Sandy Sanchez

My research looks into how market-creating innovations can improve people’s economic, social, and political well being. Market-creating innovations are powerful in their ability to turn nonconsumers into consumers, building a market for people who previously didn’t have access to a product or service due to a variety of barriers, and integrating these people into a formal economy with significant growth potential. Market creation builds companies, sectors, and even nations by creating profits, jobs, infrastructure, and a culture of innovation. Poverty and lack of opportunity persist globally, but they don’t have to. By leveraging market-creating innovations and other core theories such as Jobs to Be Done, Modularity, and Business Models, innovators everywhere (especially those in poorer countries), have the ability to create sustainable prosperity.

I’ve wanted to work in the global development sector—tackling poverty and creating opportunity—since middle school (before then I wanted to be a spy, but that’s another story). In college I took classes in economics, political science, geography, history, and sociology trying to figure out why some countries were rich and others were poor, and what the solution to bridging that gap was…and for four years I couldn’t find a satisfying enough answer.

Fast forward two years and I read Professor Christensen’s book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty, which, unfortunately for me, had been published the same year I graduated from my International Development Studies program. Reading The Prosperity Paradox was my ‘aha moment’—it was a mindset shift on how to approach development solutions, and how to shift my focus from alleviating poverty to successfully creating prosperity. I knew that I wanted to learn everything I could about this solution, so that I could share it with others out there who were also looking for an answer.

Along my learning journey, I’ve earned the opportunity to travel to several low-income countries, and in each of these trips, I’ve met brilliant entrepreneurs who all believe in the life-changing power of market-creating innovations. At the Christensen Institute, I get to learn, research, improve, and spread awareness of global prosperity solutions, so that I can help as many of these entrepreneurs as possible reach their goals.

Experience

• Research Associate, Global Prosperity, the Christensen Institute
• Legal Practice Assistant for Knowledge Management, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP
• Administrative Practice Assistant for Corporate Business Transactions and Labor & Employment, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP
• Field Intern for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Office
• University of California, Los Angeles, BA in International Development Studies, Minor in French