who and how
Put Faith To Work was started in 2004 by Leonardo Radomile when he was a student at Harvard Divinity School. Working with the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston, Radomile developed an entrepreneurship curriculum based on biblical principles and the best learning in business development and psychology, and began teaching, organizing, and helping inner-city residents start their own businesses. The success of the two pilot programs with almost 300 participants led to an invitation for Leonardo to teach a similar course in the cocurricular program at Harvard's Kennedy School where he was doing advanced work in entrepreneurship.
Leonardo's story is somewhat unique. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, he was an international business lawyer who later became a venture capitalist and a founding director of a mutual fund. Though he enjoyed considerable success, he always knew that he had never found his life's calling, and experienced the emptiness so many feel going through the motions of work rather than living a life with a true religious calling. In the mid 1980's he overreached his success and was engaged in a series of transactions that resulted in his incarceration in a federal prison for three years. It was there that he realized how living a false life eventually leads to disaster. It was also there that he experienced, for the first time, the power of God through Christ in his life.
Challenged to recreate his life, he began the process of rebuilding, searching for God's calling in his life rather than pursuing the accumulation of wealth. He began an intense study of Scripture, psychology, and business, and began working with inner city residents, starting academic and business development programs. His work led him to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University in biblical studies and entrepreneurship where he was greatly influenced by the work of Professors Jon Levenson, Howard Gardner, Martin Seligman, and John Kotter. Since taking his degrees at Harvard from the Divinity School and the Kennedy School, he has devoted himself to helping others find what he has: living God's plan for his life, doing what he loves and what he enjoys with people he cares about, and making a difference. In 2007 Leonardo received the Harvard Club Award for his teaching of faith based entrepreneurship and in 2008, he taught a course at Harvard's Kennedy School on faith based social enterprise.
