It didn't take him long to come up with a solution: 18 months later Korchinsky quit his job as a management consultant and launched Wildlife Works, an eco-friendly fashion line that employs 50 people in the Kenyan village of Maunga. Korchinsky, who visits the area three times a year, also sets aside at least 20 percent of company proceeds—expected to hit $2 million in 2003—for the funding of community projects such as school construction and the maintenance of an 80,000-acre wildlife sanctuary, where animals like cheetahs and giraffes roam free. "It feels good that these animals now have a place," he says. "That is the most rewarding part."
Enthusiastic celebrities like Charlize Theron, NYPD Blue's Henry Simmons and Oprah Winfrey have stockpiled Wildlife Works's organic cotton clothes, which range from $28 for an "endangered sports" T-shirt (patterned after team jerseys, but with the logo showing an endangered animal) to around $100 for cargo pants. "You feel great wearing Wildlife Works," says actress Lisa Rinna. "You're supporting a good cause and looking fabulous at the same time." The clothing's stylishness has earned it a place in about 250 stores, including Nordstrom, and in the on-set closet of Will & Grace star Debra Messing. "The shirts are perfect," says Mary Walbridge, the show's costume supervisor, "for a casual around-the-house look."
Initially Korchinsky's design plans met with resistance from the people in Maunga, who had seen members of American aid organizations swoop in over the years to build schools and dams and then leave, says Wildlife Works seamstress Nora Matunda, "without giving the community a way to sustain those projects." So when he arrived in 1998, he proposed that if the villagers stopped clearing forests and killing animals, he would teach them a trade and give them $50-a-week jobs with health benefits. (The annual average Kenyan income is $300.) Today, Matunda, 25, supports her husband and two kids stitching clothes at the Wildlife Works factory. (There is also a San Francisco production facility.) "Everyone," she says, "is hoping to get a job here."
Her boss didn't start out with high-minded intentions. The younger of two sons raised in Stockport, England, by Walter, now 66 and a chemical engineering professor (Korchinsky's mother, Gloria, died when he was 6), Korchinsky, 41, signed on with Anderson Consulting in 1982 after graduating from Birmingham University. Three years later he transferred to the firm's San Francisco office, and in 1988 joined three colleagues to found Axiom Management Consulting, where he continued working after selling the company for $15 million in 1995.
All the while, however, Korchinsky, a vegetarian, found himself drawn to animal causes, and after his fateful trip to Kenya, he says, "I wondered whether I really wanted to spend the rest of my life helping big companies become more successful or trying to help wildlife find a way in this world."
Today he has his answer. "When I met Mike, he used to shop quite a bit," says wife Linda Hanson, 44, who owns an insurance firm. "Those things aren't as important now." What matters instead are Korchinsky's plans to add two conservation locations-in places like India and Uganda-for every $5 million in sales. "I would like to measure success in 10 years," he says, "based on how many species we save."
Galina Espinoza
Kwala Mandel in San Francisco
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