Former Peruvian President and 1972 Wharton graduate Francisco Sagasti spoke at the Perry World House on April 5 about the "art of governance."
This event was co-sponsored by PWH and TEDxPenn and moderated by Juan Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Penn Biden Center and former National Security Council director for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Throughout the event, Sagasti discussed how governance is prevalent in both our personal and political lives and how his Penn education played a vital role in his political career.
Sagasti received his Ph.D. from Wharton in operations research and social systems sciences, which he said was helpful in “put[ting] together many different strands of thought into practice with respect to government.” He became the president of Peru in 2020, following the impeachment and resignation of his two predecessors within the span of a week.
“It was not expected, but I was not unprepared, which allowed me to act in a sensible way,” Sagasti said.
Sagasti inherited a nation affected by the pandemic and socioeconomic turmoil. Within the span of five months, he worked to secure COVID-19 vaccine doses, reactivated the economy, and instituted a successful general election and peaceful transition of power. Sagasti decided not to run for re-election to focus on the issues at hand.
Through this talk, Sagasti discussed how he achieved these results of his presidency through his understanding of governance. Sagasti broke governance, the act of setting a course of action, down into three main areas: an initial approach, acts of appreciation, and outcome.
In terms of initial approach, Sagasti described the need to understand the context of the events occurring in terms of both the situation and the stakeholders involved. Acts of appreciation involve putting together one's values to determine in which direction to act, leading to a given outcome.
Sagasti attributed this analysis of governance to the social systems approach that he learned through his time at Penn. He then discussed how he applied these acts of governance through the major achievements of his presidency and how each act plays an essential role in taking action, an important aspect of everyone’s life.
“It was nice to hear from a leader who actually has experience and was able to integrate what he learned from Penn into his actual leadership experience,” College sophomore Louis Li said.
Sagasti finished his talk with the hope that the audience, along with others throughout the world, will “recognize the possibilities of Latin America and replace corrupt politicians with those who care about the common good.”
The PWH event preceded Sagasti's speech at TEDxPenn on April 6, where he joined nine other speakers from different backgrounds who discussed the theme "Limits to Infinity."
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