40 Stanford Social Innovation Review / Fall 2019 Diasporan communities have too often been overlooked in business ventures aimed at both increas- ing profit and providing social good. Entrepreneurial migrants can serve as powerful forces in the global economy by functioning as transnational brokers to connect nations, economies, and resources. , Mobile Innovators I know you expect me to say come home,” Zambia’s then presi- dent Levy Mwanawasa said to Zambian diasporans during his trip to the United States in 2004. “I am not going to do that. I have no jobs to give you. Work here and send money home.” 1 More recently, U.S. News & World Report ran the headline “Sub-Saharan Africa Bleeds Skilled Labor as ‘Brain Drain’ Continues” in an article about some African nations’ inabil- ity to retain skilled labor. Does the future of developing economies depend on a simple tradeof between remittances and brain drain? Or is there an alternative path where migrants can return home—even temporarily—to create new opportunities for economic growth? While studying at Northwestern University, Francis Laurel, a member of a prominent political family in the Philippines, became close friends with Tadahiro Yoshida, whose father owned a zipper company in Japan. A few years after receiving their MBAs, they launched what is now the YKK Fastening Products Group, with operations in Japan and the Philippines. When the pair started in 1977, the Philippines was not a major destination for global manufac- turers. Without the personal connection formed in graduate school, Yoshida probably would not have chosen to invest in the Philippines, and without Laurel’s personal and political connections in the Philippines, it is unlikely that the venture would have survived. Today, it can be hard to fnd a product with a zipper made by any- body else. As the global stock of migrants continues to expand, and as overseas investment by multinational frms becomes ever more central to the global economy, migrant collaboration and entrepre- neurship has become the story of how global business is done. BY JENNIFER M. BRINKERHOFF & BENJAMIN A. T. GRAHAM Illustration by Lisk Feng Our research confirms that diasporans—migrants and their descendants who sustain a connection to their home country—can operate as transnational brokers with a distinct advantage: They can act as trusted intermediaries who broker relationships between their home countries and their countries of residence, connecting people and integrating resources and institutions from both places. Diasporans’ transnational brokerage works from the inside out—such as facilitating government-led institutional reform in their countries of origin by connecting ofcials to overseas resources, including tech- nical expertise—as well as from the outside in, such as by enabling multinational frms to invest in diasporans’ home countries. Discussions of the migration crises in Europe and the United States have focused on the short-term difculties of settling and integrating migrants into their new countries of residence. But new research focusing primarily on those who elect to migrate—as opposed to those who are forced to flee their home country— continues to reveal surprising benefits from migration for both the home countries and the new countries of residence. Research fndings even suggest that migrants compelled to leave because of political confict or unrest can eventually generate such benefts. As countries like Syria, Libya, and Venezuela seek to rebuild their economies and political institutions in the wake of violence and political instability, migrants may represent their home country’s greatest resource. And as some of these migrants opt to forge new connections between their countries of origin and their new ones, these diasporans can provide opportunities for firms and other stakeholders in their countries of residence as well. TRANSNATIONAL BROKERS Jennifer M. Brinkerhof (this article’s coauthor) set out to investi- gate how individual diasporans, rather than large diaspora groups, could have a profound and lasting infuence in their countries of