How Covid-19 Brought Out the Best in Some Business Leaders

No one could have predicted the chaos which ensued as the Covid-19 pandemic made its way across the world. Entire economies quickly ground to a halt as the virus spread, and governments and public health bodies worldwide made the difficult decision to introduce isolation and quarantine mandates. 

As weeks stretched to months, the situation became increasingly complex, and many companies found that they had to restructure dramatically to maintain viability. We are now nearly twenty months into the world’s biggest health crisis for the last hundred years and, for many people around the world, it looks like we have turned a corner of sorts. 

The vaccine rollout has meant that people worldwide, particularly in the Global North, have access to the most effective health measure possible to limit the spread of Covid-19 and the severity of the virus when transmitted. Companies and business sectors are beginning to reignite and reimagine their business plans and functioning to accommodate the new needs of their employees and public health mandates. 

There were many business leaders who either drastically reduced their workforce as soon as possible as soon as the pandemic set in and some who also managed their businesses in such a way as to profit from the pandemic. That is the reality of unfettered capitalism. 

However, several business leaders stood up during the pandemic and made a tangible difference in their communities. Below are some of the inspirational business leaders who helped their communities get through the pandemic. 

Dr. Malini Saba established the Anannke Foundation, which provides healthcare and medical attention, and assistance to women and children experiencing poverty. The efforts of the Anannke Foundation are funded by Dr. Saba’s privately held Saba Group Holdings, an agriculture and trade company. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Anannke Foundation focused on providing PPE kits and food to the communities that were hit the hardest by the virus. In addition to donating food and PPE kits, the Anannke Foundation and Dr. Saba expressed a commitment to continue to assist in the recovery from the pandemic. 

Dr. Saba is a philanthropist and businesswoman with a decades-long career. According to the Malini Saba CrunchBase profile, she is also a single mother, psychologist, author, and advocate for the rights of women and girls around the world. 

As the efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic slowly begin to succeed and push back on the virus and its transmission, Dr. Saba will continue to provide help and assistance to the poorest communities around the world through the Anannke Foundation. 

Michelle Penczak is the CEO of Squared Away, an extremely innovative company that hires military spouses as virtual personal assistants to executives and teams in the commercial sector. Penczak is already helping families across America by providing steady, meaningful work for military spouses, but she went the extra mile during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Penczak is aware of the stress and strain that her employees are under – as parents, military spouses, and as employees during the pandemic. To help her employees through the crisis, Penczak gave all her staff her personal phone number so that they could give her a call whenever they needed to. In interviews, she made clear that the pandemic increased her compassion and understanding. As a result, she ensured she would always be there for her employees to rely on, professionally and emotionally. 

Paulette Pantoja is the CEO of Blu Digital Group, a full-service provider of solutions, logistics, licensing, and quality assurance for content creators and tech developers in the media industry. The company is still young and is in a critical stage of development, so it would not have been surprising for the entire company to collapse during the pandemic, especially as many content creators fell silent for the majority of 2020. 

However, Pantoja did not lose focus during the pandemic; instead, she has viewed the pandemic as a challenge to overcome. The entire team at Blu Digital has been supported through the health crisis. Pantoja has successfully steered the company through one of the most commercially turbulent years in modern history. 

Talia Kovacs is the CEO of LitLife, a platform that provides resources for teachers and families to provide at-home education. When the company first launched, its focus was on delivering literacy consultancy services. Kovacs was able to help retrain her staff and innovate the product to pivot and successfully develop and provide some of the best at-home learning resources currently available. Even better, these resources are free so that all children can take advantage of them.