Catalina Escobar

CEO, JuanFe Foundation

About The Leader

Catalina Escobar is an award-winning social entrepreneur who has generated impactful solutions to two of Colombia’s most pressing challenges : extreme poverty and infant mortality.

Catalina Escobar (1970) is a globally recognized social entrepreneur.
She is the creator and president of the Juan Felipe Gómez Escobar Foundation, an entity that seeks to improve the quality of life of adolescent mothers and infants living in extreme poverty in Colombia.
She is a fellow in Women Leaders in Global Health at Stanford, Ashoka and Schwab Foundation.

Her Purpose

Escobar's loss of her 16-month baby drove her to prevent other women in poverty from experiencing the same pain, creating solutions to reduce child mortality and training teenage mothers to become productive.

In 2000, Catalina Escobar’s life was changed by two tragic events:

the death of her 16-month-old son, who fell from an eighth story window
the death of a 12-day-old baby who passed away in her arms while she was volunteering at a neonatal clinic in Cartagena, Colombia

Escobar quit her job in the private sector and dedicated her life to launching and planning a social initiative, which became the Juanfe Foundation, in memory of her son.

“To move the world, you have to move first! “

Case for Change

When working as a volunteer in the maternity clinic at one of the largest hospitals in Cartagena, Escobar recalled a baby that died the mother could not afford a $30 treatment: "The mother needed $30 that I had in my pocket. I will never forget that. It was a preventable death. When you bury your own son, you start being a part of those women’s souls. ”

Growth Gap

“I was meeting women who were grandmothers at 26. It is an all-too-typical problem in poor parts of Latin America. I knew we needed not only to stop that problem, but effect changes in public policy. We needed a model that would break the cycle of poverty and teen motherhood, one that was replicable, scalable, and sustainable.

Investment Portfolio

“… comprehensive provision of health services (mental, emotional and physical), education (basic, technical and complementary) and links to the formal labor market. We contribute to the well-being of young women, their families and their communities.”

Her Leadership Qualities

Escobar took her personal mission and transformed it into a prestigious impact platform by leveraging her capabilities and finding the right partners.

Determination

Days after Escobar lost her 1-year old son to a terrible accident, a 10-day-old baby in a public clinic died in her arms because his mother couldn’t afford a treatment costing $30. For the next 20 years, she trained 245,000 woman in impoverished conditions and reduced infant mortality by 81 % in the city.

Key Actions

She did research to determine which city in the western hemisphere had the lowest infant mortality rate (Anaheim, California), and then travelled there to understand how it accomplished that feat and then decided to replicate it in Cartagena.
A year later she started the Adolescent Mothers Program, the first program of hers that succeeded in attractive investors.

Leadership Behaviors

Making an emotional connection and taking initiative
Setting stretch goals and seeking different perspectives to reach them effectively

Lesson Learned

Escobar followed her intuition to solve a problem that was close to her heart and was willing to learn from others’ experience to improve the possibilities for success.
Knowing that socioeconomic situations in Anaheim and Cartagena were extremely different, she aimed high and had big goals to stretch towards what she believed was possible

Creativity and Innovation

Escobar raised $80,000 in 4 minutes with collective financing from 164 investors, by opening a new investment channel with the Colombian Stock Exchange. She steered her organization to new destinations and around the twists and turns of covid by implementing a new model of social impact bonds for the country.

Key Actions

Before initiating her social enterprise, Escobar built an extensive network in the private sector, which she leveraged to fund and expand the non-profit’s activities and build its name and prestige.
True to her mission, she partnered with big players for a specific project to face the poverty aggravated by the pandemic, opening the capital market for social investment.

Leadership Behaviors

Making an emotional connection and taking initiative
Setting stretch goals and seeking different perspectives to reach them effectively

Lesson Learned

By leveraging her credibility and involving the right people, Escobar pioneered a new philanthropic model expected to accelerate results. Escobar took the opportunity by understanding the current openness of the country towards social innovation that allows it to take on socio-economic challenges in a collective and collaborative way.

Influential

Leveraging her experience and name recognition, Escobar created the Women Working platform for the World hat has been operating for 9 years to promote debate and reflection to find solutions of to social problems in Latin America, which includes sponsors and participants from all over the world.

Key Actions

Escobar dreamt of bringing together women from all over the world who were committed to improving the prospects of girls and women worldwide, so she convened participants from different countries and fields to share knowledge and exchange ideas.

Leadership Behaviors

Continuous learning and exploration of new ways of doing things
Building a platform as a thought leader and becoming more accessible

Lesson Learned

Escobar created a platform that increased her audience that finds her mission and message relevant.

Focusing on what other women are doing to solve similar issues and sparking discussion around them, she built a robust community whose members will support each other in various initiatives.

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