A Kolbe Times Conversation with Esther Benjamin

Esther Benjamin has experienced a remarkable journey, from her early years growing up in a small village in northern Sri Lanka, to becoming a global executive in the public, private, and civil society sectors for over 25 years. She has led humanitarian programs in many countries around the world. Among other roles, Esther served in President Obama’s administration as Associate Director for Global Operations for the Peace Corps. She oversaw Peace Corps programs in nearly 80 countries.

Esther is currently CEO and Executive Director of World Education Services (WES), a non-profit social enterprise that paves the way for success for refugees, immigrants and international students by advocating for and providing credential evaluation services. Join us for our delightful chat with Esther, as we learn more about her passion to uplift and support individuals as they seek to achieve their goals, by enabling them to learn, work and thrive in new places.

For more information about World Education Services, visit their website:

Transcript of the Interview:

Bill Locke
Esther, welcome to Kolbe Times.

Esther Benjamin
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to join you.

Bill Locke
Well, thank you so much. I’ve read about you, and I’ve read about the organization that you’re currently leading – World Education Services – but I don’t really know you at all, so I’m hoping to get to know you. I consider this kind of a sacred opportunity, to learn more not only about you and your work, but the nature of the beast that you’re involved with. Through your organization you’re helping many, many people get what they deserve, I guess you might say, and kind of equalizing opportunities and giving people access.  But before we talk about your work, I want to know more about you and your background.

Esther Benjamin
Sure. You know, where we come from often defines the kind of work we end up doing for the rest of our lives, right?  And that is certainly the case for me. I was born in northern Sri Lanka, in a village called Murunkan, in a tiny hospital which I’ve visited since. Who knew what my life would hold? My grandfather was a very respected elder in the community, and he was a teacher. He was an educator and he made sure that everyone in our community valued education. And he promoted education to boys and girls alike, and prioritized education for his own children. My parents then would become the first in their generation, to complete secondary school and to go on to get a university education. My mom became a teacher, and my father became a pastor in the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, and later a United Methodist pastor in the United States. He also became an Old Testament theology professor. He taught world religions and really impressed upon us the importance of understanding across cultures and nationalities and across religions as well. So this kind of upbringing really informed who I became, thereafter. I grew up on the move, and anyone who is the child of a pastor knows that you’re not going to live in any one place for long. So mobility was a big part of my childhood, as we moved from community to community, from church to church, with my father’s work. And the theme of mobility is still a part of my work today. In 1976 we moved to the United States where my father earned his Master’s Degree in Austin, Texas. And as a seven-year-old in Austin, Texas, I learned English for the first time.  I remember my first day of school, and being dropped off at school. I think it was only about a month before I became pretty fluent in the language. We then returned back to Sri Lanka, and I went back to school in the Sri Lankan public school system, and then we moved to the capital after there was a cyclone that had destroyed my school in the community where my father was serving. We then moved to yet another community where my father went back to being a part of the faculty of a theological institution. Around then, a civil war broke out. And around that same time, we were starting to think that it would be safer for us to perhaps be overseas. There were threats against the family and especially my father at the start of the Civil War. And that brought us back to the United States in 1982. I was 13 at that time. And this kind of mobility, between countries, between regions, between communities in the same country in Asia, all defined who I became. The family held close to certain values that never changed. The primacy of education, the importance of pursuing opportunities, when so many don’t have a chance to pursue a broad base of opportunities, pursuing education and opportunity with excellence in mind, and with an enterprising spirit; all these were also important for the family. We were a self-reliant family. We made sure that we took care of the family, and make sure that our livelihood was taken care of. And we also believed in going beyond the family, and service was so important to the family. Giving back was an incredible priority for me and the family over time. And those who know me, know that I often say, “To whom much is given, much as expected.” So that’s a little bit about my childhood and adolescence and the moves between countries and regions, which really informed the work that I have continued to do thereafter.

Bill Locke
Here are some keywords in your introduction, Esther: mobility, education, enterprising, and service. Would it be fair to say those are key words for your career, and you might say your ministries; the areas of service that you’ve been involved with?

Esther Benjamin
Absolutely. Service has been central; looking beyond myself to the community, whether that is a local community or the global community. I’ve always believed in going beyond oneself, and really focusing on the improvement of the human condition, the global condition, and making a contribution to society in what we do day in and day out, and year over year.

Bill Locke
So along the way, there must have been some people or some experiences that transformed you, maybe moved you ahead, or brought more focus to you. Can you tell me about any of those?

Esther Benjamin
I worked in Somalia during the humanitarian crisis in 1993 and ’94. That was a pivotal moment in my career, where I saw, right before my eyes, the destruction of civil war once again. I had left Sri Lanka, but certainly the war in Sri Lanka was something that was always on my mind and certainly on the mind of my family – and then to go to Somalia at the start of my career, and to work in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, to work as a United Nations humanitarian officer – all of those were important early experiences. And then in 2007 and 2008, I had the privilege of working on the Obama campaign, and being a part of the historic election of President Obama, and becoming a part of his transition team and then joining the administration, and being appointed by the President to be head of worldwide operations for the United States Peace Corps – that was a key experience in my life. What an honor to serve President Obama. And I also had a chance to work under President Clinton before that. And then in 2013, I moved to South Africa and became the CEO of a university called Monash South Africa, a leading private institution. And I led that institution together with a strong team, and we had about 4,000 students from virtually every country in Africa. That was an incredible experience. I was just back in South Africa two weeks ago, and I continue to stay in touch with my former students. So these were all really important experiences for me; experiences that continued to shape me, experiences that gave me the opportunity to give back – and along the way, there were so many people who influenced who I became. Ambassador James Joseph was US Ambassador to South Africa during the Nelson Mandela administration in the early years of democracy in South Africa. I participated in a number of his fellowship programs, and binational programs between the US and South Africa. He was an incredibly influential figure in my life. There’s a book behind me by Ambassador Joseph, who also happens to be an ordained Baptist minister, who was also a diplomat and a Foundation executive and a corporate leader. The book behind me is a book he wrote called Saved For A Purpose. I worked for a cabinet member, Secretary Alexis Herman, who had a huge influence on me. And then another mentor of mine is Aaron Williams, who was Peace Corps Director under President Obama and has had a long and impressive career journey. I’ve had mentors in the private sector, as well. And there are so many others who have made such a strong impression on me.

Bill Locke
You’re a global citizen, I can see, not only from your work but from having lived and immigrated to different countries to different cultures and worlds. I don’t know a ton about immigration, because I’m a third-generation Canadian. But the people I know who have immigrated, including, for example, my son-in-law, who moved here from Kenya, have had to go through tremendous upheaval. Immigrants, I think, to any new country are going to experience tremendous challenges, not the least of which is to be recognized for what they bring to the country. And not just educational credentials, but to be treated as an equal in a new place. You went through it.

Esther Benjamin
Yes, immigrants face incredible opportunities and also a ton of challenges. It’s been an honour to have a global career. I actually ended up working in over 100 countries over the course of different chapters of my career. And today, there are about 300 million people who live in a country other than where they were born – 300 million people! And that number is only going to keep growing. And it’s going to keep growing because people are going to go to other countries to study; people are going to leave their home countries because of political developments in their country, because of war. People are going to leave their countries because they want to pursue better economic opportunities as well. And I think, new for us and for our children, will be people who move because of challenges related to the environment and climate. So all of these forces will have people on the move, and they will face challenges. We at World Education Services focus on inclusion. And we focus on inclusion from the perspective of educational inclusion, in terms of employment and economic inclusion, and also from the perspective of social inclusion. So at World Education Services – or WES, as we’re known – we work at the intersection of education, and employment, and migration. And that’s the work that I get to do every day. Our vision is that everyone is able to put their education, experience and skills to work anywhere in the world. That’s our broad vision. And our mission, which is more specific, is to help people learn and work and thrive in new places. We also work to make sure that society recognizes the value of people’s education and experience, regardless of where that education was completed, or where that experience was gained. So that is the work that we do every day. And, you know, our values at the organization – I’ve talked about some of my personal values – and at World Education Services, our values are opportunity, and equity, and inclusion. Another value for us is consistent with my own personal values, and that is to be enterprising. The work that we do requires creative approaches, and approaches that we’re revising and adapting all the time to a world that is constantly changing. So to be enterprising is an important value for us. And then we work on education and workforce employment issues. So there’s the level of expertise that we need to maintain, and that is a value as well. WES has been around for 50 years, so we have a strong track record that has been developed over time, and many colleagues before me helped to build a strong organization that is thriving. We also work as a social enterprise, which is a very interesting model. We are a nonprofit organization. However, we do not have donors, we are not funded by government or foundations. There is a service that we provide, and that service, developed over time, is a global credential evaluation service, meaning that you can bring to us any qualification that you may have earned from any educational institution in any country of the world – and we have 50 years of experience in verifying and authenticating that educational qualification. And we are also able to determine the equivalence of that qualification in a Canadian context or in a US context. And this is one of the major contributions of WES. So over the years, we have evaluated credentials from 206 countries and territories, and we’ve worked with about 50,000 educational organizations in all these countries. We have seen just about every kind of qualification, and our staff are even experts at grading scales. You know, we have a specific grading scale in Canada, in the US, and in every country. And so we have to convert units and grades and grade point averages and that’s an expertise we have as well. So our 400 staff who work all over Canada and the United States, and now in India, as well, are experts in educational systems. So that is our credential evaluation work, and we also have a whole range of social impact initiatives. That’s the work I’m doing every day, along with 400 colleagues who are extraordinary, and incredibly dedicated, talented individuals.

Bill Locke
Let’s bring it down to earth. Can you give me an example of an immigrant who needed to get credentialed, or receive recognition for educational background?

Esther Benjamin
Every year, we serve about 500,000 people from all over the world. Let’s take the example of an individual from the Philippines, who has a nursing qualification, and perhaps they have a Bachelor of Science, and they’re also a registered nurse in the Philippines, their country of origin. They may seek to immigrate to Canada to pursue a better job situation for themselves, and to pursue a better economic situation for their families. And they would move to Canada through the Skilled Immigration Program – and there’s also a Federal Skilled Worker Program. They would submit a variety of documents that are necessary for this process, and in that process, they would bring their Bachelor of Science qualification to us. And we would evaluate that qualification; we would be directly in touch with the university from which they earned that degree, and we would verify that they earned that degree from that university and that this individual, in fact, earned that qualification. And we would verify that the transcript that they have shared and the grades that they’ve earned are, in fact, an accurate reflection of what they completed. And this verification and evaluation is used as a part of their transition; their application to immigrate. And if they’re successful in their immigration process, they would arrive in Canada. Oftentimes, these individuals, even though they are registered nurses in the Philippines, would face other barriers. They would need to become licensed registered nurses in the Canadian context and based on their own education and experience, they may need to address any gaps that they may have, in order to take on the roles that they’re trying to take on. They would need to go through a licensing process, and the evaluation report would be a key part of that process. Several years ago, this process sometimes could take up to two or three years. Our service enables individuals to shorten that timeframe and to get to work as soon as possible. So we want to make sure people get credit for their education; that people get recognition for the experience that they bring; and that they are able to get credit for the license that they may have; and that they can get to work and be productively contributing to the country and taking care of their families, once they immigrate.

Bill Locke
This is a very valuable service that WES is providing. I would hazard a guess that there are certain professions or maybe certain jurisdictions where there is resistance to accepting people as professionals; not only education but the licensing. I’ve seen among immigrants from, for example, Nigeria, doctors who have struggled greatly to be recognized in any kind of professional way. They’re essentially having to start all over again, when they want to practice in Canada and face really, I think, difficult stigmas associated with being from that country or from Africa.

Esther Benjamin
That’s absolutely the case. I had a conversation recently with a Nigerian doctor who’s still facing difficulties and is teaching at a medical school but hasn’t been able to practice as a doctor, which she was for many years. So it’s absolutely the case, and there’s so much work to do. And that is why over time, we added other components to the work that we do. For the vast majority of our 50 years of operating, primarily focused on the credential evaluation service, now we are working closely with licensing bodies, we’re working closely with the government itself, we’re working with professional associations. And this is what we call our social impact work. We’re working with nonprofit organizations, we’re working with the settlement sector. So much more work needs to be done to make the transition smoother, and to be able to give people the chance to get back to work where they should be.

Bill Locke
It seems to me that it’s counterproductive in our society to be holding back people who have these valuable assets, and contributions that are needed – like, for example, in the medical and health fields, where we have a worker shortage, where there’s great demand, especially for rural areas, or for some other areas where Canadians might not want to practice.

Esther Benjamin
Huge skill needs. There are thousands and sometimes millions of jobs that remain unfilled. And there’s talent available in Canada and the United States that can take those jobs. But access to these jobs is challenging for newcomers. And that’s where WES finds itself working. So the jobs are there, the talent is there, but the matching often doesn’t happen.

Bill Locke
I wonder what other barriers immigrants have in the transition, aside from these purely kind of professional accreditation kinds of issues. What are some other parallel challenges that you have seen, or WES has seen over the years?

Esther Benjamin
Well, there are some people who face challenges as far as the language. So many of the people who are newcomers do speak English and are fluent, but language barriers certainly exist. And another important barrier that we need to find ways to address is around professional networks. I know that having grown up primarily in North America – and I actually grew up in the US, but so many of my family members were in Canada, so I spent a lot of time between both countries – based on the professional experiences that you and I have had and most of our peers have had, we have access to professional networks that are so key. Newcomers to our countries do not have those professional networks, and we’ve seen a number of programs that are aimed at building professional networks for newcomers and that is an important barrier, and there are important solutions to address that as well. And I think people face barriers such as housing – there’s a huge challenge in Canada at the moment around access to affordable housing that is a major barrier as well. And many people are landing in communities where they may have employment, but they don’t have a family community there; they don’t have an extended community of people from their home countries. So integrating into new communities is also often a challenge.

Bill Locke
We all have to keep our chin up, especially during long, long transition periods such as you’re describing. And speaking of keeping ‘chin up’ – how do you keep your chin up, Esther? You’ve got a daunting job description as leader of WES; how do you nurture inspiration in your own life?

Esther Benjamin
Well, I am surrounded by incredible people who are very optimistic and who see possibilities. I’m surrounded by people who are problem solvers, and just big thinkers, and who are always in search of what we can do to improve things. And, you know, I’ve been raised in this way, and I’ve been surrounded by people who reflect this kind of attitude, asking what can we do to improve conditions? I think I approach every day with a ‘contribution’ mindset.  What can I contribute? What can my organization contribute to improve the situation? There is a thinker, a writer, a theologian, named Frederick Buechner, with whom you may be familiar. And Buechner talks a lot about vocation. One of his quotes that I like is “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” So to really find where I love working, that also intersects with the great needs of the world. And his advice is around living fully, bravely, and beautifully, which I think is great advice for challenging times, and not-so-challenging times. But based on a life that has had me moving and living fearlessly at times, this is the approach that I take: to be optimistic, to focus on the possibilities, to see the problems, to find the solutions, and to live fully, bravely and beautifully to the extent you can every day.

Bill Locke
Well, that’s a beautiful way to cap off our conversation. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very, very busy schedule, especially with all your travel, Esther.

Esther Benjamin
Thank you so much. Thank you for the chance to chat with you. Thank you for your thoughtful questions, and thanks to the people who might have a chance to listen to this conversation.