Nairobi, Jan. 8 -- By the time she got the gig as the Assistant Secretary-General; CEO & Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Sanda Ojiambo's world, and in extension, the whole world had been thrown into, to appropriate a pandemic buzzword, "quarantine."

The deal was, she had to move to New York, "the epicentre of the pandemic," as she remembers it now. Not that it fazed her. She may have been restricted, but Ms Ojiambo possesses an energy that can't be contained.

So she moved, she did what she had to do, weighing the privileges against the deprivations, the checks and balances of success.

Now leading the world's largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative, Ms Ojiambo's career began in 1997 with CARE International in ...