Episode 9 - Becky Kanis Margiotta (A2)

Becky Kanis Margiotta  served an 11 year career in the Army as a Signal Officer. During that time she was stationed in Ft Bragg and Schofield Barracks. She was the first female company commander of a special operations signal company supporting special forces.  In this episode we trace Becky's career back to her cadet experience and the conflict she faced as an "in the closet" gay service member. She describes the challenges she faced with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"; as well as her advocacy as a founding member of Knights Out.  After a rocky transition out of the Army, Becky worked briefly as a stock broker where she was effective, but not fulfilled. A chance phone call to her former Sosh P COL Jay Parker landed her in a new field working to reduce street homelessness in Time Square, New York City with Community Solutions. This would be lead to an 11 year journey with community solutions that culminated with leading a national effort of 186 communities to get 100,000 people housed in four years. She was profiled on 60 minutes for her work.  Becky is the founder and CEO of The Billions Institute that is focused in training global leaders in the techniques to drive large scale change.  Its in Becky’s DNA to lead, educate, support, and encourage others to go beyond the expected and the safe. She has a bias toward productive action. She sets ambitious and specific goals, with deadlines that she actually meets. She uses real-time (or as close to real-time as she can get) data to make continuous improvements. And she is always on the lookout for new and better ways to get the job done. Becky had the tools, the know-how, and the experience to show individuals and organizations what they can and must do if they want to solve problems, rather than remain an endless loop of just managing them. And, being people with a bias toward action and seemingly boundless enthusiasm, she created an organization called the Billions Institute. The kinds of problems the Institute looks to tackle—and solve—are some of the biggest and most urgent: the environment, violence, disease, and poverty. “We think that for a lot of these problems, small-scale solutions may already exist. But they’re not widespread…it’s a question of scale.”