I'm good.” But on the contrary, you didn't take it personally. In your view, it was hitting a home run when they finally said yes. Not being afraid to take chances, not being afraid to take risks. Following your dream, even when those around you are telling you, you're crazy, don't do it. Having someone in your life who you trust, who you respect, who you admire, having that great mentor, who knows you, who understands you, who you can turn to. The power of mentorship, the power of surrounding yourself with the right people, a lot of great stuff there just in that one story.

Raj: Well, I'd also say part of why Sandy, and my wife, Shivam, and my friend, his name was Trooper on the campaign, part of why they were able to be helpful is they were all people I was really honest with early on in my career. I was like, “Look, I'm in medical school and I have a scholarship and everybody thinks that's great. But my real passion is this, and I want to try something else.” And they knew that, and they encouraged me to act on it. And to be honest, it sounds courageous in retrospect, but I don't think I would have had the courage to do it if they didn't encourage me in those moments to do it. And they wouldn't have known to encourage me if I hadn't opened up to them about, “Yeah, this all looks great. I'm in a place that a lot of people think is great to be at, a great Ivy League medical school with a full ride.” But they knew that that wasn't going to be my long-term path for fulfillment because they knew me well enough.

Adam: Speaks to the importance of being honest, being honest with yourself, being honest with those around you, not being afraid to be vulnerable, not being afraid to say, “Hey, it might be the safe, traditional thing to go this way. But I don't know that that's right for me. I'm really passionate about going that way. Yeah. Is that okay?” The answer is it is okay. And being empowered to go in that direction is a lot easier when you have the right people around you when you have the right support system, which in your case you did. Yeah. You were in your mid-30s when you were nominated by President Obama to become the head of a $20 billion agency. What were the keys to rising within your career, to getting to a place where the President of the United States had the confidence in you to lead one of the largest agencies in the federal government and for the Senate to confirm you unanimously? And what can anyone do to rise within their careers?

Raj: A lot of this, in retrospect, is luck, but also being energetic about accepting good fortune. So when we lost the Gore campaign, I wasn't quite sure what to do. Kicked around, tried a few different things. And then a friend of mine said, “Raj, we got this inquiry from the Gates Foundation. They're actually looking for somebody who cares about global health, is sort of a health economist, has a medical background, and is still fairly young.” Because it was more of a glorified fellowship, we negotiated the title of Chief Economist just because, and they connected me and I had the meeting with a person I had gotten to know on the Gore campaign who had gone to Gates to help build out Bill and Melinda’s new team at this foundation. And we just connected and I was willing to travel to Seattle and work really hard. And I was intoxicated by the scale of ambition. Bill Gates would constantly come back to the big point, which is, hey, we're not just trying to do good charitable work. We're trying to make sure in this case every single child on the planet, all 104 million kids born every year, get access to the basic vaccines that can save their lives and prevent early childhood death. And the scale of that was so exciting to me, that I just jumped in, and I became the analyst that did all the math, and I became the person who'd run around the world and figure things out and build a network of people that can help us get that done. And I think that helped me build enough of a reputation to seek an opportunity in the Obama administration and for the President to take the leap he did in offering me the USAID job.

Adam: Are there specific things that you look to, where you say, I did this, anyone can do this?

Raj: Well, I tell this to my teammates at Rockefeller today, especially earlier career professionals. I say it's one thing to have a job and a title and to be at a great institution, that garners respect, and it's another to go beyond that, and really put yourself out there to have a discreet accomplishment so that you can say, “Hey, I used my time at that place effectively and I accomplished this.” And in my case, the ‘accomplished this’ was helping to set up this global enterprise called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. And Bill and Melinda had made a single $750 million grant to help establish this global alliance to vaccinate every child on the planet. And it just took a lot of muscle, a lot of effort, a lot of intellectual debate, to figure out what was needed and how we were going to solve some big, big problems. One of those problems was solving a financing gap in the 10s of billions, which we solved by creating the world's first-ever social impact bond, which I and some colleagues drew up on the whiteboard in my office as a crazy dream, but over time became something that a series of European governments were able to transact on. That bond, called the International Finance Facility for Immunization, raised in its first instance about $6 billion dollars and helped ensure that we immunized millions of kids and saved millions of child lives. And so that was a very specific thing that people could say “Raj did that and so he should be given more opportunity and the opportunity for growth.” And I think the relationships I built in running around the world to make that happen, gave me some insights into how one might want to run and reform an agency like USAID.

Adam: And it really speaks to a key theme in your new book, Big Bets: How Large Scale Change Really Happens, which argues that in order to solve a big problem, you need three things: innovative solutions, alliances with unlikely partners, and good data. I want to go into each of those three, starting off with innovative solutions. How can leaders foster innovation?

Raj: I have a chapter in the book on the Ebola crisis in 2014 in West Africa, and for folks who remember, the American CDC had predicted that we might have 1.6 million cases around the world with hundreds of thousands of deaths and cases in a widespread global pandemic. And President Obama and our team had decided we would actually try to fight Ebola in Liberia in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three countries that were most affected, and try to contain it to West Africa and win the fight there so that it didn't expand. And in fact, the key to that working was finding those kinds of fresh innovative solutions that would transform the fight. I call it ‘Keep Experimenting,’ as the lesson learned. But in a big complex global pandemic response, you still need to create enough experimentation so you can test what works, what doesn't work. It turns out the thesis that everybody had, build these big Ebola treatment units, take people who were positive into those places, isolate them from family members and others, and hope for the best, was the only part of the playbook that anyone knew. But it wasn't going to work in this setting for a variety of reasons. So we tried lots of different things. We built a data architecture to have information on what's working, what isn't working. Ultimately, local communities, together with the World Health Organization, developed this approach towards burial teams that would go in and remove the bodies of the deceased from homes, in safe body bags and in full garb, head-to-toe protection, so that people didn't do what they normally do customarily, which is wash and kiss the dead bodies, which turned out to be about 75% of all the transmission. And once we put those burial teams in place at scale, we saw transmission go way down. The cases went way down. And instead of 1.6 million cases, and hundreds of thousands of deaths, there were 30,000 cases, 11,000 deaths, and America and the rest of the world were protected from any significant Ebola outbreak. So to me, those kinds of examples of building experimentation in the heat of action are critical to finding the fresh, innovative solutions that you need to solve problems.

Adam: I want to ask you about the other two elements, building successful relationships, utilizing data. But before I do, so far you've already mentioned a couple of key crises that you've dealt with over the course of your career. And much of your career, leading and government leading at the Rockefeller Center, has been focused on leading in crisis. Literally your fifth day, at USAID, there was a historic earthquake in Haiti, the capitol was destroyed. More than 200,000 people were killed. You're responsible for leading the response, one of the largest humanitarian undertakings in history. In your experience, what are the keys to leading in times of crisis uncertainty, and change?

Raj: Well, I think in particular in times of crisis, and Haiti was one of the big moral crises of our time, because just two hours from our shores, there was this unbelievable catastrophe, and so much death and destruction and institutional collapse. In addition to the individual death, at times of crisis, you have to really open your mind and accept help from all corners. And so I was new, as you pointed out I was five or six days on the job at USAID, and we had this immediate crisis. The President called me. It was the first work phone call I got from the President. Obama said, “Look, I'd like you to be in charge of a large-scale civil, military, whole of government response because this is our time to demonstrate how America's extraordinary power can be used for moral purposes, less than two hours from our shores.” And so I took that mission on, but I couldn't do it alone. I barely knew the team at USAID. I’d just started, I hadn't previously run a major military operation, that goes without saying, and so I benefited from a mindset that I write about in the book as ‘Opened that Turnstiles.’ We literally opened the little gates that kept people out at USAID and said, ‘Look, we're going to trust security, we'll be okay. Anyone who wants to help from inside the government can show their badge and just walk in.’ And we built a culture of what we called at the time a ‘whole of government culture,’ so that if a military officer had advice on an issue that wasn't specifically military logistics, or if a humanitarian officer had advice for the military, or if the FEMA Director Craig Fugate actually stood with me in the operation center, even though this wasn't a domestic response. I said, ‘Craig, you have a lot of experience. We need your help.’ And I think I did a lot of things wrong, but the one thing I did really right was open those turnstiles, invite everybody in and create a culture where everyone could be helpful at a moment of crisis. What I learned was that people want to help. More than half of all American families gave in some way to the Haiti earthquake relief, more people gave to the Haiti earthquake relief than watched the Super Bowl that year. It's extraordinary how people want to be part of a moral solution, if you give them a path, and we've worked really, really hard to give people a path. I think that's true of most crises. These challenges are too big to solve with just institutional blinders on. You’ve got to open your mind, invite people in, and build much bigger, faster-moving teams.

Adam: And something that you emphasized, the importance of building culture. How can leaders build winning cultures?

Raj: Well, I think the first and most difficult thing is learning to give up control. Especially in government, there's a mindset that, okay, you run something, you have your lanes, you want to stay in your lane, but you want to control everything in your lane. And the truth is, if you're running a massive multibillion-dollar earthquake relief effort that relies on the Coast Guard, several divisions, the US military, several other agencies, and 56 other nations around the world, you just don't have the ability to control everything in your lane. You have to change your mindset and build that mindset that says, “I'm not going to be in control of everything, but I am going to be clear about here's our goal, here are metrics of success. My commitment is to be transparent about sharing performance against those metrics. And I want everyone inside the tent helping to improve our performance.” And we developed a scorecard that I used for the Haiti earthquake, but also for the 2014 Ebola crisis and for many other emergency responses, that at least let everybody see the same data. So they could all react to the same information in real-time. And we were very open and transparent with that data. We would communicate it out on CNN, as well as in the Ops Center, as well as at the White House to the President. Everybody got the same information so that everybody could help with what was up-to-date data and information.

Adam: Raj, you bring up a really important point, which is something that I've explored with leaders who have led in very, very different contexts. Penny Pennington, Fortune 500 CEO, told me “I don't control anything.” I did an interview with Grant Cardone, another business leader. We spoke about how often people misunderstand what they can control and what they can't control. To your point, when it comes to leading large teams, leading large organizations, leading a culture, it comes down to recognizing that you can't control everything. It ultimately comes down to, as you said, setting the right metrics and bringing in the right people. How can leaders set the right metrics? How can leaders most effectively understand and utilize data in a world where just about every business, just about every organization, is becoming more and more data-driven, more and more data-oriented, data-focused?

Raj: Well, I think that's a super important point because data needs to be the driver of performance and performance assessment. Too often in the public sector, or in the nonprofit sector, there's a mindset that doing good is good enough. And the culture of measurement, quantitative analysis, and rapid performance assessment is tougher to inculcate in these efforts. So when we did the big global vaccination project, when I was with Bill and Melinda Gates and partners from all around the world, we actually deployed auditors into health clinics in rural communities in developing countries to look at the books. And to make sure the names of kids in the immunization profiles would, in fact, match kids in different villages. And some people said, “Well, that's quite excessive. Shouldn't you just spend that money on vaccinating more kids?” But we needed a data architecture we could trust. So that in the first instance, we could design that social impact bond to pay out based on performance, but also so that we knew how we were performing and we could trust our own data and information. During Ebola, we had to deploy bioterror labs into rural communities and use World Food Program helicopters to transport blood samples to cut the cycle time for data validation down from 4-6 days down to under 48 hours, so that we could much more quickly say, “Okay, there's a likely positive here. Let's react to that by sending a burial team that can remove that point of potential contagion.” During COVID, We built a domestic antigen testing infrastructure in the United States for that same reason, because we knew we needed fast, frequent data, even if it was less perfect or less valid than the PCR data that America was dependent on in those early months of the COVID crisis here in our own country. And so, to me, the lesson is: fast data, even if it's less accurate, is better than super accurate data that comes too late. And that in all of these initiatives, you have to be clear about measurement and be persistent about performance improvement.

Adam: On the topic of people, how can anyone build highly successful relationships and partnerships?

Raj: President Obama, when he started in office, launched a big global effort to fight hunger. And we were only able to reestablish American leadership in the global fight on hunger, which ultimately moved 100 million people out of being hungry, by building a strong bipartisan consensus across Republicans and Democrats. And most people say, “Well, that's impossible to achieve in American politics.” But actually, I found if you go and you sit with conservative Republican senators and really listen to what are their values, where does it come from, what's in their mind, and what's also in their heart with respect to this work, and do the same with more progressive members of the House and Senate, we ultimately built a bipartisan coalition that passed one of the largest pieces of global development legislation ever called the Global Food Security Act, which transformed America's ability to fight hunger around the world and move 200 million people out of poverty and suffering. And I just found, it's easier, especially in modern politics, to get on CNN, or to tweet something that's really kind of sharp, you get a lot of attention that way. But if you want to get stuff done, you actually have to get to know people very personally and understand their personal circumstances and their values and their religious beliefs and what brought them to service and connect with them based on that authentic set of what they care about.

Adam: And that's universally applicable. That is the case, whether you're trying to work with someone in the world of politics, in the world of business, in any context, it ultimately comes down to recognizing that we're all human beings. We all have things that we're going to agree with each other on, we all have things we're going to disagree with each other on. How do you want to focus your energy? How do you want to focus your attention? Do you want to focus on the areas of agreement or the areas of disagreement? Not much more complicated than that.

Raj: It's interesting, when I started down that path, the election of 2012 elected a group called (at that time) the Tea Party and there was a proposal in Congress to basically defund and shut down USAID. I testified at a committee hearing and I did the math and I made a statement, where I said, “Well, this Republican budget” – it was called HR1 – “will lead to 70,000 kids dying because of the following things malaria, HIV immunization,” and I immediately got positive feedback from the left side of the political spectrum and got invited to do TV and just got a lot of attention for something that usually doesn't. But I also heard from then-Speaker Boehner’s office through my friend Tom Vilsack, who was Secretary of Agriculture, that the Speaker was upset with me, because they had fought hard over the years to support this kind of work, and they have a deep moral commitment to the humanitarian mission of the United States, and they were offended. So I met with the Speaker and his chief of staff, and they gave me a list of people to go talk to and I started both apologizing and listening. And it was that listening that allowed me to see the depth of commitment, especially on the more faith-based, conservative side of American politics, for the simple idea that America should be the world's humanitarian vanguard. And I think we were able to reestablish that role for our country because of those personal relationships that came out of that experience. So sometimes you have to learn the hard way, but it is about making it personal and I think you're right, it applies in business as well as politics.

Adam: Raj, I love what you shared, and I love what you did. Apologizing and listening. Great leaders are great listeners, as every listener of this podcast has heard me say over and over again. The fact that you apologized. One of the most important characteristics of the very best leaders, humility, not being afraid to say I'm wrong, even if you're not wrong, but not being afraid to get out there and say I'm sorry, not being afraid to humble yourself before others. No person is too important. Any leader with that mindset is going to be successful.

Raj: I think so. Certainly the art of being a great listener is one that I keep working on every day and stumble with every day. And it just takes constant, conscientious effort, and investment. And so I think there are lots of different ways to get there. But certainly learning from failure has been a part of my personal experience for sure.

Adam: What do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Raj: To me, great leaders are optimistic in their heart. They have the ability to help other people see that things are possible that we don't immediately believe can be achieved. I mean, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates helped me see that vaccinating every child in the world, which still hasn't happened yet, is a possible outcome if we dedicate ourselves to that goal. Stepping in and saving lives, and mounting the largest humanitarian response in history in Haiti was possible because President Obama made it clear that this was about demonstrating the power of our moral standing in the world. And so I feel like I've learned from some pretty extraordinary leaders about the art of helping people, believing that the big positive outcome is possible. Too often, whether you're in business or you're in government, or you're in the nonprofit sector, it's too easy to aim too low and to say, “Well, here are the resources I have so here's what I can do practically.” If that's your mindset, then you're stuck in what I call the aspiration trap. I think we should be bolder about trying to actually solve the problems we face in the world and do it at an extremely large scale. Much harder, requires much more partnership, requires giving up control as you highlighted, but it's a better way to lead.

Adam: Raj, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Raj: Well, I think it's that. Go through your day-to-day life and make sure the things you're working on are not falling prey to this aspiration trap. If you're building a business, make sure you have a long-term vision of what success could look like that is big enough and powerful enough to inspire others to join you. If you're starting a nonprofit, definitely do the immediate things in front of you to hit your targets and to serve others, but make sure you can also paint the cathedral for people so that they can see you're not just laying bricks one by one, you're building something that's really special and really inspiring. People want to be inspired. And I think in our modern work life, it's particularly true. I have three young kids. I think people want to be inspired. And when they are, they can really do extraordinary things. So I'd encourage people to keep that in their thoughts, even in their day-to-day work.

Adam: How do you try to inspire the people who you're leading?

Raj: Well, I'm very fortunate. I get to be at an institution that's 110 years in and has done some incredible things around the world. And our biggest challenge is basically saying, okay, if we want to do – right now we're working on school feeding, there are about 750 million kids in the world that could be the beneficiaries of school feeding, and about half of them currently have access. So it'd be very easy to say, let's help a few places, or communities or countries improve their school feeding performance. That's great. That's not easy to do but it's great, and it's doable. The much harder thing to do is, hey, let's try to get 200 million additional kids into school feeding programs. And let's make sure for the whole cohort of 550 or 600 million kids that are reachable, that we're improving their nutritional quality and making sure they have food to take home to their families, so their families can also thrive. That's a much bigger challenge. It's far outside of our resourcing. To do that individually, it requires a big bet mindset of finding partners and measuring results, and constantly searching for the innovations that make that vision of success more affordable and more possible. And that mindset, that big bet mindset, is the thing that I try to work on with my teams and I encourage my teams to work on with me because I'm still learning every day.

Adam: Raj, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors. 

Raj: Thanks so much, Adam.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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