CRGP offers a
Local Guide Service to support organizations that enter unfamiliar cultural and societal settings to finance, design, or develop new projects - i.e. infrastructure, high-tech, transportation, or building projects.
Who are Local Guides?
Local Guides are alumni from the Stanford University Construction, Engineering and Management (CEM) masters degree program.
Where are Local Guides located?
The
Local Guide network includes more than 300 alumni across more than 50 countries worldwide.
Why would you use a Local Guide?
Local Guides are host country nationals who are intimately familiar with the arrangements, dynamics and idiosyncracies of the local marketplace. Just as a good taxi driver is paid to navigate the matrix of city streets and byways, a local guide is paid to maneuver the tangle of rules, conventions, and logics present in the host market.
Local guides are extremely knowledgeable about local language, history, culture, beliefs, values, industry organization, work practices and in many cases about legal rules, political dynamics and economic trends.
Local Guides can identify new opportunities, discuss economic forecasts, make introductions, provide project-specific translation services, play the role of facilitator, or navigate local regulations and requirements. They can assist or advise in buying land, expediting shipments through customs, applying for permits, finding a labor broker, understanding local trade unions, avoiding mafia, and knowing who to trust and who to avoid.
What do Local Guides cost?
CRGP provides this match-making service at no cost to entrant organizations, but as a benefit to members of the Stanford CEM alumni network who appreciate new business opportunities. CRGP does not publish a guideline for the compensation of
Local Guides. Fair and acceptable payment will vary throughout the world depending on many factors including cost of living, specifics of engagement, and experience level of the
Local Guide. CRGP simply makes introductions; compensation arrangements are to be negotiated between the Local Guide and the entrant organization.
Disclaimer
(1) Since most
Local Guides have full-time positions with private firms or government agencies, their availability depends largely on their prior work commitments and personal flexibility. (2) Although the
Local Guide network blankets most world regions, it does not cover every individual city or even every country, so a match may not always be possible. (3) CRGP is not to be held responsible for the accuracy of advice, guidance, or information provided by
Local Guides; CRGP merely provides a match-making service.
How can you request a Local Guide?
Please submit the following form to request a list of
Local Guide profiles in a country where you are starting a new project; we do our best to respond to your inquiry within 24 hours.
Local Guide Service
