A little background – Jane Goodall was born in London in 1934. She recalled her father giving her a stuffed chimpanzee when she was a little girl, and credits the toy as her first inspiration and origin for her desire to learn more about primates. In 1957, Jane traveled to Kenya with money earned from waitressing. In Africa, Jane reached out to Louis and Mary Leakey, famed paleontologists, who first gave her a secretarial job at the National Museum in Nairobi, and then invited her to work with them in their archaeological digs. With the support of the Leakeys, Jane traveled to Tanzania, where she began her observation of chimpanzees in in 1960. Jane earned her PhD in Ethology (the study of non-human animals) with the completion of her thesis, The Behavior of Free-living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve and the rest, as they say, is history.
An amazing person, no doubt, but an entrepreneur? Well, for starters, the “seed” funding for Jane’s initial travel to Africa was her own capital earned from waitressing, a familiar story to many budding entrepreneurs. You will probably also not be surprised to learn that in the 1950s and early ‘60s, primatology and scientific fields were reluctant to accept and give credit to the work of women—Jane was one of only three women studying great apes in the 1960s and 1970s. Jane’s work inspired new generations of women to enter these fields.
There is, however, so much more to Jane’s entrepreneurial attributes than her ability to gain acceptance and respect in a male-dominated field. Through her mentor, Louis Leakey, she realized recognition of her studies required academic qualification, so she pursued (and acquired) a PhD, despite having no bachelors degree or formal scientific education. Taking fundamental preliminary measures and laying important groundwork are the first steps down the path to almost all successful entrepreneurial endeavors.
Jane’s signature trait—her patience, demonstrated through the countless hours, days, and years she spent quietly and unobtrusively observing—is also key to business sustainability. Rather than swooping in (usually followed by quick swooping out), successful entrepreneurs must develop long-term strategies and solutions for growth and enduring success. But Jane’s entrepreneurial mind also demonstrated an amazing capacity to look at the world from a new perspective, seeing chimps’ behaviors in ways that had never been observed before. For example, watching a chimp use blade of grass to pull termites from their mound, she recognized that chimpanzees can develop and use tools. At one point, Jane tried feeding bananas to her chimpanzee study subjects, but abandoned that tactic when she saw it made the chimps more aggressive to each other. The ability to adapt and challenge your own understandings, sometimes requiring a pivot in business plans, is another key to an entrepreneur’s success.
There’s so much more to be said and admired about Jane Goodall, but I’ll wrap up with a list of the ways in which Jane not only personified an entrepreneurial spirit, but was an actual entrepreneur herself:
- She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support research at Gombe Stream. The Institute has grown to 25 offices supporting a variety of research and other programs. In 2018, the Institute began to enter into partnerships with two natural personal care product brands that donate a percentage of sales to the Jane Goodall Institute.
- She founded Roots and Shoots in 1991, creating programs intended to foster animal and environmental programs and activities for youth. The initiative is active in over 75 countries.
- She founded the Tchimpounga Rehabilitation Centre in the Republic of Congo, caring for orphaned chimps.
- In 2017, she founded the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation to support the ongoing operation and viability of her work and other initiatives.
- She has authored multiple books educating and encouraging all to embrace environmentalism and conservation causes.
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