A message from JA San Diego President & CEO Sidd Vivek:

Before the New Year, I was privileged and extremely fortunate to engage in a professional experience I hope more in San Diego are able to have in different ways.

In late November, and as one of twenty Junior Achievement (JA) CEO’s from around the world, I joined more than 300 board members, JA executives, and students for a week of learning and inspiration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the JA Worldwide Global Leadership Conference (GLC) and JA Americas Company of the Year competition.

The week beautifully intertwined vision and inspiration with strategy and tactics. From sessions on leveraging artificial intelligence within our operations to talking to students from Canada, Central and South America, and the Caribbean as they “pitched” their nascent student companies to us.

The experience highlighted the value of a global organization with alignment around mission and values that are informed by regional and cultural context. It is both humbling and inspiring to sit with colleagues from different parts of the world and learn how our respective work is empowering students to achieve economic and social mobility across the globe.

While there were too many highlights to list, two things are worth noting:

Pictured right from left: Cesar Asiatico, JA Dominican Republic; Nelo Spies, JA South Africa; Rachael Mwagale, JA Uganda; Sunah Lee, JA South Korea; Andzelika Rusteikiene, JA Lithuania; Dinu Raheja, India; Samar Dani, JA Lebanon; Sidd Vivek, JA San Diego

  • I’m especially grateful to be a part of a cohort of leaders (more info on the program and my colleagues here) who met together at this event; and later this spring, will host exchanges with their partner region. I’m excited and lucky to be paired with Bernardo Brugnoli, CEO of Argentina, and we’re planning for our exchange to each of regions later this spring/early summer.
  • I met up with Aline de A. Moreira Neglia, Executive Director of JA Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). She is not only an alum of JA programming, she interned in San Diego 20+ years ago and helped coordinate JA San Diego hosting an intern from her region earlier in 2025. Full circle moment!!!

Pictured from right to left: Sidd Vivek, JA San Diego; Aline Fritsch, JA Rio Grande do Su; JA Rio Grande do Su Student Alum

It was truly powerful to be a part of a group of people who do not necessarily share culture or language or heritage and yet are aligned and fully committed in in purpose and mission. I left most moved by the words of a new friend – Simi Nwogugu, who brought JA to her home country of Nigeria and is currently CEO of JA Africa. She shared a simple sentiment about the impact she and her colleagues across the African continent work towards: through JA programming and mentors, “… we are teaching our youth how to solve.”

In the context of San Diego and our challenges with affordability, our ability to help students start planning for their economic future, in a way that makes sense for each individual youth, is our most critical task… and I’m uplifted knowing there are colleagues on every continent who share that mission.

JA Americas student companies participating in JA Company of the Year Competition.

Students pitching their businesses at the JA Company of the Year Competition.