A Long View on Leadership in Global Development with Chris Eaton

In our fourth episode, of “From Campus to Career: Development Practitioners in Action,” we are in conversation with Chris Eaton.  

Chris graduated as part of the inaugural cohort of UTSC’s Co-op Program in International Development. His co-op placement was with the Lesotho Chamber of Commerce, where he focused on small business development. With over thirty-five years of experience, he has lived and worked in India, Uganda and Afghanistan, and supported programming throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.  He has held a variety of roles in the international development sector including as CEO of Aga Khan Foundation Afghanistan, from 2005 to 2009, and Executive Director of World University Service of Canada (WUSC), from 2009 to 2023. Chris is currently the Chief Operating Officer at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

Join us to learn about Chris Eaton’s journey, from his beginnings in the inaugural IDS co-op cohort to global leadership, and the many lessons that have shaped his career.

The Knowledge Equity Lab's Season 4, podcast series, "From Campus to Career" features conversations with some of the stellar alumni from University of Toronto’s International Development Studies Co-op program, uncovering the stories behind their careers in global development. From the classroom to the field, these conversations trace the choices, pivots, and passions that shaped their journeys and continue to inspire new ways of thinking about global and local development.

Transcript

Malika Daya (00:00): Hi everyone and welcome back to the Knowledge Equity Lab's podcast, From Campus to Career, Development Practitioners in Action. In this series, we're speaking to some of the stellar alumni from University of Toronto's International Development Studies Co-op program, learning about their time in the program and beyond—exploring the diverse choices, pathways and experiences that shape their careers in global development. 

I'm Malika Daya, your host for this season and a former graduate of the IDS Co-op program at UTSC. On today's episode, we'll be speaking with Chris Eaton. 

Chris graduated as part of the inaugural cohort of UTSC's International Development Studies Co-op program. His co-op placement was with the Lesotho Chamber of Commerce, where he focused on small business development. With over 35 years of experience, he has lived and worked in India, Uganda, and Afghanistan, and supported programming throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He has held a variety of roles in the international development sector, including as CEO of Aga Khan Foundation Afghanistan from 2005 to 2009, and executive director of World University Service of Canada, WUSC, from 2009 to 2023. Chris is currently the chief operating officer at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. 

We're so excited to welcome to our podcast, Chris Eaton. Lovely to meet you again and thanks for coming on this podcast. So I'm just going to jump in and ask you what inspired you to go into international development in the first place?

Chris Eaton (01:37): So I think I've always been interested in why I have grown up in a society that is very privileged, prosperous, peaceful, and why others have not. And I've always wanted to understand why that is the case and what role I could play in terms of helping to right those sorts of things. I think that probably has roots in the activism of my family, my parents in particular, who were very socially engaged.

And the international aspect to that, because of course that can be manifested through really great and important work here in Canada, but the international aspect of it was really triggered when in my mid-teens, I was a participant on Canada World Youth— a youth exchange program where I spent half a year in Sri Lanka. And as I graduated from that, I was thinking, this is something that I want to explore further. And I was really fortunate that just as I was graduating from high school in Ontario, grade 13, in 1984, the first year of the International Development Studies Co-op program. And so that was just kind of a natural fit and the rest is history, I guess.

Malika Daya (02:55): So the inaugural cohort.

Chris Eaton (02:58): Inaugural cohort. Yeah. Wow.

Malika Daya (03:01): Yeah, totally. And so can you tell us about your time in the program and then your path from the IDS co-op into the field and into your career?

Chris Eaton (03:14): Yeah, so I think the program was very interestingly structured at that time. We had to do a lot of courses in areas that, you know, I would say they're not my core area of, like I don't have great aptitudes for biology, for example. So it was very demanding across because of the breadth of the courses that we had to study. I chose to focus on political economy. So I did a lot of economics and political science and a little bit of anthropology and history. And I think what I really appreciate was not only the people who were leading the program and the continuity or the way in which they helped to bring the individual courses together through our seminar courses and our discussions even outside of the classroom, but also the participants themselves. 

There was kind of a cohesiveness to us as a cohort of students who were constantly thinking about and had ambitions for what we would want to do in this space. And I think all of that really sustained us and challenged us. I think it made us difficult students for some of the professors because we were perhaps a little bit more outspoken than some of our peers at that time. I don't know if that's still the case, but we were also pretty challenging to one another. And that was just a rich, rich experience.

I did my placement with WUSC, World University Service of Canada in Lesotho. And there I got to explore kind of my interest in local economic development, but particularly focused on the development of small businesses, which is kind of, that space is something that I have continued to explore broadly throughout my career. 

As I graduated… You know, when you graduate, it's difficult. It was difficult back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. And I think it's equally, if not more difficult today. Employers are looking for people with experience and you don't have experience and you can't get experience if you're not offered a job. And so that is a conundrum that is often difficult to overcome. I was very fortunate as I was graduating. Again, this field was just expanding at the time and the Aga Khan Foundation Canada set up the fellowship in international development management. And so that was designed specifically to give people interested in this field that extra little experience that might help to launch their careers. 

So I spent the better part of the year working on the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Gujarat. And that was like really, really exciting and quite profound for me because of the close interactions we had with the communities we were working with and some of the expertise that we brought in to help us understand and explore really creative and cutting edge methodologies for engaging communities in community development processes. We had some of these incredible kind of internationally renowned experts come and work with us. And it was a great privilege to be a part of all of that. 

I came back. I did my master's in political science, focusing on coping and survival strategies in rural Eastern Africa. I got married to another graduate of the IDS co-op program. And we headed off to Uganda for initially a couple of years, but we spent six years there working with a variety of organizations. And I think probably the most important work that we did there was with a Dutch organization. And it was again, really around community methodologies for both social and economic development. I also did some really interesting work around local government strengthening, working with the planning unit of a couple of districts in Northern Uganda.

So that was, that was really great. And, when I came back to Canada at the end of the 1990s, I was very fortunate that Aga Khan foundation, Canada was looking for a manager of their support to East Africa and having been with the Aga Khan foundation previously, I was able to secure that job, which was fantastic. Really, really fantastic. A great organization. I think I learned a lot about their programming vision globally, which I found very compelling. But I learned a lot about the Canadian ecosystem of NGOs and civil society organizations, which is really helpful to understand how different organizations think about their role in development and their role relative to one another. You know, Oxfam Canada is not the same as a World University Service Canada, they have different ways of thinking about things. And I don't think we have to be dogmatic around all of that. I think we can understand that each of our organizations potentially has an important role on the issues on which we are working. Not always the case, we should challenge one another, but that was really, really kind of a profound set of learning that I did. 

Additionally, learning a lot about the Canadian government and how it thinks about international development and how it makes decisions related to international development and how, to be perfectly honest, how you interact, engage, and influence how they think about international development. And I think that's a really, really important set of insights related to all of that. 

I then became the director of programs at Aga Khan Foundation Canada, and then was fortunate enough to be the CEO of Aga Khan Foundation Afghanistan where me and my family were based for four years in the late 2000s. And that was perhaps the most exciting, challenging job that I ever had. We were quite a significant player, a significant organization doing very kind of compelling things across a large section of the country. And I think that in and of itself was really compelling because it was a context in which what we did really, really mattered. And like if we didn't do it well, if we didn't do enough of it, if we didn't do it fast enough, then things might deteriorate. And they did deteriorate in the late, in the early 2020s. But things, a lot of the things that we were able to do at that time still exist. People are still benefiting from all of that.

I think the other thing that I learned a lot about was around market systems. The actors in markets and the importance of markets and thinking about markets very carefully for the economic benefit of people we are concerned about and how to interact effectively with markets. I think a lot of organizations shy away from markets and a lot of organizations also have ideologies that are not comfortable working with markets or working with private enterprise or working with big companies, small companies, entrepreneurial startups, innovation centers, financial actors. And we did a lot of that work, some of it quite good, although our practice was evolving. But that approach was really quite critical to my thinking about what good development could be.

And I have to say, when I left Aga Khan Foundation Afghanistan, and joined World University Service of Canada, which in many respects had already been thinking about systems development, we spent a long time as a team thinking about and refining our methodologies related to our volunteer cooperation program, but related to our other interventions as well. And, yeah, so I spent 14 years leading World University Service of Canada, hoping that I think we became a more effective, consequential organization. And that's the thing that I am perhaps most proud of.

Malika Daya (12:06): Thank you. In this journey of yours, have there been any specific challenges that have shaped the way you think about development and your role in it? Any key learnings that now looking back as you connect the dots really pop out?

Chris Eaton (12:24): Yeah, so, you know, I've worked in some different difficult organizational contexts. So that's one thing that, you know, we will all struggle within the various positions that we hold. And I've learned how to handle and be effective in those contexts, both as a manager, as a peer, as a leader, as a coach. So I think about that quite carefully.

But I also think about the work that we have done or I have done over a longer career. And I think about some of the work that I think has been less consequential. Like some of the work that I think I did particularly earlier in my career, I'm not sure it had much meaning in the whole big scheme of things. And I think reflection on all of that led me to really rethink kind of what the role of myself and the organizations I'm attached with should be. And that was really to take ourselves out of the center of the systems that we are trying to intervene in. I think many development organizations, the work that they do is crassly put about giving away things, about subsidies. Everything that we do is a subsidy to someone, in some context. And so, you know, the perspective that I developed through kind of the challenges that we faced as an organization, the evaluations we had, our own internal critique of all of that work, was to think very carefully about how we intervene in systems and how we make sure that we are not primary actors in systems. And it challenged a lot of our thinking about things. You're like, you know, our partners need this, this and that. It's like, well, how are they going to have those things when we are not here? How do we think about the provision of opportunities and services to people we're concerned about beyond the context of the initiative that we have? And how do we then consequently think about ourselves as temporary actors? We are not there permanently. And so we have to be very careful about how we think about the interventions that we do so that people are not dependent upon our finances or our level of effort. And I think that that struggle of thinking through all of that has been the thing that has been perhaps most profound in terms of my career. 

I've been fired. That was actually a very helpful experience. It helped to ground me in terms of thinking about organizations and my effectiveness in organizations and the roles that I should play, can play, the risks I'm willing to take. I would say that I would not have become an executive director or a CEO had I not had that experience. We are all going to face those setbacks and not to be discouraged by them.

Malika Daya (15:26): How do you keep yourself going in those moments of setbacks? Like what for you really helped propel you forward?

Chris Eaton (15:33): Yeah, so I think networks, friends, colleagues, family, to help reflect on all of these things. I have some friends and peers who are very successful in their careers, but I have also been with them when they have been fired or have struggled at different points in their career. And I've provided opportunities and assistance to them that has helped them to land well and recoup and rethink. And that has been helpful to me during the different kind of inflection points in my career. So having those networks I think is really, really, really important.

Malika Daya (16:13): Yeah, your community for sure. And so when you look back on the work that you've done in your career, what has been some of the most fulfilling parts or impactful parts of the work that you have done when you reflect now?

Chris Eaton (16:28): Yeah, so when I joined WUSC in 2009, it was a very good organization. There were really good people there, but it was an organization that was struggling. And it was an organization that was perhaps financially and in terms of its importance to our sector was going in the wrong direction. And so I think the thing that I am most proud of and I have enjoyed the most is working, building with and working with a team to turn that all around, to become a more consequential organization, one that matters on the issues on which it works. And for us, that really was around opportunities for young people and opportunities in particular for young people who have been forcibly displaced, finding durable solutions for refugees, but also raising the cause of forcibly displaced youth  globally and in the Canadian context. 

The other thing that I really, really enjoyed doing during my tenure, particularly at WUSC was thinking about other organizations that play important roles within our sector and helping those organizations reestablish themselves. And so I would say one of the most important things we did as an organization is we helped match International, Canada's first feminist rights funding organization set up in the 1970s and in the early 2010s. They were running out of steam and running out of money and they were ready to shut down. And we decided, especially my colleague, Catherine, to reach out to them and say, hey, listen, we've incubated organizations previously and we would like to provide a home for you to rethink and reestablish yourself, which we did. And we provided some support to them. They then kind of went off on their own for a little bit and they convinced the Canadian government that they should establish a fund for women's rights organizations globally called the Equality Fund. And it's the largest funder of women's rights organizations globally. But they would not have garnered the support of the Canadian government if we again as an organization had not stood up and said, we will partner with them and we will partner with them until they are fully established and able to handle the large amount of resources that the Canadian government has provided them. And they're one of the most exciting and thriving organizations in our sector in Canada and I think globally in that space. So to have played a small role, because they were the primary agents on this, they did this, but to play a really small but critical role in helping to stand up that organization. Helping to support another organization that was going through a similar process, Farm Radio International, thinking about other organizations that we could do that for. That was incredibly rewarding in the context of my career.

Malika Daya (19:53): I mean, that's a really meaningful lesson as well in terms of how organizations can share resources to strengthen the ecosystem.

Chris Eaton (20:01): I think that's really important. I think a lot of organizations don't think enough about that and aren't willing to invest in that space. I think a lot of organizations are a little bit too cutthroat, too much focused on their own particular needs, particularly when it comes to partnership, division of resources, opportunities. As opposed to thinking a little bit more generously and longer term about what we are all trying to contribute to and to find ways in which we can all thrive. I think we additionally did some really important work at WUSC with our sector of volunteer cooperation organizations. And what we understood was that if we didn't work together, none of our programs would exist. That we had to work together, we had to think about effectiveness in our sector. We had to make sure that our volunteering thinking conceptualization, the methodologies we had, were reflective of a kind of current understanding of what good practice is, best practice, to think about it within a system way. We invested a lot in the International Forum for volunteering for development, which I chaired for a few years. But all of that was an investment in others, in the networks that we are a part of. And I have to say that all of that helped WUSC thrive. It helped WUSC be both more effective and consequential, but also, and this is an important piece for all organizations, more financially successful as well, more able to garner the resources, to get the resources to advance its mission. And so by being less short-sighted, less generous in the short term, we were actually much, much more effective in the long term by not being like that.

Malika Daya (22:06): Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And also it goes back to what you were saying earlier about knowing and understanding and learning about the NGOs within Canada and the ecosystem that exists here and where everybody's at and how everybody can support each other to continue to move forward with the work of development within our various contexts. And so for a lot of students who are hearing you talk about all of this work, I'm sure some of them are imagining, what does this look like day to day? What is a typical day in your life look like?

Chris Eaton (22:38): It's a lot of talking with a lot of people, you know, coming into the office, there's usually a few critical emails that you have to respond to. But a lot of the work that I have done over the last 20 years as a leader of the organizations that I have been a part of is coaching people, coaching team members, listening to them, learning from them, understanding their challenges, helping them to think about their challenges and how they might address and overcome their challenges. Helping to not only work with individuals and coach individuals, but be part of teams as we think about how we work with one another and how we help our overall organization to be effective. So lots of discussions, lots of meetings. I'm the kind of guy, we would have weekly kind of senior leadership meetings, but I would make sure in advance of the meeting that I had touch base with everyone so that we kind of understood what we were talking about, we check where we are at, we'd have productive kind of conversations that would be meaningful and lead to some concrete actions moving forward. So there was always stuff like that, a lot of internal work. There is of course, some often critical work decisions have to be made about a challenge that we are facing that requires kind of my assistance there. I always thought about my role as, what do I need to know to help others make effective decisions? And that has been my approach as a leader. So there are still occasionally things that come directly to my desk that I've had to deal with. 

And then there's a representational role. And that representational role is talking to external partners, understanding where they're at, understanding the things that we're working on together, figuring out areas in which we could work together, understanding the sector more broadly and challenges that we're facing, gathering kind of their ideas and understanding of the places in which we're working or the issues on which we're working, building partnerships, speaking at conferences, participating in podcasts, that sort of thing is a regular part of my day. There's always some of that. And then, I also need time for some deep thinking. And I try and find that every day. I don't only talk to people. I do like writing. I like putting together conceptual frameworks, tools that will help us with the work that we are doing. I take extensive notes on all of the things that we're thinking about and working on. And that has really helped me in my reflections as well.

Malika Daya (25:27): Awesome. so this is just kind of a follow up question from what you were talking about. You’ve had so many years in leadership positions. Are there any leadership learnings that have emerged for you over these years?

Chris Eaton (25:41): It's not about you, you know, to kind of have a healthy check on your ego, that it's about what you're trying to do and the contributions that you and others can make. I've had a lot of young people in the organizations that I've worked with and that has been a uniformly enriching experience. The thing that I've really appreciated the most is the impatience of young professionals, not just not particularly for themselves and what they're going to do, although there is some of that, but for what we should be doing as an organization. And that impatience propels, provides energy fuel to the work that we are doing in ways that helps us to keep moving, to keep thinking, to keep challenging ourselves. 

But as a leader, that can also be a little bit challenging to harness. Sometimes it means that people are challenging things that you think you should do. That person sent an email. My gosh, I think I should have sent that email. And then 99 % of the time when things like that happen, I've kind of thought to myself, no, and in fact, that's really good. That's the sort of thing I want to encourage and support. And it then means that I am less trying to be in control, but more trying to steer and guide kind of where we're going. I think there's often a challenge with people who enter into leadership or managerial and leadership positions where you are no longer doing things directly yourself and you're doing things with and through other people. So, you know, thinking about how to work well and keep other people motivated is really, really important. But it also means giving other people the autonomy to do good work themselves to take initiative themselves to be intrapreneurial as we talked about at WUSC, that we want to encourage a lot of that. And that means as a leader that you have to sometimes let go but still take ultimate responsibility for anything that happens in the organization. 

And I think sometimes leaders and managers think, well, if I'm responsible for it, then I need to know everything and I need to control everything. And I think that's the absolute wrong lesson. You have to remain responsible for everything. If the shit hits the fan, you're the person who has to stand up and clean it all up and take responsibility for it. But you don't prevent that from happening by being in control of everything or trying to micromanage people or all of that. And in fact, you're more likely to have those kinds of problems if you take that approach. And so that has been a learning over the course of my career. And I find it something that people as they progress from entry level positions into more senior coordination managerial or leadership positions sometimes struggle with, not always.

Malika Daya (28:59): That's great advice, especially as students and early career practitioners are engaging in the field and are developing relationships and taking on different roles as they grow in their career. So my next question for you is how would you say that your perspective on development has changed over the years? And how do you or where do you see the future of international development evolving towards?

Chris Eaton (29:25): Yeah, those are perhaps the most challenging questions. So I think we've come from a context in which there was a hierarchy between kind of the global north and the global south and organizations based in Canada and organizations based elsewhere in the world. And I think that was very unhealthy and unhelpful. And I think we've moved towards a situation of greater equality, but that greater equality is still kind of conditioned upon the imbalance of resources and resources, both financial, network-wise, otherwise, that often exists between organizations like the ones I have worked with and other organizations that we work with. I think that that journey has to continue within our sector. And it is, it is, it's happening globally. Certainly in global fora, you see that that's manifested, that greater equality, that greater voice, that greater agency across the sector. And I think that's profoundly challenging to organizations in Canada and in the global north about what our rules should be and to be a little bit more modest in terms of our claims about what we are doing. But again, to think very profoundly about our role within the sector. 

There is a lot of philanthropic practice that is still, I think, rooted in the ways in which we used to do things in the past, particularly around giving things out and not thinking about the ecosystems in which people live, the networks within which people live and how those are affected by the work that we do.  I'm worried that the commitment of the global community to ongoing support for the development efforts of many, many countries is declining. Even where the rhetoric is still quite strong, as in Canada or in some Northern European countries, the resources are becoming more constrained in this regard. And of course, there's a little bit of a hostility to the work that we do. For me, that means one can get a little bit despondent about all of that. But I think it means that the importance of our work is greater now than ever.

 For most of my career, I was in a sector in which we were seeing positive trends across the globe, lots of challenges, some setbacks, some really awful things being in East Africa during the Rwandan genocide was horrible, but the general trend was still very positive towards the eradication of poverty, the opening up of civic space, the enhancement of rights, the emergence of more democratic regimes, and that now all seems to be challenged. And I think in that context, it's possible to be a little bit despondent, but I think the exact opposite is both possible and necessary, that we understand that our work is more important now than ever, but that we probably have to reimagine the ways in which we do that work. That not to rely upon the thinking of 60-year-old people like me or of the habits and intuitions or programming of organizations that are currently well established. To certainly think about and learn from them, but be prepared and creative to think about new ways, new forms, new networks, new methodologies through which we can advance the causes that are dear to our hearts.

Malika Daya (33:25): Thank you, Chris. And you kind of answered my next question, but I'll still pose it in case anything else comes up that you want to share. But along this line of feeling despondent at times or like feeling a little helpless when we're looking at the complex urgent crises and deep rooted global inequalities that are existing around us, how in your career did you stay motivated to keep centering the work?

Chris Eaton (33:58): So I think the way in which I coped with some of those challenges was by staying engaged. That was the antidote to hopelessness was to actually be actively involved in constructive initiatives in one form or another, constructive relationships with people who are struggling in this context. Organizations that were thinking meaningfully about this kind of the challenges we were facing and were trying to do something about it. That was the antidote to hopelessness is staying engaged, staying involved.

Malika Daya (34:41): Thank you, thank you. And one final question for you is, given your experience and where you are now, what advice would you give to students who are in the IDS Co-op, who are in international development or thinking about going into international development right now?

Chris Eaton (35:02) So I guess I would recommend a few things and it certainly applies to people in the co-op program, but maybe also to people more broadly, young people more broadly or recent graduates more broadly. Don't substitute money for experience. Gain as much insightful and challenging experiences as you can. Sample different kinds of work as often as you can and as early as you can. That will inform both of what you want to do and how you're going to do it. So experience is really, really, really valuable.

I would say secondly, try to resist the temptation to become overly dogmatic in your views about development. Read, listen, experience widely, even or especially with perspectives that make you a little bit uncomfortable. And be challenged and be open, and try to find the kernels of truth even in things that are challenging for you  while not necessarily buying into everything. But try and resist the urge to become overly dogmatic because I think over time you will probably develop a more nuanced perspective. And if you can develop a more nuanced perspective to the challenges that we're facing earlier, you have the potential to be even more effective than you otherwise would be. 

And I think the third thing I would say is try and be both a generalist and develop some deeper knowledge and expertise on something that really, really interests you. So have a wide understanding of the broad issues that you are interested in, but choose, you know, a few areas where you're just going to dig down a little bit deeper and something that you're passionate about, you know, durable solutions for refugees or for forcibly displaced youth. In my experience market systems development, which I cannot talk about enough and I just love, or human rights or whatever it is, but within a context of a broader knowledge about development, our sector, the geographies and the places in which you're interested in working or engaging, about the social movements that are out there and the kinds of impacts that they're having. So both broad and deep.

Malika Daya (37:31): Thank you. Thank you so much for all that you shared with us over the span of this podcast and for joining us. I feel like all of the students and early career practitioners and people who've been doing this for a long time will have so much to gain. So thank you.

Chris Eaton (37:48): Thank you, it was my pleasure, my real pleasure.

Malika Daya (37:53): That's a wrap on today's episode of From Campus to Career. Thank you listeners for joining us. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow the Knowledge Equity Lab on LinkedIn and Instagram for updates on our upcoming episodes. Hope you'll tune in for our future episodes with some incredible development practitioners. See you soon.