BRIAN KENNY: According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the US criminal justice system holds about 2.3 million people in state, local and federal prisons. That means that with just 5% of the world’s population, the US holds 25% of all incarcerated people in the world. These are staggering numbers, and they’re fueled by the fact that up to 40% of those released from prison, find themselves back behind bars within three years. Life outside of prison poses enormous challenges, but there’s one thing that has proven to help: employment. Today on Cold Call, we’ll discuss the case entitled, “Nehemiah Manufacturing Company: Providing A Second Chance,” with professor Michael Chu. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call.
Michael Chu’s research focuses on business and low income sectors, particularly in the use of commercial platforms to deliver what has traditionally been considered public responsibilities. And he’s deeply involved in Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative. Mike, thanks for joining me today.
MICHAEL CHU: My pleasure.
BRIAN KENNY: We’re facing a situation right now with a pandemic and it’s going to leave us in a pretty uncertain world when it comes to employment. So you think about the ripple effect of some of the things that we anticipate we’re going to go through, and it has direct bearing on the conversation we’re going to have today. So thanks for taking the time to discuss it with us. Let me ask you, your first time around on Cold Call, so the way we start every conversation is to ask the faculty member, if you were starting the class right now, what would your cold call be to the students?
MICHAEL CHU: When I start this case, I ask the class, what do you think of Nehemiah as a business? And the reason I do that is because the case deals with employing people that have a felony or a prison record and/or may have been drug addicts. There is obviously a powerful social impact side precisely because of that, I want them to focus on the business model first.
BRIAN KENNY: Okay. So let me ask you how you found out about Nehemiah and more importantly, how does this case in particular, relate back to the work that you do in your scholarship?
MICHAEL CHU: I found out about Nehemiah because in my course at HBS, I have every year, some Advanced Leadership Fellows that come and ask me permission to be in the class. The Advanced Leadership Fellows is a very interesting program at Harvard in which people that have had a distinguished career already applied to the Advanced Leadership Initiative to see if they can spend a year at Harvard with access to any course that’s given at Harvard University, so long as the professor lets them in. They come to my class and one of them said, “In our program, we just heard one of the founders of this amazing company and you ought to talk to them.” The reason why they thought it was a good fit is because my interest is on business models...
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