About Maria Odiamar Racho

My name is Maria Odiamar Racho, and I'm part of the nu prime cohort. I'm a senior manager of the organizational effectiveness team at Allstate Corporation. I'm also a co-founder of an employee resource group called Entrepreneurs at Allstate.

The way the Master's in Organization Development program changed the trajectory of my life is I kind of stumbled upon this field of OD. It spoke to me and I realized that this is work that I want to do, my life's work that I wanted to do. There is work that I wanted to do in the Philippines at some point in time, which is where I was born. MSOD's international aspects of the program is what really drew me, and the practical application. But what I actually took away from the program was the confidence and the ability to truly be that instrument of change. The legacy that I'd love to leave behind of what I have taken away from MSOD is the belief that we are enough. The tools and methods and all of that that help equip us to do the work, this work, and have impact that we want to, but our presence and our heart and our spirit, that that is enough to be able to influence change.

In the next 10 years, I intend to create self-sustaining incubators in the poorest areas of the Philippines, that mobilizes their local networks. My hope is to be able to help those people and those communities create better economic situations for themselves.

The life lessons that I've developed from this program continue to unfold. It's been seven years since I graduated, but I still continue to get to learn about myself and the world around me and my impact on the world. It just continues to give me clarity around my purpose and what I'm meant to do in this world.