Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
Join us every Monday as we uncover the secrets behind successful careers and inspire you to make your own mark. Formerly known as Thank God It's Monday | TGIM, don't forget to subscribe for updates and share with your friends!
Career Cheat Code
070 | International Development with Francisco Bencosme
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Francisco Bencosme, a senior advisor at USAID, as he provides a rare glimpse into the mechanisms of international development and policy leadership. Ever wondered about the intricacies of China's Belt and Road Initiative? Francisco breaks it down, sharing his day-to-day responsibilities and the pivotal role he plays in advising senior leaders on these global initiatives. Learn how his background in national security and foreign policy, coupled with personal experiences, fuels his passion for this field and shapes his approach to complex challenges.
From an intern to a key player on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Francisco's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Discover how his strategic focus on future national security issues propelled him into specializing in the Asia-Pacific region. Hear firsthand about his experiences preparing critical materials for high-stakes decisions, such as military authorizations, and see how his time at Georgetown University's Security Studies program enriched his understanding and professional network. Francisco’s story is a testament to the value of academic pursuits, practical experiences, and the resilience required to navigate a career in public service.
Moreover, Francisco sheds light on the transformative impact of mentorship and programs like the International Career Advancement Program, which support mid-career professionals of color in national security. Gain insights into the complex negotiations of the Compact Free Association with Pacific nations and the importance of maintaining strong relations amid global power shifts. With practical advice on financial stability, mentorship, and salary negotiations in public service, this episode is packed with career hacks and inspiring stories that underscore the value of perseverance and staying true to one's values. Don't miss out on Francisco's powerful journey and the invaluable lessons he shares.
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Host - Radhy Miranda
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Producer - Gary Batista
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I was doing everything. I was the guy that when you would call, pick up the phone and say, how can I help you, how can we be a service provider? And then I worked my way up. It just so happened that a mentor of mine on the committee, his legislative assistant, left and they offered me they were like you work very well with him, do you want to fill in that role, which is like kind of a junior Asia legislative assistant? And I just said, I've just said I'd be honored to so welcome to Career Cheat Code.
Speaker 2:In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you. All right, francisco, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to reconnect with you. We met through a fellowship which you were an alumnus of and I was just starting about a year ago now, and we've been connected ever since, so I appreciate you taking the time for this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and in fact I'm actually going to the fellowship the International Career Advancement Program in a couple of weeks to be a mentor, and I'm super excited about it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, Great.
Speaker 1:Hopefully we get a chance to talk about it later.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. So let's dive right in, let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:So I am a senior advisor at the USAID Agency for International Development, and my specialty or focus is the People's Republic of China, or just China. As folks might know, china launched what's called the Belt and Road Initiative and really changed the game when it comes to global development, and so it's my job to advise senior leaders about development issues with respect to China.
Speaker 2:Great. How long have you been doing this?
Speaker 1:Funny, you ask because I'm actually this month hitting my one-year mark and so it's a little bit really serendipitous to actually this month hitting my one-year mark, and so it's a little bit really serendipitous to be doing this at the one-year mark.
Speaker 2:That's great, so tell me more about what this looks like. So you walk in on a Monday. What does your job look like? What are you preparing for folks and how are you staying on top of the knowledge that you need to advise people?
Speaker 1:So it's not a very typical job for USA Agency for International Development, or we sometimes say USAID for short. A lot of my colleagues and part of the beauty of working in such a place is that a lot of my colleagues are development professionals, so that means they're environmental scientists or public health engineers or economists. It's really their job to help create programs that help support development of many of the partners we work with internationally. My days are a little bit different, though. It's my job to work with various US government entities the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, peace Corps a whole host of US agencies to really help policymakers, help senior leaders in my agencies. Think about, you know, the PRC, which we use sort of as a short name for China. I'll say my day-to-day to be honest.
Speaker 1:It's I have a lot of flexibility on my schedule, but it's somewhere between talking to scholars on what just happened last week, where over 50 African leaders went to Beijing to talk about global development issues, or a lot of internal meetings to think about how we can showcase our comparative advantage when it comes to development issues all over the world.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like a lot of your work is really dependent on intel gathering from other agencies and from what's happening on the ground. You're doing this based out of DC right.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, but the beauty of working in a place like USAID is that we have offices in over 100 countries all around the world and we in many places, particularly emerging economies, we have entire USAID missions. So this means development professionals who are part of the Foreign Service. We have civil servants, servants and then Foreign Service nationals, which means local partners, people from those countries who help advise USAID on building the development of their countries. We work with them every day.
Speaker 1:We exchange information about what they're seeing on the ground and I share them sort of what the policy conversations are here in Washington DC.
Speaker 2:Can you share with us what's your favorite part of your role and what's the most challenging part?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I alluded a little bit to what part of my favorite part. So I come more from a foreign policy, national security background, so I used to work at the world whether it's public health professionals, environmentalists, engineers and then you're like let's come together to address one of the biggest geopolitical challenges in our time, which is the US-China relationship. As I think, both whether it's in the news, even as recent as important political debates as yesterday folks know that there's a lot of focus right now on China, right, and so, whether we're talking about surviving a global pandemic, China is part of every aspect of global development issues. It's sort of like bringing this really fascinating group of people that are already really smart to really just connect national security into that world.
Speaker 2:So that sounds fascinating. So tell me more about how does one arrive in this type of career, right? How do you get to a point where you're doing this type of work?
Speaker 1:I was always interested in foreign policy as a little kid. I was raised by a single mom, only child, and my mom always wanted to be a flight attendant, in part because she wanted to see the world, and so the two of us would just take, we would look online for cheap flights, try to travel the world, and so at an early age, even through very few means, we were able to just kind of make it work and see the world and sort of that.
Speaker 1:That interest in foreign policy, not only from my mom's upbringing, but the fact that most of my family already lived abroad, whether it's in Ecuador or Dominican Republic, meant that I was just surrounded by foreign policy, I like to say. And then I also lived in Queens, new York, which I don't know how many people know this, but it's the most diverse place in the entire world, and so I had literally Tibet-like food and just people and culture and diaspora in my backyard to Colombia and Bangladesh, literally a block away. And so really that cocktail of all three just made me really fascinated in foreign policy. Of course I didn't know how to get there, I just had a ton of curiosity.
Speaker 1:When I was in college and in high school I joined the policy debate team. So I was automatically the coolest kid in high school and spent a lot of my weekends just debating with other really cool people about policy issues. And sometimes I pinch myself because I find that some of the things I used to debate about over 10 years ago are some of the things that still come up today. So, for example, we would debate as to whether the US should sign the Law of the Sea Treaty, and the first Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing I was able to go was when the chairman was debating whether the US should sign the US Law of the Sea Treaty, and so it was a very cool moment.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 1:I grew up spending my weekends and for a little around 10 years just researching and being fascinated with policy debate and increasingly foreign policy debate Maybe just to make a story a little bit longer but then I still didn't know how to get there right. Washington DC can kind of be a little bit of a black box.
Speaker 1:It's very opaque. No one teaches you in school After the international relations course no one's like, and this is how you get that job. I had a general sense that Washington DC was the place to be, but I had no idea how to get there.
Speaker 1:No pathway, no pipeline, and certainly, being a first-generation kid, my parents were just happy to that I graduated, but really there was no. You know, we were all figuring this out together, and so I was super fortunate that a alumni from my college debate program, wake Forest Debate, was director at a think tank on national security issues, and so while I was debating in one of my final rounds in my last tournament, like a national competitive tournament, I reached out to him and I was like, look, I really I don't know how, like I don't know how I'm going to make this work, but I really would love to come to DC and maybe intern for you.
Speaker 1:And what was cool was like these think tanks. You know, I would read these reports as like for debate tournaments and they would be like arguments that I would use. And so then to come to the city and like be like, oh my God, you're so-and-so evidence, but you're a real person and I spent so many weekends just talking about the briefing or report that you wrote, totally nerded out, and it was just a real cool full-circle moment.
Speaker 1:Then reality hit I had all the dreams of going to foreign policy and really learning about TC. I got an internship, luckily, which is oftentimes very hard and really just getting your foot in the door is really difficult, but I had no way to pay for it, and so it's an unpaid internship, and living in DC is extremely expensive.
Speaker 1:Some folks probably know I thought like, ok, I'll take all my college graduation money and I'll sort of live off that. That lasted about a month and a half not even the full summer of my think tank internship and I was really at a loss for figuring out what my next steps were and so I started just trying to do different side jobs to try to make ends meet.
Speaker 1:I started coaching college debates to make some extra cash and I was coaching a school in DC when I had to really sort of make a decision about housing and again, unpaid internship really wanted to be in foreign policy. Didn't know how to afford it. So I asked the debate team if I could sleep on the floor of the back room of the debate office and they were like, of course, you know, just to make ends meet. Like, are you sure? But like also, you know, we sort of talked it through. I promised them it would be temporary. I lasted there for six months. I was sleeping on the floor, I would go to the showers at the gym, I would eat at DC receptions, whether think tanks or Capitol Hill receptions, which oftentimes offer free appetizers. Really because I just wanted to get into foreign policy and I was so lucky that I had an internship, even if it was unpaid, but I didn't know how to translate that into a full job.
Speaker 1:It was really difficult for my parents to also understand that, in part because, first-generation kid, my dad was suffering from cancer at the time and he was just like what do you mean? They're not paying you. That concept just didn't even make sense to people who are not from here and frankly, it shouldn't. It really caused some tough conversations with my parents, but I knew I wanted to pursue my dreams. Long story short, and we can sort of delve deeper into this. I hustled for a really long time. Like I mentioned, I leveraged my network and had a couple of unpaid internships. In that process I thought I was going to be a permanent unpaid intern and after a year of doing internships I finally landed my first.
Speaker 2:So you did a lot there. First of all, you came in it sounds like your parents are from Dominican Republic and Ecuador. Did I hear that right, correct yeah, about other cultures and just thinking about all of that. And then you go off and do debate at Wake Forest and you graduate and you decide you know what, let me take my talents down to DC and see what I can do there. You know, I think, even just your story of the dedication to say you know what? I'm going to sleep on the floor and do this, and certainly as somebody that has Latino parents, the concept of not getting paid for work is foreign, which it should be. You know, it's probably not something that we should encourage more, but just hearing the way that you persevered through it all to land that first gig and just having that determination and drive, do you know what moment in your life sparked that desire to do foreign relations or where did that come from?
Speaker 1:It must've been some point doing like it's a combination of like debate. I just like, intellectually, really was fascinated with reading a bunch of think tank reports about what the US like, everything from what our policy should be in the Middle East, which you know, very relevant now but, of course, very academic back then to you know, like the most obscure things like international agricultural subsidies and how dairy prices impacted trade and foreign policy to really just like.
Speaker 1:Visiting my cousins in Ecuador and being like what drove them and the rest of my family to come to the United States is a foreign policy issue. We oftentimes frame immigration as a domestic issue and forget that there are really important foreign policy elements to it.
Speaker 2:Tell me more about kind of when you started narrowing into your desire to learn more about China and like Asia overall. Right, Like that's as someone that grew up in New York City to Latino parents, like that's not something that is the norm. So kind of what got you interested in that region specifically?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question and I thought a lot about it, in part because in undergrad I focused a little bit on Middle East issues and wrote my thesis on it around the so-called Arab Spring. But then, as a Latino, everyone's like you speak Spanish, so obviously you should do Latin America and Western Hemisphere issues. And then I was kind of like nah, I want to do something different, I want to be where, like. Someone gave me great advice when I was an intern that was like you don't want to focus on what the hot topic is now, you want to focus on the real national security conversations are going to be in 10 years from now. And I was sort of like reading and learning more about national security issues and what the debates were happening in Washington and more and more people were telling me the center of gravity both economically happening in Washington and more and more people were telling me the center of gravity both economically, politically and security-wise were shifting to the Asia Pacific and then eventually being called the Indo-Pacific, and China was a big part of that.
Speaker 1:And then while working, I went to grad school. I had an opportunity to take a bunch of classes on Southeast Asia and just Asia broadly and I realized a region like Southeast Asia is just as diverse as my home was in Queens no-transcript and increasingly I was drawn more and more to it. I'll say that when I started working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was doing everything. I was the guy that when you would call, pick up the phone and say how can I help you, how can we be a service provider? And then I worked my way up. It just so happened that a mentor of mine on the committee, his legislative assistant, left and they offered me they were like you work very well with him, do you want to fill in that role, which is like kind of a junior Asia legislative assistant, you know, and I just said I'd be honored to so.
Speaker 2:That's great, okay, so, okay. So I appreciate you kind of walking us through that and just getting first of all paid experience right. Then getting on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That's great. For those that don't know, what does that committee do.
Speaker 1:Great question. It is the main committee whose job in Congress, particularly the Senate, to oversee and authorize legislation with respect to foreign policy. One of the most important things that committee does is that it authorizes and makes decision about whether the US, whether Congress, gives the authority for the president to go to long-term conflict, sometimes called the authorization of use of Military Force. It also is like main committee and oversees US accession to treaties, so it really has a huge role in foreign policy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this also sounds like a great experience for you to see how that works and how it all comes together and then also build your network within government, I'm sure, right when I'm sure, now that you've been in government for a longer period of time, that pays its dividends, right, when you know who's at what offices and what they're looking for. So can you tell me more, a little bit, about how you are able to just continue to build on that career from that point?
Speaker 1:It's a great question, I mean at this point now. I've been working on Asia policy for eight to 10 years and it started on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But to your point being on a committee, particularly as a 22 or 23-year-old, you really get an opportunity to do it at a very high level, just even working the phones. We were not fully staffed and one of the first major committee hearings we had was on the authorization of whether to go to war in Syria.
Speaker 1:It was around the time that Obama was debating military strikes in Syria and I remember being a young staff assistant, having to put together the binder but then also having to choose which think tank reports the chairman had to read and I just felt like just straight out of college, maybe this was a consequence of peace and war was not something I was qualified to even put binders for, and sometimes the sort of imposter syndrome goes on today. Obviously, I've come a long way since then. I've both been in a lot of different conversations, both high level but also just at the working level, and sort of seen many and just really read a lot, went to, got my master's degrees and just been part of different fascinating conversations and just met a ton of great people and also just traveled a ton. So, whether it's through work or through grad school, been fortunate to be able to just hear from experts directly that are in the countries that we're working on or working with our foreign policy, towards which I think there's really no alternative to something like that.
Speaker 2:Can you tell me more about your graduate programs, and what did you do and what were you looking to get out of them?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I went to Georgetown Security Studies program and I did it night class. I did it in two years while I was still on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I was super happy and thrilled I got accepted to Georgetown University and I also wanted to maintain working at the same time. The entire time. I felt like I had lost an entire year, almost kind of being an intern. Looking back at it, I really am thankful. Obviously, the unpaid part sucked, but I'm grateful that I was able to have such a rich experience of so many internships and in the process meet some great people that I'm still friends with today.
Speaker 1:But so I went to Georgetown night classes. One of the best parts about the program was that it gave you a stipend to really just do whatever you wanted with it, and I used it for a research study to three Southeast Asian countries. I focused my trip on maritime security and, you know, I sort of knew that if I needed to be credible and really know about some of the countries I was working on, I needed to visit, talk to experts there, build my contacts but have that both credibility but also just learn from them. And so I just spent like an entire month. I took four weeks of vacation from work to really just do that, even though that certainly was important for work as well.
Speaker 2:So it was really fruitful. Can you tell me more about? Well, first, was this a master's in what exactly? And then, two, do you feel like you've gotten what you wanted out of it?
Speaker 1:So it was a master's in security studies under the School of Foreign Service. Georgetown has a couple of different programs. This one was a little bit more defense and intelligence focused and I actually really appreciated that because, again, a lot of my time was focused talking to diplomats or development professionals. Time was focused talking to diplomats or development professionals, but I think taking classes with the focus on defense and intelligence issues really made me a holistic well-rounded in terms of national security. Oftentimes at work now we talk about the three Ds defense, diplomacy and development and I feel a little bit conversant in my ability to talk about all three and I've been fortunate to work on two of them, both in State Department and now at the USAID.
Speaker 2:Outside of your master's programs, have you been part of any other professional development type of programs, One of which I know of for sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so happy to start there. One of the most catalytic and maybe transformative fellowships I've been able to do is the International Career Advancement Program, which is a week-long program in Aspen, colorado. It's organized by the University of Denver, it's short for ICAP as well, and it really focuses on mid-career professionals and advancing communities of color in national security space. To my knowledge, it's really one of the few and only mid-career programs that particularly focuses issues of equity, inclusion and representation and it's but it's just also an incredible training. So skills-based, really runs the gambits of talking to you know experts on a whole host of issues, but really creating you know a culture, you know respectability, inclusion, just really being authentic in a space that oftentimes doesn't have people that look like us and really helping us collectively move to the next section, to the next level.
Speaker 1:So you know I'm super excited. There's something also about like disconnecting from DC or just from whatever your working environment is and being in the amazing mountains that are Aspen, colorado. That just really makes everything just really all the more unique. But maybe I'll just say that, going back a little bit to my story, when I was an intern, one of the organizations that I joined and really got involved in was the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association.
Speaker 1:So I was looking for an affinity group on the Hill, in part because I really wanted to get on the Hill Spoiler. I ended up on the Hill.
Speaker 1:I remember talking to the president of that staff association and that afternoon he asked me to forward him my resume because an opening showed up on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When I joined and became a full-time staffer, I also joined officially the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association. I ultimately worked up to be president myself and one of the things we're super proud of that our team was able to accomplish was working with my roommate at the time, but also an external NGO called Pay Our Interns, and they were able to mobilize Congress to start paying their interns through research and advocacy. So really to bring it full circle my own story of not sort of unpaid internships being a barrier and access to foreign policy we were able to really cause changes and eventually he also convinced the State Department and the organization lobby of the State Department to also pay their interns. So Congress and the State Department both started paying their interns and really made change one of the major barriers to getting your foot in the door.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I mean and kudos to you, right, for not only going through the unpaid internship and what that did for you but also thinking about ways to change that for others, right, you know, I think there are different mentalities.
Speaker 2:There are some folks that just accept that unpaid internships is a thing and everyone did it, but there are folks that literally cannot afford to do that and there are folks that have to sleep on the floor to do so and that's not. That is a real barrier, especially if you're thinking about getting talented, diverse representation in these spaces that bring different perspectives. You're literally not going to get folks just because they cannot afford to find a floor to sleep in. You know what I mean. So kudos to you all to kind of recognizing that and recognizing that it just needed to change more broadly. I appreciate that, and I'm sure many others do, and this is the type of effort that I'm sure there were a lot of folks that came together ultimately to make it happen, kind of in the spirit of it all, like the contributions that we all make are very significant.
Speaker 1:Thank you, but to your point, it really takes a village, it takes a community and a lot of people came together for those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Let's fast track a little bit. You end up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Tell me what happens after that.
Speaker 1:So actually, you know, it's so interesting because I was president of the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association and it was a volunteer job, but I was obviously a full-time Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and I was kind of interested in like how do I like bring some of the work on, like you know, access to halls of power, representation, inclusion, but also like find like a Asia foreign policy twist. And some of the best conversations that I was fortunate and privileged to be in were really with human rights organizations and really the amazing work they did to uplift, to find the release of political prisoners, to convince Congress to raise human rights issues, which oftentimes get short shrifted in national security conversations. And so I was like I'd love to do that on the outside for a bit. I'd love to find what I've learned now at five years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but really in a way that like helps build more doors for access to these halls of power.
Speaker 1:I was fortunate that I was working on legislation that dealt with genocide of the Rohingya people, which is a minority, was originally from Burma and had been displaced to Bangladesh, into major parts of Southeast Asia through ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide. Amnesty International, usa was making this legislation their top human rights campaign and they reached out if we knew anyone who would be interested in leading that advocacy campaign for them and I was like I would love to. I wrote the legislation you're advocating for and I know all the players and I'd love to do so in a more grassroots, bringing all the tools that an international NGO can do. A couple iterations afterwards, and even after my time at Amnesty, the legislation that we were working on became law. That's sort of when I made my move to the human rights field in NGOs and again, really important work, working on international human rights issues, uplifting.
Speaker 1:You know stateless populations, that I got to visit some of the refugee camps in Bangladesh and just you know like kids would tell you the stories about sort of fleeing. You know persecution of the military and how they lost their families in that way. And then I would work with communities in DC or as part of the diaspora so that they could testify before Congress or they could go to meetings to advocate for the plight of the Rohingya and other human rights groups in the halls of Congress or the executive branch. And so to me I was bringing some of the advocacy skills I learned both in Congress but also even as just like advocating for change, for paid internships and really bringing those skills to bring social change on human rights issues in the Asia Pacific.
Speaker 2:And thank you for sharing that right. Can you share any other places that your work has taken you to and kind of what that experience has been like? Yeah, we think about this type of work that is, of course, international and I know at this point you were not in the government, right, but like you still have to travel to different places and keep up with us and understand what's going on. So can you speak a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:In this job? I went to Bangladesh, but I traveled to Thailand, to Malaysia. What In this job? I went to Bangladesh, but I traveled to Thailand, to Malaysia. What's really fascinating at this point in my career is that people stay in your life, right Like every time I go to Thailand, which I was just there a couple of weeks ago, I still make an effort to connect with my Amnesty Thailand office. I couldn't meet them, but I stayed in touch with Amnesty Indonesia when I was in Jakarta, but in part because these are the people that define who you are, but also because you want them to know that we're all still one big part of a larger international movement and whether I'm in government or not.
Speaker 1:In government we're still agents of change, certainly on human rights issues. Sometimes I'm an advocate on the outside and sometimes I'm an advocate on the inside. But I've been super fortunate. I've been able to travel to different parts of the Asia Pacific.
Speaker 2:What brought you back to government?
Speaker 1:Somewhere in between. There I'd worked at a philanthropy called Open Society Foundation and I'd reached a point where I was really excited about the work I was doing on the outside. I'd published, I was proud of some human rights wins we were able to do, and obviously the work continues. But I I realized that there's still a lot of change you can do when you're in government and in the executive branch and so sort of maybe filling that story I was just sharing a bit ago.
Speaker 1:One of the first actions the Biden-Harris administration took was calling the Rohingya crisis a genocide, and I was fortunate to be involved in some of those debates within US government. This was certainly one of the major actions I was advocating for when I was working for various human rights groups. You know, oftentimes we say that on human rights issues or on atrocity prevention issues, you can't really tackle them if you don't really diagnose the problem that we're working on, and so being able to call it for what it was was really important for many of the victims of genocide and crimes against humanity, and that was like year one of my time in government, and so really in the past now almost four years that I've been back in government, but first time in the executive branch been super fortunate with sort of working for a government where I've been able to, you know, really cause international change.
Speaker 2:Can you share any of the large differences that you've seen in the impact that you can make or in how the impact can be tangible, working on the executive branch versus the legislative branch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. The legislative branch yeah, absolutely. One of the issues that I got to work on during my time at the Department of State was the Compact Free Association, which sounds super wonky but I promise you is maybe one of the most consequential foreign policy national security issues. So after World War II, we had as former territories three now countries the Marshall Islands, micronesia and Palau and the terms in which they became freely associated states became these compacts, and every 20 years we renegotiate them, and it just so happened that we had to renegotiate them in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:Now this is all happening in a larger geopolitical context in which the PRC is certainly making huge investments and huge gains in the Pacific Islands, and so there's some public reporting about how China didn't want these countries to reenter into a new compact with the United States and was actively working against that.
Speaker 1:And our relationship with the three countries I mentioned and they're called sometimes the Freely Associated States is super important for entire leadership in the Pacific.
Speaker 1:So our ability to project power, to access free seas, to be able to go from California to Singapore and certainly to Taiwan, all depends on our ability to have access to the Pacific Islands, or just have access to the Pacific If we were denied that freedom of navigation and that freedom of overflight, that would be hugely consequential to national security issues. I was super fortunate that I worked on the negotiating team and towards the end of it, became the deputy negotiator on the team and really learned a lot from both my team. One of the issues that the Marshallese appropriately raised was issues of nuclear legacy and are the consequence of nuclear testing that we did in the run-up to World War II, and so these issues have consequences decades later and were some of the hardest issues to try to address in a way that obviously supported mutual respect and mutual interest for both of our countries in the context of the Marshall Islands but then ultimately for all of the islands that we had to negotiate with.
Speaker 2:Let's pretend that all of the audience is here because they are all on the brink of leaving their jobs to go into international development or trying to become a policy lead of some sorts. What advice would you have to those folks?
Speaker 1:Oftentimes I say that you have to think about your three Ps. So I think about it in terms of policy, politics and process. You can know everything about US-China policy, but that still might not land you that job you want in the China policymaking world. Why? Because you still need to know how government works. Or if you're working on budget issues in relation to China, you need to know how the budget works.
Speaker 1:Or I think one of the things that was so consequential for me, both in my advocacy days in the human rights world, but certainly when I worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is I knew the process for how Congress worked. I knew how to move. I knew how a bill got introduced to how it moved out of committee. So then I moved to the Senate floor and then, hopefully, the House also passed a similar bill and then it became a law that was sent to the president's desk. And then the third P is politics. You need to. Who are your champions? Who are your validators? That also applies to your networks. You can know how things become law. You can have the best law, but if the political winds are not behind it, none of that matters. And so those three P's have guided me a lot in my different parts of my career.
Speaker 2:That's great, okay. So now they're looking to get into this field. One of the first questions is can I have this amount of impact and still not be broke? Is this a field where folks like how much money can folks expect to make in this field doing this type of work?
Speaker 1:Money is always sensitive, right, but it's funny because I started off talking about how broke I was, especially early off in my career. I'm super fortunate that I make somewhere between $160,000 a year Pretty sure I'm not the best at math, but around $160,000 a year and over, which you don't always hear in public service. I'm fortunate that I can live a middle-income, middle-class life here and really support my family through that and I work in government, right? Who thought that you can do that on a public service salary and having worked in a nonprofit or having worked in Congress, which is known for historically low salaries?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I appreciate that, and I think that's part of the reason why I asked the question, because I know that I worked in city government in New York and I saw what people were making. I was like, wait, we can actually live well and do really great work that is impactful and that can change your city, your state, your country and international, but we just don't always think about government as a vehicle to have some economic mobility. Yeah, absolutely so, I appreciate that, and I do also appreciate that I think the federal government also does a really good job at salary transparency. So I think it's just a matter of changing the stigma that you will be broke if you work in government to flipping it to go out and do some research. There's actually some really interesting roles that you can have and do some good work.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely true, and it's all the more important in communities that can't ask their parents about salary issues, or when I was in the president of this organization, I got asked how do you even do salary negotiations Actually, my little brother is now a staff assistant in Capitol Hill and similar conversations like what does salary negotiation even look like? When do I ask my boss for a raise? How do?
Speaker 2:I ask for a raise. Should I ask for a?
Speaker 1:raise, and no one teaches us sometimes these things growing up, and so it's all the more reason why it's important to have mentors, to have sponsors, people that will help you get from one place to another. I think advice should be free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and I think that's also why it's important to go to things like grad school or fellowships, right, because now you have this family of folks like ICAP right, which we mentioned earlier, like you can lean on people and you can get intel from people like, hey, I'm in philanthropy, this is what we're doing, this is what we're paying Does that sound right over there? And you can gut check it with your peers and really have a good understanding and just people that can help you think through issues. Like you know, we have active group chats of, hey guys, I'm figuring this out, I don't know what to do, has anyone done something similar? Or hey, y'all, I'm trying to hire someone, does anyone know anyone? And that's how you, like you know, kind of just create real fellowship amongst your peers and, like, stay connected, you know. So, definitely, I hear you and I appreciate that. Yeah, even though we already did a really good ICAP commercial, but it's never enough, never, never enough.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Everyone should do it.
Speaker 2:Are there any forms of media that could be books, podcasts, debate clubs, anything that you have experienced, join your local debate team.
Speaker 1:I mean certainly I thought I was going to be a lawyer when I joined the high school debate team. Never even thought about going to law school after I really became interested in foreign policy, but it was a great opening to it.
Speaker 1:We didn't even get a full chance to talk about it, but I grew up reading comics and watching cartoons a ton. Growing up In terms of media, x-men was always on at my house. X-men 97 just came out recently on TV show. Part part of the reason. I, you know, looking back at it there was this motif about like the superhero club of like the sort of outcast of society but there were heroes and you know we didn't even talk about this but I'm, you know I also identify as gay and being a gay Latino only child, first gen. You know you sometimes have these like questions about you know whether we're really going to make it or whether we should make it. I always felt like cartoons really got me and X-Men has this like very subtle motif about the LGBTQ community. So really recommend it and you know, just think that it's okay if your kids watch a lot of cartoons and comics. I swear it all works out in the end.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome. I will open it to say are there things that you want to discuss and that you want the world to know about you? Because this is our floor, so we can do whatever we want with the time.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. You know, I feel like we've already talked so much about running the gambit on both my career. I'll just say that, for those who are interested in entering the space, a mentor once told me it doesn't seem like it, and this was honestly when I was sleeping on the floor like struggling to make ends meet, having tough conversations with my dad who was fighting cancer and like wasn't sure if I was ever like cut out to make it in foreign policy. Just here to say one simple thing, which is you deserve to be here. Your voice matters, your contribution, no matter how big, how small matters.
Speaker 1:Voice matters, your contribution no matter how big, how small matters. You know I in my wildest dreams never thought you know a single child, gay, latino kid from Queens, new York had anything to contribute to foreign policy. You know was super fortunate and privileged to sort of make it after some really tough strides that you know. Again go back to the fact that my mom taught me, or instilled in me, this sort of curiosity about the world and I carry that with me. But it's a long way to say your value matters and it's all going to work out. Just sort of continue to search for your dreams. And just again, I never thought I would be where I am right now and so just continue at it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I think that's a great note to end on. I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Career Cheat Code and tell us people or careers you would.
