Social Impact Heroes: Eliza Pesuit of Global Glimpse on How Individuals and Organizations Making an Important Social Impact
You are worthy of investment and mentorship. As a young female founder, I experienced a great deal of self-doubt and insecurity. It took me years to build self-confidence, learn not to let fear take the driver’s seat, and trust my hard work and intuition.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eliza Pesuit.
Eliza Pesuit is the founding CEO of Global Glimpse, an innovative nonprofit that works to make transformative travel, leadership, and global learning opportunities accessible to high school students from all backgrounds. Under her leadership, the organization has grown tenfold and served over 9,000 students. She has raised over $40 million throughout her career to fund first-time travel scholarships and developed game-changing partnerships with leading brands, including United Airlines, Expedia Group, and Marriott International.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
As the daughter of a Serbian Orthodox father from Ohio’s steel country and a Russian Jewish mother from Boston, I became comfortable with cultural differences early on. Although my childhood was fraught with conflict, it never lacked love, and that duality guides my life’s work of bridging divides through travel.
When I was 20, I traveled alone through South America for six months. That experience completely shifted the way I saw the world, igniting both a passion for travel and an understanding of global inequality. I returned to the U.S. determined to change how Americans understood and engaged with the world, and that was the genesis of Global Glimpse.
We launched Global Glimpse programs in 2009, and under my leadership, the organization has become an industry leader and the only youth travel organization focused on equity and access. I believe that life-changing experiences change lives and every young person should have access to the transformative power of travel.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
As a leader, my philosophy is that things don’t happen to me; things are always happening all around me, and my power lies in how I respond and the moves I make. In 2010, I remember looking at the seatback screen on a United Airlines flight and thinking that Global Glimpse should be on the seatback. At the time, corporate social responsibility was really nascent, and no one was tying business priorities to impact strategy. I saw it in my mind — alignment across in-kind donatoins, storytelling, brand elevation and opportunities for employee engagement. It just made sense. That idea spurred an eight-year mission to create a new avenue for impact in the travel industry, culminating in Global Glimpse signing a multi-million-dollar, first-of-its-kind global partnership with United Airlines in 2018. I remember working so hard to prepare this incredible PowerPoint deck and I was so nervous to present to executive leaders at United. Before I even started they told me to forget the presentation and just tell my story, the story of our work, the lives we impacted and my vision for a partnership with United. By the end of the meeting, most of them were in tears, and I walked away with the most significant commitment of my career.
People often ask me how we did that. I mainly attribute it to my belief in people and my perseverance. I don’t give up easily when I have a vision and the universe has brought incredible people into my orbit!
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’ve made so many mistakes over the years, big and small. A funny one, let’s see …
So teachers lead our trips and travel with students. One of our first summers, I got a call on our emergency line from a teacher leading a Global Glimpse program in Nicaragua. She was calling from the police station. She had rented a car on her day off to go to the beach a few hours away, and on her way back to the group, she crashed into a horse and totaled the rental car. The police picked her up and demanded paperwork in order to release her. It definitely wasn’t funny at the moment, but I laugh about it now. Every mistake leads to a new policy, a new structure or a different way of seeing things. Needless to say, instead of teachers renting cars, we now offer connections to vetted local drivers if they want to go on excursions.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
Global Glimpse currently partners with over 100 high schools and youth development organizations across the U.S., with primary markets in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, New York, and Massachusetts. To date, we have provided $17 million in scholarships to make our programs accessible to young people from low-income and underserved backgrounds. This summer, we will welcome our 10,000th student, eclipsing a massive milestone in our organization’s legacy.
The Global Glimpse program builds empathy, agency, and a global perspective, preparing young people to thrive and lead in careers of the future. 98% of our alumni report building valuable relationships with peers from different backgrounds, and 96% say they can better empathize with people from various cultural backgrounds after Global Glimpse. As our alumni progress into the workforce, 86% agree that Global Glimpse helped them become more self-aware and open-minded professionals, and 88% report that Global Glimpse developed their ability to collaborate with colleagues from different backgrounds.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
So many stories here over the years and I receive messages on LinkedIn from alumni regularly sharing how pivotal the Global Glimpse experience was for them. Here are a few alumni profiles that really bring the impact to life!
https://www.globalglimpse.org/news/meet-anthony-from-graduating-ucla-to-empowering-his-community
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
American high schools, communities, and neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial, ethnic, and economic lines. Students lack diverse learning spaces supporting authentic connections between young people from different backgrounds, furthering division and economic inequality. We have a responsibility to support a new generation of diverse American leaders in developing their perspectives, skills, and commitment to working together across divides to solve national and global problems.
I consider myself a change agent, working to bridge divides by bringing young people from different backgrounds together to learn about the world and their roles within it. Travel pushes you out of your comfort zone and creates an even playing field where relationships can form — many that are impossible within the confines of everyday society.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I wrote a leadership oath for myself many years ago and have it on my wall. It’s pretty long, so I’ll try to summarize it here.
My core leadership values are integrity, accountability, transparency and humility. I strive to live my core values even, and especially when things become uncomfortable. I will never ask others — be they partners, team members, or friends — to work harder or give more of themselves than I do. I strive to lead by example in every aspect of my personal and professional life.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1 . Nonprofits are businesses.
So much misinformation, idealism, and passion surrounds nonprofits, but charity model is fundamentally broken. It took me a long time to figure this out, innovate, and build a sustainable impact model. I wish I had known more about business and financial strategy in the early years of building Global Glimpse. I had to learn everything the long, hard way.
2 . Everyone is human.
I was intimidated by big titles and wealth in the early years because I didn’t grow up around any of that. I’m a small-town girl; I went to a public high school and a public university. My parents were the least pretentious people in the world. It took me many years to really understand that everyone is human, no matter what they do, where they live, or how much money they have or don’t have. This is a fundamental part of my work; seeing past all the fluff has made me a much stronger leader, manager, community builder, and fundraiser.
3 . Philanthropy is not charity; it’s partnership.
I had this epiphany in 2014 when I was beginning to understand the intricacies of fundraising. It was a game-changer. In a philanthropic partnership, there is an exchange of value, purpose, and relationship, and both sides gain equally. The organization gains critical resources to deliver on its mission, and the donor gains a meaningful relationship and a vital avenue to drive the change they care about.
4. You are worthy of investment and mentorship.
As a young female founder, I experienced a great deal of self-doubt and insecurity. It took me years to build self-confidence, learn not to let fear take the driver’s seat, and trust my hard work and intuition. My first real mentor came into my life in 2018, and she showed me what proper investment and mentorship look like. I wish someone had shown me that kind of love earlier in my career; it would have saved me many years of pain and self-doubt.
5. You can have it all, just not at the same time.
I’m now a CEO, a mother, a caretaker for my mother, and many other things, and over the years, I’ve doubted whether I could do all of these things in my life. I now know that I can and understand there is a season for everything. Nothing worth doing in this life is easy and I there are times when I have to give my all to work and other times when I have to give my all to family, friends and community. There is an ebb and flow that I embrace at this stage that felt so impossible in the early days.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My vision is to transform how we think about education in the United States. Education should inspire, unlock potential, and foster understanding. We need to get young people out of the classroom and into the world in ways that build empathy, agency, and perspective.
Travel is the most potent form of education. My dream is to build a model that makes it accessible to young people from all backgrounds in communities that lack opportunity across the United States. I see a future where high school students have opportunities to learn through experience and build authentic relationships with peers and mentors from different backgrounds.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My father always said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Actually, he would say, “When the going gets tough, the Pesuits get going.” I’ve repeated this mantra to myself during the most challenging moments in my life to find the strength to keep going. Extraordinary things are built over time and take extraordinary effort and resilience.
My dad passed away a few years ago, and the other quote he always said was, “This too shall pass.” I have these words tattooed on my forearm to remind me of the impermanence of each moment, good or bad, and they inspire me to live into every moment as he would want me to.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Yes! Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. I started Global Glimpse in San Francisco in 2008 when he started Airbnb, and I’ve followed his journey over the years. I think he would resonate with our work on a deep human level, especially the ways we are combatting isolation and loneliness for young people, and there could be incredible ways to collaborate. I’d also love to meet Brian Kelly, The Points Guy, to see what we could do together!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Visit globalglimpse.org or follow us at @globalglimpse.
Get involved! Donate to the First Time Travel Fund, bring Global Glimpse to a school or an organization in your community, or volunteer to lead one of our trips.
Social Impact Heroes: Eliza Pesuit of Global Glimpse on How Individuals and Organizations Making an… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.