Friday, March 27, 2009
Lessons Learned: The Ups And Downs Of Social Entrepreneurship
Session Description
Social entrepreneurship is no walk in the park! Too often, challenges common to social entrepreneurs are glanced over or left unmentioned. Join us in a “fireside” chat with three stellar practitioners who have over 50 years combined experience in the field. They’ll candidly share their biggest blunders in areas like human resources, asset management, relationship building, and leadership, and tell how they have faced challenges, persevered, and continued to deliver positive social change throughout.
When | Where
09:00 - 10:30
Friday, March 27
Session leaders
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Chief Administrative Officer/General Counsel, Acumen
Ann MacDougall is Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture capital fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. She manages Acumen’s core operating activities and is a member of its management committee. Ms MacDougall is a graduate of Tufts University and Brooklyn Law School. Before joining Acumen Fund, she spent 17 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in various leadership positions in New York and Paris.
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Founder, Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Ltd
Chetna Sinha, an Ashoka Fellow, Yale World Fellow, works for social change in some of the poorest and most drought-stricken areas of rural India. She founded and is currently the President of a micro-enterprise development bank, its partner NGO, and a micro-business school for rural women. Her organisation is the first in its region to provide life, accident, hospitalization insurance and pension scheme for women and offers training. The bank has its origins in cooperatives organized by Gala Sinha to assist women in raising goats, selling vegetables and weaving. In addition, Gala Sinha works on behalf of landless laborers for property and water rights. She has succeeded in changing government policy and law regarding property rights for women.
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CEO, NW Works, Inc.
Since 1989 John Brauer has been assisting individuals with disabilities to reach their employment goals through the creation, implementation and oversight of non-profit social enterprises. Mr. Brauer is currently the CEO of NW Works, a non-profit agency which provides training, support and employment services to over 200 individuals with disabilities via three social enterprises. Prior to working for NWW, John was the President of CVE, a non profit social enterprise located in San Francisco, California, serving individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Under Brauer’s leadership, CVE was named one of the “100 Best Places to Work” in the San Francisco Bay Area” in 2005. Mr. Brauer holds a B.A. degree in liberal arts and a M.A. degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University in California.
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John Wood left his position as Microsoft’s Director of Business Development for the Greater China Region in 1999 to start Room to Read, a nonprofit organization that “combines the heart of Mother Theresa with the scalability of Starbucks” to help children across the developing world break the cycle of poverty through the power of education. The organization developed from an idea and a donkey-load of donated books into a network of 7000 libraries, 750 schools, 7,000 longterm girls scholarships and 5 million donated children’s books. Over 2 million children have access to this network of schools and libraries in nine countries in Africa and Asia. John is also the author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, which was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
