Hail, Colombia! A Man for All Nations Empowers His Own

By: Schmid, Elizabeth (Beth).

If every country in the world had just one citizen as dedicated to its well-being, and that of its people, as Pedro Medina is to his native Colombia, the world could not help but be a better place.

To talk to Medina, even briefly, is to get caught up in his remarkable outlook on life. With his passion and charisma, he must have a mission, and before you know what it is, you want to sign on. With a bit more conversation, his mission becomes apparent: He has an extraordinary ambition to "change the mind of a nation."

Medina, a double-hoo, (College ‘82, MBA ’86) visited Darden in late February, in part, to "detonate" the Latin American Student Association’s (LASA) annual conference by giving a talk called, ‘I Believe in Latin America.’ "I come from a land of many negative detonations, and I’m a positive one," he says.

His mission culminated in 1999, when Medina, a college professor and the general manager of McDonald’s in Colombia, asked students in his engineering class how many would still be living there in 5 years. A dozen said they would stay; the majority turned the question back on him and asked why they should stay. Other than "coffee, flowers and emeralds," he was at a loss for words. He says his sense of helplessness in not having a convincing argument impelled him to create "Yo Creo en Colombia," (I believe in Colombia) an initiative to enhance the image of the country and to instill pride in its people.

A Brazilian guest speaker at Darden’s LASA conference, who listened to Medina’s talk, said he had never heard anyone present Latin America like that, and it made him feel proud. What Medina has set out to do is "to take the reality of Latin America, starting with Colombia, and package and present it, not in a sugar-coated way, but in a more objective way."

Medina says that he had always been aware that most people have a negative image of Latin America: "the Latin American crisis, the Bolivian coups, the Colombian terrorist acts, the drug cartels." He even relates the story of a man asking, "did you bring any," when Medina told him where he was from. He asserts that this is not a balanced picture of the region. To counteract that image, both at home and abroad, an original objective of "Yo Creo’ was to create a balanced nationwide curriculum that inculcates high school and college students in Colombia about Colombia.

The seed for "Yo Creo" was planted when Medina had just graduated from U.Va. He drove to the Blue Ridge mountains, taking only a bottle of water, a pen, and a notebook to "write down my dreams," he says. These included getting married at 32, having children at 35, getting his MBA and returning to Colombia to work. His vision was to occupy an executive-level management position from which he could have frequent contact with the public and be a positive influence on people.

That Virginia dream was realized when, after "chasing" McDonald’s for two years, he was able to convince them to open 10 restaurants in Colombia in 12 months, when "no one else would buy my country," he says. He became the general manager for all of Colombia’s McDonald’s restaurants. When he initiated Yo Creo in 1999, he began what he calls his "transition from success to significance."

Because the time Medina can dedicate to Yo Creo is limited, he decided to create a talk called, ‘Porque Creer en Colombia’ – Why believe in Colombia – to jumpstart the project. He recently delivered this talk in Pittsburgh for the 726th time. He has delivered the nation-empowerment speech all over Colombia, in 45 cities and seven countries, and he’s trained 51 people to give the same talk. To date, he has reached 220, 000 Colombians. "Only 44 million to go," he laughingly admits.

Medina says they are seeing results from spreading the good word about Colombia and Latin America through Yo Creo, and although the results are largely anecdotal, they are indicative of a turning tide. For example, he’s had a number of people tell him that because of hearing his talk, they have decided to stay in the country; have decided to return to the country; or even have vowed to stop complaining about the country. The formerly negative press in Colombia began to turn around, too. Headlines such as, ‘The giant wakes up’; ‘Believe in Colombia and you won’t regret it’; and ‘the Quixote of faith in Colombia’, began to appear in publications around the nation.

Representatives from Argentina, Ecuador and Latin America have contacted Yo Creo en Colombia, which has helped them to establish their own Yo Creo initiatives. Medina says the Yo Creo model could be used for any country which suffers from problems of poor self-image and disenfranchisement.

Other reasons for Medina’s visit to Darden were to work on cases and to allow for what he calls ‘serendipity,’ the possibility of developing fortuitous opportunities where you least expect them.

"Serendipity is the wonderful breakfast I had with the dean; serendipity is the leadership talk I gave yesterday at the Commerce school; serendipity is the chance to talk to students about their job search and how to go about it; serendipity is all the fun things that happen when you allow yourself to be open and to have some flexibility with time," he says.

In talking to students during his visit, he tells them to engage strangers. "Not just for networking purposes, but for what you can contribute to them – how you can help them." He also recommends that students take advantage of opportunities at the entire university while they’re here. "Start! Begin! Don’t wait until the light turns green.”

Medina, a person who easily connects with people and encourages them to engage each other at every opportunity, wears a multi-colored woven bracelet with numerous dangling threads at one end. He says the threads symbolize individuals that, while colorful, are not as strong as when they join together to form a cohesive unit. That is a symbol for his life and his homeland.