Skoll World Forum 2016
Thursday, January 1, 1970
Speakers
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Delegate
Gemma is an award-winning thinker and practitioner in transformative, systemic change. She is founder and co-creator of New Constellations, which exists to help people envision and create futures of human and planetary flourishing. New Constellations creates immersive experiences for diverse groups to explore transformation in specific places, specific systems and for their own personal leadership. She is a co-founder and chair of More In Common and sits on the advisory council of Yale University’s International Leadership Centre. She was previously Chief Global Officer at Change.org and CEO of Crisis Action – an organisation that won the MacArthur Award and Skoll Award for its innovative systems model.
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Delegate
, The Wellbeing Project
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Principal Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation
Tracy Washington has nearly 20 years of experience in development finance with a focus on Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Funds. Mrs. Washington is the IFC Private Equity group lead for SME Funds and the Program Manager for SME Ventures Program establishing risk capital SME Funds in Fragile States. Mrs. Washington developed her expertise in small business investing as the local Investment Manager of the IFC Mozambique SME Initiative providing risk capital finance and advisory support to SMEs in the country. Within IFC, Mrs. Washington also worked as an Investment Officer leading global corporate finance transactions in the manufacturing, financial markets and health and education departments in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Mrs. Washington holds a MBA degree from the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business and a BS degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.
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, Youth with Physical Disability Development Forum
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Nation Building Initiative / FT Global Impact Summit
* Launching Blueprints.org as the headline of the FT Global Impact Summit at year end, a global collaborative tool.
* Pioneer of the Nation Building Initiative, a new blueprint for Impact Investment
* Co-founder: Financial Times Global Impact Summit. Accelerating Impact at Scale
* Developed a holistic blueprint to transition challenged regions from AID to Development
* World Economic Forum - Participant: 2012-16 | Milken Institute Associate & Young Leaders Circle
* Advisor to Heads of State, Kings, UHNWs, Leaders, Generals & CEOs on strategy
* Respected family heritage: Grandfather Habib Cohen, last President Sudan Jewish community
* Citigroup and Salomon Brothers Investment Bank: five years Fixed Income Business Management
* Degree, Economics & International Studies – University of Warwick
* Establishing a new Health blueprint in Africa - leading global partners
* Strategic Advisor to Rhodes Trust: the oldest & most prestigious leadership programme in the world
* Wisdom for equitable solutions to the most pressing challenges
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Design Director, IDEO.org
As Design Director and Co-Lead at IDEO.org in San Francisco, Adam focuses on guiding projects and initiatives through the lens of design excellence. Adam has broad experience in product design, service design, and brand strategy, and has worked in partnership with social enterprises and foundations on challenges related to energy, water and sanitation, healthcare, and financial opportunity.
Before joining IDEO.org, he spent eight years as a principal designer at IDEO and worked on a diverse set of international projects with clients including the U.S. Department of Energy, Nike, Samsung, LG, HP, and the North Face. He first worked with IDEO.org in 2011 as a Fellow in the organization’s inaugural year. He then co-founded New Factory, a design studio that bridges innovation and craft, in 2012. Adam’s work has been published in Fast Company, BBC, Wired, Cell Magazine, and the New York Times. He has received design awards from IDEA, ID Magazine, Red Dot, iF and others.
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President & CEO, Charity Navigator
Michael leads Charity Navigator in its efforts to make impactful philanthropy easier for all by providing donors and the charities they love with tools, ratings and information needed for informed decisions and investments.
Prior to joining Charity Navigator Michael spent more than fifteen years with Microsoft, the last ten of which, as their Public-Sector Chief Technology Officer responsible for technology policy initiatives and engagements with governments and academic leaders in Asia, the Middle-East and Africa.
Michael's background includes years at sea conducting oceanographic research with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, composing music and dancing internationally as the co-founder and co-director of Dance Music Light. He has held various board positions within the nonprofit and technology sector, holds several patents in enterprise systems management and has a degree in Music from Columbia University in New York.
Guiding mantra: Follow your heart – Use your head – Make a difference
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Personal Assistant, Jeff Skoll Group
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Director, True Green Capital
Nick Minekime leads new business development and deal execution at True Green Capital. He is responsible for sourcing and executing on new investments, and on developing long-term partnerships with customers, developers, EPCs, lenders, and tax equity partners.
Before joining True Green Capital, Nick led solar investments at Capricorn Investment Group, where he worked from 2007 – 2015. At Capricorn, he helped close investments into over 60 megawatts of solar assets globally, from India to Massachusetts. He also closed investments into TerraForm Power, the world’s first solar PV YieldCo; DEPCOM Power, a pure-play solar EPC business' AST, the leading developer of off-grid solar-hybrid energy systems in India; and Sunpreme, a world-class module manufacturer.
Nick began his career at Morgan Stanley, where he was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Financial Sponsors Group, based in Hong Kong for a period of 2 years.
Nick is a graduate of Williams College and holds a master’s in politics from National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar. He is fluent in written and spoken Mandarin Chinese.
He is married and currently lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he is enjoying a newfound passion for organic vegetable gardening.
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Professor of Political Theory UCL, International Panel on Social Progress
Professor Cécile Laborde is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of London (UCL). She is the Director of UCL's Religion and Political Theory Centre. She holds a DPhil from Oxford University. She joined UCL in April 2003. In 2007, she was elected Associate Professor to the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She spent the 2010-11 academic year in Princeton, as a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study. She was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2013. She has published widely on theories of law and the state and on contemporary theories of nationalism, toleration, republicanism, multiculturalism, secularism and global justice. Her last book is Critical Republicanism. The Hijab Controversy and Political Theory (Oxford 2008). She is currently finishing a book on religion and political philosophy for Harvard University Press.
She has served on the Steering Committee of the International Panel for Social Progress (IPSP) since it was set up in 2014. The IPSP brings together hundreds of high-profile academics from around the world – sociologists, economists, demographers, historians, political scientists, anthropologists.. – who are working to produce an international report in 2017. The report aims to bring cutting edge academic knowledge to bear on indicators of, and prospects for, social progress globally. The areas covered by the report include many areas close to the Skoll’s Foundation’s core interests, from education to health, from development to global justice.
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Director, Fringe Consulting UK
Robert Leslie has spent over 25 years active in the photography, covering culture, humanitarian & educational domains. Moving from his activity as a musician in Canada to a photographer in Paris shooting architecture, performance, still life & reportage. Leslie was the first composer commissioned by France’s museums, to create a soundtrack for the Age of Bronze exhibition at the Rodin Museum.
With the arrival of the internet & digital photography, Robert relocated to London in late 1999 to developing a web design agency. Returning to photography, Leslie shifted to event coverage for Unicef UK. His style led to an introduction to TED.com in 2005. Leslie became that organisation’s core photographer that year until 2013. Apple computer approached Leslie to become their international spokesman for Aperture, their professional digital photography software - a position he held for 6 years.
His commitment to education expanded collaborating with the World Science Festival & with the US foundation, Young Arts, from 2008-2015. Attending all the major photography gatherings, in 2007, Leslie began a new series documenting the greatest photographers : www.1000portraits.net.
Completing a commission Chinese urban development in 2008, turned his lens to the US. His personal project Stormbelt, begun in early 2009, addressed the environmental & economic devastation through America’s sunbelt. A second trip to the area again in 2011, he conducted interviews & filmed the journey to create the world’s first multimedia, fine arts eBook (translated into 5 languages). The print version followed a year later with 2 essays by TED prize winners, Edward Burtynsky & Cameron Sinclair.
Based in London, Leslie recently received an Extraordinary Ability EB1 US Visa.
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PR/PA for Halla Tomasdottir, Sisters Capital
Valgeir Magnusson is Cand.O.Econ from the university of Iceland. Founder and general manager of PIPARTBWA.
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Programs, WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education)
Sara Chatterjee is a Program Manager at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) where she specifically manages the WISE Awards and WISE Prize for Education programs. She has previously worked at Youngist, an alternative media source for the youth, and Campus Channel, a higher education start-up. Sara is passionate about lifelong learning and her interests range from Twitterature to opera singing to world Englishes.
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President & CEO, Women's World Banking
Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women’s World Banking, the global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to the financial tools and resources they require to achieve security and prosperity. Ms. Iskenderian joined Women’s World Banking in 2006 and leads the Women’s World Banking global team, based in New York and also serves as a member of the Investment Committee of its $50 million impact investment fund. Prior to Women’s World Banking, Ms. Iskenderian worked for 17 years at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. Before, she worked for the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Ms. Iskenderian is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York and the Global Commission on Business and Sustainable Development. She serves as an Advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative, is a judge for the annual Financial Times/International Finance Corporation Sustainable Banking Awards and sits on the Board of Directors of Fair Trade USA. Ms. Iskenderian holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
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Senior Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation
Ruzgar Barisik leads IFC’s Consumer Internet practice and Venture Capital investments in Europe, Middle East & North Africa. IFC is the largest international development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries, and a part of the World Bank Group.
Ruzgar recently started Techemerge.org, an acceleration program for tech companies expanding into emerging markets. The inaugural program is connecting health technology innovators from around the world with healthcare providers in India to accomplish the dual goals of improving healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.
Ruzgar has over fifteen years of private equity and venture investing experience covering industrial, technology and media businesses. Prior to IFC, Ruzgar was a Partner at GTI Group, a New York based private equity investment firm, where he led various investments and realizations in the US and India. Earlier in his career, Ruzgar was Director of Corporate Development at KCI, a diversified holding company. Ruzgar graduated from Cornell University with a BA in Mathematics and Economics and holds an MBA from the Columbia Business School.
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Head of Gender Justice & Human Rights, C & A Foundation
Brandee M. Butler is Head of Gender Justice and Human Rights at C&A Foundation. She drives partnerships and processes to support breakthrough innovations on key human rights challenges in the apparel sector, with a focus on forced labor, human trafficking, and gender equality. Prior to joining C&A Foundation, Brandee managed the Levi Strauss Foundation's HIV/AIDS, asset building, and worker rights portfolios in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Brandee has devoted her career to improving human rights protections for marginalized populations. From 2006 until 2010, she was a Program Officer for Human Rights and International Justice at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, supporting human rights movements and promoting the rule of law globally, and with a particular emphasis on Africa. Earlier in her career, Brandee practiced law at the Alliance for Children's Rights in Los Angeles and was awarded the Yale Law School Bernstein Fellowship for International Human Rights to combat child trafficking with UNICEF in Gabon. She serves as a Board member for MADRE, an international women’s rights organization, and is an advisor for Art Works Projects and Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year Fund.
Brandee received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard University and a juris doctorate from the Yale Law School.
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Founder, Alter
Founder & CEO, Alter, which aims to scale the best ventures in the least developed countries. --- Stanford MBA ‘15 | Oxford MSc Global Governance ‘08. --- Led small team in deadliest district of Afghanistan with U.S. DoD. --- Assisted Haitian Ambassador post-earthquake. --- Created first impact investment fund in Bhutan with royal family. --- Launched two schools for microentrepreneurs in Latin America. --- Helped build the nonprofit, The Mission Continues, for wounded vets. --- My priorities in life are faith, family, and service. I come from a small farm town in Central Illinois and currently live in Silicon Valley with my wife and two daughters. My Christian faith called me to live for those dying with no opportunity in the "hopeless" parts of the world. I continue to search for the most effective way to co-create value there.
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VP of Strategic Partnerships, VOTO Mobile
Rebecca is VP of Strategic Partnerships at VOTO Mobile, a fast-growing social enterprise with offices in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, India, the US, and Canada (with more coming soon!). VOTO's platform allows partners to distribute and collect information from the 3 billion people living in emerging markets through their mobile phones. VOTO specializes in evidence gathering and behavior change communication, using interactive voice calls (including IVR) and SMS, instantly reaching across language, literacy, and geographic barriers. In the three years since its launch, the platform has been used by more than 500 organizations, and 40 countries reaching more than 3 million unique users. VOTO has the infrastructure to connect with any mobile phone on the planet. Some of our most active users include the World Bank, UNICEF, the Center for Global Development, Innovations for Poverty Action, Facebook, and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Prior to joining VOTO, Rebecca was Associate Director at FSG, where she advised Fortune 500 companies, International NGOs, and private foundations in strategy and evaluation. She holds a graduate degree from the University of Oxford (MSc., African Politics), where she was a Weidenfeld Scholar. She is based in San Francisco.
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Country Director, Benin, Millenium Challenge Corporation
Christopher Broughton is the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation Country Director for Benin where he oversees a $375 million electric power-focused grant that includes utility-scale solar generation and the largest off-grid electrification program the United States is undertaking anywhere in the world. Previously Christopher served as Senior Advisor to the MCC Vice President for Operations, Director for Stability Operations on the National Security Council staff, Country Coordinator for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Foreign Assistance, and Presidential Management Fellow on the U.S. Agency for International Development Afghanistan Desk. Christopher began his career in development as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua. He holds a Master in Public Affairs degree from Princeton University and baccalaureate degrees in Politics and Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Christopher is a Project Management Professional, member of Phi Beta Kappa, and term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is fluent in French and Spanish and conversant in Hindi, Urdu, and Portuguese.
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Chief Executive Officer, International Fund for Public Interest Media
Nishant Lalwani is Co-Founder and Senior Vice President at the Global Innovation Fund. Nishant Lalwani has more than a decade of experience in private sector development and social enterprise. He was a founder of the Monitor Inclusive Markets group in India that focused on market-based solutions for poverty. Prior to Monitor, he worked with the UNDP in Zambia, where he helped develop new financing products for microfinance institutions across the country. He also spent several years in London and New York as a strategy consultant with Marakon Associates, and he sits on the board of Shivia, a multinational non-profit that supports livelihood creation.
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Managing Director, Dot Edu Ventures
Ms. Asha Jadeja Motwani has invested in over a 100 tech startups as one of Silicon Valley's first women venture capitalists between 2000 and 2015. She currently angel invests in tech as well as social impact for-profit startups along with some of bay area’s top angels and VC firms. Asha founded Dot Edu Ventures along with her late husband Stanford Computer Science Professor, Rajeev Motwani to invest in student and faculty led startups in the US.
As an active philanthropist, Asha helped create MakerFaire Africa in 2009 and later launched MakerFest India (2014) with the objective of creating a globally networked maker community in both countries.
She also founded and funded School in the Cloud, Ahmedabad, India in 2014 and set up India's most advanced FabLab at Cept University Ahmedabad, India.
Her long term vision is to help liberate students of all ages from institutionalized learning to self driven peer based learning.
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Board Member, ecoAmerica
Former investment banker. Current serve on boards of several non profit organizations.
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Board Member, Family Office
Summerly Horning is a Board Member of Newport Federal, her family’s holding company, which owns and operates real estate and land assets, hotels and operating companies including Telluride Ski Resort. She is a Vice-President at TAU Investment Management, an active growth-equity investment firm, which transforms global supply chains for profit by upgrading social and environmental standards. She is currently founding a US digitally focused bank built to service the new economy.
Summerly serves on the advisory board for GoGood, a fully optimized platform to enable global participation in philanthropy, and serves on the advisory board of Lumera, a impact infrastructure investment firm. She is a National Council Member of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and serves on the task force for the White House’s Generation Indigenous initiative, while also personally focused on building the private sector of North America’s Native Lands.
Summerly is a member of the Milken Young Leaders Circle and serves on the World Economic Forum’s new Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Fashion, Luxury and Lifestyle Industry. She is also a member of Nexus Global Youth Summit, serving on their Impact Investing steering committee. She has signed the ImPact, a pledge to deploy more capital focused on increasing the positive social, environmental and economic impact of her and her family’s investments. She is a member of Toniic, a global network of active impact investors, and is a student of the 2015/2016 Harvard Kennedy School Impact Investing for the Next Generation.
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Co-Founder and Managing Director, THNK, School of Creative Leadership
Menno van Dijk is co-founder and managing director of THNK, the School of Creative Leadership, which offers international executive programs for social change agents, commercial entrepreneurs and innovation managers focused on developing creative solutions to large societal challenges. THNK is located in Amsterdam, Vancouver and Lisbon and is setting up locations in Shanghai, Dubai and Aruba.
Before that, he was a Director at McKinsey & Co, working on innovation and growth in Media, High Tech and Clean Energy. Menno has worked and lived in the Netherlands, Australia and South Africa and has led projects in most European countries, the US, China and India. He was leading McKinsey’s European Media Practice and built McKinsey’s first software business, called NM Incite, in a JV with Nielsen.
He has been board member of various initiatives in the Netherlands focused on science, innovation, growth and social change.
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Senior Strategist, Institutional Partnerships ,
Water.orgA senior executive specializing in stakeholder identification and management, organizational growth strategies and brokering shared value partnerships. Claire joined Water.org's Global Advocacy team in August 2015 as Senior Strategist to launch and lead Water.org's scale-enabling Institutional Partnerships team with government, private sector companies, development agencies and multilaterals.
Previously with PepsiCo Foundation, Claire directed the Foundation's entry and presence worldwide, responsible for the development of strategy, portfolios and partnerships in Global Health, Education and Environment. Claire secured the Foundation's ground breaking grant funding to expand Water.org's WaterCredit. She has been a long time champion for sustainable market models to advance access to improved water and sanitation in base of the economic pyramid communities, and is eager to strengthen water supply and sanitation finance channels to finance SDG #6.
Water.org is a non-profit organization that has transformed thousands of communities in Africa, South Asia, and Central America by providing access to safe water and sanitation over the past twenty-one years. Founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org works with local partners to deliver innovative financing solutions for long-term success and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal #6. Learn more and make a difference at http://Water.org.
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Head of Partnerships for Sustainable Innovation, Gap Inc.
With 15 years of experience working in corporate responsibility and social innovation, Sasha leads Gap Inc.’s Global Partnerships team. Global Partnerships helps to shape Gap Inc. and industry-level innovation, practices, and stakeholder dialogue by building strategic partnerships based on a shared agenda. We do this by identifying and nurturing strategic relationships and using gained intelligence to address social and environmental challenges and opportunities throughout our business operations and supply chain. Sasha holds an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in Anthropology and Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz
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Founder/CEO, Tonlé
Rachel Faller is an entrepreneur and creator who has been working in the ethical fashion industry for over 8 years. She grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in the US and attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. Armed with her art degree and idea that fashion shouldn’t have such a high cost for people and the environment, she moved to Cambodia on a Fulbright grant to do research on sustainable fashion and fair trade. Her research led her to start KeoK’jay in 2008, her first ethical fashion label, that was later re-branded as tonlé. Tonlé has become Cambodia’s first zero-waste fashion brand, with a team of 50 staff, retail stockists in 10 countries, 4 of it’s own boutiques, and a growing press following to attest to tonlé’s growing popularity. Rachel is recognized internationally as an industry leader, having been selected to participate in LA Fashion Week in 2010 and featured in a number of press outlets including Huff Post Live, CNN international, Channel New Asia, Forbes Online Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and more. After 6 years of living in Cambodia, Rachel is now based in San Francisco and continues to work on building the tonlé brand from the United States.
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Managing Director Finance, Investment and Trade, Millenium Challenge Corporation
Alex currently serves as the head of MCC’s Finance, Investment and Trade group. MCC was founded as an innovative and independent U.S. foreign aid agency in 2004, MCC provides competitively selected, well-performing developing countries with large-scale grants to fund country-led solutions for reducing poverty through sustainable economic growth. MCC sets clear and transparent criteria for country selection based on ruling justly, investing in people and economic freedom. MCC’s investment is called a compact and is identified and designed in partnership with partner country governments. With portfolio of over $11.5 billion, the Millennium Challenge Corporation consistently expands the frontiers of development effectiveness.
Alex previously served as the Executive Director of Aspen’s Diaspora Investment Alliance (DIA). DIA’s mission is to serve as an umbrella organization for the dissemination of Diaspora products and services that seek to spawn capital flows for investments and philanthropic causes. Prior to Aspen, Alex was a Senior Advisor to USAID, where he assisted USAID's missions and private investors with investment structuring and negotiations related to Power Africa. Prior to this position, he was the Vice President for Africa at the Small Enterprise Assistance Fund (SEAF). SEAF is a global private equity firm that specializes in small business investing through its global offices.
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Chairman, Dasra
I am attending the Skoll forum in my capacity as the Chairman of Dasra . Dasra is a India based strategic philanthropy.
I am also the founding partner of London based TKG Investments. TKG is a specialist investment firm focused on debt investing, asset based lending and specialist finance.
Previous to founding TKG, I spent 25 years in investment banking . Until 2012, I was Global Head of Markets and CEO, EMEA at Nomura Securities. I served as Exec VP on the board of Nomura Securities, Tokyo.
Previous to that , I spent 13 years at Lehman Bros International, in Tokyo, Mumbai and London.
At different times I was CEO for Lehman, India; Head of Fixed Income for Europe and Head of Fixed Income Asia-Pac.
Previous to that I spent 8 years at Morgan Stanley in New York and Tokyo.
I have served on various Boards and Committees, both at the banks where I worked as well as at NGO's and Museums/Art Galleries.
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Senior Reporter, Responsible Investor
Vibeka Mair is a senior reporter with Responsible Investor, a leading news and events agency covering sustainable capital markets and sustainable investing for an institutional investor audience. She focuses on social and impact investment, green finance and corporate governance.
Her portfolio of interviews include barrister Cherie Blair QC, former US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Schapiro and Jack Ehnes, CEO of major California pension fund CalSTRS.
Before joining Responsible Investor, she worked at Civil Society Media where she wrote about the UK social enterprise and charity sector.
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Vice President, Investments, Humanity United
A founding member of the Humanity United team, Ed has for the past decade played a leadership role in the establishment and direction of HU’s work across both its peacebuilding and anti-human trafficking program areas including work in Sudan/South Sudan, Liberia and Nepal. Ed contributed to the creation of the Freedom Fund and serves as a founding board member. He currently oversees Humanity United’s work targeting forced labor in corporate supply chains.
Ed brings over 20 years of experience working on issues related to social justice including human rights, entrepreneurship/micro-enterprise development, and non-profit leadership. He has experience working across the for-profit, not-for profit, and public policy arenas and has held senior management positions at World Links and Global Education Partnership as well as positions at the Oracle Corporation and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ed holds a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley and a MBA/MA degree from The Wharton School/Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Director of Business Development, Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC)
Vinay is Director of Business Development at one of the largest social impact investors in the UK, Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC). He is also the co-founder and Chair of Lightful, a social media management platform for the beyond-profit sector.
He started his career at the investment bank JPMorgan, where he spent almost a decade, latterly as Executive Director and Head of UK fixed income marketing.
Vinay is now deeply engaged in the social impact investment and beyond profit sector. Prior to SASC, he held senior positions at the Social Investment Business, Acumen Fund and the Clinton Foundation as well as launching two public health social enterprises, one in the UK and one in Mozambique.
Vinay received his BA from Trinity College Dublin and MPA from the London School of Economics. He is a practitioner-in-residence at The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, Oxford University, a lecturer for the Impact Business Leaders programme, Trustee and board chair of the Social Entrepreneurs’ Trust, and a Fellow at the RSA.
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Associate Professor, Said Business School
Mungo Wilson is Associate Professor of Finance in the Department of Finance at Saïd Business School and an associate member of the Oxford Man Institute of Quantitative Finance, both in the University of Oxford. He specialises in asset pricing and mutual funds.
Mungo’s research focuses on asset pricing. In particular, his work is centred on assessing how risk affects asset prices. He also studies mutual funds, analysing how their behaviour is affected by growth, and credit risk.
Having studied PPE at the University of Oxford, Mungo initially trained as a solicitor and worked at Slaughter and May, before reading for an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Before joining Saїd Business School in 2009, Mungo held positions as Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, and as a Visiting Lecturer at the London School of Economics.
Areas of expertise include:
Asset pricing
Credit ratings
Macroeconomic conditions and asset prices
Mutual funds
Information transmission across markets
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Owner - North Arrow Design Associates, Individual
I have been in love with nature and the outdoors since a young child, which has allowed me to parlay this into my professional life. I have blended this passion for mother nature with career skill-sets such as employee development, interpersonal communications, business development and drafting ability to full time work consulting, designing and building sustainable landscapes. I own and operate North Arrow Landscape Designs which has a focus on creating planet friendly and sustainable exterior environments for homeowners and commercial properties. I also manage a North American Sales Team that provides systems solutions to the natural and synthetic sports and recreation industries, which help combat the water crisis that we face today.
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HatchLab Producer, National Alliance for Media Art & Culture
Mary T. An leads development efforts at American Documentary POV (“Point-of-View”), the Emmy-award winning PBS documentary series with major funding from PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and from private individuals. Before joining POV, Mary managed and advised governance projects in international post-conflict settings. She served over two years with United Nations Development Programme in Khartoum, Sudan working on a $98 million project strengthening democracy and ensuring elections. Activities included training local journalists and supporting media outlets. She has consulted for UN Women, National Democratic Institute, Open Society Foundation, and the United Nations Foundation and she is passionate about the transformational powers of media. Mary has traveled in over 50 countries, and holds a Bachelor’s from Scripps College and a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University. She teaches a course at Hunter College CUNY on media, human rights, and democracy.
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EVP, Social Impact, Participant Media
Bob Pilon is the Executive Vice President, Social Impact at Participant Media - the leading media company founded by social entrepreneur and philanthropist Jeff Skoll dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels social change.
Coming on as EVP in April 2016, Bob will drive the efforts using Participant’s content as a catalyst to create awareness, build action oriented impact campaigns, and sustain movements to address some of the world's biggest challenges.
Prior to Participant, Bob was the Chief Development Officer at The ONE Campaign, an international campaigning and advocacy organization co-founded by U2’s Bono. Bob developed and drove ONE’s global resource mobilization and partnerships strategy, which resulted in over $80 million in new financing and some of the organization’s most significant alliances for the advancement of ONE's mission to end extreme poverty and preventable disease.
Bob has held senior leadership roles at high-impact organizations including Malaria No More, Thelonious Monk Institute, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation after starting his career at Bloomberg L.P..
Over the course of his advocacy and social impact career, Bob has worked throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia to mobilize nearly $300 million in support of HIV/AIDS, malaria, anti-poverty, and education programs. He's worked with some of the world's leading philanthropists and corporate brands to develop marketing and communications campaigns and special events to raise awareness and spur action.
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Delegate
Eduardo represents Fundación Paraguaya, an NGO that since its foundation in 1985 has spearheaded microfinance and entrepreneurship in Paraguay and the world. Before, he worked in various roles in that sector including the development of a program called Businesses Without Poverty. The program aims to measure and eradicate multidimensional poverty in private companies using a method called Poverty Stoplight. He is in the board of Teach a Man to Fish, a UK charity that promotes change in developing countries through entrepreneurial education.
Eduardo holds a degree in Sociology from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. He was recognized as Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum & Chevening Scholar for an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of Warwick.
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MBA Student, Said Business School
Currently enrolled in the Oxford MBA programme, Matt is on academic leave from the Canadian Foreign Service. He joined the Foreign Service in 2008 and most recently served as Second Secretary at the Embassy of Canada in Bangkok, Thailand (2013-2015). During his assignment, Matt was the lead officer responsible for bilateral relations with Thailand, Cambodia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
Matt has represented Canada at development forums, international conferences and official meetings. He has also contributed to Canadian government policy development by through analytical reporting on emerging issues and trends, and by advising senior managers at Global Affairs Canada. In Ottawa, Matt has been Senior Desk Officer for Pakistan and Senior Desk Officer for New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Matt worked as a wildland firefighter in Alberta, Canada.
His career interests include sustainability, human rights, international trade, and public-private interface. Matt is fluent in English and French and holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Alberta.
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Director of Partnerships, Inyenyeri
I've been working in East Africa since 2010. Before Inyenyeri, I helped run Rwanda Ventures, a social business incubator located in Kigali, Rwanda. As COO, I lead development of a business model to strengthen the national dairy value chain while addressing poverty and chronic malnutrition through a for-profit company. Previous to Rwanda, I worked with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a Research Assistant managing Youth Centers for HIV Positive Children.
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Delegate
Communications, Ashoka
Meera currently works to support communications teams to develop their strategies in Ashoka's offices around Europe. She has worked for Ashoka since 2014. Prior to Ashoka, Meera worked on issues around gender based violence and women's equality. Working as a researcher in both a professional and academic capacity her focus was oral histories of violence in migrant communities. She has also worked as a youth worker and a grass roots organiser with women's groups and anti-racism campaigns. Her areas of interest are particularly focussed on empowerment, race and gender politics.
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Delegate
Director of Special Projects, Blum Center for Developing Economies
Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse is the Director of Special Projects at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley. She supports the operation and growth of the Center, including the USAID-funded Development Impact Lab and the Blum Center’s expansion to all 10 University of California campuses. She also works with academic, NGO, and social enterprise partners to establish novel research collaborations to better understand the behavior of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid and to facilitate the adoption and scale-up of promising innovations. Heather recently served as the founding Managing Director for Inequality Media, a new non-profit focused on short-form digital content about the political economy founded by Former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, and Emmy-award winning documentarian, Jacob Kornbluth. Previously, Heather developed health and education programs for children in the US and Latin America as Managing Director of Absolute Return for Kids US. She also managed and contributed to a body of research on social franchising for health in Africa and South Asia while serving as Program Manager for the Private Sector Healthcare Initiative at UCSF’s Global Health Group. Her work focused on using formal networks to upskill and improve health delivery quality amongst microentrepreneurs in Bangladesh, Ghana, and Kenya. She has a Master’s in Public Policy and a Master’s in Public Health from UC Berkeley and a BA in Philosophy and Religion (Islamic focus) from George Washington University. Heather serves on the Board of Advisors for Inequality Media.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust
Frank’s responsibilities include the coordination of the CSR activities for the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in the EMEA region. He also serves as managing director of the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust (EMEA), the operational CSR body based in Edinburgh (UK) with a branch in Dubai (UAE).
Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson in 1997, he was senior advisor to the management board of the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium), with responsibilities such as fundraising, legal and fiscal, corporate relations and communication. This included the setup and development of the King Baudouin Foundation U.S. in 1996. He serves as a member of the supervisory board of the European Academy for Business in Society, an international organisation of business schools and universities based in Brussels. From 2002 until 2008 he was chairman of the Board of CSR Europe, the European business network on corporate social responsibility. He also served as a member of the Governing Council of the European Foundation Center and the Corporate Committee of the U.S. Council of Foundations.
Frank is a frequent speaker at international conferences and a guest lecturer at several business schools on the topic of CSR. He received a Masters Degree in Modern History at Ghent University (Belgium) where he specialised in economic development of the tourist industry.
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Delegate
Director, Research | Data | GIS, Washington Univ. St. Louis
In my position as the Director of Scholarly Services at Washington University in St. Louis, I lead a team of 16 professional staff focused on assisting faculty researchers and students in bringing big data, geospatial systems and data analytics to meaningful use on their work. My own areas of interest include place based research as well as understanding "systems of systems" in our world that combine areas of livelyhoods, poverty and environmental sustainability.
I have also dedicated a significant portion of my life to the exploration, understanding and documentation of caves. I am the primary investigator on projects to document caves in the Galapagos Islands, Amazonia Ecuador, the Yucatan peninsula, Laos and numerous locations in North America.
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Delegate
Chief Development and Communications Officer, Orb
Margaux Bergen has spent the last twenty years working all over the world at large and small institutions focused on international development, women’s leadership and digital media. She has held senior communications positions at the World Bank, The United Way, The Center for Interfaith Action, Vital Voices and is now head of development and communications at Orb.
At Orb, Margaux’s leadership aligns the intersections of fundraising, donor stewardship, thought leadership, public relations, social and digital media. She is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She earned an M.A. in history from Edinburgh University, Scotland, 1989.
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Delegate
Curator, TED Conferences LLC
Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of ‘TED talks’ – short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.
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Delegate
Senior Fellow, International Institute for Environment and Development
Dr. David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and editor of the international journal Environment and Urbanization. He is also a visiting Professor at University College London. Most of his work has been on poverty reduction in urban areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America, undertaken with local teams. He has a particular interest in the work and influence of organizations and federations of slum/shack dwellers. He has written and edited various books on urban issues, including Squatter Citizen (with Jorge E. Hardoy) and Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World (with Jorge E. Hardoy and Diana Mitlin). He also co-authored two books recently published by Routledge on urban poverty with Diana Mitlin. He also has an interest in how climate change is adding to or will add to the stresses and shocks faced by low-income urban dwellers. He contributed to the IPCC’s Third and Fourth Assessments and was a coordinating lead author in the Fifth Assessment. His latest book, Cities in a Finite Planet, published by Routledge, was produced with IPCC colleagues on how cities can address development issues, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and mitigation. He was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize in 2004 and was a member of the IPCC team that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
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Delegate
CEO, Fenix International
Lyndsay has 13 years of leadership and operations experience in East Africa and Silicon Valley and is deeply passionate about building life-changing businesses in frontier markets. Currently, Lyndsay is the CEO of Fenix International, a venture-backed energy and financial services company. To date, Fenix has delivered affordable solar power to over 300,000 people in East Africa using its unique “pay-to-own” financing platform called ReadyPay Power. Before joining Fenix, Lyndsay spent ten years starting and growing social enterprises in East Africa in the fields of renewable energy, microfinance and education. Lyndsay is the recipient of the MTN Women in Business Award for Excellence in Financial Services and the MTN Outstanding Woman in Innovation Award. Lyndsay studied International Relations at Stanford University, where she received a Haas Public Service Fellowship for her work in Tanzania. For fun, Lyndsay enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and spending time with her husband and two children at Saranac, the solar-powered home they built on the Nile.
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Delegate
Founder/CEO, The Global Brain
My professional life started as an intern for Ogilvy. I earned a degree in mass communications and continued to develop my career in communications and marketing working for agencies like Publicis, Grey, and BBDO, establishing my career as an executive producer. I lived in the Advertising world for about 25 years, receiving awards and recognitions from The Clio, New York Festival and FIAP, among others. I have been fortunate enough to work for incredible brands, managing and supervising projects for companies including Verizon, Anheuser-Busch/Budweiser, MillerCoors Brewing Company, Procter and Gamble, Splenda, Unilever, Allstate Insurance, Bally Total Fitness, Sears, Honda Motors, Toyota, Pepsi and Walmart.
Years a go I shifted my focus toward purpose-driven work. I decided to dive deeply into my life-long passion, environmental and social issues. This led me to earn an MA in global sustainability from UCLA, which then empowered me to combine my experience in the creative industries with my core passion and knowledge for building a more sustainable world and create The Global Brain Foundation, a creative-innovation agency headquartered in Boulder, CO.
The Global Brain was launched on April 11, 2014, during the Media 4 Social Impact Summit at the United Nations. We are currently supporting the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Post-2015 Development Agenda and Climate Change Support Team, developing a global campaign called the People + Planet Project (P+PP) to foster the UN Sustainable Development Goals and new Climate Agreements post-2015.
I am driven by my desire to live in a world where nature has a stake in creating laws and policies that will shape the world, and where people, companies and organizations collaborate to build a sustainable future. I am on the advisory board of Emerging Women, and recently relocated from Los Angeles to Boulder, CO, with Bianca, my adorable springer spaniel.
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Delegate
Provost, The American University of Paris
Scott Sprenger is the Provost of The American University of Paris. His graduate degrees in French Studies are from Johns Hopkins University and Emory, and he is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar award in Brussels/Paris in 2009 and an Andrew W. Mellon post doc at UCLA in 1999-01.
Before joining AUP, he was an associate dean in the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University. His administrative work covered a broad range of areas, such as faculty development, tenure and promotions, program assessment of study abroad and internships, international program oversight, college and university advising, international business language, and more. He directed the European Studies program from 2006-09 and has been on the executive committee of a Title VI Center for the Study of Europe from 2003 to the present. His main publications are on modern European literature and culture and he has recently taught interdisciplinary courses such as The Idea of Europe, European Anti-Americanism and Gothic Marriage.
While at BYU, Scott Sprenger’s main assignment was to create and develop a program called Humanities+ whose aim was to bridge the humanities and liberal arts with global career opportunity. Humanities+ has been acclaimed in the national press and by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as one of the most innovative initiatives in the liberal arts in the United States. He has also actively promoted the humanities and liberal arts, with Congress via the Humanities Alliance Conference, on the radio and in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
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Delegate
MBA Student, Stanford University
Ali is currently a first year MBA student at Stanford University. Prior to Stanford, Ali worked at Deloitte Consulting - he focused on new product development for Telecom and Tech clients helping them expand into the education, healthcare and smart city verticals. His projects ranged from developing information-sharing tools for emergency management to building online marketplaces for tutoring.
On the side, Ali has continued to scale Possibilities Pakistan, a non-profit he founded to improve access to college counseling in Pakistan. Over the last 7 years, the team has provided counseling to hundreds of students. They are now developing a blended learning model for counseling using a combination of content, tech and mentors. More broadly, Ali is interested in two themes within education: (1) How do we personalize education to students? (2) With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, how does our education system need to evolve?
Ali’s most recent project is “Reach.” With “Reach”, he hopes to tackle a problem that many organizations and affinity-based communities experience – when we need advice or help, who do we reach out to in the organization/ community and how do we make sure they respond? Asking your close contacts or using mass emails is often ineffective and inefficient. “Reach” is addressing this problem with a platform that uses machine learning to match requests to the most relevant people in your organization/ community.
Ali grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with University Honors in Math and Economics from Wesleyan University. In his free time, he enjoys watching and playing soccer (loyal Man Utd fan for 17 years) and dinner discussions (e.g., role of doctors in a world of algorithmic diagnostics).
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Delegate
Local Solutions Coordinator, Office of the Counselor, USAID
Elizabeth Warfield currently serves as USAID’s first Local Solutions Coordinator in the office of the Agency’s Counselor. Reflecting the Agency’s commitment to sustainability and local ownership, Local Solutions is about creating the conditions whereby countries can sustain their own development. USAID partners directly and indirectly with local actors and local systems – government, private sector, civil society and academia – to achieve locally owned, sustained outcomes. Since 2010, USAID has doubled its direct use of local systems, stimulated increased local resourcing, and yielded evidence of enduring results through this emphasis on local ownership and sustainability.
In July 2013, Ms. Warfield completed four years as USAID/India’s Deputy Mission Director where she guided a $400 million program addressing key constraints in health, climate change, food security, and education. During her tenure, USAID/India reframed its role in India from a donor-recipient relationship to a strategic partnership where India shares globally its proven innovations in addressing key development challenges. After launching USAID/India’s first innovation platform, the Millennium Alliance, Ms. Warfield helped forge multi-stakeholder alliances to reduce child deaths to 20 per 1000 by 2035, stave off the threat of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, ensure five million more children are reading, and help light up the lives of the 400 million energy poor in India.
A member of the Senior Foreign Service with over 28 years’ experience working in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Ms. Warfield is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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Delegate
Chief Toaster, Toast Ale
Rob is Chief Toaster (Co-founder & CEO) at Toast Ale, the delicious planet-saving beer brewed using yesterday’s bread from bakeries to fight food waste. All profits are poured into environmental charities. Toast launched in 2016 and now has nationwide retail, pub and hospitality distribution. They have brewed over 2 million slices of surplus bread and their open-source source recipe has been accessed over 70,000 times. Toast has influenced over 50 collaboration brews using surplus bread in more than 8 countries and raised £50,000 for charity. Raise a Toast. Save the World. Cheers.
Prior to Toast Rob led Ashoka in the UK, a global support network for social entrepreneurs. And he founded a number of social mission ventures over the years. Including setting up READ International in 2004; a Tanzanian student-volunteer-led development organisation which has benefited millions of Tanzanian school students and co-founded Generation Change in 2012, helping 600,000 young people a year in the UK take positive action in their local communities. In 2011 he co-authored a book with his wife Nikki about social entrepreneurs in Africa called On the Up.
Rob lives in Kent with his wife Nikki and their two very cheeky little boys Thomas and Matthew – with a third on the way! In his spare time Rob coaches his son’s football team, runs to try and burn off the beers, is a geek for all things social enterprise and never misses the Formula One.
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Delegate
Senior Fellow, Institute for Business Innovation, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
John teaches courses on innovation, strategy and venture development at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Princeton University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Business Innovation and Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at Haas, and a visiting faculty member at the Keller Center in Princeton’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. At both universities, he has designed and launched several social enterprise courses and initiatives, from graduate MBA classes to freshmen seminars. He is a faculty advisor to the Global Social Venture Competition, and advises a variety of socially-focused endeavors around the world.
John is a frequent speaker on innovation, entre/intrapreneurship and leadership at conferences and seminars globally, as well as anchoring various executive education programs for governments, companies and universities. For those of you who are fans of TED, he’s also the guy who came up with the idea for TED U[niversity]; and has appeared on both TEDGlobal and TEDx stages. He serves as a senior moderator for the Aspen Institute, and consults widely for senior executives across a broad spectrum of organizational settings.
He is the co-author of The Other ‘F’ Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work, published in 2015 as a lead title by John Wiley & Sons; and is now finishing a new book with a Princeton colleague on the personality characteristics of highly successful entrepreneurs (scheduled for publication as a lead title by Harvard Business School Press in early 2017). His articles and interviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Entrepreneur, Chief Executive and other media channels.
John received his JD, MPH and MAEd degrees from UC Berkeley, and his BA from Harvard. He and his wife live in Berkeley and New York City, and have three sons.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Social Fashion Factory Cooperative
Fiori is an academic and a social entrepreneur; holds an award winning PHD on Social Enterprises, Partnerships & Scaling from Brunel Business School (BBS), UK. Is now a Post-Doctorate Researcher on Social Investment Market for Social Entrepreneurship at Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB) where is Lecturing Social Entrepreneurship; MBA BBS; BSc in Ec. AUEB. Actively involved in business incubators and the start-up entrepreneurship ecosystem in Greece. Founder & CEO of SOFFA - Social Fashion Factory which provides integration into employment and entrepreneurism to victims of trafficking & refugees in the fashion industry; a creativity hub for youth unemployed providing access to machinery and production from sustainable and recyclable textiles; Co-founder of The Designers Marketplace www.loscarfashion.com whose profits are reinvested in SOFFA; Founder of the Sustainable Textiles Marketplace whose profits are reinvested in SOFFA; Co-founding Board Member of Fashion Revolution movement in Greece. Founder & President of The Nest Incubator for social enterprises, Social Growth Accelerator. She has designed The Diploma of Social Entrepreneurship at City Unity College. Founded her first company Zita Social in London in 2003. Fiori designed & leads the EU funded programme for the incubation of “Social & Sustainable Fashion Entrepreneurs” in 5 EU countries. She is now launching the incubation programmes for the development of Social Enterprises on Trafficking & Immigration; on Blue Growth Economy for populations living in Small Islands; and on the Food and Culinary sectors for provision of healthy food to schools and for culinary incubators for immigrants as micro businesses. Her research is being published in conferences, journals and books around the globe. Watch her TEDX talk 'Are you still dreaming how to be a Doer'; Watch her documentary ‘Learning from Abroad’ Follow her #soffagr #thenestgreece #fiorizita
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Delegate
Managing Broker, Starwood Business Group
Yasmine Jandali began her business career in the 1990s working for one of the largest investment banking firms in the country. Helping clients succeed in their own businesses gave Yasmine the drive to build and sell her own company. She is a business owner, entrepreneur and business intermediary who brings more than 10 years of experience to the task of structuring winning deals for the sellers and buyers of businesses.
She is an experienced business owner who founded her own chain of upscale tanning salons and played a key role in making the company a success. Under her leadership, the company consistently grew revenues and profits, and built a dedicated customer base which resulted in a profitable sale to a private investor in North Carolina. Prior to her success in the service industry, Yasmine held numerous positions in the financial service industry such as Wachovia Securities where she specialized in Currency Risk Management and Foreign Currency Exchange; managing the currency needs of Wachovia's Latin American bank market.
During the process of selling her businesses, Yasmine saw a service gap for entrepreneurs interested in buying and selling businesses in the Metro Atlanta area. There was a need for a new way of doing things, one that took into account the needs of both buyers and sellers. So in 2005, Yasmine established a business brokerage firm in North Metro Atlanta and subsequently won numerous awards including Top Producing Office in 2008 and Top New Office in the Country in 2009. In 2013, after years of growth and hundreds of successful transactions completed, the firm was re-branded to Starwood Business Group and continues to offer exceptional service to both business buyers and sellers.
She has pursued post graduate studies in Business Administration at the University of North Carolina, and holds a B.A. in Marketing from Queens University.
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Delegate
SVP, Programming, Participant Media
Eric Noe is the Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief of TakePart.com, Participant Media's digital magazine.
Until 2014, Eric was the managing editor of ABC News Digital in New York, where he worked for 10 years, starting as a general assignment reporter. As part of the ABC News team, his work was recognized with a Peabody Award and an Edward R. Murrow award. He started his career at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his hometown newspaper, and spent four years as a business reporter with Reuters in Chicago.
Eric is a graduate of Emory University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He is a supporter of Cambodian Smiles, an organization started by his brother that provides clean water and home construction to people who live in remote rice farming villages in Cambodia, where his brother was born.
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Delegate
Deputy Director, Global Programs & Content, WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education)
Human potential, sustainability, powerful communication. This is what drives Laure's aspirations and social engagement.
Laure is French, British and Australian, and is currently based in Paris. As Deputy Director of Content and Global Programs for WISE (the World Innovation Summit for Education, an Initiative of Qatar Foundation), she leads an international team who identifies, connects and celebrates creative thinkers and doers in education.
Her profession allows her to promote some of the most remarkable people on earth: change-makers, innovators, researchers, leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists... people who care about others, about our common future, and who are positively shaping the world. It has also led her to gain a deep understanding of the impact of learning and education on social innovation, sustainability, collective development and individual empowerment.
Prior to WISE and other philanthropic enterprises, Laure has implemented a wide range of programs and communications campaigns related to corporate social responsibility, economic development, governance and culture in Paris, Geneva, London and Sydney.
She has advised and worked for organizations such as UN Agencies (International Trade Centre), NGOs (Fairtrade International, Amnesty International), International organizations (the Consumer Goods Forum), government agencies (Australia and New-Zealand local agencies), public institutions (Caisse des Dépôts), and private cultural or corporate entities.
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Delegate
Strategy Consultant, McKinsey & Company
Deborah Owhin is a Spelman College Alumna (Atlanta, Georgia), who was commended as a ‘fearless leader’ post-graduation in the 2013 Philanthropy report for her work towards promoting gender equality. Her career trajectory has been face paced and she became the youngest Violence against women and girls coordinator for the UK government.
Her experiences at local, national, and international level gave her a realisation of the urgent need for a platform where young women and men could learn and work together to prevent gender inequality, and so started ‘Made Equal’ - a non-profit social initiative that engages, educates and empowers them to eradicate gender inequality.
Deborah has an extensive background working to prevent and end domestic and gender based violence against women and girls internationally through government and civil society leadership positions for over 10 years. Deborah has been a valued advocate and commentator on issues affecting young adults and professionals. She has been invited to speak on major media platforms such as Sky News, CNN and local media channels.
She has been recognised as a Future Leader by the Nigerian Leadership Initiative and was inducted as an Associate in 2014. In 2015, Deborah became the first African to receive the prestigious Skoll Scholarship at the University of Oxford, where she is currently studying for a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) and is at Somerville College.
Deborah is an active member of the Oxford community, serving as a qualified Peer Supporter and the Vice President of Government on the Global Business, Government and Politics Oxford Business Network. She was also named by ‘Poets and Quants’ as one of the ‘Top 10 Women to Watch’ from the MBA Class of 2016 globally.
Deborah is a trustee and adviser for several charities, including Restored. She enjoys travelling, spending time with her God children and is an avid supporter of Arsenal Football Club.
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Delegate
Vice President of Global Sustainability, Gap Inc.
David Hayer joined Gap Inc. in 2005. During that time, David has led change management within the supply chain which included shifting from seasonal sourcing to category management, the development of a more responsive supply chain and institutionalized non-merchandise sourcing. David led sourcing offices in the India subcontinent and was responsible for the largest sourcing category. Recently, David took on the role of VP, Global Sustainability at Gap Inc. David has gained deep knowledge of Gap Inc. business and supply chain and has a passion for improving the lives of garment workers.
Prior to joining Gap Inc., David worked at Hewlett-Packard for 6 years and helped on efforts during the HP-Compaq merger.
David enjoys spending time with his family, his wife and two sons. He is also a longtime basketball fanatic – regularly playing and coaching youth.
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Delegate
CEO, Evidence Action
Jeffrey Brown is the Chief Executive Officer of Evidence Action. He is responsible for the strategic leadership and oversight of Evidence Action’s evidence-based approach to scaling up development interventions to millions of people.
Prior, Brown was interim CEO of the Global Innovation Fund, a $200M venture fund that finds, tests, and scales cost-effective solutions to the biggest international development challenges. He previously served as the Managing Director of USAID's Development Innovation Ventures.
Jeff’s earlier career focused on the evaluation and oversight of large international development portfolios while in positions at the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. He has also worked for the Federal Reserve and been an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University.
He holds an MPA in International Development from Harvard University and an MA in Economics from Brown University.
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Delegate
Phoebe K. Schreiner is Vice President and U.S. Country Director of Breakthrough in New York.
Phoebe brings longtime experience working with social movements around the world to prevent violence and address its consequences–from family violence to armed conflict. An advocate for human rights, peace, and justice, Phoebe has worked tirelessly to invigorate political accountability, harness the power of communities, build bridges, and use the arts and media to inspire – from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to South Asia to the United States.
Since 2013, Phoebe has been leading and directing Breakthrough's U.S.'s work using media/arts/technology, leadership development, and community mobilization to transform a culture of gender-based violence into one that values all people equally.
Prior to joining Breakthrough, Phoebe consulted with UN Women to improve gender equality mechanisms within the UN system. Phoebe served with USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives to develop the agency’s strategy for conflict mitigation and reconciliation in Afghanistan’s war-torn southwest region. Before that, Phoebe acted as Deputy Director of the Civil Society Program of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Iraq, building the capacity of human rights organizations to advance their national agendas, promote peace and reconciliation, increase women’s/youth participation, and improve government accountability. Phoebe supported the advocacy efforts of Karama, a network of women’s organizations in the Middle East and North Africa committed to ending violence against women, to mobilize their governments to increase women in decision making positions. For nearly a decade, Phoebe served with the Women’s Program of Open Society Foundations, supporting women’s movements and advancing women’s human rights in conflict/post-conflict and transition countries.
Phoebe holds a Masters in Human Rights from Columbia University and a BA / dual degree in Government and Women’s Studies from Smith College.
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Delegate
Senior Multimedia Producer, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Having studied Law at L.S.E., I moved into Broadcast Television Production. working across a range of factual television output as a reporter and producer/director. I worked for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and PBS, before joining the the BBC Independent Factual Commissioning Team.
I left a position in Independent Commissioning to return to imagery and achieved an MA Photojournalism with Distinction. I absolutely loved learning and developing photographic skills. After five years as a freelance photographer and film maker, I joined International Overseas Development Agency, Christian Aid, to oversee their film and photography. This gave me the opportunity to utilise my skills in a way that could make a difference. Christian Aid work non- denominationally in over 40 countries, helping to alleviate poverty world- wide. As Head of Film and Photography, as well as editing hundreds of short films, I was fortunate enough to film and photograph in Malawi, Kenya, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone. After two years, I left Christian Aid to join Thomson Reuters Foundation as a senior video/ media producer.
My remit is to produce ground breaking films about land and property rights worldwide.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Kulemela Investments
Mark is an investor, entreprenueur and consultant who is passionate about building great teams and initiatives that make the world a better place.
He is the Executive Director of Kulemela Investments, an agricultural impact investment firm in West Africa and the Co-Chair of the Oxford Seed Fund, a university endowment venture capital fund for early stage Oxford startups. He is currently an MBA candidate and Rotary Global Scholar at Said Business School He is an advisor to several startups in emerging markets.
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Delegate
Principal, Vision Ridge Partners LLC
David (D.R.) Richardson works with Vision Ridge Partners, a sustainable investment firm deploying a real assets program in low carbon sectors. D.R. has been with the firm since 2010 and works closely with a number of portfolio companies, including GSSG Solar, SparkFund, Vision Fleet, and the Earth Partners.
Before Vision Ridge, DR was an analyst with Altman Vilandrie & Company, a boutique strategy consulting firm, specializing in tech, telecom, and media. DR graduated from Brown University with a degree in Political Science.
DR is an avid skier and hiker, and tries to spend his weekends exploring the great Colorado outdoors with him girlfriend, Carey, and dog, Thor.
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Delegate
EVP Worldwide Marketing and Communications, Participant Media
As executive vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Communications, Christina Kounelias oversees Participant Media's global strategy for all marketing and communications efforts, in line with the company’s mission to create entertainment that inspires social change.
She is responsible for leveraging the company’s content through cross-platform initiatives, shaping the company’s pro-social narrative, and elevating the Participant brand. Kounelias oversees creative marketing efforts for film, media and promotions, corporate communications, events, audience engagement, and research.
Prior to Participant, she served as the first-ever chief marketing officer at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the Academy, she oversaw all marketing, communications and digital media for the organization's global initiatives including The Oscars ®, Academy Museum, and a year-round slate of programming, and educational outreach. Kounelias also spearheaded a significant rebranding effort. Under her leadership, the organization grew its social media presence to over 9.2 million followers and dramatically transformed its online user experience.
Before joining the Academy, Kounelias served as executive vice president of Marketing at Warner Bros/New Line Cinema. She worked at New Line for 17 years and held senior posts in marketing and PR during her tenure there – highlights of which include award-winning campaigns for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Prior to New Line, Kounelias worked at the Fox Broadcasting Company, and Miramax Films, where she established their PR department. Additionally, she has worked on campaigns for an array of independent and blockbuster films including Sex and the City, Wedding Crashers, Hairspray, Little Children, About Schmidt, A History of Violence, the Austin Powers and Rush Hour franchises, Boogie Nights, Cinema Paradiso, My Left Foot, and Seven.
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Delegate
President, Trickle Up
Nathalie Laidler-Kylander joined Trickle Up in 2021 as President and CEO. She brings over 30 years of experience across multiple sectors, including 18 years of experience in the international development field. She is passionate about the social and economic inclusion of women.
Prior to Trickle Up, Nathalie was a Managing Director at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation. There since 2015, she acted as an operating partner to early-stage nonprofits and social enterprises across the world, serving on their boards and helping them build capacity and achieve their maximum impact. An academic as well as a practitioner, she has also lectured on nonprofit management and leadership at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the Kennedy School at Harvard University.
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Delegate
Senior Producer, PBS Newshour
Since April 2015, Richard has been a Senior Producer, Content and Partnerships at the PBS NewsHour. In this role he is a senior member of the editorial team, helping to manage, plan and produce news and feature content for the broadcast, digital and social media platforms and also serving as a critical liaison to our growing list of critical partners. These partners include PBS stations, non-profit journalism organizations and other media organizations with whom we have formed a content sharing arrangement.
Prior to joining the NewsHour, Richard spent 26 years at ABC News, producing stories around the country and around the world, especially reports focused on politics, national security and foreign affairs, and during his most recent years at ABC, he was the creative force behind the design, execution and production of multi-media content.
Richard has covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and crises in other global hotspots such as Pakistan, Yemen and Darfur; he has spent much of his career producing stories from the field, including covering prominent stories including Hurricane Katrina and West Virginia coal mine disasters; he has also spent months producing reports from the presidential campaign trail over the past four campaign cycles.
Richard's work has generated award winning content for broadcast and online. Richard is a three time Webby Honoree, a five time Emmy nominee, and winner of an Emmy, an Alfred I. duPont, an Edward R Murrow and two George Foster Peabody awards.
Richard is a graduate of Middlebury College, and an avid skier and outdoorsman. He and his wife live in Middleburg, VA with their teenage son and daughter.
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Delegate
Mike Jobbins leads Global Affairs and Partnerships at Search for Common Ground. He joined Search in 2008 and has designed, developed, and managed conflict resolution, violence prevention, and inclusive governance programs. Mike leads Search’s partnerships with U.S. and European governments, the private sector and NGO partners. Mike has given interviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Foreign Policy, BBC World Service, Al Jazeera English, France 24, CCTV (China), Voice of America and National Public Radio, among others.
Mike was Senior Program Manager for Search’s Africa Region, where he led the design and development of programs in 22 countries across the continent. He led the design of responses to complex emergencies including the civil war in South Sudan, insurgencies in the Sahel, state collapse in the Central African Republic and in post-war Cote d’Ivoire.
Before being based in Washington, Mike was a program manager with Search for Common Ground in the DRC and program officer in its Burundi regional office, where he oversaw the start-up and management of election, security sector, and complex emergencies programs.
Prior to joining Search, Mike supported training with high-level political leaders in the DRC and Burundi and Africa policy research at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank. He has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a masters from Georgetown University.
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Delegate
CEO, SoulFire
A native of Buenos Aires, Jenny Tchinnosian is the Founder & Director of SoulFire: a branding agency dedicated to giving a voice to social causes (www.soulfiremedia.com). SoulFire finds creative ways to reach audiences via web design, magazines, branding, video, social media marketing, and more. Jenny is the first female Curator of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers chapter in Buenos Aires.
Jenny studied journalism at George Washington University and design at Parsons in New York, developing her career in the Associated Press (Rome), National Geographic (Washington DC), La Nación (Buenos Aires), Beaux Arts Magazine (Paris) and Intacto (Buenos Aires), where she led projects for Canon, JWT, IBM, Cisco, and Jack Morton, among others.
Jenny enjoys building community in every city where she lives, creating new links and learning about the cultures that surround it. She speaks English, Spanish, Italian and French.
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Delegate
Head, Syria Civil Defence
Raed Saleh is the Head of the Syrian Civil Defence.
Aged 32, he leads 2,851 search and rescue volunteers as head of Syria Civil Defence. Before the Syrian Revolution, Raed was a businessman who sold electrical equipment. After the start of the popular protests in Deraa in March 2011, he started organising peaceful protests and demonstrations in his home town Jisr Ashughour. The Syrian Army entered his town in June 2011 forcing him to go into hiding in Turkey. By the end of 2012, several areas in Idlib, Syria had been liberated from Syrian Army troops and he returned to Idlib to work in the humanitarian field helping refugees and displaced persons.
Raed heard about training being offered in Civil Defence and attended the first course run for Idlib in June 2013. He excelled during the course and his team mates elected him as their representative and he returned to set-up a further 20 teams in Idlib over the next 12 months. He is appointed by the regional SCD leaders as the head of Syria Civil Defence in the liberated areas, consisting of more than 2,800 members and 114 stations. . He is married with two children, a daughter aged 10 and a son aged 9.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Accenture
As the Managing Director of Strategy & Innovation with Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), I lead shaping our social impact businesses' strategy to unleash the power of Accenture and the private sector to to address the world's most complex social and environmental challenges.
Over the last 24 years, I have led consulting engagements in growth strategy, social innovation, shared value partnerships and new venture start-ups. I have had the honor of working with leading social impact companies (Unilever, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Google), United Nations agencies (WHO, WFP, UNICEF), Foundations (Rockefeller Foundation, Shell Foundation, UN Foundation), International NGOs (Aspen Institute, Fair Trade, World Vision, The Nature Conservancy), and partnerships (World Economic Forum's SAGCOT & Grow Asia, Medicines Patent Pool, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves).
I am passionate about social justice and I have led initiatives to create employment opportunities for refugees and opportunity youth, accelerate access to medicines in low income countries, and expand energy access in rural communities.
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Delegate
I belong from Quetta Balochistan province of Pakistan. Started my work as community education promoter for girls education. I joined IDSP-Pakistan as a Learners of the first course in 1998. Then joined IDSP as research and teaching fellow and became the founding faculty of the institute. Later on, I served as an Associate Director and Director of the institute. I also worked at Common Wealth Education Fund CEF as Coordinator for Pakistan with Save the Children UK. During the associate with Save the Children, I closely worked on formation of national level education coalition and alliances. Designed advocacy programmes on right to education and education financing with citizen engagement. Currently, I am working with a UK based INGO Actionaid, as Regional Programme Manager for Sindh and Balochistan provinces based in Karachi Pakistan. I am member of Karachi Bar Association and Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. I studied International Relations, Rural Development and graduation in law LLB.
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Delegate
Co Founder and CEO, Parjana® Distribution LLC
Parjana's "WHY?" is to create a paradigm shift in how the world manages water and forever change;
* The food supply
* The water supply
* The human supply
Gregory L. McPartlin is a Michigan native who attended Western Michigan and received a business degree in 1997. In 2001 Greg received his MBA from Bond University in Australia. Throughout Greg’s career his focus has been on numerous entrepreneurial ventures on a global basis which has taken him to nearly 50 countries. His first international entrepreneurial venture was Armacel Composite Technologies in Australia where he developed a business plan and secured over a million dollars in venture capital for Armacel.
In 2002 Greg created a JV with a US based water technology company in Brazil and developed the market and technology in Brazil and is still involved with the organization to this day. Greg developed a JV relationship with US based Water Planet engineering to further deploy the aeration technology on a global basis. During that time as Greg entered into the capital raising business for a number of fund structures. Then developed and partnered with key strategic partners to create and manage both a Brazilian fund and a South African fund.
In 2011 Greg met Andrew Niemczyk and in March of 2012 co-founded Parjana Distribution and has keenly focused on developing the organization ever since.
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Delegate
Benn Grover is the Director of Communications for Health Care Without Harm, an international organization committed to transforming the health sector into a leading advocate for environmental health and justice. Prior to working with Health Care Without Harm, Benn was the Director of Strategic Communications for the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. While at the National Forum, he oversaw the development and launch of the Policy Depot, an innovative social network for individuals worldwide who are committed to non-communicable disease policy solutions. Benn also volunteered as the Chief Communications Officer for NCDFREE, a youth-led social movement that creates political and social action that addresses non-communicable diseases through local, inspiring narratives. Prior to these positions, Benn was the Managing Editor for ProCor, a leading global platform for heart health and prevention in low-resource settings. Benn also sat on the global steering committee for the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network. He earned an MA in Health Communication from Emerson College and a BA in English from University of Massachusetts Boston.
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Delegate
Public Health Physician,
Behrooz is Director of the Master’s in Public Health (MPH) at Cardiff University and Consultant Epidemiologist at Public Health Wales. He trained as a medical doctor in the UK, specialising at Oxford School of Public Health. Behrooz practiced clinically in both the National Health Service and in Cyprus, before joining the first cohort of Masters students at the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health. He then completed doctoral research training at Harvard University, exploring the role of the home environment in the development of asthma and allergy in children. Between 2011 and 2013, Behrooz served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer (‘Disease Detective’) at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
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Delegate
Vice President, Land O'Lakes
Jon Halverson joined Land O'Lakes in June 2012. As Vice President for International Development,
Jon provides the strategic, business and administrative leadership for the division. He has more than
20 years of experience managing international business development, developing sustainable business
models and leading executive teams in strategy development and implementation. His international
experience includes both living and working overseas. During his 14 years at Cargill, he was responsible
for strategy development, international mergers and acquisitions, as well as post acquisition integration.
In Africa, he successfully spearheaded more than 70 food and agriculture investments and led a business
development process that generated more than $38 million in sales. In 2009, Jon founded both the Africa
Middle Market Fund and Frontier Markets Consulting. Before joining Land O'Lakes, Jon served as the
Managing Director for both organizations. In addition to his work experience, Jon has a Bachelor of Arts
degree from Wheaton College and a Masters of Business Administration from Regis University. Jon is
based at Land O'Lakes headquarters in Shoreview, Minnesota.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Plant for Peace
James is the Founder of Plant for Peace, a global initiative aimed at bringing sustainable stability to countries crippled by conflict by the creation of horticultural cooperatives. It’s a remarkable initiative currently focused on Afghanistan, where James has singlehandedly hosted 7 Tribal Elder gatherings addressing approximately 55,000 Elders convincing the entire farming community of Afghanistan to join Plant for Peace as a positive alternative livelihood subject to necessary support. James also oversaw the burning of $780M of narcotics in Afghanistan, personally lighting the fire.
"For every sale we plant a Tree"
The ‘fruits’ of the Plant for Peace initiative is a range of innovative products the first of which – an organic yogurt covered fruit bar range – can be found in Waitrose and Holland & Barrett stores across the UK from May 2015. In February 2016 Plant for Peace planted 110,000 trees in Afghanistan from fruit bar sales.
But if James had never set foot in Afghanistan, had never toured this troubled country without a bodyguard, badge or gun his achievements would still be mind-boggling, because his life story is truly astonishing.
It’s a story which includes child abuse by his grandfather, the early tragic death of his mother, his subsequent decline into drug addiction, homelessness, prison, betrayal, violence and mental illness. Ultimately it’s a breath-taking story of recovery, hope, humility and remarkable vision supported by a cast of farmers, academics, multinational food companies, government officials, philanthropists, celebrities, military leaders, royal families and the entire nation of Afghanistan.
Cinema movie - The British Film Institute has commissioned the development of a cinema movie of the Life of James Brett which is currently under development.
James is an internationally renowned key note speaker who has received many standing ovations including at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship Emerge Conference 2015.
James now lives with his wife Lilit and his two youngest of four children in Armenia.
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Delegate
Fund Manager, Triodos Investment Management BV
Karel Nierop is Fund Manager at Triodos Investment Management, with a strong belief that we can make money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change. After a career in mainstream corporate banking at Rabobank, Karel made a shift to live in Nepal to work on the development of a new run-of-river hydropower project. Combining those experiences, Karel joined Triodos Investment Management’s Emerging Markets team in 2012, which invests in financial inclusion, access to renewable energy and sustainable agricultural chains. After having worked as Senior Investment Officer in the financial inclusion team with a main focus on South Asia, Karel now manages one of Triodos Investment Management's funds under management. The fund’s portfolio comprises of early stage debt and equity investments in the financial inclusion space in 20 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with an increasing focus on scalable businesses active in renewable energy and sustainable food and agriculture. For the latter, Karel is keen to explore partnerships in Africa and Asia with likeminded parties.
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Delegate
Executive Producer "The World", Public Radio International
Andrew Sussman oversees the wide-ranging operation that is PRI's The World. Part of the original team that launched the show, Sussman joined as a reporter and producer in 1995, and has worked pretty much every position since.
Before The World, Sussman oversaw a joint-venture newspaper collaboration with Komsomolskaya Pravda in Russia, where he also worked as an editor at The Moscow Times. He's also worked as a reporter with Radio France International in Paris. Sussman was a 2001 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
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Delegate
CEO, Better Beast
Truc Nguyen has spent a decade in the branding and marketing industry consulting for global corporations. Her leadership and vision have also helped add significant growth to mid-sized companies as she has helped scale their operations. All the while, her passion for giving back and helping others was always her foremost desire. Truc knew her corporate training would lead her to bridge the two worlds and focus on the growing movement of hybrid models in social enterprise.
With a strong belief that no one should go to bed hungry, Truc traveled to Haiti in 2013 to work with Haitian Christian Mission’s (HCM) sustainable project arm, Pro Haiti. HCM & Pro Haiti is dedicated to feeding hundreds of children in local hospitals, schools and orphanages with fortified peanut butter products produced by a small peanut butter factory built on their main campus in Fond Parisien. Noting that the factory operated solely on charity money, Truc realized that the operation wasn’t sustainable. It did however provide an intriguing opportunity to market a unique Haitian product.
In late 2015, Better Beast peanut butter was introduced to the US market with the goal of sourcing product directly from the factory in the near future. This American classic—with an adult twist—has become the obsession of health nuts, active individuals and nut butter lovers with its unique Caribbean kick.
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Delegate
CEO, Community Innovation Lab
Pramilla Ramdahani is Chief Executive Director and President of the Community Innovation Lab, an Ontario-based not for profit corporation which she founded in 2011 with a purpose to create innovative market-based interventions to complex social and environmental issues in local communities. The NEET Youth Incubator was birthed out of this process to tackle youth unemployment and equip young people with entrepreneurial pathways to create (ventures), experience (work simulations) and transform communities (through the creation of world changing projects). Parallel to her role as a Social Entrepreneur, Pramilla served as an Adjunct Faculty in Social Entrepreneurship with the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business at the University of the West Indies and Trent University as a Social Innovation Instructor. In the Community, Pramilla is actively engaged in supporting several arts-based initiatives - as a director on the board of the Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery and as an ecosystem builder for local entrepreneurs through the Social Enterprise Accelerator at the Lab. She was Past Vice Chair at the Durham Workforce Authority. and Past Chair of the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Grant Review Team for Durham, Halliburton, Kawartha and Pine Ridge catchment areas. At the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Pramilla also served on the review teams of the Future Fund and Capital Fund. Pramilla received an Ontario Volunteer Service Award for her contributions to the sector. Prior to her current position, Pramilla held successful roles in fundraising development and special events with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and at the University of Toronto. She was also Founding Principal at The Sefad Group - a social enterprise technical advisory firm. Pramilla holds an MBA in Community Economic Development, a BA in Sociology, Certificate in Public Relations and participated in the Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Global Catalyst foundation
Zohre Elahian has been actively involved in international development for over 15 years. She is co-founder of Schools Online, a not-for-profit organization that has brought computers to schools and introduced ICT in education in many countries around the world and within the US.
As the Managing Director of Global Catalyst Foundation, Ms. Elahian has also evaluated many projects, addressing critical needs in education, ICT and microfinance; her Foundation has provided funding to such projects in many countries. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Relief International for over 8 years working on different developmental and humanitarian projects in countries such as Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and many other countries. Prior to her humanitarian activities, she co-managed a successful private business for 15 years. She is currently on the board of Partners for Sustainable Development, a local NGO in Palestine, Goorulearning and Iranian American Foundation. In 2009 Zohre received the Unsung Heroes of Compassion award and special blessing from His Holiness, The Dalai Lama
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Delegate
Founder, Inle Heritage
Yin Myo Su, born and raised at Inle Lake, Myanmar, and often referred to as the “Lady of the Lake,” is the managing director of the Inle Princess Group and the Inle Heritage Foundation. Yin Myo Su’s remarkable combination of passions including women’s empowerment, economic development, heritage and environmental preservation, art, culture, and food, and citizen engagement establishes her as a modern Myanmar Renaissance woman. With over two decades of experience in the hospitality industry, she has become a strong advocate for sustainable and responsible development practices that brings both social and economic benefit to local communities and insures the preservation of the creative, but fragile, cultural heritage of Inle Lake and Shan State. As an environmental advocate, she has taken a leading role in re-introducing the Burmese Cat back to Myanmar and, at Inle Heritage House, houses a private lake-side aquarium to draw attention to the unique and at-risk marine life nearby. To pass on her knowledge, Yin Myo Su is Chairperson of The Inle Heritage Hospitality Vocational Training Center that equips aspiring hospitality workers from Shan State develop the necessary technical and human service skills to fully participate in the tourism and trade potential of emerging Shan State. Yin Myo Su, is an active public speaker on subjects dear to her heart and recipient of several local and international awards in recognition of her work in hospitality, heritage preservation, women’s empowerment and leadership.
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Delegate
Associate Professor, Sunway University
Dr. Foo Yin Fah is an associate professor at Sunway University in Malaysia. He has more than 30 years’ experience in accounting, working in several international accounting firms, large public corporations and academic institutions. Dr. Foo holds a PhD in Accounting from Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is passionate about nurturing future business leaders that are enterprising and socially conscious. Dr. Foo was instrumental in setting social entrepreneurship as a priority area of development at Sunway University culminating in the formation of the Sunway Institute of Social Entrepreneurship at which he now holds the position of Director. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Dialogue in the Dark in Malaysia, a social enterprise that is creating economic opportunities for the visually impaired.
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Delegate
MBA Student & Consultant, University of Oxford
Yasmin Kumi is a half-Ghanaian/German young professional combining a Master's degree in African Studies with an MBA at the Saïd Business School (Oxford 1+1 MBA program). Her studies are funded by the Pershing Square Foundation founded by Bill Ackman from New York, which supports young leaders working on scalable solutions to social challenges around the world. She is the current President of the Oxford University Africa Society, the umbrella organisation for students hailing from or interested in Africa. Last year she was the co-chair of the Oxford Africa Conference 2015 which was opened by the President of Ghana.
Yasmin has worked as a senior consultant for McKinsey & Company since 2011 advising clients in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and South Africa in the consumer goods and banking industry. Previously she led the monitoring division of an agricultural development project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Accra that promotes the integration of the cashew nut value chain in West Africa. Yasmin has completed a number of internships during her undergraduate studies at a German business school, amongst others at the German International Development Corporation (GIZ), Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Yasmin is passionate about creating social change in sub-Saharan Africa through private-sector driven solutions. In 2013 she developed an initiative at McKinsey to support Green Belt Movement, the organisation of late Nobel Prize Winner Wangari Maathai, in the transition to a social business model. She is currently working on the establishment of an African research advisory company providing employment opportunities to local talented graduates and has recently been accepted to the Harambe Entrepreneurship Alliance with her corresponding proposal. She is excited about salsa and hiphop dancing, poetry and the art of cooking. Yasmin speaks German and English fluently, but also has language ability in French, Korean and Twi.
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Delegate
Fellow, Trabajo con Sentido Colombia
My career has been related private sector-led development initiatives focused on social innovation and social entrepreneurship in Latin America. For five years I worked in the MIF, the private sector lab of Inter-American Development Bank in the area of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I have worked and lived in Spain, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Washington and UK.
Since 2,015 I work as a Free-Lance consultant in innovation for development, social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Currently I am collaborating with two organizations: the Social Innovation Initiative of CAF, a Latin American Multilateral Development Bank and ITD, a center for Innovation for Development, of the Spanish University, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.
Aside of my work as a consultant I am a voluntary adviser to several Latin America social entrepreneurs. I will represent one of them, Trabajo con Sentido, in the forum.I started to work as a fellow with Trabajo con Sentido Colombia, organization that I will as an adviser in 2,015.Trabajo con Sentido (Jobs that make sense in Spanish) is a consultant company and head hunting company for private, public and civil society institutions that seek for professionals that boost their economic, social and environmental capabilities. These companies aim to find the right profiles to be successful in the new economy.
Certified as a B-Corp, Trabajo con Sentido (http://www.trabajoconsentido.co/) has its origin in Pegas con Sentido (http://www.pegasconsentido.cl) in Chile. Combining both companies we gather 45,000 professionals from different sectors willing to develop professionally in a socially responsible institution that share their values and commitment with the sustainable development of the country.
Currently I live in Brighton, England, where I am doing a master degree at SPRU in Innovation for International International Sustainable Development.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Melton Foundation
Convinced that our global challenges can only be tackled when people work together across silos, Winthrop has spent two decades building and leading purposeful networks of innovators, social entrepreneurs, and other change agents.
Currently, as Executive Director of the Melton Foundation, he leads the effort to expand the impact of a worldwide network of institutions and Melton Fellows dedicated to learning and practicing global citizenship.
Winthrop co-founded the Innovations journal (MIT Press) in 2005 and served as its case studies editor until 2012. He also led the effort at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center to create a global network of Ford Foundation innovation award programs and has authored numerous articles and case studies on social innovation.
Winthrop is fluent in three languages and relishes collaborating with the full spectrum of humanity. He has an M.Ed. from Harvard University and a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of New England International Donors (NEID) and is an active member of the Wellbeing Project which promotes personal and inner wellbeing in the field of social change.
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Delegate
Vice President, Economic Opportunity and Markets, Ford Foundation
Xavier (“Xav”) de Souza Briggs is vice president of the foundation’s Economic Opportunity and Markets program. He leads the foundation’s work promoting economic fairness, advancing sustainable development, and building just and inclusive cities in the United States, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He also oversees the foundation’s regional programming in China, Indonesia, and India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Xav is also professor of sociology and urban planning (on leave) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and former head of MIT’s Housing, Community, and Economic Development Group. An award-winning author, commentator and educator, he has led groundbreaking research in economic opportunity, democracy and governance, segregation, and racial and ethnic diversity in cities and metropolitan regions. Xav’s books include The Geography of Opportunity (Brookings, 2005) and Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities across the Globe (MIT Press, 2008), which examines efforts in the U.S. and other democracies—Brazil, India and South Africa—to lead change at the local level. His latest book is Moving to Opportunity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty (Oxford, 2010).
From January 2009 to August 2011, while on public service leave from the MIT faculty, Xav served as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House. There he oversaw a wide array of policy, budget and management issues for roughly half of the cabinet agencies of the federal government. Earlier in his career, Briggs served as a community planner in the South Bronx, a policy adviser and R&D director at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and a faculty member in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Xav holds an engineering degree from Stanford University, an MPA from Harvard and Ph.D. in sociology and education from Columbia University.
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Delegate
Executive Manager Charities, Hong Kong Jockey Club
Winnie Ying started her career as a social worker. She had been serving a multi-services NGO for 16 years and has rich experience in working with the underprivileged, NEET, socially withdrawn and at-risk youth. Winnie is passionate in helping the most neglected groups and implemented a number of impactful pilot projects/services for the needy. She was, indeed, a pioneer in the field of social withdrawal phenomenon of young people in Hong Kong.
She had been the Secretary General of a Government Fund for five years to promote social capital in Hong Kong. In 2013, Winnie joined the Hong Kong Jockey Club as Executive Manager of the Charities Department. By adopting proactive approach and collaborating closely with the Government and stakeholders to identify service gaps, she has helped developing a number of new initiatives. She is responsible for managing charities funding allocation/projects under different themes, in particular youth, education, poverty alleviation and social innovation. She is experienced in public services and managing public/charities funds.
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Delegate
CEO, TechnoServe
Will Warshauer is the president and CEO of TechnoServe, a nonprofit that works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. He brings more than 25 years of experience in international development and the private sector to his position as President. He launched his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone and has since worked in 40 developing countries. In his latest role, Will served as chief operating officer of Pact, Inc. and as president of the Pact Global Microfinance Fund – one of the world's largest microfinance institutions – which made over $120 million in loans to poor rural women in 2013. Previously, Will served as executive vice president for health and development solutions with Voxiva Inc., where he led the development of innovative, mobile phone-based health information systems. As a former executive vice president at PSI, he led initiatives such as the development of the organization’s global strategic plan and oversaw a $90 million portfolio of health programs in Africa. Will is a regular guest lecturer at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia on topic of social entrepreneurship. He has been a featured speaker at the Net Impact Conference, Harvard’s Social Enterprise Conference and the American Marketing Association. Will graduated with honors from Yale University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English, and received a master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
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Delegate
Director of Strategy and Development, Development Media International
Will Snell is DMI's Director of Strategy & Development. He has a first-class degree from the University of Oxford. Will has spent 16 years working in the international development and governmental sectors in the UK and overseas. He set up an African educational charity, Harambee Schools Kenya, in 1999. He also founded and ran Skills Venture, an African business volunteering project. Will worked for the UK Government for four years, at the Department of Health and DFID, and has undertaken consulting projects for a range of Government Departments and NGOs.
At DMI, Will leads on developing strategy, designing projects and securing significant funding to scale up radio and TV behaviour change campaigns in developing countries. He has led on DMI's expansion into DRC, Mozambique and Tanzania, and is fundraising for projects in all three countries, as well as in Burkina Faso.
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Delegate
Vice President, Health, MicroEnsure
Will has a post-graduate degree in finance and is a Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA). He previously worked as a Director of an actuarial consulting firm in South Africa where he consulted to numerous employer and private medical insurance schemes with a specific focus on the low income market.
Will de Klerk joined MicroEnsure (UK) in 2010. His work involves simplification and miniaturisation of insurance products and bundles sold through MFI’s or distributed for free as a loyalty reward through mass market channels, particularly with high-volume partners such as Telcos and banks. Will is currently exploring new opportunities in non-financial channels such as Pharma and FMCG.
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Delegate
Director, INCAE Business School - CLACDS
Director, Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development. INCAE Business School. Director Social Progress Index for Mesoamerica. PhD candidate in International Political Economy at ETH Zurich. His main research interests are policy coherence for sustainable development and the political economy of trade agreements. He has worked as trade policy specialist at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture and trade negotiator at the Costa Rica Mission to the WTO in Geneva. Guest lecturer at several universities, including ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, University of Bern, INCAE Business School and CATIE.
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Delegate
Founder, Chair of the Board of Directors, UWC Dilijan College
Veronika Zonabend is the founding partner and the chair of the Board of Governors of UWC Dilijan College in Armenia. She is actively involved in philanthropy and together with her husband Ruben Vardanyan she is the founder of RVVZ Foundation that implements philanthropic sustainable development projects in Russia and Armenia.
Earlier in the 2000s she was an entrepreneur and undertook projects within diverse sectors such as Hospitality, Film Distribution and Production. Among these was the co-production of “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky”, a film that closed the Cannes Festival in 2009.
Prior to that, she worked for several years in the banking sector, becoming the Deputy Head of Foreign Exchange Department of Tveruniversal Bank in 1993. She started her career as an Engineer at the Research Institute of Avionics in Russia, in 1990.
Veronika graduated with honors from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1990, she studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science specialising in "Banking and Finance" in 1994-1995.
Awarded the Order of Friendship in October 2014 by directive of the President of Armenia for fostering educational development and international collaboration in science and education, as well as for substantial efforts in building the international school in Dilijan and implementing academic programs.
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Delegate
Executive Assistant, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Veronica has over a decade of experience in the healthcare industry through her work with MPM Capital, the world’s largest life science-dedicated venture investors and GeneSoft Pharmaceuticals, Inc. At MPM, Veronica assisted in the startup operations of several biotech companies as well as the development of drugs in the field of cancer and pain management. Meanwhile, her time with GeneSoft, an MPM portfolio company, exposed her to the regulatory and commercialization processes as she assisted a global team that successfully took a new fluoroquinolone through the FDA drug approval process and its eventual marketing in the U.S.
Veronica has a B.S. in Information Systems from the University of San Francisco.
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Delegate
Founder and Director, Congreso Ciudadano
Founder of Tribu (tribu.ong - formerly Congreso Ciudadano), a Chilean non-profit and non-partisan backbone organization working to advance research, action, and dialogue on the future of democracy. Member of the Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.
Tomás previously served with Fundación Chile (fch.cl) doing foresight on the Circular Economy and the 4th Industrial Revolution, where he also contributed to the "Technology Roadmap for the Chilean Mining Industry 2015-2035" —which was launched by the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and has been translated from Spanish to English, German and Chinese—.
Prior to that, he spent two years in Colombia leading a social venture in the field of the sharing economy, with the purpose of strengthening social cohesion in poverty-stricken communities. The project was supported by the Government of Colombia and Socialab; it was showcased at the International Conference on Sustainable Development at Columbia University in the City of New York; and it won Impact on Air, Ventures Colombia, and the World Summit Youth Award.
Tomás is the oldest son of a Chilean mother and an Argentinian father, what made him experience and get interested in the diversity of Latin America since his early years. Before college, he studied for five years at the conservatory of music; what developed his idea of teamwork and his creative skills.
Whilst at college, he joined the international organization AIESEC, where he had his first experiences of entrepreneurship and leadership, and, at the same time, met people from all over the world, strengthening his cultural sensitivity and interest in international affairs. He received a total of five AIESEC recognitions, including the Change Agent Award.
He graduated 'with distinction' in economics from the University of Chile, and was awarded with the Academic Excellence Scholarship of the Chilean Government, the Scholarship Mayor of Santiago, the Scholarship Youth of the UNASUR, and the Google Fellowship to the Personal Democracy Forum. He has had teaching experiences at universities in Chile and Colombia.
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Delegate
President, One Acre Fund
Tony Kalm was the inaugural leader of One Acre Fund in the US, and is now its President. For his work in scaling the organization, he was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum. Previously, he was deputy head of CGIAR at the World Bank, a global research partnership that advances agricultural science and technology to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and ensure the sustainable management of natural resources. Before that, he helped establish the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains a collection of genebanks around the world as an insurance policy for the world's food supply. Tony graduated from Cornell University and received his MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sri Lanka, and worked in the HIV/AIDS program of the Medical Research Council of South Africa.
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Delegate
Chief Executive, WaterAid
Tim believes water, sanitation and hygiene underpin all progress in development and is committed to WaterAid’s global strategy to transform lives by ensuring everyone, everywhere is reached with services that last. In today’s challenging world, this requires renewed energy and collaboration with partners from civil society, governments and the private sector.
Tim also serves as the chair of Bond, the consortium of UK international development agencies. Before joining WaterAid, Tim spent six years as Chief Executive of ADD (Action on Disability and Development) International, an NGO working to promote independence, equality and opportunity for disabled people in poverty in Africa and Asia.
He spent two years as Director of the English Regions for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK, and before that held a range of senior roles with Oxfam and VSO in the UK, Beijing and Bangkok.
Tim began his career at British Airways, spending eight years in operational research and marketing roles, after completing a degree in maths at Cambridge and a masters at Lancaster.
Tim lives in Oxford with his wife and two daughters, where he has been a school governor and, when time permits, removes the larger weeds that grow between the vegetables in his allotment.
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Delegate
Co-Managing Partner, Chairman or Director of numerous companies, & CEO/Founder of Serendipity, LLC, Koogle Foundation, Koogle Ventures, & Serendipity LLC
Part engineer, part entrepreneur and businessman, and part philanthropist, Tim Koogle’s sweet spot is bringing good ideas to scale. Having spent over 30 years starting, growing, and running significant businesses, Tim is perhaps best known as the founding CEO of Yahoo!. As Employee #6, he led the company’s growth from $0 to well over $1billion in revenue, profitably, in six short years. For his lasting impact on the organization well beyond his 2001 tenure, in 2013 Harvard Business Review named Tim one of the 100 Best-Performing CEOs of all time and #1 for his ability to consistently deliver results over the long haul. Tim continues to bring a passion for solving tough challenges in the business sector. Today he divides his time between building young businesses and investing in and advising social sector organizations. In both cases, he is driven to increase impact quickly, sustainably and for the long haul.
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HIGHLIGHTS OF CAREER
- 1969-1976 B.S.M.E., U. of Va. (valedictorian), M.S, and Engr., Stanford U.
- Started two businesses during graduate school. Sold one to Motorola at the age of 29
- 1981-1990, Motorola, numerous executive roles reporting to the office of the CEO
- 1990-1995 CEO of Intermec
- 4 years concurrent, Sr.V.P., Litton/Western Atlas (purchased Intermec)
- 1995-2001, founding CEO and Chairman of Yahoo
- 2001-2003, Vice Chairman of Yahoo
- 2003-present, Managing Partner of Koogle Ventures, Co-Managing Partner of Koogle Foundation, and Founder & CEO of Serendipity, LLC
- Current Private for-profit Boards; Method-Ecover (Past Chairman), Cedaron Medical, Olly, Laxmi, Nirvana
- Current Social Sector Boards or Advisory; Room to Read (past co-Chair), Leadership Public Schools, Fresh Lifelines for Youth, Firestart
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Delegate
Executive Director, Social Innovation Generation (SiG)
Tim Draimin is Executive Director of Social Innovation Generation (SiG), a partnership founded by The JW McConnell Family Foundation, Toronto’s MaRS innovation hub, and the University of Waterloo. SiG focuses on strengthening Canada’s enabling ecosystem and public policies for deploying social innovation for system change. Tim is a frequent advisor to government, non-profits and business. He is a member of governance or advisory boards of Trico Foundation, Partnership Brokers Association, Grand Challenges Canada, Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), Centre for Social Innovation (CSI), and MaRS Centre for Impact Investing. Tim convened the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance, proposing a seven-point agenda for mobilizing private capital for public good.
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Delegate
Chair, Small Foundation
Tim Brosnan
Tim Brosnan is founder and Executive Chair of Small Foundation (SF), an Irish-registered charity (www.smallfoundation.ie).
Tim worked 15 years in Ireland’s Department of Finance and its development bank, ICC, and then setup and managed an Irish-based investment banking business for a multinational bank. Between 1987 and 2000, he founded and/or financed a number of successful start-up businesses in international finance that were subsequently acquired by large companies. In 2000, he co-founded Abbey Capital Ltd (www.abbeycapital.com), an investment management company specializing in global managed futures and is its non-executive Chair. He is CEO and CIO of Cavendish Capital Ltd, the holding company for Abbey Capital and a trader in international futures markets.
Small Foundation
Small Foundation’s vision is Africa permanently free from extreme poverty and chronic hunger by 2030. It seeks to catalyse the proliferation of sustainable income-generating opportunities for extremely poor people in rural sub-Saharan Africa by supporting highly-leveraged interventions that improve the business ecosystem for on-farm and off-farm micro, small and medium rural enterprises through expanding access to knowledge, finance, technology, and markets.
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Delegate
Philanthropy Executive, Marshall Institute
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Speaker
His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama
Although he calls himself a simple Buddhist monk, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is a global icon of peace and understanding.
Born in 1935 in northeastern Tibet, he was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. He assumed political power after China’s 1949-1950 invasion of Tibet and went to Beijing for peace talks in 1954. But with the suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa, he was forced to escape into exile in 1959. Since then he has lived in Dharamsala, India.
The Dalai Lama has long advocated a ‘Middle Way Approach’ of seeking genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people through peaceful dialogue, within the framework of the People’s Republic of China. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Beyond his advocacy for nonviolence, the Dalai Lama is recognized as the first Nobel laureate to champion the global environment.
In 2011, the Dalai Lama completed the process of democratization of the Tibetan exile administration by transferring all of his political authority to the elected leadership.
He has traveled the globe with his message of peace, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility, and compassion.
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Delegate
Grant Manager, Planet Wheeler Foundation
Tashi is the Grant Manager for Planet Wheeler Foundation, formerly named the Lonely Planet Foundation. The foundation funds over 60 projects in 30 different countries. Tashi’s key responsibilities include assessing, monitoring and visiting the projects and making sure the grants are used as effectively as possible.
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Delegate
, Individual
Talia provides administrative support to the CEO at the Skoll Foundation and is responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of the Executive Office. Prior to joining the Skoll Foundation Talia worked as an administrative professional in the non-profit sector for several years and specializes in special event coordination, with a particular love for wedding planning. Talia graduated with honors from the University of San Francisco with a BA in English in 2005.
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Delegate
CEO, Meditor
Talal has worked in the asset management industry for nearly 30 years, the last 18 of which as Principal and CEO of Meditor Capital Management, a leading European equites hedge fund manager. He now dedicates part of his time to philanthropy, learning through an active programme of formal courses, reading, country visits and meetings with key players. His aim is to find the most cost-effective ways maximise impact within the areas of global poverty and farm animal welfare.
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Delegate
Board member, Peter Möhrle Foundation
Peter Möhrle Stiftung
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Delegate
Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Swati Mylavarapu joined KPCB in 2015 as a Partner and focuses on venture-stage companies developing digital health and consumer technologies and businesses.
Swati joined KPCB from Square, where she was responsible for business operations and strategy for Square’s international efforts in Canada and Japan, and led product marketing for Square’s premium software efforts. Prior to Square, she was head of sales and client services at Quid, where she developed the data analytics company’s early revenue model and client base. Swati began her career at Google working on mobile technology efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa and India within Google.org.
Swati received an A.B. degree with highest honors in Development Studies from Harvard University and an MPhil in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Swati is also a Truman Scholar, and passionate about the role great technology companies and teams can play in solving important world challenges.
Outside of work, Swati spends her time traveling, searching for great food, horseback riding or hiking around the Bay Area with her Airedale Terrier, Bingley.
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Delegate
Managing Director, SKion GmbH
Born in 1962 in Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe. Apprenticeship as an advertising specialist in Frankfurt (Main). She studied business administration at the University of Buckingham, earning a Bachelor’s Degree. Later she enrolled at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, gaining an MBA in 1988. During her studies she acquired practical experience with banks as well as with industry and consulting firms. From 1989 to 1990 management assistant at Burda GmbH. Following a one-year stay in the USA, independent entrepreneur since 1991. Managing Director of SKion GmbH, a strategic investment company wholly owned by her. She is holding seats on supervisory boards of companies affiliated to SKion and to her family: Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of SGL Carbon SE. Deputy Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of ALTANA AG. Member of the Supervisory Board of BMW AG. She also chairs the Supervisory Board of UnternehmerTUM GmbH, an entrepreneurship centre empowering students and academics to realize their start-up projects. In 2012 she launched Stiftung Nantesbuch, a charitable foundation dedicated to cultural and ecological education.
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Delegate
Chair Education / Public Practice, SFMOMA
Susan Swig is an active member of her community and has served numerous arts, educational and environmental organizations on their advisory boards.
Currently, her main focus is as a trustee at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where she chairs the Education and Public Practice Committee. In this capacity she is part of a team re-inventing ‘arts education’ at SFMOMA, assuring that it is core to the museum’s mission and values, as well as forging new programs and partnerships that further the educational mission at the museum - including expanded film, performance and public programs SFMOMA is in the midst of an extraordinary expansion and Susan has been an active participant in the visioning of this Civic project of envisioning and creating a contemporary art museum for the 21c.
Susan has also been a member of the board of directors of The Swig Company, a privately held investment company of commercial real estate properties in major markets across the United States.
Susan has a BA from UC Berkeley and a BFA from Art Center College of Design. She resides in San Francisco.
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Delegate
Special Secretary, Odisha State Planning Board
Sujeet Kumar currently serves as the OSD-cum-Special Secretary of the Odisha State Planning Board, a very senior policy-planning position.
He is also the lead partner at ‘LexMantra, a boutique business Consulting firm focused on Legal and Business advisory services, for domestic and overseas corporations, multinational companies and multi-lateral bodies. Sujeet is also the co-founder and Chairman of ‘Kalinga Kusum’, a social enterprise that addresses challenges tied to education and entrepreneurship in rural communities in Odisha. Previously, Sujeet was a Global Leadership Fellow at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, Switzerland, and has also worked for United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and for Infosys Technologies Ltd. in India.
Sujeet studied for the mid-career Master in Public Administration (MPA) at the prestigious Harvard University. He also has the distinction of receiving the inaugural Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship, in-order to study for his MBA at University of Oxford. Sujeet also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Engineering and Law from India.
He has traveled widely and spoken in numerous conferences and forums. An avid reader, his passions are political advocacy, learning about other cultures and building linkages between them, understanding the human mind, and livelihood-enabling education.
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Delegate
CEO, Big Issue Australia
Steven, a social entrepreneur, has been working with The Big Issue since 2005. The Big Issue is Australia’s longest standing and most significant social enterprise. It is an independent, not for profit organisation that develops solutions to help homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people positively change their lives.
Since launching in 1996, 10 million magazines have been sold throughout the country, putting more than $21 million into the pockets of vendors. In June 2014 The Big Issue magazine celebrated its 18th birthday, and in those 18 years has assisted over 4,500 people.
Steven has worked in the NGO sector for over 30 years and holds a qualification in education for the disabled. He has held the position of CEO for a number of medium to large not for profit organisations providing services such as housing, employment, personal care and case management across a wide range of social needs.
In both corporate social responsibility and sponsorship arrangements, Steven has engaged and managed relationships with some of Australia and the world’s largest businesses. He also has vast experience in the profit sector where he ran his own businesses for several years.
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Delegate
Steven M. Rothstein became CEO of Citizen Schools on September 1, 2014 where he is humbled by the students, staff, AmeriCorp team members, Citizen Teachers, partners and others to provide the quality services every day.
He had completed over 11 years as President of Perkins School for the Blind. During his tenure, Perkins grew from serving 40,000 people to roughly 900,000 people throughout the US and in 67 countries around the world. Perkins started to grow hundreds of schools worldwide, completed its largest capital campaign in its 185 years of service, built more buildings on campus in 100 years and significantly expanded its teacher training, technology and educational programs. Prior to Perkins, Steven started and ran an environmental consulting company, served as a senior official in a large state human service agency, and cofounded and served as general manager of Citizens Energy Corporation, a non-profit energy and health care company. He also was an adjunct professor at Boston University’s School of Management.
Steven graduated from Williams College and received an MBA from Northeastern University. He has also served on numerous boards including the Massachusetts Department of Education (now Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) in the 1970’s as a high school student and chaired an extended day program board in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has received several professional awards and recognitions and has been published in several publications. Steven lives in Somerville with his wife, Susan Maze Rothstein, a professor of law at Northeastern University. The couple has two sons. One is a doctor and the other works for an environmental company.
stevenrothstein@citizenschools.org
617-695-2300 ext 1101
308 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210
www.citizenschools.org
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Delegate
Associate Director, Global Public Affairs, Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles
Stephen Commins is the Associate Director for Global Public Affairs and Lecturer in Urban Planning at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. He currently works as a partnership adviser for World Development Report 2017 (Governance and the Law) and also worked on World Development Report 2015 (Mind, Society and Behavior). He recently completed a four country study of World Bank CDD programs and their impact on livelihoods in FCAS situations, in South Asia, and a project on 'cities, violence and order' with IDS/Sussex.
Commins worked for seven years as the Senior Human Development Specialist in the Human Development Network at the World Bank and was a member of the World Development Report 2004 team (Making Services Work for Poor People). He currently is an adviser to the Secure Livelihoods Resource Consortium (Overseas Development Institute). Prior to his work at the World Bank, he was Director of the Development Institute at the UCLA African Studies Center in the 1980s and Director of Policy and Planning at World Vision International in much of the 1990s.
His recent work has focused on fragile states, disasters, and basic service delivery, particularly in the health sector. Recent papers include “Non-State Providers, the State and Health in Post-Conflict Fragile States”, “The Medium-Term Impact of Disasters in Bangladesh”, and “Decentralization and Accountability in Africa", and a chapter in a book on conflict and health. As a consultant for DFID, he managed a small team that reviewed 20 'pooled funds' and produced a policy guidance and program management guide for managers in FCAS.
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Delegate
Board Member, Fossil Foundation
Senior Vice President, The Portfolio Group, Fossil Group working to transform the way we conceive of, create, and brand watches -- making them all smarter, chip by chip. Currently a Fossil Foundation Board Member working to support social entrepreneurs as they transform the way we empower people to better lives and communities.
Educated and experienced in Public Policy Studies and Business Administration and put to use in product development and global brand building with companies like The Gap, Inc, Levi Strauss & Co. and Converse (a subsidiary of Nike, Inc).
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Delegate
Executive Director, LifeNet International
Stefanie specializes in empowering business leaders in the developing world to make a positive local impact. She is currently focused on leading LifeNet’s social franchising of health centers in Burundi, Uganda, Eastern DRC, and Malawi, building their capacity to deliver quality primary health care sustainably. Stefanie has a vision to help the most people possible to have access to quality health care and medicines through a system that is financially sustainable. Expanding LifeNet’s work in Africa in the next several years is her chief creative and mental occupation.
Stefanie holds a BSFS in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from Georgetown University, an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics, a certificate in Development Management from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and is pursuing a MPH at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She speaks English, French, Japanese, and some Swahili. She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and two small children.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Groundswell International
Steve Brescia is the co-founder and Executive Director of Groundswell International. Groundswell works with partners to spread farmer-led agroecology, strengthen sustainable local food economies, and promote enabling policy contexts from the ground up. Founded in 2009, Groundswell currently works with partners in Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mail, Senegal, Nepal and the United States. Mr. Brescia has over 25 years of experience in international development, social change and grassroots advocacy. From 1996-2009 he worked for World Neighbors, supporting people-centered rural development programs, initially in Central America, Mexico and Haiti and later on a global level. Prior positions included support for the restoration of the democratically elected government of Haiti after the 1991 coup d’etat; and as a consultant for the InterAmerican Foundation (IAF) supporting programs in the Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. He holds an MA in International Development from American University (1991).
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Delegate
Co-Founder & CFO, Yunus Social Business
Sophie is Co-founder and CFO of Yunus Social Business Global Initiatives (YSB), founded by Peace Nobel Laureate Prof. Yunus. YSB has the goal to help create social businesses. YSB enables entrepreneurs to create social businesses by providing non-financial support and financing. YSB is based in Germany with local subsidiaries and teams in 7 countries. YSB consists of 40+ employees globally, plus volunteer consultants and network of supports
Prior to YSB, Sophie was the Director of the Grameen Creative Lab (GCL), responsible for large Social Business country initiatives which GCL initiated, including Haiti and Albania. Previously, Sophie worked as a strategy consultant for Siemens Management Consulting in Munich as well as financial analyst for GE Capital in London, Amsterdam and Munich. She lectured at universities in Milano, in Bogota and in Tirana on the topic of Social Business.
Sophie headed up the YSB Haiti initiative for the past 4 years and has since 2015 taken over the leadership for the YSB Colombia initiative. YSB Colombia incubates social businesses in Healthcare, Agriculture and Food. YSB has created a joint venture with McCain, the Canadian potato production and marketing company. The Social Business joint venture Campo Vivo supports and trains local farmers to plant and market potato thus achieve a higher and stable income. Besides Sophie is initiating various other Corporate Partnerships globally.
She holds an MBA from European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel Germany and a MBA in International Business from INSEAD. She studied abroad in Argentina, the US, Singapore and France and worked in a number of countries including the US, China, UK, Netherlands, Haiti, Bangladesh, Colombia and Dubai. She is founding member of Step-up, a network which helps disadvantaged young people in Germany to pursue their academic studies.
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Delegate
Director, Namati Sierra Leone,
NamatiSonkita Conteh leads Namati’s work on land rights and environmental justice in Sierra Leone. He is a legal practitioner of the High Court of Sierra Leone and holds a master’s degree in human rights and democratization from the University of Pretoria. As a consultant for two years with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions Africa Office in Ghana, he researched and reviewed law and policy on the right to water and sanitation in South Africa and Ghana; drafted amicus curiae briefs, publications, and training manuals; and provided training to civil society organizations. He has almost 20 years’ litigation experience. He was a member of Sierra Leone's General Legal Council, the body that regulates the legal profession in the country. In 2017, he was named as one of the Schwab Foundation's Social Entrepreneurs of the Year. Sonkita is also a Desmond Tutu Leadership fellow.
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Delegate
Founder - Wildbound, Wildbound
Songqiao Yao is the founder of WildBound, an innovative social enterprise that facilitates experiential education, climate actions, and artistic expression to cultivate sustainability leadership and systems change. Songqiao is also a mindfulness-based coach and facilitator, currently building a awareness-based network to support leadership and
resilience for environmental organizations in Asia.
Prior to founding WildBound, Songqiao was the first Chinese participant and faculty member for Homeward Bound, the largest all-female science and leadership expedition to Antarctica. Over the past 10 years, she has led and advised youth climate organizations and projects, worked to conserve China’s rivers as a National Geographic Global Explorer, and consulted on agriculture development projects in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
Songqiao received a Mphil in Geography from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar and a MBA from Oxford as a Skoll Scholar.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & VP, Action Connected
Simon Reckla is the Co-Founder and Vice President at Action Connected, a groundbreaking online fundraising platform promoting an equal partnership between funders, implementers and beneficiaries.
He aims at realising and promoting Action Connected's vision of an inclusive and transparent development fundraising ecosystem responsive to demand-driven solutions and to learning and adaptation within the project cycle. Motivated to do more to help and concerned by reports of fraud and misuse of resources, a new generation of concerned global citizens and change makers wants to know more about how their money is spent and the impact it has. Action Connected’s partnership model of online non-profit fundraising responds to this immediate desire of people and institutions to have a deeper, shared and lasting connection and impact with beneficiaries as those communities served through their donations and resources. Accountability lies at the heart of Action Connected's equitable approach to development project design and delivery of contributions, supporting more lasting change and meaningful experiences for everyone involved in the process.
Simon’s passion lies in fostering truly sustainable development practices at the highest level of international standards. This involves ethical business practices and sustainable policies that take into account the direct needs of beneficiaries as a priority and guiding principle.
Simon’s experience in management and strategic communications for private sector firms and inter-governmental agencies throughout the European Union gives Action Connected acute understanding of the sometimes-volatile international policy landscape effecting global development and financial transactions across countries.
Simon Reckla is a native of Italy with Austrian lineage fluent in German, Italian, English and Russian. He holds dual Masters Degrees in International Relations from the University of Kent, UK and in International Relations in Eurasia from the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
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Delegate
Guiding Teacher, Insight Meditation Society
Sharon Salzberg has been studying and practicing meditation since 1971, and teaching worldwide since 1974. Her work centers on the cultivation of concentration, mindfulness and especially Lovingkindness and compassion. She is the co- founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. In recent years her work has expanded to offering these tools of resilience to domestic violence shelter staff, home health workers, international humanitarian aid workers, and non profit employees. Vicarious trauma experienced by service providers with its public health implications, and the positive potential of implementing tools like mindfulness and compassion meditations is her particular focus currently.
Sharon is the author of 9 books, including the NY Times bestseller Real Happiness. Her next book, Real Love, will be published in January 2017. In addition, Sharon is a weekly columnist at OnBeing.
org.
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Delegate
Director and Head, Schwab Foundation for Social Entreprenuership
Katherine Milligan is the Director and Head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the sister organization of the World Economic Forum. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she was the recipient of the Pforzheimer Scholarship for Excellence in Nonprofit Management. Katherine’s previous work experience includes a Sheldon Knox Research Fellowship at Harvard University (2004-2005); a Global Leadership Fellow of the World Economic Forum (2005-2009). Before that she was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa and a strategy consultant for several non-profits. Her work has been published in the International Institute of Economics, Stanford Social Innovation Review, MIT journal Innovations, and the Harvard Business School.
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Delegate
CEO, Bridgeway Foundation
Shannon Sedgwick Davis is the CEO of Bridgeway Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to ending and preventing mass atrocities around the world. As an attorney, activist, passionate advocate for social justice, Ms. Sedgwick Davis has guided Bridgeway Foundation in pioneering solutions to these seemingly intractable issues. More recently, Ms. Sedgwick Davis and the Bridgeway Foundation have been credited for their pivotal role in mobilizing awareness, civilian protection, and recovery efforts against the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony, the first-ever indictee of the International Criminal Court.
Prior to joining Bridgeway Foundation in 2007, Ms. Sedgwick Davis served as Vice President of Geneva Global, and was the Director of Public Affairs at the International Justice Mission (IJM).
Ms. Sedgwick Davis is an honors graduate of McMurry University and Baylor Law School. Ms. Sedgwick Davis sits on the board of several organizations including The Elders, Humanity United, TOMS, and charity: water.
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Delegate
Director, International Programs, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Shaheen Kassim-Lakha is the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, where she leads the development and implementation of external engagements, including collaborations with philanthropic funders, as well as local, national, and global partners. In her role, she is focused on unlocking investments and driving policy changes aimed at shifting greater resources to local organizations and lifting civil society voices. Previously, she was the Foundation’s director of international programs, overseeing various initiatives including safe water access, early childhood development for HIV and AIDS-affected children, blindness prevention, and disaster relief and recovery. She holds a doctorate in public health (DrPH) and has a broad academic and professional background in health services, hospital administration and environmental epidemiology.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Chairman, PVBLIC Foundation
Ill Sr Don Sergio A. Fernandez de Cordova is a global citizen in the words true meaning. When not travelling the world trying to contribute to re-frameing what we think and how we connect, he enjoys a quite moment just going with the flow meeting new people or old friends of all walks of life.
Sergio although fairly young in most standards, has had a 28 year career in media & advertising - starting at a young age in publishing and graduating to digital and then finding his way back to brick and mortar, building one of the most successful start-up's in the history of Billboard business in America.
Thru his many ventures Sergio, in his free time, has pursued his passion of connecting next generation philanthropist, social impact, entrepreneurs, political and thought leaders together thru the many platform he either co-created or was part of the grass roots movement that created them. Now today with a network spanning over 85 countries he enjoys keeping these networks focused on creating a better tomorrow, building leadership thru connecting with each other.
Today Sergio is the Co-founder and visionary behind P3 Global Management (P3GM) & PVBLIC Foundation. For P3GM he leads thought leadership, global development and policy work behind structuring Public Private Partnerships (PPP) around smart infrastructure with local, state and federal governments. As acting Chairman of PVBLIC he leads the foundations engagement with the White House, United Nations and hosts the Media For Social Impact Summit in partnership with UNOP, where C-Level executives convene to inspire each other on how media can change the world one campaign at a time.
Currently Sergio invested in and or advises a few dozen companies whose focus include elements of civic engaging technologies, media and public private related initiatives.
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Delegate
Editor-in-Chief, WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education)
Nandita Vij Tandan is multimedia journalist, author and editor with experience in designing and launching new editorial projects, producing digital content, managing editorial staff and fostering interaction with the audience through social media.
She is currently Editor-in-Chief and Digital Curator at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). As editor-in-chief, she manages the overall strategy and content for the WISE including digital portals WISE ed.review and the WISE ed.hub. The portals feature news, analysis and initiatives linked to innovative trends in education.
Prior to joining WISE, Nandita was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief (New Media) at FRANCE 24, an international news network where she managed daily editorial operations. Nandita is a former Radio France International reporter.
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Delegate
Program Officer, Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation
Brittany joined RTNF in 2015 as its first Program Officer. She is responsible for identifying leaders and organizations that are creating and facilitating profound and positive impact in the lives of those they work with and connecting those leaders and organizations to the resources they need to scale their inspiring work. In addition, Brittany manages RTNF's strategy, operations, and partner relationships. Brittany has always been drawn to social impact work, but in graduate school she became fascinated, invigorated, and empowered by what she learned of program design and evaluation. Brittany believes that it's important to challenge assumptions about impact and maintain an attitude of humility, empathy, and ongoing learning as participants in the social sector. Brittany holds a BA in Political Science from Vanderbilt University and an MPA from the Romney Institute of Public Management at Brigham Young University. She lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and a couple of Australian Shepherds.
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Delegate
Founder and Executive Director, Restorative Leadership® Institute
Seana Lowe Steffen, PhD, is the founder of the Restorative Leadership Institute, a certified B Corp honored as the “Best of the Best for Community Impact” in 2013. Seana brings 25 years of experience in strategic consulting, capacity building, leadership and organizational development throughout the United States and the world in settings such as Senegal, Mexico, and Rwanda.
Seana's awards include ETown National Public Radio’s “E-chievement Award” for making a lasting difference in the community and beyond, and Mortar Board’s “Outstanding Professor” award. She also was a nominee for the Ford Foundation “Leadership for a Changing World Award." In public service, Seana co-founded Explore EL School, which received the first Colorado Education “Commissioner’s Choice Award for Getting Results,” and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, the first rural regional youth corps in the US and a recipient of White House recognition for positive change in the Southwest. Currently she chairs the WORLD PULSE Global Advisory Network and serves the B Corp leadership council.
As an educator and social ecologist, Seana worked as faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she directed award-winning educational programs to benefit humanity and the environment. She also was core faculty with the CU Sustainable Practices Program and at Naropa University. She currently teaches with the Omega Women’s Leadership Center. A published scholar, Seana's distinctions include introducing the guiding framework of "restorative leadership" to the field and serving on a quick-response national research team following the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Seana focuses on cultivating leadership and enterprise that fulfills humanity's potential to thrive in balance with all life. Her work helps to discover: How do we bring out the best of our diverse humanity to ensure a sustainable world? Seana’s podcast "On Leading" explores that big question.
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Delegate
Oxford University Student, Said Business School
Sean Peters has built his career supporting entrepreneurship as a tool to improve lives around the world.
Over the past three years Sean has been based out of Emory University, where he led the construction of the Entrepreneurship Database, the world's largest research program exploring entrepreneurship and accelerator models. In partnership with USAID, ANDE, Kauffman Foundation and others, this program has raised over $3M in seed funding and is implemented within over 80 accelerator programs worldwide.
Early in his career, Sean co-founded Riding to Break the Cycle, an adventure tourism social enterprise that conducted long-distance bike tours (Vancouver to Tijuana; Amsterdam to Istanbul) in support of microfinance initiatives around the world.
In 2011, after a year of research into gaps in impact investing markets, Sean co-founded Global Catalyst Initiative, a small early-stage fund focused on East African social venture startups too small to access the pools of impact investment capital that had emerged in the region. This program explored 200 ventures and invested in six businesses – all of which went on to receive further funding. In early 2012, Sean was also a co-founder of RADIUS Ventures, a Vancouver-based socially-focused venture accelerator.
Sean is currently an MBA student at Said Business School in Oxford.
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Delegate
Scarlett began her career in journalism and comes to Sundance from the Open Society Foundation, where she worked in both the Communications department and the Burma Program. She manages all aspects of Sundance Institute’s Creative Partnerships including Stories of Change, a partnership with the Skoll Foundation, and the BBC World Service/Sundance Nonfiction Audio Collaboration. She has also supported the Sundance/CNEX labs in Beijing and Sundance Institute/Knight Foundation artist development programs in cities around the U.S. She also holds a staff advisory role with the Sundance Documentary Fund.
Scarlett holds an MA in journalism from Syracuse University.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Phoenix Court
Saul Klein is a tech entrepreneur, investor & operator backing founders building businesses based on science & technology, to have the maximum positive impact on society. He is the cofounder of Phoenix Court, the home of LocalGlobe, Latitude, Solar & Basecamp funds, & Phoenix Court Works foundation. Phoenix Court’s mission is to be a good neighbour & help people realise their full potential, allocating 10% of profits in its management company and 2% of carry in all funds to its foundation to invest in local organisations. Prior to founding Phoenix Court, Saul was a partner at Index Ventures & original CEO of LoveFilm. He co-founded Seedcamp, Europe’s first accelerator; Zinc, a mission driven company builder with LSE; & Newton Venture Program, with LBS. A member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology & a NED on DSIT’s board, Saul serves on Camden’s STEAM & Economic Renewal Commissions. He was a trustee of Comic Relief for six years.
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Delegate
In a world full of innovative software, applying technology to solve social problems is Padmaja’s passion. As the Vice President of Technology and Digital Transformation at the Skoll Foundation, she is chartered with defining and architecting technology solutions to support the foundation’s initiatives and further its mission of creating large scale change.
Padmaja has more than 20 years of experience in managing global Information Technology organizations and providing solutions across enterprise business operations. Prior to Skoll, Padmaja was the Senior Director of Business applications at Brocade Communications, enabling business transformation and delivering enterprise wide technology solutions.
Padmaja is also a member of the National Coordinating Committee of India Literacy Project (ILP), a non-profit organization working towards 100% literacy in India. She has been volunteering with ILP for over a decade and supported numerous initiatives that have benefited thousands of villages in India. She has also built and supported technology applications for various non-profits.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Thalamic, Individual
Sarah J Caddick PhD, DSc (hon)
Dr. Caddick is Founder and CEO of Thalamic Ltd, a bespoke consultancy specialising in philanthropic advisory services, foundation and corporate grant strategy development, institutional review and strategy development for large scale projects, salon and workshop curation and convening.
Sarah embarked upon her scientific career following a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Southampton with research posts at Duke University and the Medical College of Virginia. After receiving a prestigious fellowship from a private foundation she became interested in the role of philanthropy in the scientific enterprise. Over the last two decades she has advised individual philanthropists and organisations on strategy and investments in research and has been responsible for the development of a range of academic centres and institutes in the USA and UK, across a broad range of scientific disciplines.
Sarah has a particular passion for curating conversations that encourage diverse participants to explore the interface between different areas of science and to begin to understand the role of science in many areas of society.
She currently serves on a number of boards and advisory groups, including Theatr Clwyd, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit and the Healthy Brains Global Initiative. She is a former guest curator and presenter for TEDGlobal and the Skoll World Forum.
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Delegate
Portfolio Manager, RippleWorks
Sarah works at the intersection of Silicon Valley and emerging markets at the RippleWorks Foundation, a newly launched foundation that pairs world-class business and technology experts with rapidly growing social ventures around the world. Beyond advising or mentorship, the RippleWorks program is real problem solving: volunteer experts work with innovative, rapidly growing social ventures to jointly solve an immediate and critical scaling challenge. RippleWorks currently has live projects through East Africa, Indonesia, and India
As the portfolio manager at RippleWorks, Sarah helps solve critical scaling challenges within startups and social enterprises by enabling world-class talent to provide valuable expertise while keeping their day jobs.
Sarah Burch has deep experience in helping emerging market social enterprises grow and generate sustainable impact. Over the past five years, Sarah helped launch and develop Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), one of the first VC-style impact funds in government.
At DIV, Sarah led the due diligence and closing of over 20 deals – aggregating $22 million in over 10 countries – as well as managed a portfolio of 30 startups and social enterprises in areas such as energy, water access, and health care.
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Delegate
WCDCO, Days for Girls International
Beginning in the early eighties, I set out to walk a life of purpose. This started me down a path that went from teaching low-income women trade skills, while moonlighting as a firefighter, to serving as a policy adviser to the Governor of Washington, raising funds and building awareness for an international Skoll award winning NGO, Landesa, and directing Grameen Foundation’s philanthropy initiatives.
Now with over three decades working for local and international NGOs, my vast experience and networks has allowed me to continue this passion by expanding Days for Girls’ program reach and mission. An organization that has reached over 2 million women and girls with mensural products and health education.
When not talking about periods, I also serve as a trustee for a girls school in Humla, Nepal, and read Sesame Street books to my grandchildren.
Days for Girls is a two-time Girl Effect Champion, a Global Giving Girl Fund winner, 2015 recipient of the SEED award for gender equity and entrepreneurship, and a Huffington Post ‘Next Ten’ organization poised to change the world in the next decade. Visit our website at daysforgirls.org to learn more or contact me about ways to partner.
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Delegate
Program Manager, Education and Learning, The MasterCard Foundation
Samuel Yalew Adela is Program Manager, Education and Learning at The MasterCard Foundation. Samuel has over 20 years of experience in education, child rights advocacy and public health in Africa working with organizations such as John Snow, Inc. (JSI), Academy for Educational Development (AED), The BBC World Service Trust, African Network for the Prevention of and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) and Ministry of Education. Samuel served in a capacity of chief of party (director), deputy director, technical advisor, program manager and program officer in various large and multiyear projects financially supported by USAID, Gates Foundation and UNICEF among others. Trained as a teacher in Ethiopia, Samuel served in secondary school and in universities in Ethiopia. He received Bachelor of Education from Kotebe College of Teacher Education and Master of Arts in Literature from Addis Ababa University.
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Delegate
Founder, Ethnomedia
Samar Minallah Khan
Documentary Filmmaker and Anthropologist
Since the last 15 years, Samar is challenging child marriages, and various forms of culturally sanctioned forms of violence against women and girls. This she does by
changing mindsets through documentary and other forms of creative media.
Referred to by the media as ‘The Savior of Soul’,' Women who Rock the world’, and ‘The Crusader with the Camera’, she continues to advocate against child marriages.
In parts of Pakistan, girls are given away as compensation to settle disputes or to pay for crimes committed by men in their family or tribe. The family receiving the girl can make her a child bride, enslaving her for the rest of her life. Swara, as this practice is known, was practiced in parts of Pakistan for generations—until one woman, Samar Minallah Khan, used a camera to catalyze change.
In 2003, Samar created a documentary on ‘Swara’. Her goal was to raise awareness of the horrific custom and mobilize policymakers to abolish it. Thanks in part to Samar’s campaign; swara was made illegal in Pakistan in 2004. Dozens of girls were rescued.
Samar did not stop there — she made sure that the law was implemented. She took the cause to Pakistanis of all backgrounds, even convincing truck drivers to paint anti-swara slogans on their vehicles.
She has produced documentaries on human trafficking, dowry and acid crimes, child domestic labor and forced marriage among the diaspora community.
Samar sees her documentaries as a way to give voice to those who are seldom heard. Her films are made in regional languages and screened locally, so that people can relate and see themselves through her stories. She uses her lens to focus on unsung heroes within rural communities, such as Pakistani fathers who take enormous risks to stand up for their daughters. She believes in engaging men in order to end violence against women.
She has won several national and international awards
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Delegate
Executive Director, Millennium Campus Network
Sam Vaghar is a social entrepreneur committed to helping young people own their voice and power to make a difference. With over a decade of impact co-founding and leading Millennium Campus Network (MCN), Sam has helped launch the Millennium Fellowship: a student movement for the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 20 nations. Sam has given talks at over 100 institutions worldwide, including at Harvard University, MIT, the White House, the United Nations, the Vatican, and on speaking tours across four nations for the U.S. Department of State. In addition, Sam serves on multiple Boards, including serving as an Advisor to the Executive Director of UN Women.
Sam is a 2008 graduate of Brandeis University, received an Honorary Doctorate from Becker College in 2018, and received an Honorary Doctorate and served as Commencement Speaker at Monmouth College in 2020. This February Sam was named the inaugural Global Community Engagement Fellow of Northeastern University’s Social Impact Lab. Sam is pursuing a Master in Public Administration Degree at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he has also been selected as a Gleitsman Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership for the 2020-2021 academic year.
See more on Sam at https://www.mcnpartners.org/sam-vaghar and on social media @samvaghar. See more on the Millennium Fellowship at https://www.millenniumfellows.org/.
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Delegate
Chief Operating Officer, Participant Media
As chief operating officer, Sam Neswick oversees Participant Media's corporate strategy and operations, investments, innovation, corporate development, and strategic partnerships, in line with the company’s mission to create entertainment that inspires social change.
Neswick joined Participant in 2014 as senior vice president, Strategic Planning, and previously served as chief strategy officer. Prior to Participant, Neswick held senior positions at The Walt Disney Company in Corporate Strategy and Business Development, including responsibility for the landmark acquisition of Lucasfilm and strategic expansion in Asia. Prior to Disney, Neswick worked in management consulting at Bain & Company.
He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a B.A. from Harvard College.
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Delegate
Founder, Jasmine Social Investments
Sam began his career at Deloitte Consulting and is best known for founding online auction website Trade Me which became New Zealand’s biggest Internet business when it sold in 2006.
Sam started his career at Deloitte Consulting and is best known for founding online auction website Trade Me which became New Zealand’s biggest Internet business when it sold in 2006.
Jasmine Social Investments fund high-performing social ventures and outstanding social entrepreneurs who are solving a basic need of the very poor.
Our mission is to find extraordinary organisations and fund them. We provide advice and connections. We visit the ventures we fund and really get to know them. We actively advocate for those we fund and share our diligence efforts with like-minded funders.
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Delegate
Founder and Chairman, Sundog Pictures
Sam Branson is a social entrepreneur, adventurer and filmmaker.
His passion for adventure and the environment has seen him endure many challenges - most notably embarking on a 1,400 mile, three-month dogsled expedition to the Arctic, to raise awareness of climate change. This trip sparked Sam’s desire to create conversations about important topics.
In 2012 Sam founded Sundog Pictures, a production company created with the specific ambition to deliver challenging, entertaining and informative content that changes the way people see the world and brings new audiences to important topics.
Sam sits as a non-executive on the board of Virgin Group and has recently joined Virgin Management.
Sam is a founder of Big Change - a charity challenging the status quo on how we support and drive positive change for young people in the UK. Big Change provides early stage and flexible support to the entrepreneurial ideas that can drive long term social change. A kind of collective angle investment model that connects powerful ideas with the people that can make change a reality.
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Delegate
Partner, Hogan Lovells International LLP
Yasmin Waljee OBE has been key to establishing and embedding a pro bono culture within Hogan Lovells.
The objective is to deliver an outstanding pro bono service to charities, individuals and social enterprises in need who would not otherwise be able to afford such advice. Yasmin helped the firm achieve this by designing and implementing pro bono projects which draw on the firm's commercial legal knowledge and skills to produce measurable outcomes nationally and internationally. Yasmin is an international human rights lawyer and has advised on issues relating to compensation for victims of crime and terrorism including the July 7 bombing victims, the right to life, and regularly works on public policy issues in this area. Yasmin co-leads the firm's award-winning social enterprise and social finance practice. She is the firm's International Pro Bono Partner.
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Delegate
Partner, Capricorn Investment Group
William Orum is a Partner and member of the Investment Committee of Capricorn Investment Group. He joined the Firm in 2004 and has been based in its New York office since 2008. William has primary responsibility for leading marketable investments, portfolio construction, and risk management across asset classes. Prior to Capricorn, he was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch in their global industries group focused on corporate finance and M&A advisory for technology clients. William received a BA from Amherst College and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
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Delegate
Board Member, ATTN
Hope S. Taitz is currently the CEO of ELY Capital. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Taitz began her investment banking career first as a M&A analyst and then as an associate at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Ms. Taitz continued as a Vice President at The Argosy Group (now part of CIBC) and a Managing Director at Crystal Asset Management before founding her own money management firm, Catalyst Partners. Now acting as an advisor focused on analyzing and investing in the consumer and technology in both early and late stage (including The Flatiron School and ATTN:), Ms. Taitz bridges innovative enterprises with established corporations. Ms. Taitz is also an advocate of women in the boardroom and understands the need for cyber security sitting on the boards of Apollo Residential Mortgage, Inc., Athene Holding Ltd. and its subsidiaries, Diamond International Resorts, Inc., as well as MidCap Finco Holdings Limited. On the not for profit side, Ms. Taitz focuses on education and the importance of technology and is a founding executive member of Youth Renewal Fund, a current executive board member of Pencils of Promise, and a board of the Wharton School and the Future Project. Emphasizing the importance of STEM, Ms. Taitz was a board member of Girls Who Code for 3 years and is now as a board member of Fred Wilson’s The New York City Foundation for Computer Science and CSI NYC.
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Delegate
Founder, LocalizeED
Ronit Avni is the founder of LocalizED, a new social enterprise that makes it easy for expat professionals from countries facing brain drains to give back without moving back. LocalizED enables diaspora professionals to mentor, train and teach remotely in their language-of-origin, turning the brain drain into a brain gain.
A serial entrepreneur, human rights advocate and Peabody Award-winning media producer with 15 years of leadership experience, Ronit’s work has been featured in dozens of international news outlets.
Prior to LocalizED, she founded and led Just Vision, which creates digital media, award-winning films (Budrus, My Neighborhood, Encounter Point), news analysis and public education campaigns in multiple languages to raise awareness and support for Palestinian and Israeli civilians working for freedom, dignity, equality and human security. As Executive Director, Ms. Avni managed a diverse team based in North America and the Middle East, raising over $10 million and ensuring Just Vision’s relevance, credibility and success. Ronit has presented her work to President Obama, World Economic Forum participants and numerous government officials worldwide.
She co-edited the book, “Video for Change - A Guide for Advocacy and Activism” with the human rights organization, WITNESS, and now chairs the Program Committee on the WITNESS Board.
Ronit has been recognized with a variety of honors, including Search for Common Ground’s Common Ground Award, Auburn Seminary’s Lives of Commitment Award and the Trailblazer Award from the National Council for Research on Women. She was named a Young Global Leader (2009) through the World Economic Forum and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (2010).
As a side passion, Ronit has trained hundreds of business leaders, MBA students, nonprofit leaders and public officials to speak persuasively to the media and on stage with KNP Communications.
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Delegate
Vu serves as Director, Program Management-Investment, particularly engaging with sourcing & selecting new Skoll Awardees, co-leading Community Support initiatives, and supervising the teams' Program Coordinators who form the core operational execution of the team. Prior to joining Skoll, he managed an SAT prep academy, providing guidance and counseling to parents and students on their path towards higher education, targeted towards first generation immigrant families. He has also worked in finance, real estate management and accounting.
Vu has been actively involved within the Vietnamese American community, serving on the executive board of a regional nonprofit aimed at fostering cultural awareness, youth leadership and civic engagement. Vu earned his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from UCLA, and is the proud father of 3 young children, currently residing in Houston, TX.
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Delegate
Commissions Editor, BBC Business, British Broadcasting Corporation
Digital and Commissions Editor for BBC Business.
Looking after TV, radio and digital output , focusing on the intersection between news and social media
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Delegate
Chairman, Columba Leadership
Rob is Founding Chairman of Columba Leadership and The David Rattray Foundation and prior to that was an Executive Director of Dimension Data, number 32 on FTSE on listing.
My Primary interest is in Youth Social Entrepreneurship. Columba Leadership is a values based youth leadership program with a mission to build a national network of young leaders for youth enterprise and employment. Ethical values, peer on peer leadership and social action drive impact at scale.
A member YPO for over 25 years and actively served on the Board of the National Business Initiative and am a Trustee of World Wildlife Fund SA.
Wife Sarah (a practicing psychologist) and three daughters Nicky (1984), Kim (1987) and Julia (1990).
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Delegate
Director, Center for Social Impact, University of Michigan
Rishi founded the University of Michigan’s (U-M) Center for Social Impact at the Ross School of Business. He’s created practical learning programs across a dozen schools and colleges including the Social Impact Challenge with the City of Detroit; a regional Social Innovation Summit for cutting edge concepts for social progress; social entrepreneurship competitions and pipeline support; and an Impact Corps of mission-driven consultants.
As a social entrepreneur, Rishi founded the K-grams (“Kids Programs”) mentoring and tutoring agency that served 2,000 youth annually across the U.S. He also ran the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest (now MI Quest), the first statewide new venture competition of its kind. He later coached and built programs for MBAs at the U-M Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and led the U-M Nonprofit and Public Management Center.
Rishi has consulted with educational institutions on financial strategy at the Huron Consulting Group and on venture philanthropy at the Chicago Public Education Fund. He’s advised social enterprises including urban arts organizations, and produced and directed films to inspire social change. Rishi earned both a BBA and MBA from the U-M Ross School of Business and MA in educational leadership at the U-M School of Education.
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Delegate
CEO, Clear Glass
Ritesh is the COO and Co-founder of ClearGlass. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built ventures both in the UK and in India. He has an MBA from University of Oxford and exec education from Stanford University
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Delegate
President & CEO, Global Partnerships
Rick Beckett is the president and CEO of Global Partnerships and has led the organization's strategic expansion as a social investor since 2006. Prior to joining Global Partnerships, Rick was managing director of a $112 million private equity fund investing in middle-market companies and early stage ventures. Rick spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company where he served financial institution and healthcare clients on strategy and performance. He specialized in helping not-for-profit organizations achieve superior results in competitive markets. While at McKinsey, Rick co-authored the bestselling book Real Change Leaders: How You Can Create Growth And Performance At Your Company. He holds a B.A. with distinction in economics from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. as an Arjay Miller Scholar from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Rick has served on the boards of directors of numerous privately held portfolio companies and not-for-profit organizations, including Direct Relief International and The Initiative for Global Development.
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Delegate
Founder, Zaratu Projects
Graduate of Florida State University (BSc International Affairs) and Australian National University (MA International Law)
City: Copenhagen
Heritage: Danish/Ghanaian
7 years in private sector as a management Consultant at Implement Consulting Group, working with leadership development, project management and project design.
from 2013-2015 I was at World's Best News -a Danish multisector news-platform, owned by Danish NGO’s, the Danish aid Agency (DANIDA) and the UNDP Nordic office. It produces constructive journalism about development issues, tracking the progress on the MDG's and now the SDG's. Here I was given mandate to internationalise the campaign, which now has franchises in Netherlands (Funded by the B&M Gates foundation), Ireland and Norway, and was syndicated to all EU countries as part of the 2015 European Year for Development. I also initiated and ran our partnership with Project Everyone as part of the global campaign to launch the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which reached 3.2 billion people in the first week after the goals where signed at the UN in September last year.
In 2016 I am a member of the steering committee, chosen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to mobilise Danish civil society around the Women Deliver conference in May.
I founded Zaratu Projects, a sustainable impact accelerator and investment fund, because I saw a need for a more proactive and hands-on approach to making the business case for sustainable business practices in emerging markets. I fear, that the expected positive impact of private sector on sustainable development in emerging markets will at best happen way too slowly, and at worst remain theoretical. Our first focus area is Ghana, and the dream vision is to help create a rolemodel for the region.
Bonus info: Former professional Track and Field athlete, mother of two boys and science fiction/fantasy nerd.
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Delegate
Co-founder and Senior Media Advisor, OneSky
After graduating from the University of California in 1973, while backpacking around Europe taking photographs,
Richard was invited onto his first movie set… of Bernardo Bertolluci’s film "1900." He fell immediately in love with film and has lived the life of a filmmaker ever since, working continuously in the US mainstream and independent film communities.
Richard has photographed 20 films, shot and/or directed hundreds of TV commercials and is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, The International Photographer’s Guild and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2010 he produced, wrote and directed the independent film, “Cinderella Moon,” based upon the world’s first telling of the Cinderella story (China, 768), which deals pointedly with the status of women and girls in traditional Asian society.
Over the years, Richard has also been active in making short documentaries and Public Service Announcements for favorite charities, as well as being an active, and published, photographic portraitist.
Since he and his wife Jenny adopted the first of two daughters from China in 1998, Richard has served One Sky in various capacities, mainly in the area of media.
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Delegate
Co-Founder and CEO, Seed Global Health
Dr. Kerry is the co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health (Seed), a non-profit that focuses on the power of investing in health and the health workforce for social well-being, economic growth, equity which transforms countries. Through partnership with governments and in-country academic institutions, under Vanessa’s tenure Seed has helped train more than 20,000 doctors, nurses and midwives and has impacted hundreds of thousands of lives. Seed's impact is rooted in its unique leveraging model that not only provides better care to patients, but also trains future generations, supports the health sector and catalyzes change in the health system.
Dr. Kerry’s work has been featured at conferences, in print, online and media including the Aspen Ideas Festival, the United Nations, the World Health Assembly, NPR, PBS, MSNBC and Marie Claire, the New England Journal of Medicine, the New York Times and The Lancet.
She graduated from Yale University and Harvard Medical School, completing her clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. She earned her Master’s in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from the London Schools of Economics and of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is currently a critical care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and serves as the Associate Director of Partnerships and Global Initiatives at MGH Global Health. She directs the Global Public Policy and Social Change program at Harvard Medical School where she has focused on links between security and health. She is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She as awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Public Policy from Northeastern University in 2015. She was recently appointed to the prestigious President’s Council for International Activities at Yale University, as a Global Advisor to the Wellbeing Foundation Africa. She is the mother of a six- and nine- year old.
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, The Philanthropy Workshop
Renee Kaplan is the CEO of TPW (The Philanthropy Workshop), leading a community of 450 global social investors to unlock resources and accelerate impact. She has more than 20 years of business experience in corporate, entrepreneurial, and philanthropy sectors. Prior to TPW she was the Chief Strategy & Programs Officer for the Skoll Foundation where she oversaw the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Skoll World Forum, strategic alliances, marketing & communications, and issue intelligence programs. Her professional background includes eight years at Microsoft in corporate and international marketing—working directly with executive leadership and spending considerable time in India, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Following Microsoft, she was founder and CEO of an e-commerce start up, FutureWorkplace, Inc. After selling her business, she spent six years as executive vice president of the Casey Family Programs Foundation, executing a strategic reorganization of the foundation. She was also the principal of RKaplan Consulting and partnered with clients including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Giving Pledge, and the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civic Society. She lives in the Bay Area, California with her husband and two teenage sons and is an avid soccer (futbol!) player.
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Delegate
CEO, Opportunity Collaboration
I have been hosting people in collaborative environments for the purposes of social change for two decades.
My purpose is to convene and connect nonprofit leaders, for-profit social entrepreneurs, grant-makers, impact investors and all other agents of positive change, thereby building the ecosystem for the social sector and creating greater opportunities for international social and economic justice.
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Delegate
Venture Advisor, Individual
Tom has over 25 years of professional experience as an operator, investor and advisor in both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds. His current advisory work includes advising institutions and families on optimizing their philanthropic and investing resources for impact; working with social enterprises on building sustainable/impactful organizations; and advancing the field of social entrepreneurship.
Tom currently serves on the boards of Genesys Works, Out Teach, Seed Global Health, Strive Together, Raising The Village, Matriculate and the Knowledge Works Foundation. He has served on 24 non-profit boards and advised dozens on non-profit CEOs. Tom received his MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and holds a BA in Philosophy and Economics from Boston College. Tom lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Anu, and enjoys trail-running, cooking, yoga, and international travel.
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Delegate
Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2005 and focuses on the firm’s digital and sustainability practices.
Earlier in his career, he was a co-founder of Claris Corp., served as CEO for LucasArts Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics, and acted as a “virtual CEO” for such companies as WebTV and GlobalGiving. Randy also served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law.
Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the advisory board of Roadtrip Nation, as well as on the global advisory board for the Institute for Energy Efficiency at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a lecturer on entrepreneurship at Stanford University and the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. He is also the author of I F**king Love that Company on building love brands and co-author of Getting to Plan B, a book on managing innovation. Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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Delegate
President - Fossil Foundation, EVP Asia, Fossil Group, Fossil Foundation
Randy C. Belcher is currently the Executive Vice President of the Fossil Group based in Hong Kong. He is responsible for leading the Fossil Group’s commercial sales and distribution businesses in the Asia Pacific region, the global supply chain and product development operations based in Asia and the Company’s global sustainability programs. He also is the President of the Fossil Foundation, the Company’s non-profit foundation focused on youth empowerment.
Prior to moving to Hong Kong he was the Senior Vice President – Europe based in Switzerland (Basel) where he led Fossil’s EMEA commercial business. Previously Randy worked in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) with Novartis Consumer Health (NCH) as the President of NCH Brazil and Vice President of the Mercosur Region and in Chile (Santiago) as the Managing Director of NCH Chile. He also held financial and general management positions with the Gerber Products Company and Ernst and Young.
In addition to his non-profit work with the Fossil Foundation, Randy is a board member of the One Sky Foundation based in Berkeley, Beyond Vision International based in Hong Kong and Soko, Inc. based in San Francisco and Nairobi. He previously served on the board of Helen Keller International based in New York City.
Randy received a BS degree from the University of Tennessee and an MBA from the University of Miami.
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Delegate
CEO, Searching For Solutions Institute
Randy Antik is CEO of a public foundation which hosts an annual Imagine Solutions Conference in Naples, Florida. Each year we bring two Skoll Award winners to speak to our audience of very influential private sector citizens. We have brought 26 to date. Our audience of 600+ is capable to provide substantial support to Big Ideas.
The foundation started 14 years ago - founded by Randy Antik and 20 influential citizens with connections to SW Florida. We address many important subjects - education, science & technology, medicine, great institutions, social innovators, and more. We do not address any political issues and are seen as non-partisan.
Randy met Jeff Skoll many years ago and he invited Randy to attend Skoll 12+ years ago.
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Delegate
Lead Specialist, HNP Global Practice, World Bank Group
Ramesh Govindaraj is a Lead Specialist in the Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice of the World Bank. He has worked in many countries across the six regions of the Bank, and was also based in the Bank’s Nigeria and India Country Offices. Ramesh has an MD in Ophthalmology from the University of Delhi and an M.S. in Health Policy and Management and a D.Sc. in International Health Economics and Policy from Harvard University. He has over 25 years of development experience, working in a diverse settings including as a practicing physician in India, in an international NGO based in California, in the research-based pharmaceutical industry in New Jersey, and as a senior researcher at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Bank, Ramesh spent many years in the field, living and working in the Africa, South Asia and East Asia regions. In addition to his work on health systems and health care financing, he is one of very few pharmaceutical experts at the World Bank. Ramesh has published widely in peer reviewed pharmaceuticals, health and development journals and edited volumes, and is also teaching in select universities in the United States.
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Delegate
Tara Sabre Collier is a global strategist, advisor, impact investor and speaker.
She is a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School, Oxford University (focusing on impact investment), as well as strategic advisor to impact funds and development finance institutions. She is the Director of Impact Investing at Chemonics UK and leads the ecosystem building for MOBILIST, the UK government's flagship climate finance programme for developing economies. Observing a clear racial and gender equity gap in the impact investment landscape, she is also an angel investor and advisor for various impact start-ups led by under-represented founders.
She has over 15 years of international experience across impact investment, international development and management consulting industries. She has worked for the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations, Ernst & Young, Shell Foundation and GroFin Capital, among others.
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Delegate
Director, Mosaic, The Boardroom Africa
Tamsin is a social entrepreneur and venture catalyst who has been involved in the design and expansion of a string of high-social impact initiatives in Africa, the UK and Australia. She is a regular commentator on innovation ecosystems, women in leadership and good governance.
Based on her track record of building new and innovative initiatives, Tamsin advises corporate leaders, investors and policy makers with a focus on turning a transformative idea into reality. She is currently helping to launch Capital Connect, the largest ever matching of gender lens funds with potential investors from around the world. Tamsin has co-founded an innovation hub for ventures in Cape Town and the leading solution to bring more exceptional female talent into boardrooms across Africa through the creation of most extensive network of board-ready women on the continent. She has been senior advisor to the leading innovator in last mile cellular and internet connectivity and the UK Government development finance institution, CDC Group, where she contributed to the launch and expansion of The Africa List.
Earlier in her career, Tamsin contributed to the establishment of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation in Cape Town as Deputy Director, expanded care services to pregnant women living with HIV in southern Africa, served as political and policy advisor to the Premier of South Australia and helped drive the London 2012 Olympic Games’ jobs and enterprise legacy strategy on behalf of major corporates in the City of London and Canary Wharf.
Tamsin is a proud trustee of TheFlipFlopi, an organisation determined to end single use plastic in Africa.
She holds an MBA from the Said Business School of the University of Oxford with a merit scholarship awarded by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.
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Delegate
Director, Maslaha
Raheel Mohammed is the founder and director of Maslaha which aims to change and challenge the conditions that create inequalities for Muslim communities at a local and systemic level.
Under his leadership Maslaha has won the Innovation Mindset Challenge, a global competition, for our work in mental health set by the Rockefeller Foundation and Columbia University.
He has also been profiled as one of Britain’s 50 New Radicals in The Observer newspaper for pioneering creative change to some of society’s most difficult issues.
He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and events, most recently the World Islamic Economic Forum, where he was a main speaker on social entrepreneurship and social innovation.
Under his direction Maslaha has created award-winning resources which tackle inequalities in areas such as the criminal justice system, health, education, the role of women in Islam, and the historical relationship between Islam and Europe.
Our numerous health resources have reached over 19,500 patients directly and seen as examples of good practice and innovative in its use of technology and communication.
Our exhibitions, in partnership with the British Council, have toured 35 cities in 11 countries, with over 55,000 visitors, plus over 35,000 unique online visitors from 143 countries.
Raheel also currently sits on an advisory board to the Ministry of Justice looking at the disproportionate number of young Muslim men and Afro-Caribbean men in the criminal justice system following the launch of the Young Review.
He is also about to begin a new project, which creates whole school change using an award-winning Colombian model of education.
Raheel helped set up and was the Assistant Director at the award-winning Offscreen Education programme (now the Crossway Foundation), designed to raise awareness of Middle East and Muslim cultures through art.
He has previously been a journalist.
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Delegate
Fund Manager, Triodos Investment Management BV
Femke Bos is Fund Manager of the Triodos Microfinance Fund and Triodos Fair Share Fund, both investing in financial inclusion at Triodos Investment Management. With over 14 years of investment management experience in the microfinance and SME sector, particularly in Asia, she has cultivated a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the industry. Throughout her career, Femke Bos served on the Board of Directors and key committees of several microfinance and SME finance institutions, from start-ups to well-established fully-fledged banks. Prior to joining Triodos Bank in 2002 as Senior Investment Officer in Asia, she held several positions in the business banking division with ABN AMRO Bank in the Netherlands. Femke also sits on the board of Mama Cash, a renowned women’s fund that supports women’s, girls and trans’ people’s movements worldwide and Open Circles Foundation, a family foundation focussing on improving access to education in developing countries.
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Delegate
Executive Vice President, Wells Fargo Bank
Puon Penn is Executive Vice President/Co-Head of Wells Fargo’s Technology Banking Group which provides expertise, financial services, and resources to help innovative companies focus on advancing new technologies and business models to solve some of the most complex problems facing humanity including global population growth, climate change and environmental impacts, and the ongoing fight against diseases. Puon started Wells Fargo’s Global CleanTech Group in 2009 to provide expertise, financial services, and resources to help companies focused on decreasing the use of fossil fuels, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, and other activities that cause greenhouse gas emissions or other harmful environmental effects. Wells Fargo financed over $50 billion for green business, renewable energy projects, green buildings, and clean energy customers from 2005 to 2012.
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Delegate
Co-founder & CEO, UnLtd India
Pooja Warier Hamilton is the co-Founder & CEO of UnLtd India, a pioneering organisation that finds, funds and supports early stage social entrepreneurs in India. Since 2007, UnLtd India has supported over 140 social entrepreneurs at the pilot, post-pilot and getting ready to scale stage. These social entrepreneurs have impacted 1.1 million lives, created 12000 jobs and raised 14x follow-on funding on average. UnLtd India is now poised to scale its unique model across India in order to support hundreds of social entrepreneurs.
Pooja is also the co-founder of Bombay Connect, a co-working space for entrepreneurs and Journeys for Change bringing global leaders to learn from social entrepreneurs in India. She was nominated as a TED India Fellow in 2009 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2013.
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Delegate
Chairman, Sonen Capital
Stuart Davidson is the Chairman of Sonen Capital, a dedicated impact investment management firm..
In addition to co-founding Sonen, Stuart is a managing partner of Labrador Ventures, a Palo Alto-based early stage technology-focused venture capital fund, which he joined in 1995. He has invested in over a hundred early stage companies and served on numerous boards. He is a founding board member and funder of Acumen Fund where he chairs the investment committee.
Prior to Labrador, Stuart founded and served as CEO of Combion, Inc., which was acquired by Incyte (NASDAQ:INCY). and president of Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALKS). Previously, Stuart worked for MCI Communications and for Warner Communications. He Founding Board Chair Emeritus of IDEO.org and Vice-Chair of REDF where he established the Farber program. He is a trustee of the Woodcock Foundation and served as a member of the investment committee of the Skoll Foundation. Stuart is an advisory board member of the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS),
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Delegate
Philanthropy Partner, RVVZ Foundation
Pierre has recently joined the RVVZ Foundation as Philanthropy Partner, focusing on the Foundation’s global philanthropic initiatives. RVVZ Foundation seeks to establish innovative and transformative ways to change the world through territory development and educational progress.
Before that, he was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was active for 27 years. He was the Managing Partner of the Belgian-Luxemburgian office between 2005 and 2012, after which he took the international responsibility of the Human Capital Service Line in EMEA. In this capacity, he served his clients on building personal and institutional leadership capabilities. He was regularly involved in counseling CEO's and Chairpersons on governance matters and issues of cultural change and effectiveness of top teams. He was an active senior faculty member of several high profile client leadership forums (Bower Forum, Executive Transition workshop, Change Leaders workshop).
Pierre was also very involved in internal learning programs for Senior Partners as the co-Dean of the pivotal program "Counseling Masterclass", in collaboration with leading academics from INSEAD and Harvard University.
Pierre is a member of the World Presidents Organization (WPO) and is the President of the Board of Directors of YouthStart Belgium (formerly known as NFTE Belgium), and is Past President of the Harvard Club of Belgium. He has a passion for philosophy around which he has developed an innovative leadership development program ("Leadership and Wisdom"). He teaches a graduate course on "The CEO Perspective" at the Solvay Business School of the Free University of Brussels (ULB).Pierre has a degree in Commercial Engineering from the Free University of Brussels and a MBA from Harvard Business School
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Delegate
As Managing Director of Creative Services, Phil Collis is responsible for any creative / multimedia products for the Foundation, and oversees in-house films, website properties, social media and syndicated channels in direct support of the Foundation’s strategy. In addition, Phil also manages the online strategy and media initiatives for the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
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Delegate
CEO, Yajilarra Trust
A qualified Chartered Accountant, Peter Winneke has an extensive background in finance (insolvency/ media acquisitions), including roles with Andersen and Southern Cross Broadcasting. He joined The Myer Foundation in 2003 as Finance Manager. With a passion to grow the philanthropic sector, in mid 2004 Peter founded and developed the Philanthropic Services division of The Myer Family Company where he established 100 family foundations and assisted many of those families develop a philanthropic purpose and strategic giving program. During this period he was also company secretary to The Myer Foundation, the Sidney Myer Fund and a director or secretary of many other family foundations. In February 2016 Peter was appointed CEO of the Yajilarra Trust. Peter is a member of Philanthropy Australia's Council and a Trustee of The Reichstein Foundation.
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Delegate
Women + Water Program Manager, Sustainable Innovation, Gap Inc.
Lisa manages Gap Inc.'s Women + Water Program, which works to reduce water use through product design and manufacturing processes, and helps provide women with access to clean water in communities where the company does business.
Prior, Lisa worked at the Skoll Foundation managing Global Partnerships; at The Asia Foundation, managing a portfolio of environmental programs as Senior Program Officer; and at KLD Research & Analytics (now MSCI) analyzing environment, social, and governance performance of publicly traded companies.
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Delegate
, Independent
Peter Eliassen is VisionSpring’s former Chief Operating Officer, managing global operations and directing the sourcing and design of VisionSpring products. Prior to joining VisionSpring, Peter held positions at Unilever, Capital One, the United Nations and served in the Peace Corps in Benin. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Economics and received his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Peter is a fearless globetrotter, having visited over 70 countries around the world, often with a pair of glasses in hand and a camera hanging off his shoulder. He loves venturing out to find new and interesting food, and still hasn’t found anything that can beat Karim’s chicken tikka in India or In N’ Out Burger in the US.
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Delegate
Founder/Director, Peter Bennett Foundation
Pls refer to my bio:
Www.
Peterbennettfoundation.org
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Delegate
CEO, IKEA FOUNDATION
Per Heggenes is the CEO of IKEA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Swedish home furnishings company, IKEA. As CEO, Per sets and drives the Foundation’s funding and innovation strategies, and is a tireless advocate for children living in some of the world’s poorest communities. Since becoming the Foundation’s first CEO in 2009, Per has presided over the Foundation’s evolution into a global, grant-making philanthropy that funds programs in more than 45 countries.
He serves on the advisory board of the Refugee Studies Centre at University of Oxford, Department for International Development, and is a member of the advisory group on the Planning From the Future project, a multi-organisation project hosted by King’s College London.
In 2012, Per was appointed to the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who created the commission to increase access to lifesaving medicines and health supplies for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Previously, Per was the Global Head of Corporate Affairs for the shipping and logistics company Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics. Before joining WWL, he was the UK President and CEO for the global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller and Co-CEO for Europe. He also held different global roles for Burson-Marsteller based in their New York headquarters. Per served in the Norwegian Air Force and graduated from the University of Augsburg in Germany with a “Diplom Oekonom” (MBA).
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Delegate
Chief Operating Officer, National Center for Arts and Technology
Paulo Nzambi, COO - A former trial lawyer, a published poet, a playwright, a real estate entrepreneur and a tri-athlete, Mr. Nzambi joined Manchester Bidwell Corporation in 2009 as its Vice President of Administration. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Nzambi served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of MBC. In that capacity he was responsible for the day to day operations of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its affiliate organizations: Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild Youth & Arts, MCG Jazz and the Bidwell Training Center.
In late 2014, Bill Strickland Manchester Bidwell’s CEO asked Mr. Nzambi to lead the Manchester Bidwell’s replication effort as the Chief Operating Officer of National Center for Arts & Technology.
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Delegate
Journalist, Wired Magazine
Pauline Bock is a journalist at WIRED UK.
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Delegate
, Individual
As former Director of Strategic Initiatives, Paula Kravitz managed strategic, global partnerships focused on accelerating impact of social entrepreneurs worldwide. In her previous role at Skoll, she was the Director and Curator for the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship where she created opportunities for social innovators to connect with each other and with partners in business, government and civil society.
Before joining Skoll in 2007, Paula advised Fortune 500 companies on strategy, brand and communications. She co-owned Blaney/Kravitz Strategic Communications serving tech clients in the Silicon Valley, and was a Senior Brand Strategist and Client Partner with Razorfish in San Francisco, where she led development of online brand and marketing strategies. Prior to her agency experience, Paula worked in healthcare diagnostics, where she was responsible for developing distribution channels in the United States, Latin America and Europe.
Paula’s film and media background includes the development of award-winning print, multimedia and video initiatives. She worked with Women’s Educational Media, a social issue documentary production and distribution organization based in San Francisco, where she partnered with an Academy Award-nominated team in producing three mini-documentaries on the history of nursing, women’s organizing and the rise of nursing political power in California.
Paula holds a Bachelor of Science in International Marketing from San Francisco State University. She studied painting and multimedia at the San Francisco Art Institute, and is an avid fan of bluegrass music.
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Delegate
Chairman & Founder, Ella's Kitchen
Paul Lindley is an award winning British entrepreneur. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG, then spent 9 years at children’s TV brand Nickelodeon.
In 2006 he founded Ella’s Kitchen, an innovative brand of organic food for babies and young children whose mission is to improve children’s lives by giving them a better relationship with food. It is now the largest baby food band in the UK and has sales of over $100M all around the world. In 2013 he sold the business to The Hain Celestial group but remains actively involved.
In 2014 he co-founded The Key is E, a social business that engages and entices young people and the African diaspora to support entrepreneurs in Africa who build businesses that socially benefit children.
In 2015 he founded Paddy’s Bathroom a brand of natural and organic toiletries for young children, that makes getting clean as fun as it was to get dirty, whilst also creating safe, clean water for children in Rwanda through its integrated Drop Buy Drop program.
Paul believes the best businesses are those that make profits AND have a core purpose to do social good, and his personal focus is upon improving the rights and welfare of children.
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Delegate
Member of the Board, Peter Möhrle Foundation
Meet Patrick Kern – a dedicated member of the board at Peter Möhrle Foundation, a Hamburg-based foundation with a focus on mental health. He is also a founding member of UNICEF NextGen Germany and a board member of other organizations, including Gefangene helfen e.V., a crime prevention NGO, and Edmund Siemers-Stiftung. Patrick is a manager for sustainable real estate at Union Investment and a proud Oxford alumni. He's passionate about strategic philanthropy and collaboration, but above all, he loves his family more than anything.
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Delegate
Founder + CEO, Millennial Trains Project
Patrick Dowd is a social entrepreneur who works with the world's top brands and institutions to create transformative experiences that build leaders, engage communities, and tell powerful stories.
An outspoken champion of cross-cultural understanding and purposeful travel, Dowd has been a featured speaker at the White House, US Department of State, the US Mission to the United Nations, and many local community organizations across America. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Forbes, Mashable, and Fast Company.
As founder and CEO of the Millennial Trains Project, Dowd has pioneered an award-winning model for trans-regional leadership development and helped organizations such as NBCUniversal, The Rockefeller Foundation, US Department of State, IDEO, and National Geographic Traveler to forge authentic connections with next-generation innovators.
In addition to having served as the youngest-ever Editor-at-Large for National Geographic Traveler, Dowd has been recognized by GOOD Magazine as one of the world's top 100 individuals at the cutting-edge of creative impact. Previously, Dowd worked as a J.P. Morgan investment banking analyst, U.S. Senate campaign speechwriter, and legal reporter. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in India, where he produced a documentary on informal sector e-waste recycling.
Dowd is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he served as Student Body President and honed his proficiency in French and Hindi. He is currently an MBA candidate at the University of Oxford, where his studies are focused on global strategy and innovation. A member of the Explorers Club, he has traveled to over 50 countries.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Schools and Teachers Innovating for Results
Sharath studied at Cambridge and Oxford and received his MBA from INSEAD. He was awarded an honorary doctorate for his contribution to global education, and serves on the Education Commission’s workforce group – the pre-eminent institution chaired by the UN’s Gordon Brown.
Sharath was founding CEO of Teaching Leaders – an initiative that raised $25 million in government funding to increase attainment for every disadvantaged secondary school in the UK. He was also Head of Social Ventures at eBay UK, a Project Leader at Booz & Co, and a Senior Manager at Action Aid.
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Delegate
Patricia Stuchberry manages Private Partnership in the Fund Development team with Friends-International, an award-winning social enterprise that saves lives and builds futures for marginalized children, youth and families in South East Asia. She manages relationships with corporates, foundations and individual philanthropists interested in working together to empower vulnerable communities to change their futures. She holds a Masters in Professional Communications from the University of Western Sydney (Australia), a Post-Graduate Degree in Corporate Communications from Centennial College (Canada) and a Bachelors degree from the University of Western Ontario (Canada).
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Delegate
Executive Director, Unidos en Red
Patricia is Executive Director of Unidos en Red since 2013. She is absolutely convinced of and passionate about the impact that can be achieved through the collaborative work between agents of change, along with a highly qualified, motivated and ethical team. Unidos en Red is an international non-profit organization whose core mission is to empower agents of social change in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula countries, creating strategic partnerships and encouraging the collaboration between them; and facilitating and promoting the use of technology and communication in order to contribute to social development. In 2000 Patricia moved from Venezuela to the US where she successfully launched her own business channeling real estate investments in Washington DC Metropolitan Area during almost 10 years. During all that time she volunteered in Venezuela Sin Limites Foundation representing this organization in international events. Previous to that she served for almost a decade as an in-house corporate attorney in companies from the pharmaceutical industry and telecommunications actively engaging in the implementation of their Corporate Social Responsibility policies. She graduated from Santa Maria University Law School in 1991, pursuing 2 years later studies in Labor Law at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Venezuela.
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Delegate
DEAN, JOAN B. KROC SCHOOL OF PEACE STUDIES, University of San Diego
Patricia Márquez is the Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Innovation at the University of San Diego. She is also the dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, the first stand-alone school of peace and justice in the United States. The Kroc School prepares students from around the world—including countries affected by violent conflict—in peacebuilding and social innovation. Under her tenure as dean, the institution has tripled the number of graduate students and launched two new master programs (Master of Arts in Social Innovation and Master of Science in Conflict Management and Resolution) and a dual-degree with the School of Law. Before becoming dean, Dr. Márquez launched the Center for Peace and Commerce (a joint venture between the Kroc School and the School of Business), the Social Innovation Challenge (now the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge) and the USD Changemaker Hub. Patricia has a BA from Bowdoin College (magna cum laude), and received her MA and PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Delegate
VP, External Affairs, Grameen Foundation
I've spent my career with public companies across multiple sectors designing and executing new strategies, programs and partnerships that achieve measurable business and social impact. I recently moved into the non-profit sector and now lead the External Affairs team at Grameen Foundation.
Prior to GF, I led Global Philanthropy at MasterCard building a global program that helped drive MasterCard’s financial inclusion strategy. I was also instrumental in the creation of the MasterCard Foundation in 2006. It was an exceptional experience to help grow and evolve the organization into, what is now,the fourth largest private foundation in the world. My areas of expertise include corporate philanthropy, corporate responsibility, financial inclusion, economic empowerment and disaster relief.
My professional experience also extends to financial planning and analysis, communications and business administration. I have an MBA in Finance from Pace University and a BA in English from Rutgers University.
I recently relocated to Seattle from New York. I am a member of the board of directors of the Snow Leopard Trust and Upaya Social Ventures and a Partner in Social Venture Partners, Seattle.
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Delegate
Managing Director, The Omidyar Group
Pat Christen is a managing director of The Omidyar Group, serving as a senior advisor
to philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Pat brings curiosity, a sense of humor and
a commitment to high accountability to her role, which focuses on cultivating
environments of learning, innovation and impact across all Omidyar Group
organizations and initiatives.
Prior to joining The Omidyar Group, Pat served as President and CEO of HopeLab, a
nonprofit harnessing the power and appeal of technology to improve human health
and wellbeing. Under Pat’s leadership for more than a decade, HopeLab’s work
centered on the development of specially designed technology to drive positive health
behavior among youth. HopeLab is currently focused on the research and
development of new social technologies to promote human resilience.
Prior to HopeLab, Pat was President and Executive Director of the San Francisco
AIDS Foundation for 15 years, where she worked with her counterparts nationally to
craft the federal Ryan White C.A.R.E. Act. This precedentsetting legislation now generates more than $2 billion annually in funding for AIDS care in the United States.
Pat also served as President of the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, establishing AIDS clinics and playing an active role in AIDSplanning efforts globally. As president of Pangaea, she was responsible for the construction of the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, a stateoftheart AIDS clinic, research, and training center which opened its doors in August of 2004.
Pat has written, studied, and lectured on social and health issues both in the U.S. and
abroad. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, East Africa from 1982–1985. She
was a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and is now a member of the
Exiles Chapter because she is too old to be considered a “young” president any
longer! She is a graduate of Stanford University, where she studied biology and
political science.
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Delegate
Managing Partner, True Green Capital
Panos Ninios is the Managing Partner and a Founder of True Green Capital Management LLC (“TGC”). He is primarily responsible for portfolio management, risk management and capital strategy. Panos is a member of the Investment Committee and contributes significant global renewable energy investment, regulatory and operational expertise to the TGC team.
Prior to founding TGC, Panos was a Managing Director for four years at Plainfield Asset Management, a special situations hedge fund based in Greenwich, CT with over $5 billion in peak assets under management. He was the analyst responsible for a global approximately $1.5 billion energy portfolio consisting of high yield, bank debt and private equity investments. While at Plainfield, Panos built and managed an approximately $250 million renewable energy private equity portfolio. Finally, as part of his role on Plainfield Panos was interim CEO and President of HelioSphera SA, a European 60MW p.a. thin film PV solar module manufacturer during a 15 month period.
Earlier in his career, Panos was for four years an Executive Director with the Goldman Sachs commodity business (JAron) in London focused on European Power and Gas markets as well as distressed debt power markets.
Panos has also spent eight years with McKinsey & Co, most recently as an Associate Partner, serving major US and European energy companies on M&A and commodity risk management.
From 1994 to 1995, Panos was a derivatives analyst at Intercapital Brokers in London. From 1991 to 1994, while working on his doctoral thesis, Panos consulted to the UK power sector, principally with Southern Electric PLC.
Panos holds a Ph.D. in Electric Power Industry Deregulation Economics from the London Business School, a MSc in operations research from the London School of Economics, a MSc in computer science from the University of Dundee, UK and a B.S. in pure mathematics from the University of Patras, Greece.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Spire Ventures
Mr. Faisal Butt is an entrepreneur and investor based in Mayfair, UK. His investment focus has a recurring theme in property, property services, and property related technology. He invests through his vehicle Spire Ventures and through his PropTech investment fund Pi Labs.
Faisal’s investment portfolio includes 20+ companies, spanning a diverse range of ventures including 90 North, a real estate investment management business with over £1bn assets under management, The Accouter Group, a furniture supply business, emoov, one of the UK’s leading online estate agents, Trussle, the UK’s first digital mortgage advisor, Hubble, an office space marketplace, and Pi Labs, Europe’s first ‘PropTech’ investment platform.
Faisal is a recipient of several noteworthy industry and academic awards, including the Estates Gazette Power List, the 40 under 40 award by Property Week, and Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Shell Livewire. Faisal is also a recipient of the Skoll Scholarship for social entrepreneurship, awarded by the University of Oxford.
Faisal completed his Bachelors degree at UCLA in 1999 in Business Economics and Computer Science and earned an MBA with Distinction from the University of Oxford in 2009.
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Delegate
Design Thinker, The Curious Company, IDEO.org, Women Moving Millions, Maverick Collective
For decades, Pam worked as a design researcher, creative strategist and creative team leader in the commercial sector. During her tenure, Pam served as thought partner to Nike, GM, Levi’s, Method Home, and MINI Cooper to name a few. Always her chief objectives were the same: to connect companies more deeply to their customers and, from a place of deeper empathy, guide the development of more relevant, downright delightful products, services and solutions.
Over the past decade, Pam has focused nearly exclusively on the social sector. She is particularly dedicated to addressing unintended teen pregnancy in Sub-Saharan Africa and has worked with local NGOs and communities in Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Together with non-profits like Population Services International (PSI) and IDEO.org, she is deploying a new form of Human Centered Design that beefs up the creative confidence of NGOs and their ability to develop consumer-friendly solutions to issues like teen pregnancy. Pam’s ultimate goal is to make sure girls everywhere have the resources they need to delay starting families until they’re ready.
Pam serves on the Board of Directors of IDEO.org and OLLY. She is an advisor to the founders of Fresh Lifelines for Youth, Method Home and SamaGroup. She frequently speaks on the topic of Human Centered Design, including engagements at the Aspen Institute and Clinton Global Initiative, as well as Harvard University’s Kennedy School and Stanford University’s Medical School, Business School and d School.
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Delegate
President, Pershing Square Foundation
Olivia Tournay Flatto, PhD, is the President of The Pershing Square Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s efforts to deliver social impact by promoting exceptional leaders and innovative ideas in the areas of health and medicine, economic development, social justice, education, and the arts. In 2013, Dr. Tournay Flatto co-founded the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. She continues to lead the implementation of its mission to enable the pursuit of the most innovative and advanced cancer research by facilitating collaborations between science and business.
Prior to joining the Alliance, Olivia spent a decade as President of the Emerald Foundation, an independently funded private medical research foundation based in New York City. She also served as Director of External Affairs at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF). She started her research for her Ph.D. at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA in the laboratory of Dr. Frank Rauscher. Olivia completed her research in Dr. Robert Benezra’s laboratory at the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York City where she worked on the Id gene and its role in the molecular mechanism of mammalian cell differentiation.
A native of France, Olivia received her Master’s Degree from L’Université de Montpellier in Parasitology and Microbiology and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as President and on the Advisory Board of The Pershing Square Foundation. She is also on the boards of the Paris Opera and Ballet (chair) and the Institute of International Education, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, The Economic Club of New York, and the President’s Circle of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The French Government awarded her the title of “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mėrite” in 2008 and the title of “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” in 2013
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Delegate
Journalist, The Economist
Oliver is a correspondent and editor with experience in Africa, America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He has been the Times bureau chief in Beijing and Baghdad as well as the Africa and Europe Editor at The Economist.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Goradia Foundation
Sapphira Goradia is the Executive Director of the Vijay and Marie Goradia Foundation. As Executive Director, Sapphira leads the Foundation’s efforts to improve health and educational outcomes in India through the support of innovative, measurable and scalable initiatives. Prior to assuming her role at The Goradia Foundation, Sapphira worked for a number of NGOs focused on the prevention and treatment of both acute and chronic diseases, including UNAIDS and Population Services International. She holds a BA from Pomona College and a Masters of Public Health from The George Washington University. Sapphira serves on the advisory board of Pratham USA and the board of directors of the global health NGO Antara International. She also serves on the board of directors of Dasra, Women Moving Millions, and TPW.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Cambridge Associates
Noelle Laing is a managing director in the Mission-Related Investing (“MRI”) Group in Cambridge Associates’ Arlington office. She identifies and researches MRI managers across asset classes and serves as a resource to generalist investment directors in the firm by monitoring managers in clients’ MRI programs.
Prior to rejoining the firm in 2010, Noelle was a senior investment advisor at the IAM National Pension Fund, where she focused on alternative assets, including portable alpha, hedge funds, natural resources, infrastructure, opportunistic debt, and private equity. She also worked as a public markets investment analyst for the American Red Cross, where she conducted asset allocation analysis and manager due diligence for the public market portfolios of the endowment, pension, corporate accounts, and 401K program.
Noelle began her career at Cambridge Associates as an investment associate in 2003. During her time at the firm, she was promoted to senior investment associate and team leader responsible for overseeing investment associates and liaising with firm wide management. In addition, Noelle was involved in the firm’s investment associate recruiting initiatives.
Noelle is a CFA charterholder and received a Bachelor of Science with honors in mathematics from St. Lawrence University.
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Delegate
As Director of Contracts and Legal Affairs, Sangeetha provides support for the execution of responsibilities of stewardship and governance for Skoll Foundation. Sangeetha also provides occasional active support for other programmatic imperatives.
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Delegate
Founder, Art for Integration and Social Transformation
Nirmalie Mulloli is the Founder of Art for Integration and Social Transformation. The organisation facilitates social integration programmes in local communities, for new, marginalized and pre-existing community members through specially designed creative workshops.
By building strategic partnerships between civil society oganisations and public art sector institutions, the programmes leverage the social integration-need gap against the institutional demands of the public art sector, enabling both sectors to work together with mutual benefit and sustainable impact.
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Delegate
CEO, Jasmine Social Investments
Nina leads Jasmine’s investment strategy and diligence process, guiding the team to identify and support the next generation of great social entrepreneurs. She collaborates closely with a global network of funders, sharing our learnings and approaches.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Global Canopy Programme
Niki Mardas is Executive Director of the Global Canopy Programme, an international environmental NGO and think-tank that works to accelerate the transition to a deforestation-free global economy.
Niki has a strong entrepreneurial track record, over two decades of a career in both private and non-profit sectors.
His commercial background is in technology and communications, advising clients including DDB Worldwide, Volkswagen and BSkyB. In the early 2000s he co-founded 3 successful startups: a digital consultancy, an incubator with a seed investment fund of 1 million Euros, and a pioneering mobile marketing company, Upstream, that now works in over 40 countries and has handled 25 billion mobile interactions.
Niki has been actively involved with environmental issues since 1996. Initially as a volunteer for H.A.H. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s acclaimed initiative to bring together religious leaders across faiths with scientists across disciplines to more effectively tackle the world’s growing water security challenges. In 2006, he took on a full-time role as joint Coordinator for the Patriarch’s Amazon Symposium, that carried 200 faith-leaders, scientists, politicians and journalists on 11 boats through the world’s greatest forest.
Niki joined the Global Canopy Programme in 2007 to establish its new forests and climate change programme. He has led on strategy as the organisation has rapidly grown, and has helped to establish many of its key initiatives, including The Forests Now Declaration, the Little Book Series, the Forest Footprint Disclosure Project, the Natural Capital Declaration and Roadmap for the financial sector, and most recently the Forest 500, the world’s first ratings agency for rainforests.
Niki has written and spoken extensively on tropical forests and other issues. He holds a first class degree from the University of Cambridge, and an MSc from the London School of Economics.
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Delegate
Skoll Scholar, MBA Student, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Nikhil is the founder of Home Safe, a start-up providing chauffeurs as a safe and convenient alternative to drunk driving. Home Safe is a champion for safer roads in New Delhi, India successfully keeping over 50000 potential drunk drivers off the roads since 2009.
Nikhil has been forging partnerships between public and private stakeholders to ensure widespread awareness around road safety, as well as create strong enforcement structures for sustainable change. This included conceptualizing one of India’s largest campaigns against drunk driving in collaboration with Gurgaon Police – ‘Respect the Road’, and designing an official mascot to appeal to the masses, called ‘Traffic Tau’.
Recognizing Nikhil’s commitment and pioneering work around safer and sustainable transport, Ashoka selected him as a winning entrepreneur in the ‘Safer Roads, Safer India Challenge’ in 2014.
Nikhil is currently a Skoll Scholar and MBA Student at University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.
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Delegate
EVP & Chief Strategy and Impact Officer, Food For The Poor
As EVP/Chief Strategy & Impact Officer of Food For The Poor (FFTP), Nicolás Argüello oversees aspects related to program strategy, quality assurance, project design, capacity building, and monitoring and evaluation.
In addition to his time at FFTP, Nicolás has worked in various areas ranging from microfinance and education policy to mobile technologies for development (ICT4D) and social venture capital. Nicolás has done consulting work for numerous organizations, such as FINCA (Nicaragua), DAI (Mexico), Acumen (Kenya), The Earth Institute, Millennium Villages Project/UNDP (Kenya), the Oxford Seed Fund (UK), and the NYC Department of Education.
Nicolás holds a dual BA in Economics and Theology from the University of Notre Dame, an MPA in Development Practice from Columbia University, and an MBA from Oxford University, where he received the Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship.
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Delegate
Chairman, The Big Issue Group
Nigel Kershaw OBE is a leading social entrepreneur and impact investor who, since 1974, has had first-hand experience of creating, building and scaling social enterprises and social investment. He joined The Big Issue in 1994, subsequently becoming its CEO and Group Chair. He is also Co--Founder and Director of The Big Exchange.
The Big Issue (TBI) is one of the world’s most successful and best-known social enterprises. More than 200m copies of the magazine have been sold in the UK by street vendors and it has inspired over 100 similar publications around the world.
TBI set up Big Issue Invest, a social merchant bank, by social entrepreneurs - for social entrepreneurs, and has now invested in over 400 social enterprises across the UK. It currently manages or advises on over $½bn of social funds from its innovative early-stage venture funds and lending to regulated investment funds.
Nigel set up a public market arm that advises on public market impact funds, co-founded with Columbia Threadneedle (2013) and Aberdeen Standard Investments (2018) with a third Multi-Asset Climate Solutions Fund launched in February 2021.
Nigel co-founded The Big Exchange which is a transformative, fair, accessible and transparent investment platform for social and environmental impact rated funds. People can use their savings to invest in 46 rated funds from 13 asset managers with a combined Assets Under Management of over $60bn.
Nigel trained as a litho colour printer and previous to joining The Big Issue, Nigel founded three printing and publishing social enterprises. Nigel is a Social Enterprise UK ‘Champion of Champions’ and winner of the Institute of Directors’ Good Enterprise Award. He currently sits on the Impact Investing Institute’s Advisory Council. In 2010, he was awarded an OBE for services to Social Enterprise.
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Delegate
CEO, Shift
Nick is founder and CEO at Shift Design, a UK non-profit that takes a collective approach to reducing inequality.
Shift brings research, design and communications skills together to work closely with people and communities affected by issues such as mental illness, unmanageable debt, inadequate housing and poor childhood development. The team strives to work equitably, ensure strong shared value for those they work with and hand over the design reigns to communities.
Nick and his team work internationally, with a focus in the UK and USA, and have had long-term partnerships with teams at Google, the Government of Columbia, x - The Moonshot Factory, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity, NSPCC and Stanford University. They have also spun a series of new ventures out of Shift, such as the mental health gaming start-up BfB Labs, the community heritage platform Historypin, healthy fast food brands Box Chicken and Mama Leys, NOLA based equity non-profit Shift Collective and the field building Relationships Project.
Before founding Shift in 2012, Nick worked as a community and youth worker in the UK and campaigner and fundraiser for organisations such as Anti-Slavery International and children's disability charity Kids.
Nick holds several Board positions for non-profits in the UK and USA and speaks regularly around the world, including to audiences at TEDx events, Columbia University, the V&A Museum and Google.
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Delegate
Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, RVVZ Foundation
Armenian-Russian social entrepreneur, impact investor and venture philanthropist. A recognized expert on the global economy, entrepreneurship and education, provides strategic consulting through the membership of boards of directors, advisory boards and trusteeships of commercial companies, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, and public and professional bodies. Among them are the IFC (World Bank Group), business schools in Russia and Brazil, Aznavour Foundation, a major Armenian bank (Ameriabank) and Russia’s auto majors (KAMAZ, SOLLERS). A prominent financier, Ruben is known both for his commercial projects (investment companies Troika Dialog and Vardanyan, Broitman and Partners) as well as his philanthropic programs, such as the first UWC college in Eastern Europe (Dilijan, Armenia) and the Tatev Revival Project, part of which includes the construction of the world’s longest reversible cableway leading to an ancient monastery. Together with their partners, Ruben and his family have invested about $600M in projects in Armenia developing a commercial approach that relies on involving blended financing to find solutions to social problems. They have also raised over $600M to finance the first private business school in Russia – SKOLKOVO. In 2015, Ruben co-founded another global project, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors. He spends a significant amount of his time on projects related to the development and professionalization of charity infrastructure in Russia (Philanthropy Infrastructure – PHILIN) and the questions of wealth and legacy curation (Phoenix Advisors).
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Delegate
Nick Burn has spent nearly 30 years of his life managing international development programs. Trained as an agriculturalist, he lived in Indonesia and Tanzania for 10 years, and traveled for work extensively in countries across Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Over the past six years he has been working with Water For People to implement programs he believes in, programs that build lasting systems and promote aid independence. He believes that Water For People’s work can bring real change to the poorest.
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Delegate
Oxford University Student, Said Business School
Prior to being an MBA Candidate at Oxford University, Neil was a Manager in Management Consulting with five years of strategy and operations experience in corporate firms such as Accenture and KPMG and social enterprises such as Social Ventures Australia, Good Return (micro-finance) and Sustainable Energy Now (renewables). Neil has successfully delivered 20+ projects with clients in sectors such as Utilities, Energy, Government, Finance, Health, IT and Social Enterprise.
Neil's mission is to partner with social entrepreneurs to sustainably address social issues through the development of business strategies and implementation of operational initiatives. Equipped with a Project Management Professional accreditation from the Project Management Institute and a Lean Six Sigma greenbelt from the Accenture Consulting Academy, Neil plans to use his combined experience and skills in achieving this mission.
Neil is currently the Energy, Environment and Resources Oxford Business Network (EER OBN) Co-Chair in the Oxford MBA Program. In this role, he leads six committee directors and 200+ members with a targeted focus - empowering the next generation of energy business leaders to make climate change and renewable energy solutions a reality.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Mela Artisans Inc.
Navroze Mehta is Founder and Executive Chairman of Mela Artisans Inc. Mela Artisans is a luxury lifestyle brand that combines traditional handcrafting techniques with the freshness and functionality of contemporary design. The vision of Mela is to provide a sustainable global market for artisans while fostering entrepreneurship within their communities.
Navroze is a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO), past chair of the Americas Gateway Chapter, and served as Regional Chair of the Economic Development Network, part of the Social Enterprise Network(SEN) in YPO. He is also an active member of the Ashoka Support Network, supporting and mentoring Ashoka fellows globally. Ashoka is a leader in the field of social entrepreneurship.
He served on the Board of Directors of Lumni which funds education for talented low-income college students who are the first in their family to attend college and Mission Markets a company that is focused on connecting impact investors to mission-focused organizations.
Born in Wales and raised in India, Navroze received an MBA from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Sydenham College at the University ofBombay, India.
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Delegate
Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer, HP
Nate Hurst is currently the Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer for HP. He helps drive programs with a focus on the environment, society, and integrity that are aligned with HP’s business strategy. Nate directs the strategy of a global team of experts focused on driving solutions in collaboration with non-profit organizations, governments, customers, and partners. His team reinvents sustainable solutions that address societal challenges in the areas of education, entrepreneurship, and the environment while utilizing HP’s technology.
He has nearly 20 years of professional experience in environmental sustainability and social innovation working in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
Previously, Hurst served as director of sustainability, public affairs, and government relations for Walmart where he executed a proactive internal and external business sustainability strategy on environmental issues.
As a national spokesperson for The Ocean Conservancy, he spearheaded big ideas, communications strategies, and goals for environmental advocacy and advanced policy agendas through grassroots campaigns.
Prior, he served on The White House Council on Environmental Quality for President Clinton. While at the White House, he helped develop the Administration’s environmental agenda and implemented an extensive outreach plan in support of the agenda.
His international experience includes representing the United States government as a member of many official delegations.
Hurst received his master’s degrees from the University of California – Berkeley and his bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech University.
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Delegate
Founder & President, Natalie Orfalea Foundation
As the Co-Founder and Chair of the Orfalea Family Foundation and the Orfalea Fund (known collectively as the Orfalea Foundation), Natalie Orfalea has provided vision, inspiration, and strategy driving the foundation’s initiatives in early childhood education, food system reform, youth development, education, and disaster readiness. An executive coach, business person and philanthropist, Natalie is a catalyst for building partnerships for collaborative approaches to solving community problems.
Following a successful career at Xerox Corporation, Natalie ran an independent product development firm, and raised two sons. In addition to her foundation work, she is currently a member of the University of California Santa Barbara's Council for Arts & Lectures, as well as a board member of Impact Partners which finances independent documentary films that address pressing social issues. Natalie is also a member of Women Moving Millions which supports the advancement of women and girls. Natalie formerly served on the boards of the Good Night Foundation, Montana Yellowstone Expeditions Foundation, Direct Relief, and All Kinds of Minds. In 2013, she was named an honorary alumna of University of California Santa Barbara in recognition of her advocacy work in education.
Seeking systemic change, the Orfalea Foundation designed its philanthropy throughout its fifteen-year history to achieve ambitious goals and sustainable results in a concentrated and deliberate timeframe before sunsetting at the end of 2015. With the launch of the Natalie Orfalea Foundation in 2016, Natalie will continue to pursue her interests in philanthropy which include education, leadership development, environment, community health, public enrichment, women and girls issues, social justice documentary films, and collective impact.
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Delegate
Head of Global Partnerships,
OneSkyNatalie Campion is the Head of Global Partnerships for OneSky for all children. She has spent her career working in development and specializing in the stewardship of innovative global partnerships. She has united fundraising teams across the globe in countries including Australia, England, USA, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Mongolia, and China. She has achieved the internationally recognised fundraising qualification of CFRE and is a global award-winning campaign director. In 2014, she was awarded the Fundraising Institute of Australia Award for Excellence, which then went on to win the Global Award for Fundraising 2014 – Big Ideas, Small Budget Category at the International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands. Natalie has significant experience in government negotiations and relationship building. She is dedicated to raising funds for the world’s vulnerable children, so they may receive the love and nurturing care they need.
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Delegate
Governing Board Member, Barefoot College
Naoko is an advisor and author in the area of microfinance, social entrepreneurship and impact investments. Her passion lies in promoting innovative social/business models that provide sustainable solutions to tackle poverty and in advocating a much more effective and efficient use of resources, especially capital.
In 2000, Naoko established NFK Felder Consulting to raise awareness on microfinance investments. In 2004, she joined the Board of Frey Charitable Foundation, a Swiss family foundation that focuses in social entrepreneurship. In 2010, she co-founded Socential Ltd, a Swiss social impact organization that intermediates between donors/social investors and social entrepreneurs. In 2014, she co-founded Karmafy, a marketing platform that leverages the opportunity for effortlessly doing good every day by bringing people and products together. She also serves as a Governing Board Member of Barefoot College International and as a member of the advisory board of Pioneering Ventures and B Lab Europe.
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Delegate
Senior Advisor, The Omidyar Group
Randy Newcomb is a Senior Advisor at The Omidyar Group. The Omidyar Group is a diverse collection of global companies, organizations, and initiatives founded by Pierre and Pam Omidyar that strive to catalyze social impact globally.
As Senior Advisor Mr. Newcomb explores future trends, new and alternative thinking, and diverse points of view to address the challenges we face in the 21st century. Drawing from twenty years of leadership at international levels, Mr. Newcomb supports the mission of The Omidyar Group by weaving together networks of individuals and organizations working together towards a common purpose.
Previously, Mr. Newcomb was the founding President and CEO of Humanity United for fifteen years. Working closely with the Omidyar family, Randy grew HU as a values-based organization dedicated to cultivating the conditions necessary to address intractable problems like violent conflict, atrocities, human exploitation, and modern slavery.
During his tenure, Mr. Newcomb expanded Humanity United’s work throughout the world, with programs in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Malaysia, Mali, South Sudan, Sudan, and Thailand. Under Randy’s leadership, HU has fostered relationships and collaborated closely with a network of individuals and organizations – at global, regional, national and local levels – to bring greater levels of dialogue, understanding, action, and new solutions to address the complex systemic problems that are the organization’s focus.
Previously, Mr. Newcomb was a Vice President of Omidyar Network, a philanthropic and social investment firm. Prior to Omidyar Network, Mr. Newcomb served for 14 years as CEO of Golden Gate Community Inc., a community-based, social impact organization based in San Francisco.
Mr. Newcomb was a Fellow at the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University and an International Development Fellow at the University of Bath, Bath, England. He holds a Doctor of Education from the University of San Francisco, a Master of Science degree in development economics from the University of Bath, a Master of Arts degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, from the University of Bath.
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Delegate
President, Rosenthal Family Foundation
Nancy Stephens has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years with her filmmaker husband, Rick Rosenthal, and their three adult children. Nancy transitioned seamlessly from a long and successful acting career and member of the prestigious Actors Studio to being a full time advocate for both Environmental Sustainability and the Arts. She’s been on the Board of Directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists since 2001, where she is one of just five citizen activists among a host of esteemed scientists and Nobel Laureates. She also serves on the Board of Americans For The Arts. On the international front, Nancy supports two brilliant young women Conservation Biologists and their program in Kenya, Lion Guardians, working with the Maasai to save lions. Nancy has been an Executive Producer on a number of Whitewater Film projects with her husband, including the Sundance and Indie Spirit award-win.ner MEAN CREEK and together they have supported many documentary projects such as the award-winning film THE SQUARE and the Academy Award nominated short OPEN HEART, full length documentary CARTEL LAND, as well as this year’s 2017 Sundance documentary BEND THE ARC. In 2014, Nancy participated in the first public screenings of OPEN HEART in rural Rwanda and is delighted to share that the film changed the distribution of antibiotics for children with strep throat in Rwanda, which will help prevent the development of rheumatic heart disease in thousands of Rwandan children. She also attended the Skoll World Forum in 2014 and 2015 and both films THE SQUARE and OPEN HEART were screened for the International Community of Social Entrepreneurs. Nancy is also very proud of Executive Producing SELAH AND THE SPADES, ALWAYS IN SEASON, DARK MONEY, FEELS GOOD MAN, and REBEL HEARTS. Nancy is a frequent and active advocate for strong scientifically based Environmental Policy as well as advocating for Federal funding for the Arts on every level and as a crucial inclusion in public school education.
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Delegate
VP, Fish Forever, Rare
Nakul Saran serves as Vice President, Fish Forever at the global conservation organization, Rare. In this role, Nakul leads the organization’s fisheries work, implementing sustainable and scalable solutions that help both people and nature thrive in coastal communities throughout the developing tropics. These solutions are at the core of the Fish Forever initiative, formed in 2014 as a partnership between Rare, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the University of California Santa Barbara. Current work focuses on creating positive impact in Indonesia, the Philippines, Mozambique, Brazil, and Belize. An innovative, but proven concept, Fish Forever is a nationally-scaled global effort to place power directly in the hands of communities to restore the fisheries to which their livelihoods and food security are so intimately linked.
Prior to joining Rare in 2014, Nakul spent seven years at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company where he led the Oceans & Fisheries service within the Sustainability & Resource Productivity Practice. Before his years at McKinsey, he played a key role as Senior Consultant on Environment and Sustainability for Ernst & Young.
Nakul holds master’s degrees in Ocean Engineering and Engineering Management from Florida Institute of Technology, where his research focused on developing a rapid classification tool for coral communities using multispectral acoustics.
A passionate lover of oceans, Nakul’s formative years in Mauritius cemented his lifelong commitment to help protect them and life dependent upon them. His interest in deeply understanding and experiencing the environmental world in a personal way has taken him around the globe to over fifty countries. When not at work, Nakul can be found on a beach, sailing or diving.
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Delegate
Senior Director of Regional Programs, Oxfam America
Muthoni Muriu has twenty years of experience in international development work and a passion for social justice issues. As Senior Director of Regional Programs for Oxfam America, she provides strategic leadership and management oversight for their international programs. In addition to steering policy and systems integration, she is responsible for ensuring that Oxfam's regionally based programs are well resourced and maintain the integrity of their impact objectives. She has worked within the Oxfam International confederation for over twelve years. Prior to joining Oxfam in 2000, she worked with various regional organizations in Africa, focusing on international policy and development issues. She is fluent in English, French, Kiswahili, and Kikuyu and holds a BSc in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Political Science and Economics and an MSc in Public Policy and Management from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
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Delegate
Co-Founder and President, Efrusy Family Foundation
Together with her husband, Molly founded and serves as President of the Efrusy Family Foundation, which primarily focuses on youth leadership development and education in Africa, Latin America, and the US. She is committed to supporting young people to live lives of purpose. Molly and her husband were the founding donors for the Latin American Leadership Academy (LALA), and Molly is a founding board member. She also serves on the African Leadership Foundation’s US Advisory Council, is an investor in African Leadership University, and is the Bay Area Chapter Head for the African Leadership Academy. Molly was the founding donor for Project Wayfinder, an organization founded at Stanford’s d.school that has created curricula for youth around Belonging and Purpose Learning. She is also a member of the National Advisory Board for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. The Haas Center inspires and prepares Stanford students to create a more just and sustainable world through service, scholarship, and community partnerships. She previously served as the Vice Chair of the Board of the Firelight Foundation.
Molly received an AB from Stanford University in Human Biology and an MPH from the University of California at Berkeley in maternal and child health. She previously served on the Policy Advisory Council for the Dean of the Berkeley School of Public Health and is currently a member of the Dean’s Changemaker Task Force. Molly lives in Park City, UT with her husband and three sons, and also serves on the Park City Education Foundation board.
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Delegate
Chairperson, Careduca Foundation
I increasingly devote my time and resources to philanthropic efforts. I am in particular interested in the education sector.
Currently Governor of Marymount International School London, where I chair the Admissions, Alumnae and Development Committee and have helped the school transition from religious- to lay-leadership and become one of the top IB school for girls in Europe. Also a Trustee of the American University of Paris, where I have restructured and chair the Enrolment Committee.
I have over 30 years of significant business experience in both entrepreneurial and large company settings:
◊ Strong background in marketing, marketing strategy, market research, business development, recruitment, operational restructuring/turnarounds.
◊ Industry/sector experience includes FMCG, apparel, manufacture, family business, education.
◊ International, multicultural, multilingual having lived and worked globally, including emerging markets.
◊ Hands-on, energetic, results-oriented, natural lateral thinker.
- Former member of the non-Executive board of Indivers BV, Phoenix Group Holdings and Business Analytica.
- Managed the family office in Holland and the USA, restructured and wound it down.
- Shareholder of Business Analytica, which was sold in 2010 after it grew to become one of the leading market research companies in the CIS.
- Market entry strategies for Marakon Associates, Spectrum Strategy Consultants Compass Group plc, Korn Ferry International, Ermengildo Zegna and Egon Zehnder International.
- Worked in Central and Eastern Europe, launched Levi's in Poland and the former Soviet Union. Opened the first Levi’s franchise in Russia.
- Started career with Philip Morris International, with a number of marketing and brand management roles in Europe.
Swiss/Dutch citizen. MBA from IMD Switzerland. Like music, sailing, skiing, biking, hiking, travel, good causes
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Delegate
Programme Manager, Montpelier Foundation
X
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Bread and Buzz Partners
Creative Director, Marketing Professional and Social Entrepreneur.
A writer with quick instincts for defining brands and developing voices, Mimi is co-founder of Bread + Buzz LLC, a boutique marketing and business development firm that positions both commercial and not-for-profits for success.
Award winning copywriter for Y&R and DDB Needham Advertising.
Founder and Designer of The Loading Dock venue, the only loft event space in Fairfield County CT. Founder of Campus Goose, a working model for student support employing empty nesters. Mimi is passionate about education. She started and continues to run a college mentoring program for promising students at the New York City charter school Harlem Village Academy. She recently joined the New York board of One Goal Graduation, conceived to provide the soft skills and advocacy required to see high school students through college. And Mimi has been an active board member and event chair for Teach for America, Kids In Crisis and the Boys and Girls Club.
BA Brown University in Organizational Behavior and Semiotics.
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, Zoona
Mike Quinn is Group CEO of Zoona, an African Fintech that leverages technology, entrepreneurship, and partnerships to enable essential financial services for those who need them most. Since launching in 2009, Zoona has grown to an customer base of over 3 million consumers and 2,000 agent outlets in 3 countries, has processed $2 billion in transactions, and has raised has raised more than $30 million in venture capital. In 2015, the Nike Foundation and Unreasonable Institute selected Zoona for the inaugural Girl Effect Accelerator as one of the top start-ups in the world helping girls out of poverty based on our micro-franchise model that empowers girls and young women to become entrepreneurs.
Mike holds an MBA with Distinction from Oxford University, where he was a Skoll Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship, along with an MSc in Management Development from the London School of Economics. His entrepreneurial journey started as a volunteer in Ghana and Zambia with Engineers Without Borders Canada, and he has now lived and worked in Africa for 12 years. Mike grew up in Calgary, Canada, and completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. He received the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2018 and Accion’s Edward W. Claugus Award for Leadership and Innovation in Financial Inclusion in 2017.
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Delegate
CEO, Carbon Analytics
Since I was little I've been obsessed with the idea that business could be the force for change the planet needs to solve our environmental woes (thanks mom and dad!). I've devoted my career to business solutions for good - first as an engineer at Sherwood Design Engineers designing and developing green infrastructure projects around the world, then as an entrepreneur cofounding Odyssey Sensors a low-cost agriculture sensor company, Terra Recovery which focused on turning landfills from liabilities to assets, and most critically Carbon Analytics which is working to embed environmental externality data into our economic systems with the goal of solving sustainability forever.
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Delegate
Sr. Director, Social Ventures, Mercy Corps
Michael brings 20 years of experience applying entrepreneurial approaches to addressing global social challenges. Michael serves as Senior Director of the Social Ventures team at the global humanitarian agency, Mercy Corps. Michael leverages his experience launching early stage enterprises to help Mercy Corps identify, invest in, and accelerate impact-oriented, for-profit businesses. Prior to Mercy Corps, Michael was Co-Founder of Simpa Networks, a venture-backed energy services company with a bold mission: to make modern energy simple, affordable, and accessible for everyone. Michael has led Arc Finance’s research into micropayment approaches for financing pro-poor clean energy and water enterprises and consulted to the social venture capital fund, Acumen Fund, mapping private sector investments in nutrition in east Africa. Michael was on the founding team of the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, the Institute for OneWorld Health, whose goal is clinical development and distribution of affordable new medicines for diseases of poverty in the developing world. Michael spent his early career with the Social Development Department of the World Bank. Michael holds degrees from Duke University (CASE Scholar) and Vanderbilt University (Ingram Scholar) and has studied at the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba.
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Delegate
Senior Editor, Stanford Social Innovation Review
MICHAEL SLIND is senior editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review. He has extensive experience as a writer, editor, and publishing professional. Michael is co-author, with Boris Groysberg, of "Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Previously, he worked at Harvard Business School, where he wrote widely used case studies on corporate strategy and entrepreneurial management. Earlier in his career, he served as managing editor and as a senior editor at Fast Company magazine. During his tenure as its managing editor, Fast Company won a National Magazine Award for general excellence. In addition, Michael has acted as an editorial consultant for business author Tom Peters, among others. For Peters, he helped to develop the books "Re-imagine!" (Dorling-Kindersley, 2003) and "The Little Big Things" (HarperStudio, 2010). Michael earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Kansas and an master's degree in history from Cornell University. He lives in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Delegate
Director of Liquid Assets, New Island Capital
Michael Grossman is responsible for lending and fixed income investing at New Island Capital.
Previously, Michael managed Calvert Foundation’s international impact investing portfolio and was a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company’s Social Sector Office focused on financial inclusion and inclusive agriculture development.
Michael led the Francophone Africa team at Millennium Challenge Corporation where he and his colleagues structured over $1.5 billion in grants to stimulate pro-poor economic growth.
Michael was Managing Director and Citigroup Country Officer in Tunisia where he was responsible for day-to-day management of Citibank’s commercial and retail operations. In addition, he was Managing Director and Citigroup Country Officer in Dakar, Senegal and Senior Operations Officer in Casablanca, Morocco. Michael helped create Citibank’s west African regional corporate finance/capital markets business based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
Michael holds an MS in Finance from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Michael is a Chevalier in Senegal’s National Order of the Lion.
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Delegate
Deputy Director, Youth Livelihoods, The MasterCard Foundation
Meredith manages Youth Learning projects that focus on the intersection between work and education, as well as those that address technology as a vehicle for training and employment. Meredith has over 15 years of experience working with youth both domestically and internationally in experiential education, program design, and implementation. Most recently as Director of Programs for Street Kids International, Meredith has worked in various capacities in youth development and program management in over a dozen countries in the Global South including four years living in Latin America and the South Pacific. She holds an Honours Bachelor Degree in International Development Studies from the University of Toronto, Canada and a Master of Public Administration from Queen’s University, Canada.
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Delegate
Chief Content Officer, Public Radio International
Melinda Ward is Chief Content Officer for Public Radio International (PRI). PRI is a global non-profit media company focused on the intersection of journalism and engagement to affect positive change in people’s lives. We create a more informed, empathetic and connected world by sharing powerful stories, encouraging exploration, connecting people and cultures, and creating opportunities to help people take informed action on stories that inspire them. Its mission is to serve audiences as a distinctive content source for information, insights and cultural experiences essential to living in our diverse, interconnected world.
Melinda oversees a portfolio of radio programs, podcasts and websites that include two PRI produced daily news programs, The World and The Takeaway. We are currently focused on several multimedia content initiatives looking at issues of gender equity worldwide, international security, environment, immigration, religion.
Prior to coming to PRI in 1972, Melinda was Director of Children's and Cultural Programming at PBS. She has run film and education programs at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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Delegate
Director of Entrepreneurship Centre, Said Business School
Megan has a wealth of experience in innovation ecosystems, strategy, change management and science commercialisation, with a particular focus on the culture and structures that facilitate effective innovation. She particularly values working across traditional institutional and disciplinary boundaries, encouraging collaboration and breaking down stereotypical divisions.
Megan runs the Entrepreneurship Centre for the University of Oxford, delivering education and support to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs across the university and beyond. The Centre’s work spans three pillars of operation: education and experiential training; networking, convening and co-working; and thought leadership in policy and practice. The new Oxford Foundry development will dramatically expand the existing Launchpad co-working space in 2017.
Megan has a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge as a member of St John’s College, and subsequent qualifications in economics, science communication and business. Her professional career has spanned a range of sectors including energy, transportation, cryogenics, space, healthcare technologies, medical devices, construction and property management. She is particularly passionate about sustainable businesses which use market forces to create social impact.
Megan previously lectured on innovation for the University of Cambridge, facilitated innovation and scenario workshops and investment readiness training for small companies and academics, and worked as an open innovation partner for major corporate brands. She is a business mentor for several high-tech companies, a Founding Director of the start-up SmartCare Analytics Ltd. and a Board member of two local charities, The Oxford Trust and The Leys Community Development Initiative.
In Megan’s spare time, she enjoys Ceroc dancing, climbing, civil war re-enactment and culinary experimentation, and has been a longstanding clinical volunteer with St John Ambulance.
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Delegate
Director, Initiative for Smallholder Finance, Global Development Incubator
Matt is a Senior Advisor with ISF Advisors at the Global Development Incubator. Over the past fifteen years Matt has worked in the areas of private equity and development advisory for a number of leading organisations including GDI, Agis Investments, Dalberg and Deloitte. Over this time, Matt has been involved in over 60 projects in 25 counties working with partners such as the Gates Foundation, the World Bank, USAID, MTN and the G8. These projects have included the design of over 500 million dollars in development programming, the mobilisation of large amounts of capital and the development of some industry leading initiatives such as ANDE, Ag Results and the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance. Within this portfolio of work Matt has worked on direct investment strategies in Zimbabwe including the assessment of consumer goods and agricultural sub-sectors and due diligence on a range of investments. Matt holds a MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of London and Bachelors of Business and Economics from the University of Queensland.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Nest
Matt Rogers is founder and VP of Engineering at Nest Labs, creator of the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect: Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm. By applying modern design and technology, Nest aims to revitalize these stagnant - yet very important - industries. Matt is responsible for all product development at Nest, ranging from mechanical design to software to web services, and everything in between. Matt also serves on Nest's board of directors.
Prior to Nest, Matt was responsible for iPod software development at Apple, from concept to production. He was one of the first engineers on the original iPhone, and involved in the development of 10 generations of iPod, 5 generations of iPhone, and the first iPad. He earned his BS and MS degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.
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Delegate
COO, Socialab
Industrial Engineer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and MSc in Public Policies at the Universidad de Chile.
Director of the project "Innovation models for low income population" from the IADB.
Co-founder of Socialab, NGO that provides a platform for disruptive social startups and generates solutions for humanitarian challenges. All this through co-creation, businesses and innovation. Matías is currently Socialab's COO.
Among his talks we highlight the ones in Babson's Latin Entrepreneurship Forum, Singularity University and the in the Chilean National Congress.
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Delegate
Martin Tschopp is CEO of Kiva.org, with a focus on growing the breadth and depth of the organization’s impact around the globe. Martin joined Kiva in 2015, after more than a decade of experience building marketplace and e-commerce businesses in 20 countries, and leading teams both small and large from startup phase through scale up.
Martin honed his expertise during 12 years at eBay, where he held a variety of leadership positions including Vice President and General Manager of eBay Advertising, VP of eBay Germany and GM for Local Classifieds. The GM role involved developing strategies for a dozen different countries including India, China, Japan, Singapore, the U.S. and South Africa.
This international experience in a wide range of markets provides a unique perspective for Kiva’s work, which spans more than 80 countries. Martin was inspired to move into the social good space to help empower individuals, and build strong communities from the bottom up.
He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from INSEAD and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Segal Family Foundation
Martin Segal
Martin graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in 2004 and currently serves as principal for real estate investing company, B&D Holdings and is the chairman of the board for Segal Family Foundation.
In 2010, Martin took on the role of Managing Director of Segal Family Foundation, which makes grants to over 200 exemplary partners designing effective, locally appropriate solutions to poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Segal Family Foundation’s annual giving has grown from $2 million in 2010 to over $12 million in 2017, with a focus on driving resources to African visionaries and grassroots organizations. Martin serves as chairman of the board, manages the endowment, and oversees the foundation’s growing interest in impact investments.
In addition to Martin’s role on the Segal Family Foundation, he also is on the board of Tugende. Tugende is a social enterprise in Uganda that finances productive assets unlocking growth in East Africa and empowering people previously considered to be too risky for credit.
When Martin is not working or spending time with his lovely wife Kristen and their two daughters, he enjoys fishing, skiing, playing tennis, and spending time with family and friends.
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Delegate
Deputy Director, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
I am currently Deputy Director at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University, where I lead work on policy innovation and outcomes-focused solutions. We work with leaders, students, researchers, practitioners, and communities to reimagine and transform the social sector for the 21st century. Previously, I served in the Obama Administration as Senior Policy Advisor in the inaugural White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and as Senior Advisor for Social Innovation at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). At CNCS, I designed and implemented the first Social Innovation Fund in the U.S. Government, which became the model for innovation funds across other agencies.
At the White House, I focused on evidence-based policy, innovative financing tools, and public-private partnerships to maximize federal resources and drive investment in effective solutions for our nation’s social problems. I led the development, launch, and support of several White House initiatives, including Innovation Funds, Pay for Success, and Summer Jobs+. Prior, I served on President Obama’s Presidential Transition Team, as a member of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group.
In my career, I have focused on community solutions and advancing results-oriented policy approaches. At One Economy Corporation, a national organization committed to bridging communities to the digital economy, I designed and led successful programs to build the capacity of low-income communities and connect them to opportunity. An Echoing Green Fellow, I have extensive background in youth and community development and I have created and managed community-led initiatives at the local and national level. I currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Latin American Youth Center and I am a member of All Souls Church, Unitarian. I live in Washington, DC, with my family.
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Delegate
Consultant, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Medical Doctor – Brazil, 1972
Master Public Health (Epidemiology), Tulane School of Hygiene and Public Health, New Orleans, USA, 1975
-Consultant, Skoll Global Threats Fund, mass gatherings participatory surveillance 2013-present
-Consultant, Global Health LLC, public health surveillance consulting 2009-present
-Epidemiologist, Communicable Diseases Program, PAHO/WHO Washington DC 1998-2009
Regional advisor, communicable diseases, Americas, revision International Health Regulations (2005), implementation Regional Plan for Surveillance and Control Emerging/Reemerging Infectious Diseases.
Coordinate PAHO/WHO’s alert and response operations.
Coordinate establishment EID surveillance networks, Southern Cone, Amazon Basin and Central America
-Epidemiologist, Health Situation Analysis Program, PAHO/WHO, Washington DC 1993-1998
Responsible Core Health Data /Country Profile database system implementation.
Direct technical cooperation national epidemiology departments on surveillance systems/health situation analysis
Epidemiologist, Health Situation and Trend Assessment, PAHO/WHO Washington DC 1989-1992
Coordinate PAHO's response to the Cholera Epidemic,
Program manager IDB cholera surveillance and control grant, 25 countries,
Editor of PAHO's Epidemiological Bulletin
PAHO's response to control disease outbreaks.
-Intercountry epidemiologist, Health Situation and Trend, PAHO/WHO, Panama City, Panama 1985-1988
Direct technical cooperation Panama/Central American countries to improve epidemiological surveillance systems.Training in epidemiology.Disease outbreaks investigation and control.
Focal point for technical cooperation AIDS/STD, especially surveillance systems and prevention strategies.
-Head, Epidemiological Control Unit, Rio Grande do Sul State (RSSHD) Health Department , Brazil 1978-1985
Responsible technical, management and operations communicable diseases epidemiological surveillance system and immunization program.
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Delegate
Cofounder, Assemble, RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service
Mark Clayton Hand is Senior Consultant at MPA Advisors, which helps early stage companies and investment funds more effectively build and manage high-caliber teams. He is also a PhD Candidate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where he researches effective team-building in political campaigns and entrepreneurship in the rural U.S. He has taught at Oxford University, where he redesigned the core MBA entrepreneurship course; and at UT-Austin’s RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, where he designed and taught a course on social entrepreneurship.
Prior to his academic career Mark made, managed and supported investments in over 40 ventures through UnLtd USA (which became Techstars Impact), Gray Ghost Ventures, the Oxford Seed Fund, and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. He has taught entrepreneurship at Oxford's Saïd Business School and social entrepreneurship at the University of Texas. He spent his early career in community development, including founding Manna Project International's site in Ecuador.
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Delegate
Recognized as Social Entrepreneur year 2012 by Schwab Foundation with sound experience in non profit arena as well as corporate environment. Appointed as CEO at Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI) pioneer of the digital empowerment movement in Latin America, in 20 years (CDI) has impacted the lives of over 1.64 million individuals.
Today, we are a network of more than 700 digital empowerment centers with presence in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, England, Irland, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Rumenia, Scotland, Spain, Venezuela and Wales.
CDI’s has been recognized by many leading organizations including Ashoka, Avina, IDB, Schwab Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Tech Museum, Unicef and UNESCO.
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Delegate
Marriage & Family Therapist,
I am a Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am currently in the process of opening Greenlight Clinic which is a free mental health clinic serving young people between 14 and 25 years old in the Bay Area. . The mission of Greenlight Clinic is to provide free short term, therapeutic intervention in a safe environment where our clients can learn to identify and manage their current feelings and difficulties.
Previously, I worked in middle and elementary schools as a school counselor providing individual counseling as well as leading divorce, anger management, friendship and adoption groups.
I have also been very active in the issues of Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking in the Bay Area. I worked for a local DV agency counseling female victims of domestic abuse. Also, for ten years I produced a networking event in San Francisco that provided education and networking opportunities for the participants, in the areas of domestic violence and human trafficking.
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Delegate
Oxford University Student, MBA, Saïd Business School
Mariko is an MBA candidate at Saïd Business School and currently a participant of Leading for Impact Program. She is also a fellow of Orinus Partners, a start-up Japanese business consultancy firm which provides advisory services to firms based in Japan on inclusive businesses.
Prior to the MBA, she worked on business feasibility studies to disseminate technologies aimed at solving social challenges and to promote private sector development in emerging countries at JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). She began her career at General Electric, where she graduated from two of GE’s fast-track leadership programs (Corporate Audit Staff and Financial Management Program). She worked at GE Capital, Energy and Healthcare.
Mariko is a Rotary Global Scholar, and holds a Bachelor of Art in Policy and Management with a focus on Social Innovation from Keio University, Japan. She studied development economics at McGill Universty in Canada as an exchange student. She went to Nordic United World College, where she developed her passion in global poverty reduction.
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Delegate
Founder, Capital Department
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Delegate
Managing Director, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
Dr. Margaret M. Towle, CAIA, CIMA®, CPWA®, is Managing Director-Wealth Management/Senior Portfolio Manager and Global Institutional Consulting at Merrill Lynch. Margaret has over 30 years’ experience in the industry as an asset manager and investment advisor. Her area of specialty is advising ultra high-net worth families and foundations & endowments on; impact investments, Outsourced CIO services, asset allocation strategies, and non-traditional investments.
Margaret is a member of the Bank of America Impact Investing Council and Oxford Impact Investing Advisory Council. She is a board member of the non-profit association of Plantagon, a sustainable urban agriculture company based in Sweden and a founding board member of the Center for Women and Democracy at the University of Washington. She is an angel investor in 100 Women in Hedge Funds and a member of the investment committee of the YWCA Seattle. She is Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Investment Consulting.”
Margaret earned BA, MA, and PhD degrees, with emphasis in political economy and public finance, from the University of Washington-Seattle. She was a Kaufman Fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and completed the Executive Education Program in Risk Management at the Booth School of Business University of Chicago, University of Oxford (England) Impact Investment Programme, and post-graduate studies in quantitative methods at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. Margaret has published in the areas of finance and economics and has appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg.
* Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIASM) is a professional designation offered by the CAIA Association. Investment Management Consultants Association, (IMCA®), is the owner of the certification marks CPWA®, Certified Private Wealth Advisor, CIMA® and Certified Investment Management Analyst®.
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Delegate
Associate Expert, International Trade Centre (United Nations/WTO)
Marco is an associate expert at the International Trade Centre (ITC), the joint agency of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations focused on the internationalization of SMEs. He is based in Geneva and works on the agency’s activities related to access to finance for SMEs in developing and transition countries.
Before becoming associate expert, Marco served as an associate and member of the founding team at Insitor Management, a CDC group-backed social venture capital fund, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Prior to that Marco worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Indonesia and as a business consultant in Italy.
He graduated from Bocconi University in Milan with a BSc and MSc in economics and finance and studied at the University of Carlos III in Madrid and the University of Texas in Austin, USA.
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Delegate
Executive Chairman, Local Giving
Marcelle Speller is the founder of both Localgiving and the Localgiving Foundation. Marcelle graduated with a BSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia, before going on to gain more than 10 years experience within leading advertising agencies in London and Amsterdam. She has an MBA from INSEAD and has held various Director and Board-level marketing positions with several multinational companies.
In 1996, Marcelle co-founded Holiday-Rentals.com, Europe’s leading website for advertising private holiday homes. When the company was sold, she attended a workshop at the Institute for Philanthropy, and was inspired to found Localgiving.
In 2011, Marcelle was awarded an OBE for her services to the voluntary sector, in 2013 was awarded a Beacon Fellowship for Pioneering Philanthropy and was named Philanthropist of the Year at the Spear’s Wealth Management Awards. In 2014 she received an honorary DCL (Hons) from the University of East Anglia.
Marcelle is also a Director and Trustee of New Philanthropy Capital and a recognised spokesperson for TV, radio and print media for comment on philanthropy issues and how they affect small, local charities and community groups. She has contributed numerous essays and opinion pieces to major publications, including the Cabinet Office’s Giving Green Paper, The Times, The Guardian, Spear’s Magazine and The Economist.
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Delegate
Trustee, Bloom Foundation
Marcelle is a Trustee of the Bloom Foundation, a London based private foundation. The Foundations' diverse portfolio focuses on the prevention of relief of poverty making grants and investments into programmes and investments focusing on education, health, and self-sustaining solutions.
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Delegate
Managing Partner, Dietel Partners
Tory manages portfolios for clients with both domestic and international interests. She works closely with the Dietel Partners team to define strategy, identify grantee and funding partners and provide assistance to grantees with their strategies, resource development and capacity building needs. Tory works closely with funding partners to help with field building in the areas of interest to her clients. She believes strongly in working towards better dynamics between the funding and grantseeking communities and takes a humanist approach to her work.
Prior to joining Dietel Partners, Tory had a 25 year career in nonprofit resource development, management and governance with a particular focus in education and health and human services. She was trained by BoardSource as a nonprofit governance consultant and was a principle of Turning Point Consulting, which focused on strategic planning and organizational capacity building in the nonprofit sector.
In addition to her career in the nonprofit sector, Tory was co-founder of RockHopp Partners, a company that developed materials for parents and children, which received the Teacher’s Choice Award and Parent’s Choice Award.
Tory received a heaping dose of volunteer genes from both of her parents. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Health Care Without Harm, the National Advisory Board of Wholesome Wave, the Development Committee of Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in Uganda and Chairs the Advisory Board of 2B Design, an award-winning social enterprise based in Cambridge, MA and Lebanon.
Tory is a graduate of the Emma Willard School and the University of Vermont. She is the mother of two grown children and lives in Maine with her husband, loves the great outdoors, dancing, and travel – she has travelled to more than 30 countries. At heart, Tory is a networker and strives to inspire others to lead a life of purpose and to support solutions-minded colleagues.
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Delegate
Board Member and Director, Barefoot College International
Currently Entrepreneur in Residence for CARE and Director of Climate Justice. Founder of Step Up Advisers and creator of Soli; the worlds first digital learning management system for smallholder farmers. CEO Emiritus of Barefoot College & Barefoot college International. Schwab Foundation SE.
Dedicated Social Innovation and Development Professional with proven track record of innovative approaches to solving "wicked challenges" through design thinking and strong execution rigour. Skilled in working under pressure and adapting to new situations and challenges across cultures, to best achieve success. Passionate, committed to action and results in the Energy Transition, Agriculture, Climate Change, Women's Empowerment, Social and Economic Justice, focal areas. Pioneer in developing cross sectoral collaboration and systems change approaches to institutionalising development at scale of transformative human centric models. Thought leader, connecter, writer, speaker and mobiliser.
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Delegate
Director Learning and Innovation, IDH
Dr Lucian Peppelenbos is Director of Learning and Innovation at IDH The Sustainable Trade Initiative. IDH seeks to deliver impact in upstream supply chains by convening sector transformation programs in coalitions of trade and industry, government and civil society. Dr. Peppelenbos is responsible for the development of strategies, metrics and insights that enable the program partners to innovate and increase impact. Previously Lucian was a senior adviser supply chain development at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and a policy advisor on agriculture in the Dutch Parliament. He started his career as a supply chain consultant based in Chile. Lucian has a PhD from Wageningen University and has published several books and papers on supply chain development in emerging and developing economies.
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Delegate
General Manager Futura Channel, Fundacao Roberto Marinho
Lucia Araújo - journalist, she’s the director of Canal Futura. She started her career as a writer and managing editor for news and feature programs at Abril Video, TV Globo and TV Cultura. During two years she lived in Washington DC where she worked as a free lancer reporter for Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, covering the cultural, behavior and business areas. Back to Brazil, Lucia joined independent companies in the development of documentary series for different free and payTV channels. Until 1999, when she took over the position of General Manager at Canal Futura, she worked for CNBC in Brazil and for TV Bandeirantes as head of news and journalistic programs.
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Delegate
Founding Partner, Auxano Capital Partners
A financial services entrepreneur with 15+ years of global experience, Luca co-founded and spearheaded several successful ventures, specializing and closing highly profitable investments in the SME space. Passionate about contributing to the ongoing transition to a low carbon economy, Luca recently graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Sloan Fellow and is launching an environmental impact private equity firm with one of his fellow classmates.
Luca began his career in London at Bear Stearns working at their equity arbitrage desk, before moving to Medici Capital Management, a prominent Hedge Fund, to manage a $250 million long/short equity portfolio. In 1999, Luca moved to San Francisco and became a Partner at Keating Investments, a boutique merchant bank, where he led the firm’s international investment activities. As part of these efforts, he co-founded and managed their KRM Fund, delivering a 36% IRR, and set up Keating’s office in Shanghai. Keating Investments eventually became a Business Development Company focused on late stage growth investments and was later sold to BDCA Adviser, LLC. Luca exited Keating in the process. After 15 years in finance Luca decided to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations with the launch of MIXR, an innovative online and offline startup selling affordable luxury products to middle-class women in China. MIXR raised a first round of funding and was sold to a competitor in 2013.
Returning to the Bay Area to pursue new opportunities in business and education, Luca enrolled in Stanford Business School’s Sloan Program and graduated with an MS in Business Management and a Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation. Luca also holds a degree in Economics and Quantitative Studies (Summa Cum Laude) from Venice University, Italy, including a year of scholarship at the University of Warwick, UK.
Luca spends his free time looking after his 3 kids, playing soccer and tennis, and mountain biking.
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Delegate
President and CEO, Fondation Mérieux USA
Dr. Gresham leads the Fondation Mérieux (FMx) USA in Washington DC in support of the global mission of the French Mérieux family foundation to reduce the impact of infectious diseases among vulnerable populations around the world.
Former Director of the Biologics program for Senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner at NTI,
Louise supported regional infectious disease surveillance networks in regions of the world often in conflict including the Middle East, SE Asia, and Africa.
Louise is a member of the delegation that developed the first modern tuberculosis laboratory in North Korea with a humanitarian group and Stanford University. She advised the Bipartisan WMD Center, chaired by Senators Graham and Talent and earlier served as Senior Epidemiologist for the Health and Human Services Agency, San Diego County.
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Delegate
Programme Officer, Montpelier Foundation
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Delegate
Cofounder / Chief Operating Officer, Viamo
When Louis worked with Engineers Without Borders Canada in Ghana, he wondered: How can we help aid organizations and emerging market governments use tech to meet the needs of people who aren’t being reached? The answer was in co-founding Viamo in 2013, using the ubiquitousness of mobile phones to create new feedback loops at scale, and empower millions of people with new access to vital information. As COO, Louis leads the company’s implementation, product, marketing, and business development teams. He has since helped grow the company to 33 countries and reached over 30 million people with hundreds of diverse solutions.
Louis began at Engineers Without Borders Canada where he was part of their first overseas-based staff and grew their international programs to more than 200 Africa-based employees and volunteers. He worked for a silicon-valley pre-IPO software company as their Director of Specific Projects reporting to the CEO. There, he led the corporate development team, the growth of the corporate foundation and became the founding director of their R&D labs division.
Louis has an MBA from the University of Oxford as a Skoll Scholar. He was recognized as one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40.
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Delegate
Human Rights/Civic Engagement, Ford Foundation
Louis Bickford is a member of the Civic Engagement and Government team and also manages the Global Human Rights program at the Ford Foundation. Based in New York, he works with international NGOs in every world region. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2012, he was on the Executive Leadership team of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, where he also acted as the Secretary General of RFK Europe and managed the Center’s office in Florence, Italy. Before that, Bickford was the Director of the Policymakers and Civil Society unit at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), where he was an original staff member in 2001. During his time at ICTJ, he developed the organization's work on memory, as well as in various national contexts including in in Bosnia, Burma, Cambodia, Liberia, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria; and managed global networks of transitional justice activists and practitioners. He has also been a consultant for the Oak Foundation, the Bertha Foundation, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP-Sarajevo), and the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among others. Bickford is an adjunct professor and teaches regular graduate seminars on human rights at Columbia University and New York University. He received a Ph.D. from McGill University and a master's degree from the New School, both in Political Science.
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Delegate
Financial Advisor, Natalie Orfalea Foundation
Lou Buglioli, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Viewpointe, is a 45-year veteran in the Financial Services and Technology Outsourcing Industry. Since starting Viewpointe in 2002, Buglioli leads the company as an industry innovator in information governance and digital storage with the nation's leading banks, insurance companies and health care organizations. His career includes extensive executive experience in advising financial service and technology companies on merger and acquisitions, strategy and business operations. During his 20-year career as President and Managing Partner of a major consulting company and Perot Systems, he led the Global Financial Services Industry Group for retail, commercial and investment banks, insurance companies and payment services organizations. Lou also served as President, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Telecredit Inc. (now FIS), Senior Vice President of Wells Fargo bank and Vice President of Citibank where he was responsible for electronic banking, worldwide bank operations and technology. Lou holds a Master's degree in Science from MIT and Duquesne University as an undergraduate.
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Delegate
Trustee, Planet Wheeler Foundation
Mark works with a number of Australian based funding entities to support social entrepreneurs with a problem to solve.
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Delegate
President/CEO, Chasca Films, LLC
PROFESSIONAL:
Title: President/CEO of Auerbach Realty Holdings, LLC
Ms. Auerbach oversees the asset management functions of her family’s multi-state commercial investment portfolio. She holds a real estate Broker’s License from the State of California and a CPM (Certified Property Manager) designation from IREM (Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM).
www.chascafilms.com
Title: Founder/President of Chasca Films, LLC
This company was created to fund films that educate about causes that effect the health and safety of women and girls and further awareness of issues related to gender inequalities and violence against women and girls, particularly rape and the sex trafficking of minors. Lorna Auerbach, through Chasca has provided funding for "India's Daughter," produced by Leslee Udwin, "I Am Jane Doe," produced by Mary Mazzio and "The Tale" produced by Jennifer Fox. All three films have won multiple awards and resulted in changing legislation to stop sex trafficking and child sexual abuse.
BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIC ORGANIZATIONS:
Young Presidents Organization and World Presidents Organization (Real Estate Council)
Founder of L.A. Land Ladies
Serve on Advisory Board of "With Your Shield," at USC supporting the transition of Navy Seal Combat Veterans and their families to civilian life.
Contributor to "Women Moving Millions"
Auerbach Legacy Foundation
Rebecca Bender initiative
Polaris Project
Shared Hope
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Delegate
Founder, The Clara Fund
Lorene Arey is founder of the Clara Fund, a family foundation focused in two key areas: supporting gender equality and sustainable markets.
Prior to establishing Clara Fund, Lorene was head of Worldwide Communications at Cisco Systems where she was she played a key role in shaping and positioning Cisco’s public image. The accomplishments of Lorene’s team were spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal in 2000 when Cisco was recognized as the company with the best publicity across all industries worldwide for 1999.
Lorene currently serves on the Board of Directors for B Lab, is a founding board member for Healing Cultures, is a Guarantor for MicroCredit Enterprises, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Institute for Leadership Studies, Loyola Marymount. She’s a member of Women Moving Millions and The Philanthropy Workshop. She has served on the Board of Directors for Unitus, Women Thrive, Count-Me-In and the Lucile Packard Foundation. Lorene holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with Highest Distinction.
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Delegate
Executive Director, TIP Global Health
Dr. Leonard founded TIP Global Health in 2008 as a means of supporting local health system innovation to provide high quality health care to vulnerable people in resource-limited settings. She is an experienced physician who has been working at the intersection of individual clinical care and public health for marginalized communities in East Africa and the United States for over two decades. She is passionate about designing local health systems that recognize the critical role that frontline health workers play in translating best practice clinical protocols into high quality care delivery, in inspiring engagement in care by the community members they serve, and in ensuring that data and information flows accurately and quickly to upstream policy and decision-makers. She has spent her career working alongside governments, communities and frontline health workers to transform local health ecosystems into resilient, cohesive, comprehensive and effective local primary care delivery syst
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Delegate
Global Partnerships Specialist, Tostan
Suzanne is leading Tostan's Global Mobilization Team, a community of visionary partners committed to an equitable future through empowering education and community-driven development. This movement strives to overcome fixed mindset and co-design the communities of the future.
Tostan's network of support reflects the interconnected dignified movement sparked by Tostan in West Africa. It advances the story of love, respect and inclusion as the foundation of positive social transformation. The Global Mobilization Team seeks partnership with other community-driven development orgs, strategic investors, and visionaries who will help achieve "Dignity for All" through expert grassroots leadership and radical generosity around the world.
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Delegate
Health Innovation Consultant, Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Dr Lindi van Niekerk has been pursuing a journey to better understand the role grassroots social innovation can play to transform challenges faced by developing country health systems. By training, Lindi is a medical doctor and has worked across various levels of the South African public health system. She also holds a Masters in Public Health. Over the past three years, Lindi has designed and implemented a body of work on inclusive health innovation at the University of Cape Town. Projects entailed establishing the first health innovation lab in an African public sector hospital in Cape Town and being a leading member in Social Innovation in Health Initiative, researching multiple innovative healthcare models across Africa. Lindi believes that dignified healthcare can be delivered by restoring hope and empowering actors on the front lines.
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Delegate
Founder and Chair, MyBnk
Lily Lapenna is the founder, former CEO and Co-Chair of financial and enterprise education social enterprise MyBnk. As a result of setting up MyBnk, Lily was named Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the New Statesman. MyBnk now reaches 160,000 young people in the UK and has a presence in 7 countries from France to Uganda. With her colleagues, she designed and delivered education programmes that continue to win awards for excellence, most recently by the Centre for Social Justice, The Observer and Nesta. Prior to MyBnk, she worked in social impact and innovation for 7 years across Europe, Africa and Asia for organisations such as BRAC. After having successfully campaigned to include financial education into the secondary school curriculum, she now sits on the Money Advice Service’s Financial Capability Board, responsible for the UK's financial capability strategy.
As well as being leadership coach, Lily is now working in the gig economy as a consultant with boutique consulting firms where she develops and delivers leadership development programmes for middle to senior management within FTSE 100 companies.
She is also an Industry Advisor for the University of Oxford where she develops and delivers educational programmes on Social Impact.
Lily is a speaker on the themes of entrepreneurship, women in leadership, innovation in business at academic institutions, business events including the World Economic Forums and for radio and TV.
Lily is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum, an Ashoka fellow and an Aspen Italian fellow. Lily enjoys mentoring start ups and investing in her favourite types of businesses: social business and show business.
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Delegate
Global Health Policy Fellow, Imperial College London
Liliane is a Global Health Policy Fellow at the Institute for Global Health Innovation at Imperial College focusing on health system strengthening in Myanmar. In this role, she has shifted from uncovering genomic techniques for the treatment of non-communicable diseases to exploring the role that broader innovation can play in health system strengthening. She holds a PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Oxford as a Canadian Rhodes Scholar. In her previous engagements, she has worked on diabetes prevention and treatment programs for Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East, mHealth programs for tobacco cessation in Mauritius, and managed the Social Innovation in Health Partnership with the WHO and the University of Cape Town at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford. Liliane is passionate about education and has been supporting higher education initiatives in the Middle East through the University of Oxford and the Rhodes trust.
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Delegate
Senior Director of Development, Vital Voices Global Partnership
Liam T. Dall is the Senior Director of Development at Vital Voices Global Partnership, working to identify and invest in women leaders who improve our world. Liam focuses on the advancement of Vital Voices’ global programming through engaging individual supporters, family foundations, and other private foundations to raise critical funds and awareness for global women’s issues. Liam is a development professional with over 15 years of experience in international fundraising and development, having worked at organizations focused on the global advancement of women, HIV and AIDS prevention, and international health, including Women for Women International, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Georgetown University.
In addition to Vital Voices Global Partnership, headquartered in Washington, DC, Liam also supports Vital Voices Europe, a UK-registered charity which provides a platform for women leaders to share their voices and bold ideas for change throughout Europe and invests in the Vital Voices Global Leadership Network overall.
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Delegate
Founder, Chicago Cares
Leslie Bluhm is a social entrepreneur who empowers people to tackle challenges through collaborative action. She is the founder of Chicago Cares, Inc.,the city’s leading service organization, which connects people, communities and causes through volunteerism. Since 1991, Chicago Cares has mobilized more than 500,000 volunteers in meaningful service opportunities while building the capacity of social service agencies and non-profits throughout Chicago. With 250 monthly group service projects, customized corporate programs and annual events, the organization’s model nimbly supports the city’s most critical and emergent needs. In addition to her work at Chicago Cares, Leslie and her husband, David Helfand,manage the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship in partnership with Chicago Ideas Week. Leslie received a BA from The University of Michigan and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School. She serves on the board of directors of Chicago Cares, The Chicago Community Trust, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, OneGoal and Shining Hope for Communities.
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Delegate
Executive Director, C & A Foundation
Leslie Johnston joined C&A Foundation as its first Executive Director in August 2013, bringing 17 years of management experience across multiple sectors, including smallholder agribusiness, entrepreneurship and corporate philanthropy. Prior to this role, she managed the Swiss-based Argidius and COFRA Foundations, committed to helping enterprising people to help themselves. As the Deputy Director for TechnoServe in West and Southern Africa, she co-managed a $20 million portfolio and a diverse team working to help African farmers and entrepreneurs improve their bottom line. She also brings top-tier management consulting experience, having worked for McKinsey & Company in DC and South Africa. Leslie currently serves on the boards of COFRA Foundation and GoodWeave as well as the ANDE Executive Committee and TechnoServe’s Global Advisory Council.
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Delegate
Founder, The Haber Charitable Trust
After a very successful career and business in Finance and Real Estate culminating in the sale of his major interest to a VC in 2007 and together with his wife Caroline, founded the Haber Charitable Trust in 2007.
The Haber Charitable Trust has concentrated over the past 5 years specifically on Education, Health and Clean water projects in rural Ethiopia. www.habertrust.org.uk
Projects funded and supported in Africa include the construction of schools for over 3,000 students, wells and water points, health centers and micro finance projects nearly all in rural Ethiopia.
Projects funded and supported in the UK include:- the extension of a London secondary school to house a 6th form extension, the construction of a walk-in mental health clinic, a floor of a new residential home for dementia patients, funding for the running of a school designed for children with Autism and serious learning difficulties, a surgical laser for the Brompton Chest Hospital Research centre, equipment for a Cancer Research UK laboratory in Oxford and a laboratory at The Francis Crick Research Centre in London.
A Cancer Research UK Board Member for the Francis Crick “Create the Change” campaign
Resident in the UK
February 2016
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Delegate
Director, TED Fellows, TED Conferences LLC
Shoham Arad is a designer, writer, curator and strategist. She has a fine arts degree and a Masters in Industrial Design from RISD. She is a maker, a critic and a organizational leader.She is the Deputy Director the TED Fellows program, where she strategizes, develops and leads one of the most incredible communities on the planet, from South African female astrophysicists and Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs to 19-year-old spoken word poets.
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Delegate
PR Manager, Saïd Business School
Josie Powell heads the press and communications team at Oxford Saïd communicating the broad range of the School’s activity to global media, and supporting the school's vision to solve some of the world's most pressing and intractable problems.
Before joining the school in 2001 Josie held a role in market research, and as an in-house marketing executive. She holds a degree in business studies, a Diploma in Marketing, a Certificate of Market Research, and a Diploma in Managing Digital Media.
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Delegate
Director, RADIUS, Simon Fraser University
Shawn is the founding Director of RADIUS SFU, a 10 year old Canadian social innovation hub operating at the intersection of deep equity, innovation and systems change, and supporting over 1000 community innovators to date. Prior to this he has been part of the founding team of multiple social purpose ventures including an impact focused coworking community (2012) a crowdfunding platform supporting scholarships in the global south (2008), a youth leadership organization running 3000-4000 km cycling tours (2007), and an impact investing seed fund (2010). He is also an active educator and consultant in related fields.
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Delegate
Vice President, African Leadership Group
Spencer Ton is Vice President of Strategy at the African Leadership Group and leads strategy and product development for the African Leadership University’s accelerated schools (ALX) and education finance company (ALFC).
Spencer is also a Partner of the Vitrum Group, a strategy and investment firm focused on disruptive solutions and technologies that address supply chain innovation, workforce development, and education in emerging markets.
Prior to this role, Spencer was the first Executive Director of the Cordes Foundation, a private, family foundation based in New York & San Francisco. In this role, Spencer was charged with overseeing the foundation’s strategy in building out a more safe and secure world though the advancement of the foundation’s philanthropic, impact investing, and field building work around women and girls.
Spencer is a member of the United Nations Global Accelerator and serves on the board of Ashesi University, Educate!, Design Capital, and the Millennium Campus Network.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Co-Impact
Silvia Bastante de Unverhau is a global philanthropy expert and senior advisor, with close to 20 years of experience working across the business, non-profit, international development and government sectors. Silvia works with Co-Impact as Managing Director focusing on partnerships and strategy.
She is the former Global Head of Philanthropy Advisory at UBS where she led an award winning team of specialists helping wealthy families realize their philanthropic aspirations. Her advice encompasses the full spectrum - from developing philanthropic strategies, scaling up successful models, to maximizing impact, and covers further areas such as impact investing. In that role, she created and developed the largest community of billionaire and UHNW philanthropists and social impact investors, the Global Philanthropists Community, with over 400 members worldwide.
Prior to joining UBS, she was an Associate Partner at the global strategy consulting firm Monitor Group where she worked with national leaders, business executives and social entrepreneurs on social change and strategy. At the beginning of her career, Silvia held management roles at the Organization of American States in Washington DC, the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London, and the Office of the President of Peru.
Silvia serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth at the University of Zurich. She also serves on the Board of the I AM WATER Ocean Conservation Foundation, a global organization fostering ocean conservation through human experience both as a non-profit and social mission business.
Silvia graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a B.Sc Government and Economics and holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. Silvia brings a unique and global perspective to her work. Originally from Lima, Peru, she has visited and worked in over 70 countries across five continents.
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Delegate
Senior Creative, VICE
Lana Z Porter is a Senior Creative at VICE Media, the world's leading youth media brand and content creation studio.
At VICE, she develops branded content for Broadly, VICE's female focused channel, and is helping to launch VICE’s new impact vertical, which will cover social and environmental issues. She also works on a variety of branded campaigns as part VIRTUE, VICE's creative services arm.
In the past two years, Lana has been a designer-in-residence at Laboratorio para la Ciudad in Mexico City, a fellow at Undercurrent, a presenter at the Design Anthropological Futures conference in Copenhagen, and an exhibitor in London and New York. As a designer and writer, her work blends anthropology, computer science, and design to explore the relationship between memory, imagination, and social change.
Lana completed her Master’s in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in 2014 and holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from University of Pennsylvania.
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Delegate
Founder and Executive Director, YouthRoots
Lacey’s long-standing passion (some might even say obsession) with youth philanthropy began in high school when she was given the chance to be part of the Youth Advisory Council of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. During that experience, Lacey felt that the adults in her world valued her passion and optimism and were resolute in giving her the tools to put those qualities to good work.
She was determined to pay it forward.
Lacey went on to Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience. Upon graduation, she married her high school sweetheart and earned a teaching certificate from Stanley British Primary in Denver, CO. And she worked (and continues to work) for her five-generation family business, The Everist Company.
In early 2010, Lacey decided it was time to follow her true passion, inspiring youth to act on their big goals by helping them put a framework to their dreams. Nine months later, YouthRoots was born in full force with the first YouthBoard coming together to enact change in September of 2010.
When she’s not relentlessly pursuing one of those projects, Lacey enjoys spending time with her three daughters and husband, volunteering, and pretending she is a world-class artist. She also enjoys anything in the outdoors. You can find her sailing on weekends in the summers and skiing in the winters. She also enjoys mountain biking, climbing and hiking.
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Delegate
Senior Partner, I-DEV International
Patrick is a Senior Partner and the Director of I-DEV’s Global Investment Advisory Group . Prior to I-DEV, Patrick worked at Inter Pipeline Fund, a multi-billion dollar energy infrastructure company, in the corporate M&A group and focused on originating and analyzing global downstream energy investment opportunities. Patrick started his career at KPMG, first qualifying as a chartered accountant in their Financial Services Group and then in their Corporate Finance Valuations group. Patrick has structured investment transactions and advised on financial strategy to corporations, local SMEs and co-ops on 5 continents.
Patrick received his BSc in Mathematics and Economics and MSc in Quantitative Development Economics from The University of Bristol before qualifying as an ACA with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). Patrick is from the U.K. and has lived and worked in both Africa and Latin America.
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Delegate
Sherrie is ID’s Director of Development and External Relations, managing fundraising, donor relations and external relations for the organization.
Sherrie has broad experience in the fields of media, strategic fundraising and non-profit management. Prior to joining ID, Sherrie was Associate Director of Development at the Stephen Gaynor School, a private, non-profit, independent school in Manhattan.
Sherrie brings more than eight years of fundraising experience working with non-profit institutions in the field of education, health and social advocacy. Prior to working in the field of education, Sherrie served as a consultant with CCS, a fundraising consulting firm that manages fundraising campaigns for non-profits. During her time at CCS, Sherrie managed several capital campaigns, including playing an integral role in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s $200 million dollar capital campaign.
Before embarking on a career in fundraising, Sherrie worked in the media sector as a reporter and producer, covering international business, economics and law. Sherrie worked for print, digital and television news outlets as a reporter and producer covering notable events such as the Mexican Presidential elections in 2000 and the trial of Saddam Hussein in 2006. Prior to working in the media, Sherrie worked for a non-governmental organization that managed election monitoring initiatives in Africa and Eastern Europe, particularly in post-conflict situations.
Sherrie earned her Master’s Degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Political Affairs and Bachelor’s Degree from George Washington University. She also serves on the US Board of Peace Direct, an international non-profit dedicated to local peace-building initiatives.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, CEO, VoiceLots
Kwame Anku is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of VoiceLots, a Silicon Valley tech start-up empowering social entrepreneurs to form and leverage connections with global communities. Kwame is also the co-founder of the Black Angel Tech Fund, a startup tech fund for Black Stanford Students funded by Alumni.
For over 20 years, Kwame has also worked extensively in business development and media marketing blending entrepreneurship, social change and corporate engagement. Kwame served as Director of Strategic Development for #YesWeCode, where he developed corporate and media partnerships with NBC Universal, Comcast, Ford Motor Company Fund, ESSENCE Magazine, Alabama Power, The City of Oakland, The City of Detroit, The City of Birmingham, and Google.
Kwame has appeared on numerous national television and radio programs including MSNBC’s The Cycle, The Joy Reid Show and National Public Radio. Kwame has spoken extensively around the United States encouraging diverse audiences to think differently about social inclusion and technology.
His tireless work with youth tech inclusivity garnered an invitation to the White House to share ideas and best practices with leaders from around the United States.
He has been a featured speaker at The Ford Freedom Awards in Detroit, Men of Courage in Baltimore, The Essence Festival in New Orleans, the Association of Black Foundation Executives Conference in Napa Valley, and recently joined Silicon Valley legend Ken Coleman and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant as a featured speaker at the Tech JXN Conference in Jackson, MS.
Kwame serves on the Board of Directors for Operation iDream in Zambia, Southern Africa and Enza Academy in New York City and San Francisco and serves as a Senior Advisor to Volta Ghana Investment Co Ltd in Ghana. He is also an equity-stake holder and business development advisor to start-up tech companies My VTrack and Squad Genius.
Kwame is an honors graduate of Stanford University.
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Delegate
Founder, The globalislocal Fund
Liz is Founder of The globalislocal Fund, an educational and funding vehicle investing in solutions to poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. globalislocal drives educated, aggregated capital to global development issues by making high-impact global investing accessible and relevant to philanthropists, social investors and foundations.
Ultimately, globalislocal’s goal is to increase dramatically the number of investors and volume of investments actively engaging these issues. To this end, globalislocal is exploring expanding its proven model through strategic partnerships in the United States and abroad.
Liz has served as advisor, partner and board member in the fields of economic development, education, and leadership. She is alumna of The Philanthropy Workshop, and a member of The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs. Liz has received awards for pioneering work both with the Collaborative Fund for Women's Economic Development and The globalislocal Fund.
In her prior life, Liz was an investment banker. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in International Relations from UCLA. Liz has lived in Mexico and Brazil, where she studied economics and international development at Universidad de Sao Paulo.
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Delegate
Shaun’s first career was in the financial markets. He worked for Goldman Sachs in London and later
managed his own hedge fund in San Francisco. Noticing there was more to life than government bonds,
Shaun was drawn to the non‐profit sector. One year led to two years led to ten. He worked with street
children in India and for fistula patients in Africa. And, at mothers2mothers, he led the launch and
scaleup across Southern and East Africa of a program preventing mother‐to‐child transmission of HIV.
Shaun then joined Living Goods as Kenya Country Director. He was quickly promoted to COO where he
oversaw all operations and partnerships. After a one‐year break, Shaun returned in 2016 as President of
Living Goods. Shaun received a B.A. in Economics from Cambridge University.
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Delegate
Founder, Solar for Life
Kourosh, 20 years old, is a recipient of Canada’s Top 20 Under 20 Award for his work in education entrepreneurship, journalism, and development efforts in sub-saharan Africa. He has also been named a 'Climate Hero' by Canadian Geographic and Shell Canada and is a recipient of Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders in 2015.
Kourosh is the founder of an international operating NGO called Solar for Life. With over 200 volunteers across Canada, Kenya and South Africa, Solar for Life supports communities with solar lights to replace kerosene dependency in off-grid areas.
At 17 years old, Kourosh was elected as a Student Trustee for the Toronto District School Board and the Vice- President of Ontario Student Trustees, representing over 2.6 million students across the province and being interviewed by over 120 national and international media outlets including the BBC, Globe & Mail, CBC, TVO and National Post. During the 2012 Bill 115 labour disputes in Ontario, Kourosh mobilized over 4,000 students at Queens Park, in what became the largest student protest in Ontario. He then co-founded the Stick it To Fast Food Campaign which gathered over 15,000 pledges from students across Canada to boycott fast food for a month.
Kourosh is also an education contributor for the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star and Huffington Post; and in 2014 Kourosh founded the Toronto Star Student Hub which is a platform that allows students to write for and connect with journalists from the Star.
Continuing his work in education, Kourosh founded Education Rediscovered in 2014-- a student driven advocacy organization for global education reform. In February 2014, he exclusively interview Noam Chomsky at MIT which garnered over 20,000 views on Youtube. Kourosh serves as the Chief Student Advisor at the MaRS Discovery District --one of world's largest innovation hubs-- and is currently studying Ethics, Society & Law and Political Science at Trinity College, University of Toronto.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Simbi
KJ believes an economy that works for everyone is within reach. As Founder and CEO of Simbi, she is passionate about turning excess capacity into real economic value. In 2014, KJ was a Skoll Scholar at Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she completed her MBA. Prior to Oxford, she spent 9 years as the Founder and Executive Director of FORGE, a strategic-impact nonprofit that provides education, skills training, and entrepreneurial resources to more than 70,000 refugees in war-torn Africa. Her awards include the Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship, the Do Something Award for public service, and the Stanford Haas Public Service Fellowship. KJ has also been named a “Top 40 Leader Under 40” by the New Leaders Council, a “Person You Should Know” by CNN, and a “Top 10 College Woman” by Glamour Magazine.
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Delegate
Vice President & Executive Director, Public Programs, Aspen Institute
I have worked at the Aspen Institute for 18+ years, largely producing forums, round table discussions and large scale conferences (namely, Aspen Ideas Festival). My professional background includes marketing, strategic planning, and policy research; and a fun part of the work I do includes networking people together.
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Delegate
Grants Manager, Maitri Trust
As a Grants Manager of the Maitri Trust I manage a portfolio of the Trust’s partnerships, building good working relationships and identifying opportunities with our partners to tailor our support to the best effect. My goal is to create systemic change via partnering and strengthening education training projects in the developing world to reach their full potential. Previously I spent several years supporting operations in the investment management industry, formerly working with Maitri’s donor. Earlier in my career, I worked in the social work and residential care sector.
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Delegate
Managing Director, The World We Want Foundation
Kirsten began her career with Procter & Gamble where she held numerous brand management positions. Wanting to get involved in International Development and poverty alleviation, she went on to study International Affairs at The Fletcher School in Boston and received her Master’s in 2009. As well being the Managing Director of The World We Want Foundation, she is chairperson of the ENLA board in Haiti; a board director of Ture Invest Partners AB, T3 Recycling Kenya, and Virunga Origins; and a board observer for OMC Power in India. In 2023, Kirsten also became the co-owner and director of Waterlovers Beach Resort in Diani Beach, Kenya. Kirsten has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the University of San Diego.
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Delegate
Senior Program Manager, Global Partnerships, Skoll Foundation
Lindsey Powers joined the Skoll Foundation in 2011 and currently serves as Senior Program Manager for Global Partnerships. In this role, Lindsey cultivates and implements mutually beneficial strategic relationships to advance the Skoll Foundation mission and serve Skoll's community of social entrepreneurs.
Lindsey began her career at Starcom Worldwide, the marketing and media arm of the advertising agency, Leo Burnett. There she managed the communications strategies and investments for multiple high-profile consumer brands. After deciding to shift focus to the nonprofit sector, Lindsey worked in development at a number of Chicago-area nonprofits, where she planned and executed fundraising campaigns to magnify the reach and impact of the organizations’ initiatives.
Lindsey received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
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Delegate
Global Partnerships Program Manager, Skoll Foundation
Kimberly serves as the Global Partnerships Program Manager, supporting the development and deployment of partnerships that expand and extend the Skoll Foundation mission. She provides intelligence building and analysis, internal project management, and relationship stewardship across the global partnerships team, and helps ensure Skoll develops and maintains best practices in cultivating mutually beneficial strategic relationships.
Kimberly has spent most of her career working in the public sector. In 2010 Kimberly spent 2 months in South Africa as a volunteer participating in community development projects across Johannesburg. This experience left her with a conviction to do whatever she could to help alleviate suffering and contribute to positive change. Over the years she has helped run a grantmaking organization that provided support to women’s and children’s causes, project managed socially focused projects for both non-profit and for-profit businesses, and, most recently, worked in corporate philanthropy at the Citi Foundation in New York. Her first job was with Aspen Film a non-profit that hosts an annual independent film festival, amongst other programming, that features and connects storytellers from around the world.
In her free time Kimberly loves to explore, whether it be checking out a new neighborhood in the Bay Area or travelling across the world. Kimberly has visited 20 countries internationally and 30 states domestically. She only wishes that she could bring her dog Jax with her wherever she goes.
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Delegate
Director, Keywell Foundation
Kim Keywell is a philanthropist and civic leader dedicated to the advocacy of underserved youth. She serves as a Director of the Keywell Foundation. She is Vice Chairwoman of One Goal, an innovative college persistence organization, a Child Advocate for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children) in Lake County, Illinois, and a Board Member of the Chicago Council for Global Affairs. Kim is a Board Member of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metro Chicago, a member of the Chicago Ideas Week Brain Trust, and an advisor to several other philanthropic and civic organizations. She is a past member of the Children’s Service Board of the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and the Board of Connect to the Future, which provides guidance and inspiration for inner-city students in Chicago. Previously, for 15 years Kim was a money manager of individual corporate accounts and multiple mutual funds at a large international bank. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, and a Master’s in Business Administration from Michigan State University.
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Delegate
Executive Director, David and Anita Keller Foundation
As the Executive Director of the David & Anita Keller Foundation, Kim Keller manages a global portfolio of investments in global health, human rights policy and advocacy, and environmental justice. She serves on the boards of Directors of Accountability Counsel, New Media Advocacy Project, UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center, and the National Asia Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF). She previously served on the board of Last Mile Health and Human Rights Data Analysis Group. Kim holds degrees from Wellesley College, London School of Economics, and Harvard Kennedy School.
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Delegate
Consultant, Resources Legacy Fund
Ruth Norris is a consultant whose practice includes executive coaching, communications, and conservation leadership. Over more than three decades, she has worked as a journalist, manager of organizational capacity building and training programs, consultant to bilateral and multilateral aid agencies supporting conservation projects and national environmental endowments, and program officer at the Packard and Skoll foundations. She has facilitated planning processes, organizational and network development projects, and board strengthening initiatives. She is a former board chair of the Institute for Conservation Leadership and serves on the Kinship Conservation Fellows’ faculty and Advisory Council. She speaks English and Spanish and lives in Santa Clara, California.
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Delegate
President, PopTech Institute, PopTech
Leetha Filderman is a strategist and NGO leader intrigued by the power of collaboration as a tool for social progress. She has expertise in the fields of social innovation, public health and social justice. She currently serves as the President/CEO of the PopTech Institute (www.poptech.org) where she oversees a portfolio focused on global health, environment, social justice, nuclear non-proliferation and the future of work. Her tenure at PopTech began with the establishment of the PopTech Social Innovation and Science Fellows programs. Leetha has a background in strategic development and has advised and served on the boards of numerous organizations and agencies. She is a Fellow at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, based in the U.K. Leetha splits her time between Washington, DC and a small seaside village in midcoast Maine.
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Delegate
General Manager, Pivot TV, Participant Media
Kent Rees is the GM at Pivot, Participant Media’s independent cable network launched in fall 2013.
Kent has more than 15 years of creative and marketing experience in TV and digital platforms. Prior to his appointment as the network’s GM, he was Pivot’s EVP of Marketing, Scheduling, Operations, and Acquisitions.
Previously, Kent was EVP of Marketing at Bedrocket Media Ventures, working on three "Made For Web" channel launches for YouTube from 2011 to 2012. Prior to that, he was EVP of Marketing at Current TV, where he spearheaded the strategy and creative approach supporting the launch of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which premiered in June 2011 to record ratings. In addition to overseeing Current's on-air promotion and brand personality, Kent supervised the ad sales marketing team and helped manage Current's transition from LA to New York.
Between 2004 and 2011, Kent held various positions at IFC TV, from Creative Director to SVP of Marketing. At IFC, he supervised brand continuity across all platforms and was the chief architect behind IFC's "Always On. Slightly Off" rebranding in 2010. Kent also drove successful launch campaigns for such IFC shows as The Onion News Network, Portlandia, The Whitest Kids U'Know, The Henry Rollins Show and The Independent Spirit Awards, working with strategic partners that included Foursquare, SXSW, Urban Outfitters, Jones Soda, Delta Airlines and Zipcar.
Prior to joining IFC, Kent created and produced on-air promotional launches for ABC’s The Bachelor and The Bachelorette as well as VH1 Behind the Music, Pop Up Video, VH1 Divas, and VH1 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, among others.
Kent serves as a guest teacher at Temple University, Columbia, and his alma mater NYU, where he earned his BFA from the Tisch School for the Arts' film and TV production department. In addition to serving as a Promax BDA board member, Kent sits on the 2016 Board of Directors for the National Association for Media Literacy Education.
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Delegate
Director of Partnerships and Development, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor
Madhu leads the Partnerships & Development function at Water & Sanitation for Urban Poor with responsibility for strategic partnerships, funding and communications. She has 18+ years of diverse international experience in strategy, business development, marketing and communications across the FMCG, Luxury Goods, Hospitality & Tourism and the not-for-profit sectors, and holds an MBA from INSEAD. She was a Founding Team Member at HRH The Prince of Wales's organisation, The British Asian Trust, is a Trustee of the Halcrow Foundation and a business coach for Cartier's Women's Initiative Awards.
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Delegate
I have worked at the Skoll Centre for 18 happy years, first as an event co-odinator, more latterly focusing on financial administration. My original training and background was in public horticultural administration having spent 18 years at the Royal Horticultural Society organising the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.
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Delegate
Founder, Shutterspokes
Ken Alexander has a B.Sc. from Mount Allison University, a Masters of Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University, studying plant physiology and soil plant relations. He completed a B.Ed. from the University of Western Ontario and was an elementary school educator for 23 years. He recently retired to start Shutterspokes, a business following two of his passions, bicycles and photography. He is an advocate for improved access to bicycles worldwide, and an active supporter of Africycle, a non-profit sending bicycles to Malawi. For the past 7 years he and his wife have been involved in raising funds for Free the Children personally and through the locally started organization We Can Change the World Day of which his wife is the Founder. Personally he has interests in alternative energy and sustainable agriculture.
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Delegate
A graduate of the Harvard Divinity School (M.T.S., religion and education), and Columbia University (Ed.D., philosophy and education), Dr. Frome has provided his blend of philosophy, education theory, and knowledge of the writing process to College Summit since 1994, when he and J.B. Schramm created and ran a weekend college admissions workshop that became the College Summit summer workshop. Between 1994 and 1995, he led the development of the College Summit writing curriculum that has since served as a pillar of College Summit's approach to navigating the college application process. He created College Summit’s national Education Department and, with support from the Gates Foundation, led College Summit’s expansion to begin serving students in 9th grade. President Obama honored the work of College Summit by donating part of his Nobel Peace Prize to the organization in 2009. Dr. Frome is the co-editor of The Columbia Book of Civil War Poetry (Columbia University Press, 1994), which the Wall Street Journal named as one of the top five war poetry books of all time. The book was selected for the national “Remembering Slavery” curriculum and recommended by the American Library Association as one of the top 10 essential reference books for school libraries. In 1996, Dr. Frome published Hitch Your Wagon to a Star and Other Quotations from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Columbia University Press). He has also written two books on parenting and education: What Not to Expect: A Meditation on the Spirituality of Parenting (Crossroad Publishing, 2005), which won the 2006 Best Book on Family Life Award from the Catholic Press Association and How’s My Kid Doing? and Other Frequently Asked Questions about Schools and Education (Crossroad Publishing, 2008) which won the 2009 Bronze Parenting Book of the Year Award from Foreword Magazine.
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Delegate
With more than 20 years of experience working with integrated healthcare delivery systems, Kelly is responsible for building and executing Health Leads’ strategy for catalyzing the sector to incorporate social needs as a standard part of patient care. In this role, Kelly leads a team tasked with accelerating market demand for patient resource connections by establishing and disseminating shared quality standards, building a community of like-minded stakeholders within the healthcare community who can champion this approach to care delivery, and influencing financial and regulatory agencies to align incentives with more comprehensive patient care. Prior to joining Health Leads, she served as Vice President of Network Development for Partners Community Health Care, Inc., the community physician organization for Partners HealthCare, where she led efforts to develop and expand a regional provider network as part of an overall strategy for clinical integration, growth and population health management.
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Delegate
Senior Advisor, Global Strategy, Ford Foundation
Kavita Ramdas
Senior Advisor on Global Strategy, Ford Foundation
As senior adviser on global strategy, Kavita works closely with the executive leadership team at the Ford Foundation to help tackle ongoing challenges and seize opportunities arising from changes to civil society across the world. Together with foundation colleagues, she is developing approaches to advance indigenous philanthropy in the Global South, where the culture and practice of philanthropy is poised to evolve in powerful ways that are vital to advancing social justice. She is also focused on ensuring that support for women and girls is integrated into all Ford’s work, drawing on her long and distinguished career in global work on gender justice.
From 2012 to 2015, Kavita served as the representative for the foundation's office in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where she oversaw all of the foundation’s grant making in that region. Before joining Ford, she was the founder and first executive director of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship (PSE), housed at the Centre for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. PSE brings together global leaders in social innovation to share their expertise as practitioners with the academic community. From 1996 to 2010, Kavita served as president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, which grew under her leadership to become the world's largest public foundation for women's rights.
Kavita completed a master's degree in public affairs with a focus on international development from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, a bachelor's degree in politics and international relations from Mount Holyoke, and academic training at Delhi University.
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Delegate
Senior Business Systems Analyst, Skoll Foundation
As Senior Business Systems Analyst for the Skoll Foundation, Katie Merrick analyzed existing business processes and managed corresponding improvements to IT systems and applications. This included implementing and then overseeing the evolution of the foundation's CRM system to meet advancing needs. After twelve years at the foundation, Katie has taken time off work to raise her family.
Prior to joining the Skoll Foundation in 2007, Katie worked in internal audit with a focus on process improvement and Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance at Marvell Semiconductor and Ernst & Young.
Katie earned a BA in Economics from Brigham Young University. She loves the great outdoors, camping, hiking, backpacking, and cycling.
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Delegate
CEO, Equalize Health
As CEO of Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev), KristaDonaldson leads the design and scaling of disruptive medical devices to address global health inequities. To date, nearly 1M people – mostly children and young people - have been treated by one of Equalize Health’s products in 70+countries. In 2020, theorganization kicked off a bold new strategy to significantly increase thepipeline of innovative solutions that close healthcare gaps by 2030. Peter Singer of theEffective Altruism movement calls Equalize Health “one of the world’s bestcharities” because of its cost-effectiveness and exemplary end-to-end processes.EH is based in New Delhi andSan Francisco, with additional offices in Nairobi and Bangkok. Krista has been recognized as a WorldEconomic Forum Technology Pioneer, TED speaker, and a GLG Social Impact Fellow.She was also named one of Fast Company’s “50 Designers Shaping theFuture.” Prior to Equalize Health, she was an Economic Officer at the U.S.Department of State where she managed part of Iraq’s reconstruction portfolio.She also worked at KickStart International (Kenya), and the design firm IDEO(USA). Krista holds a master’s degree in Product Design and a Ph.D. inMechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
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Delegate
Founder and President, Raising Change, Inc.
Kathy LeMay is an internationally-recognized public speaker, philanthropic advisor, global social change wealth redistributor and published author whose purpose-driven life centers on lifting up the voices, stories, leadership and influence of the women and girls around the world. Kathy has raised $175 million in support of movement building, women's human right and animal rights and speaks around the world about the transformative life; of shifting from success to significance, and putting humanity back into modern philanthropy. She coaches social change innovators and global donors to boldly and unapologetically create the world we know is possible. Kathy's book "The Generosity Plan", released by Simon & Schuster and Beyond Words in 2010, aims to put philanthropic power into the hands of regular individuals, families, and communities. Her second book, "Letters for Humanity" will be released in fall 2016.
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Delegate
CEO, Freedom For All
Katie Ford is the founder and CEO of FREEDOM FOR ALL, which creates programs and media campaigns to combat human trafficking. Freedom For All partners with ten organizations that are making long-term, systematic changes to end slavery in their respective justice and penal systems in India, Brazil, Ghana, the United States, and the Philippines. They also rehabilitate, educate, and provide job training and shelter to survivors.
Ms. Ford was presented with the Women Together Award at the U.N. in 2010. She also was given the Changing the Game Award from the AWNY in 2010. Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Interview and other international media outlets have covered Ms. Ford’s work.
Previously, Ms. Ford was CEO and Chairwoman of Ford Models, Inc. She also served as a member of the UN Give Women Leaders’ Council. Ms. Ford sits on the Board of Directors of Verite, the leading international business advisor on forced labor.
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Delegate
Member, Board of Directors, ReSurge
Kathryn currently serves on three non-profit boards: ReSurge International, which provides reconstructive surgery for the poor in Africa, Asia and South America; Downtown College Prep (DCP), which is a 4-school charter group serving low income Latinos who are first generation to college; and Creating Hope International, which serves women and girls in Afghanistan. She has served as a board member on several for-profit companies, including Trident and Tab Inc., as well as on boards for several non-profit companies in the education space, including ALearn and RAFT. In her board capacity, she helped to build effective, diverse boards with expertise, candor, and collaborative problem-solving capabilities. She has led boards on Nominating and Governance issues, from strategic guidance to board assessment to board composition and recruitment.
She also founded and was CEO of Alearn, a non-profit which provided education services to underserved students to get them on the path to college, and has served as a mentor to first generation students. Kathryn has over 30 years of executive management and consulting experience in high tech companies, with an excellent track record in launching new products, new companies, and new channels.
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Delegate
CEO & Founder, BOMA Project
Kathleen Colson is a former refugee worker and safari guide who wanted to a see a long-term solution to drought and famine in the drylands of Africa. After decades of traveling and working in Africa, Kathleen invested two years of extended visits to northern Kenya to understand the unique challenges facing women and children.
Driven by a desire to disrupt the status quo—the repeated cycles of drought, chronic hunger, dependence on humanitarian aid, and extreme poverty—Kathleen’s quest has been to develop a holistic, evidence based approach to ending extreme poverty in the arid lands of Africa (40% of the African continent). The result is BOMA’s Rural Entrepreneur Access Project (REAP). REAP is an innovative, evidence-based, gender-focused, data-driven poverty graduation program that invests in and empowers women to break the cycle of extreme poverty and build resilient households.
Under Kathleen’s leadership, BOMA has reached over 94,000 women and children. BOMA is now scaling their graduation model through government adoption (Kenya) and partnerships with humanitarian organizations with a goal of reaching 1 million women and children by 2022. Ultimately, Kathleen’s vision is to see an end to extreme poverty for women and children in the drylands of Africa in her lifetime.
Kathleen is the recipient of the Sol Feinstone Humanitarian Award and Cordes and Rainer Arnhold Fellowships. BOMA has received a Lighthouse Activity Award by the United Nations Climate Change Conference, one of six organizations recognized globally for their work with women impacted by climate change, and a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenge Award. Kathleen is also a regular panelist and speaker at conferences and events, including SEEP, the World Bank, the Foreign Policy Association and the London School of Economics.
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Delegate
Director, Citizenship and Reputation, Barclays Bank
Kathleen Britain is the Director, Citizenship & Reputation in the UK and Europe having been appointed to the position in August 2013. In this role, Kathleen is responsible for the development and implementation of the community investment strategy, employee giving and matched fundraising programmes.
Previously, Kathleen was Head of Citizenship for Corporate Banking and has held other leadership roles within the Real Estate team where she was responsible for strategy, operations and financial analysis.
Kathleen joined Barclays in 2005 from Wachovia Bank, where she worked in the Wealth Management division of the bank in New York and San Francisco. Kathleen speaks regularly on topics including social investment, corporate social responsibility and women in leadership.
Kathleen holds a BA in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco.
She is a trustee for the global organisation, Stop the Traffik, and a governor at Stephenson Academy in Milton Keynes. Kathleen is married and has one very well behaved little girl.
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Delegate
Director, FSG
Kate is a Director at FSG, a nonprofit consulting firm and think tank specializing in shared value creation and cross-sector collaboration. Her work focuses on helping organizations develop solutions to address the world's most pressing social issues, with a particular concentration in economic development and global education. At FSG, Kate has led dozens of engagements advising multinational corporations, foundations, and international NGOs on strategy, program design, market analyses, and evaluation. At the heart of this work, she helps build innovative cross-sector partnerships that create sustainable economic and social value. As the lead of FSG’s global education practice, she has authored numerous papers on education and workforce development, including The New Role of Business in Global Education, Roundtable on Shared Value in Education, Collective Impact for Opportunity Youth, among others.
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Delegate
Director of Global Partnerships, d.light design
Kate Montgomery joined d.light in July 2011 as the Director of Global Partnerships, developing d.light’s strategy for engaging with the public sector and other key partners globally. A key part of this work is the institutionalization of d.light’s strategy to rigorously measure and communicate their social impact. Prior to that, she was in the humanitarian aid sector working for Tuft’s Feinstein International Center and the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and Haiti. She holds an MS in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
d.light is a for-profit social enterprise whose purpose is to create new freedoms for customers without access to reliable power so they can enjoy a brighter future. We design, manufacture and distribute solar light and power products throughout the developing world. We aim to transform the lives of at least 100 million people by 2017 and have reached over 56 million since founding. d.light serves over 60 countries, through over 12,000 retail outlets, 10 field offices, and four regional hubs. The company employs over 300 people directly, and indirectly employs hundreds more worldwide. To learn more, please visit www.dlight.com
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Delegate
Jess leads Skoll’s Portfolio & Investment team operations and initiatives that support cross-organizational collaboration. She manages a team of professionals who work across Skoll’s strategic grantmaking programs and defines processes for continuous improvement across the broader investments team. She also serves in a cross-functional leadership role to identify opportunities for collaboration in service of greater impact for Skoll partners. Additionally, Jess leads the Foundation’s grantmaking focus on information integrity, identifying and supporting partners who advance healthier information ecosystems in support of more resilient and inclusive democracies.
Previously, Jess led Skoll’s convening programming, including the flagship Skoll World Forum. She also co-curated the "Rethinking Possible" podcast with Aspen Ideas and helped launch several initiatives including the Skoll World Forum Fellowship, TEDxSkollConversations, and We the Future during UNGA.
Jess’s career journey includes roles at Net Impact, the World Affairs Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the California Appellate Project. She holds a BA in Political Science from UC Santa Barbara and an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University, studying abroad in Costa Rica and Argentina.
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Delegate
Director of Impact & Partnerships (& The Flex Fund),
Doc SocietyWith senior expertise bridging the worlds of creative media and non-profits, Jessica leads Doc Society's strategic partnerships and projects. Previously, she was an impact strategist on films such as Unrest, He Named Me Malala and Ida's Diary. She also has extensive experience working as a documentary and factual television producer/ director and subsequently, as an impact consultant, leading a number of high-profile projects with prominent NGOs. She is a qualified yoga teacher.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Girls Gone Global
I have been a leader in digital media and social impact for over 25 years.
Marrying my interest in technology and its ability to advance publishing and social good working in both pubic and private companies, I have launched key initiatives at such as Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Awards, the first to recognize and honor the world of social entrepreneurship, The Love Local movement and Visionary of the Year Awards of The San Francisco Chronicle/Gate, The Momentum Platform at The Tides Foundation, and BusinessWeek’s small business edition. As Chief Revenue Officer of NewCo, I helped launch an event platform dedicated to connecting companies driving positive change.
I am focusing my skills to amplify the voices of girls and enable their impact skills via my social enterprise, Girls Gone Global. My work as Producer of Girls Govern which raised the issues most important to girls in the marketplace will help. The Manifesto I wrote was presented at TED Women and its 250+ TEDX affiliates. My role as Chief Growth Officer for World Pulse, where I helped scale the global digital media platform to empower and train grass roots women leaders worldwide will come in handy.
Education is my second passion having lead the digital efforts for both the website and the digital magazine edition for Edutopia, for the George Lucas Education Foundation.
In 2011, my work as GM of the Technology Portfolio for Future US, I was named to the Folio: 40, a media industry top honor, and recognized as one of the 40 most influential top industry performers after my app won awards through Apple and AdAge.
I support education via The Concord Consortium, a leading STEM curriculum and product producer, and C-Change Media, home to Poets&Quants
I’m a member of the Opportunity Collaboration, The Summit Series, the NationSwell Council and a Delegate to the Nexus Global Youth Summit.
A Stanford grad with a BA in Psychology, I live in Marin California with my hubby John A. Byrne, and two daughters
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Delegate
EVP, Digital, Participant Media
Karina Kogan is executive vice president of digital for Participant Media, a company dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels social change. She oversees all digital operations including Participant Media’s digital hub, TakePart (http://www.TakePart.com), which serves millions of socially conscious consumers each month with daily articles, videos and opportunities to take action.
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Delegate
President, Stone Steps Foundation
Karen Paterson is president of Stone Steps Foundation, a California-based philanthropy dedicated to advancing social and economic justice through innovative and scalable solutions to the problems of poverty. Prior to Stone Steps, Karen was a founding director of Moxie Foundation where she led the organization’s impact-driven initiatives in social entrepreneurship and sustainable development for nine years. In addition to her philanthropic work, Karen had a long career as a senior marketing executive – with large department store companies and global ad agencies, and as CEO of her own advertising agency in San Diego.
Karen serves on the boards of Acumen and Global Communities.
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Delegate
MBA Student, Said Business School
Karen is an MBA student at University of Oxford. She is currently the Co-Chair of Oxford’s MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT) Program, a Founding Member of Oxford Saïd Responsible Investment Fund (OxRIF) and a Consultant at Oxford Microfinance Initiative.
Prior to Oxford, Karen was the Associate Director of Investment at Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk), the city’s first venture philanthropic fund. She managed an investment portfolio of social ventures across different sectors, such as affordable housing, transportation, food, sports and environment. Karen is also experienced in fundraising and impact measurement, having worked with social entrepreneurs, corporate, government, impact investors and philanthropic funders to develop and scale SVhk’s portfolio ventures.
Karen was previously an Investment Banking Analyst at Deutsche Bank, specializing in Hong Kong and US IPOs. She is a Youde Scholar, and holds a BSc in Government and Economics from London School of Economics.
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Delegate
Managing Director, af Jochnick Foundation
Kajsa has been the managing director of the af Jochnick Foundation for 16 years. The af Jochnick Foundation´s goal is a better world - for everyone.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Peter Möhrle Holding
As the Managing Director of Peter Möhrle Holding, Dr Kai Kunze continually expands the company’s portfolio of private equity and real estate investments. He has handled business in the Möhrle Family Office since the start of 2008.
Prior to this, he spent four years as CFO of the Friedhelm Loh Group, an industrial holding company in Hesse, Germany, with more than 10,000 employees in more than 60 countries and annual revenues of 2 billion euros.
Dr Kai Kunze began his career with the international strategic consultants Bain & Company after studying at the University of Kiel and Harvard and earning a doctorate in business administration.
Dr Kunze is married and lives with his wife and two children in Hamburg.
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Delegate
Producer/Presenter, Monocle
Daniel Giacopelli is a founding member of Monocle 24, Monocle magazine's live 24-hour international radio station. He produces and hosts Monocle's weekly business podcast 'The Entrepreneurs', along with daily news programmes. He's interviewed thousands of leaders in the worlds of business, arts, tech, diplomacy, and politics, and has produced and reported stories from dozens of countries. Originally from New York, he is currently based at Monocle's London office.
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Delegate
CEO, STRATEGIES!
A Cameroonian Political Leader, Activist and Entrepreneur, Kah Walla is internationally recognised for her expertise in leadership and strategy, her understanding of Africa’s development issues and her strong stance for its women and youth.
Part of Africa’s new generation of political leaders, Kah proposes bold, innovative solutions for the continent’s problems based on over 20 years-experience working on economic, social and political issues in over 25 countries across Africa. She has worked with actors at grassroots, national, continental and international levels. Kah has founded various organizations: STRATEGIES!, a 20-year old leadership and management firm based in Cameroon and working on 5 continents. Cameroon Ô’Bosso, an 8-year old citizenship movement helping ordinary Cameroonians build voice to influence national policies. She is president of the Cameroon People’s Party, working daily to bring democratic change to a country that has not changed presidents in the last 34 years.
Key successes in these various organizations include providing management solutions for Africa’s regional organizations (NEPAD, PAP, ICLGR, etc.). Building voice at grassroots level for a network of over 14,000 potato producers and traders, persons living with disabilities, over 500 market women in Douala etc. Building women’s and youth leadership in entrepreneurship, civic engagement and public management.
In 2011, Kah took her problem-solving skills to the highest level in Cameroon and became the first woman ever to run for the presidency of the nation. She is today one of the key leaders building the future of Cameroon.
Kah’s exceptional leadership and her quest for progress in Cameroon and Africa have earned her several international recognitions: Vital Voices Global Leadership Vanguard Award (2015), DVF Award (2014), named one of 150 women who shake the world by Newsweek and Daily Beast (2011) and one of Africa’s 100 most influential leaders by New African Magazine (2011).
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Delegate
CEO, Upaya Social Ventures
Kate is a fierce believer that global poverty is not inevitable and that entrepreneurialism is one of the sharpest tools to fight it. She leads Upaya Social Ventures, a nonprofit organization that accelerates and invests in early stage companies that create lasting jobs for the poorest of the poor in India. Since 2011, Upaya has accelerated over 75 companies and invested in 29 companies that have created more than 30,000 lasting jobs for the extreme poor in India. Dedicated to proving impact and not just assuming it, Upaya assiduously tracks jobholder income, which shows an average doubling at the household level following a job with an Upaya portfolio company.
Previous roles include COO for Vittana, an organization creating student loan markets in developing countries and a range of executive roles at Unitus, a microfinance accelerator. She is a frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship and the intersection of markets and mission. Kate holds a BA from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA
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Delegate
Program Associate, Special Programs, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Justin McAuliffe helps to manage the special programs activities of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, including multiple sclerosis research and wellness programming, hospitality education, and family philanthropy. He is responsible for monitoring current grants and supporting the development, review, and presentation of grant proposals, for consideration by the Foundation board of directors. Prior to joining the Hilton Foundation, McAuliffe worked in digital marketing designing and building websites for corporate clients, and has also previously worked for Grameen America, helping to promote a social awareness campaign around their microlending activities in the US. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and a certificate in International Relations from NYU.
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Delegate
Regional Director, North America, Social Progress Imperative
Justin Edwards leads the development of the Social Progress Network throughout North America by fostering cross-sector partnerships among businesses, local governments, and civil society to build collaborative strategies to improve social outcomes in their communities. Justin has spent the past decade focused on US philanthropy and international development. He previously led communications at the World Wide Web Foundation, overseeing the inaugural launch of their flagship product, the Web Index. Prior to that, he led a small marketing and communications team at Exponent Philanthropy, a non-profit serving nearly 3,000 charitable foundations across the US, and consulted with the Johnson Center for Philanthropy’s Foundation Review at Grand Valley State University. Justin is based in Washington, DC.
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Delegate
Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, University of Oxford
Jun Han is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Oxford, and a Master’s degree in Sociology from Peking University. His research has appeared in leading journals, including VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Chinese Sociological Review, China Review, Chinese Public Administration Review, among others.
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Delegate
Head of Programs, CRI Foundation
Kara Weiss is the Executive Director of CRI Foundation, a strategic philanthropic foundation focused on cost-effective, high impact interventions geared to those living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries in Africa.
Kara has led CRI to develop a strategic philanthropic strategy which has positioned the foundation as a key catalyst in the community health space and as a pivotal voice in strategic philanthropy. She led CRI to co-found the Risk Pool Fund, an innovative mechanism to address some of the most enduring risks of philanthropy, and is always looking for the next best idea. She is the CRI lead on system-change initiatives, as well as government partnerships, including CRI’s ongoing partnership with Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) at USAID.
Kara is on the board of Spark MicroGrants, Seed Global Health, the Center for Development Economics at Williams College, CRI Foundation, as well as the allocation committee of the WAM Foundation.
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Delegate
Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Julita Eleveld is the Global Lead for the Philanthropic Partnerships Team (PPT) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this capacity, she provides leadership and cross-region oversight of the team's work in its non-U.S. priority geographies: China, India, the Middle East, SE Asia, as well as emerging opportunities.
Julita is also PPT's Senior Program Officer, Knowledge Sharing. In prior roles on the team, she led learning and engagement opportunities for the Giving Pledge community, PPT's strategy and activities on impact investing and strategic monitoring, learning, and evaluation efforts.
Before joining the foundation, Julita managed the University of Washington's Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy, was a founding staff member of the Seattle Girls School, and worked in a variety of business development and product and brand management roles and in corporate finance investment banking.
She holds a BA from U.C Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the National University of Singapore.
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Delegate
Executive Director, African Entrepreneur Collective
Julienne is the co-founder and CEO of African Entrepreneur Collective, a family of business incubators and accelerators focused on supporting and investing in local entrepreneurs across Africa. Julienne is passionate about the tremendous potential that young African entrepreneurs have to transform their communities and continent. With more than 15 years of work in youth empowerment and international development, Julienne was inspired to create African Entrepreneur Collective after spending time with several young entrepreneurs in Mali who, in the midst of drought and political instability, drove economic opportunities for themselves and their communities through their entrepreneurial endeavors.
Prior to founding AEC, Julienne served as the Director of Development and Communications at College Track, a national after-school program in the US. In addition, she has held leadership and strategic consulting positions at a number of organizations including African Leadership Academy, Capital Partners for Education, and at the Yale School of Management.
Julienne holds a BA degree cum laude in African History and Government from Georgetown University and an MBA from Yale University. She, along with African Entrepreneur Collective co-founder Sara Leedom, was awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship in 2015. In her free time, Julienne is working on achieving her goal of visiting all 54 African nations by her 54th birthday. She is nearly half-way there.
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Delegate
Head of Strategic Philanthropy & Purpose Investing, Bank of the West
Julie Shafer is Head of Strategic Philanthropy and Purpose Investing for Family Wealth Advisors, the ultra high net worth division of Bank of the West Wealth Management. She helps personalize giving strategies for families and individuals through the exploration of giving goals and motivations and creates customized strategies that are effective and measurable to allow not-for-profits to quickly develop a model of sustainability and impact.
Ms. Shafer has more than 20 years of experience working with philanthropists, foundations, not-for-profits and corporations both nationally and globally. Prior to joining Bank of the West, she led a highly successful Strategic Philanthropy Consulting firm which specialized in efficient, thoughtful and effective strategic planning for donors and grantees. She previously served in several senior not-for-profit executive positions including Director of Development at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases UCSF and as Executive Director of the Silver Giving Foundation.
She holds a B.A. from the University of California and a MFCC from University of San Francisco.
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Delegate
Senior Director, Walmart Foundation
Julie serves as Senior Director of the Walmart Foundation, where she leads the Grantmaking Team. This team leads philanthropic investments for Walmart and the Walmart Foundation. The Walmart Foundation funds initiatives focused on Sustainability for people and planet throughout the supply chain, including work on agriculture, hunger and nutrition; Opportunity, including work on women’s economic opportunity, career opportunity, veteran’s support, small business support and domestic manufacturing; and Community, which engages our associates and facilities to make positive change in communities where they live and work.
Julie joined the Walmart Foundation in 2008.
Prior to Walmart, Julie worked in the nonprofit community on issues of anti-racism, homelessness and community revitalization. Internationally, she has done program evaluation in Kenya and Tanzania and taught English in Eastern Europe.
Julie has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religion from Rhodes College and a Master of Arts in Public Service from The Clinton School of Public Service. She was a Jane Addams-Andrew Carnegie Fellow at Indiana University’s School of Philanthropy. She serves on the boards of the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals and Saving Grace, a transitional living program that helps young women aging out of foster care or facing homelessness.
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Delegate
CEO, Futures Unbound
Peter Zahn serves as CEO of Futures Unbound, a foundation focused on climate and environment, family wellness, and democratic engagement. He brings three decades’ experience as a leader and innovator across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. An attorney by practice, entrepreneur by blood, and environmentalist by passion, Zahn has served in a range of capacities, including owner of a business law firm, Deputy Mayor of Solana Beach, California, founder of the U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce, and company CEO.
Zahn cares about growing engaged and sustainable communities. He is involved both on a global scale, and in his local communities of Solana Beach and San Diego, California. He serves on Solana Beach’s Climate Action Commission; and the boards of Cleantech San Diego, the ZIP Entrepreneurship Platform at San Diego State University, City College of New York’s Zahn Innovation Center, and the clean technology Rocket Fund at California Institute of Technology.
In addition to the outdoors, Zahn enjoys craft beer brewed in Solana Beach.
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Delegate
Director Corporate Social Responsibility, Centrica
Julia Rebholz - Centrica Group Sustainability Director & Managing Director, Ignite Social Enterprise LP.
Julia manages Ignite, a £10m social impact fund, backed by Centrica plc and is director of corporate responsibility. Ignite invests in energy-related organisations that are making a real difference in people’s lives with in the UK. Julia has significant international experience in the energy industry, and is an expert in corporate strategy, M&A and managing complex integrations.
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Delegate
Product Specialist, UBS AG
Julia joined the Philanthropy Advisory team as Product Specialist focusing on the management of the Global Philanthropists Community in 2015.
Previously, she worked as a freelance collaborator and a project management intern with the Mercator Foundation in Germany, where she was supporting the planning and implementation of the “Chinese-German Young Professional Campus” as well as the set-up of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. She was also in charge of the monitoring and evaluation process of various projects in the China program.
Julia studied law in Cologne (Germany), holds a BSc. of Economics and Social Sciences from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) including two exchange semesters in Taiwan and France, and graduated with a Masters in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) Geneva (Switzerland) in September 2015.
She speaks German, English, French and Italian fluently as well as basic Mandarin.
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Delegate
As Vice President of Portfolio and Investments, Jude O'Reilley is responsible for the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship and funding within the Skoll community.
When he joined the Foundation in 2014, Jude had more than 18 years of experience in technology, management and entrepreneurship in the private sector. From working with Fortune 500 companies to being the first employee of a health-focused startup, he has launched more than 100 consumer and enterprise products.
Jude's professional background includes more than four years at Amazon.com, where he was responsible for product management of the photos experience on the Amazon Kindle Fire, Amazon Cloud Drive and Checkout by Amazon. Prior to joining Amazon.com, he spent the majority of his high-tech career in startups of 5 to 150 people, including Trusera, a place on the web for people to share their personal medical experiences. At Trusera, he helped the CEO raise more than $3.2 million in angel investments and built the team that designed the original product from scratch. He began his product career at Aventail, an early pioneer in the SSL VPN space that was later sold to Dell Inc. Hard won lessons learned along the way included some high profile failures, like the Amazon Fire phone, and the indescribable feeling of bringing together an extraordinary group of people together to solve a very hard problem.
Jude earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in History from Swarthmore College. He lives with his wife and two children in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Delegate
Founding Partner, Agrego.org
I am a founding partner of Agrego.org and co-owner of Cinderhouse Creative.
I have 10+ years of international management experience in for-profit organisations. In August of 2015, I stepped into the 3rd sector full-time carrying with me a background in business development, marketing and design experience won in the US, China and Australia.
Our team is comprised of individuals from business, private education and creative industries. Collectively, we build social enterprise case studies that are designed and iterated to be relatively easy and inexpensive to expand or replicate in emerging markets and low income countries.
We use our models to lift as many people as possible permanently out of poverty.
Our model is unique due to the immutable characteristics built into all Agrego entities:
— 100% of profit is used towards a philanthropic cause
— We strive to set a precedent in transparency, financially and operationally
— Board meetings are recorded and made publicly available
— All owners/shareholders will have total possible earnings capped to reasonable salaries which will be prominently
& publicly displayed online
— Will work to develop staff towards individual goals and passions
— Strive to decentralize ownership (without endangering Agrego's immutable characteristic)
Our first case studies are:
http://eduku.org - Educational products and services that fund schools and training in low income countries
http://domogo.co - Real Estate Agencies that battle homelessness
http://stockdisrupt.com - Graphic Microstock used to fund opportunity and creative training to low income countries.
Eduku, our final self-managed case study is launching in early April.
If you've made it to here, then thanks for powering through all that text. We'd love to have a cup of coffee with you at the 2016 Skoll World Forum. Feel free to contact us to meet up.
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Delegate
Vice President for Economic Citizenship and Disability Inclusion, Accion
Mr. Goldstein was part of the team that founded the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion in 2009. He is a Vice President and Program Manager for the Center's "Financial Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities" initiative. He has spearheaded the development of the Framework for Disability Inclusion and helped launch the Framework at Fundacion Paraguaya, an award winning microfinance institution (MFI) in Paraguay and Skoll awardee. He is also overseeing a partnership with 5 MFIs in India and the disability support organization v-shesh that have had great success implementing disability inclusion best practices there - and in August 2014, received a national award from the NCPDEP for this achievement.
In 2014, the Center published a series of disability inclusion tools and trainings, based on the work in Paraguay, which are open source and immediately available to MFIs and other interested financial service providers, as are the tools and trainings that have been customized for India. In 2015, Nigeria, Uganda, and Ecuador have become vibrant centers of new disability inclusion initiatives.
As the Center’s global advocate for disability inclusion he gives talks on disability at conferences around the world and works closely with the United Nations. In 2015, he has put a new emphasis on including persons with psycho-social disabilities.
Mr. Goldstein writes a blog post series for the Center as "Mr. Provocative." He is also a playwright, with several plays produced in London. He taught a playwriting course at Boston University for 12 years.
His activism and passion for social change began in his teenage years when he took to the streets to protest the American war in Vietnam.
Mr. Goldstein is a graduate of Yale University.
jgoldstein@accion.org
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Delegate
PRESIDENT, Roberto Marinho Foundation
Board Member of Grupo Globo and president of the Roberto Marinho Foundation.
José Roberto Marinho was born in Rio de Janeiro on 26 December 1955. He read History at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and Geography at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ).
He started his professional life in 1972, as a reporter for the O Globo newspaper. In 1981, he became an assistant editor. In May 1983, he was appointed for the position of deputy chief of the editorial room, role he performed until May 1984. In that year, he left the newspaper to take the position of FM programming director of the Sistema Globo de Rádio.
In 1992, he founded Acqua Institute, a non-governmental organisation that focuses on the preservation of water resources. He was also the first president of WWF-Brasil, position in which he remained for 7 years.
Acting in the third sector, Jose Roberto serves a member of the Governance Committee of Juntos pelo Desenvolvimento Sustentável – Comunitas (Together for Sustainable Development), of the Ethos Institute of Enterprises and Social Responsibility, of the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development - CEBDS, among others.
In 2006, he took part in the founding of the All for Education movement, of which he is a member of the Governance Board.
José Roberto is also a member of the The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Conservation Council (México), of the Lincoln Center Latin America Advisory Board (NY, USA), of the Harvard Global Advisory Council (Cambridge, USA), of RARE (Virginia, USA), and of the Reina Sofia School of Music International Circle (Madrid, Spain).
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Delegate
Fundraising Director, Peabody
Peabody is a London based social landlord and developer established in 1862 by George Peabody, American financier and philanthropist. We now own or manage in the region of 30,000 homes across London.
Our mission is as vibrant today as it was 150 years ago. We want to make London a city of opportunity for all by ensuring that everyone has a good home, a real sense of purpose and a strong feeling of belonging.
As Fundraising Director for Peabody Community Foundation I seek partnerships across the public and private sectors with those who share our mission to tackle poverty and disadvantage in all forms. In broad terms, our programmes involve helping people of all ages into work and out of in-work poverty, empowering communities to make the changes they want to see, building aspiration and opportunities for young people, and ensuring that our older and more vulnerable residents are safe and well-cared for.
In addition to traditional fundraising methods, we are looking at developing effective systems change, place-based and collective impact models that harness cross-sector support in London and overseas.
Please feel free to reach out or drop me a line if this resonates with your own world. I am keen to open conversations and share ideas with like-minders and establish new connections at this year's Forum.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Insight TWI: The World Investigates
Jonathan is Managing Director and CEO of Insight TWI, the award-winning investigative production company that created the original series "Africa Investigates".
Prior to joining Insight TWI as Managing Director, Jonathan served for more than five years as a senior national security staffer in the United States Congress.
Jonathan holds a Bachelor's Degree from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and a Master's in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.
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Delegate
Chief Strategy & Operations Officer of Emergent, Global Development Incubator
Jon is a director at the Global Development Incubator. GDI is a non-profit incubator of ground-breaking ideas that can reach impact at scale. GDI stays with partners through the long haul, helping with their biggest strategic decisions and the details of execution to help them build their ventures better and faster.
Jon is seconded from GDI to Emergent, a non-profit set up by the government of Norway, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation to catalyse private sector funding for protection of the earth's irreplaceable tropical forests.
Previously, Jon set up and led a global non-profit unit within EY that supported leading social entrepreneurs in low/middle-income countries, helping them build more resilient and scalable businesses.
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Delegate
Working presently in India as restrictions for travel trying to strengthen the communities to fight the pandemic and necessary actions like masks and social distance to be observed and filling the gap between the stake holders and communities to deal this COVID working with the communities to address the issues of job loss happened and finding new jobs and getting the need of medical support and supplies for the communities which is a challenge and concern
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Delegate
Managing Director - Strategic Investment, Tortoise Ecofin Platform
Mr. Vincent Barnouin joined Ecofin, now part of Tortoise, in 2004 and is a managing director. He previously served as Ecofin’s chief executive officer and also held roles of chief operating officer, head of marketing and business development and partner. Before joining Ecofin, he served as head of the European Private Banking Services division of the Russell Investment Group. Previously, he was deputy head of Salomon Smith Barney's equity business in Europe and head of European equity sales in Europe for Goldman Sachs. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from HEC‐ISA (France) and a Master of Law degree from Paris Pantheon‐Sorbonne University.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Clubhouse International
As Executive Director of Clubhouse International, Joel is a global advocate and entrepreneur working on behalf of millions of people living mental illness. A Clubhouse is an evidence-based-practice founded on the belief that even the most disabled can sufficiently recover and improve their lives with the help of a supportive community. The Clubhouse model provides pathways to meaningful social inclusion, work and wellbeing. First developed in New York in 1948 by a small group of former psychiatric hospital patients, the model has gained international recognition, scaling to more than 330 Clubhouses operating in 34 countries and growing. Joel works throughout the world to promote and support the development and quality of new and existing Clubhouse programs. With the assistance of a large Clubhouse International network he helps local communities in many countries and cultures create enduring resources and opportunities for people living with mental illness. Prior to Clubhouse, Joel worked in large psychiatric hospitals, as an administrator for a multi-state mental health agency and advocated locally and nationally for mental health services reform. He is a passionate champion for the rights of people living with mental illness, and the importance of their involvement in the design of services and systems that support dignity, opportunity and recovery.
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Delegate
As President and Chief Operating Officer of College Summit, Jo is leading the transformation of their operations to ensure long term sustainability and scalability. Since joining College Summit in 2005, she has created an IT and operational infrastructure that has supported the growth of the organization from 5000 students to over 50,000 and expansion in 13 states. She has directed and managed over $10M of Deloitte pro bono consulting on capacity building projects in support of program and operations, including the design and implementation of breakthrough measurement tools setting the standard for national efforts. Prior to joining College Summit, she has a long and broad background in technology and business operations, including support, development, business analysis and management roles at telecommunications providers, including MCI, Ionica PLC and UUNET. Jo is an Honors Graduate of Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. She has a Post Graduate Certificate in Technology Management from The Open University, UK.
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Delegate
Director, Social Innovation Hub, Jhpiego
Dr. Joanne Peter is Director of Jhpiego’s Innovation Hub. She leads a multidisciplinary team that combines frontier technology, human-centered design, market-based solutions, and systems thinking to drive new models of decentralized, data-driven and person-centered care across Jhpiego’s work in 40 countries. Joanne also leads Jhpiego’s Worldwide Innovation Support Hub (WISH), an accelerator program that supports innovators to scale their solutions within complex health systems. Joanne specializes in the use of health technology in low-resource settings. Prior to Jhpiego, she helped establish Johnson & Johnson’s Center for Health Worker Innovation, and worked at Google.org, the UN Foundation and DGMT on a range of health, technology, and innovation programs. Joanne trained in Medicine and International Development at the University of Cape Town and Oxford University respectively. She serves on the Board of Living Goods and the advisory board of Jacaranda Health.
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Delegate
Portfolio Manager, United States Agency for International Development
Tom Schumacher is a Portfolio Manager for the Global Development Lab - USAID. He works with the Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) program and the Innovation Investment Alliance (IIA). He works on selecting, managing, and advising the organizations within the DIV portfolio. Prior to working at DIV, he was a Presidential Management Fellow at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) Office of Card and Payment Markets where he focused on emerging payment products (mobile payments, prepaid cards, money transfer) and issues of financial access and inclusion. Tom has experience in international development, startups, and financial markets through a variety of positions. Previously, he co-founded, Tala, a social enterprise working to provide financial identities and financial access to undeserved populations in Africa and Asia. Tom has a MPP from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland.
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Delegate
Editor, Humanosphere
Tom Paulson is a Seattle-based journalist who specializes in reporting on science, medicine, development and poverty matters. He is the founding editor of Humanosphere, an online news site now on hiatus that is focused on issues of poverty, equity, philanthropy and progress (or the lack of it). He has reported for National Public Radio, for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for Nature magazine and was for many years on the board of the National Association of Science Writers. He is now exploring long-form projects targeting inequality.
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Delegate
Philanthropist, Individual
Joanne Kagle leads a small fund focusing on grassroots, front-line healthcare projects serving the most vulnerable. We currently foster collaborations and leadership training among medical professionals at UCSF and Partners in Health, with special emphasis on nursing and diabetes care. Current projects include, a nursing center for excellence in Rwanda, Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) youth campaign in Navajo Nation and San Francisco, T2D shared medical appts. in Chiapas, Mexico, Type 1 Diabetes training at Bearskin Meadows teen diabetes camp, a mental health initiative (Possible Health, Nepal), and midwife leadership training with IDSP Pakistan (Skoll Entrepreneur Quratulain Bakhteari).
Joanne serves on the board of Partners in Health, the UCSF Diabetes Leadership Council, and is a member of Legacy Venture (a philanthropic venture community). She is a former board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Charles Armstrong School for the dyslexic learner.
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Delegate
Chief of Staff, Skoll Foundation
Joanna serves as the Chief of Staff at the Skoll Foundation. She works behind the scenes to manage processes that ensure the effective leadership of the organization in a cross-functional, collaborative manner.
Previously at Skoll, she supported the Chief Strategy Officer and provided project support to several teams within the organization, furnishing her with a well-rounded, intimate familiarity with the Foundation. Prior to joining Skoll, Joanna spent 11 years as a bilingual Victim Advocate at the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
Joanna earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA. and In her spare time she enjoys baking, running and craft cocktail-mixing.
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Delegate
CEO / Adjunct A.Professor, Family Life / Swinburne University Centre for Social Impact
Jo has worked for the community since 1976, as a social work practitioner, researcher, consultant, manager, leader and social entrepreneur. Her passion is the wellbeing of children. At Family Life, Jo has led a program of change and organisational growth to promote volunteering and community involvement, and to expand effective services, support and connections which empower sustained transformational change for vulnerable families, children and young people. Strategic priorities include developing the organisational learning culture as the foundation for research and evaluation efforts to measure outcomes, and to project the social and financial impact for systems and social change. She believes the path to increased social wellbeing for all will be paved by innovation, enterprise and impact investment.
Jo has held various leadership roles aligned to influencing policy and practice for promoting the well-being of children, families and communities and was recognised for her contribution to the community in 2013 with an Order of Australia and received the Women of Influence Award for Social Enterprise / Not For Profits in 2014.
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Delegate
Director, Finance & Operations, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Tim serves as Director, Finance and Operations, for the Skoll Global Threats Fund. In this role, he is tasked with making sure that the Skoll Global Threats Fund team is equipped with all the support needed to achieve maximum impact. Tim’s background as an operations executive includes business strategy, PR/marketing, business development, account management, recruiting and HR, finance, legal and IT. Tim also brings extensive experience in design thinking and product development.
Prior to joining the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Tim spent 20+ years working in the design consulting world. He most recently served as COO of Method Inc., a leading digital design and branding agency with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Tim also spent 13 years at IDEO, a global leader in innovation. It was here that he started experimenting with applying design thinking to business management.
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Delegate
Founder & Managing Director, Greenbaum Foundation
“Being a bystander to suffering is not an option,” is my motto. I’m in my 24th year as a full time philanthropist and have committed to contributing in excess of 85% of my wealth to charitable projects during my lifetime, and the remainder soon thereafter.
My primary philanthropic focus is on ending factory farming and moving the world to plant based diets and vegan lifestyles. To that end, my foundation assists and funds approximately 150 organizations throughout the world, and our annual grantmaking is currently in the $6 - $7 million dollar range.
I am also an executive producer of several documentary films including Seaspiracy, The Game Changers, What The Health, Cowspiracy, Slay and others.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Director, Climate Change Investigation, Innovation and Investment Company (CC3IC)
I am passionate about solving our world's climate change problems through breakthroughs in carbon-free energy. Solar and wind power are important and rapidly growing sources of carbon-free energy, but they will not be nearly enough to meet the growing energy needs of the world. We need additional sources of carbon-free energy that can be scaled to meet the absolutely enormous scale of the world's growing energy demands quickly and at a cost that is at or below that of fossil fuels.
I am interested in collaborating with others who understand and are serious about solving this problem. Its importance is extreme and its scale is daunting. The solution will be technical in nature most likely, and some level of comfort with solving technical issues and rolling out technical solutions will be helpful in any collaboration. The real challenge will be in getting to huge scale with the solution, so that is certainly an area for collaboration too. This will require a clear-eyed approach to the economics and complexity of the solution. Too expensive or capital-intensive or complex a solution simply won't work.
If this is a challenge/quest that you would like to help with, please get in touch!
I have an engineering and business background as well as entrepreneurial successes that are all relevant to taking on this challenge. My background is available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-jim-farrell-0b56211
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Delegate
Senior Producer, ABC News Network
Teri Whitcraft, Senior Producer for ABC News’ Special Units, develops and produces exclusive, original content for all of ABC News’ top-rated broadcasts (Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, 20/20 and This Week with George Stephanopoulos).
In addition to developing investigative news stories and human-interest features, Teri regularly produces division-wide primetime specials, such as Diane Sawyer’s year-long investigation into Isis in America, the first virtual town hall with Pope Francis, the first exclusive interview with Malala Yousafzai, and President Obama’s townhall on race and policing. Teri also helps spearhead the network’s coverage of major breaking news events such as the San Bernardino and Pulse Nightclub shootings, the devastating impact of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the Ferguson riots, etc.
Teri’s work has been recognized with multiple Emmy Awards, Cine Golden Eagle Awards, Amnesty International and NAACP Awards, the Front Page Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the Christopher Award and the South Asian Journalists Association Award.
Her personal passion is to shine a light on individuals and social entrepreneurs who are changing the world. She was the coordinating producer for ABC News’ year-long, division-wide global health series "Be the Change: Save a Life” sponsored in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is a Board Member of the Fistula Foundation and a member of the Resolution Project's Advisory Board.
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Delegate
Jill is the Director of Event Production at the Skoll Foundation. Jill's work centers on building bridges for the social entrepreneurs and innovators dedicated to advancing solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Through her work, she plays a key role in helping connect and celebrate this dynamic community. She focuses much of her time envisioning how to build a meaningful and impactful experience for delegates at the Skoll World Forum and other Skoll convenings, collaborating across the Foundation to create the framework for these events, and finally implementing that vision.
Before joining the Skoll Foundation, Jill spent much of her career conceptualizing and producing memorable experiences for clients at special events such as the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, the Tony Awards, and the Kentucky Derby. In her free time, she can often be found on the local Pickleball courts. She has acquired a new nickname, “Coach Jill,” stemming from her love of teaching the fundamentals of pickleball to novices. At home Jill’s great passion is cooking and baking too, much to her family’s delight.
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Delegate
Grants and Program Associate, Pandemics, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Jessica joins the Skoll Global Threats Fund with over a decade of experience working in the social justice and international development sector. Jessica has worked in Latin America, China, and the USA, with leadership experience in diverse nonprofit organizations, covering economic development, poverty alleviation, women’s human rights and philanthropy. Prior to the Skoll Global Threats Fund, she served as the Program Associate for the California Democracy Program at the James Irvine Foundation. In this role, she supported the California Democracy program to administer a grantmaking portfolio of $15M annually to advance effective public policy decisionmaking by funding grassroots organizations to reform election practices, improve civic engagement and fully integrate immigrants in California. Previously, Jessica worked as a Fundraising and Evaluation consultant, having led fundraising initiatives for the Asia Foundation and conducted in-depth research on evaluation of social programs in women’s empowerment, youth development, economic development and health, enabling internal staff and external project stakeholders to enhance understanding of project impact. Jessica is fluent in Spanish, Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese, English and Japanese. - See more at: http://www.skollglobalthreats.org/about-us/staff/#jessicashao
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Delegate
CEO, Girl Effect
Jess co-founded Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) and is an internationally recognised social entrepreneur. Based in Kenya, SHOFCO catalyses large-scale transformation in urban slums by providing critical services, community advocacy platforms, education and leadership development for girls and women. In August this year, SHOFCO received the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize - the world’s largest annual humanitarian award presented to non-profit organisations judged to have made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering. Jess is also a New York Times best-selling author and winner of the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award (2016).
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Ideas Week
Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Ideas Week
Co-Director, Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship
Jessica is the Executive Director of Chicago Ideas, a year-round global platform for leading ideas, innovations and grassroots movements. Co-chaired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Founded by Groupon Co-Founder Brad Keywell, CIW puts on enlightening, intellectual programming that fosters cross-industry collaboration, draws 35,000 attendees and sparks national dialogue on a range of topics. In addition to leading Chicago Ideas, Jessica is the Co-Director of the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship, which annually selects a small group of social entrepreneurs from a pool of over 250 applications globally. Fellows have the opportunity to speak at Chicago Ideas Week, connect and collaborate with notable business leaders, and receive a non-discretionary gift of $10,000 each to be used towards their organizational goals.
Jessica is a Disruptor Foundation Fellow through the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards. In her free time she sits on the Board of Directors of Embarc, which is an organization that designs cultural experiences for students in at-risk communities in the City of Chicago. Additionally, she has led several projects related to violence prevention nationally and locally. Jessica lives in Chicago with her husband Josh and her three daughters Josie, Blake, and Scarlett.
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Delegate
Director, Peter Bennett Foundation
Board member of the Peter Bennett Foundation. Ongoing work as the intermediary between sponsors, donors, media, government officials and charities. Responsible for all correspondence, event planning, management and organization. Travels throughout Asia for on-site due diligence inspections and relationship management. The Peter Bennett Foundation was established to address issues surround poverty alleviation in Hong Kong and Asia. In addition to making direct donations, the Foundation believes that by establishing an active dialogue and partnership with corporates, Government, Foundations and social enterprises/charities, it can support the most effective and efficient institutions to help the marginalized and poorest in our communities.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Lorinet Foundation
Sumit is a social impact advisor, committed to driving thought leadership and action on diverse socio-economic issues. He traversed various roles in his career from running his own social enterprise to working with the UN and consulting in the development sector.
Currently, Sumit leads Lorinet foundation’s vision to support sustainable initiatives on early childhood education and youth employment for vulnerable communities in Mongolia and SE Asia. Previously, he worked with global foundations, corporate, govt., multilaterals, and social-purpose organisations in designing and scaling their social impact initiatives.
Sumit is an alumnus of the University of Oxford where he studied MBA as a Skoll Scholar.
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Delegate
Social Innovation Manager, Saïd Business School
Hildengard Allgaier works as a Social Innovation and Employer Engagement Manager at Oxford University, Saïd Business School. She has over 12 years of professional experience in global teams in Latin America, UK and Europe, including positions in the Steel and Mining, IT and Chemical sectors working across marketing, communications and sustainability. Hildengard holds an MBA in Corporate Social Responsibility from Nottingham University and sits on the Board of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR).
From her background as a corporate intrapreneur she has supported start-ups, foundations, multinational organisations and boutique firms to reach their full-potential by designing educational programmes that help business to connect with their customers and wider stakeholders considering sustainability factors.
She also has extensive experience fostering long-term cross-sector partnerships with universities, NGOs, media organisations and think tanks. She is currently working on implementing workshops in Rio de Janeiro (BR) and London (UK) that inspire, engage and equip young people with relevant content and local role models for them to be able to be more resilient and committed when choosing a career path.
Previously to Saïd Business School, Hilden worked as a Senior Sustainability and Innovation Specialist for Dow Chemical in São Paulo, Brazil and coordinated communications strategies and stakeholder engagement initiatives for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Before working at Dow, she concluded a Research Fellowship at Tufts University’s Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), an incubator of academic projects specialising in research and teaching on issues of social inequity, based in Boston, US.
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Delegate
Head of Philanthropy Advisory, EMEA, J.P. Morgan Philanthropy Centre
Sheryl leads J.P. Morgan’s award-winning Philanthropy Centre in Europe, the Middle East & Africa. She advises individuals and families on how to meet their philanthropic goals by providing support on mission, focus, strategy and governance as well as sharing best practices from across the field. She also facilitates connections with likeminded philanthropists, and provides unique opportunities for clients to learn from thought leaders in the social and environmental issues they are passionate about.
Sheryl read Economics & Management at Cambridge University and completed her postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, she advised institutional asset managers and hedge funds on their cross-asset, macroeconomic strategy and equity allocations at UBS Investment Bank in London and Hong Kong.
She then shifted career by pursuing a Masters degree in International Development and joining a UK social enterprise, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity. Here she ran a flagship programme providing educational support and career coaching to talented, young people from underserved and minority backgrounds.
Sheryl serves on the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and is an advocate and champion for innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to global development, having grown up in Kenya as part of an Indian entrepreneurial family. She is frequently featured in the media (Financial Times, Sunday Times, Professional Wealth Management, amongst others) for her views on philanthropy.
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Delegate
Founder, WinWin
Jens has a passion for entrepreneurship, innovation investing and a world where social and economic progress are available to all. He is the founder of WinWin, a non-profit that seeks to utilize a data-driven “tri-sector” approach to align the resources available in the private, social, and public sectors to generate superior societal and financial outcomes than would be possible if organizations were restricted to the resources within their sector alone.
WinWin is based on the idea that tremendous value can be created (and waste reduced) when assets from the companies, non-profits, and government agencies are collaboratively leveraged and that it is possible to align the incentives of these groups to reduce inefficiency and improve overall outcomes. WinWin creates tools to identify opportunities and a systematic solution for organizations to utilize under-leveraged assets in each sector to facilitate innovation that benefits all parties involved
Jens first learned of potential for tri-sector solutions when he founded Coinstar in 1990, with the goal of creating a company that could simultaneously benefit the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Coinstar pioneered self-service coin counting kiosks to provide consumers a convenient means to convert loose coins into cash. In addition to counting change, Coinstar kiosks accept donations for charitable organizations including UNICEF, The Red Cross, and WWF. Coinstar also worked collaboratively with the Fed, US Mint, and Royal UK Mint. The company has processed over $40bb, raised ~ $100mm for non-profits, and save the US government billions in reduced costs. He is currently working with a US company that is utilizing a WinWin strategy to improve the Food Stamp program for 45 million people.
Jens holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Yale University. A native of Seattle, Jens is an avid hiker, back country skier, and enthusiast of landscape architecture
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Delegate
Jenny Goldstein is passionate about international development, human rights and developing creative, solution-focused approaches to resource development. She has 15 years experience working in philanthropy, international programs and program management. Jenny works as the Director of Development at Digital Divide Data (DDD), a social enterprise that works in Cambodia, Laos, and Kenya to create better futures for disadvantaged youth in a business processing outsourcing company and with veterans and military spouses in Virginia. She manages philanthropic investments and investors who support over 1,000 students annually for university scholarships, among other trainings. DDD . The innovative work/study program enables young women and men from impoverished families gain work experience plus access to higher education. As a result, they secure professional jobs and earn lasting higher incomes, breaking the cycle of poverty. Since 2001, the projected increase in lifetime earnings for youth in DDD’s program is more than $350 million.
Previously Jenny worked at American Jewish World Service (AJWS) in numerous roles. As Director of Donor Engagement she oversaw donor travel programs to over eight countries, annual events, leadership councils and project managed a grant across northern India that addressed child marriage. Jenny has also worked at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, at NYU Wagner Graduate School and volunteered in Izmir, Turkey. Jenny holds a Masters of Public Affairs (MPA) and an MA in Hebrew and Judaic Studies, both from New York University. Jenny is a board member of Yahel Israel Service Learning and has participated and been a mentor of several Leukemia and Lymphoma triathlon teams.
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Delegate
Curator and Director of Content, World Innovation Summit for Education
Sebastien Turbot builds conversation + content-driven collaboration platforms. An enthusiastic storyteller, Sebastien leverages content design to transform complex into simple, mundane into exciting and boring into engaging.
As a conference curator, Sebastien combines content, production and communication to deliver a powerful experience that truly touches people and creates a lasting bond.
He is adept at building networks and communities to cross-pollinate ideas and insights and travels extensively across the globe to deliver impactful strategies for NGOs, foundations, nonprofits, government and corporate entities.
He has a keen interest in developing thought-leadership programs and actively contributes to promote leading and emerging individuals and projects around the world.
As Director and Curator of Qatar Foundation's WISE Initiative (World Innovation Summit for Education), Sébastien provides creative leadership to realise the future-focused vision of the international, multi-sectoral platform dedicated to innovation in education.
Sebastien's writings are regularly published in a range of international media including Forbes. A keen educator, he lectures at the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), Sciences-Po, Paris and has taught classes at CELSA Paris, a leading French journalism and communication school.
Prior to WISE, Sébastien crafted the editorial strategy at TEDxParis. An avid explorer, Sébastien decided to get his hands dirty in Afghanistan where he founded Sayara, a strategic communication agency. Sebastien is a frequently requested advisor, lecturer and speaker.
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Delegate
Founder and Principal Consultant, Profit with Purpose
Since her first job at Oxfam, Isabel’s career has focused on social justice and finding ways to make a significant impact in the world using the resources of both the nonprofit and business worlds.
She is the Founder & Principal Consultant at Profit with Purpose, offering consulting services to companies of any size that want to use their resources for good, and to nonprofits who want to engage better with companies.
In September 2015 she became a Practitioner in Residence at the Skoll Centre where she is researching organizational structures for business to embed social impact, and is a Industry Careers Adviser for MBA students.
In 2002 CEO & Founder of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, hired Isabel to establish the Salesforce.com Foundation internationally. Over 12 years she grew a team of 30 people in 9 countries donating and discounting Salesforce technology to thousands of nonprofits in 110 countries, generating revenue of $12m to fund grants, and achieving 80% employee participation in volunteering.
Isabel was at Amnesty International for 11 years prior to joining Salesforce where she focused on East Asia, joining just after the 1989 pro-democracy events in Tiananmen Square. She developed the campaigning work on human rights violations against religious minorities including those in Tibet, for which His Holiness the Dalai Lama personally thanked her.
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Delegate
CEO, Women for Women International
Jennifer L. Windsor is the Chief Executive Officer of Women for Women International (WfWI), where she sets the strategic vision, mobilizes resources, and leads 550 staff across 11 international offices. For more than 20 years, Women for Women International has supported over 420,000 of the most marginalized women in countries affected by conflict and war to access the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to be catalysts for change in their lives and families.
Prior to joining WfWI, Ms. Windsor served as Associate Dean for Programs in the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. In addition to leading the SFS Women’s Leadership Initiative, she helped to create the Georgetown Initiative for Women, Peace and Security and served as its Interim Director. She also helped establish the SFS Masters in Global Human Development.
From 2001 to 2010, Ms. Windsor served as Executive Director of Freedom House. During her tenure, she more than tripled the organization’s operating budget and expanded its programmatic reach to dozens of countries affected by conflict and human rights abuse in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. She initiated programs to support women’s rights in Jordan and family law reform in Kuwait and Bahrain and created a new assessment tool designed to measure the state of women’s rights in the Middle East.
Under her leadership, Freedom House became a non-partisan voice for human rights and freedom around the world.
Ms. Windsor holds a Master in Public Administration from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University. She has been published in the New York Times and Washington Quarterly, and has made numerous media appearances.
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Delegate
Jennie joined Riders for Health (Riders) in 2006 after working for publishing house, Bauer Media. Bauer publishes Motorcycle News (MCN), the world's number one motorcycling media brand, who are a life-long supporter of Riders. Given that Jennie had good grounding in the motorcycling sphere, making the leap from MCN to Riders was a natural transition.
Jennie’s specialism is human resource and people management and she has a postgraduate level qualification in HR management with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and development (CIPD); the most widely recognised professional qualification in the field of HR in the UK. Her training has equipped Jennie with the skills to develop and implement creative and strategic HR solutions that drive organisational performance for Riders for Health globally.
Jennie works collaboratively with Riders’ programme teams, and in the development of new programmes Jennie has both advised and been directly involved with areas such as recruitment, salary benchmarking, organisational development, working with in-country lawyers to understand labor laws, creating contracts of employment and staff handbooks and supporting teams with a variety of employment related matters.
Riders are currently experiencing a period of change and to assist with that Jennie has recently taken on the role of Managing Director to help guide the organisation through the transition.
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Delegate
Chairman & Founder, PACENation & sPower
Mr. Tannenbaum formed Fir Tree Partners, a private global investment firm, in 1994 and serves as its President. Prior to Fir Tree, Mr. Tannenbaum spent his career in the private equity industry at Kohlberg & Co., beginning as the sole analyst for Jerome Kohlberg, the senior founder of KKR. Mr. Tannenbaum has chaired and served as a board member of numerous public and private companies and currently chairs sPower Corp., a commercial scale solar developer and operator. Through the Fir Tree Philanthropies (“FTP”), Mr. Tannenbaum focuses on accelerating America’s energy independence and promoting sustainable capitalism through innovations in public policy, finance and entrepreneurship. FTP sponsors a variety of global sustainability projects and operates a Scientist in Residence program in Long Island. Through FTP, Mr. Tannenbaum organized our nation’s first major bi-partisan symposium focused on eliminating foreign oil dependence and hosted President Obama’s energy cabinet members for their 100 day planning retreat. Mr. Tannenbaum also founded the not for profit PACENow.org which has helped develop and promote a new form of financing for energy retrofits of homes and buildings. Mr. Tannenbaum is a lecturer at Cambridge University where he created the university’s first value investing course.
Mr. Tannenbaum received a J.D.-M.B.A. degree from NYU and a Bachelor of Arts in economics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Tulane University. He also received a General Course Certificate from the London School of Economics and did postgraduate work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
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Delegate
Head of Portfolio and Investment, Autodesk Foundation
Jean Shia is the Head of Portfolio and Investment at the Autodesk Foundation where she invests in a portfolio of organizations using technology for positive social and environmental impact. Jean has two decades of experience working across the public and private sectors in social entrepreneurship, economic development, finance and strategic operations. Jean was previously the Vice President of Business Operations at Driptech, a for-profit social enterprise focused on improving smallholder livelihoods through low cost irrigation technologies. Jean received a MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley and a BS with Honors in Urban Studies from Cornell University.
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Delegate
CEO, Trillium Asset Management
Matt Patsky is CEO and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Trillium ESG Global Equity strategy. Matt has over four decades of experience in investment research and investment management. He began his career at Lehman Brothers in 1984 as a technology analyst. In 1989, while covering emerging growth companies for Lehman, he began to incorporate environmental, social, and governance factors into his research. In 1994, Matt became the first sell side analyst in the United States to publish on the topic of socially responsible investing. As Director of Equity Research for Adams, Harkness & Hill, he built the firm’s powerful research capabilities in socially and environmentally responsible areas such as renewable energy, resource optimization, and organic and natural products. Before Trillium, Matt worked at Winslow Management Company in Boston, where he served as director of research, chair of the investment committee, and portfolio manager for the Green Growth and Green Solutions Strategies.
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Delegate
Senior Director External Research, Mars, Incorporated / Catalyst
Dr. Jay Jakub is the Senior Director of External Research at Mars, Incorporated / Catalyst. Mars is a global Food & Beverage company headquartered near Washington, D.C. with approximately 80k associates and >$35bn in annual revenues. It is known for iconic brands such as M&Ms, Snickers, Mars Bar, Dove chocolate, Pedigree, Whiskas, Caesar’s, Wrigley gum, Uncle Ben’s Rice and many more. Catalyst, which was initially established in the 1950s, is the internal corporate think tank of Mars and is responsible for developing transformational solutions for the business across a variety of disciplines. It reports to a steering group chaired by the CEO. Jay serves as principal deputy to the Mars Chief Economist / Managing Director of Catalyst. He co-leads the Mutuality Laboratory, which has developed a new business model & non-monetized metrics to help move the company (and other organizations) from a profit maximization model to a holistic value optimization approach across Shared Financial Capital, Social Capital, Human Capital, and Natural Capital. He also supervises the work of the Culture Laboratory, which does M&A integration and Strategy ‘smoothing' for Mars. Jay's doctorate is from St. John's College, Oxford. He is married with two teenage children.
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Delegate
Managing Director, I-DEV International
Jason Spindler leads I-DEV’s global team, vision and strategy. Jason has over a decade of experience in global finance, venture capital, business management and industry development in both developed and emerging markets. Jason is a former investment banker from Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup. He later joined the private equity arm of turnaround specialists AlixPartner. Jason then moved from New York to Peru where he served as a business and economic development volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps and later helped launch a farmer-owned agri-business that today is an industry leading, multi-million dollar enterprise.
Jason has advised Fortune 500 Companies and leading impact sector organizations including Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Grupo Bimbo, Ashoka, Acumen Fund, the Grassroots Business Fund, and the Inter-American Development Bank on emerging markets investment and business strategies. He has been recognized as a leader in the impact investing and social entrepreneurship sectors and is a recipient of the prestigious Reynolds Fellowship for Social Innovation and the Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship.
Jason has a Juris Doctorate from New York University, with a specialization in Fund Structuring and Social Entrepreneurship. He also studied South Asian social entrepreneurship & development policy at the National University of Singapore’s International Law Program and received his B.B.A. in International Finance and his B.A. in International Development Economics from University of Texas-Austin.
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Delegate
Head of Partnerships, ClimateCare
Robert Stevens, joined ClimateCare, a Best for the World B Corporation, in 2007. He oversees its partnership programmes - engaging with corporates, governments and NGOs to meet their business, environmental and social development goals.
Rob ensures that ClimateCare programmes work for all partners, are outcome-focused and deliver measurable results for business, people and the environment.
Rob lives in Oxford with his wife and two children. He holds a degree in Business Administration and is currently finishing postgraduate study at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Rob is also chair of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA).
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Delegate
Journalist, National Public Radio
I cover global health and development for NPR in Washington, D.C. We take a very broad view to both health and development. My reporting focuses on pressing issues around the world usually in resource-poor settings. I also have carved out a niche covering natural disasters for our radio network.
Prior to my current position I was NPR’s Mexico City correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and Caribbean. I was first hired by NPR as their Johannesburg bureau chief and served in that role from 2002-2006.
I care deeply about poverty, global inequality, emerging infectious diseases and soccer. That list is in no particular order. My primary goal in my reporting is to make obscure/overlooked topics interesting to a mainstream American audience. NPR reaches more than 25 million people a week through a network of hundreds of radio stations, Internet streams, various web platforms and social media.
I travel a lot for work and I’m always on the hunt for powerful human stories about this amazing world we live in.
When I’m not reporting I can be found attempting to renovate a turn of the 20th century farm house in Maryland, weeding my garden and tending an expanding flock of chickens.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Dalio Foundation, Bridgewater Associates
Janine Racanelli is Executive Director of the Dalio Foundation, founded by Ray Dalio, whose investment firm, Bridgewater, runs the largest hedge fund in the world. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Dalio Family Office. The Dalio Foundation has participated in cutting edge impact investments sponsored by the world’s leading participants in the field.
Prior to joining the Dalio Foundation, Janine was the global head of JPMorgan Private Bank’s Advice Lab and Wealth Advisory practice. Janine’s expertise encompasses U.S. and cross-border tax, wealth transfer and charitable-giving strategies. Janine is an attorney by training and practiced law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, specializing in tax, estate planning and administration, and representation of fiduciaries.
Janine has been a frequent author and speaker on charitable investment and wealth planning topics. She has been featured in publications such as Barron’s, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Janine is the coauthor of Stocker and Rikoon on Trusts, published by the Practicing Law Institute and served as an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University School of Law.
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Delegate
VP of Strategic Communications, Echoing Green
Janna Oberdorf is the VP of Strategic Communications at Echoing Green, an organization that unleashes next-generation talent to solve the world's biggest problems. At the organization, she leads the communications efforts to create and implement a strategy that leverages traditional and new media for brand development. Before joining Echoing Green, Janna was the Director of Communications and Advocacy at Women Deliver, a global advocacy organization working to advance the health and rights of girls and women around the world, and prior to that served as an editor and freelance journalist for major US magazines, newspapers, and online media outlets.
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Delegate
Vice President - Global Philanthropy and Sustainability, Fossil Group Inc.
Janiece leads Fossil Group's efforts to make the biggest impact that Fossil can through global giving and sustainability. Fossil is on a journey to become a more sustainable company through focused initiatives which impact the planet, its employees and global communities. Janiece has led the Fossil Foundation since its inception in 2013. The Fossil Foundation partners with social entrepreneurs to unleash the power of youth. Since its launch, the Fossil Foundation has impacted over 250K young lives.
Prior to joining Fossil, Janiece was Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at AT&T. Her cross-functional work experience also includes 20+ years at Hewlett-Packard Co. From 2006-2008, she was V.P./General Manager of HP's Imaging and Printing Attach Organization and successfully launched and grew this business to $600M+. From 2003-2006, she was HP’s Global Director of Corporate Philanthropy and e-inclusion and led the transformation of HP’s portfolio of strategic philanthropy programs with programs and projects in 18 countries.
Janiece currently serves on the Board of Directors of numerous non-profit organizations, i.e. College Summit, Dallas Holocaust Museum Center for Education and Tolerance, AT&T Performing Arts Center (Dallas), and Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas.
She earned a B.S. in Social Science/Organizational Behavior at the University of California at Berkeley, an Executive M.B.A. at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, and executive training certification at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business Executive Education Program.
Janiece is in love with her family and close friends! Family time, social activities, making an impact, and spirituality matter most in her life.
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Delegate
Executive Director, BMW Foundation
Markus Hipp studied philosophy and Catholic theology in Munich from 1989 to 1994. Upon graduation, he spent two years as a lecturer in German and philosophy at the Czech universities of Budweis and Brno, before taking up positions in the marketing and publishing industry in Munich and in Augsburg. In 1998, he joined the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart as assistant to the executive director. In 2000, he became the Foundation's deputy chief executive for Central and Eastern Europe, before being appointed to establish the Berlin office of the Robert Bosch Foundation in 2002, which he directed until August 2006.
Since then he has been director of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. The married father of four also holds a number of honorary posts in other organizations. He is a member of the advisory council of the Association of German Foundations in Berlin, a member of the board of trustees of the Breuninger Foundation, a board member of the Paretz Foundation as well as a founding director and member of MitOst e.V., an association for language and cultural exchange in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Since 2008 Markus Hipp is an elected member of the city council of Ketzin, Brandenburg. In 2011 he became a board member of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA).
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Delegate
Executive Director, Safe Passage Project
Rich Leimsider is the Executive Director of Safe Passage Project, a nonprofit that provides free lawyers to child refugees in the NYC-area who who are being deported. Safe Passage Project currently represents 800+ children with 28 full-time staff and the help of 400+ pro bono attorneys.
Earlier, Rich developed and ran programs for social entrepreneurs at Echoing Green, including both the Climate and Black Male Achievement Fellowships. He also created the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education and failed at an attempt to create a national service alumni organization. He serves as a board member of the West African agricultural finance organization myAgro. Rich is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Business School and has most of an MSW from the University of Texas. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Greenwood Place
Rebecca Eastmond is Co-Founder and CEO of Greenwood Place, which she created to leverage the experience she gained over 20 years’ work in philanthropy. Rebecca began her career as a charity lawyer at Allen & Overy, then became CEO of The Prince’s Foundation for Arts & Kids - taking it from a start-up to working with 33,000 children. She was a Managing Director of J.P. Morgan Private Bank, leading the bank’s philanthropy advisory offering in EMEA for almost a decade. Rebecca serves on the board of two grant-making foundations, is a trustee of Smart Works, and a global council member for Acumen, very different organisations that share a common approach of listening hard to the people they seek to serve and giving them access to the tools they need to build their own better futures. She was a founder trustee of the House of Illustration. She served on the board of the UK’s Philanthropy Review & has received numerous awards for her work in philanthropy. She read law at Oxford.
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Delegate
Founder, Mayday Rescue
James Le Mesurier is a passionate social entrepreneur. In 2013 he founded The White Helmets programme in Syria, a volunteer rescue organisation that since then has grown to be an organisation of 3,500 volunteers who operate throughout Syria and who have saved 104,000 lives. He is the founder of Mayday Rescue Foundation, a not for profit organisation committed to protecting civilians from conflict and natural disaster. In addition to the White Helmets in Syria, Mayday is active in Mogadishu, developing the city's emergency services network, and exploring the development of similar community-based resilience initiatives in other fragile and failing states.
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Delegate
Founder, Skafte Global Law, P.A.
Marie-Louise Skafte is the founder of Skafte Global Law, P.A., a boutique consulting firm. She is licensed to practice law in Canada, the United States and England with over 20 years of success across the transportation, aviation, financial services, marine container leasing and logistics industries as well as supporting professional services firms. She serves as Consultant and provides general advice to global companies, executive management teams and acts as outside General Counsel.
Prior to forming the firm, Marie-Louise worked in San Francisco as Vice President – Global General Counsel, Head of HR and Corporate Compliance with The Cronos Group leading teams in 19 countries. She also worked for Deutsche Post DHL, with operations in 220 countries holding the position of General Counsel for Canada. She has previously held key management positions for DHL Express (USA), Inc., American President Lines Limited, MasTec, Inc., and the Massachusetts Port Authority.
Marie-Louise obtained a JD from Suffolk University Law School, a BA in Labor/Management Relations & Business from the University of Toronto and Industrial & Labor Relations at Cornell University, where she earned academic and athletic scholarships.
She serves on various boards, has received numerous industry awards. Marie-Louise is also a commercial pilot and resides in Florida with her husband Roger Martin.
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Delegate
CEO and Cofounder, Team Rubicon USA
Jake Wood is cofounder and CEO of Team Rubicon, the only nonprofit disaster response organization that utilizes the skills of military veterans to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. In giving veterans an opportunity to continue their service, Team Rubicon provides them with a sense of purpose, community and identity. Since the organization’s founding in 2010 following the massive Haiti earthquake, Team Rubicon has responded to over 200 disasters and grown from eight to 50,000 volunteer members. Under Wood’s leadership, the organization has responded following the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, Hurricane Sandy, the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the 2014 wildfire in Pateros, Washington, and the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal.
As a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, Wood deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Scout Sniper and earned the Navy-Marine Commendation Medal. A leading veterans’ advocate, Wood has briefed President Obama on veterans’ issues, met with former Presidents Bush and Clinton on veteran transition and disaster response and testified before a Senate committee to improve mental health care services for returning veterans. He has also appeared in the major media, including MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, US News & World Report, Forbes, Fox News and penned an op-ed for The New York Times. In 2014, Crown Publishing published Wood’s book, Take Command: Lessons in Leadership.
Wood has received numerous awards including: Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “40 Under Forty”; Goldman Sachs “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” award; and was selected as a CNN Hero in 2012.
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Delegate
CEO, Nuru International
Jake Harriman graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy and served seven and a half years in the Marine Corps as a Platoon Commander in both the Infantry and a special operations unit called Force Recon. During his military career, Jake led four operational deployments, including two combat tours in Iraq and disaster relief operations in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Asian tsunami. Jake was awarded the Bronze Star for actions in combat during his second tour in Iraq. From his experiences, Jake came to believe that the “War on Terror” wouldn’t be won on the battlefield alone: the contributing causes of terrorism—disenfranchisement, lack of education and extreme poverty—must also be eradicated. Jake left his career in the Marine Corps and enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) to build Nuru International, an organization focused on ending extreme poverty in remote, rural areas. Jake graduated with an MBA in June 2008 and led a team to launch Nuru Kenya later that year. Since then, Nuru Kenya and Nuru Ethiopia have enabled over 60,000 people to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. As founder and CEO of Nuru International, Jake has received several honors: Rainer Arnhold Fellowship (2009); Unsung Hero of Compassion presented by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (2014); Gerson Lehrman Group Social Impact Fellowship (2014); Ballard Center Social Innovator of the Year (2014); TEDxBYU speaker (2014); story told in 40 Chances by Howard G. Buffet (2014); White House Champion of Change (2014); Senate resolution in his home state of West Virginia for efforts in addressing global poverty (2015); Presidential Leadership Scholar (2015); and coverage in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, ABC, Devex, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, among others. When not in Sub-Saharan Africa, Jake stays in San Clemente, California. Jake is 40 years old and is fighting to end extreme poverty in his lifetime.
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Delegate
CEO, Temasek Trust
Jacqueline (Jackie) Wong is the CEO of Temasek Trust, which is the philanthropic arm of Temasek, an Asia investment firm headquartered in Singapore. Previously a senior partner with leading executive search firm Egon Zehnder International, Jackie was the Asia Pacific leader of their Financial Services Practice as well as the Global leader of their Sovereign Wealth Funds Practice. In her earlier career she was an investment banker with Manufacturers Hanover Trust (now JP Morgan Chase) in Hong Kong and New York, and subsequently held senior executive positions with Hill and Knowlton and Whirlpool Corporation in Europe and Asia respectively.
A graduate of Yale University, Jackie also attended the Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development (PMD).
Concurrent with her position as Temasek Trust’s CEO, Jackie is also the CEO and Executive Director of Temasek Management Services, a corporate services firm which is wholly owned by Temasek. Jackie is a board member of both the IMD Foundation and Supervisory Boards, the Stewardship and Corporate Governance Center (SCGC), the Wealth Management Institute (WMI), the Lien Centre for Social Innovation, the Singapore Technologies Endowment Programme (STEP), and the Singapore Millennium Foundation (SMF). She is also a member of the International Advisory Council at the Stanford University Rock Center for Corporate Governance.
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Delegate
President, The Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Foundation
Jacki Zehner dedicates her time and resources towards the advancement of women and girls. As the President of The Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Foundation, a role she has held for the past 15 years, Jacki funds a wide variety of projects and organizations, with a particular focus on women's rights, women's foundations, movement building, and media. Jacki has served as the Chief Engagement Officer and President of Women Moving Millions (WMM) since 2012, with the goal of mobilizing unprecedented resources for the advancement of women and girls. In addition to her work with WMM, Jacki serves on a number of boards and advisory committees, and is an active writer, speaker, consultant, and featured expert on topics relating to women and wealth, philanthropy, and leadership. Since 2013, Jacki has been a blogger on the LinkedIn Influencer platform, attracting over 200,000 subscribers to date, and over the past several years, she has invested in and executive produced numerous documentaries that illuminate today’s pressing social issues. In 2015, Jacki had the privilege of being named to the Economist’s Global Diversity List, and was honored to receive the Zions Bank Women in Leadership Award. Prior to her philanthropic focus, Jacki was a Partner and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in New York City, where she was the youngest woman and first female trader to make partner. She currently lives in Park City, Utah with her husband Greg and two teenage children.
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Delegate
Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Saïd Business School
Marc Ventresca is an academic researcher and teacher, on faculty at Oxford Said Business School / Wolfson College since 2004, with focus on innovation, infrastructure, and impact. Before that, on faculty at Kellogg/Northwestern, Naval Postgraduate School, U of Illinois, U of California and with visiting posts at Copenhagen Business School and Mediterranean Business School (Tunis, Tunisia). His work focuses on early moments in markets as well as market-building initiatives in several sectors, in the context of 'unsettled spaces', that is economic and cultural world reshaped by emerging technologies, change in regulatory and governance regimes, and platform capabilities. Prior work is on entrepreneurial activity and social networks, on the rise of alternative financial markets and protocols, and social innovation in a range of complex contexts. He is PI for an Oxford initiative investigating dynamics of space commerce and governance. He has a long, varied affiliation w our Skoll Centre.
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Delegate
Co-founder, Imago Global Grassroots
I founded IMAGOGG, a nonprofit that works with grassroots, social entrepreneurs and governments around the world to scale up innovations from the Base of the Pyramid.
I also teach “Scaling up for Development Impact” at Harvard Kennedy School since 2014, executive education for the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs and for the Bernard Van Leer Foundation.
I am an economist, worked at the World Bank for most of my professional life, including as VP for South Asia where I managed a 39 billion dollar portfolio, between 2008 and 2013. Before that I was a Country Director for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Peru and Paraguay.
I am part of the UN HIgh Level Panel on Digital Cooperation and frequent guest at CNN Dinero.
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Delegate
Filmmaker and President, Vermilion Films
Irene is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries have shown theatrically, at film festivals and on television worldwide. She has collaborated with diverse global partners, including HBO, Google, the Gates Foundation, UNICEF, the US State Department, and numerous broadcasters and foundations.
With filmmaking partner, Dr. Larry Brilliant, Irene most recently made Open Your Eyes, a short film following one Nepali family’s struggle to regain their sight. Together they also made The Final Inch, about the global effort to eradicate polio, which in 2011 was nominated for an Oscar, three Emmys, and won the International Documentary Association’s Pare Lorentz award for social justice filmmaking. In 2014, she directed One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp, a short film exploring how children grieve that won the 2014 Prime Time Emmy for Best Childrens Programming. In 2011, she made Saving Pelican 895 which also won an Emmy for its affecting music score and followed the life of a single bird rescued from the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. In 2007, Irene turned the camera on her own family to make her first feature-length documentary Hear and Now, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, received numerous Audience and Jury awards around the world, a 2008 Peabody Award, and a nomination for Documentary of the Year by the Producer’s Guild of America.
Irene’s passion for documentary portraiture began as a still photographer following lives of the Deaf and the Blind living in the Himalayas. While living in Kathmandu, she published her first book “Buddhas in Disguise” and made her first film, Isharra, in 1993. She later returned to New York to produce and shoot award-winning documentaries and work as a Producer with CBS News Sunday Morning.
Irene is a graduate of New York University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Portland, Oregon, USA with her husband, Matt, and their three sons.
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Delegate
Head of Investments & Partnerships, Forest Stewardship Council
Ian is an ecologist, strategist, and sustainability advocate who is the Head of Investments & Partnerships for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the global standard in certifying responsible forest products. He has been at the forefront of the organization’s strategic realignment and associated global transformation, which is designed to turn the tide of the forest crisis. Ian hails from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and is a firm believer that market based solutions are the quickest, most powerful pathway to leaving future generations a legacy of planetary health.
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Delegate
Producer, Changing the Rules project., BBC
Experienced Series Producer specialising in multi-media seasons which work across the BBC's suite of outlets, including social, Online, TV, radio, UK, Global and language services. Specialisms include business, technology and audience-led projects.
Commission and produce multimedia series for entire suite of BBC News outlets.
Using social media and creating online, video and radio content for special series which are broadcast across BBC News, including BBC TV News UK and World, BBC Online, BBC Radio 4/5 and BBC World Service as well as BBC Language broadcasting especially Arabic, Mundo and Russian.
Recent series include "The Power of Big Data", "The Next Billionaires", "The Boss", "The New Middle Class" "Freedom" and "What If?"
Currently working on a multi-media multi-language project about social entrepreneurs in Asia, Africa and the Middle East with the support of Skoll.
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Delegate
Secretary-General, Roberto Marinho Foundation
Hugo Barreto has been the Secretary General of Fundação Roberto Marinho since 2001. Prior to that he was FRM’s creative director. He has wide experience in the field of educational television and was responsible for the creation of pioneer science and environmental tv series in Brazilian television. He coordinates the Telecurso, one of the largest education projects in Brazil, that has enabled 1.5 million people to complete their basic education. Hugo is also responsible for the Futura Channel - an educational tv totally supported by private corporations, watched by more than 35 million Brazilians, including 1.8 million teachers and educators. Under his leadership FRM implemented some of the most visited museums in Brazil – the Museum of Portuguese Language and the Museum of Football, the Museum of Art of Rio and the Museum of Tomorrow
He currently leads the creation of the Museum of Image and Sound, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and the reconstruction, after the fire (in 2015), of the Museum of Portuguese Language
Mr Barreto holds a Baccalaureate degree in Philosophy and was chairman of the Board of GIFE, Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies, 2004-2007. GIFE is a model in Latin America in the area of private social investment
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Delegate
Educator, expressive arts therapist, artist, environmental educator, environmental activist and feminist. Executive Director and Ciudad Saludable; partner and Director of ”Urban interventions and Performance of the Peruvian Gender Observatory. Diploma in Environmental Teaching for Sustainable Development from the University of Querétaro - Mexico; Diploma in Community Relations and Social Responsibility from ESAN University, Peru and diploma in Anthropology and Photography from the Image Center in Peru, diploma in “Expressive Arts Therapy” from TAE Peru. Currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Expressive Arts Therapy with a specialty in “Peace Building and conflict transformation” in the European Graduate School - Switzerland.
Worked on inclusive recycling projects, circular economy, health, art, education, gender and environmental communication in urban, rural and indigenous communities for more than 20 years in Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
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Delegate
Chair, Virgin Unite
Holly Branson was born in 1981 and is the daughter of Sir Richard and Lady Branson. Holly spent her formative years in London, Oxford and the British Virgin Islands.
Holly attended St. Edward's School, Oxford, followed by 6 years at University College London where she pursued her long-held dream of becoming a doctor along with completing an BSc in physiology. On finishing in 2007, Holly began working at Chelsea and Westminster hospital as a junior NHS doctor.
In August of 2008, Holly joined the Virgin Group. After a year of undertaking an internship throughout all of the Virgin companies Holly joined the management team at Virgin Management. Now Holly’s time is spent as an active participant of the Virgin Group Partnership team forming a greater understanding of all Virgin companies and prospective new companies and spearheading innovative internal people related projects such as the Virgin Purpose initiative and Unlimited Leave.
Holly is Chair of Virgin Unite (the Virgin Group foundation) and Big Change - a charity that Holly and her brother set up with some friends which focuses on improving the lives of young people in the UK. She is also a Patron of Free the Children UK, Co-Chair of We Day UK and a Patron of Virgin Money Giving.
Holly loves adventure and to challenge herself. She has climbed Mont Blanc (to launch Big Change), attempted to break the mono hull sailing record across the Atlantic, and completed several marathons and sprint triathlons. Holly’s next challenge will be as a Core Team member of the Virgin Strive Challenge 2016. In September 2016 the core team will hike 90km into Northern Italy, cycle the entire length of Italy, swim to Sicily, mountain bike to the foothills of Mount Etna before running a half-marathon to the summit of the infamous volcano. The entire challenge is over 2,000km. Holly can’t wait to get started!
She currently lives in London and is married to Freddie Andrewes with twins Etta and Artie.
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Delegate
Associate Professor of International Business, University of Oxford
Hiram Samel is an Associate Professor of International Business at Saïd Business School and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. His research draws on multiple disciplines including comparative political economy, technology strategy, the economics of innovation and labor studies. His work appears in Regulation & Governance, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Mechanical Engineering and he has co-authored a book on ethical consumption, Looking Behind the Label: Global Industries and the Conscientious Consumer from the Indiana University Press. He brings extensive management experience to his research, having been an entrepreneur for 25 years before receiving his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2013. He is an investor in and director of a variety of early-stage companies. He is also on the advisory board of the Boston Review and a trustee of various nonprofit organizations.
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Delegate
Associate Director, I-Think Initiative, Joseph Rotman School of Management
Nogah Kornberg is the Associate Director at I-Think Initiative at the Rotman School of Management. Here she works with school boards and educators in K-12 to enable metacognition and creative problem solving for students and education leadership. Through her mentorship, Nogah focuses on shifting mindsets that help educators reimagine what is possible.
Most recently, Nogah collaborated with the Ontario Ministry of Education to produce an online video resource highlighting the work of teachers in the I-Think community. The resource names the work of I-Think in Integrative Thinking as a top approach for innovations in teaching and learning. With the I-Think team, she also designed and led design thinking sessions across the province. Bringing together a diversity of stakeholders, the Ministry of Education was curious about how they might promote and support student well-being. The team is writing a report capturing insights from the sessions. Prior to Rotman, Nogah was a high school teacher and a Founder and Executive Director of the Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Gates Ventures
Niranjan Bose is currently the Managing Director (Health & Life Sciences) at Gates Ventures LLC, where he serves as the Science Advisor to Mr. Bill Gates. Prior to joining Gates Ventures in August 2014, he was the Chief of Staff to the President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
He was with the Gates Foundation from 2007 through 2014, which included a few years with their Enterics and Diarrheal Diseases (EDD) program strategy team, where he was responsible for managing a portfolio of investments, which included clinical development of enteric vaccines (rotavirus, cholera, enterotoxigenic E coli and shigella).
Prior to joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he was with Strategic Decisions Group ( and SDG Life Sciences). Niranjan holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Dartmouth College and an MS in biological sciences and BS in pharmaceutical sciences from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India.
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Delegate
CEO & Founder, KARAMA
Hibaaq Osman is the founder of Karama, a movement to end violence against women, and deliver sustainable, inclusive peace and democracy in Africa and the Middle East. Taking grassroots issues to the global stage, Hibaaq’s career has encompassed reconciliation and peacebuilding in Somalia and Sudan, to campaigning for justice and recognition for Korea’s ‘comfort women’, and supporting grassroots women activists to build constituencies and secure their rights in the wake of the revolutions across the Arab region. Named one of the world’s 500cMost Influential Muslims, Hibaaq is a member of the UNAOC’s Women’s Alliance for Peace and has previously served on a number of advisory groups and boards, including UN Women’s Civil Society Advisory Group, and the board of Donor Direct Action. Hibaaq is a senior fellow at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership and a member of the Yale African Women’s Leadership Network. Hibaaq also recently founded the Global Women's Think Tank, in partnership with the University of Central Florida.
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Delegate
Associate Fellow, responsAbility Investments
Henry has over 20 years of experience across the sectors of inclusive finance, sustainable investing, and political and economic development. He has worked across the private, public and social sectors liasing both on the investing and investor sides. He has deep experience in leading organizations that contribute to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via sustainable growth policies and investments. Henry is currently an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School where he directs the Oxford Fundamentals of Sustainable Investing Program. He is also a Lead Financial Sector Consultant to CGAP, the World Bank-housed think tank dedicated to financial inclusion. Previously, he worked for responsAbility Investments AG, Morgan Stanley, the United Nations Development Program and the Government of Costa Rica.
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Delegate
CEO, Clinton Health Access Initiative
Dr. Neil Buddy Shah is the CEO at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organization operating in 36 countries around the world, committed to saving lives and improving health outcomes in low- & middle-income countries.
Dr. Shah was previously the Managing Director of GiveWell, a research and funding organization that directs hundreds of millions of dollars per year to programs in global health and development. He is the co-founder, former CEO and now Board Chair of IDinsight, a global development data analytics and advisory firm with offices across Africa, Asia, and the US. He worked previously at the World Bank and MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
Dr. Shah holds an AB in economics from Harvard, an MD from Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and an MPA in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Shah is the Chair of Anthropic AI's Long-Term Benefit Trust and sits on the Boards of Educate Girls, Prevail Fund, and Harvard IEMI.
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Delegate
Senior Executive, Small Foundation
Henning Ringholz is the Global Market Development and Livelihoods Adviser for GOAL, an international development organization with an annual program spend in excess of 200m US$. In this position he initiated and currently leads the private sector engagement, market development and social enterprise and impact investing practice of the organization.
The organization has seen significant growth in this area in the past years and is making a market-driven, entrepreneurial approach a cornerstone of their development practice. GOAL is becoming a catalyst for the development of local market systems, mentoring and supporting small and growing businesses through programs linking them with finance, value chain and IT partners.
Henning holds degrees from Cambridge University in social and political sciences (BA) and technology policy (M.Phil.), and has more than 15 years’ experience in business, entrepreneurship and market-based development
His personal experience as an entrepreneur in the fast food sector helps Henning understand the challenges of start-ups and small and growing businesses, as well as their crucial role in the development of local economies.
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Delegate
Executive Director, CASH Coalition: Climate Action for Small Holder Farmers
Heiner Baumann is the Executive Director of the CASH Coalition. CASH’s goal is to make regenerative agriculture and climate action profitable for smallholder farmers.
He is also a Co-Founder and Board Advisor of Precision Development (PxD). PxD delivers critical information and digital services to > 9 million smallholder farmers in developing countries.
He has over twenty years of experience in starting, funding, managing and advising high growth social change organizations focused on climate-smart, sustainable and restorative agriculture, clean energy, community health, education, and mobile phone based advisory services in developing countries through PxD, Pilot House Philanthropy, the Barr Foundation, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and New Profit, Inc. Heiner worked for 5 years with McKinsey & Co.
He has written about and been a speaker on disruptive innovation in the social sector, nonprofit capacity building and venture philanthropy.
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Delegate
Creative Director, LifeNotes Wisdom Inc
Certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Rubenfeld Synergist (body-mind therapy), and Distinguished Toastmaster, Heather Skoll, has stepped up to the social entrepreneurial stage at the community level after discovering her own strengths to motivate change.
Remarried in 2009, Heather and her husband Ken requested their guests make donations in support of Free the Children. Through their friends’ and family’s generosity, a new school classroom was built in Kenya. Heather and Ken later travelled to this particular village with Me to We, and saw how a simple decision and subsequent action from one side of the world led to positive outcomes on the other side of the world.
This experience left a lasting impact on Heather, and her enthusiasm for Free the Children snowballed into a grassroots initiative called We Can Change the World Day (WCCTWD). Since its beginnings in 2013, WCCTWD has raised more than $30,000 in support of the village of Oloirien in Kenya. For its tenacity and success in engaging youth in volunteerism, leadership, and social action, WCCTWD’s efforts were recognized by the Canadian House of Commons in February 2015 (www.wecanchangetheworld.ca).
Heather’s volunteering and community efforts motivated her to participate in the “Social Entrepreneurship” class by the Copenhagen Business School via Coursera. Through this online course, she became a part of a team behind the web platform Grow Social which connects local food and sustainability communities.
Through her life journey, Heather garnered much wisdom to share and a passion to mentor others. Her company LifeNotes Wisdom has refocused to bolster youth and the young at heart to find their passion, follow their path, and create change. The mission? To help the emergent millienial population explore meaningful employment, develop new skills and assets, and cultivate their own entrepreneurial spirit so that they are ready for any challenges that come their way.
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Delegate
Interim Executive Director, Girls Not Brides
As Interim Executive Director, Heather B. Hamilton is responsible for ensuring that Girls Not Brides delivers on its strategy and advances our collective efforts to end child marriage.
Most recently, she worked at the UNICEF Asia-Pacific Regional Office on the Public Finance for Children Initiative. Previously, she served as as Executive Director of the Connect U.S. Fund, a multi-foundation grant making initiative, and as Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff at Citizens for Global Solutions. In these roles she led she led several coalitions and networks on global issues, including leading the Washington Working Group International Criminal Court and launching the coalition that denied John Bolton Senate confirmation as UN Ambassador. She has significant experience in organisational leadership and change management; advocacy and strategic communications; and has led numerous multi-organisational strategy and messaging initiatives on advocacy goals. She holds a Master of Arts in International Peace and Conflict Resolution, with a concentration on gender in conflict. She speaks English and French.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Linked Foundation
Nancy Swanson is a founding member and the executive director of Linked Foundation, a private foundation that invests in solutions that improve the health and economic self-reliance of women in Latin America and the United States. She served as board chair of the Eleos Foundation where she directed the foundation in investing in pioneering business solutions to eliminate poverty in the developing world. Prior to her decade of work in impact investing, she held senior roles in the private and entrepreneurial telecommunications sector in strategic sales, marketing, and new business development. Nancy has served on several boards including Pro Mujer, the Global Partnerships/Eleos Social Venture Fund, Leading from Within and the Carpinteria Children’s Project and is a current board member of MCE Social Capital and the Solidarity Dental Foundation. Nancy received her M.A. in from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California, and her B.A. from UC San Diego
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Delegate
CEO, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Monique Villa is CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Founder of TrustLaw and Trust Women. She has been ranked among the world’s 100 most influential people in Business Ethics by Ethisphere. Since her appointment in 2008, she has transformed the Foundation, launching a number of programmes that leverage the expertise of Thomson Reuters to trigger change and empower people across the world. Among them; TrustLaw, the Foundation's global pro bono programme dedicated to spreading the practice of pro bono; and Trust Women, a fast-growing movement to empower women and to fight slavery worldwide. Under Villa, the Foundation also covers the world’s under reported stories, and offers training and media development to strengthen free media globally.
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Delegate
Executive Director, UTZ Certified
Han de Groot is Executive Director of UTZ, a programme and label for sustainable agriculture, since 2010.
Han holds a degree in Agricultural Economics and started his career with Novib, (later: Oxfam-Novib) where he was responsible for a,o. their work in East and Southern Africa.
He spent 12 years as a senior civil servant in the Dutch Court of Audit, Ministry of Home Affairs (HR of Civil Service) and the Department of Nature.
His engagement with UTZ certified is his most fulfilling job at a cross- roads of civil society, private sector and public interests so far.
UTZ
In the last decade, UTZ Certified became the largest program and label for the sustainable farming of cocoa and coffee worldwide; where farmers implement good agricultural practices and manage their farms profitably with respect for people and planet.
UTZ is focused on sustainable markets and works together with the largest food-companies in the world providing a scalable and financially sustainable model that is benefiting over half a million farmers, more than 300.000 workers, their families and the environment.
Our expertise lies in our multi-stakeholder approach; mobilizing a powerful coalition of relevant stakeholders to take an active role, while at the same time constantly assessing and fine-tuning our own policies and working methods to have the best possible impact. This is based on a strong vision on how aid and trade should reinforce each other, using markets to achieve sustainable impact at scale.
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Delegate
Director, Strategic Initiatives, Jeff Skoll Group
Molly Parker is Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Jeff Skoll Group. In her role, she oversees and manages key partnerships and projects across the Jeff Skoll Group portfolio of organizations, including the Skoll Foundation, Participant, and Capricorn Investment Group.
Molly began her career in the technology sector, working in e-commerce and business intelligence, before transitioning into impact. Prior to the Jeff Skoll Group, Molly worked at the national anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength in Washington, DC known for its No Kid Hungry Campaign, which is committed to ending child hunger in the United States.
Molly holds an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School a B.A. in Government from Cornell University. She lives in New York City and volunteers with the United Nations and the Cornell Alumni Ambassador Network.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Geneva Global Performance Philanthropy
Guy is a philanthropy executive with more than two decades of experience in philanthropy strategy consulting, donor collaboratives, and program design and management (in both development and humanitarian contexts). Guy serves as a trusted advisor to preeminent foundations, philanthropists, and social sector leaders.
Guy is Managing Director at Geneva Global, a philanthropic consulting company that works with philanthropists, charitable organizations, and corporations to help them achieve the extraordinary. Guy leads the program division, and as a member of the executive leadership team at Geneva Global shares responsibility for organizational strategy and business development.
Guy has lived and worked in Myanmar, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Turkey and the UK. He is currently based in Philadelphia in the US. He has a Masters degree in Children's Rights from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), and a Masters in Social Work from the University of York (UK). Guy is a UK-qualified Social Worker, and has a Bachelor's degree from Durham University in Theology.
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Delegate
Advisor, Climate Innovation Fund, Microsoft
Leading the development of MS's emerging market portfolio focused on equitable climate solutions and MS's approach to measuring and managing impact.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Enza Capital
Mike is cofounder and Managing Partner at Enza Capital, a multi stage venture capital firm backing founders and teams using technology to solve large and meaningful problems across Africa. He has previous experience across 4 continents as both a venture investor and public markets investor, as well as a founder and venture-backed entrepreneur. He sits as a Director on the Boards of multiple tech companies across East, West, and Southern Africa and is based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Delegate
Strategic Director, Meltwater
Greg Coussa is MEST’s Strategic Director, focusing on the organization's scale strategy and partnerships opportunities. Currently, Greg oversees MEST's partnership with Mastercard Foundation, including MEST’s three new, innovative programs: Pre-MEST, MEST Express, and MEST Scale.
Greg is a Senior Fellow in strategy for the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a Hilton Prize Coalition Fellow for the Human Rights organization, Tostan.
Greg serves on the board for The BOMA Project, a high-impact nonprofit for ultra-poor women in the drought-threatened arid lands of Africa – the true “last mile” of economic and social isolation.
Previously, Greg founded and scaled the U.S. business of Spring Impact, a consultancy focused on guiding social ventures to scale geographically. During his time at Spring Impact, Greg worked with a variety of social ventures across the globe, established and managed the board of directors, built the US team, and grew annual earned revenue to over $1M.
Greg earned his MBA from Said Business School at the University of Oxford and his bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from UCLA.
Greg's published works include:
- Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR): To Impact Millions, the Social Sector Needs to Scale Scaling Up
- Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR): Enough Innovation Already!
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Delegate
Managing Director, Global Impact Investing Network
Giselle Leung is Managing Director at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), where she oversees the development of strategic partnerships to advance the GIIN’s work in scaling impact investing with integrity. Giselle joined the GIIN in 2010 as the founding manager of the Investors’ Council, a leadership group of experienced, large-scale impact investors, and has overseen a number of the GIIN’s field-building initiatives.
Giselle began her career at Cambridge Associates, a global investment advisory firm; was a business strategy consultant at Braun Consulting; and helped build inclusive business strategies for multinational corporations in India, Columbia, Mexico, and China at Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama advising rural artisan groups. Giselle holds an MBA and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia Business School and School of International and Public Affairs.
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Delegate
Board Spouse, Skoll Global Threats Fund
I received my Ph.D. and MPH from the University of Michigan in social epidemiology.My research has focussed on increasing access of women in rural settings in Asia and Africa to eye health care. I have done this in my role as a founder of the Seva Foundation, along with my husband, Larry Brilliant.I serve on the Commission on Aging in Marin county and the local board of agencies working in disaster relief.I have trained as an Iyengar Yoga instructor and study Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
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Delegate
GM, BorrowLenses, Shutterfly, inc.
Eugénie FitzGerald is the Sr Director and General Manager of BorrowLenses, an online rental business with a sustainable soul that is changing the way photographers and videographers access gear and expertise in the U.S. She is a growth-oriented senior operating executive and general manager, whose career chasing market-driven social change has zig and zagged through non-profits, private and publicly traded companies, and government. In her current role, she has end-to-end P&L responsibility, sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas of the business, including marketing, technology, product and analytics. She is the Treasurer and Board member of the Astraea Foundation, a public foundation that invests in LGBTQI movements who challenge oppression and seed change in the U.S. and internationally.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Humanize Institute
Georgia Pessoa is lawyer by training and comes to Humanize with a range of experience. She has worked at the Roberto Marinho Foundation, leading the environmental area and prior at Rare, serving as the Executive Director of the organization in Brazil. Before she has worked at Moore Foundation, Funbio, WWF, and she had set up the Latin America Regional Climate Initiative (LARCI) in Brazil. LARCI is a consortium of four foundations: ClimateWorks, Children's Investment Fund, William and Flora Hewlett, and Oak. She has a combination of technical skills, experience in conservation, fundraising, and sustainable use endeavors, policies, compliance and legal advisory. She brings a good blend and perspective of NGOs, governments, private sector and funders to Rare.
Georgia has abilities to develop and implement socio-environmental programs, strategies, projects, grants, legal frameworks and economic instruments in South America, with over thirteen year’s experience. Team player with proven negotiating skills, highly committed to achieving results. Well connected in the conservation and philanthropic community, and continuing constructive working relationship with dedicated environmentalists in the Brazilian government, private sector, NGOs and universities.
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Delegate
Georgia works as the Communications Lead at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. She brings creativity and a diverse skillset to the Centre, helping to drive the mission and message forward.
She graduated with a BA(Hons) in Costume Design at the Arts University College Bournemouth and has worked within different industries and sectors around the UK. Georgia has a keen interest in Anthropology; curious about social culture and its impact on the collective community and individual identity.
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Delegate
Chief Dreamer, Building Tomorrow
George Srour is the co-founder and Chief Dreamer of Building Tomorrow, Inc. (BT). Under Srour’s leadership, Building Tomorrow has constructed over 80 schools with classroom space for over 25,000 students in Uganda while recruiting and training more than 7,000 Community Education Volunteers (CEVs) to deliver the organization’s Thriving Schools program to an additional 100,000 children nationwide. Since 2014, Building Tomorrow has brought back to school more than 54,000 formerly out-of-school children. Through its construction and Thriving Schools work, Building Tomorrow reaches over 125,000 students daily. Srour graduated from The College of William & Mary with a concentration in government and international relations. Srour has been recognized for his work in the field of social entrepreneurship by being named an Echoing Green Fellow, a member of the GOOD100, Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 and winner of the International Center of Indiana’s Global Impression Award.
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Delegate
Finance Director, Peter Möhrle Foundation
As the Director Finance for Peter Möhrle Holding, Georg Tünsmeyer is responsible for the Asset Controlling and Reporting divisions as well as for strategic projects.
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Delegate
Advisor, IDEO.org
Trained in librarianship and information science, have worked in financial data and also in schools as special needs aide, classroom aide and front office. Supporter of IDEO.org and have had the opportunity to visit and work on a project in Zambia. Curious about the world and how design thinking can help provide solutions particularly in the areas of women’s health and education. Interested to investigate how data collection and analysis might highlight areas of interest and provide the metrics for measuring success. As a spinner and weaver, fascinated by local textiles and their methods of production.
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Delegate
Faculty, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Gayle Northrop is a consultant, coach, educator and lifelong student of social enterprise, innovation and impact. She is on faculty at the UCLA Anderson School of Management where she teaches a course on “Sector-Agnostic Models of Impact” and a global immersion course, “Social Entrepreneurship in South Africa.” She is Senior Faculty Advisor to Impact@Anderson and faculty advisor in Anderson’s field study programs, specializing in international pro-social projects.
As Senior Advisor and former adjunct faculty at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Gayle helped launch and was Associate Director of Spark Health, a program assisting government officials in Africa strengthen their health systems and improve health outcomes, including the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV. She currently works with the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship on systems change work and scaling social innovations in health in the global south.
Gayle is also President of Northrop Nonprofit Consulting, a firm specializing in strategy, governance and organization development for social enterprises and NGOs worldwide. She is a coach for Red Bull Amaphiko, a growing, global social entrepreneurship program; she teaches in the Institute for High Quality Health, a training program for community health clinics; and she speaks frequently on business for social good, planning for social impact, and leading change.
Gayle received her MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and two BA degrees from Stanford University. She has served on numerous boards, including PATA, The Giving Keys, United Friends of the Children, New Media Advocacy Project, and Generation Ubuntu. When not on a plane, Gayle lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two teenage boys.
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Delegate
Country Director, Aman Foundation
Ahmereen Reza is the Country Director of Aman Foundation UK. She is the former CEO and now Director of the British Pakistan Foundation, an umbrella organisation that connects British Pakistani professionals, charities and development institutions across Britain and highlights the concern raised by the diaspora. Ahmereen Reza is the Founder of Developments in Literacy Trust UK, a charity that educates girls in remote and rural Pakistan and funds Literacy courses for British Multi-ethnic minority mothers of under-performing students in the UK. Ahmereen received her Masters from MIT with a focus on Community Based Sustainable Development at the grass roots. Much of her work has focused on evolving effective community based self-help and gender equality programmes, promoting community advocacy, pushing for legislative reforms where necessary, and identifying sustainable public-private partnerships for such communities.
In October 2015 Ahmereen was awarded the British Communities Honours Award. In September 2014, Ahmereen received the Eurasian Award recognising her work with women & multi ethnic minority communities in the UK. In April 2013, she was recognised under the Social and Humanitarian banner as 'Women of the Future' at the Asian Women of Achievements Awards. She has served on the founding committee of the British Pakistan Foundation. She sits on the cross parliamentary steering committee of ‘Women Building Britain’.
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Delegate
Director, Ashoka
Mark is the European Director of Ashoka, the global network of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Since 1980, Ashoka has provided stipends and support to more than 3,500 'Ashoka Fellows' in over 80 countries. Ashoka is dedicated to fostering a world where everyone can be a 'Change'maker' - in other words, where everyone has the skills, abilities and values to make a positive social contribution. To this end, Ashoka also partners directly with schools and universities, and has identified over 400 'Changemaker Schools' and 35 'Changemaker Campuses' worldwide that are leading the way in a new model of education that helps young people become fully empowered changemakers.
Mark is also the founder and CEO of Chelwood Capital, a social investment firm. For the past decade he has been a leading impact investor who has helped raise investment for many social causes ranging from micro-finance and off-grid solar energy to marine habitat conservation. He is the author of the forthcoming 'Social Investment Toolkit' - a handbook for social entrepreneurs looking to raise social investment. Mark is based in London but travels frequently between Europe and East Asia. He is a frequent writer and speaker on social innovation and finance.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Heartlines
Garth is a doctor qualifying at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1987, with further qualifications in maternal and child health. In 1992 he combined his interest in story and health to found the NGO Soul City: the Institute for Health and Development Communication.
Soul City works in 10 countries. It has produced award winning TV and radio dramas supported by print media, social mobilisation and advocacy. It consistently reaches over 35 million people in the region. It communicates around all aspects of public health, in particular HIV/AIDS and has been evaluated as having significant impact. It has the largest youth movement in South Africa with 160 000 members in over 7500 clubs. Soul City has been the recipient of multiple awards for social change, development and communication. www.soulcity.org.za
In 2002 Garth established Heartlines the Centre for Values promotion an NGO with a similar approach to Soul City however instead of a public health lens, Heartlines uses a values/moral lens through film and print stories, to tackle society’s big issues. Heartlines has won a number of prestigious international awards for film and social change.
In 2014 garth established forgood, a for profit we based platform that connects people to approved causes so that they can give of their skills and goods to real time needs. It licenses its platform to facilitate track and monitor cooperate community engagement
Garth is a Schwab fellow of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is on the WEF Global Agenda Council for social networking, is a Senior Ashoka fellow and is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative.
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Delegate
Senior Programme Manager, University of Oxford
Maria Nikolou is an entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial leader. She currently designs, develops and delivers curriculum courses and extra-curriculum programmes in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, at Saïd Business School and the Engineering department at Oxford University. These include undergraduates and post graduate students in business and science. Maria lectures, tutors and supervises undergraduates and graduates on their projects.
In 2012, she led the establishment of the Oxford Seed Fund. Maria now manages and oversees the running of the Seed Fund, which is aimed at early stage ventures founded by Oxford University students and alumni. A board member at Venturefest, a regional event focused on SMEs, she contributes to the strategic vision and mission of the event.
A scientist by training with a cross over to business, Maria is interested in supporting global innovative solutions for both commercial and social challenges. Maria holds an MBA (London, UK) and a PhD in Physics (US). She has worked as a Post-Doctoral Associate at Cornell University, NY and has international experience working in both academia and industry.
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Delegate
Gabriel is the Associate Director of Video Production & photographer at the Skoll Foundation where he helps tell stories of social change agents around the world.
He got started working in video at age 13 at KDOL-TV in Oakland, CA, and then went on to study theater at Trinity Rep Conservatory. He was Creative Director of the Youth Sounds’ “Factory", an advanced filmmaking lab for Bay Area youth. Works created under his mentorship won top prizes at dozens of national festivals, including an Emmy. He was an adjunct professor of film production at San Francisco State University.
His indie narrative feature film "Less" is an urban fairytale about a man who has chosen to live on the streets in San Francisco. It received an honorable mention for the Grand Jury prize at the Dances With Films Festival.
His short documentary “We Are In The Field: Adventures of a Nepalese Environmental Activist” has played in numerous festivals.
In his personal work as a social artist, Gabriel co-created the Vulnerable Rally as a radical experiment—blending street theatre, shadow work, community building, and social/political commentary.
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Delegate
As Vice President of the Skoll Foundation's Connect & Champion division, Suzana helps drive the department's strategy and operations, building the Foundation's platform, network, and storytelling assets to support social innovators driving social change around the world.
A seasoned philanthropy and tech executive, brand strategist, storyteller, and human rights advocate, Suzana has focused her career on advancing justice, equity, and human rights for all, around the world.
Prior to joining Skoll, Suzana led Marcom departments and brands for philanthropies like the Ford Foundation, NGOs like the International Center for Transitional Justice, and corporations like IBM/Lotus.
Suzana has developed global strategies, advocacy initiatives, and public campaigns for justice, human rights, and national transition efforts including truth commissions, tribunals, reparations, and memorials around the world.
She serves on the board of Media Impact Funders to catalyze greater philanthropic support of trusted, public interest media and journalism.
Suzana holds a graduate degree in international affairs from Columbia and an undergraduate degree from Harvard.
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Delegate
CEO, Maliasili
Fred has been working for 20 years in African conservation to develop effective strategies and lasting solutions, support innovative local organizations, and build diverse partnerships. He’s lived and worked in the field with Maasai communities in Tanzania, designed and led research on the politics of conservation in Africa, and played a leading role in global networks and collaborations that span land rights, wildlife conservation, and ecotourism. He gravitates towards creating new organizations and ventures as a self-identifying ‘conservation entrepreneur’, which led him to found Maliasili in 2010 to fill a key gap in African conservation: to champion leading local organizations and help them build the organizations and networks they need to deliver on their mission and achieve their goals. He’s been a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow and Henry Arnhold Conservation Fellow. and lives with his family in Vermont.
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Delegate
Partner, McKinsey & Company
Susan Colby is a partner in the San Francisco office of McKinsey & Company and a leader in the Social Sector Practice. She leads the Firm’s North American Education Practice working with philanthropies, districts, charter schools, higher education institutions and companies to achieve unprecedented results in K-12 and higher education. Susan recently served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Stupski Foundation where she led work to reinvent public education from the statehouse to the student so that students could own and drive their learning. Prior to this, Susan was a founding partner of The Bridgespan Group and led their work in K-12 education and philanthropic strategy for more than a decade. Susan has also served as co-president of the Sustainable Development Sector at Monsanto starting businesses and supporting organizations to serve small-holder farmers in Mexico, Kenya, and India. Earlier in her career, she worked at McKinsey & Company. She is a member of the inaugural class of the Aspen Institute-NewSchools (Pahara) Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education. Susan received a B.A. from American University cum laude and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
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Delegate
Executive Director, World Faith
Frank Fredericks is the founder of World Faith, a global movement of interfaith youth tackling global poverty, and Mean Communications, a digital agency helping startups and nonprofits with branding, social media, advertising, and marketing. After graduating from NYU, Frank worked in the music industry, managing artists such as Lady Gaga. In 2006, he founded World Faith, which has expanded to 14 countries and mobilized 5,000 volunteers in over 170,000 hours of service. As an active blogger, Frank has contributed to the Huffington Post, Washington Post, and Sojourners. Frank has been interviewed on Good Morning America, NPR, and New York Magazine. He is a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and is an alumnus of the IFYC Fellowship, Soliya Fellowship, AMENDS at Stanford, Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship, and YouthActionNet Fellowship. Frank is one of two Global Shapers Community Scholarship awardees, attending Oxford Said Business School for an MBA focused on Social Entrepreneurship.
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Delegate
Dr Vik Mohan is the Medical Director of Blue Ventures Conservation and a practicing doctor. He is passionate about marine conservation, environmental sustainability and global social justice.
Whilst working with communities in Madagascar on Blue Ventures’ community based marine conservation programme, his interest in community health led him to uncover a huge unmet need for health care, and sexual and reproductive health care in particular. Responding to this need, he led the development and implementation of the region’s first sexual and reproductive health service, and oversaw its integration into the portfolio of Blue Ventures’ projects, to form an award winning People, Health and Environment (PHE) programme.
After over ten years of supporting the implementation and growth of this programme, he has witnessed first-hand the multiple benefits of working in this integrated and holistic way, from improved natural resource management and community resilience, through to improvements in maternal and child health. His work with Blue Ventures now focusses on supporting others to adopt this approach. As well as supporting scale up in Madagascar, Vik is working to enable replication in Mozambique, Kenya, the Comoros, India, Indonesia and East Timor.
Recognising how challenging the work of doctors and social entrepreneurs can be, Vik is increasingly interested in the resilience and wellbeing of his fellow practitioners. He is currently collaborating on a pilot programme to foster greater resilience among doctors in training, with a view to supporting its replication for doctors and social entrepreneurs alike.
When he’s not working to support the wellbeing of doctors, coastal communities or marine ecosystems Vik can be found DJing for his community radio station, mountain biking or looking after his beautiful baby daughter.
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Delegate
Chair the Advisory Board, Wellbeing Project
Maite Arango was born in Mexico and is a citizen of Mexico and Spain, where she resides.
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), from Scripps College, Claremont, California.
Maite chairs the Board of Ashoka Spain. She is a member of the Ashoka Support Network and is part of Changemaker Schools.
Maite chairs the Advisory Board of The Wellbeing Project co-created with Ashoka, Esalen, the Fetzer Institute, the Skoll Foundation and Synergos.
The Wellbeing Project is focussed on both cultivating a shift in the field of social change toward one that is healthier and more supportive of inner wellbeing, and on catalyzing the development of a new infrastructure to better support everyone working in the field.
Vice-President and member of the Board of Trustees of Fundación Hazloposible, a private non-profit organization, whose mission is to empower individuals, organizations and institutions making them protagonists of social change, using primarily the Internet and Information Technologies.
Founder, Vice-President and member of the Executive Committee of Fundación Seres that strengthens and promotes Corporate Responsibility as part of the core strategy of each company, while fostering the spirit of collaboration among its members.
Member, since its creation in 2003, of ESADE Professional Council (prestigious Spanish University, ranked in the top 10 business schools in the world).
Member, since 2017, of the ESADE International Advisory Board. The IAB discusses future strategy supporting the areas of innovation, relevance and impact.
She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Georgetown Spain Foundation, which provides scholarship opportunities for those Spanish students admitted to Georgetown.
2018 fellowship at the Distinguished Careers Institute, Stanford University (http://dci.stanford.edu)
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Delegate
Maharshi is Educate Girls’ Chief Executive Officer and has the privilege of leading an incredible team of over 3,000 field employees & over 20,000 community volunteers to deliver Educate Girls’ mission of mobilizing over 1.5M out of school girls into schools by 2025.An ardent advocate of “education as the greatest enabler of equity,” Maharshi is a home-grown leader at Educate Girls. He joined Educate Girls in its infancy over a decade ago & has contributed in various capacities across different functions at namely operations, program management, Government relations, & fundraising. He headed operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, successfully executed the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education which surpassed both inclusion and learning outcome goals, & has raised over $150M in philanthropic funding. Before making a conscious switch to the social sector, he spent nearly a decade in various roles in the private sector. He holds a graduate degree in Public Policy & Business
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Delegate
President, The DO School
Florian is the Founder of the DO School. The DO School empowers individuals and teams to learn how to turn their ideas into action, create innovation and impact that are good for themselves and society. The DO School is based in Berlin and New York.
Prior, Florian was involved in starting organizations in philanthropy, in media and in the lifestyle industry in Asia, Europe and the US. Florian holds an MPhil in International Politics from Oxford University with distinction. He also studied arts and social sciences at ECLA of Bard College, Berlin’s Humboldt University and Duke University.
Florian regularly contributes to the public debate on new forms of learning and innovation and has been teaching the DO School method at a variety of universities including Columbia University, Oxford University, the University of Geneva, the Hasso Plattner Institute at Potsdam University and the European Business School. In 2015, he was named a Fellow by the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards and is an Advisor to the American Friends of Bucerius.
Florian lives with his wife and daughter between Berlin and New York.
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Delegate
Journalist, Sarah Jones Reports LLC
Sarah Jones is an award winning journalist with a large social media presence and a decade of experience in mainstream TV news. She is one of the top twenty North American Young Leaders chosen by Friends of Europe. Sarah received the Women Economic Forum's highest honor on International Women's Day 2018 in the Hague when she was named one of their "Women of the Decade" in News & Social Engagement. She is an International Women's Media Foundation (IWFM) Fellow and two time International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellow. Sarah was selected as one of the top one thousand most influential Twitter profiles. And on more than one occasion she has been invited to advise senior level military planners and government officials - in the US and allied countries - on social technologies. In 2014 she was voted Best Journalist in Social Media by a panel of industry leaders at the Shorty Awards. While Sarah covers a range of world and US news stories - she is among the top forty female social media influencers for conversations surrounding artificial intelligence. Sarah has been an Online Media Awards judge and Skoll World Forum delegate since 2015. She also founded the international moment of silence and online event "Remembering Fallen Journalists" with co-partners like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Foley Foundation and the UN Foundation's Plus Social Good. The event reached over 9 million people in it's first year and in person events were held around the world. Sarah has worked with Reuters Trust; VICE; Al Jazeera America; TRT World, CNN; ITN's Channel 4 News; Gulf News; BBC World Service; Brook Lapping Productions on the documentary "9/11: The Day That Changed the World"; and ABC 7 News in her hometown of Chicago on a biweekly feature called "Someone You Should Know." Sarah Jones is a graduate of City University London's International Broadcast Journalism Masters program with merit.
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Delegate
Fiona Natusch is Business Development Manager of Proximity Designs, a non-profit social enterprise operating in Myanmar since 2004. Proximity designs, makes and sells products and services that provide a path out of poverty for rural families. These include farm irrigation devices, financial services, and farm advisory services. Originally from New Zealand, Fiona joined Proximity Designs in 2014 after completing a Masters from the University of Cambridge. She has also worked in mobile banking in Cambodia, and as a consultant providing economic and regulatory advice for businesses and governments in the Pacific Islands and New Zealand.
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Delegate
Lisa joined Living Goods in 2014 after five years at Chemonics International Inc.,where she led strategy and design for large-scale development projects in Africa. Asthe former Business Development Director for Living Goods, she oversaw allbusiness development for East Africa, managing relationships with donors,implementation partners, foreign governments, and the private sector. She securedUSAID funding opportunities up to $50 million in value and coordinated programsfor PlayPumps International and Save the Children. Lisa holds a B.A. in InternationalDevelopment Studies from UCLA
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Delegate
Co-Founder, SPARK Schools
Ryan Harrison brings innovative thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit to the South African education reform movement.
Ryan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree, as well as a post-graduate diploma in Media Management from Rhodes University. Thereafter, he travelled to Canada to work in the IT sector. Ryan subsequently returned to South Africa to enter the MBA programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. He graduated cum laude and received the Lephatsi Investment Award for Leadership and the Smollan Holdings Award for Marketing Practice and Technology.
Following Graduation, Ryan Harrison teamed up with Stacey Brewer to launch SPARK Schools, the first blended learning school network on the African continent. Today SPARK Schools has 8 schools.
In his current position, Ryan combines experience in information technology and excellence in operational strategies to ensure that South African students benefit from integrated technology in high quality schools.
Ryan currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa
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Delegate
CEO, Good Work Foundation
In 2003 South African-born educator, Kate Groch started the nonprofit, Good Work Foundation (GWF), and focused her dream of bringing access to wonder-filled learning to rural South Africans.
Together with experts from around the world, Kate has pioneered 6 digital learning campuses designed to infuse entire communities with access to a new way of thinking and learning. Kate with her growing number of staff at Good Work Foundation are creating an Ecosystem of Learning and working bringing opportunity and access to young rural South Africans. Using advances in technology to ensure that no matter where someone is born they have access to world class and wonder filled Education and opportunity.
Kate is a firm believer in the potential of Africa and its people and the opportunities that the digital age bring to both
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Delegate
Senior Director Business Development, Acumen
Farrukh H. Khan is Senior Director of Business Development at Acumen where he is responsible for global business development and fundraising activities. Previously, Farrukh was the Country Director and CEO of Acumen Pakistan. He is the founding partner and former CEO of BMA Capital Management Limited. He is an experienced entrepreneur and a leading business and financial advisor who has advised on many landmark transactions, including Etisalat’s $2.6 billion acquisition of Pak Telecom. He is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and has served on various private and public sector boards. Farrukh qualified as a Chartered Accountant from the UK and received a BA (Hons.) in Economics and Finance from the University of Manchester.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Connected Women Leaders
Ronda Carnegie, is CEO for TNgLE . TNgLE (pronounced Tangle) is a division of Group SJR, a content/business strategy firm owned by WPP. Her practice focuses on the role of summits and content development to ignite shared learning, progress and impact.
Prior to creating TNgLE in 2015, Ronda was at TED in the role of Head of Global Partnerships/Strategic Initiatives. As part of the Executive Leadership team for over 7 years she played an instrumental role as the primary market-facing executive representing TED to corporations, foundations and the advertising industry while leading a team focused on revenue strategies for TEDMedia, Distribution/Licensing, TED Education, TED Fellows, TEDx and TEDPrize by identifying white spaces and negotiating high-level partnerships in line with the larger mission of the organization.
With a background in media and publishing, Ronda was at Condé Nast Publications for over 20 years. Notable assignments include the launch of Condé Nast’s business magazine Portfolio; running The New Yorker advertising franchise in the US and international markets; and building integrated, global print and online brand and marketing strategies.
Ronda holds a BA from University of Arizona. She lives in New York City with her husband Jack Myers. She enjoys spending time with family, hiking, food, culture, exploring and traveling.
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Delegate
CEO, Girl Effect
Launched over a decade ago and championed by the Nike Foundation in collaboration with the NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation and multiple partners, Girl Effect aims to transform how the world views and values the 250 million girls living in extreme poverty. The global organisation harnesses media and technology to inspire girls and fuel their ability to demand better services and more opportunities. Girl Effect has pioneered the creation of powerful brands rooted in local culture that counter negative social norms.
In September 2015, the organisation became a multi-funded, independent entity and appointed Farah as its first CEO to lead Girl Effect’s next phase of growth with funding commitments secured from private sector, philanthropists and institutional partners.
Farah has 27 years’ experience running market-leading businesses in the global creative industries, spanning advertising, TV and film content, as well as media and technology.
Between 2012-2014 she served as CEO of All3Media Britain’s largest Independent television production group operating through 19 subsidiary companies based in the UK, USA, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Previously, Farah had a 25 year career in advertising, 22 of them spent in AMV BBDO, rising through the ranks of Britain’s largest and most creatively successful advertising agency (a subsidiary of Omnicom Group), to become CEO in 2005. She joined the BBDO Worldwide Board in New York City in 2007.
She serves on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children and the National Theatre, sits on the Advisory Board of the Cambridge Judge Business School and has served on the British Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group.
She graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with a joint honors degree in modern languages. She has completed the Omnicom sponsored Advanced Management Executive Education programme at Babson Graduate College, Boston.
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Delegate
, WE'VE
Eve Blossom's twenty years' experience in design, design systems thinking, transparent supply chains, early-stage technology firms,
international business, nonprofit and social ventures led her to founding her current companies, Lulan Artisans and WE’VE.
After earning her master's degree in Architecture from Tulane University, she practiced at Gensler in Los Angeles. She then spent two years in Vietnam restoring French villas for such clients as Price Waterhouse and Chase Manhattan and training Vietnamese architects on CAD systems.
It was during Blossom's time in Vietnam that she found the roots of her calling. Traveling throughout Southeast Asia, she became passionate about local handmade textiles and other artisanal products. She recognized that the superb talents of the artisans combined with a social venture model could create an economic engine to fuel systemic social change.
Lulan’s model expanded further with WE’VE, a design-curated, e-commerce community that supports closer relationships between buyers, designers and artisans through story. WE’VE’s geographical reach is global and the artisanal products are diverse. Lulan Artisans was a finalist in the INDEX: Award 2011 for the design of its business strategy.
A frequent lecturer worldwide on sustainable integrated design and innovative business methodologies, Eve has had the opportunity to speak at a wide variety of conferences and events, including TED, SXSW, Autodesk, AIGA, Sustainable Brands and Summit Series.
Eve is the author of the book, Material Change: Design Thinking and the Social Entrepreneurship Movement published in 2011. She is also an Aspen Institute Liberty Fellow.
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Delegate
Journalist, Individual
I'm a journalist and climate change storyteller. As a reporter, editor and newsletter writer I take complex topics and turning them into human stories anyone can grasp, and I love working with young journalists across the world to develop other great climate change storytellers.
I created and for 14 years ran the Thomson Reuters Foundation's award-winning daily news website on the human impacts of a warming planet, recruiting and managing a team of developing world freelance writers in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, many of them in the most climate-vulnerable parts of the globe. Together we told the stories of climate change from the front lines.
Prior to coming to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, I was a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune newspaper based for 15 years in Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, India and the UK, with substantial time spent as well in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have in-depth experience working in more than 80 countries worldwide, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
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Delegate
Author, Individual
Esha is a journalist who covers sustainability, development, women's issues, and mission-driven brands. She contributes to a number of international and national publications such as The Guardian, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Fast Company, Forbes, and more. She has been awarded multiple grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting as well as two reporting fellowships from the UN Foundation. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and a Rotary Scholar from The London School of Economics. Currently writing a book for Patagonia on mission-driven companies.
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Delegate
Program Assistant, Pandemics, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Lauren Diaz is the Program Assistant for Pandemics at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. In this role, Lauren provides programmatic support for the Pandemics Team in the effort to end pandemics in our lifetime. She also coordinates the grants process for the Skoll Global Threats Fund at large. Prior to joining the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Lauren served as an Administrative Assistant at the Salvation Army, Golden State Division Headquarters where she worked on fundraising activities in support of the Bay Area’s $56 million dollar operating budget. Prior to this work, Lauren taught intermediate and advanced English courses at the Escuela Politecnica Nacional University in Quito, Ecuador, through WorldTeach.
Lauren holds a B.A. in Political Science and Communication Studies from the University of San Diego. For over a decade, Lauren has supported groups like Special Olympics and Friendship Circle because she believes in strengthening communities through inclusion.
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Delegate
Global Head, Inclusive Business, International Finance Corporation
• Eriko is Global Head of the Inclusive Business Models Group at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. Her main responsibility is helping private sector companies to integrate the people at the Base of the Economic Pyramid (BOP) into their value chain as suppliers and consumers.
• Eriko has written extensively on inclusive business and established the IFC Annual Inclusive Business Forum (2010-2013), a multi-stakeholder meeting of private and public sector development practitioners focusing on business solutions for development.
• Eriko leads the World Bank Group team to establish Inclusive Business as a focal topic for the G20 Development Working Group, currently under the China Presidency.
• Eriko has provided innovative financing, technical assistance and advisory services to emerging market companies to strengthen their value chains and integrate the BOP into their business models.
• Prior to joining IFC, she was VP at Citicorp in NYC. She was born in Japan, grew up in Brazil, and has been educated in the US, with an MBA from Stanford and an AB and MEd from Harvard. She is an avid scuba diver.
EXPERTISE
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY • FINANCIAL SERVICES • RESPONSIBLE SUPPLY CHAINS • SMALLHOLDER PRODUCTIVITY • SUSTAINABLE MARKETS
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Delegate
Partner and CFO, Capricorn Investment Group
Eric Techel is a Partner and member of the Finance & Operations Team at Capricorn Investment Group. He is Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer.
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Delegate
Director of Asset Management, The Nature Conservancy
Eric is Senior Director of Asset Management at NatureVest, the impact investing unit of The Nature Conservancy, where he leads portfolio management and contributes to new transaction structuring, internal and external reporting and impact measurement. Prior to joining NatureVest, Eric was a Principal at the Skoll Foundation where he led follow-on grant and PRI investments into Skoll’s portfolio of social entrepreneurs. Eric has also served as an Associate with D. Capital Partners, the London-based impact investment advisory arm of the Dalberg Group, as a Vice President on the private equity investment team at Capital Dynamics, a global private asset manager, and as a Financial Analyst with investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. He also founded and managed the Posterus Foundation, a non-profit engaged in funding education infrastructure in emerging communities around the world.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
Stephanie is a Managing Director of the DRK Foundation. DRK builds a deep partnership with organizations over three years to help them craft the engine to get to impact at scale. She is an active board member for several DRK portfolio organizations with widely-varied missions and geographic focuses. Stephanie has also been an advisor and board member for several other nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Prior to joining DRK, Stephanie co-founded three social ventures: Strategic Grant Partners, Project Healthy Children and the Maranyundo Initiative.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, CC3IC
At age 17 Emma lived in the high mountains of Baja California in Mexico with an older Mexican-Indian woman named Lydia. They lived in isolation for almost a year in a tiny shack-like home with an earthen floor. They fetched water from a nearby stream, gathered wood to cook on their hubcap stove, read by kerosine lamps, played dominos, and prayed.
Emma has a Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology and Clinical Psychology and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences from International College, West Los Angeles and Ryokan College. Emma was also an Adjunct Professor at JFK University and taught Presence in Coaching. She became an ICF Master Certified Coach in 2007. She has been a consultant, coach and trusted advisor for over 38 years in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as internationally, serving the technology and media/music industries, spiritual leaders, eco-leaders, and VIPS in many fields. She retired her Transpersonal Psychotherapy practice of 38 years in 2014.
Emma Co-Founded CC3IC in 2013. She served as a Steward on The Aspen Grove which facilitated a retreat/meditation space for VIPS to sit in silence and to share from non-ego. Emma is also a member of the Founding Circle of Women's Earth and Climate Action Network.(WECANinternational.org). She continues to be a life-long meditator and devotes her life to service. She is currently in the midst of a project which aims to transform life for all on the planet.
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Delegate
CEO / Founder, Tiny Totos Kenya
Emma has 20 years’ experience in social entrepreneurship, innovation and equity.
After a decade working on indigenous rights, conservation and community development in Latin America, Emma ran a global impact investment fund from London. After moving to Nairobi in 2012, she set up an impact advisory to support impact clients including the Kenya Bankers’ Association, UNDP and Palladium.
In 2014, Emma founded Tiny Totos, a Kenyan social enterprise tackling the childcare crisis through a market solution transforming informal childcare standards and outcomes. Tiny Totos has served over 25,000 children, extending reach through Kenya, Somalia, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Tiny Totos’ childcare innovations have won many accolades, including top prize at the UN Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator Award, 2023. Tiny Totos is also a 2023 MIT Solve winner in Financial Inclusion.
Emma has a 1st class BA from Oxford University, a Masters in Resource Management from UBC and an MBA from Said.
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Delegate
Freelance Journalist, Individual
I am a freelance journalist specialising in business and development issues in Africa. My work has appeared in publications such as The Economist, The Africa Report, The Guardian, Africa Confidential and the BBC.
I am a Lonely Planet author and work as the Africa correspondent of specialist water and wastewater magazine Global Water Intelligence.
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Delegate
Assistant Editor, Pioneers Post
Ellie Ward is the lead Journalist at Pioneers Post and reports on key developments in social enterprise, responsible business and impact investment globally. To bring readers the latest updates and most innovative stories she covers major international events, including the Social Enterprise World Forum, the British Council Social Enterprise Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh and the Sankalp Forum in India.
Before joining Pioneers Post, Ellie worked as a freelance reporter for the Daily Telegraph and studied Journalism at City University in London.
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Delegate
Board Director, Seydel Companies
Chemical engineer and founder of Seydel.com, a global textile and packaging chemical manufacturing company specializing in sustainable chemistry as alternatives to petrochemical synthetic polymer coatings and adhesives.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation Board Member specializing in product designs for circularity and agricultural farm management centered on soil rejuvenation.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Wallace Global Fund
Ellen Dorsey WGF
Ellen Dorsey is Executive Director of the Wallace Global Fund, a private foundation focused on progressive social change in the fields of environment, democracy, human rights and corporate accountability. Under her leadership, the Fund is recognized for creative philanthropic strategies and mission-related investing. This alignment of programs and investments led the foundation to support the fossil fuel divestment movement since its inception and to launch a new global campaign, Shine, to end energy poverty. Dorsey was awarded the 2016 inaugural Nelson Mandela – Graca Machel Brave Philanthropy Award for launching Divest-Invest Philanthropy, a coalition of over 200 foundations committed to deploying their investments to address the climate crisis and accelerate the clean energy transition.
Dr. Dorsey came to Wallace Global Fund from a series of academic, philanthropic and non-profit leadership positions in the human rights and environmental fields, including serving as Executive Director at the Rachel Carson Institute, launching the Human Rights and Environment program at Amnesty International, and serving as senior program officer in the Heinz Endowment’s Environment Program.
Additionally, she has served on the board of numerous non-profit organizations promoting human rights and sustainable development, including Greenpeace USA, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the United States Human Rights Network, and chair of the board of Amnesty International USA.
Dorsey holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. She was a Fulbright Research Fellow in South Africa during that country’s historic transformation. She served on the faculty of several Universities, teaching human rights and environmental sustainability. She has written extensively on effective strategies of non-governmental organizations and social movements. Dorsey is co-author, with Paul J. Nelson, of New Rights Advocacy: Changing
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Delegate
CEO, The END Fund
Ellen serves as the CEO of the END Fund, working to see an end to the suffering caused by five neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affecting 1.7 billion people.
Ellen has worked in global health and humanitarian response for over 20 years in more than 70 countries, for organizations including International Medical Corps and Operation Smile.
Ellen holds graduate degrees in International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and in Development Studies from the London School of Economics.
Ellen currently serves on the boards of Global Institute for Disease Elimination and the 100x Impact Accelerator Advisory Board.
Ellen’s book, Under the Big Tree: Extraordinary Stories from the Movement to End Neglected Tropical Diseases (foreword by Bill Gates) was published in January 2019 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Ellen was also named as one of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders" for 2019.
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Delegate
John grew up in Mississippi and lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. He is a board member of International Bridges to Justice. IBJ, which is led by Karen Tse, works to guarantee all citizens the right to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial.
John is also the founder and President of Winning Connections, a Washington DC political consulting firm. Our clients include Everytown for Gun Safety, Open Society, PEW and American Cancer Society.
John earned a BA from Millsaps College, a JD from Duke Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, Playboy and Campaigns & Elections. He has served on the boards of Christ Episcopal Church, International Bridges to Justice, the Ballot Initiatives Strategy Center, and United Planning Inspire..
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Delegate
President and CEO, Orb
Orb Media empowers people everywhere to better align their daily personal, professional and civic decisions with their values and objectives. Orb achieves that through its global, collaborative, scientific and data powered rigorous reporting.
Molly is the driving force behind Orb. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer and journalist, Molly has covered news and conflicts around the globe. Her work has been featured in leading media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Independent, Vanity Fair, and she has appeared on top network and cable television and radio news programs.
Named in 2012 by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of “20 Women to Watch,” Molly is at the cutting edge of defining journalism in the digital age, with a unique vision for discovering and covering global stories while making original content accessible and engaging. Molly serves on the boards of The Overseas Press Club and The Listen Campaign. A graduate of Harvard University, Molly was awarded a Nieman Fellowship in 2004.
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Delegate
Deputy CEO, Small Foundation
Liz is Deputy CEO at Small Foundation, an innovative family foundation focused on increasing income-generating opportunities for poor rural people in sub-Saharan Africa, through MSME development. A philanthropic funder with extensive global experience, Liz manages the foundation's expertise and practice around impact networks, systems, impact management, and communications.
Previously Liz has worked as deputy director and co-founder at Agriculture for Impact and the Malabo Montpellier Panel, based in Imperial College London. As a project officer in DFID China, she worked on partnership initiatives to pilot climate change adaptation and sustainable urban development strategies. She also worked for a humanitarian health charity in the DRC and the UK, and served as a diplomat in the UK Embassy in China.
Liz is a trustee of Nigerian non-profit The Visiola Foundation and the UK charity and grant maker Enterprise for Development.
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Delegate
VP of Programs, Echoing Green
Keno Sadler is a social entrepreneur, conference speaker, facilitator, and educator. While leading programs designed to shape the lives of young African American men through close guidance from older males, Keno began his 22 year relationship with the Breakthrough Collaborative as a teacher in the Miami and Fort Worth programs before creating and leading the Atlanta program which graduated over 90% of its students into college and introduced hundreds of college students to careers in education. He is now the Vice President of Programs at the Echoing Green Foundation which provides seed-funding and support through its Fellowship program to over 750 social entrepreneurs working in more than 60 countries around the world. He is also the founder and now serves on the Board of the SBAN Teacher of Color Preparatory Institute (TCPI) which connects aspiring teachers and administrators of color with schools that desire to be more diverse and inclusive. Keno has a degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and has received many awards and certifications including a 1997 Echoing Green Fellowship
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, More Than Me
Katie Meyler is the Founder and CEO of More Than Me, a leading education network in Liberia working in partnership with the Ministry of Education to rebuild the Liberian education system. More Than Me Academy is rapidly growing their school model called (S)HE Matters, which focuses on safety, health, education and monitoring with a focus on gender equality. They serve over 4,300 students across 19 schools, with the goal of reaching 20% of Liberian children by 2021.
Katie started More Than Me in 2009 to get vulnerable girls off the street and into school by providing scholarships for school fees. In 2013, More Than Me opened the first tuition-free, private school for girls in Monrovia. When Ebola hit in 2014, Katie transitioned More Than Me to respond to Ebola and galvanized the community to help end the epidemic. She was named 2014 “TIME Person of the Year” for her contributions on the front lines of Ebola. She helped catalyze Liberia's growing national education reform along
side the Ministry of Education which is impacting 200 public schools, and over 50,000 children with quality education to date.
Katie was named among People Magazine's 25 women changing the world next to Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah, she's a Nelson Mandela Changemaker, one of Global Citizen's 17 Badass Women, and Glamour's 4 inspiring Women to follow on Instagram.
Katie stresses, “Before I'm American, I am human, and no little girl, regardless of where she was born, should be forced to work the streets when her biggest dream is just to go to school."
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Delegate
Vice President, Asia, Luminate
Melanie is Vice President, Asia at Luminate. Luminate is a global foundation working to ensure that people — especially those who are underrepresented — have the information, rights and power to influence the decisions that shape society. In her role, Melanie leads Luminate’s work in Asia and serves on the Leadership Team.
She was previously Vice President of the Chandler Foundation, where she led the organisation from its inception and developed its grant-making strategy. Prior to this, Melanie was Vice President at the Clermont Group and managed corporate communications for the multibillion-dollar investment firm.
Her previous experience also includes leading the CleanWater Foundation, where she launched a safe water micro-franchise serving rural communities in Bangladesh. She started her career in external affairs at the World Bank, and served as the Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the Asian University for Women Support Foundation.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Virgin Unite
Rosanne Gray, COO Virgin Unite
Virgin Unite is the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group, which connects great people with entrepreneurial ideas to reinvent how we live and work in the world. Unite incubates new approaches to leadership such as the Carbon War Room, supports entrepreneurs around the world, and works to drive business as a force for good.
Prior to Unite, Rosanne was founder and CEO of CottonConnect, a pioneering business creating more sustainable cotton supply chains. Rosanne started her career at Shell, building her business acumen in marketing and sales roles in Africa and Europe before joining the Shell Foundation, where she brought development ventures to scale.
When not at work Rosanne can most often be found swimming in the lochs of Scotland, finding a hill to climb or returning to Southern Africa which is her second home.
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Delegate
Programme Director, Nduna Foundation
The motto of the Nduna Foundation is “Make it Matter.” For EJ Jacobs, the Programme Director of the Foundation, this is more than a motto; it is a guiding principle. Since 2010, Mr. Jacobs has embraced philanthropy beyond simple grant-making. Through listening to the populations of the areas he hopes to serve, amplifying the voices of those who don’t always have access to the proper audience, strengthening multilateral partnerships, and embracing, as well as offering a fresh set of ideas in areas lacking innovation, Mr. Jacobs and the Nduna Foundation have found success in often ignored or underserved areas.
Focused primarily on conflict and post-conflict regions throughout Africa, the Nduna Foundation works to maintain Human Rights and significantly impact the lives of women and children through strategic partnerships and bold initiatives. Nduna’s partners range from large, but trusted organisations such as Human Rights Watch and UNHCR to more nimble and clandestine groups that include Crisis Action and Refuge Point. Some of the initiatives include support of and collaboration with youth-led and refugee-led programmes.
Prior to joining the Nduna Foundation, EJ Jacobs was the Editor-in-Chief of Topcoat Magazine.
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Delegate
I am associated with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), India since 1989. I have more than three decades of experience of working with rural communities in their endeavors of local self-governance and restoring and securing rights over Commons. Of the thirty years, I have directly worked with rural communities on natural resource management and governance aspects in Andhra Pradesh for the first eight years. For the last 22 years, I am involved in project management issues at organizational level and has developed good insights into project planning, management systems for implementation and reporting. I am interested on issues of Commons, community rights, restoration of degraded ecosystems, small holder farming systems, socio-ecological systems, new participatory tools to elicit collective action, rural youth as local stewards, community level federations and multi-actor platforms.
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Delegate
Visiting Executive, B Team
Rajiv S. Joshi is an activist, economist & social entrepreneur and is a Visiting Executive at Oxford Säid Business School.
Raj has spent the last seven years serving as a founding member and Managing Director of The B Team, where he continues to serve as an Advisor. Co-Founded by Sir Richard Branson and ex-Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz, The B Team, which is currently chaired by Paul Polman and Trade Union Leader Sharan Burrow, brings together some of the worlds leading CEOs alongside civil society leaders to help redefine the role of business in society and increase ambition amongst businesses to advance the wellbeing of people and the planet alongside profit.
Rajiv is a movement builder, advocate and emerging thought leader. Over the past 15 years, he has supported groundbreaking CEO activism, led youth movements and pioneered multi-stakeholder initiatives across the public, private and non-profit sector to address inequalities, advance human rights and tackle climate change.
Before joining The B Team, he served as Executive Director of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and as a Trustee of Oxfam GB and CIVICUS, based in Johannesburg. He also served two elected terms as Chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament.
In 2014 and 2015 he served on the Founding Board of We Mean Business, driving business-led action on climate change to help secure the Paris Climate Agreement while also playing a key role in shaping the development of the SDGs as Co-Founder of the "World We Want 2015" initiative.
Rajiv holds a First Class Honors in Economics from Strathclyde Business School and a Masters in Public Policy and Administration (MPA) from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York.
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Delegate
Mokafe Coffee / HCM, Mokafe Coffee / Haitian Christian Mission
Edwens serves as a managing member at Mokafe Coffee in Haiti and the United States. Through Mokafe Coffee, the brand introduced the first premium Haitian Roast line of coffee in the U.S. Mokafe coffee is the reinvention of a long, storied tradition from the world’s foremost producer of coffee. Their effort is to support Haitian coffee farmers, revamp national production, and position Haiti as a worldwide premium coffee.
Edwens also serves at Haitian Christian Mission (HCM) in Haiti. HCM works to delivery education, healthcare, homes, job training, and more to disadvantaged individuals, families, and communities across the country. HCM’s goal is to build sustainable, peaceful, and improve communities for the people of Haiti, which is one of the western hemisphere’s poorest countries.
Edwens and his partner, Marcus, knowing both the humanitarian and business backgrounds know what it takes to help Haiti out of its current situation. Through Mokafe Cup of Hope, their plans are to promote the best agriculture practices, implements nursery trees, and help sustain the farming industry by financing, business education, and environmental forest restoration in Haiti.
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Delegate
Partner, Vision Ridge Partners LLC
Justin Goerke is a partner helping lead the Sustainable Asset Fund, with investments in sectors including water, renewable energy, agriculture and transportation. Prior to Vision Ridge, Justin was a Principal at Capricorn Investment Group, as Head of its Real Asset's portfolio. A former associate at Argonaut Capital in Perth, Western Australia, Justin received his BCom with Honors in Finance and Economics from Curtin University of Technology, Perth. Justin serves on numerous boards, including Loch Duart, SunWorld and EVgo.
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Delegate
Special Advisor to Graça Machel, Graça Machel Trust
Ms Robert has worked with Mrs Machel for over a decade on women and children rights as programme manager, policymaker and advisor. She has 20 years working experience in various organisations including the UN, civil society, academia, government, donors, foundations, private sector and media in Africa, Europe and the Americas. She has worked on development polices and programmes on health, education, gender, conflict and humanitarian affairs at the international, regional and country levels. Ms Robert previously served as the Director of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration hosted by ISGlobal, Head of Global Health Policy Barcelona Centre for International Health Research Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, GAVI Alliance Special Advisor to Chair of the GAVI Fund, Special Advisor to the Private Philanthropy and Senior Programme Officer in resources mobilisation. She also held Programme Officer positions in development and conflict departments in the UK Department for International Development, World Health Organization, UNAIDS and UNICEF. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania, has a bachelors degree from the Haarlem Business School in the Netherlands and a MBA from Webster University. Ms Robert has lived in over ten countries in Africa, Europe and North America.
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Delegate
Trustee, Kiawah Trust
Lynne Smitham co-founded the Kiawah Trust with husband Peter in 2004. Kiawah Trust helps educate and empower adolescent girls from disadvantaged communities in India. We believe that investing in a girls’ education, employment skills, health and rights gives her a choice and a voice, and ultimately leads to a more prosperous, equitable and stable family, community and nation. Kiawah Trust is a partner in the Dasra Girl Alliance.
Lynne works as an executive coach and organisational development consultant. Her clients are international corporates in technology and financial services where she helps develop high performance in top teams and senior executives. Previously she was with Lex Service, American Express and Octagon Consulting. She holds an MBA from CASS Business School and is a master NLP practitioner.
Lynne is on the UK Dasra Advisory Board. Lynne’s interest in India and commitment to women’s rights started in 1990 while running a series of Leadership programmes for women in Delhi.
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Delegate
CEO, ClimateCare
Founded in 2007, and a registered B corp - ClimateCare is committed to delivering solutions that help Corporates and Governments tackle the dual issues of climate change and sustainable global development. We use innovative financing models to deliver profit for project investors alongside measurable and verified emission reductions, health and sustainable development outcomes. We specialise in large scale, community-based renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in LDCs.
We believe that climate change, poverty and sustainable development are so interlinked that they cannot be tackled in isolation. And, given the size of the challenges, we cannot rely solely on government aid to solve them. Businesses, governments and civil society must work collectively to deliver the speed and scale of change required to support a sustainable future.
We measure our success against three elements: environmental impact, social impact and profit, with no trade-off between the three.
From our offices in the UK and Africa, we work with hundreds of organisations to deliver integrated Climate+Care programmes which protect the environment and improve lives. To date we’ve improved life for over 8 million people whilst cutting 16.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions
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Delegate
Jennifer Schorsch joined Water.org with more than 20 years of experience in strategic consulting, consumer marketing, and operational leadership. Jennifer currently ensures Water.org’s fiscal, operational and programmatic strategies promote sustained growth, continually accelerate the organization’s impact, and help drive innovation towards solving the water crisis.Sh.
Jennifer joined Water.org in 2011 as Chief Marketing Officer overseeing marketing, fundraising and advocacy and assumed the role of President in 2014. She has led Water.org through rapid global and programmatic expansion, accelerating the organization’s impact from 180,000 people reached with water and sanitation in 2011 to 1.1M reached in 2015 alone. In that same five-year period, annual revenue grew from $9M to $21M.
Prior to joining Water.org, Jennifer helped build the Starbucks brand, from just 150 stores to a global company. During her eight-year tenure, she served in multiple capacities within marketing, ultimately serving as Vice-President, Retail Marketing for North America and as Regional Vice President, Northwest. In that capacity she managed a $100M, 3500-employee business. Previously, Jennifer served as strategic advisor and Vice President, Marketing at online health network Trusera. She began her career as a consultant at Bain & Company. Schorsch has served in an advisory and board-level capacity at numerous nonprofit organizations in the Seattle, WA area where she resides with her husband and two children.
Education and Accreditation
MBA, Harvard Business School
BA, summa cum laude, Dartmouth College
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Delegate
Skoll Centre Consultant, Said Business School
Following the completion of her MBA at the Said Business School, Oxford in 2015 Lyn has been consulting to the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship on a range of different internal and external facing projects, including the Global Challenge, the Skoll Venture Awards and Chivas The Venture. In this capacity Lyn has focussed on project management and due diligence and support of early stage socially focussed entrepreneurs.
Lyn has experience in both the corporate and social sector and prior to the MBA had been working for a microfinance fundraising entity to co-develop a strategy for a global microfinance debt fund, project manage the roll-out of a business intelligence platform across a global network and assist with the long-term capital strategy of the Africa investment portfolio.
Prior to this role Lyn worked for KPMG managing global teams in Asia-Pacific to provide due diligence for a range of listed financial service clients, including mergers, acquisitions, capital raisings and other capital market transactions.
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Delegate
Founder, Recruit for Good
Eduard has been at the forefront of globally scouting, selecting and developing creative leaders with impact for over two decades. After initially only recruiting and developing talent for innovative organizations, he decided to use his experience, network and skills he has built to really contribute something meaningful to the world. Eduard firmly believes that compassionate and innovative leaders and talent are the key to solving the greatest global challenges.
Recently he founded Recruit for Good, a company focussed on delivering talent solutions with impact for organizations that have a sustainable mission. Also he has Co founded FARE Capital, an impact investment fund focussed of Healthcare and Food innovation.
Eduard holds a masters degree in psychology from the University of Groningen and has been on the boards of several innovative and societal initiatives (Ashoka NL, Kairos Society and The Awesome Foundation). Eduard was also part of the founding team of THNK, School of Creative Leadership for over 5 years.
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Delegate
Unknown, Individual
Julia Moffett is proven leader and strategist in helping organizations achieve important growth, positioning and impact goals. Julia’s career spans senior roles that demonstrate a track record as a high-level strategist and creative thinker, and as someone who can leverage wide and influential networks. She has worked in the US, UK and Africa in government, international development organizations and foundations, and in the private sector. All of Julia’s work is characterized by an ability to conceive of and launch ambitious strategic initiatives, lead global advocacy and policy efforts, and mobilize stakeholders and resources to help organizations be bolder, smarter, bigger and more impactful.
Julia’s positions have included: Director of Innovation, Equity Group Foundation (Kenya 2013 - 2017); Trustee and Advisor, Burberry Foundation (UK 2007 - 2014); Director of Strategy, BBC World Service Trust (UK 2004 - 2007); Managing Director and Chief Strategic Officer, Markle Foundation (US 1998 - 2002); Vice President of Communications, NBC News (US 1997 - 1998); Director of Strategic Planning, The National Security Council (US 1996 - 1997); and, Director of Strategic Communications, The White House (US 1993 - 1996).
She has also created The Future of Learning Fund to help accelerate the re-invention of education in Africa by investing in education entrepreneurs with 21st century learning solutions that can increase access, affordability, quality and relevance at scale.
Julia serves or has served on numerous Boards and Advisory Boards including: Maiyet, Peace One Day, Global Kids, Rock the Vote and Videre. She acts as an Advisor to many education starts ups in East Africa. She has been a Term Member of the US Council on Foreign Relations and a Member of the International Finance Committee for Obama for President in 2008 and 2012. She holds a B.A. with Highest Honors in History, Government, Philosophy and Economics from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT USA.
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Delegate
Vice President, Grant Programs, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
EDMUND J. CAIN
Vice President, Grant Programs
Edmund J. Cain oversees all domestic and international grant programming at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, including overall responsibility for the Foundation's strategic planning. Prior to joining the Foundation, Cain served for five years as director of The Carter Center’s Global Development Initiative, which facilitated national development strategies in post-conflict countries. A senior member of The Carter Center’s Peace Program team, Cain advised former President Carter on global development issues and participated in election monitoring missions. During his 30-year tenure with the United Nations, Cain served in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Afghanistan, and was a U.N. Resident Coordinator in Turkey and in Egypt. He was also the first Director of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Emergency Response Division—predecessor to the current Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery. In that capacity he oversaw the formulation of UNDP’s disaster response policy and led missions to war-torn and disaster-affected countries. Cain also served in the U.N. Secretariat as the Chief of Staff to the U.N. Undersecretary General for General Assembly and Political Affairs. A Fellow at the Harvard Center for International Affairs and Senior Fellow at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs, Cain holds a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in political science and international affairs from the University of Delaware.
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Delegate
CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute
Jules Kortenhorst is the Chief Executive Officer of Rocky Mountain Institute. He is a recognized leader on global energy issues and climate change. His background spans business, government, entrepreneurial, and nonprofit leadership.
Since 1982, Rocky Mountain Institute (http://www.rmi.org) has advanced market-based solutions that transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous and secure future. An independent, nonprofit think-and-do tank, RMI engages with businesses, communities and institutions to accelerate and scale replicable solutions that drive the cost-effective shift from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables.
BACKGROUND
Prior to RMI, Jules was the founding CEO of the European Climate Foundation (https://europeanclimate.org), the largest philanthropic organization dedicated to policy development and advocacy on climate change in Europe. Before launching ECF, he served as a member of the Dutch parliament for the Christian Democratic Party.
During the first 20 years of his career, Jules worked in the business world. He was the CEO for International Operations of ClientLogic Corporation, a global leader in outsourced customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. He worked for almost 10 years for Royal Dutch / Shell, among others as managing director of Shell Bulgaria, and he began his career as an analyst at McKinsey & Co.
Jules currently serves on the Energy Transition Commission http://www.energy-transitions.org, on the WEF Future Council on Energy and on the Board of Stedin Holding NV. Jules is married to Searl Vetter and has four children.
EDUCATION
• Masters of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Baker Scholar
• Masters in Economics, Erasmus University, Netherlands
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Delegate
Founder and President, Ongoza
Currently pursuing a graduate degree at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Eddy is the founder of Peace for Africa and Economic Development (PAD). PAD focuses on identifying vulnerable youth groups in remote Kenyan communities, helping them establish businesses to prevent their manipulation into political violence, crime, and participation in illegal sects. In 2015, PAD was rebranded as Ongoza, which means "Lead" in Swahili.
Eddy is an alumnus of the African Leadership Academy and Trinity College Hartford. He is also a member of the African Leadership Network and a trained UNESCO International Youth Peace Ambassador. Eddy has provided consultancy on youth engagement strategies for both the MasterCard Foundation and Equity Bank. His work with Ongoza earned him the 2012 Impact Award from the Kenya Diaspora and a spot on the list of the Top 30 Under 30 Most Influential Young People on the African continent in 2013.
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Delegate
Chief Strategy Officer, Possible
Duncan Maru, MD, PhD, is Co-Founder, Chief Strategy Officer, and a Board Member of Possible. In his role as Chief Strategy Officer, Duncan oversees the vision and execution of our work in government partnerships, impact evaluation, and implementation science. The broad spectrum of this work is to ensure that public sector strategy, policy change, high-quality service delivery, and research are integrated and interacting components of Possible's efforts at healthcare transformation. Duncan is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Division of Global Health Equity. He also practices part-time on the Complex Care Service at Boston Children’s Hospital. Duncan graduated from Harvard College, received his MD/PhD from Yale University, and completed the Harvard Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Program and the Brigham and Women’s Global Health Equity Residency Program. Duncan’s work as a doctor and epidemiologist has generated over 40 peer-reviewed articles. In 2015, he was named a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
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Delegate
Guest, Individual
NA
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Delegate
President & Co-Founder, Operation ASHA
I am the President & Co-founder of Operation ASHA, an NGO serving 9 million disadvantaged in India and Cambodia. We extensively work with local people and governments to carry out TB (Tuberculosis) detection and treatment. As a Senior Obstetrician, Gynecologist & Laparoscopy Surgeon, I was initially engaged in private practice. In 1991, I went into the heart of the slums in Delhi to ‘reach the unreached’, and started providing provided pro-bono life-saving operations. After more than a decade, my focus shifted to TB, the biggest infectious disease killer, which had largely been neglected by policy makers, donors and NGOs alike.
I have lectured at major universities, including Harvard School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan and Indian Institute of Science. I was declared an Ashoka Changemaker in view of my innovations in TB treatment. Recently I was invited by the World Bank in Oct 2014 to do a TEDx talk.
I have received multiple awards, including the Exemplary Contribution Award for selfless work given by the Indian Medical Association. In 2014, I was selected as Social Entrepreneur of the year by Schwab Foundation.
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Delegate
EIR, Capricorn Investment Group
John Ballard focuses on power, transportation and other resource technologies at Capricorn Investment Group. He began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company where he led projects on energy, sustainability, and resource productivity. John is an electrical engineer by training. He received a Bachelors of Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College where he won the John C. Woodhouse Environmental Engineering Prize. John also earned his Bachelors of Arts from Dartmouth College, graduating summa cum laude.
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Delegate
Ken Himmelman is a Managing Principal of Health Leads, a leading US-based health reform social enterprise. Prior to joining Health Leads, Ken served as the Chief Program Officer for Partners in Health, a pioneering global health organization that provides high quality health care to the world’s poorest people. Prior to joining Partners in Health in 2012, Ken served as the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Bennington College for eight years, where he also helped to start the college’s innovative Center for the Advancement of Public Action. Ken also has experience in the community and youth development fields, having co-founded and co-led a US-based NGO called Community IMPACT! USA. He has served on many non-profit boards, including Grassroot Soccer, Summits Education, The Boma Project and the French American School of Rhode Island. Ken has a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and M.A. in French Literature from Vanderbilt University.
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Delegate
Creative Director, TED Conferences LLC
For the past 25 years, I have worked in a variety of media concerns, including book and magazine publishing as well as digital media. My central role has been developing creative ways for companies to engage with influential consumers, with programs built around cultural ideas and unconventional thinking. I am currently the creative director of TED, shaping new ways for companies and organizations to align their own messages and missions with TED's expanding initiatives worldwide.
Along the course of life, I've also been able to witness an eclectic mosaic of work experiences that cut across several sectors: I've worked in a scary antiquated aluminum factory during a labor crisis, ghost written a book with Kermit the Frog, worked on a presidential primary campaign in New Hampshire, provided the voice of a claymation snake in a Nick Park Aardman production, and tended bar in one of Charles Dickens' favorite London pubs.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Altruist Partners
Donald Summers is a speaker, author, social entrepreneur and business advisor with a long track record of leading organizations to dramatic gains in performance, revenue and impact. He founded Altruist Partners, a nonprofit and social enterprise accelerator, in 2006 and currently serves as its Managing Director. With offices in Seattle, Washington DC and London, Altruist helps nonprofits and social enterprises plan, finance, and achieve ambitious goals. Clients range from startups to large institutions and multinational NGOs. Client outcomes include median annual growth rates of 25% and a 25x return on fees.
Summers is a graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard University and is a frequent presenter on non-profit best practices and social sector innovation. His essays, articles and commentary have been published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Magazine and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Digital Opportunity Trust
From a young leader driving 100 ton trucks and championing women’s rights in an open pit mine of northern Canada to a visionary leader driving an international social enterprise, Janet Longmore is a motivating person to work with – a woman who sees opportunity where others see insurmountable challenges.
Respected in the boardrooms of her corporate partners and totally at ease under a bao bao tree in Africa where she inspires young women and men, Janet is a networker who passionately believes in the power and potential of youth to lead their peers out of poverty and into a digital world of opportunity – building their self-confidence and self-reliance.
As the founder of Digital Opportunity Trust, she has driven DOT to the forefront of youth-led economic and social development and created a global network of local young leaders who are using technology to inspire change in their communities in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
Always pressing forward, she is intrigued by the challenges of growth and deep impact, and the new business models that are emerging for the entrepreneurial social enterprise.
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Delegate
CR Strategy & Innovation, Novartis AG
With close to 20 years of experience in CR and business ethics, Michael is currently having responsibilities for CR Strategy and Innovation at Novartis AG. He has significant experience in CR Strategy, access to healthcare, inclusive business model innovation, base of the pyramid strategies, measurement & evaluation, investor relations re ESG, stakeholder engagement, materiality, impact valuation, Human Rights and behavior-based integrity & compliance management. Michael is strongly involved in the development and deployment of Novartis Social Businesses such as Novartis Access, Healthy Families etc. Michael is the Secretary of the CR Board of Novartis.
He is author and editor of articles and books in the areas of CR, social entrepreneurship, integrity management, risk and good governance and has a PhD with honors, awarded for his academic work (PhD thesis) with the Max Weber-Price for Business Ethics (2006).
Michael is a Social Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD and a recognized lecturer and speaker to students and executives at leading universities and business schools (e.g. INSEAD, IMD, Thunderbird, Cambridge University, HSG, Copenhagen Business School etc.).
He also extensively collaborated with faculty from Harvard Business School, Thunderbird et al. over a number of years to build skills of Novartis management population on topics such as integrity & compliance management and inclusive business model innovation.
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Delegate
Founder and Co-CEO, Numbers for Good
Dominic is founder and co-CEO of Numbers for Good, a social finance intermediary which bridges the world of finance to organisations dedicated to improving people’s lives and helping the planet.
Dominic is a social entrepreneur and strategic thinker with a focus on integrating economic sustainability with social transformation. He has a background in social entrepreneurship, government and the voluntary sector. Prior to co-founding Numbers for Good, Dominic set up social enterprises with The Shaftesbury Partnership, including FranchisingWorks and NurseFirst, and his political involvement included standing for Parliament, advising governments and authoring what became UK Government policy on social innovation, impact investing and economic growth.
Dominic has been named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, led their London Hub between 2012 and 2013 and is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Europe.
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Delegate
Advisor, Refugee Company
• 18 years living in Asia Pacific, 20+ years working in senior financial, advisory and sales roles; proven ability to collaborate and deliver results in a multi-cultural environment
• Kiva - Risk Analysis analyst
• Institutional Advisor, Alterna - Guatemalan Social incubator
• Pearl Consulting - Senior Consultant for purpose-driven boutique consultancy focused on delivering mutual benefit for corporate, nonprofit and government partners through the strategic deployment of social impact initiatives.
• VP marketing, Boyer Allan Investment Management, an Asian 800M AUM hedge fund, ran all US business operations.
• Global Head of Client Account Management, Asia Pacific, ABN AMRO Singapore; Managing Director.
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Delegate
kNOw THEM Initiative, YPO-Presidents' Action Network
Dick Simon is Co-Founder and Chair of Young/World Presidents Organization (YPO-WPO) Peace Action Network (PAN), which engages business leaders making a difference in areas of conflict and need. YPO-WPO is comprised of 24,000 CEO members in over 130 countries whose combined businesses generate over 10% of global GDP. PAN facilitates communication between these leaders on opposite sides of geopolitical and religious divides through Forums, educational programs and travel experiences to countries that are traditionally difficult to access and understood only as adversaries in the West, such as North Korea, Iran and Cuba.
Simon’s work has earned him recognitions including YPO Global Humanitarian, Best of the Best, and the New Frontier Forum Awards. In addition, Simon received Harvard Business School’s Making a Difference Award and was one of Real Leaders Magazine's "100 Visionary Leaders."
In 2012 Simon launched the kNOw THEM Initiative (knowthem.org) to raise awareness about the most dangerous four-letter word in the English language, THEM, which marginalizes, dehumanizes and creates conflict. The Initiative includes social media campaigns and public lectures, as well as educational curricular materials, parallel narratives comparing North Korean, Iranian and Cuban perspectives with dominant American/Western perspectives where both sides' versions of their shared history diverge sharply.
Beginning in 2000, when he and his wife Patty spent the year traveling with their children, then 6, 8, and 10 years old, throughout the developing world, Simon has photographed and gathered the stories of people on all sides of conflicts around the world (dicksimon.com). His images and stories have been exhibited in galleries and museums, and featured in New York Times, BBC, ABC, CBS, National Public Radio, Boston Globe.
Simon is the CEO of RSI, Inc., a Boston-based real estate development and investment management company with office, retail, and industrial properties.
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer and President, Village Enterprise
Dianne Calvi is the CEO of Village Enterprise, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty in Africa. Since assuming the role of CEO in 2010, she has spearheaded the organization's expansion into seven countries, successfully implemented the first development impact bond for poverty alleviation, and conducted two randomized control trials with positive results. Under her leadership, the organization has received awards and recognition for excellence, including Fast Company's World Changing Idea Award in 2023. In June 2023, Dianne received the Stanford President's Award for the Advancement of the Common Good. She also serves on the Board of Directors for InterAction and the National Advisory Board for Stanford University's Haas Center.
Prior to Village Enterprise, Dianne served as the President of Bring Me A Book, an early literacy nonprofit. She graduated with a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Bocconi University on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship.
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Delegate
Columnist, Les Affaires
I am impact reporter and brand ambassador for business media "Les Affaires", in Montreal, Canada. Les Affaires reaches a community of 800 0000 buisness leaders with its web and printed edition and its 50 annual events.
It has been a journey to migrate from business reporter to impact reporter. It means that with my stories, I aim for impact, not outrage. It means taking the road many people still consider "marginal", "cute" or "idealist". I like to consider myself as a pragmatic dreamer. The challenge is to find the right balance between optimism and naiveté. And never fall in love with you stories. As well as never demonize people who choose another journey.
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Delegate
Founding Executive Director, Disability Rights Fund
Diana Samarasan is Founding Executive Director of the Disability Rights Fund and the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund– which support people with disabilities in the Global South to advocate for equal rights and opportunities. Diana’s work is unique, turning the "charity" model on its head by involving beneficiary communities in decision-making within the Fund and in society. Prior to DRF, Diana headed the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest, which takes cases to court against governments for abuse of the rights of people with mental disabilities. Diana is on the Steering Committees of International Human Rights Funder’s Group and Opportunity Collaboration, and on the Board of the US International Council on Disability. She has an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School.
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Delegate
Social Entrepreneurship Portfolio Director, Peery Foundation
Jayson Morris joined the Peery Foundation in January 2015. Jayson supports the Peery Foundation's Regional and Global grantees utilizing nearly 10 years of experience helping to scale Room to Read from a $5 million to a $40+ million organization and overseeing strategic program initiatives at READ Global. Jayson began his career as an Investment Banker for Credit Suisse First Boston in New York and Australia. He left banking in 2001 and spent three years backpacking around the world. Jayson holds a BSc in Business Administration from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.
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Delegate
Senior Adviser, Pi Capital
A native and graduate of Oxford and a citizen of both the UK and Canada, I have lived and worked in Africa, North America and Europe. Mostly I have been involved with development – (supporting livelihoods and people-centric approaches to support), with climate policy, and with trying to identify paths towards a more inclusive economic system. I have worked in a variety of progressive think tanks, I have written and edited books, I have convened conversations and tried to identify other ways to make the world a better place. I serve on the board of various charities (Save the Children, The Friends of the Royal Academy, and the sustainable energy charity, Ashden) and I endeavour to raise my four daughters so that they are full of integrity, kindness and inner strength. That is certainly the hardest of all my jobs.
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Delegate
Manager, Pandemics, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Jennifer Olsen is the Manager of Pandemics at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. In her role, she manages implementation of the Ending Pandemics Initiative and supports development of strategy and partnerships for various pandemics projects. Jennifer also works directly with Pandemics grantees to support their implementation of innovative surveillance approaches, working side-by-side with government officials and technologists at events such as Epihacks. Prior to joining SGTF, Jennifer served as Division Director of Fusion within the Office of Emergency Management, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In that role, Jennifer led efforts around data integration, analytics, and visualizations to support decision makers at all levels during outbreaks, natural disasters, and mass gatherings. Prior to that role, she worked on atmospheric dispersion and epidemiologic modeling efforts, focused on the impacts of weapons of mass destruction.
Jennifer holds a B.A. in Biomathematics from Rutgers University, a M.P.H. in Epidemiology from George Washington University, and a Dr.P.H. from the University of North Carolina.
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Delegate
Founder and President, Fledgling Fund
I founded The Fledgling Fund in 2005 after a long career at Harvard University where I taught at both the School of Public Health and Harvard Business School. Areas of interest included the global burden of disease, particularly HIV-AIDS and malaria and a range of solutions including private/public partnerships in the U.S as well as India, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. I also worked with many corporations who were interested in playing a role solving social problems including diversity, sustainable housing, and health benefits
Fledgling is a private foundation and our focus is on the use of storytelling to encourage and support social change. We define "storytelling" quite broadly; we include documentary film, photography, immersive journalism and virtual reality. While we are somewhat issue agnostic, we look for projects that are well underway and need financial support to amplify the goals of the project into measurable social objectives. We do not fund production, we only fund outreach initiatives and have supported about 350 projects to date. We also provide a year long laboratory for filmmakers who want to mount significant outreach efforts around their project and need help developing partners, learning necessary social media skills, deciding what to outsource and what to complete in house. They meet three times during this year long program in person and use intensive virtual meetings throughout the year to learn and to build a community among themselves. We work with a range of partners, foundations as well as individuals to support the highly vetted projects that we choose. Each year we review about 1200 projects to choose 15 or 20 to support.
I live in New York City and have three children, two of whom are entrepreneurs!
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Delegate
Interim Chief Executive Officer,
MedicJacqueline Edwards joined Medic in 2014 and currently serves as Interim Chief Executive Officer and former Chief Operations Officer, based remotely in Atlanta, USA. In this role, Jacqueline leads our team with a focus on working with users and partners to design, build, and deliver high impact apps for their health systems. In addition, Jacqueline is responsible for building and supporting our team, culture, and internal financial and administrative systems. Prior to Medic, Jacqueline worked in partnership development and research operations at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jacqueline holds a B.A.H. in International Development Studies from the University of King's College in Canada and an M.Sc. in Health, Community and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Imago Dei Fund
Debra Veth has been Executive Director of the Imago Dei Fund since its inception in 2009. She works with the board to develop and articulate strategy around IDF's vision, and manages the overall execution of that strategy. She manages the granting process for international partners, and explores opportunities for new partnerships, collaborations and networking.
Debra actively engages in a variety of philanthropic initiatives, including: CEASE Network Core Team, Professionals in Christian Philanthropy, Sojourners Founder's Circle, and the Community Driven Development Collaborative.
Debra has professional experience in finance, strategy, and project management, particularly working with non-profit institutions. She has a BA in Economics from Calvin College (Michigan), and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
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Delegate
Luis Sanabria has over 30 years of experience working at Fundación Paraguaya (FP) in institution building, microfinance, and social development. He oversees the operations of all FP programs by leading a team of 500 people to implement poverty elimination programs, entrepreneurial education and self-sustainable schools in Paraguay and other countries. He also exerts direct supervision to the office in Tanzania and programs in countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia where FP works. Under his leadership, FP has received numerous awards: World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Prize (2009), GDN/Japanese Ministry of Finance prize for Most Innovative Development Project (2009), Nestlé Shared Value Prize (2012), ILO Good Practice in Youth Employment (2014), SPTF/Truelift completed a Microfinance, Social Performance Assessment assigning FP a grade of "Leader Milestone" achieving the highest overall score (2016) and Atlas Network's Think Tank Shark Tank (2022).
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Delegate
Chief Compliance Officer, Capricorn Investment Group
Dawnae Dodds is the Chief Compliance Officer at Capricorn Investment Group, LLC. As CCO Dawnae oversees Capricorn’s compliance program and adherence to regulatory matters. Prior to Capricorn, Dawnae served as a Program Manager with NES Financial Corp, a financial services firm. Prior to NES, Dawnae held senior accountant positions with law firms such as Heller Ehrman and Venture Law Group. Dawnae received her BA in Business Economics with an emphasis in Accounting from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Delegate
Chief Innovation Officer, CARE
As Chief Innovation Officer, Ms. Stoll leads CARE’s thought leadership, innovation, digital, scaling, and market-based approaches teams, with the goal of enabling CARE teams around the world deliver 10x impact. Prior to joining CARE, Ms. Stoll worked as a consultant to The Rockefeller Foundation, and held senior leadership positions across the United States Government. In these roles, she led organizational change processes, provided technical leadership to over $6 billion in active programs, and sought to foster greater impact and agility. Most recently, Ms. Stoll served as Deputy Vice President at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, where she oversaw the Office of Strategic Partnerships and five technical practices groups including agriculture, health, and gender.
Previously, Ms. Stoll served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator of USAID, with responsibility for the establishment of the U.S. Global Development Lab. She served in a variety of roles in the Lab, including acting E
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Delegate
Founder, Dovetail Impact Foundation
David Weekley is Chairman of David Weekley Homes, founded 46 years ago, is the largest private homebuilder in the US with over $3 billion of sales in 2022. Since 1992, David has spent half of his time and earnings on philanthropic projects. Philanthropic endeavors for the first decade were primarily in the US, while efforts more recently have been focused internationally, primarily Africa. As Chairman of the Dovetail Impact Foundation, David practices a venture philanthropy model of investing treasure, time and talent to grow and help build competencies in non-profits and social enterprises serving the poor and disadvantaged. The Foundation’s international portfolio concentrates on improving education, health and livelihoods with a focus on helping young, innovative organizations scale up their proven models to reduce global poverty. Whether grants are given locally or internationally, David is committed to improving the lives of the less fortunate.
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Delegate
Senior Director, Partnerships, Nia Tero Foundation
David Rothschild has worked in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and NGOs for the better part of 30 years, mostly in the Amazon. He has worked with Indigenous organizations, NGOs and with funders, including the Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples, the Field Museum of Chicago, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Skoll Foundation and now currently with Nia Tero since 2017.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Worldreader
David Risher, Worldreader’s Chief Executive and co-founder, has led educational and large-scale technological advancement for over two decades. As general manager at Microsoft, he helped develop and market Microsoft’s first desktop database products and created some of the company’s first Internet-based services. As Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Retail, he grew the company from $16 million to $4 billion in sales and drove the company to its first profitable quarter.
Following his passion for education, David designed and taught “Competing on the Internet” at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, where he was voted Professor of the Year by his students.
He has served as Board Chair at Barcelona's Benjamin Franklin International School, was an early Trustee of the Seattle Girl’s School. In addition to leading Worldreader and serving on its Board, he is a member of the ESADE Business School’s International Advisory Board and Princeton University’s Comparative Literature Advisory Council.
David graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in Comparative Literature focused on 20th century fiction, and was awarded an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Awardee, a Draper Richards Kaplan social entrepreneur, an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and a Microsoft Alumni Foundation Integral Fellow. David speaks four languages and is an avid long-distance cyclist.
On reading: “Reading is our only true vaccine against ignorance and obsolescence. Through it, we become our best selves."
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Delegate
Founder, The Quadra Foundation
A Canadian entrepreneur, David Lyons has been associated with oil and gas since the early 80s. As President and CEO of PanOcean Energy he turned the company from a modest start up in Gabon into a significant industry player, culminating in a 2006 sale for $1.6 bn.
Today David is Chairman and CEO of Orca Exploration Group operating in Tanzania. He has a keen interest in CSR, driving investment in education and small scale energy projects through the Group, and also through his enterprise The Quadra Foundation.
Quadra has interests in venture philanthropy projects in energy, education and media. It has partnered The RGS and US TV channel PBS, successfully launching PBS America in the UK. It has also supported the Acumen Fund in developing its East Africaand Global Fellows programme.
David’s success in transforming energy companies in difficult environments continues to provide the vision that drives the Quadra Group and inspires its belief in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & CEO, Dreams InDeed
David Haskell strengthens social entrepreneurs inside hard places as Dreams InDeed’s co-founder and CEO. His resolve to empower those in hard places started as a graduate student stunned by an explosion in Beirut. David has thirty years’ entrepreneurial experience directing six start-ups and four turn-arounds, including as founding director of Habitat for Humanity in the Middle East and East Africa. His best teachers have been the mentally challenged, genocide survivors, garbage sorters, HIV/AIDS widows, street children, and subsistence farmers. David has shared their wisdom at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Monitor Institute, Social Enterprise Alliance, Social Venture Partners, and at the American University of Beirut, Adelphi, Berkeley, Duke, Harvard, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, Tufts, and Wheaton. David earned a Harvard MPA in Leadership, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution; a UCLA MA in Applied Linguistics; and a Wheaton BA in Communications magna cum laude. A Pforzheimer Nonprofit Fellow at Harvard and Fulbright Scholar at University of Jordan, David received an Outstanding Teaching Award at UCLA.
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Delegate
Globa Strategic Project Director, Womens' Economic Empowerment, Coca-Cola Company
As global Strategic Project Director, Women’s Economic Empowerment at the Coca-Cola Company Jackie is responsible for driving the success of the ‘5by20’ initiative to enable the economic empowerment of 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2020, across the company’s global value chain.
Since joining the Coca-Cola Company in 2007 in Global Marketing in the Sustainability function, Jackie developed international licensing and successfully grew the European business from scratch and led the Coca-Cola brand extension programme and Environmental initiatives for Europe, Eurasia and Asia Pacific. This innovative and collaborative approach, with strategic partnerships was recognised in the best in class international marketing launch of the rPET emeco 111 Navy Chair made from recycled Coca-Cola rPET bottles. Jackie has led the development of Global partnerships with Dolce & Gabbana, Adidas and the first ever licensing and sustainability legacy for the 2012 Olympic Games. Building e-learning solutions for the 5by20 initiative is a key priority to support the global scale and impact.
Prior to joining Coca-Cola, Jackie held international marketing roles at Unilever, Associated British Foods (ABF) and Dr Oetker Group, bringing significant worldwide experience to her role and leadership in driving sustainable innovative business solutions
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Delegate
Professor, Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility
David Grayson CBE is Professor of Corporate Responsibility, and Director of the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield University School of Management. He is also chairman of the charity Carers UK. He is a former Managing-Director of Business in the Community. He has chaired or been a board member of several UK public agencies, appointed by the Thatcher, Major and Blair Governments. Much of his recent work has focused on how to shift Corporate Responsibility from being a bolt-on to business operations to being built-in to business purpose and strategy, and a source of innovation and new business, as well as societal good. He is the author of several books including “Corporate Responsibility Coalitions: The past, present and future of alliances for Sustainable Capitalism” co-authored with Jane Nelson; and his latest book is “Social Intrapreneurism and all that jazz" (2014) co-authored with Melody McLaren and Heiko Spitzeck. He is currently working on his next book: Take Care: being a great employer of care-givers to be publlished Autumn 2016
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Delegate
David Estrada has been with KickStart International since 2011, and manages the organization's development and external relations efforts. Previously, he worked in the global health space with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative where he oversaw and grew a portfolio of corporate funding partners. He also managed a direct mail program and focused on general fund development for the Alliance for Lupus Research. David earned his degree from Cornell University and holds a certificate in non-profit management from UIC.
KickStart is an award-winning, nonprofit social enterprise with a mission to lift millions of people in Africa out of poverty by designing and mass-marketing durable yet affordable “MoneyMaker” irrigation pumps. To date, KickStart has enabled over one million people to lift themselves out of poverty.
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Delegate
Correspondent, CS Monitor
Elisabeth Braw is a London-based correspondent for the CS Monitor, which she joined from Newsweek. Prior to that, she was a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. She also writes for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and the World Affairs Journal, and about music for The Economist. Prior to her London posting, Elisabeth reported from San Francisco and Washington, DC. Elisabeth is Swedish, received her university education in Germany, from where she still reports, and has also lived in Rome, Italy.
In her spare time, Elisabeth is an avid choral singer and is enthusiastically trying to improve her Latin skills. Elisabeth married to Jeffrey Smith, an organist, and has two children.
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Delegate
VP External Affairs, Global Footprint Network
Drew is Vice President of External Affairs at Global Footprint Network. With over 20 years of leadership in social enterprise, academia, and start-ups, Drew is an early and award winning social entrepreneur. As a Dean at Stanford University, a co-founder of two consulting firms, and in public service he has worked with diverse teams to create social change. His achievements include the first internet advocacy campaign in history (watershed protection), the first urban greenbelt campaign, one of the first start-up internet incubators, and indigenous peoples’ control of natural resources around the globe.
Since 2001, Drew has worked solely in public service as an angel investor, social entrepreneur, and fundraiser. He has served as a philanthropic advisor for many corporations and donors, raising millions for public projects. As an expert on the integration of economic and environmental systems worldwide, he helped fund and organize the 2010 Mega Regional Conference on economic growth and the 2011 White House Forum on Entrepreneurship. For this leadership, he was received the National Council on Education’s Award of Merit, commendation from the Bay Area Philanthropy Awards, and honors from a wide variety of local, regional, and national governments.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Yajilarra Trust
Following 12 years in corporate finance spanning investment banking, private equity and three start-up businesses David joined the Yajilarra Trust in 2013.
The trust is focused on Climate Change, Disability, Indigenous Australia and Christian Faith. It also backs well thought through organisations that are backed by our peers in the areas of Poverty & Disadvantage and a more Generous Society.
As a spend down trust we are looking for solutions that provide measurable impact at scale led by great people. David is involved in strategic granting, mission aligned investing and venture investing for the trust.
We are currently specifically looking to discover livelihood and climate solutions in SE Asia.
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Delegate
Partner, iitos
José founded s.e.e.d in 2009, which then became seed by EY in 2018 and now leads iitos, a multidisciplinary firm serving the entrepreneurial ecosystem
He is known to be an ecosystem builder in the region for his work in impact investing and venture capital since the beginning of his professional career. In addition to his MBA from Oxford as a Skoll Scholar, José holds a law degree from the University of Costa Rica. José enjoys spending time with his family and friends in his spare time and is a great movie or series critic.
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Delegate
Faculty, UC Berkeley Haas (Social Entrepreneurship & Social Venture Fund) & Founder/CEO of Eddily, Haas School of Business
Jorge is a career entrepreneur, management consultant, venture investment professional & educator. Mr. Calderon is the Founder and CEO of Eddily (formerly Carett), a learning-as-a-service education tech startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area that is reimagining the bridge between college and careers. He is currently on leave from Impact Strategy Advisors (ISA), a boutique social venture & investment design consulting firm where he was the founding Managing Director. Jorge’s practice focused on helping capital sources & operating companies transform intentional social purpose into economic & positive impact value. Mr. Calderon has broad expertise in a variety of social themes, including education, economic development, diversity/inclusion, job creation, poverty alleviation, access to food, technology for change and the field of impact investing.
Jorge is the author of the Purpose Centered Design methodology and its related philosophy and frameworks. He is also a lecturer at the Berkeley-Haas School of Business, where he built the Social Lean LaunchPad and Startup Disco curricula, is a Fellow within Berkeley’s Institute for Business and Social Impact, is part of the faculty team for the LAUNCH accelerator, was previously the Faculty Director for the GSVC, and is actively working on developing a campus based inclusive innovation program. Jorge recently founded the Berkeley-Haas Social Venture Fund initiative. Through Berkeley-Haas, he received the Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellow (2015-2016) Award and 2016 Berkeley-Haas Best Case Award. Mr. Calderon previously founded Springworks, a program lab that was committed to developing paths for women and minorities in innovation related careers. Earlier he was the founding Director for the West Coast office of a tech focused seed stage venture capital firm and has had roles in top tier management consulting, banking and technology companies. Mr. Calderon is a Univ. of Michigan and Kellogg (Northwestern) alum.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, KaBOOM!
Darell Hammond is the founder and CEO of KaBOOM!, a national non-profit dedicated to the bold goal of bringing balanced and active play into the daily lives of all children, particularly those growing up in poverty in America. With more than 20 years of experience in community development and volunteerism, Hammond has been named an Ashoka Fellow and was awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Hammond has also earned recognition for his leadership in social entrepreneurship, including the American Express NGEN Leadership Award, the Satter Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2011, Hammond released a New York Times best-selling memoir, KaBOOM!: A Movement to Save Play and was named one of the Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine.
Since 1996, KaBOOM! has worked with partners to build, open or improve nearly 16,000 playgrounds, engaged more than one million volunteers and served 7.4 million children. KaBOOM! not only creates and catalyzes great places to play but also works to empower play advocates and elevate the societal conversation around the importance of why play matters for all kids.
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Delegate
Marketing & Communications Officer, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Hania Abu-Eid is the Marketing and Communications Officer at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. In her role, Hania manages all aspects of the organization’s internal and external marketing and communications strategies as well as across its threat-specific initiatives. Prior to joining SGTF, Hania was a Communications Manager at Kiva Microfunds where she conceptualized ongoing marketing, branding, and PR campaigns garnering the highest site traffic in Kiva’s history. Prior to Kiva, Hania worked at Edelman PR. At Edelman, she created Sprout, a global service providing PR counsel to early stage startups, VCs, and small entrepreneurial ventures. In July 2013, Hania was invited to join the White House Champions of Change program after successfully leading a nationwide campaign as part of the official National Day of Civic Hacking.
Hania holds a B.A. in Communications and Marketing from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In her spare time, she serves as a mentor for organizations promoting the development of entrepreneurship in the Middle East. Hania also supports a variety of local and global humanitarian causes and believes that economic opportunity is a human right.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Trico Charitable Foundation
Dan is Executive Director of the Trico Charitable Foundation, which seeks to leverage social entrepreneurship to reimagine how we can use the power of business models to close gaps in society. His highlights as E.D. include overseeing Canada’s hosting of the Social Enterprise World Forum in 2013 (over 1,000 attendees from over 30 countries and over 100 speakers); organizing the first official “social entrepreneurship day” in Calgary in 2016; overseeing the funding of key social enterprise infrastructure projects like the Changemakers Studio at Mount Royal University and the Social Entrepreneurship Centre at Haskayne; and publishing numerous case studies and blogs on social entrepreneurship.
Prior to Trico, Dan served as Director of Policy and Communications for the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce (MCC). In that capacity he was an early adopter of CSR, shared value, and cluster theory; redesigned the MCC to focus on community values as well as entrepreneurial spirit; and oversaw the MCC’s participation in the anti-poverty campaigns ‘Raise the Rates’ and ‘Make Poverty History.’
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Delegate
President & Co-Founder, Telos Group
Through Telos, Greg has helped build a vibrant community of leading conservative and liberal influencers in America--a community committed to bridging seemingly intractable divides to transform conflict. While Telos has focused almost exclusively on addressing America’s unhealthy relationship to the Middle East, it is now applying its unique model of conflict transformation to other issue areas globally.
Telos’ guides cohorts of leaders through immersive experiences to build relationships and spark creative, action-oriented conversations. Since 2009, Telos has lead more than 1400 American leaders on unique trips to the Middle East. It then leverages these transformative experiences to equip leaders to build "pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace" movements in mainstream America, which is necessary to shift American cultural, economic and political engagement on the conflict. Now that Telos has proven its model it is scaling nationally.
Additionally, Telos is in the process of launching a for profit travel arm, which will scale its trip offerings in the Middle East and replicate the model globally and also domestically within the southern United States. Illumine, the new company, is launching later this year.
Before founding Telos, Greg was a legal and communications advisor to Palestinian negotiatiors on peace talks with Israel. Greg is also a founding member/board member of Narrative 4, a global literary exchange organization that develops empathic leaders. His writing has been featured in The New York Times and The Review of Faith and International Affairs. He is a graduate of UCLA and Yale Law School.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Levi Strauss Foundation
Daniel Jae-Won Lee is the Executive Director of the Levi Strauss Foundation, supporting pioneering social change globally in communities touched by the business of Levi Strauss & Co. Its grantmaking focuses on advancing the rights and well-being of apparel workers, addressing HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination, helping low-income people save and invest in their future, and advancing social justice. During his tenure, the Foundation’s signature initiatives have included “Pioneers in Justice,” equipping next-generation social justice leaders in San Francisco to amplify their reach and impact through the power of technology and networks; and “Worker Well-being,” spurring partnerships with the company, its key suppliers and local partners for social and business impact.
He is currently a Board member of the Council on Foundations, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and Funders Concerned about AIDS (FCAA). He is an International Advisory Board and former Board member of the Astraea Foundation, a former member of the Asia-Oceania Advisory Council of the Global Fund for Women, and a founding board member of the Massachusetts Asian AIDS Prevention Project. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was the Senior Program Officer for Asia Pacific at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (now OutRight Action International). He received his undergraduate degree in religion and history from Princeton University (magna cum laude), a Master of Divinity from Harvard University and an honorary doctorate in sacred theology from the Starr King School for the Ministry.
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Delegate
Advisor / Operations Officer, Saúde Criança / World Bank Group
Daniel Ortega Nieto is an Advisor for Saude Crianca. He is also an Operations Officer at the World Bank Group working with the Science of Delivery Team. In this capacity he provides technical support to operations and leads the Delivery Challenge Initiative. He leads a team that is developing DeCODE, an evidence-based system that uses historical data to help anticipate delivery challenges, and which also connects practitioners and relevant knowledge products.
Prior to joining the World Bank he was an advisor to the Mexican Vice‐Minister for Foreign Affairs and consulted for the Inter‐American Development Bank, as well as the governments of Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. He has conducted research at Harvard University, the Institut d ́Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), and the Hague Academy of International Law. Mr. Ortega Nieto received his B.A. from El Colegio de México, a M.P.P. from Georgetown University, and a M.Sc. in development management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (Chevening Scholar), and Ph.D. from Georgetown University (Fulbright Scholar).
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Delegate
Principal, Leicester Business School
Dana is currently Director of the MBA at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, and was previously Director of Studies for Management at Merton College, Oxford University, Clore Fellow in Management and Tutor for Visiting Students at Lady Margaret Hall.
Dana has also worked in a number of international institutions. She was Professor of Strategy and Academic Director of the International Doctorate of Business Administration at EMLYON Business School in France and Director of Trenton Academic Center at Rutgers University in the USA. She is also an advisor to Warm Heart, a children's charity and social enterprise based in Phrao, Thailand, and to the Alfa Fellowship Program, a professional development program sending American and British young professionals to Moscow.
Dana holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies from St Antony's College, University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
Dana's research and publication portfolio is wide-ranging, her most recent research is focused on global health delivery and the intersection of public and private initiatives to address major health epidemics, such as diabetes.
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Delegate
Social impact Investment Manager, European Investment Fund
Prior to joining EIF, Cyril gained unique field experience working with microfinance institutions in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Cyril studied at Institut d’Études Politiques de Toulouse where he received a Masters in Development Economics with a focus on poverty alleviation and local development. At EIF, Cyril’s entire career has been dedicated to impact related activities in the area of social entrepreneurship and microfinance. In this context, he was responsible for the implementation of the JASMINE programme, an EU initiative aimed at boosting the institutional capacity of microfinance institutions in Europe and in the set-up of the EPPA programme, one of EIF’s early direct investment pilots in microfinance. Since 2012, Cyril is working within the social impact team of EIF, in which he contributed to raise the SIA fund-of-funds and has been acting as investment manager since the first closing of the vehicle, in July 2013.
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Delegate
Director of Programmes, The Elders
Jenny joined The Elders in June 2015. She worked for the previous 12 years at the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID): leading the UK Government’s efforts to help Indonesia address climate change, based in Jakarta; and also working for DFID in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and in the Communications Division in London. Prior to that, Jenny worked in NGOs and with the governments of Uganda and Swaziland, including working with Oxfam in Mozambique and as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow in the Ministry of Agriculture in Swaziland.
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Delegate
Partner, Farella Braun + Martel
I am a California licensed business lawyer, with a particular emphasis on U.S. nonprofit tax and corporate law, including charitable giving techniques. Current clients include private foundations and the philanthropists that support them, museums and cultural institutions, churches and church-related entities, many publicly supported charities, as well as other tax-exempt organizations formed to support various charitable purposes in the United States and internationally.
I serve as general counsel to individuals and institutions whose mission is to change the world and make it a better place. The organizations I work with include public charities operating domestically and internationally, private foundations, religious institutions, charitable trusts and other tax-exempt organizations, and benefit/B corporations. My work includes advising on a wide variety of issues, including corporate structure, finance, fiduciary duties of directors and trustees, compensation and income tax issues, complex contract negotiations, and organization, reorganization and merger matters. I also advise charities and professional fundraisers on national charitable solicitation programs. The practice includes extensive work in complex business structures involving nonprofit and for-profit enterprises in a diverse array of fields.
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Delegate
As Senior Director of Grants Management at the Skoll Foundation, Cristina is responsible for ensuring effective and efficient grantmaking operations, systems, and policies to support the foundation’s mission and strategic goals. She is recognized nationally for her expertise and speaks regularly on technology, grantmaking best practices, legal compliance, and international grantmaking. She was one of the first employees of the Skoll Foundation
In addition to working at the Skoll Community Fund and the Skoll Global Threat Funds, Cristina held positions at Stanford University and Walt Disney Internet Group focusing on content delivery and user experience design.
Cristina currently serves on the advisory council and committee of NGOsource and Technology Affinity Group. She is a former board member of PEAK Grantmaking, the nation’s leading association dedicated to advancing the knowledge and skills of grants management professionals. She was also a principal contributor to the GM Guide, a comprehensive online publication on best practices in grants management.
Cristina has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Women and Gender Studies and a minor in Film Studies.
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Delegate
COO, Saude Crianca
Cristiana Velloso is COO of Instituto Dara (formerly Associação Saúde Criança) where she has been working since 1999. She started at the Institute as a volunteer working directly with the families participating in the program, she was hired as a project manager, focusing on the replication of the methodology, and since 2008 she has been a director. She has a B.S. in Nutrition Science from UNIRIO ( Universidade do Rio Janeiro) with specialization in maternal and infant nutrition and post-graduation degrees in Social Responsability and the Third Sector and in Project Management.
She is Brazilian, married, has one son and two daughters and lives in Rio de Janeiro.
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Delegate
Head of Communications, Crisis Action
Conor is a former journalist, having worked with the BBC, Reuters and others. After a period travelling and freelancing throughout Africa, he made the leap to storytelling for social good. He began consulting for various international nonprofits, helping them put story at the centre of their communications to drive engagement and change.
He then spent a number of years working on a startup global media team for Save the Children International, helping them ramp up ambition while cohering and aligning messaging and outreach across the globe. In 2014 he joined Crisis Action, where he leads media and digital campaigns designed to improve protections for civilians trapped in conflict across the globe.
At Crisis Action, his particular passion is driving connections for change - making introductions between exceptional individuals and organisations to stimulate creative thinking that creates awareness of the issues and fosters momentum and desire to bring about reprieve for civilians in war torn countries.
He holds a first-class masters degree in Political Communications from the University of Amsterdam and plays the saxophone and ukulele, both quite poorly.
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Delegate
Chair and CEO, Small Foundation
Conor Brosnan is a founding Director of Small Foundation (SF), an Irish-registered charity (www.smallfoundation.ie). SF’s vision is Africa permanently free from extreme poverty by 2030. It seeks to catalyse income-generating opportunities for extremely poor people in rural sub-Saharan Africa by supporting initiatives that improve the business ecosystems that proliferate income opportunities for those in extreme poverty by expanding the access of MSMEs to knowledge, skilled human resources, finance, technology and markets. (MSMEs are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises including smallholder farming.)
Since joining Small Foundation in an executive capacity in 2015, Conor has focused on growing the capacity of the organisation to deliver on is vision. Conor became CEO and Chair of Small Foundation in March 2018.
Prior to this Conor was Head of Research at Abbey Capital, an investment management company specializing in global managed futures.
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Delegate
Founder, Vive Bailando
Clemencia Vargas was born in Bogota, Colombia. She received a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Babson College. Upon graduation she worked as a senior consultant in Deloitte and Touche, in Financial Advisory services in the LATAM region.
Currently, she is the Founder and Executive Director of Vive Bailando, a social entrepreneurship initiative that has developed an innovative model of intervention in Colombia using dance as a pedagogic tool to obtain a sustained and positive impact on behaviors, attitudes, leadership, structure of values, family integration and the ability to empower agents of change in society. Clemencia, is a profesional dancer and coreographer for over 18 years that has had the opportunity to dance with Backstreet boys, Black eyed epeas, opened up concerts for Beyonce and N'sync, performed in private sessions at Madonnas house and the MTV Latin Video Music Awards; amongnst others.
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Delegate
CEO, Community Reinvestment Fund
FRANK ALTMAN is CEO for Community Reinvestment Fund, USA. As CRF’s founder, Altman pioneered the development of a secondary market for community and economic development. Since 1988, under Altman's leadership and in partnership with a network of local community partners, CRF has funded over $2.4 billion in loans to job-creating small businesses, nonprofits, charter schools and affordable housing projects in 49 states plus the District of Columbia and more than 1,000 communities across the United States. Altman helped design the creation of a federal tax credit to encourage private investment in low-income communities and is a founding member and first President of the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition. He is also a member of the Center for Community Development Investors at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and an advisor to the Social Innovation Initiative at Brown University. His work has been featured in Inc. Magazine, where he was named one of its Entrepreneurs of the Year and he received Fast Company’s Social Capitalist award. More recently Altman has been awarded the Economic Development Innovation Award from GIS Planning Inc. and fDi Intelligence for his contribution to the field of economic development. Altman is a Senior Fellow at Ashoka, the world-wide network of social entrepreneurs.
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer,
VidereJackie is the CEO of Videre est Credere, where she has spent the past decade building it into a highly respected human rights documentation organization. Under her leadership, Videre has exposed genocide; revealed systematic political violence; uncovered widespread corruption affecting the lives of millions; and spurred concrete policy changes and action.
Jackie’s experience spans start-ups and large institutions; the public and private sectors; and work across justice, human rights, technology, and climate. A keen strategist, she has conceptualized, built, and led internationally-focused initiatives at a wide range of organizations, including the Brookings Institution, US State Department, UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and American Bar Association. She is a member of the International Criminal Court’s Technology Advisory Board and a sought-after advisor and speaker on security and documentation efforts in complex human rights environments.
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Delegate
For the last 16 years, Clarita has worked at Fundación Escuela Nueva (FEN), a leading nonprofit working to improve the lives of children through quality education that empowers them as individuals to fully develop their human potential and achieve outstanding outcomes.
As Chief Operating Officer, she ensures strategic alignment of programs and leads strategies to strengthen general management as well as innovation and knowledge generation. Clarita also provides strategic and managerial oversight to FEN´s project management office, which centralizes project design, planning, execution and evaluation.
Clarita holds a BA in Business from Los Andes University in Colombia and an MA in International Education from New York University´s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development. She also pursued a specialization program in Nonprofit Management at NYU´s Wagner School of Public Policy and participated in INSEAD´s Social Entrepreneurship program.
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Delegate
Animated by the power of connection, Claire cultivates and leads strategic relationships, Foundation-wide engagements, and regional activations of the Skoll network to advance social progress. Since joining Skoll in 2016, Claire has led multi-year global network building efforts and launched initiatives to increase access and inclusion, including the Skoll Fellowship and TEDx Skoll Series across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Claire is a co-creator and hosting team member of Wasan Network and advises organizations on growth and network strategies.
As a University of Oxford Visiting Fellow, Claire applies her multi-disciplinary background in contemporary dance, ecology, and philanthropy. She collaborates with Oxford researchers, industry practitioners, and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship to teach and write about networks, collaboration, and collective leadership.
Prior to Skoll, Claire managed the San Diego Zoo's internal innovation and biomimicry lab under the CFO. She worked with corporate R&D teams, co-led organizational experiments, and developed programs to help deepen human connection with biodiversity. She is an alum of Seth Godin's altMBA, CCL, AVPN Impact Investing Fellowship, RSA, and JPCatholic University.
After 15 years of studying and teaching contemporary dance, Claire now choreographs spaces for people to connect and co-create a more just future.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Claire is CEO and Managing Director of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a role she took on in 2011. By leveraging the financial and technical resources of the Foundation’s network she seeks to catalyse and fund science that will support the Foundation’s vision of ‘a resilient reef’.
She is particularly enthusiastic about bringing the power of business and science together to generate outcomes including new sources of capital, market-based mechanisms such as bonds and technology applied to benefit the environment.
Claire joined the Foundation in 2008 as General Manager, running the operational aspects of the organisation including financial management, investor/donor relationships, and the management of research investments. She also convened the Foundation’s network to develop its first research portfolio for investment - ‘A resilient reef successfully adapting to climate change’
Prior to joining the Foundation, she spent eight years with Rio Tinto in senior management roles facilitating innovation and improvement across technology, shared services, procurement and operational teams in the US, Canada, Australia and South Africa.
Claire began her career in finance with BP, working in accounting, treasury and corporate finance in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Europe.
She holds an MBA from INSEAD in France and a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (First Class Honours) from Victoria University in Wellington. Claire is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Strongheart Group
Zoë Adams is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Strongheart Group, an NGO that uses the power of story to impact change on fundamental social issues. She works through amplifying the messages of films, organizations and individuals and building strategic initiatives to reach key influencers and decision makers who have the power to affect wide-reaching, systems level change. Zoë specializes in getting an audience for individuals, who have a lived experience of tough social problems but no prior exposure to advocacy, with world leaders ranging from heads of state and government to Nobel Laureates.
Currently, Zoë is strategizing and overseeing the building of two separate civil society movements, one around child marriage that targets legislation and programs in countries across the world and another on mental health as part of a global collaboration to transform the narrative of mental wellbeing. Both initiatives are bringing previously unheard constituencies, including those most directly impacted by the issues, to the forefront through inclusion, creative engagement, and solidarity building in order to impact national and international policy, programs and funding.
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Delegate
Finance & Corporate Services Director, Elders, The
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Delegate
Portfolio Director, King Philanthropies
Cindy is the Director of King Essentials at King Philanthropies, where she oversees strategic grantmaking and key partnerships related to the King Essentials program. She brings to this position more than a decade of experience in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, and her areas of expertise include strategy planning, program design, business model design, impact assessment, and investment due diligence. Before joining King Philanthropies, Cindy served as a strategic advisor to high-impact social entrepreneurs and philanthropic institutions. Previously, she was a Director at the Skoll Foundation, where she focused on improving the foundation’s resource and investment decisions through deep analysis of portfolio performance and by tracking ecosystem inflection points. Cindy holds a B.S. in management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Delegate
Dr. Cynthia Brunswick is senior vice president of program delivery for New Teacher Center, a national
organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new
teachers and school leaders. She leads the organization’s national program delivery work, focused on
developing highly effective educators, and is a member of its senior leadership team.
Cynthia began her career teaching middle and high school at Lindblom High School on Chicago’s
Southside. Prior to joining New Teacher Center, she led the Center for Urban School Improvement
Professional Development for Network Schools at the University of Chicago’s work training coaches
and school leaders in literacy instruction across a network of schools on the city’s south side. Cynthia
joined New Teacher Center in 2006 to launch the organization’s proven, mentor-based induction
program in Chicago Public Schools. Under her leadership, New Teacher Center successfully grew its
Chicago office and partnership with Chicago Public Schools. She now leads the organization’s federal
Investing in Innovation (i3) grant work in eight high-needs districts across the country.
Cynthia is passionate about serving schools, teachers, and students in our hardest to staff districts.
She holds a doctorate at Loyola University, a master’s in education at Roosevelt University, and a
Bachelor of Science at Valparaiso University.
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Delegate
Social Innovations Director, Mercy Corps
Chris Walker works to scale up innovative, entrepreneurial solutions to development challenges and provides advice on various innovative finance initiatives at Mercy Corps. He also advises Mercy Corps’ impact investment arm, Mercy Corps Ventures, which invests in and accelerates impact-oriented, for-profit businesses. He previously managed the Innovation Investment Alliance, a funding and learning partnership between the Skoll Foundation and USAID that financed the scale-up of social enterprises. In addition, Chris is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he teaches a graduate course on impact investing and innovative finance.
Previously, Chris was the head of the Innovative Finance Program at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), where he designed and built initiatives that attracted investment capital to address malnutrition. These included partnerships with impact investors to provide equity and debt financing to businesses having a positive impact on nutrition, and incubation support for African food and agribusiness companies. He also led the creation of the Access to Nutrition Index (www.accesstonutrition.org), a ranking of the world’s largest food and beverage companies on their nutrition practices which serves as an assessment tool for the sustainable investment community. Prior to GAIN, Chris was a Fellow with Acumen, a non-profit social venture capital fund, and worked for one of Acumen’s investments, Ziqitza Health Care, in Mumbai, India. He has also worked on international economic and development policy issues at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the U.S. State Department. Chris has a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College.
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Delegate
Head of Innovating Justice Accelerator - Investment Program, HiiL
Wilfried is the Head of the HiiL Innovating Justice Accelerator at HiiL (www.hiil.org). He coordinates the Justice Investment Programme, bringing investors in touch with top justice innovators. The network ranges from private individuals such as lawyers or judges who want to invest in justice initiatives, to professional venture capitalists and institutional investors.
His main responsibilities: building the justice entrepreneur investment portfolio, supervising www.innovatingjustice.com, scouting for world class justice innovations, setting up local or specialized Innovating Justice Hubs (in 2016: Lagos, Nairobi and Papua New Guinea) and partnership programs (e.g. with Ford Foundation, MFA Netherlands), developing Innovating Justice events and guiding innovation scale up processes.
More than 10 years of experience in the field, a strong educational background combining law, economics, entrepreneurship and business makes for a broad foundation. His analytical, open mindset and strong language skills are indispensable assets for building long term strategic partnerships on a daily basis.
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Delegate
Founder, Children's Investment Fund Foundation
Christopher Hohn is the founder of the Children’s Investment (TCI) Fund, a hedge fund based in London. Through donation of the hedge fund's profits he endowed the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). CIFF is focused on improving the lives of children, particularly those living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Key areas of focus include climate change, girls’ education, malnutrition, neglected tropical diseases and child protection. With a clear focus on reducing global emissions to limit temperature increase to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels, CIFF’s climate work spans a range of sectors, including energy, transport, industry, food and land use, alongside cross-cutting strategic levers such as finance and accountability, diplomacy, legal action, and strategic communications. He has an MBA (high distinction) from Harvard Business School.
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Delegate
Chair of the International Board, Fisheries Transparency Initiative
Valeria Merino chairs the Fisheries Transparency Initiative. FiTI, a global multi-stakeholder organization, makes the fishing industry more sustainable by making it data transparent. The fishing sector is quite opaque, not necessarily by design but by practice, complex and highly technical. Governments voluntarily join the FiTI and apply the FiTI Standard to improve sustainable fisheries management and participatory governance, promote employment and food security, fulfill international obligations, connect to markets, and prevent IUU fishing. At the core is the. It contributes $500> billion to the economy and employs 58> m. & 600 million livelihoods depend on it. As a social entrepreneur, I am delighted to lead this systemic and transformational initiative after working at the SCOs I founded, at Skoll, Ashoka, and PADF. I served on the Board of Transparency International and UN University. If you are interested in talking to me, please reach out. www.linkedin.com/in/valeriamerino/
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Delegate
Senior Vice President, Winrock International
For over 20 years, I have developed strategies, mobilized resources, and created and grown organizations for social impact and public benefit. I am currently SVP of Growth and External Affairs at Winrock International where I serve on the Executive Team, manage corporate affairs and have built new teams and practice areas for brand strategy, public affairs, corporate partnerships, blended finance and philanthropy.
I began as a policy aide in the White House Office of Social Innovation where we designed the $400-million, public-private “domestic Peace Corps” initiative, AmeriCorps. As a founding AmeriCorps program officer, I managed a $20-million portfolio of education, health, community and environmental projects.
At CSR pioneer Odwalla Inc. I managed public affairs, communications and supply-chain environmental impact through a high-profile crisis and turnaround, leading to our successful corporate sale to the Coca-Cola Company. Later, as president of Social Venture Network, I recruited women, youth and technology entrepreneurs to increase revenue by 45 percent and accelerate global movements for sustainable business and impact investing.
After a five-year stint as a composer and recording artist, I created and led the Music National Service Initiative and MusicianCorps – a domestic “musical peace corps” with operations in six states and DC. I was honored with awards for leadership and social impact from Aspen Institute, GQ Magazine, James Irvine Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, St. Paul’s School Alumni Assoc. and elsewhere. My work has been profiled on NBC News, PBS NewsHour, NPR All Things Considered, Voice of America, Chronicle of Philanthropy and other local and national outlets. My music is licensed commercially worldwide.
Additional highlights: I've been a...frequent public speaker/ guest lecturer on business, innovation, social impact and public policy; active equity investor for 15yrs; paid adviser to the Gates Fdn, State Dept., two winning U.S. presidential campaigns and media, tech and investment companies.
I'm deeply grateful for and inspired by this co-creative journey. Thank you friends, teachers, mentors, teammates, dreamers and do-ers for life. What's next?! -Kiff
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Delegate
Christine is Director of Development at Global Witness
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Delegate
Former Program Coordinator, Skoll Foundation
Christina serves the Asian markets and communities in the United States and abroad in event management, marketing and logistics roles. With a focus on the entertainment industry, Christina’s clientele uses music and the arts to create positive messages for the underrepresented. She worked previously at the Skoll Foundation providing support to the Community & Convenings and Portfolio & Investments teams. Christina earned her Masters of Science in Management from Notre Dame de Namur University.
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Delegate
Founding Partner, Imago Dei Fund
Emily is a donor-activist engaged in promoting human equality, justice, & peace around the world. She is particularly passionate and engaged in the nexus of faith, gender, and development & working to mobilize our faith traditions to more fully and unambiguously embrace gender equality. In her role at the Imago Dei Fund, Emily has helped the foundation to adopt a “gender-lens” in its grantmaking to create a world where girls and women can thrive and achieve their full human potential. Emily brings a contemplative posture to both faith & philanthropy and is passionate about supporting the inner lives of change agents to lead with love and be their best selves in the challenging work they do. Emily is the co-author/convener of a project called The Girl Child & Her Long Walk to Freedom which aims to change patriarchal norms wrapped within religion to get faith fully on board with women’s equality and our shared emancipation as a human family.
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Delegate
, Independent
Chrisoula is the former Executive Assistant to the Chief Strategy Officer of The Skoll Foundation.
Prior to The Skoll Foundation, she was the sole Sales Administrator of a Market Research company. Her other previous roles include working at Sony PlayStation and interning at Where Magazine San Francisco.
Chrisoula earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from San Francisco State University. In her spare time Chrisoula loves rooting on her favorite Bay Area sports teams, attending concerts, playing soccer, and baking.
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Delegate
Tim Cross is the founding President of YouthBuild International (YBI). He joined YouthBuild USA in 1996 holding several positions including Vice President of Field Services over seeing the national domestic field operation and then served as YouthBuild USA’s Chief Operating Officer for three years before launching YouthBuild International.
In YouthBuild programs, out of school and unemployed young people, ages 16-25, acquire basic education, job readiness, technical training and leadership skills while building permanent community assets such as housing, community centers, schools, playgrounds and ‘green’ infrastructure. YouthBuild was established in the United States 40 years ago and has expanded to 360 program sites in 45 US states and 23 countries, enrolling 16,000 young people each year. YBI in-county partners include NGOs, global development institutions, governments, bi- and multilateral donor organizations, and private-sector companies. These partners are working in industrialized nations, emerging economies, and developing countries. YouthBuild manages global partnerships with firms, including Prudential, Starbucks, JP Morgan Chase, and Saint Gobain, and over the last ten years has grown its partnership with Catholic Relief Services from one country to eight, on two continents.
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Delegate
CEO, iDE
Tim Prewitt is CEO of International Development Enterprises (iDE), a nonprofit organization selling affordable, technically relevant products and services to the very poor since 1983, often through closely-held social enterprises or partner businesses, from Fortune 500 Companies to kiosks and farm stalls at the base of the pyramid.
Tim has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, and Europe on agricultural productivity, technology adaptation, and economic growth. Prior to working for iDE Tim worked in Nigeria on one of the largest agricultural development programs in Africa, in partnership with Heineken, Chevron, Nestle, and Olam. Additionally, Tim served as the head of the Private Sector Practice for Chemonics International, worked in venture capital in China, and was a Fulbright Scholar. He holds an MBA and an MA in Sociology.
Tim is leading iDE to reach another 20 million people at the base of the pyramid with products such as irrigation pumps, drip irrigation kits, water filters, latrines, and on-farm technologies. He welcomes conversation with potential partners at the Skoll Forum and beyond.
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Delegate
Senior Program Officer for Special Projects, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Elizabeth Cheung manages a portfolio of grants as part of the Domestic Program team, including in multiple sclerosis and hospitality education. She also manages the Foundation’s small grants and family giving programs. Prior to joining the Foundation, Cheung worked as a Program Analyst at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in the Children, Families, and Communities Program. She also has worked for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, where she oversaw the Medi-Cal budget, with a special emphasis on issues concerning the aged, blind, and disabled. Cheung received her Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development and a double Bachelor’s in East Asian Studies and Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Delegate
Vice President - Program, Partnerships and Learning, CARE
Thomas Reynolds is the Vice President of Program, Partnerships and Learning at CARE. Since 2002, Thomas has contributed to CARE’s mission to fight poverty through a variety of roles in the Middle East and Asia as well as in the U.S. Within the scope of his VP role, he brings together experts in the areas of gender; sexual, reproductive and maternal health; water; education; social enterprise; food and nutrition security; government relations; design and proposal development; and knowledge management. Thomas has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business and resides in Atlanta, GA.
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Delegate
CEO, Kepler
Chris Hedrick is the CEO of Kepler, is a nonprofit university program based in Africa and designed for the developing world. Our students get the best of online learning paired with in-person seminars — all while students work toward a U.S.-accredited degree and a great job after graduation. Results from our first two years of operations are outstanding: student learning outcomes dramatically exceed those at traditional universities in Rwanda; 98% of our first group of students are earning degrees on time; more than 80% of that group has received great job offers, even before graduating. Our goal is to create a global network of universities, beginning in Rwanda, that deliver the skills that emerging economies need for a price that all talented students can afford.
Hedrick is an expert in international development, learning, and technology. Before joining Kepler, Chris was the Country Director for the Peace Corps in Senegal, the largest Peace Corps program in the world, where he led their efforts to fight malaria across Africa. Previously, Chris was founder and CEO of a venture capital-backed corporate training outsourcing and technology business, Intrepid Learning, and was also an early leader of the Gates Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, Hedrick led Microsoft's first national philanthropic initiatives. A graduate of Stanford University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Chris has been Science and Technology Adviser to the Governor of the state of Washington, an elected public school board director, a university Board Chair, and Board Treasurer of PATH, the global health non-profit.
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Delegate
Director, Applied Recovery Co
Chris Raine is an Australian social entrepreneur with a focus on mental health and addiction. He is the founder and former CEO of Hello Sunday Morning and the current CEO of Australians for Mental Health. He is also the co-founder of Clean Slate Clinic, a home telehealth alcohol detox service with a mission to safely detox 10,000 Australians by 2025. Chris is a Young Australian of the Year, a Westpac Social Change Fellow, a Skoll Scholarship recipient, and has completed an MBA at Oxford University. In 2023, he was awarded a John Monash Scholarship.
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Delegate
, Independent
As former Associate of Skoll's Awards and Community team, Tarun helped to advise the foundation’s resource and investment decisions through a deeper understanding of our social entrepreneurs and the ecosystems in which they work.
Prior to joining Skoll, Tarun worked as an investment analyst at Stanford Management Company, where he evaluated global public and private market opportunities ranging from growth equity to distressed credit. He previously worked as a private equity analyst at Paul Capital Partners. Additionally, Tarun volunteers in a leadership capacity for Ekal Vidyalaya, an India-focused education nonprofit targeting universal literacy in rural areas.
Tarun is originally from Hong Kong and received a B.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.
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Delegate
Chief Catalyst, Catalyst at Large Ltd.
Suzanne Biegel, Chief Catalyst at Catalyst at Large, and Co-Producer of the GenderSmart Investing Summit
Suzanne is a globally recognised expert on gender-smart investing. Her work has influenced hundreds of institutional and family investors, and billions of dollars in capital to move with a gender and impact lens. Her work spans research, field building, and advisory in gender-smart investing.
Suzanne was a founding board member of Confluence Philanthropy. She was Vice Chair of Liberty Hill Foundation. She is passionate about the role of investors and funders to shift market systems and invest for impact with a gender lens.
Suzanne is Senior Gender Lens Investing Adviser at Wharton Business School, is a Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and she teaches Getting Gender Smart at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She sits on the Investor Advisory Council for the Equality Fund, and on numerous advisory boards including Cornerstone Capital and SheEO. She also leads the Women, Girls, and Reduced Inequalities group at Toniic ,where she is an active member.
She has been coming to Skoll World Forum for 10 years, now, as a funder, as an investor, and as a field builder.
Suzanne was an award winning entrepreneur for the e-learning company that she built in the 1990s, and has won numerous awards throughout her 30+ year career, including the Beacon Award for Philanthropy and Social Investment, in the UK.
She is based in London.
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Delegate
President, Childrens Radio Foundation
The Rev’d Charlotte Bannister-Parker is the President of The Children's Radio Foundation & Chair of it’s International Executive Committee. She is also the Catetchist (Associate Chaplain) of Exeter College, Oxford and Associate Priest at The University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford. Charlotte is also a trustee of The Oxford Foundation, a Governor of Queen’s College School, London, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Patron of the British Film Institute. She is a Fellow of the RGS and a former Trustee of the International Interfaith Centre.
She was also The Bishop of Oxford's Advisor for Overseas Projects 2008-2013. In 2008, Charlotte, lived in Kimberley, South Africa where she helped develop, with the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, HIV/Aids and educational projects. She remains a regular visitor to SA and the CRF projects sights, monitoring and supporting some of the programmes in the region. Charlotte also co-founded in 1994 the charity Learning for Life which funds schools and education projects in India, Nepal and Pakistan specialising in girl-child education. She also founded the annual inter-faith "Friendship Walk" in Oxford (2004) and the annual seminar "One Earth, Many Faiths" (2005).
Her academic qualifications include a BA in Politics, Anthropology & Russian Studies from Durham University (1984), an MA in Development Communications for the Centre for Overseas Research and Development, Durham University including field research in Nepal (1992) and another BA Hons in Contextual Theology, North Thames Ministerial Training, London (2004).
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Delegate
Edwin Ou leads Skoll's strategic engagements with aligned funders and manages a variety of key relationships with funded social entrepreneurs, domain experts, policy makers and corporate partners. Edwin develops and structures funding opportunities to drive large-scale change in the focus areas of the foundation. Edwin has also held previous roles of increasing responsibility at Skoll, including Principal.
Prior to working at Skoll, Edwin amassed a diverse set of leadership skills and experience in organizational and business planning, program and personnel management and financial development in the field of social entrepreneurship. Most recently, Edwin led programmatic efforts for the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC), where he managed the spin-offs of MAC’s regional capacity-building programs as newly-formed NGOs in Indonesia and the Philippines. Prior to MAC, Edwin led the business development efforts at Benetech, where he built a team that evaluated and drove the early-stage development of social ventures and fueled the organization with funding and partner resources. Prior to social entrepreneurship, Edwin assumed roles of increasing responsibility in product management for a SoftBank-funded technology startup and as a mergers and acquisitions advisor for an energy investment bank.
Edwin earned his B.A. in Economics at Rice University and M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he focused his studies in social entrepreneurship and was a Packard Environment Fellow. He has served on regional boards of three nonprofit organizations: the Red Cross, Surfrider Foundation and Taiwanese American Citizens League.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Physicians for Human Rights
Donna McKay joined Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) as executive director in February 2012, bringing more than 20 years of international and U.S. nonprofit experience to the organization. Under McKay’s leadership, PHR has increased its organizational budget by almost 50 percent, created new programs, and solidified its reputation as a global authority on human rights violations that uses science and medicine to expose attacks on health care, torture, and sexual violence in conflict. A Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate, PHR was recently selected to receive the prestigious Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. Before joining PHR, McKay served for nearly a decade as the director of institutional advancement and special projects at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she played a critical role in transforming the organization as it responded to the erosion of U.S. civil liberties in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. McKay also spent nearly a decade working to advance women’s reproductive rights with Planned Parenthood.
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Delegate
Independent Producer, Miramax Television
Stephanie Swedlove is a multifaceted independent producer actively developing scripted drama and comedy series for all platforms as well as low to mid range budget feature films. Prior to launching her own shingle, Swedlove was Director of Development at Miramax, where she developed both scripted and long-form series as well as overseeing the studio’s first original drama series FROM DUSK TIL DAWN for the El Rey Network. She previously served as Manager of Scripted Programming at Participant Media’s cable network Pivot, overseeing creative development and production on the second season of the critically-acclaimed dramedy series PLEASE LIKE ME. Swedlove also produced the acclaimed short film NUIT BLANCHE, which garnered international awards, has been featured in Wired and Stash Magazine and has millions of views online. Born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, she is currently based in Los Angeles.
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Delegate
Advocacy and Campaigns Director, Oxfam International
Celine Charveriat is an experienced researcher, advocate, negotiator, and manager in the area of development. She has worked for over 10 years with Oxfam International, as well as previously holding roles in the Inter-American Development Bank and the Institute for International Economics.
Celine began her career in Oxfam as a trade researcher, and then was appointed to establish an Oxfam advocacy office in Geneva, focused on the World Trade Organization. While she continued working in Geneva, she took the responsibility for directing Oxfam’s global campaign strategy on trade justice. Celine worked for three years as Deputy Director for Advocacy and Campaigns and has now held the position of Director for Advocacy and Campaigns since 2011.
Throughout her period of working for Oxfam, Celine has managed diverse teams of development policy strategists and campaigners, as well as assisting Oxfam campaigners in Africa and Asia in building their capacity, managing Oxfam’s relationships with other civil society organisations and groups, representing Oxfam at high-level meetings with representatives of governments, and presenting Oxfam’s position to media outlets.
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Delegate
Global Lead on SME Finance, World Bank Group
Simon Bell is the Global Lead for SME Finance in the Finance and Markets Global Practice of the World Bank. He works closely on SME issues with colleagues in the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, the Financial Institutions Group of the IFC, the Advisory Services unit of the IFC, and the SME Finance Forum.
Previously, Simon was Sector Manager in the Finance and Private Sector unit of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region of the World Bank. A large component of the lending in the MENA region was financing of SMEs. Prior to joining MENA Simon occupied a similar management position in the South Asia region in the World Bank. He also worked in the Africa region for eight years on FSD and PSD issues. Four years of this period he spent working in the World Bank’s Mozambique Field Office.
Before joining the World Bank, Simon worked in the research department of the Central Bank of Botswana – working on monetary policy and financial sector issues. Prior to that he worked in the Ministry of Finance in Papua New Guinea for four years and at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
Simon has a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of New England, NSW, Australia. Simon has supervised large volumes of World Bank lending – covering issues such as central bank restructuring, banking sector reform, SME and micro finance, infrastructure finance, housing finance, early stage innovation finance, finance for jobs, private sector development, tourism, and development policy lending. He is keenly interested in innovation – and particularly the very rapid growth of finTech industries in Crowd Funding, Peer to Peer lending, Social/Development Impact Bonds, psychometric testing and big data.
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Delegate
President, Juan Felipe Gomez Escobar Foundation
Catalina Escobar graduated in 1993 from Clark University with a degree of Business Administration, studies she combined with other academic programs in economics in Europe and Japan at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka. She later completed a M.B.A. at the INALDE Business School in Bogota. She began her career in the banking and private fields, when in 2001 she created what would become her passion: The Juanfe Foundation (Juan Felipe Gomez Escobar Foundation).
Catalina is globally recognized social entrepreneur. Granted the National Merit Order Award by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in 2011, she joined the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women´s Mentoring Partnership and became a CNN Hero in 2012.
Being the recipient of numerous awards, including 21 Leaders of the 21st Century by Women eNews in N.Y., Top 10 Best Colombian Leaders 2013, and Lewis Institute Award from Babson College, Catalina was recognized as Outstanding Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 by the World Economic Forum and Schwab Foundation. In 2015 she won the World of Children Humanitarian Award. In 2016 she was given the Honorary Doctorate Degree from Clark University, as well as she has been selected as Women Leaders in Global Health Fellow 2017 by Stanford University.
She’s a board member of Women in Connection in Colombia a group of top CEO´s women and leaders throughout the country.
Catalina is an international speaker. Some of her interventions have been in Georgetown University, Standard Chartered Bank, TEDWomen, Citibank, Aspen Institute, Fortune Most Powerful Women, UN Women, Nobel Peace Price Summit, Babson College, among others.
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Delegate
Director, Learning and Evaluation, Skoll Global Threats Fund
As Director of Learning and Evaluation, Diana leads the Skoll Global Threat Fund’s efforts to learn and improve. In her role, Diana provides leadership, tools and hands on support for learning, evaluation and strategy for each of the threat teams and organization-wide. Diana joined SGTF after 4 years as Director of Evaluation and Learning at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Prior to entering the foundation world, Diana spent 13 years in consulting, working as a strategist, facilitator, and researcher. She was a director at the social change consulting firm, Monitor Institute, and earlier in her career, she was a consultant at Global Business Network, a futurist think tank, learning network and strategy consulting firm.
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Delegate
Editor, FT Weekend, Financial Times
Caroline Daniel is Partner and advisor at the Brunswick Group, a leading advisory firm specialising in critical issues and corporate relations, based in its London office. She was formerly Editor of FT Weekend for six years, from 2010 to April 2016, overseeing all the editorial sections, as well as media partnerships and relationships with the commercial department. She was also Consulting Editor to FT Live and an FT Assistant Editor. She was previously the Comment and Analysis Editor during the financial crisis, commissioning FT columnists and thinkers from around the world for the FT's authoritative op-ed page. From 1999 to 2007 she has served variously as the FT's White House correspondent covering President George W Bush; Chicago correspondent and European technology correspondent. Prior to the FT, in 1998, she won the prestigious Laurence Stern Fellowship to The Washington Post. She worked for the New Statesman magazine as a feature writer and also at The Economist magazine reporting on business and science. After leaving Cambridge University in 1993 with a history degree, Caroline Daniel worked as a researcher for 18 months for Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister and was research editor for Values, Visions and Voices. Ms Daniel has extensive broadcasting experience, as a regular presenter or panelist on BBC Radio 4, BBC News, Sky News, The McLaughlin Group and The Diane Rehm Show. She has an FT non-executive director diploma, serves as a non-executive on the Samuel Johnson Prize (Britain's leading prize for non-fiction); is a Trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank and of The Trampery, a social enterprise that designs and operates spaces for entrepreneurs. She led the FT's seasonal appeal editorial coverage of Camfed, that focused on girl's education in Africa, that helped raise over $1.5m.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Operation Fistula
Seth Cochran, founder of Operation Fistula and Impact Intel, is a leader in using data for social and environmental change. His expertise in data analytics drives his commitment to gender equality and innovative solutions in nature-based carbon removal.
Recognized in social entrepreneurship, Seth aims to connect with forward-thinking innovators at the Skoll World Forum.
He is passionate about forming impactful partnerships, mentoring in data analytics, enhancing operational efficiency through data, and exploring sustainable, nature-driven approaches to carbon sequestration.
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Delegate
Grant Manager, Porticus Latin America Consultoria Ltda.
Carolina is responsible for supervising grants related to the theme of sustainability in Latin America for a philantropic organisation.Holding an MSc in Environment and Development at the Lon¬don School of Economics, she worked for 3 years in the UK helping NGOs to build communication strategies to halt deforestation in tropical forests, and previously as an environmental journalist in Brazil, her home country.
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Delegate
Senior Investment Director, Rippleworks
Sara's career has been exclusively in the social impact world and she doesn't plan on leaving it anytime soon. Today, Sara is a Senior Investment Director at Rippleworks, a private foundation that supports social ventures with financial capital and technical support to scale their impact in the world. Before joining Rippleworks, Sara was a full-time consultant with Integrity Ventures, where she advised social enterprises, impact investors, family foundations, and corporations on how to maximize impact and effectively deploy capital. In her former life, Sara ran operations at Good Nature Agro (an early-stage social enterprise working with smallholder farmers in Zambia), managed the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program at the Mulago Foundation, launched the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative at Emory University, and was the first employee at Village Capital.
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Delegate
CEO, Street Business School
Devin believes we can end extreme poverty in our lifetimes. She is the Founder and CEO of Street Business School—an entrepreneurial training program that helps women living in poverty go from an average of $1.35 to $4.19 per day by starting their own small businesses. Through a social franchise scaling model, Street Business School partners with NGOs to adapt and implement SBS, increase the incomes in the communities they serve, and magnify the impact in the issue they address. SBS currently has 150 NGO partners in 25 countries who are collectively addressing 16 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
As a champion of connections, Devin strives to build bridges between concerned world citizens and people who experience poverty. She is a speaker, teacher, mentor and thought leader in social entrepreneurship, women's economic empowerment, and micro-business creation as a means of eradicating poverty. She’s seen what can happen when women are empowered as business owners, and she believes unleashing a generation of women entrepreneurs can help us realize a world without poverty.
Devin's work has been featured in Nick Kristof's New York Times column, the Today Show, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Lehrer News Hour and dozens of other publications. Prior to Street Business School, Devin co-founded and served as CEO of BeadforLife, which helps women living in poverty earn income through the production of handmade paper jewelry. BeadforLife pioneered the global cottage industry of paper jewelry, inspiring hundreds of other organizations and benefiting thousands of women.
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Delegate
CEO, Vitol Foundation
Robin D’Alessandro is the CEO of the Vitol Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Vitol Group of Companies. In 2016, the Vitol Foundation supported 141 projects through 111 partners in 64 countries. The Vitol Foundation supports projects that fall under four programme areas that are critical to a child's development: Health, WASH, Education and Livelihoods. We also respond to humanitarian emergencies with trusted partners. The goal is to make investments in development that are transformational, efficient, sustainable, scalable and replicable. The focus is increasingly on support in fragile states, with quality Education for refugees and IDPs an ongoing priority. Prior to managing the Vitol Foundation, Robin was the Country Director for Vitol’s oil business in Iraq and as a Middle East specialist, she spent the previous 20 years of her career working with OPEC-producing countries from trading posts in New York, Singapore and London.
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Delegate
President / CEO, Nature and Culture International
BYRON SWIFT has dedicated the majority of his career over the past 30 years to helping establish and support tropical forest conservation programs throughout Latin America. He has worked with numerous partner groups in over 15 countries to build capacity in the areas of tropical forest and biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, pollution prevention, sustainable development, and environmental policy. He has also published widely on issues involving biodiversity, natural resources management, climate change, and industrial pollution. He was formerly the director of the Energy and Innovation Center at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., head of the United States office of IUCN - the World Conservation Union, and founder of World Parks Endowment (now Rainforest Trust).
Byron is the president of Nature and Culture International (NCI), a conservation organization combating the rapid deforestation of tropical forests by protecting some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems in concert with local people in Latin America. As a trusted partner of local communities and governments, NCI is building capacity for tropical forest conservation throughout the Andes and Amazon, catalyzing the creation of protected areas and supporting innovative programs on ecosystem service payments, watershed protection, and sustainable production. NCI's goal is to protect 20 million acres by 2020, with 13.8 million acres protected to date.
Learn more about Nature and Culture International at www.NatureAndCulture.org, and visit NCI's Skoll profile here: http://skollworldforum.org/organization/nature-and-culture-international/
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Delegate
Cofounder and CEO, Watsi
Chase is Cofounder and CEO of Watsi, a startup that builds technology to administer health insurance systems in low-income countries. Prior to Watsi, Chase worked in private sector intelligence in Washington DC, started a micronutrient program in Haiti, served in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, and launched a small business loan fund in San Francisco. Chase was named Visionary of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and is a Forbes 30-under-30.
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Delegate
Chief Economist & Managing Director, Mars Catalyst
Bruno is Mars Chief Economist & Managing Director of Catalyst - a global thought leadership capability and ‘think tank' for Mars Inc. that reports into a steering group chaired by the OOP (Office of the President).
Over the last decade, Catalyst has developed cutting edge initiatives recognised as such by Mars, the industry and the scientific community in critical areas:
(1) Economics of Mutuality, a ground breaking research program to enact a distinctive growth model whereby Mutuality drives business performance. This program led, inter alia, to a multiyear partnership with Oxford University to co-develop a new management theory centred on Mutuality, the publication of a thought leadership review ’the brewery’ on the role of Mutuality in society and the launch of a new business model driving property at the base of the pyramid (with Wrigley in Sub-Saharan Africa)
(2) Culture Lab, a fusion of social sciences approaches to tap into a huge untapped asset (culture) to preserve M&A value, be a force multiplier for strategies and nurture ‘one Mars’
(2) Demand Lab, a cutting edge research program that helps address the $2B media & marketing spend question (i.e., multiplying by two the impact of TV advertising on sales, deciphering the role of media in the laws of growth inter alia). This Lab is developing to cover other critical demand questions such as e-commerce and new RTM model
Catalyst is a global structure within Mars Global Services that manages a fluid network of interconnected experts across a wide range of academic disciplines (and is governed by a steering group chaired by the OOP). Members of the core team are located in the US, Europe and Asia and embrace a large number of academic disciplines ranging from theoretical physics to anthropology, from artificial intelligence to cognitive psychology, from development economists to MBAs, PhDs, and historians represented by more than 10 different nationalities.
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Delegate
Innovator in Residence & Founder of the Knowledge Equity Initiative, Migrant & Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU)
Baljeet Sandhu is a UK human rights lawyer, a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project, and Founder of the Knowledge Equity Initiative (KEI) at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale University. Baljeet’s core interests span education, innovation, entrepreneurship and social and economic justice. She has spoken widely on the need for inclusive and equitable opportunities for changemakers with direct lived experience of the social and environmental problems we collectively seek to tackle in the world.
KEI is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary research, education, and practice program seeking to share knowledge and learning across local, national, and global communities. Through a broad range of multidisciplinary partnerships, KEI explores how institutions, investors, entrepreneurs and educators can meaningfully and equitably value both lived and learned experience to lead positive social change, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Baljeet is an adviser to philanthropists, investors, and government departments, and is a founding partner of the 2027 Talent Programme, a collaboration with leading UK organizations and funders to diversify the UK philanthropic sector and bring community power into grant giving. Before joining Yale University, Baljeet was the founding director of the Migrant & Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU) and founding partner of Kids In Need of Defense UK, successfully leading a wide range of national and global legal, policy and access to justice strategies to protect the rights of vulnerable migrant and refugee children. She has served as a Special Adviser to the UK Children’s Commissioner; the UK Home Office Children’s Asylum and Immigration sub-committee and has also served as an Expert Advisor to the Strategic Legal Fund for Vulnerable Young Migrants, where she helped shape and inform the design of an innovative funding program for strategic litigation and policy work in the UK.
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Delegate
Growing up in rural Australia made Pip intensely curious about humans’ impact on the rest of the natural world. Her childhood saw her planting trees and rounding up sheep, finding snakes in her bedroom and echidna in the garden, and solo walks gazing at exceptionally starry skies.
Pip works on climate change, both locally in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, New Zealand, for Wellington City Council, and globally with Ashoka. She has worked across South Africa, the UK and Aotearoa. Currently, Pip is working on a playbook for unlocking agency in climate changemakers. Based on learnings from dozens of world-leading social entrepreneurs, it is a collaboration between Ashoka and the Skoll Centre at Oxford University.
Pip is a award-winning social entrepreneur for founding enke: Make Your Mark, a youth leadership organisation in South Africa. She was a WEF Global Shaper, won a Skoll Scholarship to complete an MBA at Said Business School, and is an Ashoka Fellow.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Agents of Change Foundation Zambia
Brighton Kaoma is a 22 year old leadership coach and environmental activist. In recognition of his passion in using radio to educate young people about climate change in African, he was awarded the Queen's Young Leaders Award (2015).He received his award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at the Buckingham Palace. Brighton is a UNICEF climate ambassador and Co-founder/ Executive Director of Agents of Change Foundation in Zambia.
Brighton is an Associate Fellow for the Royal Commonwealth Society and he was the keynote speaker at the Maastricht School of management second annual research conference in the Netherlands where 400 doctors and Ph D fellows heard him. He is a Global Youth ambassador for Childrens Radio Foundtaion and has spoken to various members of royal families, heads of State and governments across the world about climate change and the environment ( Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Angela Merkel and David Cameroon). He is an alumni of the Cambridge University Institute of Sustainable Leadership. He is also a Bachelor of Arts student at the University of Zambia.
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Delegate
Breanne brings a blend of international development and higher education experience to the Skoll Centre Team. She has held several roles at the Centre over the past nine years and currently spearheads all operational functions. Breanne began her career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture working on development projects in Armenia and the Republic of Georgia. She then served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer working with university students in the Republic of Moldova. Previously she was the director of Policy Internship Programs at Texas A&M University. Breanne holds a BS in Agricultural Development from Texas A&M University.
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Delegate
Patti Parson is the Managing Producer of the PBS NewsHour. As a key member of the development team, she helps provide editorial, managerial and financial supervision for the show’s tape production. Patti works closely with correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro to report on the work of social entrepreneurs and equity issues. Her own productions and those she has supervised, have won numerous awards.
Parson started her television career on the crew at KCTS/Seattle. She switched direction a bit to become the station’s Director of Promotions and later returned to production as senior producer for its public affairs programming. She also helped produce a PBS special and a Bill Moyers’ Journal.
Parson earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith College, and her master’s degree from the University of Washington. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her letterpress printer husband and is the proud mom of her transgender daughter.
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Delegate
CEO, Uptake
Brad Keywell, 45, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Uptake Technologies, a predictive analytics platform to solve high value opportunities across industry. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Lightbank, a venture fund investing in disruptive technology businesses. He is a Co-Founder and Director of Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). He is a Co-Founder and Director of MediaOcean, which provides integrated technology platforms and solutions to the advertising and media buying industry. He is a Co-Founder and Director of Echo Global Logistics (NASDAQ:ECHO), a technology-based enterprise transportation management firm. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR), an S&P 500 company.
Brad is the Founder and Chairman of Chicago Ideas Week, one of the major ideas and innovation platforms in the world (and the most affordable and inclusive ideas conference) which hosts nearly 200 speakers at 80+ events with global media coverage. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he teaches a course on entrepreneurship and disruptive technology. He is the Immediate Past Chairman of the Illinois Innovation Council, appointed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. He has served on the Mayor’s Committee on Technology Infrastructure, and the Mayor’s Chicago-China Friendship Initiative, both positions appointed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Brad is the Chairman of the Future Founders Foundation, which runs programs designed to help teach and inspire high school students in entrepreneurship, and connect them with mentors and role models for guidance and inspiration. The Future Founders and Connect to the Future programs are at over 100 schools in the Chicagoland area, and provide real-world experiences and hands-on impact to encourage students to focus on the value of their education and expand their horizons.
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Delegate
Founder, Giving Wings Foundation
Cristina Ljungberg is a Co-founder of The Case for Her, a blended-finance investment portfolio addressing the key women’s health issues of menstruation, women’s sexual health & pleasure including abortion access. Before The Case for Her, Cristina established the foundation Giving Wings in 2010. She is also an active board member for the global non-profit, Acumen, focused on poverty alleviation through impact investing and leadership development.
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Delegate
Special Advisor, SRI Finance, US International Development Finance Corporation
Ms. Strauss is Special Advisor for Socially Responsible Investment Finance at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U. S. government corporation charged with mobilizing and facilitating US private investment and skills transfer in developing countries throughout the world. She is responsible for impact investing including policy and origination of innovative financing products and structures designed specifically to leverage socially responsible investment to achieve sustainable projects in emerging markets. She collaborates with other U.S. private sector, government and international government entities to assist in coordinating private and public funding to efficiently support projects with socially responsible or impact investment elements for the corporation including micro finance and SME businesses. Formerly the Director of Credit Policy for the corporation, and as a former private sector banker, she held various positions in finance and banking. Ms. Strauss has an MBA from the University of Connecticut and a BA from Lake Forest College.
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Delegate
CEO and Co-Founder, Educate!
Under Boris’s leadership, Educate! has grown to become the largest youth skills provider in East Africa, meaningfully impacting over 250,000 youth across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. With a team of over 240 staff and 300 youth mentors, the organization has received much acclaim for its work, including the 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and the 2015 WISE Award. Educate! was also highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies in their global scaling education learning initiative, the UN’s Generation Unlimited as one of 20 innovative youth solutions, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. Before jumping into Educate! full-time, Boris worked at startup incubator Loeb Enterprises. Boris is a recipient of the 2011 Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, and a two-time Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur.
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Delegate
President, Fetzer Institute
Bob Boisture is President and a Trustee of the Fetzer Institute. Under Bob’s leadership, the Institute community has deepened its understanding of the spiritual common ground on which it stands, the type of community it aspires to be, and the work it is called to do. This work culminated in the Institute board’s adoption in February 2016 of a new mission statement: Helping build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. Bob has spent his career working with a broad range of nonprofit organizations on strategy development, advocacy, program development, governance, and legal compliance. While practicing law in Washington DC (1979-1986, 1993-2013) he represented a broad range of foundations and public charities, as well as the Council on Foundations and Independent Sector, the two principal national associations representing nonprofits before Congress and the executive branch. His work included helping to design and lead major national advocacy campaigns involving environmental and health issues and the right of nonprofit organizations to participate in the legislative process. Bob has also served on the staff of the YMCA of the USA (Associate General Counsel and Director of Public Policy) from 1986 through 1992 and has led major national YMCA program development efforts. As the YMCA’s first Dir. of Public policy, he led the development of the YMCA’s national advocacy program under the banner of “Building Strong Kids, Strong Families, and Strong Communities.” Bob received his JD from Yale Law School in 1979. He also attended Princeton University (AB, 1974, Woodrow Wilson Scholar), and Oxford University (BA, 1976, Marshall Scholar). Bob served as a legal and governance advisor to the Institute from 1993 to 2011, became a Trustee in November 2011, became Interim President in March 2013, and has served in his current post since September 2013. Bob is married to the artist Mary Margaret Pipkin. They have three grown sons, two daughters-in- law, and two grandchildren.
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Delegate
Chief Financial Officer, Heifer International
Bob Bloom is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Heifer International. Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth. Formed in 1944, today Heifer works in over 20 countries around the world bringing sustainable agriculture to areas with a long history of poverty. Heifer’s focus on sustainable agriculture (principally through livestock) is complemented with a strong emphasis on social capital development. As Chief Financial Officer, Bloom oversees all financial, treasury, technology and human resources activities.
Since joining Heifer, Bloom has led an effort to build global systems to support the organization’s strategy of scaling up impact and diversifying revenue sources. This effort includes integration of the new financial systems with other operating systems including donor CRM, project management and monitoring & evaluation (M&E).
Bloom has also actively visited country program offices throughout the world meeting small holder farmers in the communities where Heifer works and developing public/private partnership opportunities.
Prior to joining Heifer, Bloom served as Chief Financial Officer at several companies including Vestcom International, Acxiom Corp. and Wilson Sporting Goods Co.
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Delegate
Entrepreneurship Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
Meighan Stone is Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, focused on social enterprise, media and refugee policy. She was previously at the Malala Fund from 2014 to 2017, serving as President with founder and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai to empower girls globally to learn and lead without fear.
Meighan's life changed forever at the age of five, when her small town Virginia family took in a refugee as part of the pilot of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Act. She's been doing her best since that day to be of service and welcome to all.
Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People and to ELLE Magazine's 2017 "Women in Washington Power List", Meighan has led high-level advocacy, media and digital projects with Bono’s ONE Campaign, the United Nations, World Food Program USA, Clinton Global Initiative, World Economic Forum, FIFA World Cup, G7 summits and with political campaigns, world leaders and technology corporations globally.
She is on the Board of Directors of Pencils of Promise and advisory boards of Civic Engagement Fund and girls' coding initiative Kode With Klossy and an active supporter of resistance advocacy group INDIVISIBLE.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Team Red, White & Blue
Blayne Smith is the Executive Director of Team Red, White, and Blue. As Team RWB’s first employee, he has played a key role the development, growth, and operation of the organization. Blayne works closely with board members, staff, and volunteer leaders to ensure the delivery of excellent veteran programs. He provides strategic guidance in addition to building and managing critical partnerships.
Prior to joining Team RWB, Blayne served as a sales and marketing leader at Quest Diagnostics where he earned awards for both business development and mentorship. As one of only 6 selectees to the Emerging Leader Program, he developed and delivered the company’s first professional development program.
Blayne served as an officer in the United States Army from 2001-2010. Upon graduating from West Point, he initially joined the First Cavalry Division as a tank platoon leader and later as a reconnaissance platoon leader. He spent most of 2004 in Iraq and led more than 200 combat patrols. He then attended the Special Forces Qualification Course and commanded a detachment of Green Berets in the 3rd Special Forces Group. Blayne led joint and inter-agency operations both domestically and during a combat tour in southern Afghanistan.
Smith earned a BS in Economics from the US Military Academy as well as an MBA from the University of Florida. He has completed numerous military leadership courses and was the Distinguished Honor Graduate of the Army Ranger School.
Blayne is a fitness enthusiast and avid athlete, and regular competes in running, triathlon, and CrossFit. He lives in Tampa, Florida with his family.
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Delegate
CEO, ForeSight Group
Björn Larsson, with a background as economist, journalist and diplomat, is CEO of the ForeSight Group, which since 1979 has worked with some 150 companies and offered 3.5 million employees opportunities to contribute to corporate innovation.
ForeSight´s entrepreneurial approach; to speed up and leverage the achievements of major ambitions, includes Passionate Investments – launched in partnership with the oldest bank in Scandinavia, Swedbank, first supporting the bank´s Family Office clients and later its 10 million retail clients to co-invest and scale what works well in social- and environmental activities globally. President Bill Clinton recognized the innovation of the initiative at a CGI plenary closing. Passionate Investments is now being further devloped and expanded.
Björn is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and since the inception an International Ambassador for The World´s Children´s Prize, the world´s largest empowerment initiative on rights and democracy for the next generation to which Nelson Mandela (posthumous), Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi are patrons.
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Delegate
Senior Digital Director, Resource Media
From Resource Media’s Portland office, Collin works across the organization’s programs to bring digital campaigns to life. He helps clients navigate the complexities of the new media and digital world, make savvy choices on the web and other digital platforms, and use those platforms to activate and inspire existing bases and new constituents. With a decade of experience in editorial and management roles for environmental NGOs and digital media companies, blogging, writing, and editing for the web, Collin has expertise in content creation, digital research, and social media management.
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Delegate
President of the Board, Seattle International Foundation
Bill is a Seattle based philanthropist and businessman who has made a significant contribution over the past 22 years in the founding and development of local organizations and initiatives focused on global poverty alleviation. He is currently President of the Board and Co-Founder of the Seattle International Foundation and Chairman and co-founder of Global Washington, an international development association. Bill has over 30 years of experience running a variety of companies in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Hawaii. He founded Global Partnerships in 1994 and has served as both CEO and Chairman of the Board. The focus of his international work today is Central America in the areas of social research, training and networking future leaders, rule of law and policy. In addition to serving on the boards of Weyerhaeuser and Alaska Airlines, he has served on several business, community and nonprofit boards and has been actively involved in the micro-finance development areas since 1993 as an early investor. Bill is currently on the Advisory Board of INCAE University in Central America.
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Delegate
Chairman, Inclusive Ventures Group
Mohamed Amersi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Amersi)
is the Chairman of the Amersi Foundation which supports initiatives in education, building cohesive societies, inclusive capitalism, governance and the futures agenda (https://amersifoundation.org).The Foundation also launched the Inclusive Ventures Group (https://inclusiveventures.com), a responsible profits social impact investing platform that has invested in education, livelihood, health and waste management in Africa and Asia. Mohamed Amersi is a Fellow of Brasenose College, University of Oxford and is a member of the Development Board of the British Academy, a member of the Boards of Orb Media, Unchain, the Islamic Reporting Initiative, the Governing Council of the Royal Agricultural University, the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, the Global Leadership Council of the Said Business School, University of Oxford , the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute and the Global Advisory Board of the Oxford Foundry. In addition, Mohamed Amersi is the Chairman of the iShia Foundation, the International Advisory Council of the British Asian Trust, a member of the Global Partners Council of the Institute of New Economic Thinking and a Trustee of Prince’s Trust International and the Rose Castle Foundation.
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Delegate
, Individual
Beth Gottschling Huber is GoodWeave’s former Deputy Director. Ms. Huber has more than 15 years of experience working with handcraft businesses in the Central and South Asia region, including seven years managing Aid to Artisans' programs in Asia. She has also consulted for a range of organizations including UNESCO, CARE and DAI. In addition to her nonprofit work, Mrs. Huber served as director of operations for the communications and design firm Free Range Studios. She holds an MA in International Development from American University.
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Delegate
Chief Operating Officer, Said Business School
Catherine joined Oxford Saïd at its Chief Operating Officer and Associate Dean for administration/operations from The Middle Temple, where her role as Chief Executive combined direction of commercial and not-for-profit activities, including the running of a heritage estate with Local Authority status in central London and a professional membership institution. Prior to this, Catherine led the grant-giving operations of the Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation, where she restructured the Trust’s services and operations and led the establishment of a sister organisation in India. Before Wellcome, she spent several years in Oxford, where she directed the University’s institution-wide Research Services and co-founded Oxford University Consulting.
Catherine is currently a Board Member of The Charity Commission for England and Wales; The Royal British Legion and national Poppy Appeal; and The National Memorial Arboretum.
She has an MBA from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and degrees from US and UK universities.
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Delegate
Digital Storyteller & Strategist, Mission-driven companies / Media Director, PopTech
I'm a non-fiction video producer, writer, photographer, and editorial strategist, guided by the belief that a single story can raise awareness of the world’s injustices and suffering, as well as its triumphs and beauty, leading to change. For the past seven years, I've served as Director of Media at PopTech, developing editorial strategy and producing multimedia stories about PopTech innovators and initiatives across the globe. I currently work with PopTech and other clients I love and believe in, supporting them with digital storytelling and strategy.
After graduating from Stanford's Documentary Film program, I worked as an independent producer and taught video storytelling to former child brides in Andhra Pradesh, survivors of domestic violence in a refugee community in DC, and teen girls in rural Maine, in partnership with NGOs. I also taught film at the college level. When not working, I volunteer with Maine Syria Relief Project, and I love to spend time outdoors, hiking, paddle boarding, and photographing my favorite subject, the world.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Samaschool
Bennett has a background as a Tech Entrepreneur, Web Developer, Community Leader, Fundraiser, and Business Developer at leading Social Enterprises. As Vice President of Strategic Development at Kiva Bennett designs and capitalizes new initiatives for Kiva. He is a co-founder of Kiva Labs, a program to accelerate product innovation among social enterprises and financial service providers and manages partnerships with major foundations and corporations such as the MasterCard Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Omidyar Network, Cisco and Google among many others. Awards include the Yale School of Management-Goldman Sachs National Nonprofit Business Plan competition for TechSoup Stock, an online product philanthropy service that went on to distribute over $1 billion in technology and a Google Impact Challenge award for Kiva Labs.
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Delegate
Director of Visual, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Liz Mermin is a filmmaker whose documentary features have explored a wide variety of contemporary topics, including a beauty academy in Kabul opened just after the war, the tangled relationships between gangsters, police, and the film industry in Mumbai, the suppression of human rights in Azerbaijan, and the inner lives of Irish racehorses. Her films have been released in cinemas in the US and UK, broadcast internationally, and shown at film festivals around the world. She has also directed short films, including a 20-part web-series inside CERN.
Liz came to filmmaking through cultural anthropology and the study of African cinema. She has published many articles on film and current affairs, including a cover story for the Indian magazine The Caravan about the American terrorist behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Originally from New York, she came to London in 2006 to make films for the BBC and is now settled in the UK.
Since 2014 Liz has been the Director of Visual at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, overseeing a small team of journalists and freelancers making engaging short documentaries telling under-reported humanitarian stories from around the world, with a focus on human trafficking, refugees, climate change, property rights, and women's issues. Her team is also responsible for all the Foundation's conference and promotional videos.
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Delegate
CEO, 80,000 Hours
I wanted to do good with my career, but I couldn't find any good advice on how to have a big social impact. So I co-founded 80,000 Hours, which advises talented young graduates on how to choose a career with social impact. In four years, we've grown from a student society at Oxford, to a non-profit that's raised $1.3m, been through Y Combinator, and has a career guide with 100,000 monthly readers. We also helped to start the effective altruism movement. I have a masters in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford, and speak Chinese, badly.
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Delegate
Independent, benmetz.org
I have extensive experience across enterprise and civil society and a strong grounding in Systems Psychodynamics and design.
This gives me the framework through which I help people create and improve organisations and their dynamics, and instigate new behaviours and activities.
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Delegate
Business Development Director, Sanergy
Becky Auerbach leads business development at Sanergy, a social enterprise dedicated to making hygienic sanitation accessible and affordable for everyone, forever, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this capacity, she is responsible for leveraging partners and funds toward scaling sustainably. Previously, she managed USAID projects in Haiti and the West Bank. She holds a BA in Political Science and Global Health from Duke University, USA.
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Delegate
Charlie joined the APOPO team in December 2014 as US Director, based in Washington DC. At APOPO Charlie is responsible for building new partnerships and projects with US based organizations and government funders that can help APOPO build its Research and Mine Detection programs. Charlie also leads global innovative finance fundraising at APOPO, and is currently managing and planning a multiple year extension of the first ever Development Impact Bond for Mine Action and linked agricultural development in Cambodia financed by FCDO and private foundation investors. Charlie also plays an instrumental role in fundraising for APOPO’s ongoing Ukraine program, which will focus on the deployment of APOPOs game changing Technical Survey Dog technology for rapid reduction of crippling landmine contamination. Finally Charlie is the executive for APOPO's independent US based 501c3 organization.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, C-Change
Carolien de Bruin is the founder of C-Change, a fast-growing tech startup and sustainability advisor in the Netherlands. She is a frequent speaker, and moderator on the topic of building firms and markets that are ‘fit for purpose’ and maximizing private sector contributions to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. As part of her mission to trigger and equip the private sector to make a difference, C-Change convenes, consults, and connects. Since its launch late 2015, her team co-convened 250+ mainstream investors and corporates at the Peace Palace in The Hague; gathered global business platforms around a shared data agenda; and facilitated the creation of a shared Dutch ’SDG investing agenda’ by the Dutch financial sector, Central Bank, and government (www.sdgi-nl.org).
Beyond her convening and strategy consulting activities, Carolien has also turned to technology solutions in her work and is collaborating with partners such as USAID and Gates Foundation’s Global Innovation Exchange and others to launch an in-house ‘purpose portfolio management tool’ in 2017. The portal, which she refers to as a corporate ‘LinkedIn for impact', is designated to transform how SDG initiatives are captured, coordinated, and communicated inside and outside company walls.
Prior to C-Change, Carolien led Monitor Deloitte’s global impact investing activities, working with clients such as B Lab, Calvert Foundation, the GIIN, Rockefeller Foundation, and the World Economic Forum. Before becoming a social entrepreneur, Carolien held an interim role as COO at the Bertha Centre in Cape Town, Africa’s leading hub for social innovation and entrepreneurship. She sits on B Lab’s European Advisory Board and the OECDs Impact Measurement Expert Group; and has contributed to leading publications such as Acumen’s and Monitor’s report From Blueprint to Scale. Carolien holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and an MSc in Finance from Groningen University in The Netherlands.
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Delegate
Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of Doc Society, a non profit foundation with team based in Europe, East Africa, the Americas and Australia, dedicated to supporting independent filmmaking globally. In addition to grant making for artists and journalists and supporting their creative process, we help them develop impact strategies and connect with communities and allies beyond the media industry and across civil society.
Our preoccupation goes beyond the right of artists to self-expression to the right of citizens to access public interest media - and to the global media ecosystem that we need to make all of that possible. Beadie works day to day with many global partners who are also focused on this challenge.
Within Doc Society Beadie also has her shoulder to the wheel behind the Climate Story Unit and now the Democracy Story Unit. Two major global narrative strategy experiments - focused on unleashing transformative storytelling to advance a just future.
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Delegate
Interim Executive Director, Climate Advocacy Lab, Partnership Project
Carina currently serves as the Climate Advocacy Lab's Interim Executive Director. In this role, she leads the Lab's interdisciplinary team in their work equipping the US climate movement with the evidence-based insights, skills, and connections needed to build durable power and win equitable solutions. Carina has been working with the Climate Advocacy Lab since 2015, helping incubate the project at the Skoll Global Threats Fund and successfully spin it out as an independent organization. Carina is passionate about the power of relationships, supporting cultures of learning, and the importance of an intersectional approach to addressing the climate crisis. She is an experienced advocacy campaign strategist and has facilitated nearly 200 trainings for climate practitioners across the U.S. and around the world. Prior to joining the Lab team, Carina spent 6 years running local, state, and regional-level climate and energy campaigns as an organizer with the Sierra Club and Union of Concern
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Delegate
CEO, The Luminos Fund
Caitlin Baron is the CEO of the Luminos Fund, an international education nonprofit dedicated to giving the world’s most vulnerable, out-of-school children a second chance to learn. Luminos’ award-winning program marries the best of global and local learning science to enable marginalized children to catch up to grade level and go on to lifelong learning. Under Caitlin's leadership, Luminos has successfully scaled its education mission across five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, working in partnership with 25+ community-based organizations to reach over 277,787 out-of-school children. A recent RCT confirms that children make dramatic learning gains during our program. In one year, a child in the Luminos Liberia program learns 90% of what the average Liberian will learn in their lifetime. Over 90% of Luminos students succeed in the program, going on to complete primary school at twice the rate of their peers.
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Delegate
MBA Student, Said Business School
Avril, a Liberian-New Yorker, is currently an MBA and a Said Foundation Scholar at Said Business School. Prior to joining the Class of 2016, she spent three years in Ethiopia and Liberia developing strategic communications, strategies, and action plans for the United Nations, NGOs, and the FMCG acquisition of London-based private equity firm 54 Capital. Previously, Avril worked in as E-commerce Manager and Buyer for upscale French brand A.P.C. in her native New York, and coordinating marketing and product training for software giant Salesforce in San Francisco. Her post-MBA plans include increasing investment to African entrepreneurs, and combining her private and developing sector experience to launch a for-profit enterprise for job creation in sub-Saharan Africa. Avril has a Master of Science in International Management from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Pre-Medical Sciences from Fordham University in New York. She speaks French and Spanish and can read and understand basic Arabic and Amharic.
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Delegate
Director of Development,
NamatiWith a background in public interest environmental law, Caitlin has worked for over a decade in fundraising, organizational development, and strategic planning for social impact organizations. From 2005-2012, she co-led the development of international NGO Women's Earth Alliance as a grantmaking, training and advocacy organization operating on three continents. As an NGO and philanthropic consultant and facilitator, she aided fundraising and distribution of resources for human rights and the environment. She joined Namati in 2015. Caitlin is a graduate of Stanford University and Berkeley Law School.
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Delegate
Interim Head of Funding, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor
Laura leads on strategic donor partner relationships for Camfed International and has over 10 years' experience forging reciprocal, sector-leading partnerships between major international companies and charities, and has worked for several national and international charities including Save the Children. Prior to working in the non-profit sector, she spent nine years in the Publishing industry including working for BBC Worldwide and Hachette Livre, leading on revenue streams with mass market retailers. After completing her degree in the UK, Laura studied and worked in Austria and Japan.
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Delegate
Product Manager, X, The Moonshot Factory
Ashley is an entrepreneur and engineer focused on innovating energy and water technologies to enable access for the world’s poor. She loves bringing novel ideas into reality and scaling them- to date, product she developed have been used by over 3 million people in 7 countries. She’s currently a Rapid Evaluator at X, starting moonshots for Alphabet’s next billion users in emerging markets. Prior to joining X, she worked for M-KOPA Solar (Africa’s largest solar home system company) and Innovations for Poverty Action, where she led the engineering team working on Nobel Prize winner Michael Kremer’s Safe Water project. She holds multiple patents and led one of X’s major open sourcing efforts in conjunction with publishing the work in Nature.
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Delegate
Chief Product Officer, The Valuable 500
Betsy Beaumon is the outgoing CEO of Benetech, a nonprofit that empowers communities with software for social good in education, poverty alleviation, and human rights. In her 12 years at Benetech she also served as President and VP Global Literacy. Betsy has been advocating for ethical and inclusive technology for over a decade and is focused on innovating around the immense potential of technology to drive inclusion, equity, and justice to positively impact marginalized communities across the globe. A social entrepreneur and engineer, Betsy brings a unique perspective on topics such as artificial intelligence, smart cities, civic/social impact tech, and data privacy. Betsy holds a degree in electrical engineering from Northwestern University and a certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Delivering Social Impact at Scale.
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Delegate
Director Inclusive Finance, Citigroup, Inc.
Jorge Rubio is a founding member of the Citi’s Global Inclusive Finance Group based in London, UK, which was created in 2005 to spearhead the firm’s commercial efforts to support social and financial inclusion around the world. He has participated in the design of Citi's strategy to support the expansion of financial services through Citi's businesses in over 40 countries. This worked has been externally recognized with Citi’s award as the 2017 World’s Best Bank for Financial Inclusion by Euromoney. Jorge has structured milestone inclusive finance transactions in the capital markets (2006 IFC/Financial Times Sustainable Deal of the Year Award and 2001 Sustainable Banker of the year Award) including the first investment grade local issuance for a microfinance institution and IPO’s as well as the first London Stock Exchange listed global IPO. His work around social and financial inclusion spans sustainable value chain development and digital financial services reaching the unbanked.
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Delegate
CEO, Sproxil, Inc.
Ashifi Gogo founded Sproxil® in 2009 and currently serves as the company's Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, Sproxil developed its award-winning Sproxil Defender™ technology that has been used over 22 million times by consumers in 5 countries to verify the authenticity of their products and earn instant rewards for their loyalty.
Former US President Bill Clinton described Sproxil as “a genuinely remarkable achievement... (it's) empowering... putting people in charge of their own healthcare.” Sproxil’s Defender™ is applicable to virtually any tangible product and it is now used in many industries including automotive, garment and fast-moving consumer goods.
In 2015, Ashifi was named to Fortune's 40 under 40 list. He was awarded the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2014 by the Schwab Foundation. In 2013, Sproxil was named the world’s most innovative company in health care by Fast Company, and #7 most innovative worldwide, beating 99 of the Fortune 100 companies.
Ashifi currently serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation and on the Meta-Council on the Illicit Economy. He holds a US Patent, earned a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College and a B.A. from Whitman College. He is Dartmouth's first-ever Ph.D. Innovation Fellow and teaches a course in New Business Ventures Technology Management at Columbia University.
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Delegate
Program Officer, Water, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Bessma Mourad is the Program Officer for Water at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. In her role, she manages a portfolio of grantees working to identify and address the risks stemming from water and climate insecurity. Bessma also helps to identify and cultivate new projects that contribute to the strategic direction of the team. Prior to joining SGTF, Bessma worked with the United Nations Environment Programme’s Post Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, working at the intersections of natural resource management, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding. There, she helped to catalyze a project on women, natural resources, and peacebuilding with UN Women and UN Peacebuilding Office as well as helping to lead a project on climate change, migration, and conflict. Prior to that role, she worked in philanthropy at the Global Fund for Women, providing grant support to grassroots women’s rights organizations in the Middle East and North Africa.
Bessma holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.S. from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. Bessma serves on the Board of Directors for the Community Water Center, a non-profit that works toward community-driven water solutions in California's San Joaquin Valley.
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Delegate
Director, Center for Social Innovation, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Committed to entrepreneurial innovation and sustainable practices, Bernadette Clavier put 10 years of marketing leadership experience creating category winners in the private sector to the service of higher education programs that seek to advance solutions to the world’s global problems.
As the Director of the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business she has explored multiple avenues to social progress including nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, impact investing, and responsible business. She has coached numerous students to find their personal path to impact and social entrepreneurs to launch successful ventures. She sits on the board of ICSF, a nonprofit consulting organization that supports the scaling of social ventures and advocates for climate change action as part of the Climate Reality Project.
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Delegate
Executive Director, OneVoice
John Lyndon is executive director of OneVoice Europe. As executive director he has radically expanded the London based organization’s reach, building programming and outreach in continental Europe and increasing the organization’s fundraising base and public profile in the UK. Prior to joining OneVoice, he was the General Manager of Ethiopiaid Ireland, working on developmental issues in East Africa. John has written and worked extensively on conflict resolution, with expertise on conflicts in Northern Ireland, Kashmir and the Middle East, with a focus on Israel/Palestine since 2008, which he has addressed in media outlets such as The Independent, SKY News and the BBC. John holds a BA in English and History from University College Dublin, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Sheffield, where he won the 2007 Bethan Reeves Prize for his research on the Middle East.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Lwala Community Alliance
Ash Rogers is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Lwala Community Alliance. Lwala matches community-led change with university-backed research and evaluation to advance quality health for all. Ash has overseen a 14-fold increase in annual revenue, exponential reach of the model, increased diversity in board membership, and publication of many peer-reviewed studies. Prior to Lwala, Ash was the Director of Operations at Segal Family Foundation, overseeing a $12m portfolio of 180 grantees. Ash is a Global Health Corps alum and has worked with organizations including Komo Learning Centres and HELP International. Ash serves as a board member of the Community Health Impact Coalition, Orkeeswa School and Komo Learning Centres. Ash holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington and a BA in Political Science from Brigham Young University.
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Delegate
President/Founder, One Heart World-Wide
Arlene Samen, has been a Nurse Practitioner in Maternal Fetal Medicine for over 31 years. In 1997, Arlene met His Holiness the Dali Lama who asked her to take her expertise and help women and children dying in childbirth in Tibet. Since that time, she has dedicated her life to serving pregnant women living in the most vulnerable conditions in the most remote places of the world. As a Rainer Arnhold Fellow through the Mulago Foundation, she learned what made her model successful in decreasing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. The model became to be known as the “Network of Safety” which is replicable, sustainable, and scalable in Tibet, Nepal, and Mexico. Today, the “Network of Safety” has reached over half a million people and created a safe environment for over 100,000 deliveries around the globe. She has received many awards, including Unsung Hero of Compassion by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, CNN Hero, Women in Business Award, and the Award for Excellence in Women’s Empowerment by the Global Thinkers Forum It is her dream to take the model to over 35 Districts in Nepal where women face death in order to give life, reaching another 200,000 women.
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Delegate
Jenneke works as the Skoll Foundation's Community Manager.
Prior to joining Skoll, Jenneke worked as a project manager in localization, where she handled quoting, managing and delivering translations of medical device documents on multiple client accounts. She also has a background in quality assurance testing.
Jenneke earned a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature and in Dutch Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, crafting, and science fiction.
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Delegate
Member of the Board of Directors, Segal Family Foundation
Antoine Chiquet was born in France and went to business school there. He worked in the corporate world both in Europe and Asia, mostly in international marketing.
While in vacation with his family in Uganda, Antoine met Noerine Kaleeba, the founder of the The AIDS Support Organization (TASO). Her story inspired him to get involved in the non-profit world and he co-founded a non-profit organization called Komo Learning Centres, which provides community-based educational opportunities for vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Uganda.
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Delegate
Land and property rights editor/Deputy editor, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Astrid Zweynert is the managing editor of PLACE, the world’s first digital media platform dedicated to under-reported land and property rights issues, an initiative by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of global news and information company Thomson Reuters.
PLACE’s journalists provide an in-depth look at the human impact of land conflicts, gentrification, deforestation, extractive industries, and more. Their storytelling has been helping land and property rights evolve from a niche topic to a global story, reaching more than a billion people daily through the Reuters news wire.
PLACE’s stories have involved topics ranging from slums to Tanzanian ‘witches’ to Pokémon Go have been published by The New York Times, Quartz, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, and they have resulted in land policy changes by governments from Kenya to Romania.
Astrid is also the deputy leader of a team of almost 50 Thomson Reuters Foundation journalists and 150 freelancers, covering women’s rights, the human impact of climate change, modern slavery, humanitarian crises and social innovation.
Astrid has reported from more than 20 countries, most recently as the Foundation’s Southeast Asia correspondent and in previous roles as Reuters correspondent. Astrid has managed global editorial teams for more than a decade and has led journalism and communications training courses in India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Germany, the United States and Britain.
She has played a key role in developing online content strategies and new markets for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and in previous roles for Reuters news agency. Prior to joining Reuters more than 20 years ago, Astrid worked for Bloomberg Business News, United Press International and German television.
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Delegate
Board Member, Equalize Health
I spend most of my time as a board member with organizations who work to end poverty and make the world a better place. I left the CARE USA board after 12 years and joined the board of CARE Enterprises. We will scale promising businesses with proven pilot implementations. I am a board member at Microvest, a microfinance investment firm providing capital and management oversight to emerging market microfinance institutions; I am board chair at D-Rev, a product design social enterprise, with two wonderful products, a light that cures jaundice and is very inexpensive, and an inexpensive and highly functional artificial knee, both targeted at the developing world; and I am a director at The Wildlife Conservation Network, where we partner with leading independent wildlife conservationists. I am a member of Legacy Ventures and The Philanthropy Workshop and on the Advisory Board for The Dean of Engineering at The University of Illinois at Chicago, and served for 10 years in that role at UC Berkeley. I was Board Chair at YouthNoise and The Career Action Center, an adviser to E2, The Entrepreneurs Foundation and The Global Philanthropy Forum. I was Vice-Chair of The Anita Borg institute and advise other non profits.I am an investor and/or adviser to privately held technology companies such as Vynca, Hinge, D2S, Tarana, and others.
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Delegate
Reporter, USA Today
I am a London-based reporter and editor for USA TODAY.
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Delegate
Jennifer Holt works in the field of private sector development and is known for her expertise on using market forces to create jobs in frontier economies. Currently, Jennifer advises the Livelihood Impact Fund on investments supporting market linkages and job creation.
Prior to this, Jennifer was the CEO of the award-winning social enterprise Building Markets, a New York-based organization that creates jobs and reduces poverty by connecting entrepreneurs in the developing world to new opportunities. Under her leadership the organization created over 70,000 full-time jobs in Afghanistan, Haiti, Timor-Leste, Liberia, Myanmar, and Turkey by helping local businesses win more than $1 billion in supply chain deals. Jennifer has led a successful peacekeeping reform project at the United Nations and more than half a dozen studies on the economic impact of international aid spending. She also worked for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Refugee and Demography Program and has been an advisor o
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Delegate
Annie Blecher is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and is focused on creating relevant education and career opportunities for financially marginalized youth. She heads up the business development department for Community & Individual Development Association and the Maharishi Institute, a nonprofit with a 35-year track record of success pioneering the 'virtually free' education movement in South Africa. She has been instrumental in marketing and raising funds for the organization.
She was previously based in Beijing and San Francisco working with non-profit organizations: Center for Wellness & Achievement in Education, Stress-Free Schools, and the David Lynch Foundation.
Annie has been invited to speak in the North America, China, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, on topics related to poverty alleviation through free access education, sustainable business, and developing human potential through whole student learning. She has a passion for Social Entrepreneurship and Consciousness-Based Education, and has promoted CBE methodologies around the world. She is a certified Teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique.
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Delegate
Director of Global Advocacy, JOINT UNITED NATIONS PROGRAMME ON HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
Annemarie Hou oversees the communications and advocacy portfolio for the organization. She is responsible for positioning HIV and development issues in the global landscape and advancing UNAIDS’ vision and strategies.
A recognized branding specialist, she also advises leaders and partner organizations on building stronger brand voices.
Prior to joining UNAIDS, Ms Hou worked in the philanthropic field—with a focus on health and children’s issues. She was the Communications Director at Casey Family Programmes, an operating foundation dedicated to child welfare issues started by the founder of UPS.
Ms Hou served as the first Global Health Communications Manager at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and also as the family’s spokesperson. An award-winning writer she started her career as a television journalist.
She is an advisor to the Graça Machel Trust and an Ambassador for Grassroot Soccer.
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Delegate
Communications Consultant, Skoll Foundation
Jake is the interim editor of Skoll.org.
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Delegate
Creative Producing Initiative Director, Sundance Institute
Anne Lai serves as Creative Producing Initiative Director in the Feature Film Program at Sundance Institute which focuses on identifying and nurturing emerging independent writers, directors, and producers in fiction film. Through a series of Labs, granting, networking events, and educational programming, she helps tailor support for artists on their next feature film in addition to providing ongoing creative and strategic feedback. Recently supported films include Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation, Kat Candler’s Hellion, Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, Haifaa al Mansour’s Wadjda, as well as the Academy Award-nominated film from Benh Zeitlin Beasts of the Southern Wild. Prior to joining Sundance, Anne served as Vice President of Production at Scott Free, the film and television company founded by directors Ridley and Tony Scott. During her time with the Scotts, she worked on film’s including Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and co-produced the independently financed and internationally filmed Tristan & Isolde starring James Franco. Anne attended the University of Michigan and received her degree in film production from the University of Southern California.
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Delegate
Managing Partner, FORE Partnership
Mr. Basil Demeroutis serves as a Managing Partner at FORE Partnership, a sustainable real estate investment platform. He set up the firm in 2012. Previously, Mr. Demeroutis served as a Partner at Capricorn Investment Group LLC. Prior to this, he served as a Partner at Jargonnant Partners, where he shared responsibility for acquiring, managing and successfully exiting a €400 million European property portfolio and disposed its investments in 2007. Mr. Demeroutis spent the first half of his career in banking, where he financed aircraft, satellites, ships and other cash flowing assets, including real estate. He moved to the buy-side in 2002, and over 13 years he has been working exclusively with private investors on their real estate strategies. He is a Trustee of the Institute of Imagination. Mr. Demeroutis graduated with a B.Sc. in Mechanical and Aerospace engineering from Cornell University in 1991.
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Delegate
Consultant / Director, Social Innovation
Anna Blackman (Griffiths) is a social innovation consultant and entrepreneur. Between 2010-2014 Anna worked as an associate consultant with Participle, a service design company addressing the most pressing welfare
issues in the UK. Her work included in-depth research and user-led design for the incubation and growth of new social enterprises. Between 1998-2008, Anna was Co-founder and Executive Director at PhotoVoice, an international
award-winning charity which runs training projects in media and communication skills for under-represented groups, enabling advocacy and social change. Anna holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Skoll Scholar, 2008-9.
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Delegate
Founder, The Good Works Institute
Graduated UCLA, married 35 years, two children, four grandchildren. Established a family foundation, the Good Works Institute, in 1999. We support small, grass-roots organizations that focus on (1) the health and welfare of children - education, health care, nutrition and protection from the sex trade and (2) preservation and protection of the environment - solar systems, cookers and lights, public lands ranching, etc.
I make it a practice to visit as many projects as possible. Most of these are outside the US in Nepal, India, Vietnam, Kenya, Tanzania, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
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Delegate
Associate Director, Acumen
Hazel's passion is to build partnerships across the world to support the development of groundbreaking social enterprises, moral leaders and disruptive ideas that challenge and change the status quo. Over the last two years, Hazel has been leading the capitalization of Acumen’s new blended finance Climate Resilient Agriculture Fund, set to launch in June 2019 and impact the lives of 10 million smallholders in East and West Africa. Hazel previously worked at the Vitol Foundation, where she managed a portfolio of investments in agriculture, energy, workforce development and job creation across Africa, Asia and Latin America. She has also worked as a CSR consultant to the energy industry in West Africa, as Deputy Director of a non-profit in Asia and as a Program Manager for the Swiss Stock Exchange in Europe. She holds an MSc in Development Management, an MSc in Technology and a BA in Latin American Studies.
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Delegate
Journalist, Individual
Hannah Bloch is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist with more than 20 years of experience in the United States and overseas. She is the lead digital editor for international news at NPR in Washington, D.C. She wrote the Wall Street Journal’s “Work in Progress” column from 2014 to 2017. Previously, she was a writer and editor at National Geographic, where she reported from Afghanistan and Easter Island and authored magazine stories on subjects including archaeology, global health and the role failure plays in exploration. During an 11-year career at Time, she served for six years as the magazine’s first full-time correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan, where she covered a wide range of stories including the rise and fall of the Taliban regime, Pakistan's nuclear tests and violence against women. She was one of a handful of journalists to report from Kabul on September 11, 2001. Concurrently, she opened CNN's bureau in Islamabad and served for a year as its first bureau chief. She was a John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and a Freedom Forum Asia Studies Fellow at the University of Hawaii. She studied Urdu in Lahore, Pakistan, with the University of California Berkeley Urdu Language Program, earned master’s degrees in journalism and international affairs from Columbia University, and holds a B.A. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Delegate
CEO, Bridges to Prosperity
Results-driven social entrepreneur with 10+ years building and leading global teams. Under Avery’s leadership, Bridges to Prosperity (B2P) has connected over one million people to essential health care, education and economic opportunities. University of Oxford MBA.
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Delegate
Chairman & President, Tiffany & Co. Foundation
Anisa Kamadoli Costa is Chief Sustainability Officer at Tiffany & Co. and Chairman and President of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation. In this dual role, reporting to the CEO of Tiffany & Co., she directs the company's global sustainability and corporate responsibility agenda and directs the strategic grantmaking portfolio on behalf of the Foundation.
Prior to joining Tiffany & Co., Anisa worked at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, an international grantmaking foundation. She has also worked at J.P. Morgan Chase, Monitor Group and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Until recently, Anisa served on the Board of Directors of Philanthropy New York, where she is now on the Governance and Nominating Committee. She is also former Chair of the Board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, an affinity group composed of more than 220 foundations from the U.S., Canada and Europe representing over $1 billion in environmental grantmaking.
Anisa’s leadership on CSR issues includes serving on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Mining & Metals, where she helps provide thought leadership on transformations affecting the mining and metals industries as they seek to forge a sustainable, long-term future. Anisa is also a member of the Founders' Circle and the Governance Committee of the B Team, a nonprofit initiative formed by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz that aims to reposition private industry as a driving force for social, environmental and economic good.
Anisa holds a bachelor's degree from Barnard College/Columbia University and a master's degree from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Audacious Project @ TED, TED Conferences LLC
Anna is the Executive Director of the Audacious Project
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, Soros Economic Development Fund
Georgia Levenson Keohane is the CEO of the Soros Economic Development Fund, the impact investing arm of the Open Society Foundations. Previously, she served as President of the Navab Capital Partners Foundation and head of the firm’s ESG practice, and Executive Director of Pershing Square Foundation. A former McKinsey consultant, Keohane has advised CEOs, boards, and institutional, corporate, and philanthropic investors on strategy, operations, sustainable investing, and inclusive growth. She is an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, where she hosts the Capital for Good podcast, and is the author of two award winning books, Capital and the Common Good (2016) and Social Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century (2013). Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and HBR. Keohane holds a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MSc from the London School of Economics, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.
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Delegate
Business Design Specialist, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor
Mexican born, raised and at heart. Said Business School, University of Oxford MBA. London based, Business Design Specialist for WSUP's Innovation and Consumer Needs Team.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, CEO, Jibu
Galen Welsch co-founded Jibu in 2012 and under his leadership Jibu has quickly become the world's largest social franchise network bringing affordable drinking water access to thousands, and creating hundreds of jobs, mostly for youth, across East Africa.
In addition to Jibu, Galen is an active YPO member, an Advisory Board member of the University of New Hampshire's Rosenberg International Franchise Center (RIFC), on the Advisory Council of Santa Clara University's Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and an advisor / or Board member for several African start ups.
Galen has been an advocate for leveraging business model equity for systems change and presented at events including Harvard's Social Enterprise Conference, the UN General Assembly's Global Development Lab showcase, and the International Franchise Association (IFA) conference. More re business model (versus product) impact: https://nextbillion.net/as-impact-investors-we-often-miss-one-thing-who-has-the-power/
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Delegate
Acting Chief Executive Officer, Elders, The
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Delegate
Inclusive Finance, Citigroup, Inc.
Eugene Amusin is Head of Strategy and Client Solutions, Director for Social Finance at Citi. Eugene is responsible for designing strategy and delivering client solutions with social impact in emerging markets. Eugene has more than 20 years of structuring, product management, technology and customer relationship experience.
Eugene is a proud dad of two kids and based in London.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, The Impact Lab
Andrew Means is Co-Founder of The Impact Lab, a data science consulting and product development shop. Andrew is dedicated to creating a more effective and efficient social sector by helping organizations think critically about their work. At The Impact Lab, Andrew works with a wide-range of nonprofit, foundation, and government agency clients on issues of strategy and data. With all of his clients, he works with them to make better decisions based on data.
Additionally, The Impact Lab runs Data Analysts for Social Good, a professional organization for individuals interested in how data, research, and analytics are changing the social sector. Through this work Andrew hosts webinars, classes, and an annual two-day conference attracting hundreds of leaders from around the country.
Prior to founding The Impact Lab, Andrew worked as Associate Director at the Center for Data Science & Public Policy at The University of Chicago; Manager, Director of Impact Measurement & Data Storytelling at Groupon; and Director of Research & Analytics at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. In all these roles Andrew has helped develop teams dedicated to using data to further the impact of the social sector.
Andrew holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago and was trained in Six Sigma at Motorola. Andrew is a member of the Board of Directors at Ingenuity, Inc. and MHA Labs.
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Delegate
, Evidence Action
Andy is the Founder of The Finding Impact Podcast, an online resource that uses an interview format to uncover high quality tools and tactics to assist social entrepreneurs in frontier markets. Previously, Andy was the global water lead for Evidence Action, responsible for driving growth of the Dispensers for Safe Water business, serving over 4.9 million people (Dec 2016). Andy is a leading expert in combining social enterprise with public water and sanitation services at scale in emerging markets. Andy was Deputy Chief Executive at WSUP (2014 winners) where he built WSUP Enterprises, focused on strengthening private sector delivery of basic water and sanitation services for low-income urban consumers. At WSUP, he built Clean Team Ghana Ltd, an innovative household sanitation business which he setup with IDEO.org and Unilever.
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Delegate
Director of Strategic Philanthropy, Fair Trade USA
Erin joined Fair Trade USA in February 2015. As Director of Strategic Philanthropy she serves on the senior management team and leads the department of fundraising across individuals, foundations, corporations and multi-lateral development banks to help scale the model of Fair Trade to reach its full potential amongst 1 Billion farmers and workers by 2020. Erin began her career working in remote rural areas of Latin America, Africa, India, and Asia, where she developed technical expertise in rural finance, girls & women, mobile technologies, social impact evaluations, Corporate Social Responsibility, and public-private-partnerships. For the past 10 years she has served in senior leadership roles in award-winning social enterprises to build long-term philanthropic investments to advance market-driven solutions to end extreme poverty. She speaks German, Spanish, and is studying Portuguese. Erin holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Philosophy and English from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, as well as a Master of Public Administration, a Master in International Studies, and an MBA Certificate in Global Trade, Transportation and Logistics from the University 0f Washington – Seattle.
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Delegate
Managing Director, India
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Managing Director, Aduna Ltd
Andrew started his career in advertising before a radical life change took him to The Gambia, where he won a UN World Business & Development Award for his work with small-scale producers.
In 2012 he co-founded Aduna, an Africa-inspired health food brand and social business, which creates demand for under-utilised natural products from small producers – starting with the superfoods baobab and moringa.
In 2015 Aduna was shortlisted for three Guardian Sustainable Business Awards, was a finalist in Virgin’s Pitch to the Rich competition and won the UKBAA Social Impact Investment of the Year Award and GSC Most Innovative Supply Chain.
Aduna is currently scaling their baobab supply chain in Northern Ghana in partnership with the UNCCD's 'Great Green Wall' project. Andrew believes passionately in the power of business to deliver transformation in rural Africa. He holds an MBA (distinction) from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
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Delegate
CEO, Splash
Founder and CEO at Splash.
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Delegate
Oxford Student - DPhil Healthcare Innovation, Individual
Elina is an engineer passionate about disruptive innovation that redefines the boundaries of global health and development. Her work focuses on affordable health technologies, including novel diagnostics for childhood pneumonia and sustainable approaches to non-communicable disease management in low-resource settings. She is the co-founder of Mamaby - a social enterprise that uses profits from sales of social snacks to provide healthcare to people in slums. Elina has also worked for the Social Innovation in Health Initiative, the World Health Organisation as well as a number of philanthropic organisations such as Giving What We Can and Thare Machi Education. She holds an MSc in Biomedical Engineering and is currently a PhD candidate in Healthcare Innovation at the University of Oxford.
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Delegate
Deputy Director, Skoll Centre, Said Business School
Andrea Warriner is the interim Deputy Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford. She manages a team that works to develop the talent and insight base required to drive positive social and environmental impact.
Previously, she worked in strategy at Africa Health Placements, which seeks to address the skills shortage in public health in South Africa. She has also worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, where she focused on organisational development topics, primarily within energy and retail. Andrea holds an MBA from Saïd Business School where she was a Saïd Foundation Scholar.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Transform Finance
Andrea Armeni is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Transform Finance, a field-building non-profit organization working at the intersection of capital and social change by building bridges between investors, communities, and other stakeholders. Transform Finance provides thought leadership and advisory services as well as innovative tools and investment structures that promote social change both in and through finance.
Andrea is also the lead convener of the complementary Transform Finance Investor Network, a community of practice for progressive investors that launched at the White House with an initial investment commitment of over $500 million and has since grown to $1.3 billion.
A prominent public speaker, he is recognized as a leader and innovator in the field of impact investing, particularly at the intersection of systemic change and social justice.
Andrea combines a corporate law and finance background with a deep passion for and engagement with social justice activism. He has taught at the Yale Law School and at Université Paris Dauphine in France. He has been recognized as a BMW Foundation Young Leader, is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and sits on the board of directors of the NGO Finance for Good Brazil and of CARE Enterprises, Inc., a business venture started by the international NGO CARE to fund transformative enterprises worldwide. He is based in New York, NY and San Francisco, CA.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Justice Rapid Response
What if we could get closer to stopping the cycles of violence that plague so much of our planet? As a son of parents who endured the Holocaust, Andras Vamos-Goldman has been on a mission to turn "Justice Denied" for victims of mass atrocities into "Justice Achieved". Andras’ vision is for the investigation of mass atrocities to be done as quickly and professionally as the investigation of any ordinary domestic crime.
In pursuit of this vision, Andras helped to create, and is the Executive Director of Justice Rapid Response (JRR). JRR is a standard-setting multi-stakeholder facility that recruits, trains and deploys criminal justice professionals from all over the world to investigate mass atrocities. Since becoming operational in 2009, JRR has certified over 630 professionals to its rapidly deployable roster and has supported over 100 investigations of the worst crimes known to humanity. Andras’ goal is that the quality and timeliness of investigations achieved by JRR becomes the standard to which all investigations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are carried out. Only by getting the investigations of these crimes right, is credible accountability a possibility. And only credible accountability leads to justice for victims, deterrence for future offenders, thereby helping to break the cycle of violence.
A relentless social entrepreneur, an international lawyer and Canadian diplomat, Andras’ involvement with international criminal justice includes playing an instrumental role in the establishment of the Sierra Leone Special Court and working on the creation of the International Criminal Court.
Andras is also an Ashoka fellow and a Draper Richards Kaplan Entrepreneur.
A short video about JRR is available here: https://youtu.be/pxQxzrgcNRc
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Delegate
Partner, Veris Wealth Partners
Anders Ferguson is a founding principal, Veris Wealth Partners, and leads the company’s strategy, marketing and business development. Veris is a social enterprise advisory and pioneer in impact investing, serving families and foundations who care as much about investment performance as using their wealth to positively impact society. Anders is a seasoned entrepreneur and financier building companies and non-profits across the broad sustainability sector since 1978.
In 2000, Anders went on retreat to a rural village on the border of Tibet and China where he witnessed firsthand the very serious environmental impacts of an ascending Chinese economy. All the good work of the small and medium-sized sustainable companies he advised were no match for what was occurring on a global scale. Anders knew he needed to engage Global 1000 business leaders in the next phase of his life’s work. With this in mind, he co-convened the Spirit in Business world conference and NGO that brought together executives and the Dalai Lama exploring the intersection of sustainability, leadership, mindfulness and business performance. It was the beginning of a journey that continues to this day.
He is a co-founder of the Dalai Lama Fellows and Chair of Friends of The Oberlin Project, Oberlin College, He advises The Democracy Collaborative and Evergreen Cooperatives initiative in Cleveland, OH, and served as a director of the National Cooperative Business Association and Foundation. Anders graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in History and Environmental Studies. He lives with his family in Leyden, MA.
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Delegate
Investment Team, Ecofin Ltd
Deirdre Cooper was named a Partner of Ecofin in May 2016. She is a Portfolio Manager and Head of Research, a position she has held since 2009. Before joining Ecofin in 2007 as a senior analyst, Deirdre was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley where she headed their European Renewable Energy coverage effort and built an investment banking and principal investing franchise. She has long had a passion for sustainable investing and has worked on a voluntary basis in the microfinance sector both in the US and in Pakistan. She is a member of the advisory board of Girls Who Invest, a non‐profit organisation whose mission is to increase the percentage of the world’s investable capital run by women. She is also a member of the advisory board of the Shell Foundation’s Energy Company of the Future project, as well as the advisory board for Imperial College’s Centre for Climate Finance and Investment. Deirdre earned her MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar, and her BA from University College Dublin.
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Delegate
Managing Director, BlackRock
Debbie McCoy, Managing Director, leads Impact Investing Strategy for the Scientific Active Equity group at BlackRock, where her responsibilities also include emerging markets.
Ms. McCoy joined the firm in 2015. Previously, she worked for Stanford University where she made investment recommendations to the university's endowment manager, conceived and co-taught an MBA finance elective course about investing in emerging and frontier markets, and was a Director of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. Ms. McCoy began her career at Bain & Company in San Francisco and Johannesburg and later worked for Citigroup in New York and New Delhi and a sovereign wealth group. In 2013 and 2014, Ms. McCoy served as a non-partisan, Presidentially-appointed White House Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and trustee of the African Leadership Network.
Ms. McCoy received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from Howard University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Delegate
Director, Social Innovation initiative, CAF Development Bank of Latin America
Ana M Botero is Director of Social Innovation at CAF – Development Bank of Latin America. She was the executive director of Fundación Corona in Bogotá Colombia (2010-2012). She started her professional career at the Center International Studies at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá as coordinator on international political affairs; shortly thereafter, she enrolled the United Nations as assistant lawyer at the Law of the Sea Office serving in New York and Geneva Headquarters. Subsequently, she joined the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as a delegate in international negotiations on security and political issues as well as with those related to human rights and illicit drug trafficking.
In 1994 she joined CAF as Director of the Secretariat and External Affairs, responsible for CAF´s communication strategy and the overall delivery of the Organization’s mandate referred to its Constitutive Agreement and Rules of Procedure. She acted as the liaison officer with CAF’s shareholding governments and Board of Directors and was the coordinator for protocol, logistics and secretariat services to CAF’s governing bodies. In 2003, Miss Botero was appointed head of a new office responsible for the strategy and implementation of CAF’s Social Responsibility and Community Development Program. Under her leadership, a high-impact set of tools were developed based on shared values, social inclusion and human rights in order to strengthen basic capabilities for empowerment and improving living standards of poor communities.
She was appointed Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in 1998 and is a volunteer member of Special Olympics International. She is a lawyer with two master degrees, one in Law (LLM) and the other on International Affairs (MIA) from Columbia University (NYC).
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Delegate
Editor-in-chief, Our Planet
GEOFFREY LEAN, believed to be the world's longest-serving environmental specialist journalist, covering the field (taking in energy, agriculture, and world development) for almost 50 years, mainly at the The Yorkshire Post, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph, where he wrote a weekly column for six years. His work has been widely syndicated internationally and he has written regularly for such leading publications as The New Statesman, The Daily Mail, and The Evening Standard.. His consultancies incude the Global Environment Facility and the Institute of Governance and Sustainable Development.
In 1997 he was the UK Government’s official delegate to Commission IV of the General Conference of UNESCO, on Britain’s return to the organisation. He has served on the Jury of the Goldman Environmental Prize since 1996 He is the author of Rich World, Poor World (George Allen and Unwin, 1978; Japan Publications Inc, 1980), co-author of Chernobyl, The End of the Nuclear Dream,(Pan 1986, Vintage Books 1987, and 17 different language editions), and General Editor of The Atlas of the Environment (Hutchinson and Prentice Hall, 1990: Helicon and HarperCollins 1992).
In 2000 and 2001 he won Scoop of the Year in the London Press Club and the British Press Awards (the British equivalent of the Pulitzers) and in 2002 the Martha Gelhorn Award for investigative journalism. His other awards include: Glaxo Science Writers Fellowship (1972), the Communication Arts Award of Excellence (1986), UNEP Global 500 (1987), the CLEAR Award (for achievement in the campaign to ban lead from petrol) (1989), Journalist of the Year in the BEMA (1993,2002) and the Greenhouse Political (2016) Awards, the Schumacher Award (1994) and the Lifetime Achievement award of the International Media Awards (2017) In 1998 he also received the special ‘Foundation Award’ for global lifetime achievement at the launching of a new environmental journalism prize by Reuters and IUCN.
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Delegate
Chief Investment Officer, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Ana Marshall, CFA, brings 35 years of investment experience to her role of Vice President and Chief Investment Officer for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She is responsible for asset allocation and strategic investment policy recommendation and implementation of the $12 billion endowment portfolio. She leads the investment team portfolio construction, manager selection, risk management, and liquidity modeling efforts. Ana led the selection and oversight of external managers in global equities, distress/credit, fixed income, derivative strategies, and absolute return since joining the foundation in 2004.
From 1993 to 2003, she served as a Senior Portfolio Manager of global and emerging market equity portfolios at RCM Capital Management. Prior to RCM, Ana worked as an analyst/portfolio manager of emerging market debt and equity portfolios at Bank of America. Ana began her career in 1986 as a research analyst of high yielding assets, including corporate debt, distressed debt, and emerging market sovereign bonds.
Ana graduated Magna Cum Laude from University of San Diego in Economics, and earned her Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1989. She was born and raised in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish and French. She serves as a Board Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), an advisor to PIMCO, as well as serves on the Investment Committee of the Skoll Foundation and the U.S. Soccer Federation. Ana is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Delegate
Chairman, Forum for Democratic Libya
Amr is a business leader, entrepreneur, and civil society activist with a track record in the industrial, political and philanthropic fields. He is Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Forum for Democratic Libya (FDL), an organization established during the 2011 revolution in Libya to promote democracy, citizen engagement, and accountability. He is also the founder and board member of AYTB and a board member of Marafiq a Saudi utility company . Amr is also a board member of AFAC, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.AFAC is an independent Arab initiative that funds individuals and organizations in the fields of cinema, performing arts, literature, music and visual arts. He continues to be an active member and supporter of various philanthropic and civil society projects in the Arab world. He is currently on the Advisory Board of Visualizing Impact, a visual media organisation focusing on social justice issues. Amr also recently served as the Executive producer of ‘First to Fall’, the first full-length documentary on the Libyan revolution.
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Delegate
Senior Vice President, Oceans, Environmental Defense Fund
Amanda Leland is a visionary leader for recovering global fisheries in our lifetimes. In her role as Senior Vice President for EDF Oceans, she leads a diverse team of scientists, lawyers and advocates for healthy and abundant oceans.
She develops and implements strategies to transform resource management to achieve productive and profitable fisheries, and her team is building on its past progress in U.S. and international fishing to ignite a bold global agenda that will result in more fish in the water, more food on the plate, and more prosperous communities.
Under Amanda’s leadership, the Oceans Program has catalyzed reforms and advanced tangible results for people and the oceans in nine countries in North and Central America, Europe and Southeast Asia. In her decade of service at EDF, she has been a leading strategist for and advocate of the recovery of U.S. fisheries, where today fish populations are rebounding and fishing jobs and revenues are up.
Amanda knew at an early age that the oceans were her passion, learning how to fish with her grandfather. She brings a diverse oceans background prior to EDF, having been a scientist conducting cooperative research with commercial fishermen in Maine, a marine mammal zookeeper, and a Congressional aid focused on ocean issues. She holds an M.S. in Marine Biology from the University of Maine.
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Delegate
CEO & Founder, African Diaspora Network
Almaz Negash, a prominent trailblazer in Silicon Valley, has been recognized as one of the 12 inaugural members of President Biden’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States. She has also been named as one of Silicon Valley 100 outstanding Women of Influence for her significant contributions to social innovation. In 2010, she founded the African Diaspora Network (ADN) with a mission to inform, engage and activate Africans in the diaspora, fostering direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders. This collaborative approach aims to drive investment and uplift the lives of individuals across the African continent and in our local communities.
Under Almaz's visionary leadership, ADN has become a pivotal platform for various programs and initiatives, including YALI LL and Beyond Remittances.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Amplifier Strategies
As the CEO and Founder of Amplifier Strategies, Allison Duncan continues to pave the road toward a proven, modern approach to philanthropy. Amplifier is a for-profit, 100-percent mission-driven business that partners with industry leaders seeking to build and scale proven approaches to social change. She is an entrepreneur, investor and advisor to change-makers interested in the growing convergence of philanthropy and innovation.
Allison’s great pivot in life came with the discovery that finance, technology and dynamic business startup models all could shape mission-driven work. This deepening appreciation for an emerging era of philanthropy inspired her to move social impact to the core of her new business, rather than having it remain on the margins of goodwill. She has traveled the world in partnership with global leaders in tenacious pursuit of grand solutions that make a better world for all.
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Delegate
Director, Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice
Celine holds a BA in Journalism from Dublin City University and has worked as a communications professional for fifteen years both in agency and in-house positions. Celine joined RTÉ, Ireland’s Public Service Broadcaster in 2003 to work as Manager of Corporate Events looking after RTÉ’s corporate sponsorship portfolio and public affairs outreach. Celine was a fundraising manager with the Special Olympics World Games 2003 developing and managing strategic corporate partnerships and the main public fundraising campaign. Prior to that, Celine worked as an Account Manager in public relations agencies in Dublin where her teams won four PRCA awards – PR industry awards in Ireland. Celine joined the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice in October 2010 to lead the brand development and outreach of the Foundation. In 2015 Celine was appointed to the role of Director, overseeing the operations and strategic direction of the Foundation.
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Delegate
Journalist, Quartz
I’m a London-based journalist, writing about energy, UK politics and society, management and the arts for Quartz. Previously, I worked at The Wall Street Journal. When freelance, I wrote for The Economist and other newspapers the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Ukraine.
I’m also a co-organiser of Hacks Hackers, a meet-up group for journalists and technologists. The group started in New York and San Francisco, and I help run the London chapter.
I trained in journalism from 2009-2011 in Denmark, Amsterdam and London. At the end of that course I spent some months in Berkeley, CA, on a News 21 journalism fellowship.
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Delegate
Allen is the former President of VillageReach, the mission of which is to save lives and improve health by increasing access to quality healthcare for the most underserved communities. He now serves on the VillageReach board. Previously, Allen was Associate General Counsel of Microsoft Corporation where he supported Microsoft’s international expansion and developed new and innovative distribution channels for Microsoft products. Allen has an LLM in International Business Legal Studies from University of Exeter (England), a JD from Southern Methodist University and a BA from University of Texas. He was a Rotary Foundation Scholar and is a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur.
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Delegate
Executive Director and Founder,
AshokaAmy Neugebauer is the Founder and Executive Director of The Giving Square. Throughout her career, Amy has worked in the fields of community building, international development, philanthropy, and social innovation. Most recently she served as Deputy to the President of Ashoka. At Ashoka Amy drove several initiatives and country expansions, including Ashoka in Japan, Korea, and Western Europe. Earlier in her career, Amy ran the College Park City-University Partnership, a community development corporation responsible for designing and implementing strategic collective impact initiatives, including a multi-million-dollar affordable housing program. She also founded an integrated youth-led community center in Estonia, which was recognized as a model for youth empowerment and community integration. Throughout her career Amy has advised a number of nonprofits and foundations globally around various programmatic and organizational challenges.
Amy has a Masters in Community Planning from the University of Maryland and a Bachelors in International Relations from the University of Washington. She lives in Maryland with her husband, two kids, and COVID dog.
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Delegate
Director, Global Health Equity, Emerson Collective
Cassia van der Hoof Holstein is Director, Global Health Equity at the Emerson Collective. She serves on the boards of Partners In Health and Plus 1, and on the Vice Chancellor’s Advisory Board at the University of Global Health Equity, in Rwanda. She is a Senior Advisor to the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.
Previously, Cassia served as Chief of Staff to Dr. Paul Farmer--who loved the annual trip to Oxford for the Skoll World Forum, and the beloved community he got to see there. She was Associate Director of the Global Health Delivery Partnership at Harvard Medical School, Chief Partnership Integration Officer at Partners In Health, and founding Director of Rural Health at the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI). Cassia studied Literature at Harvard College, and got her start in global health in Senate Kennedy's Poverty Issues Office. She is a San Franciscan, birth doula, mother of three, and adherent of the Oxford comma.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Refugee Can Be
Alisa Bhachu's twenty year career has focused within the human rights sector as an advocate for women and girls, namely refugees and asylum seekers, especially those displaced from throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Alisa's career began as an intern with Amnesty International USA, where she went on to lead Amnesty's national campaign on Refugees and Asylum. From 2012-2018 she led RefuSHE, an award-winning international NGO and she currently serves as Executive Director of the Chicago Refugee Coalition. Alisa's leadership was honored as an International Leader by Chicago Woman magazine and has been named an Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She frequently speaks on issues of forced migration and women’s rights having appeared on BBC, NPR, MSN, Refinery29, Chicago Tribune, ABC and CBS primetime news. Alisa holds certifications in Forced Migration from Northwestern and Oxford Universities, a BA in Humanities and an MA in Comparative Religions.
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Delegate
Founder/CEO, CAUSA
Alicia has spent 23 years in fund development and has raised tens of millions in support of social innovation. She has worked tirelessly to advance the notion that cooperation and the use of technology to track and measure outcomes are key to solving the world’s most pressing social and environmental issues. The 3-level CAUSA platform she has created is the first of its kind to capture the data necessary to accomplish these goals.
For the last two decades she has created a much coveted network of the best and the brightest within the world of Social Innovation and continues to be a leader in championing real change.
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Delegate
Presenter/producer, BBC Radio Oxford
While I went to Georgetown University, I worked in the Senate and the White House. I came over to Oxford and did a jurisprudence degree at Balliol College. For almost three years I worked in the Peace Corps in Cuzco, Peru, on land reform projects when the Velasco Alvarado government was transferring latifundios to Quechua-speaking cooperatives. I returned to England and after a few false starts that included installing a sculpture of a fibre-glass shark crashing through the tiles on my roof, I became a presenter/producer with the BBC in Oxford dealing mostly with current affairs and debates.
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Delegate
Administrative Assistant, Skoll Global Threats Fund
Alessandra is the Administrative Assistant at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. Previously, she worked as a Program Assistant at The Sprout Fund, managing grants and supporting innovative ideas catalyzing change in Pittsburgh. While in Pittsburgh, she was nominated to join the Global Shapers Hub, a World Economic Forum network developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievements, and their drive to make a contribution to their communities. Alessandra is a founding member of The School Fund, a non-profit dedicated to providing opportunities for students in the developing world through educational scholarships. She served pro bono as the organization's first Vice President of Operations from 2010 to 2012.
Alessandra is passionate about visual media’s potential to encourage optimistic and constructive change-making on a global scale.
She holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and a B.S. in Photojournalism from Boston University as well as a Masters in Anthropology of Media from the University of London – SOAS.
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Delegate
Director of International Giving, David Weekley Family Foundation
Becca received her MBA with a concentration in entrepreneurship from The Acton School of Business in Austin, TX, and studied at the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College in Lookout Mtn., GA, when she earned her BA in International Community Development. Her previous experience includes working for a U.S. Senator in Washington, DC, serving a community of over 500 philanthropists with The Philanthropy Roundtable, and her summers researching the health practices of the Karimojong in North Eastern Uganda and interning with the Human Trafficking Dept. of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Becca is based in Houston, TX, where the Weekley family resides.
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Delegate
Knowledge Manager, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Alastair is the Knowledge Manager at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. He is responsible for advancing the research agenda of the Skoll Centre and developing present and future research initiatives. Alastair has a first class degree in Theology with a focus on Islam and an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy, both from the University of Oxford.
Before joining the Skoll Centre, he worked as an Impact Developer at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies where he started a research consultancy on religion and world affairs. Prior to this, he helped to start and grow a successful behavioural education charity for vulnerable young people called One-Eighty where he is the Chair of Trustees.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, Kiva / Branch International Inc.
Matt began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo, Inc. In December 2005 Matt left his job to devote himself to Kiva full-time. As CEO for 10 years, Matt led Kiva's growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships in 80 countries and over 700 million dollars lent to low income entrepreneurs.
More recently, Matt has dived back into the startup world by creating Branch International. Branch is a for profit, Android-based "branchless bank" for Africans just launched in 2015. In just six months, Branch has made tens of thousands of loans in Kenya.
Matt is Skoll Awardee and Ashoka Fellow and was selected to FORTUNE magazine's "Top 40 under 40" list in 2009. In 2011, Matt was chosen for the The Economist "No Boundaries" Innovation Award. He graduated with a BS in Symbolic Systems and a Masters in Philosophy from Stanford University.
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Delegate
Simon is a director of the NGO Global Witness (www.globalwitness.org), which he co-founded together with friends and colleagues, Charmian Gooch and Patrick Alley in 1993. Simon is a Steering Committee member of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (https://fossilfueltreaty.org/steering-committee).
Simon was a co-founder of the Publish What You Pay campaign (www.pwyp.org), in 2002. He has extensive public-interest advocacy & policy making experience across multiple jurisdictions. His work has also sought to hold human rights abusers, the corrupt and corporate criminals to account, including using the law. He was a complainant to the Milan Public Prosecutor, which led to the trial of Shell and Eni for their corrupt deal for the OPL 245 oil block in Nigeria (See public documents: https://shellandenitrial.org/).
Simon, Charmian & Patrick have concluded a succession process at Global Witness, leaving staff in November 2023. They remain on the board.
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Delegate
A Founding Member of TCF’s Board of Directors, Mr. Chhapra has played a key role in nurturing a number of prominent nonprofit organizations. He serves on the boards of Patients’ Aid Foundation and The Kidney Centre as well. In recognition of his eminent service to society, the Government of Pakistan has conferred upon him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan’s highest civil honors.
Mr. Mushtaq is Director of various companies and corporations including Coastal Trading, CBM Plastics, Transpak (Pvt) Ltd., Coastal Synthetics (Pvt) Ltd., Multipaper Products (Pvt) Ltd., and Coastal Converters (Pvt) Ltd. He is Chairman of the Executive Committee of Patient Aid Foundation, a Foundation that was established to extend help to needy and poor patients and provides free medicine. He is also a Member of the Board of Governors of The Kidney Centre, which provides treatment and dialysis to patients suffering from kidney problems
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Acacias for All
Sarah was born in France to a Tunisian father and a French mother. Influenced by her father who worked for years in the nonprofit sector, Sarah got involved in social causes at a young age to build youth centers, computer labs and public libraries in Tunisia’s marginalized communities. During her time at the Sorbonne, Sarah founded DREAM, an incubator for social and environmental students projects in Paris. In 2011, following the Tunisian revolution, Sarah, who had been leading a very comfortable life in Paris, decided to go back to her homeland of Tunisia. In Tunisia, Sarah saw that the levels of rural poverty, resulting from land desertification, were rapidly increasing. This eye opening experience led Sarah to her conviction that desertification and environmental degradation, leading to rural poverty, was the most pressing issue facing her community. She started by organizing a program called "Castle of Knowledge" in her grand-parents village (Bir Salah), offering women and youth the opportunité to get access to cultural and educational activities. Then she started planting trees with this community and created Acacias for all. Sarah is an Ashoka Fellow and Echoing Green #Climate Fellow.
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Delegate
Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel, King Philanthropies
In September 2018, after nearly 13 years at the Skoll Foundation, I joined King Philanthropies as its first COO/GC. I have been in the philanthropy sector for over 22 years, working in various legal and financial roles at 4 Silicon Valley private foundations. A lawyer and certified public accountant by training and profession, my passion is supporting the efforts of highly effective organizations to alleviate extreme poverty at scale.
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Delegate
Dr. Besser recognized the need for a support program to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to their children. He founded mothers2mothers (m2m), in which mothers living with HIV are employed as Mentor Mothers to work in health centers and communities, educating and supporting pregnant women and new mothers with HIV; towards reducing the number of babies born with HIV and keeping mothers healthy and alive to care for their families. Since 2001, m2m has cared for 15 million mothers and children. In ten countries in Africa, m2m employs 2000 women living with HIV in programs addressing needs of HIV negative and positive women, adolescent girls and young women; and early child development. In 2014, Mitch launched AgeWell, dedicated to needs of older persons. Applying m2m’s peer model, AgeWell employs tech-enabled, independent older people to provide companionship and promote well-being among less able older people. The program has provided service in South Africa, Ireland and the U.S.
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Delegate
, Independent
Anne formerly worked at the Skoll Foundation on a systems practice and systems mapping pilot with grantees. She has worked on various projects within the Foundation for the past 4 years. Anne has more than 15 years of experience in the private sector focused on technology, management consulting, and various independent strategy and marketing related projects. Most recently, she consulted for 3 years at Asurion Mobile Applications, acting as Director of Product Management for mobile smart phone applications, leading strategic planning, and exploring international partnerships for the business. Other project work included roles with Nike Innovation Lab, Genentech, and repeat engagements with Intuit. Prior to that, Anne held international and channel marketing positions at Intel and Intuit. Additionally, she trained as a general strategy consultant with Bain & Company.
After college, she worked as a teacher at the International school in Lima, Peru. Anne received her MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA where she focused on Strategy and Technology and earned a BA in Political Science from Stanford University. Outside of work, Anne can be found on the soccer field, ski slopes, or playing with her husband and kids in the SF Bay Area.
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Delegate
President, Rockwood Leadership Institute
Akaya Windwood is the President of Rockwood Leadership Institute, the nation’s largest provider of transformative leadership trainings for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. She is a partner in the Opportunity Collaboration, an international conference that convenes leaders working to end poverty. Akaya leads trainings nationally and internationally, and has been a featured speaker at the Stanford Social Innovation Institute, the Aspen Institute, and the Echoing Green Purpose 360 Conference. She is recognized for elevating the effectiveness of leadership and collaboration in the nonprofit and social benefit sectors, and is the recipient of an Ella Award from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and a Transformative Leadership Award from the Seasons Fund for Social Transformation. Akaya’s vision for our global community includes infusing a sense of purpose, delight and wonder into everything we do. She has a life-long commitment to working for a fair and equitable global society, and believes that Rockwood and Opportunity Collaboration’s combined network of over 7,000 powerful, collaborative, and interconnected leaders will help lead the way.
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Delegate
iFIGHT Coordinator, Voice Of The Free
Nica Santiago currently oversees the iFIGHT program at Visayan Forum Foundation, which seeks to empower youth as a driving force in fighting human trafficking and other forms of exploitation. As iFIGHT Coordinator, she works to develop partnerships with schools, colleges and local government units and is primarily responsible for leading major events, delivering speeches and seminars on human trafficking, and developing iFIGHT chapters. Nica is also a filmmaker, having been recognized at various festivals both domestically and internationally. Her short film, “Sa Wakas,” which discusses the right to reproductive health, won prizes at Cinemalaya 2013 and the Active Vista Film Festival 2013 and received selections at festivals in Poland and Australia as well. She is also an Artist-Teacher at the Philippine Educational Theater Association, where she conducts workshops regarding children empowerment and community resilience. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Mass Communication from Far Eastern University, Philippines.
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Delegate
Creative Producer, Black Sheep Media
Anisa McMullan is a social entrepreneur and filmmaker passionate about advocacy and justice for marginalised people within institutionalised systems. Through her company Black Sheep Media, Anisa has made over 25 films within youth offender institutes, prisons, and low-performing schools, and has co-authored an academic paper titled Narrative and the Nature of Reconciliation within the Self and Society: an Applied Neuroscientific Perspective. Her work has won her numerous awards, including UnLtd's Millennium Award. In 2011, Anisa was awarded a scholarship to attend Roger Martin's integrative thinking program for global leaders, which inspired her to produce a documentary on the program's impact on a low-performing school in Toronto. Her current film project interrogates the intersections of mental health, justice, and the criminalisation of marginalised people under the forensic mental health system.
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Delegate
President, Magnum Foundation
Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer and member of Magnum Photos since 1976. She is the author of Carnival Strippers, Nicaragua: June 1978-July 1979, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Pandora’s Box and Encounters with the Dani. She has co-edited two collections: El Salvador: Work of 30 Photographers and Chile from Within. Meiselas has also co-directed three films: Living at Risk and Pictures from a Revolution with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti and Reframing History where she returned again to Nicaragua and placed her photographs of the popular insurrection in the landscape where they were first taken. Her pioneering website created in 1998, akaKURDISTAN, is considered a seminal model for diaspora participation in collective memory and cultural exchange.
Meiselas is well known for her multi-decade documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Her photographs are included in American and international collections. In 1992 Meiselas was made a MacArthur Fellow and in 2015 received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2007, she became the founding President of the Magnum Foundation. The Magnum Foundation supports, trains, and mentors the next generation of in-depth independent documentary photographers and seeks to increase the impact of both historical and contemporary photography in the digital age.
Meiselas is presently on the Advisory Board of the Acumen Fund and the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics at The New School.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & CEO, Vera Solutions
Zak Kaufman is Co-Founder and CEO of Vera Solutions, a social enterprise using cloud and mobile technology to help social impact organizations worldwide work more efficiently and deliver better results. Zak has worked for 10 years at the intersection of technology and the social sector, overseeing program evaluations in Southern Africa and Latin America and architecting data systems for dozens of leading global nonprofits. Since 2010, Vera has served more than 330 organizations in more than 60 countries and has grown to a team of 80 staff on five continents. Notable clients Zak has worked with include the Gavi Alliance, the Aga Khan Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Zak holds a PhD and MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a BA from Dartmouth. He has been recognized as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, Meaningful Business 100, Global Good Fund Fellow, Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellow, and winner of Dartmouth's 2018 Social Justice Award. Vera has additionally received recognition through the Echoing Green Fellowship, Real Leaders Top 100 Impact Companies, and B Lab's Best For the World lists.
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Delegate
Ehsan Ahmad Sahel, 26, Afghanistan
Afghan Institute of Learning, General Coordinator of Academic and Educational Affairs
ehsansahel.ail@gmail.com
Ehsan has a B.A. from Herat University and studied in the Education and English Literature Faculty. As a teenager, Ehsan took over his family business and greatly increased its profits and scope. At the same time, he volunteered at various private schools and became a teacher trainer with AIL while still in university. At Herat University, he was chairperson the Cultural Association, Co-founder and Chairperson of the Youth Association, Director of the English Department at the Oxford Academy and supervised the presidential elections at the university. After graduating from university, he quickly became an AIL Master Teacher Trainer and then Academic Advisor before assuming his present position. He is an educational social entrepreneur and volunteers with many youth organizations.
He has been an entrepreneur and now a social entrepreneur. He is enriched with experience in the fields of public administration, civil society and education. He has a wealth of experiential knowledge in teaching, training, developing training curriculum, holding seminars, debates, capacity building, and social governance.
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Delegate
Gopi Gopalakrishnan has long experience in implementing large-scale service-delivery programs. WHP initially delivered primary health care to rural communities in India and Kenya and is now expanding its scope to primary education and livelihoods. The approach is to enhance with technology and management systems the utility of whatever available resources in the community.
Gopi has been a member of India’s Population Commission and has advised numerous national and international organizations on cost-effective service delivery. He has served as a global technical advisor of the International Finance Corporation and is currently an advisor of the National Health Mission.
Gopi has worked as the Director of International Programs of DKT International based in Washington DC overseeing 14 programs and as Country Director in Vietnam. Besides Skoll, he has been awarded by Schwab and Ashoka Foundations and the Government of Vietnam. He holds a masters degree and has been trained at Harvard.
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Delegate
Programme Manager, Montpelier Foundation
I represent two sister foundations, Montpelier Foundation (UK) and Hampshire Foundation, Inc (US). We fund organisations that help disadvantaged youth and rural communities improve their livelihoods, in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South as well as South East Asia. We currently fund an emergency Covid-19 response in Peru. We are also working on a strategy to tackle climate change. I am French and I am based in London, UK.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Spark MicroGrants
Sasha Fisher is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Spark Microgrants. Her experiences in South Sudan, South Africa, India, and Uganda led to her passion for community-first development and, in July 2010, she moved to East Africa to develop the Spark Microgrants system of change. Sasha is an inaugural Obama Fellow and Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow. She was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurship list and was honored with the Muhammad Ali Award for Respect. She holds a BA from the University of Vermont in Studio Art and a self-designed major of Human Security, a paradigm for development that recognizes the rising legitimacy of non-state actors in securing basic human needs.
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Delegate
Director of the Arabic Language and Cultural Studies Program, Fordham University
MOHAMED A. ALSIADI was born in Syria and lived and worked in the Middle East before moving to NYC. He received his B.A. from Syrian’s most prestigious Institute of Music. As a gifted composer and artist he collaborated with some of the most renowned artists and musicians of the Damascus Spring. He is currently the Director of the US-MidEast Program for the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution and Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in the Arabic Language and Cultural Studies Program at Fordham University. He is also presently a doctoral candidate in the Program in American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. His research interests include, Arabic language, literature, culture, Arab-American issues, issues related to Arab-American identity post-9/11; the impact of East-West relations on contemporary Arabic music and literature; Aleppian Waslah performance in the Diaspora; Arabic music composition, theory, and practice; and use of Islam to democratize groups and nations. Alsiadi has co-authored an Arabic language and culture book, articles on music and music theory in addition to translation of key works of important social and political figures of the Arab Spring and the Syrian revolution.
Professor Alsiadi has spent the last five years facilitating discussions, hosting meetings and conducting research with key members of the Syrian leadership in the diaspora. Since the start of the conflict in Syria he has provided academic leadership, engaged in discussions and offered advice and support to fellow Syrians in civic society, academia and political parties across Europe, the Middle East and the United States. He has also provided important commentary for journalists in the USA and around the world based on his research and expertise and reports from his contacts with academics and journalists within Syria. He has been interviewed and been an analyst on TV and radio for a wide range of media sources including appearances on PBS, HuffPost LIVE, ABC In
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Delegate
Founder, SafePoint Trust
Marc Koska OBE is the inventor of the K1 and following Auto-Disable syringes, the founder of Safepoint Trust (a UK-registered charity) and a highly regarded advocate around the world for needle safety in both immunisation and therapeutic sectors. Marc’s engineering company StarTek leads the world in syringe manufacturing consultancy.
His mission in life is the mandatory use of auto-disable syringes globally, to reduce cross-infection through dirty needles and needle-stick injuries, the world’s ninth biggest killer annually. If needles cannot be used twice, this tragic man-made cause of death and illness can be prevented completely.
Marc has spent nearly twenty years promoting the use of any Auto-Disable device and persuading the global health community of the enormous benefits of a switch in terms of lives saved – over a million and a half every year – and healthcare costs saved – over half a billion dollars annually.
He has created successful behavioral change / public safety campaigns – for example in India, where in 2008 Safepoint Trust created One Injection One Syringe - one of the largest ever public health campaigns in India, leading to mandatory use of auto-disable syringes in all governmental and subsequently all private hospitals. More recently Marc and the SafePoint Trust have catapulted safe injections to the top of the international health agenda, as on 23 February 2015, Margaret Chan, DG WHO announced a new global policy on injection safety.
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Delegate
Filmmaker, Little Punk
Oscar-nominated producer Howard Gertler’s credits include David France’s “How to Survive a Plague,” which premiered in competition at Sundance 2012 and was released by IFC Films/Sundance Selects; in addition to the Academy Award nomination, the film collected New York Film Critics’ Circle, Peabody, IFP Gotham, IDA and GLAAD Media Awards. With John Cameron Mitchell & graphic novelist Dash Shaw, he produced the short film “Seraph” for the band Sigur Ros, which premiered at Sundance 2013. He’s both an IFP/Gotham and Film Independent Spirit Award winner, the latter of which he won for producing John Cameron Mitchell’s “Shortbus,” which premiered in the official selection in Cannes and was released worldwide. In 2014, he produced the feature doc for EPIX "To Russia With Love," traveling to Sochi, Moscow and St. Petersburg during the 2014 Winter Olympics to profile the impact of Putin's anti-LGBT law on both LGBT Russian citizens and global Olympians. Producer of the feature doc “Do I Sound Gay?” (directed by David Thorpe), it premiered at Toronto 2014 and opened DOC NYC that same year, followed by a theatrical release by IFC Films/Sundance Selects. His upcoming films include John Cameron Mitchell’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” produced with See-Saw Films, Film4, Ingenious and Screen Yorkshire, to be released by A24 and Studiocanal UK. His BA in Public Policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School prepared him better for a filmmaking career than he could’ve imagined at the time.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Habona Ltd.
Jean Bosco is the Founder and CEO of HABONA Ltd, a company that provides integrated waste management services and further processes the waste into affordable and environmentally friendly fuels such as biogas and biomass briquettes. Jean Bosco oversees the overall company management, public relations and fundraising. Upon founding HABONA, he was crowned as the 2014 Top Young Entrepreneur of Rwanda and he received the 2015 young achiever award by the First Lady of Rwanda. He has also won a number of other prizes, including the African Innovation and the India-Africa Young Visionary prizes. Jean Bosco holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Rwanda and is completing his final papers of CPA. He was selected as the 2015 Mandela Washington Fellow through the flagship program of the President Obama for Young African Leaders. Public speaking appearances include at the 2014 Pan-African Youth Conference and the 2014 Rwanda Day Celebration in Atlanta. He has also been invited by HRH Prince Andrew to pitch his business in Buckingham Palace, UK.
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Delegate
CEO, AllAfrica Foundation
Tami Hultman is co-founder and chief content officer of AllAfrica Global Media/allAfrica.com and CEO of the AllAfrica Foundation. She oversees AllAfrica’s content expansion, working to extend innovative social software and information-delivery technologies for communities and media and to expand collaborations with AllAfrica’s media partners across the continent.
She has reported, edited, consulted and produced for a range of international news organizations, including the BBC, CNN, South African Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio (U.S.), International Television News (UK), NBC Television (U.S.), the Washington Post, the New York Times and Le Monde Diplomatique. Her prize-winning reporting and production work includes designing and serving as Executive Producer for a U.S. National Public Radio/AllAfrica collaboration – a year-long project involving teams of researchers, reporters, hosts, producers and engineers in eight countries.
She also oversaw pan-African coverage for the launch of SABC Africa, a South African Broadcasting Corporation television channel for Africa. Her undergraduate degree is from Duke University and her Masters and PhD are from the University of North Carolina. She was founding Director of the Center for Africa and Media at Duke University, where she conducted one of the first Internet courses, “News in a Global Village,” linking classes at universities in Ghana and South Africa with Duke and with Florida A&M.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.) and the International Women’s Media Foundation. In 2001, she was named co-recipient of the Special Recognition Media Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Africa America Institute in New York.
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Delegate
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Young 1ove
Noam Angrist is the Executive Director of Young 1ove and is a research-loving social entrepreneur living in Botswana. Young 1ove is an NGO employing 81 young Batswana and reaching over 35,000 youth in Botswana with evidence-based HIV, health and education classes. Their flagship program is a "sugar daddy awareness" class previously shown to reduce pregnancy - a proxy for unprotected sex and HIV transmission - by almost a third. Within 3 years Young 1ove aims to implement evidence-based HIV, health and education programming in Swaziland, Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, and South Africa, reaching over 1 million adolescents every year. Noam is a Rainer Fellow with the Mulago Foundation, which supports Young 1ove among other Big Bang Philanthropy donors, MTV, the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Innovation Fund. Noam previously conducted research at the University of Botswana as a Fulbright Scholar, evaluated effective poverty-alleviation programs at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, conducted research for the World Bank and advised on rapid randomized impact evaluations at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Noam holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from MIT, and an MSc. in Evidence Based Social Intervention & Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Cartier Philanthropy
Pascale joined Cartier in July 2013 to launch Cartier Philanthropy, a grant-making foundation committed to improving the lives of the most vulnerable. Under her leadership, the foundation has invested some CHF 100M to support impact-driven non-profit organisations operating in over 30 countries. Pascale’s two decades' work in humanitarian and development efforts proved an invaluable background for her work in philanthropy. She began her career as an intern at the UN in New York and soon found herself on the team of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Mogadishu, Somalia. She then joined UNICEF in Baghdad, Iraq, and later was back on the team to lead donor relations for the USD 100M Iraq country programme. She also took part in on-the-ground efforts in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
Between stints on the ground, much of her work focused on raising the funds to support UNICEF’s operations and and managing funding relations with field offices in Africa and South-East Asia.
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Speaker
Filmmaker, Met Film Production
Jerry Rothwell is a filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature documentaries: How To Change The World, about the founders of Greenpeace; Town of Runners, about two girls in an Ethiopian village who aspire to be athletes; Donor Unknown, about a sperm donor and his many offspring; Heavy Load, about a group of people with learning disabilities who form a punk band, and Deep Water (co-directed with Louise Osmond), about Donald Crowhurst's ill-fated voyage in the 1968 round the world yacht race. His latest film is Sour Grapes (co-directed with Reuben Atlas) a film about a wine counterfeiter. At Met Film Production, he has exec produced and worked as an editor on numerous feature docs including Dylan Williams' Men Who Swim and Sarah Gavron's The Village At The End Of The World.
Another strand of Jerry's work has been participatory production, working with people to tell their own stories on film. He played in lead role in developing Hi8us Projects improvised dramas with young people for Channel 4, in establishing First Light, the UK Film Council's scheme for young filmmakers, and in setting up digital storytelling exchanges between marginalised communities across Europe.
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Delegate
Chief Strategy Officer, Fundación Capital
Dr. Ana Pantelic is social entrepreneur with a decade of experience working at the intersection of systems change, social innovation, and economic opportunity.
As Chief Strategy Officer of Fundación Capital (a 2014 Skoll Awardee and nonprofit social enterprise improving the financial lives of millions of families living in poverty), she is responsible for spearheading impact and innovation processes globally and across the organization.
She is also Founder of LISTA, a digital initiative proven to build the financial health of low-income and vulnerable people at scale, which has been used by more than half a million people and been embedded into national social protection policies, spanning ten countries.
Specializing in poverty reduction through the lens of finance, with expertise in technology and women's economic empowerment, she develops evidence-based hybrid solutions to achieve social impact at scale. She has published a number of academic and technical articles in three languages, including the book "Disrupting Poverty in Developing Countries" in the Serbian language.
She has lived and worked on three continents and spoken at conferences across 20 countries. Prior to Fundación Capital, she has worked for USAID, academic research institutions, and in the education space. She holds a PhD from the University of Belgrade in Serbia, an MA in International Relations and BS in Communication, both from Boston University, and is fluent in three languages.
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Delegate
Brittany currently serves as Managing Director, Operations & Programs - Investments at the Skoll Foundation. As Director, she leads a team responsible for supporting the sourcing and selecting of strategically aligned investments for the Skoll Foundation’s portfolio. Brittany joined the Skoll Foundation in 2006 and has led major programs for the organization, including the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship that has invested in over 120 global organizations, and co-led the Skoll’s Portfolio Intelligence practice aimed at developing insights on portfolio impact. Brittany is experienced in strategic program development and in identifying leaders in social innovation poised for systems-level impact. She is passionate about building partnerships to drive more equitable and inclusive practices in philanthropy and supporting underrepresented leaders on their path to impact. She holds a BA in Internal Affairs with a minor in Japanese from the University of Colorado Boulder and MBA from Presidio Graduate School.
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Delegate
Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Adrienne DiCasparro works on the Giving Pledge, a public commitment to giving the majority of one's wealth to charitable causes (www.givingpledge.org). She works closely with philanthropists, their staff, and family, to help them navigate the sector and have the greatest possible impact. A Seattle native, Adrienne earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University where she studied Linguistics, Anthropology, and Genetics.
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Delegate
Editor, This Is Africa
Adrienne Klasa is Development Finance Editor of The Banker and fDi magazines at the Financial Times Group. Previously she was Editor of This is Africa, the Financial Times’ flagship Africa publication. Her writing has also appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, Forbes, Slate and Foreign Policy, among others. She speaks and moderates at events worldwide and appears as a commentator on radio, podcasts and broadcast news. She is a 2017 FPI Fellow for women in foreign policy and holds two first class degrees in political science: a Bachelors from McGill University and a Masters from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Follow her on Twitter @adrienneklasa.
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Delegate
CEO, Freedom Fund
Nick was appointed the inaugural CEO of the Freedom Fund in January 2014. The Fund is an ambitious effort to mobilise the knowledge, capital and will needed to end modern slavery. Nick serves on the advisory councils of Global Witness and the McCain Institute. Previously, he was the inaugural CEO of the Walk Free Foundation and beforehand the Deputy President and Chief Operating Officer of the International Crisis Group. Nick is a lawyer by background and served as Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to the Australian Attorney-General from 1999-2001. He has written a book on non-profit leadership due to be published in July 2024.
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Speaker
Artistic Director, MIT Co-Creation Studio, MIT
Katerina Cizek is a two-time Emmy winner and a pioneer in digital media. Her work has documented the Digital Revolution, and has itself become part of the movement. She is the Artistic Director and Executive Producer of the emergent Co-Creation Studio at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Open Documentary Lab, while based in Toronto, Canada. For over a decade at the National Film Board of Canada, she helped redefine the organization as one of the world’s leading digital content hubs. She was the director and creative force behind the NFB’s award-winning 7-year digital documentary project HIGHRISE, and she realized the acclaimed NFB Filmmaker-in-Residence program. Cizek has built collaborations with a diverse range of community, academic and media partners to co-create media, including The New York Times, Wired Magazine, City of Toronto, United Way and most recently, Canada’s top YouTube stars. She has been recognized with 2 Emmys, a Peabody Award, World Press Photo Prize, 3 Canadian Screen Awards, 2 Webbys, amongst others. Her work has been seen by millions around the globe, through TV broadcasts and publishing on the web. She has travelled the world with her projects, teaching and advising on her innovative approaches to digital media and co-creation models.
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Delegate
Jockin Arputham worked for more than 40 years in slums and shanty towns, building representative organizations into powerful partners with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living. Arputham was the president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation which he founded in the 70s and of Slum Dwellers International which networks slum and shack dweller organizations and federations from over twenty countries across the world. The National Slum Dwellers Federation works closely with Mahila Milan, a collective of savings groups formed by homeless women and women living in slums across India, and with SPARC, a Mumbai-based NGO, and together they have been instrumental is supporting tens of thousands of the urban poor access housing and sanitation.
Jockin realized that slum dweller organizations had to change their strategy. They had to make governments see them as legitimate citizens with knowledge and capacities to implement solutions. So they sought to work in partnership with government to address their housing problems – and other problems. He often said that how can you reduce urban poverty if you do not listen to and work with the urban poor. In this way, he built more than 20,000 toilet seats in Mumbai alone. He insisted on new standards on redeveloped housing. Over the years, Arputham built 30,000 houses in India, and 1,000,000 houses abroad. Funding for his work came from many sources.
He visited many other countries to encourage and support slum or shack dwellers to organize and to encourage them to take their own initiatives to show government what they are capable of. He was the winner of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding and an honorary Ph.D. from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, in 2009. In 2011, the Government of India bestowed on him its fourth highest civilian honor, the Padma Shri award.
The Skoll Foundation deeply mourns the loss of Jockin Arputham who passed away in 2018.
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Delegate
ORGANIZATION Chairman Gawad Kalinga Foundation Mission: Organizing communities towards zero poverty, zero exclusion and net zero carbon Chairman Enchanted Farm Inc Mission: Ending rural poverty through preferential value creation President/Coo BayanAnihan Corporation Mission: Establishing community-based processing hubs Co-Founder 3Zero Global Alliance Mission: Building convergence for individuals and institution to a future of ZERO: poverty, exclusion and net zero carbon MY EDUCATION University of Asia and the Pacific - Certificate Course on Applied Sustainability Management Program - Fellowship on Strategic Business and Macro-Economics Program University of Negros Occidental Recoletos - Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Board Passer) - Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management MY PRESENT ENGAGEMENTS Leading a Team in (1) organizing and on-boarding small holder farmers to a value creation platform based on production fueled by equity not loans (2) engaging corporat
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Delegate
Advisor, Fortitude Fund
Amy has well over a decade of experience in strategic philanthropy, impact investing, scaling social enterprise, and creating systems networks. She has worked to support non-profit social entrepreneurs and innovators in multiple sectors including health, social justice, economic development and education with focus on capacity building, scale, and sustainability. She was the founding Executive of The Pershing Square Foundation and the Principal of Fortitude Fund. She has been involved with a number of boards including Echoing Green, New Profit, Harvard Global Health Initiative, Zahn Center for Social Enterprise, and the NYU Social Entrepreneurship Program. She currently sits on the boards of I-MAK (helping make life saving medications affordable to all) and Dig Deep (creating a water and sanitation sector in the US to provide clean water to the 2.3 million Americans who currently lack access). Prior to this work she has decades of experience working and teaching in Mental Health with a specialization in rapid evaluation, adolescent and family treatment, and trauma, including work with survivors and first responders immediately after September 11th. She currently lives in upstate New York and consults with non-profits and foundations on a variety of topics.
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Delegate
Social Entrepreneur of the World – World Entrepreneurship Forum, 2012
Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2012
Japan’s Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth, 2011
Social Entrepreneur of the Year – Ernst and Young Philippines, 2010
Social Entrepreneur of the Year – Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, 2010
Top 4 Most Trusted Filipino – Reader’s Digest Asia, 2010
Filipino of the Year, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2006
People of the Year, Philippine Star, 2006
The Outstanding Filipino Award (TOFIL) Awardee for Community Service, 2006
Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership, 2006
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Speaker
Filmmaker/Artist, Individual
As co-founding member of the Rada Film Group, filmmaker, artist and author, Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling deeply personal stories in a variety of media that resonate beyond the margins. Her work has appeared on a variety of broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime and MTV. Her most recent film, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary and Best News Coverage of a Contemporary Issue. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festivals’ Main Slate Program. Her collaborative film series with New York Times Op- Docs, A Conversation on Race, won the 2016 Online Journalism Award for Commentary. Stephenson was recently awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her current work, Hispaniola, is supported by the National Film Board of Canada and the Sundance Documentary Fund. Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, and is a Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow. Her recent book, Promises Kept, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
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Delegate
Nader Al-Khateeb served as Chief Engineer for the Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour Water Authority from 1984 to 1993, where he was responsible for planning and fundraising, as well as operations and maintenance of the distribution network. After returning from leave to acquire his M.Sc. degree, he also became the Project Manager for their drainage and sewerage project. From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Al-Khateeb was a senior water resource engineer with the UNDP's Water Resources Action Program, working as a consultant in the effort to formulate and establish the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA). He then became associated with the PWA itself, coordinating a host of water and wastewater projects.
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Delegate
Diana N-Peline Kombui is a member of CAMA (Camfed Association) – the pan-African network of educated young women. She is a graduate from Central University, where she studied B.Sc in Banking and Finance. She was supported by Camfed in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation during her tertiary education. Diana was the President of the University’s CAMA Campus Club and the Secretary for the Camfed Ghana-MasterCard Foundation Scholars Leadership Program. Diana has worked as an intern with Camfed Ghana to help organize leadership and enrichment activities for senior high school and tertiary students.
Diana is passionate about helping others. She is a role model, motivating and inspiring those who have little or no hope of pursuing their dreams. Building on her own experience and her passion for education, she provides vital community services in the Upper West Region of Ghana, where she organized voluntary vacation classes for junior high school students in her community. Diana also visited a number of senior high schools to encourage girls to study hard in spite of the challenges faced, and carried out a two-day advocacy program on teenage pregnancy and school drop outs for junior high school pupils in Lambussie – directly addressing some of these challenges. She currently serves as a member of an advisory group called, the Transition Advisory Group (TAG). Where she provides vital support to young girls to transit from High School to the Tertiary. Diana aspires to be an Auditor and eventually a Chief Executive of a financial institution. Education is her uppermost priority in life, and she hopes to pursue it to the highest level possible.
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Delegate
Board Member, GoodWeave
Edward Millard is Director of Strategic Partnerships at Rainforest Alliance, based in its London office. In this position, he identifies and develops external relationship opportunities with donors, companies and other key stakeholders to grow Rainforest Alliance’s work promoting sustainable land management and secure livelihoods in high biodiversity countries. He has additional responsibility for leading Rainforest Alliance work in Asia. He was a business development manager for Oxfam Fair Trade for 14 years and Conservation International for 11 years. In both roles he spent extensive amounts of time in Africa, Asia and Latin America supporting small-scale producers in the forest product, craft, agricultural and tourism sectors to improve their competitiveness and open new markets. In Rainforest Alliance, he led the global team providing technical assistance to farmers and small holder producer groups to apply sustainable agriculture practices, improve their business operations and prepare for certification, and collaborating with international companies to plan and develop their sustainable sourcing strategies. Edward is a graduate in business administration. He has published three books and several articles on small-scale business development, is a board member of Goodweave International, an international body to eradicate child labour in the rug weaving industry, and an independent assessor for a UK charity.
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Delegate
Executive Director, African Development Solutions
Degan Ali is an internationally-renowned humanitarian leader who has been at the forefront of shifting power for decades. She is a Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellow for Social Innovation, a contributor to the Overseas Development Institute/Humanitarian Policy Group and the Global Food Security Journal. She is also the co-founder of the first Global South civil society network for local and national humanitarian organizations, the Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR). She is an innovator, translating ground-breaking ideas into action, such as pioneering the first large-scale cash transfer, in 2003 in Somalia, leading the transition to global acceptance of cash assistance. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Al Jazeera &The Guardian. Her key achievements include leading Adeso in pioneering cash transfers; setting up the 25% localization target as part of the Grand Bargain Commitment. She lives in Kenya and works with organizations & philanthropists across the world.
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Delegate
Former Marketing Communications Manager, Skoll Foundation
Guided by a belief in the power of storytelling to spur meaningful change, Alison served as the Marketing Communications Manager at the Skoll Foundation from 2015-2018. There, she worked to leverage creative content and influencer engagement to help amplify and accelerate the impact of social entrepreneurs around the world.
Prior to joining Skoll Alison worked in South Africa, developing marketing and communications for Grassroot Soccer, a leading sport-for-development organization that uses the power of soccer to engage youth in HIV prevention and life skills education. Previously, she served as an account manager at Arnold Worldwide, an advertising agency in NYC.
Alison holds a B.A. in History and Consumer Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently pursuing an MBA at Berkeley Haas School of Business and plans to continue her career in the social sector upon graduation.
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Speaker
Executive Director, Ripple Effect Images
One of the first women photographers to work for National Geographic, Annie Griffiths has photographed in nearly 150 countries during her illustrious career. She has worked on dozens of magazine and book projects for National Geographic, including stories on Lawrence of Arabia, Baja California, Galilee, Petra, Sydney, New Zealand, and Jerusalem.
In addition to her magazine work, Griffiths is deeply committed to photographing for aid organizations around the world. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Ripple Effect Images, a collective of photographers who document the programs that are empowering women and girls in the developing world, especially as they deal with the devastating effects of climate change. In less than five years, Ripple’s work has helped 24 non-profits raise over a million dollars.
Griffiths’ work has also appeared in LIFE, Geo, Smithsonian, Fortune, Stern, and many other publications. Along with author Barbara Kingsolver, she produced Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, a book celebrating the last pristine wilderness in North America. Proceeds from the book raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for grassroots land conservation. Griffiths is an accomplished speaker and a regular guest on NPR, The Today Show and other media outlets.
In 2008, Griffiths published A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel, a photo memoir about balance, and the joy of creating a meaningful life. In 2010, Annie authored the book, Simply Beautiful Photographs, which was named the top photo/art book of the year by both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Annie is currently at work on two new books.
Annie is a Fellow with The International League of Conservation Photographers and has received awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Heifer International, the National Organization of Women, The University of Minnesota and the White House News Photographers Association.
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Speaker
Vice President, Initiatives and Strategy, Rockefeller Foundation
Dr. Zia Khan is the Vice President for Initiatives and Strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Khan oversees the Foundation’s approach for achieving impact and realizing the organization’s mission and goals. He leads the program team in New York, Bangkok, and Nairobi and their work in searching for new opportunities, developing strategies, and executing initiatives. He also provides direction for the Foundation’s commitment to supporting new innovations and capacities in the sector.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Khan was a management consultant and advised senior leaders on strategy and organizational performance. He is a frequent writer and speaker on strategy, innovation, leadership, and organizational change. Dr. Khan is the co-author of Leading Outside the Lines: How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize your Team, and Get Better Results.
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Delegate
Chief of Development and Partnerships, Acumen
Yasmina Zaidman is the Chief Development and Partnerships Officer at Acumen, which works to change the way the world tackles poverty. She leads its work with strategic corporate partners that share Acumen’s commitment to entrepreneurial approaches to tackling poverty. She spearheaded Acumen’s gender integration work, co-authoring the report Women and Social Enterprises: How Gender Integration can Boost Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty ICRW. Ms. Zaidman has worked in the arenas of international development, corporate sustainability and social entrepreneurship for over twenty-five years. She served on the board of the White Ribbon Alliance for almost seven years, and is still serving on the boards of KadAfrica as well as Fundacion Cacao de Colombia.
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Speaker
Creative Director, Affinis Labs
Wajahat Ali is a journalist, writer, lawyer, an award-winning playwright, a TV host, and a consultant for the U.S. State Department. As Creative Director of Affinis Labs, he works to create social entrepreneurship initiatives that have a positive impact for marginalized communities, and to empower social entrepreneurs, young leaders, creatives, and communities to come up with innovative solutions to tackle world problems.
Previously, Ali helped launch the Al Jazeera America network as co-host of Al Jazeera America's The Stream, a daily news show that extended the conversation to social media and beyond. He was also a National Correspondent, Political Reporter, and Social Media Expert for Al Jazeera America. He focused on stories of communities and individuals often marginalized or under-reported in mainstream media.
Ali is also the author of The Domestic Crusaders—the first major play about Muslim Americans, post-9/11—which was published by McSweeney's and performed off-Broadway and at the Kennedy Center. Currently, with Dave Eggers, Ali is writing a television show about a Muslim American cop in the Bay Area. He was also the lead author and researcher of “Fear Inc., Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” the seminal report from the Center for American Progress.
In 2012, Ali worked with the U.S. Department of State to design and implement the “Generation Change” leadership program to empower young social entrepreneurs. He initiated chapters in eight countries, including Pakistan and Singapore. He was honored as a “Generation Change Leader” by Sec. of State Clinton and as an “Emerging Muslim American Artist” by the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Ali has given many presentations, from Google to the United Nations to Princeton to The Abu Dhabi Book Festival. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Washington Post, the Guardian, and Salon.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Dallant Networks, LLC
Paris-born Victor d’Allant is a cultural anthropologist turned digital media practitioner. His work includes field research on French truck drivers in the Middle East, mental health issues in India for the World Health Organization, and agricultural development in Burkina Faso for the World Bank.
He is the Founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Dallant Networks, the social enterprise building online communities for large foundations and international organizations. Current and past clients include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Skoll Foundation and the World Bank Institute.
He started his career as a photojournalist and his photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. He holds an MA/ABD in social anthropology from the Sorbonne and an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
His motto: “Only jet. No lag.”
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Delegate
Director, Centre for Social Impact, Smith School of Business, Queen's University
Tina is the Director of the Smith School of Business Centre for Social Impact at Queen’s University in Canada. She is the E. Marie Shantz Chaired Professor of Strategy and Organizational Behavior at Smith School of Business. Tina conducts research in the areas of social and institutional change, social entrepreneurship, cultural heritage and traditions, and strategic collaboration. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Innovation at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. Tina teaches courses on social innovation, leading change and strategy. She is an experienced executive educator, teaching in programs offered by the Smith School of Business, Judge Business School at Cambridge, and previously the joint Kellogg-ISB program. Tina received her doctorate from the University of Toronto and prior to joining Queen's University, she spent nine years at Texas A & M University. She has most recently been a Visiting Professor for several years at the Judge Business School at Cambridge, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India.
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Speaker
Thom Woodroofe is a Climate Policy & Communications Advisor with Independent Diplomat, which works with the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to help it to navigate the international negotiations on climate change.
Previously, Thom has interned with then-US Congressional Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as then-Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was the youngest member of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. The founder of both Left Right Think-Tank and Global Voices, Thom was recognized as the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year. He has also been named one of the ‘Top99Under33’ foreign policy leaders by Diplomatic Courier, awarded a NATO Transatlantic Research Award, and is an alumni of the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.
Thom holds a BA Global (Honours) from Monash University where he graduated with the Sir John Monash Medal, a Master of International Relations from the University of Melbourne where he was recently recognized as the 2015 Rising Star Young Alumni, and a Master of Science in Global Governance and Diplomacy from the University of Oxford. His two previous theses have focused on campaigns for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council. He has also spent time studying at the University of California and the Graduate Institute of International Affairs in Geneva. Thom is currently pursuing a doctorate at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Sesame Workshop India
Sonali Khan leads Sesame Workshop’s educational mission in India to create innovative and engaging content that maximises the educational power of all media to help kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder.
As Managing Director of Sesame Workshop India, Sonali spearheads Galli Galli Sim Sim, a multi-platform initiative that combines the power of mass media with educational outreach to prepare children for school and life. Under her leadership, the organisation develops and implements ground breaking programs to reach children everywhere – especially those who need it most.
Sonali is a global advocate for human rights and for ending violence against marginalised communities, with an emphasis on girls and women. Her work has focused on promoting gender equity in education, empowerment of adolescent girls, along with ending domestic violence, sexual harassment and early marriage. She began her career as a television journalist covering politics and business and has since worked for a variety of organisations that harness the power of media for social change.
Prior to Sesame, she was the Director of Knowledge Creation and Dissemination at Dasra, a leading strategic philanthropy foundation, where her work covered areas including urban sanitation, adolescent girls’ rights, and democracy and access to justice. Previously she has also served as the Vice President and then India Country Director for Breakthrough, where she spearheaded large-scale program implementation, numerous multi-platform campaigns promoting gender equity, developed M&E practices and supported global fundraising and partnership development. She also served on the Boards of Plan International and MenEngage.
Sonali is a proud recipient of the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar (Women’s Empowerment Award) from the President of India. In 2016, she also received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship for her work in ending child marriage.
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Speaker
Founder/ President, The Hydrous
Sly Lee is a a marine scientist, designer, and serial entrepreneur. His mission is to utilize technology and design thinking to create a space for conversation about sustainability issues surrounding oceans and climate change. As founder of The Hydrous (www.thehydro.us), Lee incorporated his passion for technology, photography, and design to develop a method to 3D capture coral reefs underwater using photogrammetry. Lee is also a co-founder of Emerge (www.emergenow.io), a silicon valley based startup born from Singularity University's Global Solutions Program in 2015, the first class to be fully sponsored by Google and NASA. He is a 2015 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award nominee, World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and award winning photographer (www.slylee.com).
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Delegate
Chairman, Fundacion Futbol con Corazon
Samuel Azout is the Founder and Chairman of “Futbol con Corazon” (www.fcc.futbol), an NGO dedicated to creating safe and peaceful neighborhoods in Colombia by improving life opportunities for children and young adults in underprivileged areas. His work is specifically directed at reducing youth violence, preventing recruitment by illegal forces and promoting gender equality.
Mr. Azout was born in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1959. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Cornell University (1981) and a degree of Master in Public Administration from Harvard University (2007).
Before becoming a social entrepreneur, Samuel held the CEO position at Carulla Vivero S.A., the second largest retailer in Colombia, for 10 years, until he led its sale to Grupo Exito in 2006. He has served a member of the Board of Directors of Almacenes Exito, Bavaria SabMiller, Aerorepublica, Fundacion Colombia and Fundacion Pies Descalzos, the NGO founded by Colombian singer and celebrity Shakira. He also belongs to the Ashoka Support Network (ASN).
In addition, Mr. Azout was the Chairman of the Board of Fundación Carulla for three years and founded Aeiotu (www.aeiotu.org), the largest NGO in Colombia in the field of early childhood development.
Samuel Azout served as Senior Advisor for Social Prosperity to the President of Colombia (2010 -2011) and as Director of the National Agency for Overcoming Extreme Poverty (ANSPE) 2011-2013.
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Speaker
Author & Lecturer, Collaborative Lab
Rachel Botsman is an author, lecturer and the global authority on the power of collaboration and trust enabled by digital technologies to change the way we live, work, bank and consume.
She is known for originating the theory of ‘collaborative consumption’ with her acclaimed book, What’s Mine is Yours (Harper Collins, 2010). The concept was subsequently named by TIME as one of the ‘10 Ideas that Will Change the World’ in 2011 and the book was shortlisted for the 800-CEO-Read Business Books Awards in 2010. Her TED talks on the topic have been viewed more than two million times. In 2015, she designed the world’s first M.B.A. course on the collaborative economy, which she teaches at Oxford University’s Saïd School of Business.
Rachel is a regular writer and commentator in leading international publications including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Rachel is a contributing editor for Wired and writes a monthly column for the Australian Financial Review, which explores the mindset of entrepreneurs who see the world differently.
In 2013, World Economic Forum named her a ‘Young Global Leader’ and Fast Company named her as one of the ‘Most Creative People in Business.’ She is a much acclaimed speaker and was named by Monocle as one of the world’s top 20 speakers to keynote your conference. Recently she won the Thinkers 50 2015 Breakthrough Idea Award for ‘recognizing an idea which has the potential to change the way we think about business forever.’
She received her B.F.A (Hons) from the University of Oxford and attended Harvard University for her post-graduate studies. Rachel s currently working on a new book on trust in the digital age.
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Delegate
Executive Director - Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
As executive director of The Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment at UCLA TFT, Peter Bisanz brings his extensive experience as a social entrepreneur, filmmaker and global communications expert to build awareness and transform social capital in a way that affects society positively.
Bisanz was formerly the head of development and communications for the Global Knowledge Networks (GKN), the think tank to the World Economic Forum where global experts work to address the most pressing challenges facing the world today. Prior to joining the Forum, Bisanz was the founder and director of Entropy Films and the Beyond Our Differences Foundation, where he created socially relevant documentaries, films and education programs on global issues. In 2007, he was named one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders and currently serves on their advisory board. Early in his career, he worked at Paramount Pictures and later became vice president of development at the Ladd Production Company where he helped develop more than 40 projects including An Unfinished Life starring Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford and Jennifer Lopez, and the Oscar-nominated film Gone Baby Gone directed by Ben Affleck.
Bisanz has a B.F.A. in film and television from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, an M.B.A. from University of Oxford’s Said Business School and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow for Social Entrepreneurship at the School’s Center for Public Leadership.
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Delegate
Managing Partner, PTI Advisors
Paul is an evangelist and a practitioner of social innovation. Having worked for iconic companies like Gateway, Compaq and Hewlett Packard, he’s been on the front line of technology’s impact on society and planet. He’s experienced the power of business, government, and civil society working collectively to achieve breakthrough change. With PTI Advisors, he works with a diverse array of leaders and organizations around the world who bring a global citizen mind-set to innovation and who embrace sustainability and responsible leadership like never before. He’s especially inspired by the young leaders and entrepreneurs he works with and mentors. Paul lives in the west of Ireland.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO at Kamara Global Group / President at Videre Est Credere, Kamara Global Group
Oren Yakobovich is an experienced social entrepreneur who has been challenging and disrupting unjust systems. He combines traditional knowledge gathering with new technology and cutting-edge tools to shine a light on abuses and hold power to account.
He is the founder and CEO of Kamara, a social enterprise that works with human rights and grass-roots organisations building resilience through holistic security management and strategic investigations aiming to protect both the organisations and the social impact investors funding them.
He co-founded Videre Est Credere, an NGO that equips oppressed communities with customised technology to uncover information from places where media can’t or won’t go. Prior to that, he led the video department at B’Tselem, training hundreds of citizens fighting for justice in the West Bank. Oren is an Ashoka Fellow, a Ted Global Speaker, the recipient of the 2016 Skoll Award, the One World Media Award and The International Media Award's Cutting Edge.
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Speaker
Founder, Civic Ventures, LLC
Nick Hanauer is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in the Northwest with over 30 years of experience across a broad range of industries including manufacturing, retailing, e-commerce, digital media and advertising, software, aerospace, health care, and finance.
Hanauer’s experience and perspective have produced an unusual record of serial successes. Hanauer has managed, founded or financed over 30 companies, creating aggregate market value of tens of billions of dollars. Some notable companies include Amazon.com and Aquantive Inc., (purchased by Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion). In 2000, Hanauer co-founded the venture capital company Second Avenue Partners where he and his partners invested in companies such as Insitu (purchased by Boeing for $400 million), and Market Leader (purchased by Trulia in 2013 for $350 million).
Hanauer is actively involved in a number of civic and philanthropic activities. In 2000, he co-founded the League of Education Voters (LEV); a non-partisan statewide political organization focused on promoting public education. He remains Co-President today. Additionally, Hanauer serves or has served a broad range of civic organizations including the boards of the Cascade Land Conservancy, The University of Washington Foundation, The Seattle Alliance for Education, and The MT Lemmon Science Center. He currently serves as a Director for The Democracy Alliance and as a board advisor to the policy journal DEMOCRACY.
In 2007, Hanauer published the national bestseller in politics, The True Patriot, with co-author Eric Liu. In 2010 Liu and Hanauer published their second book, The Gardens of Democracy, also a national best-seller in politics. Following the success of his books, Hanauer founded Civic Ventures, LLC and has been a political advocate for social change ever since.
Hanauer had a degree in philosophy from the University of Washington. He lives in Seattle Washington and is married with two children.
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Delegate
Driector, Ending Pandemics
Nomita Divi oversees the implementation of a highly evolving work plan and manages the team. Nomita brings expertise in stakeholder engagement, management, needs assessment, and program planning. Nomita developed a portfolio of projects while serving as Program Officer on the Ending Pandemics team at the Skoll Global Threats Fund, including network-building in South Asia, crowdsourcing epidemics intelligence for verification of outbreaks through EpiCore, and formulating creative opportunities to engage with technologists. Nomita spent eight years at Stanford University managing health policy programs and running a fellowship. Before her time at Stanford, she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, managing the application of a global HIV simulation model in India, South Africa, Cote d’Ivore, and the Caribbean.
Nomita holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Ottawa, Canada as well as a Masters of Science in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.
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Delegate
Munqeth Mehyar received a degree in Regional Planning and Architecture from the University of Louisiana, USA in 1981, upon which he became the planning engineer for South Amman. Being a committed sportsman, he was the project manager for the German Balsam International Sports Company, and then the Middle East Manager of the Athlete Sports Contracting Company. He serves on the Board of Directors of both the Jordan Sports Federation for the Handicapped, and the Jordan Royal Ecological Diving Society.
Mr. Mehyar was awarded a medal from Al Houssain Distinguished Giving for his charitable activities. Further to being co-founder of EcoPeace Middle East, Mr. Mehyar is also the Founder and Director of the Jordan Society for Sustainable Development, an environmental NGO based in Amman.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Managing Director, Radio Nisaa
Maysoun Odeh is a Palestinian entrepreneur who schooled in Jerusalem at the Rosary Sisters High School and then went on to attend University in Grenoble in France, completing her qualifications in Economics at the American University in Washington D.C. On her return to Palestine she worked in the private sector facilitating the entry of new products/services and then joined the newly established South African Embassy as the Advisor on Media & Trade to the Ambassador. Here she established a valuable network of contacts and enhanced bilateral relations, even travelling to South Africa to attend governmental trade and tourism courses. In 2004 she married the South African Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Rafiq Gangat, and left for South Africa where she began as a Media Consultant for PRIMEDIA and then set-up and managed in 2005 the first-ever English Radio Station in the Region, 93.6 RAM FM with state of the art studios in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The station was closed down in August 2009 .In August 2009 and with the partnership of the Swiss based Womanity Foundation headed by businessman Yann Borgstedt, Maysoun set up Nisaa Fm, the pioneering All-Women Radio Station in the Region, and today she heads the operation. Nisaa FM obtained few awards and fellowships since its inception. It includes Ashoka Fellowship, Synergos Fellowship, the Clinton Global Initiative Fellowship, the Palestinian Ministry of Women Affairs Recognition (2011 and 2014) and the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government Recognition (2014), the Palestinian Ministry of Youth & Sports,. Ms Odeh is a recipient of the Schwab Fellowship, the first Palestinian entrepreneur to obtain such an award.. NISAA FM has been a finalist in the Thomson Reuters Award in 2013 and NAWF in 2012 as well as the One World Media Award ( 2012)
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Speaker
Researcher - Associate Co-Investigator, PETRAS Hub for Internet of Things, a EPSRC project, Oxford Internet Institute
Mariarosaria Taddeo Researcher - Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Her recent work focuses mainly on the ethical analysis of cyber security practices and information conflicts. Her area of expertise is Information and Computer Ethics, although she has worked on issues concerning Philosophy of Information, Epistemology, and Philosophy of AI. She published several papers focusing on online trust, cyber security and cyber warfare and guest-edited a number of special issues of peer-reviewed international journals: Ethics and Information Technology, Knowledge, Technology and Policy, Philosophy & Technology. She also edited (with L. Floridi) a volume on ‘The Ethics of Information Warfare’ (Springer, 2014) and is currently writing a book on ‘The Ethics of Cyber Conflicts’ under contract for Routledge. Dr. Taddeo is the 2010 recipient of the Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy and of the 2013 World Technology Award for Ethics. She serves editor-in-chief (elect) of Minds & Machines, in the executive editorial board of Philosophy & Technology, and is the President of the International Association of Computing and Philosophy.
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Speaker
Treasurer, SABMiller plc
NAME : Luis Manuel Guzmán Pardo Figueroa
ORGANIZATION : SABMiller – UCP Backus & Johnston SAA (Peru Operation)
TITLE : Treasury Director
Economist
MBA in Peruvian University
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Delegate
Executive Director, Community Health Impact Coalition
Dr. Madeleine Ballard is the Executive Director of the Community Health Impact Coalition, network of health delivery organizations in 40+ countries working to ensure community health workers get the fair pay, supplies, and ongoing support they need so everyone can have access to high quality healthcare. Dr. Ballard is also an Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She holds a PhD in evaluation science (EBSI) from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and was previously the founding Program Manager at Last Mile Health.
With the Coalition, she builds the collective action networks required to conduct (i) large-scale research on the practices that enable community health workers to deliver better care to more people and (ii) advocacy to ensure those practices get adopted by health systems everywhere. Join us: www.chwimpact.org
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Speaker
Filmmaker/Artist, Individual
Leah Mahan is an independent documentary filmmaker whose work has been nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. Sweet Old Song (2002) was featured on the PBS series P.O.V. and was selected by film critic Roger Ebert to be screened at his Overlooked Film Festival (“Ebertfest”). She spent a dozen years making Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek (2013) and was invited to work on the rough cut at the Sundance Institute Documentary Editing and Story Lab. The film won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the New Orleans Film Festival and aired on the PBS World Channel in 2014. In 2015 Leah was a Storytelling Fellow at the Skoll Stories of Change lab at Sundance and traveled to Indonesia as a U.S. Film Envoy with the American FilmShowcase, a partnership between the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Leah got her start in documentary filmmaking as an intern for filmmaker Henry Hampton on the PBS series Eyes on the Prize and her first film was Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street (1996). Leah’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, Independent Television Service, Ford Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In addition to her independent filmmaking, Leah works with nonprofits on documentary storytelling strategy. After Hurricane Katrina, she worked with NGOs to create Bridge The Gulf, a community journalism project that lifts up the voices of Gulf Coast communities working towards justice and sustainability. She is currently a consultant to the Moving Forward Network on a project aimed at reducing harmful diesel emissions in frontline communities. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa
A 25-year-old from the D.R. Congo fled from his home country to Uganda at the age of six due to conflict. With his friends, Munyambanza co-founded the organization COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) at age 14 to educate refugee youth from Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, and Sudan. Munyambanza excelled in his studies in the refugee camp in Uganda and graduated from the African Leadership Academy in 2010. He is a member of the British Council Global Changemaker network and a fellow at the African Leadership Network. Munyambanza is one of 15 young people chosen to serve as advisors on international education to the UN Secretary General. He graduated in biochemistry at Westminster College a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. He is the force behind different new initiatives in innovative education to empower young leaders in the Congo and Uganda. He was recognized along with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia as one of four Global Citizen Award winners of 2013. He was recognized named one of The 99 most influential Foreign Policy Leaders under the age of 33 by the Diplomatic Courier magazine. Munyambanza also awarded the Trailblazer Award by the African Leadership Academy in 2014
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Delegate
Analyst, Analysis and Insight, Skoll Foundation
As a former Analyst with Skoll’s Analysis & Insight team, Joony informed the Foundation’s strategy through researching portfolio and ecosystem opportunities to better inform its grantmaking processes. While at Skoll, he worked to spearhead dissemination of the Foundation’s insights and intelligence throughout the organization as well as to external audiences. Joony also served as a program manager for the Skoll World Forum’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Prior to working at Skoll, Joony worked in India as an Impact Investing Fellow in Ahmedabad, India, where he helped organize Global Entrepreneurship Week events across the country. Before his fellowship, Joony worked as a consultant in the federal healthcare practice at Deloitte.
Joony is originally from the Washington DC metro area and completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard University in Economics. He looks forward to continuing his work in social impact at the University of California, Berkeley as a masters student in public policy beginning in the fall of 2017.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Autodesk Foundation, Autodesk Foundation
Joe Speicher is the Executive Director of the Autodesk Foundation – supporting the innovators and entrepreneurs tackling the world’s most pressing challenges through design and engineering. Prior to joining Autodesk, Speicher was on the founding team of Living Goods, where he spent six years leading operations for the global health organization. He began his career in the banking and finance sector, working with Deutsche Bank and Cambridge Associates. He then spent three years in the Peace Corps in the Philippines and has worked as a consultant for the Economist Intelligence Unit, the World Bank, and Google.org. He earned a master's degree from Columbia University and holds a bachelor's degree from Washington and Lee University.
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Speaker
Gary Gottlieb is CEO of Partners In Health, a global NGO providing a preferential option for the poor in health care in severely resource constrained settings. He assumed this role after serving on the PIH Board of Directors for a decade. He is professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2012-2016 and as its chair from 2016-2018.
From 2010 until February of 2015, Dr. Gottlieb served as CEO of Partners HealthCare, the parent of the Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals, the largest health care delivery organization in New England and among the largest biomedical research and training enterprises in the US. From 2002-2009, he was president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also served as President of North Shore Medical Center and as Chair of Partners Psychiatry and Mental Health System.
Prior to coming to Boston, Dr. Gottlieb spent 15 years in positions of increasing leadership in health care in Philadelphia. He established the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center’s first program in geriatric psychiatry and developed it into a nationally recognized research, training, and clinical program. He served as executive vice-chair of psychiatry and associate dean for managed care at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, and as director and CEO of Friends Hospital, the nation’s first freestanding psychiatric hospital.
Dr. Gottlieb received a B.Sc. cum laude from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.D. from Albany Medical College in a six-year accelerated program and he completed a psychiatry residency at New York University/Bellevue Medical Center. As a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Penn, he earned an M.B.A. with distinction from Wharton.
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Delegate
Managing Director, FSG, Inc.
Based in Mumbai, Harvey leads work with enterprises, investors and donors to develop and scale inclusive business models that benefit the poor, across a range of sectors including housing, water, healthcare and energy. He also directs a global research program aiming to advance global thinking and practice in inclusive business and market-based solutions in development.
Harvey has lead-authored key reports on inclusive business and impact investing, and speaks regularly around the world on these topics. These reports include From Blueprint to Scale, which introduced the notion of the pioneer gap in the development of new market-based solutions for the global poor, and Beyond the Pioneer, which described the scaling barriers facing market-based solutions and makes the case for the practice of industry facilitation.
Until 2014, Harvey was co-leader of Monitor Inclusive Markets (MIM), a social action unit of Monitor Deloitte. Prior to that, he was the founding head of programs at Private Equity Foundation (now Impetus-PEF), a London-based venture philanthropy organization established by leading US and European private equity firms. He has also worked with The One Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital. Harvey started his career as a consultant with Monitor Group in London.
Harvey was born and raised in Malaysia.
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Delegate
Frank Beadle de Palomo joined mothers2mothers (m2m) as Chief Executive Officer in October 2012, bringing with him 35 years of experience in global health, including significant achievements in HIV prevention, care, and treatment, as well as U.S. and global infectious and communicable disease prevention, treatment, research, and advocacy.
m2m is an African-based organisation that provides health care to families who need it most, delivered by women who know them best. Through its Mentor Mother Model, m2m employs local women living with HIV as community health workers who deliver integrated primary health care services in communities. Since 2001, m2m has created nearly 12,000 jobs for women living with HIV as frontline health workers, reached more than 15 million people in sub-Saharan Africa with life-changing health services, and achieved virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV among its enrolled clients for the past nine years.
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Speaker
Secretary General, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Dr Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah has been Secretary General and CEO of CIVICUS since January 2013. Headquartered in Johannesburg, CIVICUS is the global civil society alliance with members in 170 countries. His previous roles have included Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Interim Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, and Deputy Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research. Danny is the author of numerous reports and academic articles on international migration and economic development. He writes and appears often in the media on a range of topics, including contributing regularly to Al Jazeera, Guardian, HuffPost, and Weekend on the BBC World Service. He sits on the boards of several organisations, including the Baring Foundation, Comic Relief and International Alert, and was a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Humanitarian Finance. He has been a consultant to several international organisations and is a co-founder of the Ockenden Prizes and the Migration Museum Project. Danny holds a degree from the University of Sydney, and an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2012, he was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Born in Sri Lanka and a national of Australia, Dr Sriskandarajah has lived and worked in five continents, and been invited to speak at events in over 50 countries. He can be found @civicussg on Twitter and Facebook.
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Delegate
Senior Director, APCO Worldwide
Denielle Sachs is the senior director and global head of APCO Impact, the social impact and sustainability group within APCO Worldwide that focuses on climate and sustainability, racial and gender justice, philanthropy, as well as helping companies embed purpose, CSR and ESG in their business strategies. Ms. Sachs joined APCO in 2020, when the firm she founded, The Tembo Group, was acquired and has since overseen the acquisition of LA-based firm, Global Philanthropy Group. Previously, she spent eight years as the director of social impact for McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, she helped build the Social Sector Practice, as well as architected and led the firm’s first-ever global corporate citizenship strategy, including the creation of the Firm’s 501(c)(3), now McKinsey.org. She holds a Master of Arts in International Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies and a Bachelor of Arts from New York University.
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Speaker
Innovation Engagement Officer, UNHCR
Corinne Gray is a Fulbright Scholar from Trinidad and Tobago who now works at the forefront of the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) innovation initiatives. As a core member of the Agency’s dynamic new Innovation Unit she leads efforts to engage staff and refugees in coming up with new ideas to address complex challenges faced by displaced people worldwide. Gray is based at UNHCR’s Headquarters in Geneva, but travels to the field regularly, connecting with UNHCR employees working on innovations, and documenting those innovations to foster agency-wide knowledge-sharing of innovation methodologies in action. She travels often to refugee communities where she trains refugee and host community members in principles of human-centered design as a means to foster ‘bottom-up’ innovation among displaced communities.
Gray first became passionate about the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers while working in Southern Africa, traveling around townships in Johannesburg and Cape Town, giving micro-entrepreneurial training and mentorship to asylum-seekers in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She brings a wealth of knowledge as a former marketing executive in the private sector where she worked closely with product innovation teams to help translate audience needs into dynamic user experiences.
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Delegate
Faculty Director, CASE at Duke, Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship
Cathy Clark is Faculty Director at the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Founding Director of the CASE i3 Initiative on Impact Investing. Cathy is globally recognized as a collaborative visionary and pioneering influencer in the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. She has been named a B the Change Champion, Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year in 2020 by the World Economic Forum, and one of the 2021 Agents of Impact by Impact Alpha. She has written hundreds of blogs, case studies and papers, co-authored a book called The Impact Investor, and has created two online courses reaching over 50,000 global learners. Previously, Cathy was an investor at Flatiron Partners, a philanthropist at the Markle Foundation, and policy convener at the Aspen Institute. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a BA from the University of Virginia.
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Delegate
Antonio Fonseca joined Imazon as a trainee in 2008. In 2010 he graduated in environmental engineering and was hired as an assistant researcher to work at Imazon's deforestation monitoring program. In this program, I have quickly gained remote sensing end Geographic Information System (GIS) skills that led me to assume a technical coordinator of Deforestation Alert System (SAD). As current attributions, I am responsible to run SAD every month, coordinate the team and prepare the reports that are evaluated by the program supervisors. I have also gained experience in communicating SAD results to the general media in Brazil. In 2016, I will be seeking for graduate program in US Universities to strength my academic skills and expect to return to work in the Amazon region in the field of forest monitoring.
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Delegate
BRYAN STEVENSON is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. EJI recently won an historic ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional. Mr. Stevenson’s work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government, and has been awarded 29 honorary doctorate degrees. He is the author of award winning and New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy. In 2015, he was named to the Time 100 recognizing the world’s most influential people. He was named in Fortune’s 2016 and 2017 World’s Greatest Leaders list.
In 2018, EJI will open a new museum called “The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration” built on the site of a former slave warehouse in downtown Montgomery Alabama. This will be a companion to a national memorial to victims of lynching called “The National Memorial for Peace and Justice” which will also open in 2018.
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Speaker
Chief Investment Officer, Builders Asset Management
Alan Chang is Chief Investment Officer at Builders Asset Management, the investment arm of Builders Vision – a family office dedicated to promoting a healthy and humane planet. He previously served as Partner, Managing Director and Investment Committee Member at Capricorn Investment Group, where he spent 15 years. Prior to Capricorn, Alan worked at DFJ New England (now New Atlantic Ventures) in venture capital and at Montgomery Securities (now Bank of America Merrill Lynch) in corporate finance as well as mergers and acquisitions. Alan is a CFA charter holder and received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. from Duke University, graduating cum laude with a triple major in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Art History.
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Delegate
Alasdair is a marine conservationist working at the interface of ocean protection and social justice.
His organisation Blue Ventures develops locally led approaches to marine conservation that benefit people and nature.
Blue Ventures’ approach is helping many hundreds of thousands of people address overfishing and safeguard ocean life in fifteen countries across southeast Asia and Africa,
Alasdair is a TED fellow, and holds a PhD in marine ecology and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Edinburgh.
He has spent more than two decades working with communities to rebuild small-scale fisheries across the tropical Indo-Pacific.
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Delegate
Research Associate, Pandemics, Skoll Global Threats Fund
As the research associate with the Pandemics team at the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Adam's work involves management of the research grants portfolio, analytic and evaluative projects, and providing technical assistance to Pandemics grantees and partners. Prior to joining the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Adam was the Interim Supervising Epidemiologist for the San Mateo County Health System in California and also worked for several years as a Research Associate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Infectious Diseases and Emergency Readiness. Before his move to California, Adam was employed as a Pandemic Influenza Emergency Planner at the Rhode Island Department of Health’s Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response prior to, and during, the 2009 novel H1N1 influenza pandemic.
Adam received his B.A. in International Politics and International Development, with a minor in Biology, from the University of Rhode Island. He holds an MPH, with a concentration in Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, from UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Adam spends his free time camping and hiking with his fiancee Jane and their two dogs, snowboarding, and volunteering at the Berkeley Humane Society.
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Speaker
Yves Moury is the Founder and CEO of Fundación Capital, a global organization aiming at asset-building for the poor and climate action. He has been honored as a Schwab Foundation (the sister organization of the World Economic Forum) Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Awardee. In 2017 he was also named an Ashoka Senior Fellow, and in 2014 received the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a global recognition for his work in education and economic opportunities.
Fundación Capital is a pioneer in systems change for economic citizenship and inclusive finance, working to help the poor access formal finance and save; grow and invest their assets; insure their families, build resilient mechanisms against climate change; and chart a permanent path out of poverty. To achieve results at scale, the organization aligns advances in public policy, market mechanisms, digital technologies and data-based impact measurement.
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Delegate
Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations in 61 countries across every region of the world that are working to develop collective leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Prior to launching Teach For All in 2007, Wendy founded and led Teach For America. She led the development of Teach For All to be responsive to the initiative of social entrepreneurs around the world who were determined to adapt this approach in their own countries. Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University as well as honorary doctorate degrees from 15 universities. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Wise Prize for Education and the Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award.
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Speaker
Joint secretary, Government of India
I work for the government of India and Am a part of the Indian administrative service. I have completed 25 years in government. I have handled assignments in a variety of positions including women and child development, rural development , health, personnel etc. I have also done a stint in the world bank group. My stints include both at the state and federal government including at the prime ministers office
My areas of interest include governance, human resource management and women related issues.
I am an Eisenhower fellow of 2015. My areas of focus are leadership, performance management and learning
My interests include reading and travel. I enjoy reading history and political thought
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Delegate
Founder and Chairwoman - Vera Cordeiro graduated in medicine from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1975. From 1978 to 1998, she worked at Hospital da Lagoa, a Federal Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, originally working as a general practitioner. She founded and led the Psychosomatics Department in 1979. In 1991, she founded Instituto Dara (former Associação Saúde Criança), a social organization that uses a pioneering methodology to promote the well-being of families in situations of social vulnerability, with long-term results, as proven by researchers at Georgetown University in 2013. Instituto Dara has been awarded among the many prizes received in Brazil and abroad Dr. Vera is an Ashoka fellow, Avina leader, Social Entrepreneur of Schwab Foundation andSkoll awardee. Honorary Member of the Ashoka World Council. Member of the Academy of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro and former board member of the PATH: A Catalyst for Global Health from 2005 to 2011.
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Delegate
Laureate of the first edition of the Yidan Prize for Education Development (2017) and 2013 WISE Prize for Education Laureate, Vicky Colbert is founder and director of Fundación Escuela Nueva.
Colbert is a Sociologist from Javeriana University in Colombia and pursued her graduate studies in Sociology of Education at Stanford University in the United States. In 2015, the American University of Nigeria distinguished her with an Honoris Causa Doctorate in Philosophy.
She is co-author of the worldwide renowned Escuela Nueva model and was its first National Coordinator. Colbert has pioneered, expanded and sustained this educational innovation from many organizational spheres: as Viceminister of Education of Colombia, UNICEF´s Education Adviser for LAC and now from Fundación Escuela Nueva (FEN), an NGO she founded to ensure its quality, sustainability and innovation.
She has been recognized with several awards and distinctions in the fields of leadership and social entrepreneurship, such as the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Clinton Global Citizenship Award and the Kravis Prize. She has also been recognized as Outstanding Social Entrepreneur by the Schwab Foundation, Ashoka and the World Technology Network.
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Delegate
Vice President, Total Health, Kaiser Permanente
Tyler Norris, MDiv, is an entrepreneur and founder of over a dozen businesses and social ventures. His three decades of service in the public, private and non-profit sectors have focused on population health, community vitality, and equitable prosperity.
Currently, he serves as Vice President, Total Health Partnerships at Kaiser Permanente, where he helps lead the implementation of “anchor institution” strategies, applying all KP assets to measurably improve population health and community well-being.
Tyler is a trustee of Naropa University, and serves on advisory bodies for the Convergence Partnership, Transportation for America, Active Living by Design, and Samueli Institute -- and is active with Social Venture Network, BALLE and SOCAP. As an early leader in the healthy/sustainable communities movement, Tyler has worked in over 400 communities and with scores of organizations in the United States and globally. Previously he served as founding chair of IP3, a technology venture that powers CommunityCommons.org and GIS data mapping platforms for health philanthropies and governmental agencies. He was founding CEO of Community Initiatives Inc.; convener of Advancing the Movement; founding co-chair of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's National Leadership Alliance; and head coach of the YMCA's Pioneering Healthier Communities initiative.
He is an avid mountain biker, backcountry skier and pilot, and now resides in Oakland, CA.
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Delegate
Sue is a 2009 Skoll Awardee and a Schwab and Ashoka award-winning social entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in sustainable living, focused on our homes, cities and the products and services we use. Including the world-famous BedZED eco-village in London, where Sue lives. Sue and the team systematised their approach as “One Planet Living” which is freely available for anyone to use. Based on 10 principles and a sustainable carbon and ecological footprint. There is now a global network of exemplary communities, and 10 million people living in places that have used One Planet Living. Sue draws on these inspiring examples to support policy change, for the built environment and through a formal role in the UN process to create the UN Sustainable Development Goals. At global social entrepreneur network Catalyst 2030 Sue helped secure a UN Resolution on the social and solidarity economy. Sue was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to sustainable business and the London 2012 Olympics.
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Delegate
Senior Program Manager, Youth Livelihoods, The MasterCard Foundation
Steve Cumming is responsible for a portfolio of Youth Livelihoods projects at the Foundation, with a particular focus on vocational skills and informal employment. He is also the focal point within the Foundation for the Youth Think Tank. Before joining the Foundation, Steve was the International Programs Director at Youth Challenge International where he managed youth development projects in East and West Africa. Prior to that Steve held field management positions in South Sudan, Angola and Sierra Leone, where he was responsible for program implementation and staff development. Steve has a Master’s of Post War Reconstruction and Development from the University of York in the UK, and Master’s of Social work from Carleton University in Canada.
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Delegate
CEO, SPARK Schools
Stacey Brewer believes that improving the state and esteem of education in South Africa will guarantee the global success of this country and create a prosperous future for all South Africans.
After completing her Bachelor of Science at Rhodes University, Stacey won a scholarship for the entrepreneurship MBA programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. There, Stacey channeled her investment in educational improvement into her thesis, which focused on a sustainable financial model for low-fee private schools in South Africa. This research served as the foundation for the establishment of eAdvance and SPARK Schools.
Stacey has been recognized as the Elle Boss 2015, Mail and Guardian Top 200 South Africans in 2014 and is also a Mandela Washington Fellow, which is Barack Obama’s flagship fellowship. Stacey graduated with cum laude and received the award for top student achievement in her class during her MBA.
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Delegate
Head Manager, Radio Meraj
Sohaila Erfany, 33, Afghanistan Head Manager, Radio Meraj ail.herat@gmail.com Sohaila was born in Herat, Afghanistan. She graduated from Arefa High School in Herat and then went on to graduate from the journalism faculty of Herat University. She is presently head of the journalism department at Herat University and has worked as a professor at the Journalism Faculty of Herat University for over six years. She is also studying for her master’s degree in journalism at Herat University. Sohaila is one of the top journalists in Afghanistan, having worked as a reporter, producer, news announcer, social entrepreneur, and now the head of Radio Meraj, the only radio station in Afghanistan that produces programming similar to NPR in the U.S. She is an accomplished writer and speaker and also a philosopher, mystic and poet.
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Delegate
Sohini has worked in the development sector for 30+ years with a focus on women and empowerment. She has been closely connected to the Women’s Movement in India and co-founded Sanhita Gender Resource Centre — the first of its kind in Eastern India in 1996. Before Breakthrough, she worked with Ashoka Innovators for the Public for 10 years to bring in more women entrepreneurs to the fellowship and on institution building for the organisation in South Asia. She also worked as the India strategy advisor for the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network from 2010-2013. Sohini is a founding member of the Coalition for Good Schools – Voices from the South, a collection of leading practitioners and influencers committed to delivering access to a safe learning environment for children across the Global South. Sohini also represents Breakthrough as the knowledge partner in a consortium to support the global programming of What Works to Prevent Violence: Impact at Scale Programme by FCDO, U.K.
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Speaker
Reporter, The Dallas Morning News;, Professor, University of Texas at Dallas
Dr. Seema Yasmin is a staff writer at The Dallas Morning News, a professor of public health at The University of Texas at Dallas and a CNN medical analyst. Yasmin served as a disease detective in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she investigated epidemics in maximum-security prisons, American Indian reservations and healthcare facilities. Yasmin trained in medicine at the University of Cambridge in England and in journalism at the University of Toronto. She recently traveled to Liberia to report on post-Ebola syndrome for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Scientific American.
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Delegate
Sarah Borgman is an Advisor to the Skoll Foundation. She was recently Vice President, Convenings & Community, where she had executive oversight for the Skoll Community of Awardees and Skoll’s high-profile platforms that accelerate entrepreneurial approaches to the world’s most pressing problems. As part of her responsibilities, she oversaw the Skoll World Forum, the premiere 1,200-person, week-long convening at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, U.K.
Sarah has more than 25 years of executive and general management experience, with a focus on marketing, communications and convening experience in the public, private and government sectors. Prior to joining the Skoll Foundation, she served as the VP of Communications at the X PRIZE, the VP of Communications at the Prostate Cancer Foundation and a VP at Porter Novelli where she directed numerous entertainment, Fortune 100 and advocacy accounts. Sarah also worked for the Clinton Administration as the director of marketing for the Peace Corps and also served as a communications officer at the National School-to-Work Office at the U.S. Department of Education.
Early in her career, Sarah gained significant broadcast experience as a weekly panelist on a national public affairs television show and has served as a spokesperson for several federal departments and non-profit organizations. She has participated in various speaking/ moderating/ steering committee roles in prominent organizations and gatherings such as the Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Global Leadership Network Action Forum, Opportunity Collaboration, Independent Sector, BSR, Wellbeing Project, among others. She is trained in the IFTF’s Foresight Programming Method and in the Aspen Institute’s intensive Moderator Program.
Sarah started her career as part of the communications team for Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) and earned a BA in political science and international relations from Boston College. She is currently enrolled in graduate school at Denver Seminary. In her off-time, she and her husband try to stay ahead of her 11-year-old daughter and twin, seven-year-old boys.
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Delegate
Rupert Howes has served as Chief Executive of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) since October 2004. Prior to joining the MSC, Rupert worked as the Director of the Sustainable Economy Programme at the Forum for the Future, an influential UK-based sustainable development organization that partners with business, capital markets, governments, and others to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable way of life.
Rupert has been internationally recognized for his work to promote sustainable fishing practices. In 2014, Rupert was awarded a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award, which recognizes leaders in sustainable social innovation. In 2009, he received the World Wildlife Foundation’s “Leaders for a Living Planet” Award. He also received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2007 for his contributions in establishing the MSC as the world’s leading fishery certification and ecolabelling program.
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Delegate
Rukmini Banerji is Chief Executive Officer of Pratham Education Foundation. She
has extensive field experience working directly with rural and urban communities as well as in designing and implementing large scale partnerships with governments for improving children’s learning in India. From 2005 to 2014, she led Pratham’s research and assessment efforts including the well-known ASER initiative (Annual Status of Education Report). Rukmini is the 2021 recipient of the Yidan Prize for education development. Originally from Bihar, she is now based between New Delhi and Pune. Rukmini writes frequently on education in both Hindi and English and enjoys creating and telling stories to children.
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Speaker
Co-founder / President, GiveDirectly
Paul Niehaus is co-founder and president of GiveDirectly, currently the top-rated nonprofit by GiveWell and ranked among the 25 most audacious companies (Inc) and 10 most innovative companies in finance (Fast Company). GiveDirectly is a recognized leader in the use of modern technology to transfer funds directly to the extreme poor, and in the use of rigorous scientific methods to document its impact.
Paul is also a co-founder of Segovia, which builds enterprise technology for the management of social programming in the emerging markets. He holds an academic appointment in the Department of Economics at UC San Diego, where he works with governments in India to improve the implementation of social programming. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), an Affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA). He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and is a National Science Foundation Fellow and a Sloan Fellow. In 2013 Foreign Policy named him one of its 100 leading "Global Thinkers."
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Delegate
I am the founding president and CEO of Forest Trends an organization focused on bringing value to nature and ecosystem functions. We do this by supporting market and marketlike approaches including incentives and policies and with a focus on ensuring benefits flow equitably to the local and indigenous communities that steward these ecosystems
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Delegate
Adjunct Professor, Columbia University
Currently an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs. (SIPA). Retired in 2019 from Citigroup as its global head. of environmental. finance. Previously, was the founder and President of the American Council. on Renewable Energy. (ACORE) and the SolarBank Initiative in Europe, India and Africa. Earlier, was CEO of United Power Systems, partner at. Arete Ventures, manager f strategic planning at General Electric Company, and aa Principal at. Booz. Allen & Hamilton.
Mr. Eckhart earned a BSEE from. Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and served in the US Navy Submarine Service.
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Delegate
President, Ending Pandemics
Mark Smolinski, MD, MPH, brings 25 years of experience in applying innovative solutions to improve disease prevention, response, and control across the globe. Mark is leading a well-knit team—bringing together technologists; human, animal, and environmental health experts; and key community stakeholders to co-create tools for early detection, advanced warning, and prevention of pandemic threats. Community health workers, village volunteers, farmers, and interested public citizens in Albania, Brazil, Cambodia, Europe, Laos, Myanmar, Tanzania, Thailand, and the United States are among those using their own solutions to address pressing local needs. Since 2009, Mark has served as the Chief Medical Officer and Director of Global Health at the Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF), where he developed the Ending Pandemics in Our Lifetime Initiative in 2012. His work at SGTF created a solid foundation for the work of Ending Pandemics, which branched out as an independent entity on January 1, 2018.
Prior to SGTF, Mark developed the Predict and Prevent Initiative at Google.org, as part of the starting team at Google’s philanthropic arm. Working with a team of engineers, Google Flu Trends (a project that had tremendous impact on the use of big data for disease surveillance) was created in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Mark has served as Vice President for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a public charity directed by CNN founder Ted Turner and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Before NTI, he led an 18-member expert committee of the National Academy of Medicine on the 2003 landmark report “Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response.” Mark served as the sixth Luther Terry Fellow in Washington, D.C., in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General and as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Delegate
Senior Advisor, Private Sector Department, Oxfam America
Mara has over 15 years of experience working in the fields of international development, emerging markets finance and business. Mara leads on Oxfam's work on shareholder advocacy directd at US corporations, as well as influencing work on impact investing. Mara is the global lead on the Women in Small Enterprise initiative, which includes Oxfam America’s first impact investing fund that focuses on women entrepreneurs in Latin America. Prior to Oxfam, Mara consulted with the Middle East Investment Initiative, a public-private partnership of the Aspen Institute, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Palestinian Investment Fund, to develop a new form of small business insurance to help Palestinian exporters hindered by travel restrictions. Prior to that she worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as an emerging markets financial sector analyst. She has worked with various international finance and development organizations, including US Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the World Bank. She has an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Mara speaks fluent Latvian and basic Russian.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Sistema B
Marcel Fukayama is an Impact Entrepreneur, Cancer Survivor and Cathedral Builder. He has been involved with different initiatives in new economy.
Co-Founder of Din4mo with objectives to empower entrepreneurs that solve social problems and to develop innovative structures that drive capital to both low income families and social enterprises.
Co-Founder of Sistema B Brazil to strengthen the B Corp community and redefine success in business. He is currently the Executive Director of Sistema B International leading the B Corp Movement in 19 countries, 670 certified B Corps and 30,000 businesses using the Skoll Awardee B Lab’s BIA to manage their triple impact.
Major in Business, MBA and MA in Public Admin at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is committed to work with the social society and policy makers and inspire innovation and new public policies. He coordinated the Brazilian Presidency Campaign of Marina Silva and Eduardo Jorge (REDE/PV) in 2018. Currently, he sits in the Committee for the National Strategy of Impact Investing and Impact Business of the Brazilian Ministry of Economy.
Previously, he pioneered by creating one of the first internet cafés in Brazil at 17-year-old and served as CEO of Skoll Awardee CDI Global working with a network in 15 countries to use technology for social change.
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Delegate
Head, Global Agriculture and Food Security Porgram, International Finance Corporation
Worldwide, roughly 450 million smallholder farmers scrape out a living by working two hectares of land or less. Figuring out how to reliably get inputs and financing to farmers and make them more productive is essential for both eliminating poverty and for achieving food security.
It isn’t easy. Reaching farmers at scale requires convincing private investors to overlook weak institutions, inefficient financial markets, and economic and political instability, and make a bet on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Fortunately, with the help of willing partners, we are starting to do it.
Blended finance, the mixing of public, philanthropic, and private capital in emerging and frontier markets, can bridge the gap between skeptical investors and financing needs in order to address global challenges like poverty, food security, and climate change.
Laura Mecagni heads the private sector window of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program managed by IFC. This program makes available innovative financing solutions to support private companies engaged in agribusiness and agricultural programs that improve the livelihood of small hold farmers.
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Delegate
Keri Putnam is CEO of Sundance Institute, where she oversees the Sundance Film Festival and the Institute’s extensive array of programs supporting independent storytellers around the world. Under her leadership, Sundance has grown to support 800 artists annually through labs, grants, workshops and festivals. Previously, Putnam was President of Production at Miramax, where she led production, acquisitions, co-productions and development. During her tenure, Miramax earned 34 Academy Award nominations and 7 wins. Putnam spent the first 15 years of her career at HBO, starting as an assistant in original programming and ending as Executive Vice President of movies and mini-series. She supervised over 50 productions, which collectively were nominated for or won over 50 Emmy Awards, numerous Peabody Awards, Golden Globes, the Humanitas Prize, the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or and other honors. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard, Putnam studied theatre history and literature.She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an Andrew D. White Professor at Large for the Arts at Cornell University, serves on the board of Women in Film Los Angeles, the advisory board of the Feirstein Film School at Brooklyn College, the advisory board at 826LA, the advisory council of Harvardwood, the advisory council of the Office of the Arts at Harvard University, and as a mentor at the Stark Producing Program at USC. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Delegate
CEO and Co-founder, Shining Hope for Communities
Kennedy is one of Africa’s best-known community organizers and social entrepreneurs. He grew up in Kenya's Kibera slum, the largest slum in Africa, where he experienced the devastating realities of life in extreme poverty first hand. At age ten he became a street child. Still, he dreamed about changing his community. In 2004, he had a job in a factory earning $1 for ten hours of work. He saved 20 cents and used this to buy a soccer ball and start Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO). Driven by the entrepreneurial spirit of the people of Kibera, SHOFCO became the largest grassroots organization in the slum. Today, SHOFCO impacts over 300,000 slum dwellers across 10 urban slums in Kenya, and is the largest employer in Kibera. In 2018, SHOFCO became the youngest-ever organization to receive the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world's largest humanitarian prize awarded to nonprofits that have made extraordinary contributions to alleviate human suffering. Although he was entirely informally educated, Kennedy received a full scholarship to Wesleyan University, becoming one of Kibera’s first to receive an education from an American liberal arts institution. He graduated in 2012 as the Commencement Speaker and with honors in Sociology. He later served on the Wesleyan Board of Trustees. He was awarded the 2010 Echoing Green Fellowship, which is given to the world’s best emerging social entrepreneurs. He was named to FORBES "30 under 30 list" for top Social Entrepreneurs in 2014. He is a New York Times best-selling author of Find Me Unafraid: Love, Hope, and Loss in an African Slum, co-written with his wife and partner, Jessica Posner Odede. He has published opinion articles on urban poverty in The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, Project Syndicate. He previously served on the United Nations International Commission on Financing of Global Education Opportunities. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a UBS Global Visionary.
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Speaker
Exec. Director, BRCK.org
Juliana Rotich is globally recognized as a technologist, strategic advisor, entrepreneur, futurist, and keynote speaker.
Juliana is a Venture Partner in Africa Technology Ventures (ATV) which is raising a $50m fund to invest in and support the growth of tech enabled start-ups in key sectors in East and West Africa.
She is on the founding team of BRCK Inc, a hardware company that had developed the BRCK - designed and engineered as a rugged, self-powered, mobile Wi-Fi device which connects people and things to the internet in areas of the world with poor infrastructure. The company also makes other rugged solutions for emerging markets. She is also the co-founder of Ushahidi Inc., a non-profit tech company, born in Africa, which specializes in developing free and open source software for changing how information flows in the world. Strategically spearheading Ushahidi to be translated into over 30 languages, over 90,000 deployments and a 20 million populations reach.
Her entrepreneurial panache has given rise to her role as a strategic advisor to the councils of BASF, Microsoft 4Afrika, and Risk Cooperative. She is also a trustee of the iHub in Kenya and Bankinter Foundation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Spain. Juliana currently serves as serves as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Data Driven Development, and the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Board.
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Speaker
Founder CEO, Traity
Juan is founder and CEO of Traity, a reputation platform that aims to help people trust each other for any sort of transactions between strangers, like a tenant renting a house from a landlord. Juan was formerly in strategy and product management in the telecoms industry. Juan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth with High Honors and MEng in Electrical Engineering with Honors. In his free time, Juan plays capoeira, a Brazilian martial art.
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Delegate
President, Ploughshares Fund
Joe Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. He previously served as Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress and Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Joe is the author of the books Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and is the author or editor of five other books on nuclear weapons and national security policy.
Joe serves on the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and teaches at the graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives on the professional staff of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations.
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Speaker
International President, Medecins Sans Frontieres
Dr. Joanne Liu was elected International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in 2013. She trained at McGill University School of Medicine and specialized in pediatrics at Sainte-Justine hospital, Montréal. An associate professor at the Université de Montréal and a professor in practice at McGill, she holds a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine from New York University School of Medicine and an International Master’s in Health Leadership from McGill. She began MSF field work in 1996 and has undertaken over twenty missions since, in Central Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. Her operational contributions range from introducing comprehensive medical care for survivors of sexual violence to developing a telemedicine platform connecting physicians in remote sites with medical specialists worldwide. A staunch advocate of anchoring MSF’s identity in field based, quality-driven patient care, she seeks to introduce the same focus into the global health arena. She has received many awards, including the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada’s Teasdale-Corti Humanitarian Award 2013 and Officer of the Government of Quebec 2015.
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Speaker
Assistant Professor, Stanford University
Jamil Zaki is an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University. His research examines the neural bases of social cognition and behavior: and especially how people understand and respond to each other’s emotions. This work spans a number of domains, including empathy, social influence, and prosocial behavior (see ssnl.stanford.edu for details).
Dr. Zaki received his BA in cognitive neuroscience from Boston University and his PhD in psychology from Columbia University, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Harvard Center for Brain Science. He has received research and teaching awards from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, Autism Speaks, Harvard University, and Stanford University. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Zaki is active in outreach and public communication of science, and founded the science communication platform The People’s Science (www.thepeoplesscience.org).
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Speaker
Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Jason Lamb is the Deputy Director, Digital Enabling Environment in the Financial Services for the Poor initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation in November 2009, Jason spent 6 years at Washington Mutual Bank where he managed the Consumer Checking portfolio, product strategy, and team. In addition, he spent time managing the operational risk strategy for the retail bank and as an organizational consultant to the Executive Committee and their teams. Jason gained experience in the financial institutions sector during his seven years at McKinsey & Company, where he spent time advising banks in Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and North America. He was a founding member of the McKinsey Budapest office. Jason holds a BA in Economics and History from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
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Delegate
Jay Coen Gilbert is Executive Chair of Imperative 21, a global network shaping economic narratives and reimagining systems so that everyone, everywhere can thrive. Imperative 21 catalyzes breakthrough narratives that tell a new story about the purpose of business and accelerate the movement to redesign an economic system that cares about people and not just profit. I21 builds on Jay’s experience as cofounder of B Lab, the nonprofit behind the B Corporation movement, with nearly 8,000 companies across 80 countries. Along with his B Lab cofounders, Jay received the UMKC Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the McNulty Prize at the Aspen Institute. Jay recently co-founded an antiracist community of practice called White Men for Racial Justice. Prior, Jay co-founded AND 1, a $250M basketball company and subject of a Netflix documentary. Jay grew up in NYC and graduated from Stanford University.
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Delegate
Co-founder and Executive Director, Change Labs
Heather Fleming (Diné/Navajo) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Change Labs, an award-winning Navajo nonprofit supporting entrepreneurship and innovation on the Navajo Nation. Heather engages partners in and around the Navajo Nation to incubate, finance and train new and prospective Native American social entrepreneurs in an effort to diversify local economies and promote innovation.
The inspiration for Heather’s work to seed Native American social entrepreneurship was inspired by her upbringing in rural New Mexico and her work with Catapult Design, a company she co-founded in San Francisco and led for 10 years. Catapult is a product and service design firm with expertise in human-centered design for marginalized communities. Prior to starting Catapult, Heather was an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University and California Academy of the Arts, and worked as a design and innovation consultant in Silicon Valley, designing products and services for a diverse range of corporate clients. Early in her career she co-founded and led a volunteer group, the Appropriate Technology Design Team, focused on social impact design work through a professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in San Francisco.
Heather was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow for her work with EWB and Catapult Design.
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Speaker
Imam, Individual Religious Leader
Imam Muhammad Hussaini Bagnya is currently a TV Presenter for the IQRA SHOW, Ghana's number one Islamic flagship show which passes on TV 3, a Ghanaian television networks for the past decade, he has honorably lead presented and interviewed a cross section of religious leaders (Christians, Muslims and traditionalist), Muslim business wo/men and entrepreneurs delving into socio – religious issues which aim to inform and educate viewers of all religious and social motivations.
In 2012, he served as a radio presenter for the Al-FIjiri Breakfast Show on Marhaba FM also in Accra, where he captivated listeners with his ability to get to the bottom of issues affecting the poor, the weak and the marginalized particularly in the "Zongos" as the predominant Muslim communities as referred to. he virtually brought God in the middle of all social equations whether he was dealing with Politics, Development, Human Rights to name a few.
From 2009 to 2012, Imam Muhammad Hussaini Bagnya served as an Imam for the Asoma Banda Mosque, a leading mosque in Accra where he led as prayer leader and conducted sermons in Arabic and English. during these times, he changed the paradigm in sermon delivery as all things contemporary were considered worthy to be sermonized.
Muhammad Hussaini Bagnya has worked as a liaison officer for the Islamic Council for Dev. & Humanitarian Services (ICODEHS) in Accra where he Organized and coordinated ICODEHS’ conferences countrywide in Ghana. He also worked for Al Rayaan International School, a UK registered school as an Administrative Manager in Accra, Ghana.
A true advocate for the rights of women and children who have spoken on several platforms in this regard. he holds an M.Phil in Governance and Leadership where his thesis focused on Islam and Women Leadership. Imam Muhammad is a strong believer in the power of sports particularly soccer, a strong supporter of Chelsea FC, married and a proud father of a daughter.
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Delegate
Catherine manages investor relations, communications and marketing at Root Capital, an agricultural lender that provides loans and advisory services to small and growing agricultural businesses in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Indonesia. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has disbursed nearly $1BN in capital to more than 500 enterprises that represent over 2M farmers.
In her role at Root Capital, Catherine oversees all debt and philanthropy fundraising, including management of $125M in assets from over 200 individual, corporate, foundation and government impact investors. In 2012, Catherine played a leadership role in launching Root Capital’s Women in Agriculture Initiative, which aims to strengthen and grow gender-inclusive businesses that provide reliable economic opportunities for women in agricultural value chains.
Prior to joining Root Capital, Catherine spent ten years in the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) industry, at both the Nonprofit Finance Fund and the Structured Employment Economic Development Corporation (SEEDCO), working as a loan officer and financial management consultant for community development projects across New England.
She has served as an adjunct professor at Boston University’s School of Management and lectures widely on impact investing and social enterprise development. Catherine holds a bilingual M.B.A from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) in Barcelona and a B.A. in ancient Greek from Wellesley College. She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts with her husband, son, daughter, and two lop-eared rabbits.
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Delegate
Carlos Souza Jr. holds a bachelor's degree in geology from Pará State Federal University, Brazil, an M.Sc. in soil science from Penn State University, US, and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California Santa Barbara, US. He is currently an associate researcher at Imazon, where he focuses on remote sensing for mapping and monitoring forests, forest degradation, land use and land cover change, surface water monitoring, and spatial modeling. Dr. Souza Jr. has co-authored over 100 journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters. He is also the co-founder of Terras App, an IT company that provides solutions for sustainable landscapes, and the MapBiomas Institute, IAMap. Dr. Souza Jr. has been honored with the Skoll Award and is a Mulago Foundation Fellow.
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Delegate
Executive Chairman, Wanda Organic
Nick lived in Kenya since 1982, working actively for economic equity and social justice in Africa. In 1991 he co-founded - and until June 2012 directed - the award-winning not-for-profit social enterprise KickStart International, (www.kickstart.org). KickStart designs and promotes productivity-enhancing technologies for smallholder farmers in Africa. In recognition of this work Nick was awarded the SASE in 2004.
Since January 2012 Nick was the Executive Chairman of Wanda Agriculture, a growing for-profit social enterprise (founded by his daughter Marion Atieno Moon) that brings the latest bio-organic soil and plant health solutions to African farmers, essential for sustainable agriculture and for climate change adaptation and mitigation. www.wandaagriculture.org
In July 2017 Nick took up a part-time position as Program Director for Orkidstudio LLC, a specialized ‘architectural design and build’ enterprise, that champions gender equality in the construction sector in Africa. www.orkidstudio.org
Additionally Nick was actively involved with two other initiatives that promote social and economic development.
• Peace building, enterprise development, and job creation for youth, with ONGOZA (formerly ‘Peace for Africa & Economic Development’), founded in 2008 by Eddy Gicheru Oketch in the wake of Kenya’s deeply troublesome period of violent civil unrest following hotly contested elections. Nick is currently chairman of the Board of this young and growing organization. www.ongozayouth.org.
• The professionalization of the performing arts in Kenya - with the Theatre Company, founded by Keith Pearson and Mumbi Kaigwa (www.theatrecompany.net)
The Skoll Foundation deeply mourns the loss of Nick Moon who passed away in 2018.
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Speaker
Chief Everything Officer, Sphaera
Dr. Astrid J. Scholz is a co-founder of Zebras Unite (https://zebrasunite.coop), a growing global cooperative of founders, investors, and allies who are creating a more ethical, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable approach to building businesses. She leads Zebras Unite’s capital team. Astrid is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Sphaera (https://sphaera.world), a system design and technology firm dedicated to co-creating global, distributed, democratic infrastructure for mobilizing data, innovations, and capital to solve today’s wicked problems (see https://trillions.global). Astrid was previously President of Ecotrust, a conservation-based development organization with $150M in assets under management. She holds degrees from the Universities of St. Andrews, Bristol, and California at Berkeley.
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Speaker
CEO & Co-founder, Matternet, Inc.
Award-winning designer, inventor and entrepreneur. Founded Matternet and serves as Chief Executive Officer since 2011. Pioneering drone logistics networks for lightweight medical items and commercial goods. Motivated by the desire to solve one of humanity's grand challenges, access to physical goods, by leapfrogging road infrastructure.
Holds an BS & MS in Aeronautics Engineering, is a Royal College of Art graduate in Design and is lead inventor in several US and international patents. Speaker, Google Solve for X, 2012 & TED Global, 2013. Tech Pioneer, World Economic Forum, 2015.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Country Manager, Pluspeople Kenya Limited
"Angela has a background in business and information technology from Strathmore University in Kenya. She is currently the Co-founder and Country Manager of Pluspeople Kenya/ Uhasibu, an IT company that has been recognized and awarded for its focus on empowering SMEs in East Africa by offering them IT solutions to manage their businesses more professionally.
Prior to Pluspeople, Angela co-founded Metro-Mobile a software development company that gave students a detailed summary of their university’s e-learning systems and co-curricular activities on their mobile phones. She is passionate about technology, small businesses in East Africa and the start-up scene in Sub- Saharan Africa. Angela is a strong advocate for mentorship, a champion for women in technology and volunteers in various mentoring programs in Kenya; one that focuses on mentoring young under-served girls, another for mid-level career women and another for older less privileged micro-business women owners.
For her leadership and social entrepreneurship work with Pluspeople Kenya and as an individual, Angela has been recognized as a Zambezi Prize Finalist presented by the Legatum Center at MIT and the MasterCard Foundation; She is a 2016 Skoll World Forum Young Leader; a 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow as part of President Barack Obama's Young Leaders Initiative (YALI); and a finalist of the McKinsey Next Generation Women Leaders award."
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Speaker
Founding President, The Voice of Libyan Women
At the young age of 15 Alaa Murabit completed high school and moved from Saskatoon, Canada to Zawia, Libya. It was there that she enrolled in medical school and driven by her desire to create inclusive processes and institutions founded The Voice of Libyan Women (VLW) in 2011 at the age of 21. With a strong focus on challenging societal and cultural norms and utilizing traditional and historical role models Murabit champions women’s participation in peace processes and conflict mediation. Her programs, such as the groundbreaking “Noor Campaign” are replicated internationally.
Nicknamed “The Libyan Doogie Howser” by Jon Stewart and applauded by Oprah for her innovative approach to security, Murabit acts as advisor to numerous international security boards, think tanks and organizations. Most recently she was nominated to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (women, peace and security) Global Advisory Board, UN Women Global Advisory Board and Harvard University’s “Everywoman, Everywhere” initiative. The first Ashoka Fellow elected from Libya, Murabit is the youngest recipient of the Marisa Bellisario International Humanitarian Award by the Italian Government, was named the “International Trust Women Hero 2014” by The New York Times and "One of 25 women under 25 to watch" by Newsweek.
Most recently she was selected as a "100 Top Woman" by the BBC and the SAFE Global Hero. In March 2015 Murabit was selected as the inaugural civil society speaker at the official Commission on the Status of Women opening session. Murabit’s TED Talk, released in July 2015, “ What my religions really says about women” was selected as the TED Talk of the Day and one of four moving TED Talks you should watch right now by The New York Times. In October 2015 Murabit addressed the United Nations Security Council during the 15th Anniversary Open Debate on Resolution 1325. In December 2015 Murabit was selected as a Keeping Children Safe Trustee.
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Delegate
Professor and Director, University of Oxford
Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, and a Senior Research Fellow at Green-Templeton College. Among his 10 books, he is author (with Paul Collier) of Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. He has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He has given TED talks with nearly 3 million views. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, was named in Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 Global thinkers of 2016, and has been named in Thinkers50's list of emerging business influencers. He is founder of the Humanitarian Innovation Project.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Social Finance, The British Asian Trust
Abha leads the British Asian Trust's Social Finance work across South Asia. She is a founding member of the British Asian Trust, contributing to its design and leadership during the start-up years and now to its ongoing growth. She has led pioneering social finance work with Government(s), private and not-for-profit partners that tackle complex development challenges including the improvement of education and gender outcomes in South Asia. In recognition of work in this area, Abha was a Fellow of Practice 2020 and 2021 at the Go Labs, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
A recognised expert in her field, she is a co-chair of Taskforce 9 on Global Cooperation for SDGs Financing as part of Think20, the official engagement group of the G20 bringing together leading think tanks and research centres worldwide and is a member of the Asian Impact Leaders Network hosted by the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network.
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Speaker
Director, Beyond Jobs
Wingham Rowan is Director of the “Beyond Jobs” project in London, UK.
Beyond Jobs grew out of multiple UK government investments to create advanced markets for low silled people seeking non-standard employment. Wingham oversaw these projects and market launches. He now works with cities in Europe and the USA.
Many years before “The Sharing Economy”, he authored two books (one published internationally) and countless articles about the potential of new markets for irregular economic activity in communities. At the time he was producing and hosting what became the UK’s longest running TV series about the Internet.
He has written multiple policy papers about the “grey zone” between structured work and unemployment in cities. His papers arguing employment policy needs to support better markets for non-standard work have been published by institutes from the anti-poverty left to the free-market right.
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Delegate
Founder, Enduring Ventures, Inc
Founder, Enduring Ventures, a long-term holding company. Founder/Chairman Better World Books, $70 Million revenue profitable e-commerce business, 10 million customers.
Founding CEO, Zola Electric. Leading Solar Company in Africa. 1 million users, $100MM+ equity raised.
Oxford Skoll Scholar 2011.
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Speaker
CEO, Simprints
Toby Norman is the CEO of Simprints, a nonprofit tech company with a mission to increase transparency and effectiveness in global development. Simprints build inclusive digital ID powered by biometrics to ensure that every vaccine, every dollar, and every public good reaches the people who need them most. Studies have shown Simprints increases impact through real-time, precision data, for example increasing maternal health visits by 38% in Bangladesh or accurate HIV tracing by 62% in Malawi. Working with partners like Gavi and Mercy Corps, Simprints has worked in over 17 countries helping deliver health, aid, and finance to >2.5M people.
Toby holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge on a Gates Scholarship and a BA from Harvard. He is a Forbes 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneur, Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year, and GLG Social Impact Fellow.
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Delegate
Susan Burns is a Skoll Awardee and Philanthropic Advisor with Unleashing Generosity helping donors increase their impact and give joyfully.
She is a co-founder of Global Footprint Network, one of the world’s leading scientific organizations addressing global ecological limits. Prior to launching Global Footprint Network, Susan founded the pioneering sustainability consulting firm Natural Strategies, advising such companies as Mitsubishi Electric and Lowes. Susan serves on the Development Committee of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir (OIGC) where she is a vocalist. She is also a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster children, a member of the Social Justice Ministry of Imani Community Church in Oakland, and a member of ICJJ (Interfaith Coalition for Justice in Our Jails).
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Speaker
Artist & Activist, The Strongheart Group
With a poet's soul and activist's passion, Sonita Alizadeh uses her rap lyrics and powerful voice to fight child marriage. At the age of 16, Sonita was a refugee in Iran and distraught over her own impending forced marriage, set to happen in her native Afghanistan. In an effort to express her pain and share the experience of so many of her friends, she wrote “Daughters for Sale” and created a homemade music video. With a posting on YouTube, the song instantly caught fire and was shared around the world. Through the Strongheart Group, Sonita came to the U.S. where she is now a high school student at Wasatch Academy. With the support of Strongheart, Sonita is now an international spokesperson for the rights of girls to choose their own destiny. She believes that together we can end forced marriage in one generation and is working to make that a reality. Her story is told in the award winning documentary “Sonita,” which premiered in the US at Sundance 2016. Sonita was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s Global Thinkers of 2015, one of BBC's 100 Women of 2015, and has been featured by CNN, NPR, BBC, Buzzfeed News, and over 150 publications in 20 countries. You can learn more about her campaign to end child marriage at www.sonita.org.
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Delegate
I am social entrepreneur with a unique journey. I start in small village in Indonesia to transform illegal logging become a sustainable forest management, lead the movement acrros Indonesia by built inclusive company. Now, I am leading forestry sector (538 consession with more than 30 millioj hectare forest) in Indonesia at Infonesia Chambers of commerse and Industry to do Regenerative Forestry in Indonesia.
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Speaker
Student, UWC Robert Bosch College
Selina Neirok Leem, an islander from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is currently attending her last year of high school in the UWC (United World College) Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, Germany. The school is a prestigious international program that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Prior to her coming to Germany, she was a student of the Marshall Islands High School.
Until she was 16 and moved to Germany, she spent her entire life on her home atoll, Majuro, also the capital of the country. She grew up with her large family; her grandparents, her parents, her uncles and aunts, her cousins, and her six siblings. Selina was influenced a lot by her grandparents who would tell her Marshallese stories and legends before she went to bed. They also emphasized the importance of education, taught her Marshallese values, and so much more.
She credits her grandfather for her deep awareness of the increasing fate of her island home through his stories about how the ice in the North Pole and South Pole were melting and would soon flood the Marshall Islands. He helped her become much more aware of her surroundings, of the fact that she was literally surrounded by water.
Coming to Germany, Selina took on the role of a climate change advocate for her country. She saw all that had happened throughout her years of living on her atoll as the changing of the climate became more prominent and wanted to share with whomever she came across. She was even more inspired when she saw that she could reach a much wider audience here in Europe in order to spread more awareness.
Representing the Marshall Islands, Selina was the youngest delegate at the COP21 in Paris. During the closing remarks, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum gave her the opportunity to give the final statement on behalf of her country. She told the world that Paris agreement, “should be the turning point in our story; a turning point for all of us.”
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Speaker
Co-Founder of The Health Initiative, a national campaign to catalyze a new conversation about and increased investments in health, including access to healthy food, safe and affordable housing, and well-paying jobs. Previously, Onie co-founded Health Leads to enable physicians and other healthcare providers and caregivers across the country to address these fundamental drivers of patients’ health. Health Leads armed thousands of healthcare institutions with the tools, technology, analytics, and best practices to address their patients’ resource needs, ultimately serving as a model for the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation’s Accountable Health Communities pilot, the first federal pilot to screen and navigate patients to basic resources. Onie is a MacArthur “Genius” awardee, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
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Speaker
, Reverend Canon
The Reverend Mpho A. Tutu an ordained Episcopal Priest and founding Director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation
For five years, Rev. Tutu was Director of the Bishop Desmond Tutu Southern African Refugee Scholarship Fund of the Phelps Stokes Fund. That program provided full four-year scholarships to refugees from South Africa and Namibia. Ms. Tutu has worked as a volunteer teaching in and English as a second language (ESL) ministry in Alexandria, VA.
Rev. Tutu holds a Master of Divinity Degree form Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. She was awarded a Women Living Religion Fellowship by the MacMillan Center at Yale University in New Haven.
The Rev. Mpho Tutu is a trustee of Angola University. Rev. Mpho Tutu is the Executive Director of Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, an organization founded by her father Desmond and mother Leah.
Rev. Tutu co-authored Made for Goodness with her father and Tutu: The authorized Portrait with Award winning journalist Allister Sparks. They also wrote the foreword to National Geographic’s book, Geography of Religion. She also authored the foreword of Footprints in the Sand: Caregivers of South Africa and. Recently she co-authored The Book of Forgiving together with her father.
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Speaker
Freelance Journalist, Individual
Ray Suarez is a host of the radio and podcast series WorldAffairs, heard on KQED San Francisco and public radio stations around the country, and a Washington reporter for Euronews. He recently completed an appointment as the McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. Suarez hosted Inside Story, a daily news program on Al Jazeera America, until the network ceased operation in 2016.
Suarez joined American public television’s nightly newscast, The PBS NewsHour in 1999 and was a senior correspondent until 2013. During his years at the NewsHour he was assigned to cover global health. His reporting from Africa, Asia, and Latin America won many awards. He hosted NPR’s Talk of the Nation from 1993-1999. In more than 40 years in the news business, he has worked as a reporter in London and Rome, as a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, and for the NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
Suarez is the author of three books: Latino Americans: The 500 Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation (Penguin, 2013), The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999, reporting on the causes of the destitution found in American cities after the Second World War, andThe Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America, examining how organized religion and politics intersect in America. His next work, on immigration, political, demographic, and cultural change, will appear in 2023.
He is a contributor to the Oxford Companion to American Politics (June 2012), and many other books, including How I Learned English, Brooklyn: A State of Mind, Saving America's Treasures, and About Men. He’s been published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Britain's Independent, Harvard University's Nieman Reports, and the Chicago Tribune.
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Delegate
One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Raj Panjabi is a renowned physician, entrepreneur, and former White House official.
Dr. Panjabi served as White House Senior Director, leading the pandemic and biological threats office for President Biden at the National Security Council. He played a pivotal role in the largest global vaccination campaign in history against COVID-19 and numerous infectious disease outbreak responses. He oversaw White House efforts to prevent the next pandemic, including playing a lead role in implementing the National Biodefense Strategy, American Pandemic Preparedness Plan, President’s Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, and the U.S. Global Health Security Act. Panjabi also led the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative.
Panjabi is Entrepreneur In Residence at Emerson Collective, co-founder at Last Mile Health, and on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
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Delegate
Born in 1949 , raised in a refugee settlement in Karachi, completed high school and married off. Had 3 children at 21 , completed Masters in social work, first community assignment construction of pit toilets in the homes of 5000 poor families living in squatter’s community. The sanitation project helped create national policy , Completed PhD “ Sanitation to development “ from university of technology LOUGHBOROUGH UK .
Created methodologies of creating partnerships with the communities in Balochistan, established 2200 rural girls primary schools, enrolling more than 200,000 girls. Establish INSTITUTE FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES AND PRACTICE 7000 graduates, created Leadership training for Community Midwives 400 women empowered as Community midwives,
Organic agriculture with 300 small and landless farmers. Environment friendly campus for University of Community Development.
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Delegate
Lead UNHCR Innovation, UNHCR
"At UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Olivier Delarue leads UNHCR Innovation, a multi-year effort seeking to foster and support creative problem-solving, experimentation, and new kinds of partnerships in responding to delivery and programmatic challenges faced in UNHCR field operations. By providing space for the discussion of problems and needs, empowering UNHCR staff to think creatively, and reaching out to a broader community of support, UNHCR Innovation helps to design concrete and tangible solutions as well as develop a culture throughout the organization where innovation is fostered, captured and rewarded. International jurist by training, Olivier is a true UN homebody, having joined UNHCR 20 years ago to tackle large scale and complex challenges. Olivier also co-founded the UN Innovation Network in 2013 together with UNICEF and WFP which now features more than 18 UN agencies working together in harnessing the power of innovation process. From 2015 to 2016 participated to the World Humanitarian Summit process as member of the Pillar Transformation through Innovation and is contributing to the creation of the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation (GAHI) and is a member of the Steering Committee of the the Global Humanitarian Lab (GHL) which will launch in April 2016 in Geneva and globally"
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Delegate
Global Head, Venture Capital, International Finance Corporation
Managing Partner for new climate technology fund. Www.BetterFuturenet.org
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Speaker
Founding CEO, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Ngaire Woods is the founding and inaugural Dean of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. She also founded, and co-directs with Professor Robert O. Keohane, Princeton University, the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship Programme; previously she also founded and directed the Global Economic Governance Programme which was established in 2003 to conduct research into how global economic institutions could better meet the needs of people in developing countries.
Ngaire Woods has a particular interest in the governance of global institutions aimed at promoting global economic prosperity, development and stability, and has addressed governments around the world on these issues. She is currently Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Global Governance and project leader of a report on leadership in international institutions. In 2012 she co-authored a study for the President of the African Development Bank of his clients’ views of the institutions. She is currently helping the African Development Bank strengthen its impact on gender equality, both within the Bank and across its programming. Ngaire Woods has served as an Advisor to the IMF Board, to the UNDP’s Human Development Report, and to the Commonwealth Heads of Government. She also sits as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of ARUP, a global engineering and design company, and as a member of the Operating and Advisory Board of the Center for International Governance Innovation.
Ngaire Woods has published widely, her publications include 'The Politics of Global Regulation' (with Walter Mattli); 'Networks of Influence', and 'The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank and their Borrowers'.
She was educated at Auckland University (BA in economics, LLB Hons in law) before studying at Balliol College, Oxford (as a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar), completing an MPhil (with Distinction) and then DPhil (in 1992) in International Relations.
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Speaker
Neil has been Chief Executive of Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) since early 2014. He has over two decade’s experience of successfully leading and growing organizations, social enterprises and innovative partnerships, in both Europe, North America and globally. He previously led social enterprises delivering services to base of the pyramid consumers in the energy and agricultural sectors and headed a policy institute in Washington DC working to enhance the impact of US policy in the Andean Region.
He holds an MBA with distinction from Cass Business School, an MA from the University of Cambridge and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. He has published with Cranfield University and the US Institute for Peace.
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Speaker
Office of the President, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
Fr. Michael Czerny S.J. entered the Society of Jesus in English Canada in 1963, and was ordained in 1973. He did graduate studies at the University of Chicago in an inter-disciplinary programme in humanities, social thought and theology and earned the doctorate in 1978.
Dr. Czerny was the founding director of the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, Toronto (1979 – 1989). After the 1989 assassination of the Jesuits at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador, he became Director of its Human Rights Institute (1990 – 1991) and Vice-Rector of the UCA (1991). For 11 years Michael served as Secretary for Social Justice at the Jesuit General Curia, Rome (1992 – 2002). In 2002, he founded the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN), which assists Jesuits to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic; he directed AJAN for 8 years.
Since 2010, Fr. Czerny has been working with Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, as advisor or counsellor in all areas of service offered by the President’s Office.
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Delegate
Innovation Director, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Matt leads the portfolios for innovative financing, entrepreneurship and technology within Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade's Innovationxchange.
Previous to his work at DFAT, Matt developed a social enterprise, (enable community), which was a partnership with vodafone and opportunity international, getting refurbished phones to micro-entrepreneurs in the philippines for them to use to sell e-top ups. He then moved to mobile industry association, developing the business case framework for mobile operators to refocus on women in emerging markets. This work at the GSMA led to the mobile identity programme, then to Facebook with internet.org.
Matt lives with his wife and 3 young boys in Canberra, Australia.
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Delegate
Senior Vice President and Publisher, HarperCollins Publishers
SVP/Publisher
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Delegate
As a pioneer in using business models to solve poverty, Martin is the co-founder & CEO of KickStart, a non-profit SE with a mission to enable millions of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to pivot from rainfed to irrigated farming, earn a lot more money, adapt-to-climate-change & climb out of poverty. KickStart designs & promotes lowest-cost irrigation technologies & to-date over 390,000 farmers have used its pumps to grow, harvest & sell high-value crops year-round, independent of rains. Their highly profitable & resilient farms have lifted 1.5M people out of poverty. With almost no irrigation in SSA, millions more can irrigate & gain income & food security. KickStart partners with hundreds of organizations to promote irrigation, develop new technologies, innovate new ways to reach & finance farmers, & advocate for system changes. With a Cornell BSc, a Stanford MSc & PhD, a Fulbright in Kenya, and many awards, Martin is a Skoll & Schwab SE & a Stanford Engineering Hero.
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Delegate
Founder and Executive Director, Carbon Tracker Initiative
Mark is founder and executive chair of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a non profit financial think tank. Best known for the ‘unburnable carbon’ capital markets thesis, the lexicon of ‘stranded asset’ risk is now common place in climate finance language. Mark commissioned and was editor of Unburnable Carbon – Are the World’s Financial Markets Carrying a Carbon Bubble? In 2011 and more recently, Mark co-founded ‘Planet Tracker’. Mark is responsible for management strategy, board matters and developing their capital markets framework analysis. Their goal is to align capital markets with natural ecological limits to growth.
Prior to forming these groups, Mark worked for major institutional asset management companies in building sustainable asset management franchises. Mark is a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds firstly at Jupiter Asset Management in 1989 with the Ecology Funds, NPI with Global Care between 1994 and 1999, the AMP Capital Sustainable Future Funds, and Henderson Global Investor’s Industries of the Future Funds from 1999-2008.
Mark served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999-2003). Mark is a Founder Director of the UK Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum (UKSIF), 1990-2006, a member of the Advisory Board of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s ‘Conservation and Markets Initiatives’ and Hon Treasurer of The Rainforest Foundation UK. Mark is an advisor to Consilium Capital, serves on the Advisory Board of Tribe Impact Capital and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s sustainable finance programme.
Mark has a BA in Politics & Economic History and an M.Sc in Agricultural Economics.
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Delegate
Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has led the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America.Among his many influential writings, Dr. Plotkin may be best known for his popular work Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (1994), which has been printed continuously and in multiple languages. His most recent book, The Amazon – What Everyone Needs to Know, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020.Dr. Plotkin has received the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation, the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award, and, with Liliana Madrigal, the Skoll Award. In 2010, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Lewis and Clark College. Dr. Plotkin was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts University. His ongoing podcast Plants of the Gods is available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms.
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Delegate
Global Vice President Social Impact, Unilever
Ms Manubens is Global Vice President for Social Impact at Unilever. She leads the strategy and implementation of the new Enhancing Livelihoods ambitions of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, Including Women’s Empowerment and Fairness, including the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Marcela is Vice-Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Human Rights at WEF. She is a member of Hillary Clinton’s International Council on Women’s Business Leadership and a member of the Advisory Group on Human Rights to UK Foreign Secretary. Marcela participated in initiatives to eradicate sweatshops and advance human rights. She was a member of the Fair Labour Association (FLA) Board of Directors and its Executive Committee and chaired the Board of Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) for three years. Marcela gave testimony in the US Congress as an expert witness upon the invitation of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and represented US business in the launching of the Global Report on Child Labor by the ILO at the UN. Marcela taught Business and Human Rights at Columbia University, and Macroeconomics at the Business School of Universidad de Belgrano, Argentina. She has been a lecturer and guest speaker at numerous national and international conferences.
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Delegate
Cecilia is an internationally acclaimed slavery fighter. Through VF, she rescues, heals, and reintegrates survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Working together with partners they protected more than 30,000 at risk and exploited young girls.
Cecil was instrumental in the enactment of pioneering laws in the Philippines to promote decent work for domestic workers, law to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and anti-trafficking law amendments.
She was appointed by the two Philippine Presidents to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking as NGO representative and served for six years. She was also a member of the Presidential-Illegal Recruitment Task force during the Aquino Administration.
Cecilia currently serves as an Advisory Board of the Freedom United, and as part of the Advisory Council of Telos Governance Agency
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Speaker
Author and Independent Consultant, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Kirk O. Hanson stepped down recently as Executive Director of Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, one of the leading global centers for the study of applied ethics, where he held the John Courtney Murray, S.J. University Professorship in Social Ethics for 17 years. Previously Kirk taught business ethics at the Stanford Business School for 23 years and is recognized as one of the founders of the academic field of business ethics. He has been an emeritus faculty member at Stanford since 2001.
Hanson writes and has published widely on managing the ethical and public behavior of corporations and their leaders. His current research interests include the design of corporate ethics programs and the responsibilities of boards for the ethical culture of organizations. Hanson has consulted with more than 125 corporations, nonprofit organizations, health care entitles, and government bodies on the design of ethics programs and the resolution of ethical dilemmas.
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Delegate
Founder & Managing Director, Babban Gona Farm Services, Ltd.,
Babban GonaKola is an award-winning social entrepreneur dedicated to solving Africa's leading social challenge, dramatic rise in insecurity. Kola brings significant leadership experience across four continents and multiple leading companies, including General Electric (GE), Abiomed and Notore. In addition, Kola brings extensive public sector experience as the former Senior Advisor to the Nigerian Minister of Agriculture. Kola is globally recognized as a thought leader in African Agribusiness. In recognition of his leadership in driving positive change on the African Continent, he has received several global awards including the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship and Rainer Fellowship. Kola holds an MBA (Honors) from Harvard and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
Specialties: Impact Investing, Agricultural Development, Smallholder Farmer Development,
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Delegate
Adjunct Professor, Rotman School of Management
Jennifer Riel is Managing Director of Strategy and Innovation for the Martin Prosperity Institute. In her role, Jennifer leads educational initiatives, including writing, designing curriculum and teaching for a variety of audiences. She also has oversight of Rotman I-Think (our elementary and secondary school integrative thinking and design thinking program). Jennifer is also an adjunct professor at the Rotman School, teaching strategy, innovation and integrative thinking. Jennifer has created and led custom workshops with large public and private sector organizations around the world. She collaborates closely with MPI Academic Director Roger Martin on his writing, including The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking (2007), The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the New Competitive Advantage (2009), Fixing the Game: Bubble, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL (2011, Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (with A.G. Lafley, 2013) and Getting Beyond Better (with Sally Osberg, 2015). She has published articles in the Globe and Mail, Businessweek, Strategy Magazine and Rotman Magazine, as well on online at Fortune.com and the Daily Beast. Jennifer received her MBA from the Rotman School of Management in 2006. Prior to joining Rotman, she worked as a project manager and copywriter in the retail and non-profit sectors.
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Speaker
Jim Taylor is the co-founder and chief executive of Proximity Designs – a social business that has created a platform for change across rural Myanmar. The big idea 20 years ago was to treat farmers as customers and design affordable technology and financing so they could escape poverty. After serving over 2 million farm families, and generating +$300 million in new income, the idea still has legs. Jim’s originally from Seattle but has spent the bulk of his career living and working in various parts of the US and in Southeast Asia. He has an MBA and studied economics at Harvard. He currently lives in Chicago.
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Delegate
A practitioner from the very beginning, Jagdeesh’s 37 year professional engagement has been on interrelated issues of poverty and environmental degradation and on ‘systems thinking’ at the interface of ecology, society and economy.
Jagdeesh has been the Chief Executive of Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) since its inception in 2001 till July 2020. Subsequently, he was associated its Promise of Commons initiative since it's inception in 2020 till September 2021 as it's anchor and curator. He was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Omidyar Network India in 2022. Along with a few partners, he is currently designing an ecosystem initiative titled 'Common Ground' to build collaborative action for addressing challenges posed by climate change, loss of economic opportunities and inequalities.
Jagdeesh is a Skoll Awardee, a Henry Arnhold Fellow and a Senior Ashoka Fellow. His areas of interest include Commons, decentralized governance, systems thinking and systems change.
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Speaker
VICE CHAIRMAN, GVK EMRI
G V Sanjay Reddy is the Vice Chairman of GVK (www.gvk.com), a conglomerate with interests
in Energy, Airports, Transportation, Resources, Real Estate, Hospitality and Life Sciences. He was instrumental in making GVK the largest private airport operator in India, by owning, developing and operating the Mumbai and Bengaluru airports, which handle over 50 million passengers per year. He founded GVK Biosciences, which is one of Asia’s largest contract research organizations employing more than 2000 scientists. He is involved with GVK EMRI 108 service (www.emri.in), which is the world’s largest ambulance service offered free of cost to over 800 million people across India and having saved more than one million lives until date. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is an active contributor to the industry and the community through leadership positions at premier forums:
-Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum
-Chairman of the National Committee on Infrastructure at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India’s premier business association
-Chairman of Association of Private Airport Operators (APAO)
-Founder Chairman of Young Indians
-Member, Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) & Chief Executives Organization (CEO)
-Member of the InnovationXchange Committee, Government of Australia
-Trustee of the Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art
-Member of the Capital Committee of the state of Andhra Pradesh
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Delegate
Senior Manager of Philanthropy, Rosewood Family Advisors
Philanthropy professional with grants, finance, and operational expertise across the non-profit, corporate, and foundation sectors. Currently the Senior Manager of Philanthropy at Rosewood Family Advisors.
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Delegate
Ella is a social entrepreneur and global health strategist with more than 20 years of experience in international development. Under her leadership, VisionSpring has corrected the vision of 10 million low-income adults and children and unlocked more than $2 billion in income earning potential at the household level.
Prior to joining VisionSpring, Ella served as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Program Development at AmeriCares, a global health and emergency response organization. While there, she led humanitarian operations and managed access to medicine and other health interventions in ten countries. Ella began her career in international development when conducting research and teaching in Indonesia and coordinating events with government and private sector leaders at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Washington, DC.
Ella regularly speaks about hybrid business models that blend earned revenue with philanthropy and growing a purpose-driven businesses.
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Delegate
Debbie is Co-founder of Proximity Designs, a social business delivering affordable and innovative products for smallholder farms. Proximity designs and delivers innovative and profitable low-carbon farming products and services that help farmers restore fragile soils, protect crops from pest and disease, save irrigation water and grow food in more productive and sustainable ways. Products and services support farmers to transition to regenerative farming practices, while boosting farm incomes by approximately USD 250 annually. Since 2004, Proximity’s products and services have spanned over 10,000 villages in Myanmar, enabling over 5 million people to grow their farm enterprises and afford food, healthcare and education for their families. Aung Din has engaged in design and economic research in Myanmar for over two decades. She is a founding member of the Climate Action for Smallholders (CASH) Coalition.
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Delegate
Global Vice President Women's Economic Empowerment, Coca-Cola Company
As The Coca-Cola Company's Global Vice President for Women's Economic Empowerment, Charlotte is leading the development and implementation of the Company's global strategy in this important area. This includes the ambitious 5by20 initiative to enable the economic empowerment of 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2020.
During her tenure at Coca-Cola, Charlotte has had a series of leading roles in Marketing, Public Affairs & Communications, and General Management. She brings significant worldwide experience to her role having risen through national and international roles in Europe, North America and the Pacific.
Charlotte is a member of the International Leadership Team for Business in the Community, a Fellow of: The Marketing Society, The Institute of Grocery Distribution and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts; a member of the Marketing Group of Great Britain and Women in Advertising and Communications in London. She is listed among Marketing Week’s “Vision 100”, Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business 1000” and “League of Extraordinary Women” and Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World”. Charlotte is a founder member of the Women's Leadership Council of The Coca-Cola Company.
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Speaker
Executive Director, Fundacion Mi Sangre
Catalina an accomplished social entrepreneur and global weaver, is the co-founder and President of Mi Sangre, an organization that facilitates systemic change, engaging all actors of the ecosystem, including schools, NGOs, governments and communities, weaving them together to align visions, encourage collaboration, and empower the next generation to lead the construction of a peace culture. Mi Sangre has impacted more than 2 million young people in Colombia equipping them as co-creators of transformative solutions at the community and policy level. Catalina is also co-founder of the Weaving Lab, a community of weavers learning together how to interconnect people, projects and places to form thriving systems. As founder and CEO of Amichoco, Catalina led the creation of the first social and environmental certification of artisanal gold mining and its replica in more than 10 countries. Catalina as an Ashoka fellow, YGL(WEF) Obama Civic Leader, Synergos fellow.
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Delegate
Advocacy & Campaigns Manager, Crisis Action
Eye-opening experiences in her young days in Thailand and a strong sense of empathy led Anouck to engage in humanitarian work from a young age. In her work with the UN and grassroots NGOs across continents, she's had diverse roles from monitoring and evaluating social developments programmes in rural India, to advocating for the rights of refugees vis-à-vis governments and international donors in Iran and Rwanda.
Since she joined Crisis Action in 2012, Anouck has contributed to impactful campaigns involving diverse coalitions of 100+ NGOs and civil society members to protect civilians from conflict in the Central African Republic, Mali, and Israel- Palestine. She currently co-leads Crisis Action's international campaign on Syria. In this role she helps broker collaboration between Syrian civil society and humanitarian, human rights & conflict prevention organisations to foster conditions to bring the 5-year conflict to an end.
Anouck joins the Forum as part of the Skoll Foundation's Young Leaders' Programme. She is fluent in French and English, and dabbles in Swahili while trying to learn the ukulele.
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Delegate
Chief, Applied Innovation & Acceleration, US Global Development Lab
Over her career, Bonnell has developed and delivered over a billion dollars of humanitarian and development programming in over 25 conflict, post-conflict and emergency countries, in almost every sector from education to stabilization, for more than 30 international bilateral donors, 10 U.N. agencies, the military and the private sector.
She has held positions with every side of development including: implementers, donors, policy makers and beneficiaries. With more than 20 years of experience in management and communications, Bonnell has worked with: Wall Street and “dot.coms,” and on projects such as the Middle East Peace Plan, Afghan and Iraqi elections, tsunami response, Pakistan and Haiti earthquakes, construction projects, and major logistics operations.
After years of working overseas, Bonnell returned to the United States with USAID as the senior adviser on business transformation and knowledge management. She then served as the Chief of Engagement for the Office of Education, where she helped shape the USAID education strategy.
Bonnell was a founding senior member of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID. Most recently, Bonnell served as the Division Chief for Applied Innovation and the Office Director for Engagement and Communications in the Lab. She has supported over 9 Grand Challenges and Prizes, Development Innovation Ventures, many prize, hackathon, and other internal and external innovation approaches. Bonnell was the creator and founder of the Global Innovation Exchange and Global Innovation Week.
Bonnell has been recognized by teams inside USAID, across the Interagency, development and the private sector for actively building coalitions around innovative approaches.
Bonnell believes that first and foremost innovation is "A voracious appetite for excellence" and it is the job of every person to innovate. She is honored to work hand in hand evryday at USAID with some of the most innovative people on earth.
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Speaker
Associate Professor of Management & Organizations, Kellogg School of Management
Adam Waytz is a psychologist and an associate professor of management and organizations in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He uses methods from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience to research topics such as altruism, empathy, dehumanization, anthropomorphism, whistle-blowing, trust, and moral responsibility. He has numerous research articles in leading journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Review and has written popular articles for outlets including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Slate. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University, a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Chicago, and received a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Health to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He is the first person to receive twice the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In 2014, Poets and Quants named him one of the Best 40 Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 and in 2015 he won the early career award from the International Social Cognition Network as well as the SAGE Young Scholar Award.
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Delegate
Senior reporter, Devex
Adva Saldinger is an Associate Editor at Devex, where she covers U.S. foreign aid policy as well as the intersection of business and international development. From development finance to trade and social entrepreneurship to impact investing, Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
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Delegate
Chairman of the Board, Malala Fund
Ziauddin Yousafzai is an educator, human rights campaigner and social activist. He hails from Pakistani’s SWAT Valley where, at great personal risk among grave political violence, he peacefully resisted the Taliban’s efforts to shut down schools and kept open his own school, the Khushal Public School. He also inspired his daughter, Malala Yousafzai, to raise her voice to promote the rights of children to an education.
He is currently the United Nations Special Advisor on Global Education, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Malala Fund, and also the educational attaché to the Pakistani Consulate, Birmingham, UK.
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Speaker
Columnist, Guardian, The
Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams has been a columnist on the Guardian since 2000 - previously, she wrote a column for the London Evening Standard. In her ceaseless endeavour to smash the patriarchy, she contributes to various magazines and news weeklies, including Marie Claire, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Red and Grazia. Broadcasting includes Question Time, the Daily Politics, The Politics Show and Newsnight for the BBC; Dispatches and the Channel Four News for Channel Four; a paper review for Sky News; and appearances on the Today programme, Any Questions, Woman’s Hour, PM and the World Tonight for BBC Radio Four.
She was 2014’s Restaurant Reviewer of the Year, 2013’s Print Journalist of the Year for the Speaking Together Media Awards, 2011's Columnist of the Year at the Workworld awards and is the author of three non-fiction books, Get it Together: Why We Deserve Better Politics, The Madness of Modern Parenting and Bring It On, Baby
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Speaker
Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit that offers farmers around the world a path to prosperity by investing in the agricultural businesses that serve as engines of impact in their communities. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has provided more than $1.7 billion in loans to 770 agricultural businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together, these businesses have bought and marketed crops for 2.4 million smallholder farmers, reaching over 10 million people in rural communities. Willy is a Skoll Entrepreneur and an Ashoka Global Fellow. He served for nearly a decade on the Executive Committee of the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and serves on the Strategic Advisory Council of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. Willy holds an MS in development economics from the London School of Economics and a BA from Yale University.
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Delegate
Tasso Azevedo is a forester and social entrepreneur on forests, climate and sustainability. Tasso is the general coordinator of MapBiomas (land cover and land use change monitoring initiative) and Chair of the Board Conection Forest People initiative. Tasso was founder and general director of IMAFLORA and General Director of the Brazilian Forest Service. He is a visiting scholar of Brazil Lab at Princeton University, an Ashoka Senior Fellow (2021) and Skoll Award Fellow (2022) and board member of Rainforest Alliance, Preferred by Nature and Santander.
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Delegate
Sébastien Marot is Founder and Executive Director of Friends-International, an award winning global social enterprise which supports over 200,000 marginalized children and youth each year. He has led the expansion of the organization into 18 countries across 4 continents, developing best practice programs that provide protection and social reintegration services including access to employment for youth and parents, school reintegration for children and family conservation. Friends-International also established and powers the award-winning ChildSafe Movement that selects, trains, certifies and supports key actors of society to better protect children. It has also developed an international network of over 60 organizations (3PC), working together to develop and coordinate best quality services. To support this expansion, Friends-International utilizes a series of social business models providing training opportunities and financial sustainability.
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Speaker
Executive Director, Freelancers Union
As Freelancers Union's Founder and Executive Director, Sara Horowitz has been helping the new workforce build solutions together for two decades. A MacArthur Foundation "Genius" fellow and Deputy Chair of the Federal Reserve of New York, Sara is a leading voice for the emerging economy. Today, 53 million Americans are independent workers - about one-third of the entire workforce. With a membership of more than 250,000 nationwide, Freelancers Union is building a new form of unionism through creative, cooperative, market-based solutions to today's social challenges.
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Speaker
Vice President, Digital Currency Council
Sarah Martin is the Vice President of the Digital Currency Council, the world’s largest bitcoin and blockchain technology trade group. Sarah’s dedicated to harnessing the power of blockchain technology to reimagine financial empowerment and advance inclusive economic growth. Presently, Sarah sits on the US Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force and speaks worldwide about digital currency and blockchain technology. She has also published about bitcoin in American Banker, VentureBeat, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a contributor at The Street. In 2015, Sarah launched the first Bitcoin Women’s Day to celebrate women’s achievements in the digital currency industry and was later named by SWIFT’s Innotribe as one of 2015’s Power Women in FinTech. Previously, Sarah worked overseas in Asia, Latin America/the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa for the US Department of Defense, United Nations (UN), and US Agency for International Development (USAID). She received Superior Honor Awards from USAID for her work in rebuilding post-earthquake Haiti. Sarah graduated cum laude from Cornell University and has a master’s in international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
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Speaker
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi is the President & Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an organization she founded in 1995 in response to the lack of education and health care that the Afghan people faced after decades of war and strife. Dr. Yacoobi is also the President & Executive Director of Sakena Fund formerly known as Creating Hope International (CHI).
Dr. Yacoobi has established 352 Learning Centers, four schools, a hospital, and a radio/ TV station in Afghanistan and is the recipient of six honorary doctorates including from Princeton University. Each year, Dr. Yacoobi speaks at numerous events, conferences and at institutions such as the UN, Stanford University and Oxford University. Dr. Yacoobi particularly enjoys engaging with youth at schools, inspiring them to be globally minded citizens. Most recently in 2022 in response to the devastating fall of the nation, after the Taliban took over; Girls once again banned from schools, Dr. Yacoobi’s AIL staff with her
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Delegate
Founder, FIGURE80
Graduating from Oxford University in 1983, Sam worked for 17 years in the agrochemicals and commodity trading businesses, with responsibilities across Latin America, Africa and Asia. During this time, Sam took a two-year break to work as a volunteer with street children in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2002, he moved into the development sector with the International Save the Children Alliance, leading the organisational development of its 30 national members. 2006, Sam joined Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), as its first CEO, and became a Skoll Awardee in 2014. In 2015, Sam was appointed Director of the Shell Foundation, which funds the expansion of renewable energy to low-income consumers who have no access to electricity. Recognizing the crucial importance of business in achieving the SDGs, in 2021, Sam co-founded Agile Governance Inc., a B-Corp that helps social enterprises to transform business performance and raise more capital through smart, agile governance.
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Speaker
Institute Director, Martin Prosperity Institute
In 2017, Roger was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers.
Roger Martin serves as the Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management and the Premier’s Chair in Productivity & Competitiveness. From 1998 to 2013, he served as Dean. In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants.
He has published 11 books the most recent of which are Creating Great Choices written with Jennifer Riel (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017) Getting Beyond Better written with Sally Osberg (HBRP, 2015) and Playing to Win written with A.G. Lafley (HBRP, 2013), which won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50. He has written 25 Harvard Business Review articles.
Roger is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego and Verizon.
A Canadian from Wallenstein, Ontario, Roger received his AB from Harvard College, with a concentration in Economics, in 1979 and his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1981.
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Speaker
Chief Executive Officer, Swaniti
Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the CEO for Swaniti Global, a social enterprise that ensures access to basic services for the most vulnerable by strengthening public service ecosystem. As CEO, she focuses on developing long-term growth strategies and formulating key partnerships. Prior to Swaniti, Bhattacharya was working at the World Bank as an Associate on Labor Market Issues. She has worked with firms like UNFPA and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. She has a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor's in Economics and Political Science from Wake Forest University. Bhattacharya is Forbes India's 30 under 30, Fortune 40 under 40 and Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. She has published multiple books, including, "What Makes a Politician" (Harper Collins).
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Delegate
Thirty years of working in sustainability.
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Delegate
Since launching the Fair Trade Certified™ label in 1998, Paul has helped establish Fair Trade as one of the fastest growing segments of the food and apparel industries. To date, Fair Trade USA has partnered with over 1,500 leading companies, including Green Mountain, Nespresso, Whole Foods, Costco, Kroger, and Target. Fair Trade USA now certifies coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, coconut, fresh produce, and seafood. Through groundbreaking partnerships with Patagonia, Athleta, West Elm and J. Crew, Fair Trade has begun certifying apparel and home goods. In 2022, consumer recognition of the Fair Trade Certified label hit 65%. To date, Fair Trade USA and its partners have generated over $1 billion in additional income for farmers and workers in 51 countries, allowing them to care for the environment and steadily improve their livelihoods. Paul has been named Ethical Corporation’s 2019 Business Leader of the Year and is a four-time winner of Fast Company magazine’s Social Capitalist of the Year.
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Delegate
Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world's poorest people. He is Co-founder and Chief Strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad have pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings.
Dr. Farmer holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is the Kolokotrones University Professor and the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; he is also Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. Additionally, Dr. Farmer serves as the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti.
Dr. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Delegate
Founding CEO/Strategic Advisor, GoodWeave
Nina Smith is an award-winning leader and founding Chief Executive Officer of GoodWeave International (GoodWeave), the leading international NGO working to stop child labor in global supply chains. At GoodWeave's helm from 1999 to 2023, Nina pioneered a market-led model that has reduced child labor at scale in select sectors by shining a light on the most vulnerable supply chain workers; stopping abuse; and addressing root causes. A Skoll and Schwab Foundation Awardee, Nina advocates for child and worker rights through her writing, public speaking and the boards she serves, including The Fair Labor Association and the Better Buying Institute. Nina is also winner of the Tufts University Alumni Award for Active Citizenship and Public Service and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement’s EXCEL Award for excellence in chief executive leadership, and is a member of Elluminate’s Women’s Leadership Collective.
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Delegate
CEO, Mercy Corps
Neal Keny-Guyer is a social entrepreneur driven by the belief that a better future is possible.
Since 1994, Neal has served as Chief Executive Officer of the global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps. Under his leadership, Mercy Corps has grown into one of the most respected international relief and development agencies in the world, with ongoing operations in more than 40 countries, a staff of 5,000, and global revenue of over $450 million. Fast Company ranked Mercy Corps one of the most innovative social-change organizations in the world and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls Mercy Corps “a first-rate aid group.”
A native of Tennessee, Neal started his career working with at-risk youth in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. After attending business school, he moved to Thailand to aid Cambodian refugees with CARE and UNICEF.
In 1982, Neal began his tenure with Save the Children, rising to become Director of Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. He designed and implemented high-impact relief and development programs in some of the most war-torn and politically sensitive regions in the world.
Neal holds a B.A. in Public Policy and Religion from Duke University, a master’s degree in Public and Private Management (M.P.P.M.) from Yale University, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Portland State University.
A former trustee of the Yale Corporation, Neal remains very involved with the University, serving on the Yale President’s Council on International Affairs and the Board of Advisers of the Yale School of Management (SOM). Neal is as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Humanitarian System.
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Speaker
Chief Executive Officer and President,
CeresMindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks have grown significantly in size and influence.
As a well-known global thought leader, Lubber has inspired capital market leaders to consider all material financial risks and opportunities—including those related to climate change, water scarcity and nature loss—in decision-making.
She has also received numerous awards and recognitions for her leadership including the ’Champions of the Earth award, the UN's highest environmental honor; the Barron’s Magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential women in U.S. finance every year since 2020; the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network; the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation; and the Nonprofit Times 2022 Power & Influence Top 50.
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Speaker
Assistant Professor, UCSF; CEO & Co-founder, Institute for Applied Neuroscience
Melina is an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Neurology at UC San Francisco, leading the department’s educational neuroscience efforts as Director of Education for Neuroscape, a new center that aims to bridge neuroscience and technology. Melina has spent 15 yrs at the forefront of learning neuroscience, and now applies research to solving real-world problems in education and technology. Education: Melina leads a multi-university National Science Foundation-funded network studying how executive function contributes to academic achievement. She co-founded and is CEO of a nonprofit that arms educators and students with practical tools based on learning science, Institute for Applied Neuroscience (scienceforgood.org). Technology: Melina leads an NIH-funded research program that investigates whether technology use is associated with neurocognitive changes. She co-chaired a 2015 National Academy of Sciences conference on children and technology, and sits on the board of the Institute of Digital Media and Child Development. She also holds an affiliation with Stanford’s Psychology Department and is a MacArthur Scholar. Her work has been highlighted in media outlets such as the New York Times, PBS, and Frontline. Her science outreach work includes serving as Script Supervisor on the Emmy-nominated PBS TV series The Brain with David Eagleman, and as scientific advisor on an award-winning short film about the brain.
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Speaker
Founder & CEO, Mobile Metrix
Melanie is founder and CEO of Mobile Metrix, a market insights and marketing services company serving marginalized communities. Local young adults are employed and trained to collect demographic/consumer data door-to-door in their own neighborhoods using handheld technology. While on these hard-to-reach doorsteps, social benefits are also distributed. Melanie’s experience spans both the private and public sectors: previous to starting Mobile Metrix, she worked in management for J.P. Morgan, International Data Group (IDG) and as an executive for Key Accounts at AT&T. She launched the Global Technology Corps, a “digital Peace Corps,” with the U.S. Department of State and co-created the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS). Melanie is a Return Peace Corps Volunteer from Togo, Africa, a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University and an Echoing Green Fellow, PopTech Fellow, SOCAP Social Entrepreneur, AVINA Partner, Cordes Fellow, YUNUS Social Business, Fast Company Innovation Agent and PBS Newshour Agent for Change. Melanie is also an adjunct professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University and Columbia Business School.
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Delegate
Matthew Forti is the Managing Director of One Acre Fund, now the largest nonprofit social enterprise working exclusively to improve the yields, incomes, and resilience of over 4 million African subsistence farmers. Matt played an instrumental role in One Acre Fund’s founding, helping to raise the seed capital and becoming its inaugural Board Chair. Today Matt coordinates the organization’s global operations, including partnership and business development, corporate finance, monitoring & evaluation, and the organization’s governing boards. Prior, Matt was a Manager at the Bridgespan Group, co-heading its performance measurement practice and working in the global development practice area. Matt received his MBA with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management and BA summa cum laude from Northwestern University. Matt writes extensively on the topic of performance measurement, including through a blog series for Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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Delegate
Mastercard Foundation Scholar in Food Science, Michigan State University
Makafui Borbi is from Ghana, and is pursuing a Master's degree in Food Science. Growing up in Ghana, she realized how much agricultural produce is wasted during bumper harvests. This realization spurred her to seek solutions to this problem. Currently, Makafui is pursuing the feasibility of setting up a food processing factory in her community to process and preserve fresh agricultural produce in order to minimize post-harvest waste. Before coming to MSU in 2014, she was a teaching and research assistant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Together with other teaching assistants, she helped to found Dynamic Research Access Media (DRE-AM) in 2013. DreAM is a registered NGO based in Ghana with the mission of communicating science and technology, and health-related research findings to local communities. DReAM’s major goals are to promote primary prevention of diseases; provide a vehicle through which to communicate science and local research findings to communities; support and promote science and research in Ghana; and to educate local communities on science and technology.
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Speaker
Composer, Pianos for Peace
Hailed by BBC WorldNews as “an acclaimed pianist”, the music of German born, Syrian-American composer and pianist Malek Jandali has been described as “moving and thought provoking” by Bob Stevenson of NPR and “inspiring” by the Huffington Post. His most recent symphony was described by Thomas Ludwig of the LSO as a “new symphonic mastery that was clearly not brought about only by a reaction to contemporary events, but also by sustained contact with the well-springs of polyphonic elegant music.”
Malek’s hit album “Echoes from Ugarit” was recorded in Moscow with The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and released in 2008. It includes original compositions based on the oldest music notation in the world discovered on a clay tablet in the ancient Mediterranean city of Ugarit. His 2012 album “Emessa” has received critical acclaim in major newspapers and is “hauntingly beautiful” according to The Stream AJ America.
Malek was the recipient of the 2011 “Freedom of Expression” award in Los Angeles and was recognized in New York City with the 2012 Arab-American Cultural Achievement Award. He was honored with the 2013 GUSI Peace Prize for his dedication to peace and the humanitarian causes featured in his 2013-2014 world tour “The Voice of the Free Syrian Children”. Malek was the recipient of the 2014 Global Music Humanitarian Award and in 2015, The Carnegie Corporation of New York honored him as a Great Immigrant, joining the ranks of other great American immigrants such as Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Ambassador Samantha Power.
Malek’s compositions not only integrate Middle-Eastern modes into Western classical forms and harmony, they echo UNESCO’s call to preserve and protect the rich cultural heritage of Syria and the Silk Road at a time when it is being eradicated. They range from chamber music to large-scale orchestral works including three symphonies and concertos for violin and piano. His compositions have been performed by numerous leading orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, The Stockholm Solister, and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra. David Firman of the RPO describes Jandali’s music as “gorgeous, haunting, yearning and full of hope, with a pain more personal than that of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff.”
His album “SoHo” was premiered on January 31, 2015 at Carnegie Hall. Featuring The Malek Jandali Trio and his chamber works for piano, oud and cello, “SoHo” is a departure from his previous albums. While it honors the rich heritage of traditional Syrian and Andalusian music and masterpieces of world poetry, it is clearly influenced by the American spirit of creativity and artistic self-expression. From the Silk Road, to Little Syria to SoHo, this album is a continuation of Jandali’s musical journey.
In 2015 Malek released his album “Syrian Symphony” at Carnegie Hall, described by Fanfare Magazine as “a major new addition to the 21st century’s symphonic literature.” American Record Guide hailed the album as having “heart-rending melodies, lush orchestration, clever transitions and creative textures.” The Syrian children were the inspiration for his second symphony, Luminosity, which was premiered on February 6, 2016 by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and released in 2017 on his latest album also featuring “Symphony No. 3, Hiraeth”
His causes go beyond those of humanitarian activism, as he is regularly recognized by and invited to speak to key academic audiences at Harvard University, the Skoll World Form, Duke University, Aspen Ideas Festival and the United Nations headquarters in New York City and the Doha Debates at Georgetown University in Qatar. Malek’s diverse career remains truly international, as he continues to captivate audiences in concerts throughout North America and Europe at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center, Wiener Konzerthaus, Stockholm Konserthuset and the National Auditorium in Madrid with the Queen of Spain in attendance.
Jandali is a magna cum laude graduate of Queens College and received his MBA from The University of North Carolina. In addition to his demanding tour schedule, he is a strong advocate for peace and human rights. He is the founder and CEO of Pianos for Peace, a non-profit organization dedicated to building peace through music and education. He embraces young talent through the Malek Jandali International Youth Piano Competition. Malek makes his home in both New York City and Atlanta, and is a member of The Recording Academy and The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). His music is published by Soul b Music and his albums are available on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon and at Virgin Megastores worldwide.
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Delegate
Executive Chair & Advisor,
CAMFEDLucy joined CAMFED in 1994, shortly after it was founded, and went on to become the CEO. In 2023, Lucy stepped aside as CEO and continues as Executive Advisor, working with the executive and boards to position CAMFED for its next phase of development.
Under Lucy’s leadership, CAMFED was awarded the Hilton Humanitarian Prize and the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, and has been recognized by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD for best practice in taking development innovation to scale. In 2020, Lucy was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Development alongside Angeline Murimirwa, now CAMFED's CEO, for her contribution to gender equality in education. Lucy is a founding member and former Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, a member of the High-Level Steering Group of the Education Commission’s Workforce Initiative, and on the Advisory Board of the Global Education Monitoring Report.
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Speaker
EVP, SYPartners
Lisa joined SYPartners in 1994. She is a member of the executive team and has helped lead the company in various capacities, including several years spent as head of the San Francisco consulting practice, and in her current role leading Marketing and Talent for the company. While consulting at SYPartners, Lisa’s clients included Apple, Deloitte, eBay, HP, IBM, PBS, Starbucks, and Sundance.
Lisa holds a BA in English and poetry from Stanford University and an MA in Fiction Writing from the University of California at Davis.
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Delegate
Chief Encouragement Officer, Wavelength
Liam is a UK based social entrepreneur, impact investor and writer.
He is co-founder and the Chief Encouragement Officer of Wavelength a company with the mission of ‘changing the world for the better through business’.
Liam brings together leaders from a wide range of sectors and industries and his clients, members and partners include Rolls Royce, the BBC, Dyson, Lego, IKEA as well a global range of social businesses including Grameen, Aravind, and many community based organisations engaged in finding solutions to some of our societies toughest problems.
He has helped create and led a dozen social businesses including Fifteen, which, with Jamie Oliver, he grew into a global brand.
He helped create and advises two investment funds: Impact Ventures UK and Ignite (created by energy giant Centrica) which between them are investing £50 million in social innovation.
Liam is the author of There’s No Business Like Social Business (2004) and in November 2014 published The Social Entrepreneur’s A to Z: On Anxiety, Leadership and Getting Enough Sleep which draws together the advice he gives the many young entrepreneurs with whom he engages around the world.
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Delegate
Liliana Madrigal is Co-Founder and Vice-President of ACT, created in 1996 with Dr. Mark J. Plotkin. Her special mandate is providing the vision, strategic direction, and organizational leadership to advance ACT’s mission. Additionally, Liliana oversees ACT’s fundraising and programmatic activities, traveling frequently to South America to meet and work with ACT's local teams and indigenous partners. Previously she led conservation efforts with the Fundacion de Parques Nacionales de Costa Rica, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy. In 2006, Liliana won the Circle of Bridge-Makers Award from the Angeles Arrien Foundation. She and Dr. Plotkin were co-awardees of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008. In 2017, she was awarded a residency fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Liliana lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Dr. Mark J. Plotkin.
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Delegate
Keely Stevenson is an entrepreneur and an investor. She is CEO and Co-founder of Weal Life, a digital health company focused on leveraging mobile technology to make it easier for people to care for each other during times of health crisis, advanced aging or chronic illness. She has served as a board member, mentor and advisor to start-ups and established companies in healthcare, biotech, energy, housing, education and finance around the globe. Previously, she’s built global initiatives, including in her role as CEO of Bamboo Finance USA. Bamboo is one of the world’s first and largest private equity firms focused on balancing social impact and commercial returns ($300M AUM). She’s also led the world’s first online community for social entrepreneurs as an early Skoll Foundation team member. She has worked on five continents. She studied politics at UC Berkeley and received an MBA from Oxford University where she was a Skoll Scholar.
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Speaker
Chief Sustainability Officer, President, Walmart Foundation, McKinsey and Company
Kathleen McLaughlin leads McKinsey’s Social Innovation Practice, which works with clients to develop breakthrough solutions to social challenges. She is also a member of the Retail and Organization Practice leadership teams. She works across the private, public, and non-profit sectors globally, helping improve the performance of institutions and systems (health systems, food systems, economic development) more broadly.
Jens Riese is the co-leader of McKinsey’s Economic Development Practice. Jens has helped governments and development agencies address issues such as climate mitigation, agricultural development, public finance, energy access, emissions control, and deforestation.
Lynn Taliento leads McKinsey’s Social Sector Practice in the Americas. After joining McKinsey in 1999, Lynn co-founded the firm’s first practice dedicated to serving nonprofits. She works exclusively with nonprofits, philanthropies, and private and corporate foundations on strategic planning, organizational design, board governance, and advocacy.
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Delegate
Executive Director, BSP, Aspen Institute
Judy Samuelson created the Aspen Business and Society Program (BSP) in 1998. Aspen BSP respects the power of business to shape the long-term health of society, and works to align business decisions with the public good. It engages leaders and social intrapreneurs -- from MBAs to CEOs -- in dialogue, networks and public programs that put common sense decision-making at the heart of business practice and education.
Before Aspen, Judy led the Ford Foundation's office of Program Related-Investments. She has also been a middle-market banker in New York's garment center for Bankers Trust Company, and a lobbyist and legislative aide in her home state of California, working on health and education issues.
Judy studied Political Science and Art History at UCLA and has a Master's Degree from the Yale School of Management. She is on the Board of the Center for Political Accountability which promotes transparency of political contributions by business, and has held Board positions at ACCION-New York, All Souls Unitarian Church, and Net Impact, where she is Chair Emeritus. Judy was named to the “Good Business New York™ list of Leading Women and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business Behavior. Judy publishes and speaks on the role of corporations in society; she tweets @JudySamuelson and blogs for Huffington Post.
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Delegate
Jordan Kassalow is an eye doctor, social entrepreneur, and author. He is the founder of VisionSpring, the co-founder of EYElliance, and a Partner at Drs. Farkas, Kassalow, Resnick, & Associates. Jordan also founded the Global Health Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-founded Scojo New York. Prior to his position at the Council, he served as Director of the River Blindness Division at Helen Keller International. Jordan is a fellow of Draper Richards Kaplan, Skoll, Ashoka, and is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He was named one of Schwab Foundation’s 2012 Social Entrepreneurs, was the inaugural winner of the John P. McNulty Prize, and was recognized in Forbes Impact 30. VisionSpring has been internationally recognized by the Skoll Foundation, the Aspen Institute, and the World Bank; is a three-time winner of Fast-Company's Social Capitalist Award; and a winner of Duke University’s Enterprising Social Innovation Award. Additionally, he co-authored Dare
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Delegate
John Marks is the founder and Managing Director of Confluence International, an Amsterdam-based NGO that specializes in Track II diplomacy and TV production to promote social change. Until 2014, he was President of Search for Common Ground (SFCG), the world’s largest peacebuilding NGO, which he founded in 1982. SFCG was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. John also founded Common Ground Productions (CGP) and has produced or executive-produced TV series in more than 20 countries. He is a Visiting Scholar in Peacebuilding and Social Entrepreneurship at Leiden University in the Netherlands. With his wife, Susan Collin Marks, he is a Skoll Awardee in Social Entrepreneurship, and, additionally, he is an Ashoka Senior Fellow. A best-selling, award-winning author, he graduated from Cornell University and was a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School. He has an honorary PhD from the UN’s University of Peace in Costa Rica.
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Delegate
CEO & President, Gram Vikas USA
Joe Madiath is the Founder and Chairman of Gram Vikas. Joe has spent over 45 years working in the field of development among the poorest communities in Orissa, India. Drawn to Odisha in 1971 to help communities that had been ravaged by a cyclone and tidal wave, Joe stayed on as an activist focused on sustainable development. Founded in 1979, Gram Vikas utilizes a holistic model of development, based on Joe’s conviction that every family in a village needs to have healthy living practices for an improved quality of life. Gram Vikas works in the areas of renewable energy, especially biogas and solar energy. Totally inclusive water and sanitation is the flagship programme of Gram Vikas. This model has transformed more than 1200 villages and has successfully proven that the rural poor can and will pay for better sanitation and water facilities.
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Delegate
Chairman, Seiler LLP
Jim DeMartini is the Chairman of Seiler LLP. In his role as a trusted advisor, Mr. DeMartini counsels clients in matters including income, estate and gift tax planning, wealth management, all facets of real estate, and charitable gift planning.
Currently, Mr. DeMartini is a member of the Board of Directors of the Skoll Foundation and the Stupski Foundation. Mr. DeMartini was also Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of Sports Association for Youth, a non-competitive baseball league that currently benefits more than 1,000 Bay Area youths annually. Additional past community activities include Notre Dame de Namur University Trustee, Executive Committee Member, and Chairman of the Audit Committee; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of California Advisory Board; Santa Clara University English Advisory Board; Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford Capital Campaign Committee; Stanford University Medical Center Friends of Orthopedics; Chair of the Santa Clara University Men’s Golf Committee; and Skoll Global Threats Fund board member.
From 1999-2004 Mr. DeMartini served on the Board of Directors of Mid-Peninsula Bank, a member of the Greater Bay Bancorp group. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Golden Gate University. Mr. DeMartini pursued graduate studies in taxation and speaks on a variety of related topics. Mr. DeMartini is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and California State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
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Delegate
Co-Founder and Chief Facilitator, Catalyst 2030
Jeroo Billimoria is the founder of several innovative and award-winning NGOs, with over twenty years’ experience running systems change organizations as a Skoll Awardee, and Ashoka and Schwab Fellow. Among her previous organizations are Child and Youth Finance International, Aflatoun International, Childline India and Child Helpline International, which have helped enable the financial inclusion and protection of children and youth in more than 180 countries. Jeroo is now founder of One Family Foundation, which incubates social innovations, helps them scale, and is currently anchoring Catalyst 2030 – a global network working to accelerate progress towards the SDGs through radical and transformative social innovation at the country level.
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Delegate
A former screenwriter and independent filmmaker, Jenny Bowen founded Half the Sky (now OneSky for all children) in 1998 in order to give something back to China, her adopted daughters’ home country, and to the many orphaned children then languishing behind institutional walls. Under her leadership, OneSky has grown into a global NGO; its mission is to train communities and caregivers to provide nurturing care and early education that unlocks the potential in our world’s most vulnerable young children. OneSky now works in Mainland China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Hong Kong.
Among other awards, Jenny has been honored with the Skoll Award, AmCham Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Nonprofit Leader of the Year, and the Purpose Prize. In 2021, she was selected as one of Forbes inaugural 50 Women over 50 who are leading the way in Impact. She is author of the memoir, Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains, published by Harper Collins.
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Speaker
Company Group Chairman Janssen EMEA, Janssen-Cilag Ltd
Jane Griffiths is the first female Company Group Chairman of Janssen in EMEA, the pharmaceutical division of the Johnson & Johnson family. She is responsible for this business across the entire region.
Her personal approach focuses on sustainability, accountability, openness and collaboration, and she is leading Janssen EMEA to live these values. Jane has held a number of senior sales, marketing and research & development positions including International Vice President for Western Europe and South Africa, and Head of Market Access for Janssen EMEA.
She is a sponsor for the Women’s Leadership Initiative in Janssen. Other industry roles include past Chairwoman of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) Executive Committee and past Chairwoman of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Europe Committee.
Jane is a sponsor of the Johnson & Johnson Global Pharmaceuticals Sustainability Council. Jane is also Chair of the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust in EMEA and a Board member.
Completing her PhD in Plant Biochemistry at the University of Aberystwyth, UK in 1982, Jane Griffiths started her Johnson & Johnson career as a sales representative.
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Delegate
As Chief Program Officer for Last Mile Health, James guides programs that strengthen community health systems, upskill the community health workforce, and deliver community-based care and treatment in Liberia, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. He also oversees Last Mile Health’s key influence initiative, Africa Frontline First, which aims to improve the design, durability, and amount of community health financing coming from government, philanthropy, and multi-lateral institutions.
Prior to joining Last Mile Health, James served as a Principal on the Portfolio & Investments Team at the Skoll Foundation and led the Foundation’s relationship with a $40M portfolio of current Skoll Awardees. Before Skoll, James led the Lwala Community Alliance, a health and development organization known for its community approach to increasing child survival, skilled delivery rates, and access to HIV care in rural Kenya.
James has a Master's in International Ed Policy from Vanderbilt University.
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Speaker
Co-Founder, Gaza Sky Geeks / Mercy Corps
Iliana Montauk is the former director of Gaza Sky Geeks, the first startup accelerator in Gaza, launched in 2011 by the global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps. Gaza Sky Geeks fills a critical need in Gaza, where young tech talent is abundant but opportunities are in short supply. Initially, the Mercy Corps program provided technology entrepreneurship training and competitions. Over the last year, the program has ramped up its efforts as a full-blown startup accelerator, bringing in the first private international investment to Gazan startups, and providing valuable mentorship opportunities for startup founders, particularly women.
Montauk’s interest in harnessing tech entrepreneurship for development in conflict areas arose from her past experience at Google, Monitor Group (now part of Deloitte Consulting), a microfinance organization, and Wamda, the TechCrunch of the Middle East.
She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2006 with a degree in history and literature of France and the Middle East and completed a Fulbright in Jordan in 2012 on startups as a type of social innovation. Originally from Poland and the San Francisco Bay Area, Montauk speaks five languages, including Arabic.
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Delegate
Director of Strategy, Capricorn Investment Group
Henry is director of advocacy at Capricorn Investment Group, a firm that invests in iconic technology companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Planet, QuantumScape Joby Aviation and Saildrone. Capricorn was born from the desire to demonstrate the huge investment potential that resides in breakthrough commercial solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and as such is one of the original impact investors. At Capricorn, Henry helps catalyze capital towards the solutions to the climate change crisis.
Prior to Capricorn, Henry was a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Paris, Casablanca and Dubai and with Oliver Wyman in New York. His last year as a consultant was spent with the World Economic Forum where he was in charge of the infrastructure finance initiative, a project aimed at rapidly scaling up essential infrastructure, including renewable energy, in emerging countries. Henry is a former captain in the French Marine Infantry, serving within NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2007. He is a graduate of Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d’Ulm), of Ecole Superieur de Commerce de Paris and of the Saint-Cyr Special Military School (ROTC).
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Delegate
Vice President, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Heather Grady is a Vice President in the San Francisco team of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and leads the practice area of Environment and Climate Change, including a range of funder collaboratives, advisory engagements, and research. She co-founded and leads the Shifting Systems initiative that encourages funders to place longer-term, more adaptive funding with grantee partners to enable them to create systemic impact. She oversees a portfolio of over 40 sponsored projects and advises philanthropists and foundations. Her perspectives and practice have been influenced by two decades living and working in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She previously worked with the Rockefeller Foundation, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, and Oxfam Great Britain. She is on the board of Doc Society, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Wildlife Justice Commission, the Dropbox Foundation and Forum for the Future, and the Advisory Council of Daughters for Earth.
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Delegate
Gene Falk is one of the few people to lead major ventures in both Fortune 500 companies and the non-profit sector. Building on this experience, he founded and heads strategic consulting firm FalkAdvisors|DGB whose mission is to help funders and the not-for-profits they support achieve the best results from their collaborations, avoiding risks and pain points, and sidestepping obstacles that rapidly burn through money, time and other valuable resources.
Previously, Gene headed mothers2mothers (m2m) and was a recipient of a Skoll Award for this work. Prior to that, Gene was a senior executive at Showtime and HBO.
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Speaker
Gary is the CEO and Co-founder of Water.org and WaterEquity, two organizations dedicated to empowering people in the developing world to gain access to safe water and sanitation. Gary developed Water.org’s WaterCredit solution, creating new financing options for poor populations to meet their water supply and sanitation needs. He also developed WaterEquity, an impact investment manager dedicated to ending the global water crisis, with an exclusive focus on mobilizing private investments in water and sanitation throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He is a leading advisor in the water and sanitation space, counseling organizations such as Inditex, Reckitt, Amazon Web Services, the Water Resilience Coalition, and Bank of America on responses to the global water crisis.
Gary holds three degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Missouri University S&T.
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Speaker
Program Director, Mayday Rescue
(AKA: Abo Saleem) is 34 years old and a leading civilian revolutionary activist from Homs, Syria. Farouq was instrumental in the formation of the Homs Revolutionary Council and the Homs Quarters Union. He is a banker by training and his position. He holds a bachelors degree in economics, a diploma in international commerce, a masters degree in banking and finance and a doctorate in business administration. He is the founding director of Emissa organization, a Syrian civil society NGO working in Homs to provide humanitarian aids for people in besieged areas.
Farouq is the Syria Program Manager at Mayday Rescue Foundation, NGO channels support and work closely with to Syria Civil Defense (AKA the White Helmets).
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Delegate
World-class social innovator. Safe housing advocate. Bricklayer. Dr. Elizabeth Hausler is the Founder and CEO of Build Change and a global expert on resilient housing, post-disaster reconstruction, and systems change. Elizabeth’s strategic direction and leadership have grown Build Change from a few employees in 2004 to a global team spread across five continents. She is the recipient of many honors, and in 2011, was named the US Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation. Together with Build Change, she was awarded the 2017 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2018, she received the University of California, Berkeley’s Campanile Excellence in Achievement Award. Elizabeth is also an Ashoka Fellow, a Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow, and an Echoing Green Fellow. Dr. Hausler has headlined top conferences, lectured at eminent universities, and been featured in media outlets including The New York Times, BBC News, Forbes, Elle Magazine, ABC News, and Bloomberg Business.
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Speaker
Eleanor is the CEO of Catapult For Change, PBC. Catapult For Change provides leadership coaching for executives and teams and management consulting services. Eleanor believes that we all have tremendous potential yet sometimes we encounter obstacles that hold us back. She started Catapult For Change to help clients tackle those obstacles using a holistic approach to problem solving and personal growth so each person can grow and reach their potential with grace and joy. This includes supporting clients with personal inner work (developing a practice to promote individual well-being) and professional skill building so they can find their zone of brilliance to succeed and thrive.
Eleanor is the former CEO of B Lab Global and Water For People. She is also a corporate board member, management consultant, technical specialist, and professional engineer. She enjoys ultra/endurance cycling, hiking, cooking, and exploring Colorado and beyond with her husband, two boys, and two dogs.
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Delegate
Assisstant to the Director, Opportunity Youth United
Dorothy Stoneman is the founder and board chair of the first YouthBuild program, started in 1978 and still operating in East Harlem. She created and led YouthBuild USA from 1988 through 2016 to spread this program throughout the nation and internationally with public funds and fidelity to the program philosophy and design. There are now 260 YouthBuild programs in the US and 80 in 21 other countries. Over 200,000 YouthBuild students have built over 35,000 units of affordable housing in their communities while earning their High School Equivalency diploma.
Stoneman is currently the assistant to the director for Opportunity Youth United (www.OYUnited.org) a multi-racial movement of low-income young adults and their allies working to diminish poverty and increase opportunity in America. They have produced a broad policy agenda and organized Community Action Teams in 20 communities.
Stoneman graduated from Harvard University in 1963 and joined the Civil Rights Movement. She lived and worked in Harlem for the next 24 years, in the Public Schools, at the parent-controlled East Harlem Block Schools, and with the Youth Action Program empowering young adults to create community development projects of their own design.
She received the MacArthur “genius” Fellowship, John Gardner Leadership Award, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Harvard Call to Service Award, and the Boston “Woke White Woman” award. In 2018 she contributed to “Healing Our Divided Society,” a book tracking the 50 years since the Kerner Commission Report. This would be a good read for anyone interested in ending poverty and racism in the United States.
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Delegate
CEO, Participant
David Linde is CEO of Participant, the leading media company dedicated to entertainment that stands at the intersection of art and activism. Linde is responsible for leading the company’s strategy, content, impact campaigning, operations, and acquisitions. Participant titles include Oscar winners Spotlight, Green Book, American Factory, CITIZENFOUR, The Cove, An Inconvenient Truth, ROMA and A Fantastic Woman; as well as Contagion, Good Night Good Luck, Flee and in television, Emmy®-winning content such as Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us. Linde’s background spans production, global distribution and building companies from the ground up. He served as chairman of Universal Pictures, co-founder of Focus Features and CEO/owner of Lava Bear Films, where he produced multi-Oscar® nominee Arrival. Linde currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, on the American Film Institute's Board of Trustees and Film Independent's Board Of Directors.
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Delegate
Partner, Working Capital Fund
As Partner in the Working Capital Fund, Dan engages and supports entrepreneurs in pursuit of innovative tools to scale improvements for marginalized workers in global supply chains. He is an award-winning social entrepreneur and leader in supply chain innovation, having led Verite for fifteen years. He began his career in China where he established two international NGOs. Dan is a graduate of Yale University, has an MA from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a certificate in Chinese from Nanjing Teacher’s University.
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Delegate
President and Chief Executive Officer,
LandesaChris Jochnick is a global land rights expert and social entrepreneur with decades of experience in international development. Chris joined Landesa as CEO in August 2015 after leading Oxfam America’s work on corporate advocacy, including the successful “Behind the Brands” campaign. Jochnick is the co-founder and former director of two pioneering non-profit organizations: Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Ecuador-based Centros De Derechos Economicos y Sociales. Jochnick has taught human rights courses at Columbia, Harvard, American University and the University of Melbourne. He is a former fellow of the Echoing Green and MacArthur foundations.
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Delegate
Charmian Gooch jointly led Global Witness's first campaign, exposing the trade in timber between the Khmer Rouge and Thai logging companies and their political and military backers. Subsequently, Charmian developed and launched Global Witness’s ground-breaking campaign to combat ‘blood diamonds’; Global Witness was nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize as a result of this work.
In 2014 Charmian was awarded the TED Prize, given to an ‘extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change’. In the same year, Charmian along with Global Witness co-founders Patrick Alley and Simon Taylor, received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, awarded to ‘transformative leaders who are disrupting the status quo’. She was also named one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business and is a Young Global Leader Alumni.
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Delegate
Director, AVINA Americas, AVINA Americas
Chair, Social Progress Imperative.
Director, AVINA Foundation
Director and former Chair and President, INCAE Business School
Director, Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress
Doctor in Business Administration, Harvard University
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Delegate
CEO (Aman Networks), Aman Foundation
Seven years ago, in 2008, Ahsan Jamil joined Arif and Fayeeza Naqvi on an inspirational journey of adventure, exploration and hope, called the Aman Foundation. The Aman Foundation is a not-for-profit business that aims to achieve impact through the relentless pursuit of sustainable, scalable and systemic development in areas of health and education. As its first CEO and one of the founding trustees, Ahsan helped to build this not-for-profit business from the ground up, successfully navigating early stage risks and building the Aman brand to represent quality & trust.
After nearly seven years as CEO of The Aman Foundation, Ahsan Jamil has recently moved into an international role to lead “Aman Networks”. The objective of the initiative is to build an international stakeholder engagement system and partnerships framework, and to enhance the resource mobilization capabilities of Aman Foundation to reach core segments globally to sustainably scale Aman’s two verticals, AmanHealth & AmanTech.
Ahsan has a degree in Mathematics and Economics from Reed College, USA. He started his career at E. F. Hutton on Wall Street, then Chase Manhattan Bank in Karachi, before spending four years in brand management and sales at Unilever, Pakistan. Then in 1991, Ahsan went down the entrepreneurial track and co-founded Ecopack Limited, a PET bottle manufacturing business that became a market leader and the primary supplier to both Pepsi and Coca-Cola in Pakistan. During his 17 years at Ecopack, phenomenal growth in the business was achieved and he successfully helped take the company public.
He chairs the boards of AmanHealth, AmanTech and is on the Advisory board of Acumen Pakistan.
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Delegate
Technical Director, Cylance
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Delegate
Consultant/Advisor/Collaborator,
WITNESSYvette ("YAT") works as a consultant, advisor, and board member to help strengthen mission-driven organizations and social entrepreneurs. I combine my learnings as the former Executive Director of WITNESS.org with my experience in global for profit companies and tech start-ups; and my ongoing work in activist' communities of practice.
My passion is to coach and support teams in areas of: governance; ethics; strategy; global organizational design; board development; multi-stakeholder partnerships; community-driven partnerships; leadership transitions; building sustainable structures and practices; fostering cohesive, resilient teams and thriving organizational cultures.
Ask me about:
* managing risk in a rapidly transforming world
* ethically and effectively responding to recent trends in human rights & new technologies
* fostering healthy organizational design & remote global teams in the digital age
* leading with care to support sustainable practices & wellbeing for teams
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Business Fights Poverty
Zahid has over 25 years’ experience in business and international development, and is passionate about helping businesses collaborate with others to scale their social impact. Over his career he has helped create nearly 20 networks and communities that bring people together for social impact.
Zahid is the Founder and CEO of Business Fights Poverty, a Founding UK B Corp.
Business Fights Poverty has grown into a global community of people and organisations passionate about building an equitable and resilient future.
By curating purposeful collaboration, Business Fights Poverty helps companies and their partners access the insights and relationships they need to unlock new opportunities for business and social impact.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Whit and Wisdom
Whitney Smith brings her over 25 years of experience in the leadership of innovative and progressive projects and organizations to her work as a consultant.
Whitney is also the visionary Founder of Girls For A Change and scaled the organization from 10 girls in the US to over 20,000 girls globally during her 13-year tenure as CEO.
Whit And Wisdom is a boutique consultancy that is completely head over heels in love with corporations, social ventures and individuals who are out to make our world a better place.
Whit and Wisdom specializes in strategy, facilitation, project management, negotiation and problem solving.
We work with corporations to develop and implement CSR strategy, pro-social marketing campaigns and philanthropic endeavors.
We advise companies and entrepreneurs on product development, finance strategy, business and partnership strategy, brand, and culture when the goal is meeting a double bottom line.
We partner with foundations, high net-worth individuals and families to develop giving strategy and implement high leverage philanthropy.
We assist high performing social ventures and social entrepreneurs to design strategy, achieve scale and generate revenue.
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Delegate
Development Manager,
KivaValerie is originally from Haiti and responsible for managing corporate and foundation partnerships for Kiva. Prior to joining Kiva, Valerie managed corporate partnerships for the Pan American Development Foundation in Latin America for three years where she developed regional multi-sector alliances. In 2008, Valerie was a Kennedy Fellow with the Haitian American Organization for Women where she focused on youth entrepreneurship and arts education. Valerie holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Stanford and a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.
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Delegate
Founder & CEO, Institute for OneWorld Health
Victoria Hale, PhD, is a pharmaceutical scientist/executive and global health social entrepreneur, and is Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Sacredmedicines.earth which is developing Ayahuasca Tea for psychiatric disorders. She was founder & CEO of two successful nonprofit pharmaceutical companies, OneWorld Health (2000; tropical infectious diseases) and Medicines360 (2009; contraception). OneWorld Health was the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the US. She is a MacArthur Fellow, was inducted into the US National Academy of Medicine, has been recognized as an outstanding global social entrepreneur by Skoll, Ashoka and Schwab Foundations. Her drug development experience was obtained at the FDA and Genentech, Inc. She earned her PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Univ California San Francisco (UCSF) where she is presently Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering and Experimental Sciences. Dr Hale is a member of the MAPS Board of Directors. Victoria lives in San Francisco, CA. https://www.sacredmedicines.earth/
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Delegate
Senior Advisor, Global Development Incubator
Tom is a Senior Advisor at GDI, where he works directly with rural enterprise development efforts. Tom focuses on GDI’s incubated initiatives in this space: ISF Advisors, Aceli Africa, the Rural & Agricultural Finance Learning Lab, and the Council on Smallholder Finance (CSAF). This includes the development and application of products and services for small agricultural enterprises, including finance, digital technology, and education. His efforts aim to make the economics of environmentally sound, community-led rural enterprise development sustainable.
Previously, Tom was a Partner at Dalberg Advisors where he led a strategy consulting portfolio that included efforts such as comprehensive investment/market entry analyses of global and regional commodity markets; the development of public-private partnerships across a host of those markets; the commercialization of agriculture technologies; and the design of innovative financing mechanisms in frontier markets. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Aceli Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya, and EarthEnable, based in Kigali, Rwanda. Tom holds an MBA from Yale School of Management and a BA in government from the University of Notre Dame.
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Speaker
CEO, IDEO LLC
Tim Brown is chair of IDEO. He frequently speaks about the value of design thinking, creative leadership, and innovation to business leaders and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks Serious Play and Change by Design appear on TED.com.
An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.
Tim advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies. He serves on the Board of Directors of Steelcase Inc. and is member of the board of trustees of IDEO.org. In addition, he is a member of the Board of Advisors for the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and writes for the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and other prominent publications. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by Harper Business in September 2009, and revised and updated in 2019. Tim holds honorary doctorates from The Royal College of Art (London), Keio University (Tokyo), Claremont McKenna Graduate University (Los Angeles), and Art Center College of Art and Design (Los Angeles).
Tim contributes as one of LinkedIn's original top 150 Influencers. He is also an instructor for the IDEO U Leading for Creativity course.
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Delegate
Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors, Chandler Foundation
Tim Hanstad is the Vice-Chair of the Chandler Foundation’s Board of Directors, where he served as CEO for five years. Prior to this, Tim co-founded and was the long-time CEO of Landesa, the world’s leading land-rights organization. He led its growth from a two-person team to a leading global NGO with more than 20 offices around the world. He launched Landesa’s programs in China, the former Soviet Union, and India, where he lived for many years and currently resides.
Tim is a Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardee and a WEF Outstanding Social Entrepreneur. He has authored books and book chapters on economic and social development. He holds two law degrees from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University. He has completed certificate programs at Harvard. However, his greatest learning has come from spending time with those on the socioeconomic margins in more than 20 countries.
Tim is the proud spouse of Chitra and father to four adult children.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Resource Media
Teresa is Managing Director and leads Resource Media's work with philanthropies, nonprofits and agencies that are dedicated to social impact, public health and social justice. She has a Master’s in Public Administration from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. She serves on the Board of Directors of EarthCorps, on the Advisory Board of the Max Foundation, and teaches an annual nonprofit communications course at the University of Washington.
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Delegate
Dean, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
Teri Schwartz is the Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT) where she has launched an exciting new vision and long-range plan that re-imagines entertainment and performing arts education as an interdisciplinary enterprise grounded in humanistic storytelling, social impact, technology and innovation and global diversity.
Prior to becoming Dean at UCLA TFT, she successfully served as the founding dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television. Schwartz is an award-winning feature film producer, whose many films garnered nominations for Academy, Emmy, Golden Globe, Grammy and MTV awards. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America; Directors Guild of America; Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and serves on the Television Academy Foundation’s Board of Directors; The Hawn Foundation Board of Directors; the Geffen Playhouse Board of Directors; the UCLA TFT/UCA Storytelling Institute in Cannes Executive Board; the Los Angeles Theater Alliance Board of Governors; the NAACP Entertainment Industry Advisory Board; the Governing Council of the Los Angeles-India Film Council; and the Board of Trustees of the Swarovski Foundation. Dean Schwartz was just appointed by the University of California’s Board of Regents to the California State Summer School for the Arts Board of Trustees.
Schwartz received the 2018 UCLA Community School Bruin Partnership Award for Service and Distinction; the 2015 recipient of the CayFilm International Film Festival’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Film Producing; the 2013 American Spirit Award from the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors for her Special Achievement in Educating New Filmmakers; and Variety’s 2012 Media Mentor of the Year.
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Speaker
Tabitha Jackson was appointed Director of the Documentary Film Program (DFP) at Sundance Institute in late 2013. The DFP is dedicated to supporting nonfiction filmmakers worldwide in the production of cinematic documentaries that tell compelling stories, push the boundaries of the form, or address contemporary issues including social justice and human rights. In supporting such work, the DFP encourages the diverse exchange of ideas by artists as a critical pathway to developing an open society. Recently supported films have included Cameraperson, Hooligan Sparrow, Whose Streets?, The Look of Silence, I Am Not Your Negro, and CITIZENFOUR.
With almost 25 years experience in the field, Jackson is an award-winning Commissioning Editor, director, and producer of non-fiction work. Prior to joining Sundance she most recently served as Head of Arts and Performance at Channel 4 Television in London, where she supported and championed the independent and alternative voice and sought to find fresh and innovative ways of storytelling. She also executive produced a number of projects for Film 4 including Mark Cousins’ cinematic odyssey The Story of Film, Clio Barnard’s hybrid The Arbor, Sophie Fiennes’ essay The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Bart Layton’s thriller The Imposter, and Iain and Jane’s recent Sundance-winning Nick Cave biography 20,000 Days on Earth.
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Speaker
Dr Taddy Blecher is CEO of the Maharishi Invincibility Institute and the Imvula Empowerment Trust, CEO of the Community and Individual Development Association, and Chairperson of the SA National Government team on Entrepreneurship, Education, & Employability.
He is a pioneer of the free tertiary education movement in South Africa, helping to create six free access institutions of higher learning as well as co-founding the Branson School of Entrepreneurship with Sir Richard Branson. As a result, over 21,000 unemployed South Africans have been educated, found employment, and moved from unemployment into the middle-class.
As a qualified actuary and management consultant, Dr Blecher is passionate about the approach of Consciousness-Based Education, a system of education developing the full potential of every student. This has led the Maharishi Institute to winning multiple prizes including the first prize in a global competition for the most innovative education initiative in the world
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Delegate
Senior Director, Innovation & Sight Program, Seva Foundation
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Delegate
Program Manager, Big Bang Philanthropy
Sylvia Hacaj combines her passions for coaching and connecting in service to the greater good as a strategic collaborator to organizations and individuals. She manages the collaboration of Big Bang Philanthropy, a group of like-minded funders working together to find and finance great organizations tackling the most pressing problems of the poor. She served as a thought partner and session leader for the 2016 Skoll World Forum. She is a member of the advisory board of Dream to Learn, an early stage social learning platform.
Prior to launching her consultancy, Sylvia served as Vice President of Programs for the Global Philanthropy Forum, overseeing its annual conferences from 2011-2014. She worked on policy, advocacy and fundraising for Save the Children US and as a senior vice-president at M&R Strategic Services, managing issue campaigns for a variety of clients including Oxfam America, World Wildlife Fund, and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Sylvia began her career as legislative analyst for the US House of Representatives and is proud to have been part of the team that worked on legislation establishing the AmeriCorps national service program. She later served as Deputy Director of Government Relations and White House Liaison for the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Sylvia received her BA from The American University, Washington DC where she graduated magna cum laude from the School of International Service. She is also certified in strategic intervention coaching and will obtain a certificate in Applied Positive Psychology from San Francisco State University in May 2016.
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Delegate
Susan Collin Marks, Peace Ambassador for Search for Common Ground, an internationally renowned peacemaker and peacebuilder, has worked in some of the most conflictual places on the planet, mediating, facilitating dialogue, and establishing supporting peace initiatives. In recent years, she focused on counsellin and supporting high level political, institutional and civil society leaders worldwide, including cabinet ministers, military generals, and members of the US Congress. In September 2014, she stepped aside after 20 years as vice president of what grew into the largest peacebuilding NGO in the world, and moved from Washington DC to Europe.
Search for Common Ground was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. Susan has numerous awards and honors.
Susan writes, speaks, counsels, teaches, and supports peace initiatives internationally. She holds a vision of a world of peace and dignity. She believes that our common humanity binds us together more than our differences divide us.
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Delegate
Director, The Marshall Institute, London School of Economics
Stephan Chambers is the inaugural director of the Marshall Institute at LSE and Director of the 100x Impact Accelerator. He serves on the steering groups for the Just Transition Finance Lab and the LSE Grantham Research Institute. At LSE he also sits on the governing board for the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and is Professor in Practice at the Department of Management and Course Director for the Executive Masters in Social Business and Entrepreneurship. Before joining the Marshall Institute Stephan Chambers was the Co-Founder of the Skoll World Forum. From 2000 to 2014 he directed the University of Oxford’s MBA and was the founding Director of Oxford University's Executive MBA programme.
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Delegate
CEO & Co-Founder, Yunus Social Business Funds gGmbH
A leader in the social business movement, Saskia co-founded Yunus Social Business (YSB) together with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. YSB Funds invests in social businesses in developing countries with affordable financing and growth support. Their portfolio of social businesses provides employment, education, healthcare, safe water and clean energy to over 13 million people worldwide. YSB Corporate Innovation partners with established corporations to help them use their core competencies to address social problems.
Together with the World Economic Forum she co-initiated the COVID Alliance for social entrepreneurs spanning almost 60 leading impact-first organizations and networks. Saskia was appointed to the EU Commission’s expert group on social business and has advised on Ban Ki-Moon’s UN MDG Advocacy Group as well as Richard Branson’s B-team. She has lectured at several universities and events, including the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. She co-authored a report with the Boston Consulting Group on the experiences of building large-scale social business joint ventures with corporations.
Prior to YSB, Saskia was the Co-CEO of the Grameen Creative Lab and a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Munich and New York. She holds an MBA from the European Business School in Germany and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Saskia holds a German and Canadian citizenship.
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Delegate
Shamil is privileged to lead the largest non-governmental peacebuilding organization in the world. Believing that the most enduring change is that which makes allies of adversaries and that translates conflict into cooperation, he is honored to count among his colleagues over 800 frontline peacebuilders in more than 30 countries who drive such transformative change in some of the most challenging conflict contexts in the world.
Prior to his current role Shamil served as CEO of Soliya where he led a public-private sector coalition that capitalized the field of virtual exchange. Previously he was appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to serve as staff director of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, a project intended to improve relations between Western and Muslim-majority countries.
Idriss was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and won the Open Society Foundation’s 2015 New Executive Award. He lives with his wife and two teenage children in Washington, DC.
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Delegate
Independent, Individual
Sandy Herz is an established philanthropic leader, strategist and storytelling evangelist. Most recently, Sandy served as President of Sobrato Philanthropies, leading an ambitious growth strategy for a multigenerational Giving Pledge family, supporting their individual philanthropy and expanding their collective philanthropy from local place-based giving to include global initiatives such as climate change. Previously at the Skoll Foundation, she led Skoll’s early Connect & Celebrate programs, including the Skoll World Forum, before diving deep into storytelling, curating Skoll’s award-winning film, media, and publishing portfolio and developing a multisector network strategy leveraging partnerships to attract resources and amplify the impact of Skoll entrepreneurs.
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Delegate
Professional, Global Innovation Fund
Russell Siegelman has spent over twenty years in business and technology as a manager, investor and director. Currently he is splitting his time between teaching, angel investing, and non-profit activities.
As a Lecturer at Stanford Business School he teaches Startup Garage, Product Launch, and Starting and Growing a Social Venture. Russell is a mentor and adviser to many GSB and other entrepreneurs.
In the non-profit area, he is the Chairman of the Board of the Global Innovation Fund, Chairman of the Board of Sustainable Conservation, a member of the USAID Development Lab Advisory Committee, and an active donor to the Jamal Poverty Action Lab at MIT. Previously he has been a board member at Innovations for Poverty Action, a Trustee of the Nueva School, and a board member at the Lucille Packard Foundation for Children’s Health.
Russell has made personal investments in over forty technology start-ups.
Starting in 1996, Russell spent eleven years as a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he invested in consumer and technology related technologies and markets, including software, electronic commerce, Web services, semiconductors, mobile systems, media and telecommunications.
Russell joined KPCB after seven years at Microsoft. At Microsoft he helped launch several networking and Windows products. Later he worked directly for Bill Gates, resulting in the formation the Microsoft Network (MSN), Microsoft's online service. He also oversaw the formation of the new web site Slate.
He earned his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Physics in 1984 and an MBA from Harvard University where he was a Baker Scholar in 1989.
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Delegate
As the first President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, Sally Osberg partnered with Jeff Skoll to build it into the leading philanthropy in the field of social entrepreneurship. During her tenure, the Foundation supported more than 100 entrepreneurial organizations driving equilibrium change on many of the world’s most pressing problems and developed innovative platforms for connecting civil society, government and private sector leaders with societal problem solvers. Among these platforms are the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, the Skoll Centre at Oxford University’s Said Business School, and the Sundance Institute’s “Stories of Change” initiative.
In 2015, Sally and Roger Martin published Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works, which articulates a theoretical framework for social entrepreneurship and distills lessons for practitioners, academics and impact investors. Her thought pieces have appeared in leading social impact and business journals and books; in 2015, she and Roger Martin were honored by Thinkers 50 for their intellectual leadership in the field of social enterprise.
Prior to joining Jeff Skoll and the Skoll Foundation, Sally served as the founding Executive Director for Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, a pioneering institution in the field.
Sally currently serves as the Chair of the Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education in Africa) USA Foundation, on the Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Royal Bank of Canada, on the Advisory Council of the Elders, as Vice Chair of the Social Progress Imperative and as a board director for New America and the Palestine-based Partners for Sustainable Development. She is also an Associate Fellow of the Said Business School of Oxford University.
She received her M.A. in English and American Literature from the Claremont Graduate School and her B.A. in English from Scripps College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
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Speaker
Co-Founder, Waterman Aylsworth - Centers for Creative Entrepreneurship
Ron Schultz is the founder of Creating Good Work Media and the producer and co-host of Creating Good Work, Live, an Internet-based TV series about to begin its fourth season. Ron has written, co-written and edited 25 published books on social innovation, emergence, and entrepreneurship. In 2014, he received the Social Innovation Leadership Award from the World CSR Congress. His books include: Creating Good Work – The World’s Leading Social Entrepreneurs Show How to Build a Healthy Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) featuring chapters from the world’s leading social entrepreneurs; The Complex Buddhist – Doing Good in a Challenging World, (Emergent Publications 2015); The Mindful Corporation: Liberating the Human Spirit at Work, (with Paul Nakai) (Leadership Press, 2000); and Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation through Complexity, (with Howard Sherman) (Perseus Books, 1998).
Ron is also the co-founder of Waterman Aylsworth, LLC and Entrepreneurs4Change, both organizations that combine mindfulness, social innovation and entrepreneurship.
Ron has spoken and lectured at: The Skoll World Forum, The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, the World CSR Congress, the Social Enterprise World Forum, the Oxford Jam and numerous Social Enterprise Alliance Summits. The universities at which he has spoken include: Trinity College, Dublin, Oxford University, MIT, UCLA, Adelphi University, and the Academy of Management’s National Conference.
His current column, Adjacent Opportunities appears in the Journal, Emergence: Complexity and Organization.
Ron has also an extensive career in television and film, with dozens of TV credits that include one of the finest movies of the week produced to date, as well as internationally renowned children’s television programs that are still playing around the world.
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Speaker
Richard Fahey served as Chief Operating Officer of the Skoll Foundation from 2004 to 2021, where he contributed to the fulfillment of the Foundation’s mission to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. Richard now serves as Special Advisor to the Foundation.
As COO, Richard led the Skoll Foundation’s finance, impact measurement, technology, and other business management functions. He was the key executive staff interface between the Investment Committee and the Capricorn Investment Group which manages the Foundation’s endowment. Richard worked closely with the Foundation’s investment manager to align the Foundation’s investment capital with its mission.
Prior to joining Skoll, Richard spent nearly 25 years with the Hewlett-Packard Company in a variety of senior operations, infrastructure, finance policy, and controller positions. He earned his B.A. at Georgetown University in Economics and History, and his M.B.A at the University of Chicago.
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Delegate
“Rick” Perez oversees a portfolio of Sundance Institute strategic partnerships focused on the convergence of nonfiction filmmaking, innovative thought leadership, and themes vital to contemporary societies. These initiatives include Stories of Change, a Sundance Institute partnership with the Skoll Foundation that harnesses the power of storytelling to advance the work of leading social entrepreneurs. Mr. Perez is also a senior reviewer for the Sundance Documentary Film Fund; frequently participates as a speaker, panelist and moderator at domestic and international events focusing on non-fiction filmmaking; leads workshops on documentary storytelling; and nurtures filmmakers throughout the world, including artists traditionally underrepresented in the field of non-fiction cinema.
In addition to his work at Sundance Institute, Mr. Perez executive produced and directed the feature documentary, Cesar’s Last Fast, a film about the spiritual commitment of American civil rights and labor leader Cesar E. Chavez that premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Prior to joining the Sundance staff, Mr. Perez was an executive producer at Brave New Films where he produced two documentary series and directed a third. Richard Ray Perez holds a bachelor of arts degree in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University.
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Delegate
Senior Advisor, Energy and Environment Program, Aspen Institute
Randall Kempner is Senior Advisor to the Aspen Institute’s Energy and Environment Program. His primary focus areas are climate investing, climate philanthropy and the intersection of climate change and economic development. He recently served as the CEO of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, a Texas-based grantmaking foundation that seeks innovative, sustainable solutions for environmental problems. For the previous eleven years, Randall worked as a VP of the Aspen Institute and the founding executive director of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), a global network of nearly 300 organizations that propel entrepreneurship in emerging markets. He presently serves on the advisory boards of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Center for Global Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Chair of the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, a family foundation focused on his hometown of Galveston, Texas.
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Delegate
Director, Ethicore
Rachael Clay founded the Impact Agency, Ethicore, in 2008 to strengthen the social and environmental impact of business, NGOs, funders, institutions and their movements and partnerships. Her focus is on understanding the impact agenda, developing strategies for impact and bringing stakeholders together to create transformational change. She delivers through Ethicore and her pro-bono work. As an impact innovator, Rachael has twenty five years' experience of insight, engagement, strategy, and partnerships to influence social change. She worked for Oxfam for a decade and prior to that in the public and private sectors. Her increasing focus is on finance for impact.
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Delegate
Impact Banker, Individual
Philip is an Impact Banker and Senior Risk Officer who works, to scale mission driven organisations, to achieve positive sustainable outcomes.
With over 40 years’ global experience within Citigroup across multiple divisions and functions, including Risk, Country Head, Business and staff positions in the US, Europe, Sri Lanka, Channel Islands and Audit and Risk Review for EMEA, he has a wealth of experience of many different facets of banking.
Recently retired he was a founding member and Managing Director Risk of Citi Inclusive Finance Group. Here he enabled Citi’s global businesses to commercially engage in inclusive finance (including Inclusive Fintech). This resulted in more than $4 billion in financing for microfinance and inclusive businesses.
Before moving to Citi Inclusive Finance, he was Citi’s Risk Director for Project Finance and Structured Trade Finance within EMEA.
Current external roles include the Governing Council of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, Emeritus member of the Advisory Council of the Centre for Financial Inclusion, the Investment Committee of the Habitat for Humanity MicroBuild Fund, Chair of the Credit Committee of Root Capital and the Finance Audit & Risk and the Finance & Risk and the Lending Committee of Big Issue Invest.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & President,
KivaPremal helps lead Kiva.org —a crowdfunding website that connects people through lending to alleviate poverty. Since 2005, over $1B in philanthropic loans has been crowdfunded to millions of underserved entrepreneurs in 90 countries — with a 96% repayment rate. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favorite Things and a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine. Premal's inspiration came while volunteering in India while on leave from PayPal, where he had been an early employee. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University. He’s passionate about making it easier for anyone to discover their own power to make real impact. He serves on the Board of VolunteerMatch.org & Watsi.org — a crowdfunding for developing world health care site. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list.
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Delegate
Founder and Principal (2011-2016), The Hero Group
Most recently, Peter Hero was the Founder and Principal of The Hero Group, a global organizational development firm with a focus on social impact investing, strategy, Board development, branding, and asset development. Prior to that, Peter was Vice President of External Relations at Caltech. He had more than 30 years in nonprofit management, serving as President of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation for 15 years. Peter had also served as President of the Maine College of Art; held several senior Federal government posts; and for several years was a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate Business School's Center for Social Innovation. He was a founding Board Member of the Skoll Foundation and the Entrepreneurs Foundation. He had served on the Boards of Sesame Workshop, The Council on Foundations, The Western States Arts Foundation, and PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). His book, "Local Mission, Global Vision, Community Foundations in the 21st Century" was published by The Foundation Center and translated into four languages. Peter held an MA from Williams College and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He passed away on August 21, 2016, with his wife and children by his side.
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Delegate
Peter Moores Dean; Dean of Said Business School, Saïd Business School
Professor Peter Tufano has served as the Peter Moores Dean at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford since July 2011. His work focuses on financial innovation, especially that which improves lives of low-income families. This work is reflected in his research; the social enterprise he founded to support wealth-building by the American families (buildcommonwealth.org); and policy engagements credited with influencing US policy, including the U.S. American Savings Promotion Act. As Dean, he has emphasized the role of business education in addressing the major challenges of the world through deeper connections with the broader university and a clearer articulation of purpose. At Oxford, this orientation has manifested itself in the Oxford 1+1 MBA Programme; the “Global Opportunities & Threats: Oxford” required course that emphasizes systems interventions and leadership; a set of new entrepreneurial projects including the pan-University The Oxford Foundry and the global partnership with Creative Destruction Lab; the promotion of humanities in the leadership curriculum; and the promotion of a responsible business agenda oriented around the UN SDGs. Before joining Oxford, Tufano spent 33 years at Harvard, with more than two decades on the faculty of Harvard Business School, where he co-founded the Harvard University Innovation Lab (i-Lab).
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Delegate
CEO and President, International Center for Research on Women
Peggy Clark is President and CEO of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), the leading women’s research organization in the world. Throughout her career Peggy has worked to tackle and address gender inequality, including women’s economic security, health, and well-being. She is currently leading a major restructure of ICRW to build a global network of Gender Centers of Excellence to support the next generation of expertise and solutions to build a more gender equal world. Prior to ICRW, Peggy was the Executive Director of the Aspen Global Innovators Group, Executive Vice President of the Aspen Institute, Managing Director of Realizing Rights, Chair of the Women’s Policy Group and Program Officer, Ford Foundation, and Director of Small-Scale Enterprise and Credit at Save the Children. Peggy is Chair, African Leaders Malaria Alliance ;Vice Chair, Ashesi University Ghana; Board Emeritus, Calvert Impact Capital; Board Member Last Mile Health.
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Delegate
Patrick is one of the three founders of Global Witness. Founded in 1993 Global Witness has become one of the world’s leading investigative organisations dedicated to rooting out corruption and environmental and human rights abuses around the world, with Patrick taking part in over fifty field investigations in South East Asia, Africa and Europe.
Taking the findings to lawmakers and into the boardrooms of multinational companies Patrick and his colleagues have challenged the assumption that you can’t change things. Global Witness now has major focus on tackling the climate crisis.
Patrick is the author of Very Bad People, published in 2022, which charts some of Global Witness’ key investigations.
Alongside his two co-founders Patrick received the 2014 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the same year that Global Witness won the TED Prize. Global Witness was nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for their work exposing the murderous trade in blood diamonds.
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Delegate
Chief Community Officer, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship
Pamela Roussos is Chief Community Officer, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. She is responsible for developing and furthering strategic relationships, partnerships and alliances that span Miller Center’s global footprint. Previously, she spent 20 years building and leading venture-backed software companies. Pamela began mentoring social entrepreneurs in 2010 and has been dedicated to and inspired by them ever since. She is a sought-after speaker for her expertise in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, global accelerators and place-based initiatives designed to spur economic growth in under-developed communities in the US and around the world.
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Speaker
Co-Founder/Editorial Director TEDWomen; Managing Partner, Connected Women Leaders, Pat Mitchell Media
Throughout her career as an award-winning journalist, producer and media executive, Pat Mitchell broke new ground for women as the first woman President of PBS and of CNN Productions. Today, Pat is a co-founder, host and curator for TEDWomen and co-founder and managing partner of ConnectedWomenLeaders, a cohort of global women leaders, across generations and geography, who are launching a global, women-led campaign for climate justice titled Project Dandelion. She is Chair Emeritus of the Sundance Institute
and just received the Vanguard Award for philanthropy. She also serves on the board of The Skoll Foundation, Participant Media, The Woodruff Arts Center, and the VDAY movement to end violence; she’s also a member of CARE’s Global Advisory Council and Chair Emeritus of the Women’s Media Center which established an annual award in her name. In her memoir, “Becoming a Dangerous Woman,” Mitchell shares her journey as a frontline advocate for a just, equitable and sustainable world.
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Speaker
Director (2009-2016), Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Dr. Pamela Hartigan was Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School at the University of Oxford from 2009 until her passing in 2016. She was also founding partner of Volans Ventures, an organization focused on building innovative scalable solutions to challenges affecting our future.
Prior to starting Volans, Dr. Hartigan spent eight years as the Founding Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, where she was also a member of the Managing Board.
Of Ecuadorian origin, Dr. Hartigan first came to the United States at 17 years of age to study at Georgetown University; she went on to complete a PhD in human developmental psychology at the Catholic University of America. Throughout her career, she held varied leadership positions in multilateral organizations and educational institutions, as well as in entrepreneurial ventures. She was responsible for conceptualizing and creating new organizations, departments, and programs across a variety of institutions and platforms.
Dr. Hartigan was a frequent lecturer on entrepreneurship and innovation at graduate business schools in the USA, Europe, and Asia, and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School and at the University of Technology Sydney. She co-authored a book with John Elkington, founder of SustainAbility (UK), entitled The Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets to Change the World, which was published by Harvard Business Press in 2008.
She was a trustee of social investment organizations, publicly listed companies, and social impact focused organizations around the world.
Dr. Pamela Hartigan died on August 12, 2016, at her home in France.
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Speaker
Director, X, Google
Obi leads early stage projects at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory. X is a team of inventors and entrepreneurs working on projects like self-driving cars (Waymo), drone delivery (Wing) and internet from balloons (Loon). Obi is responsible for getting early stage X projects from the lab into the real world, or ensuring they fail fast. Previously she was Director of Consumer Marketing for Google in Europe, Middle East and Africa, which sounds like the easiest job in the world until you consider that Google has 100+ products in a region of 120+ countries as diverse as Germany, Russia, Egypt and Kenya. Before Google, Obi launched the ecommerce business of a major UK retailer, worked as a strategy consultant, and led eToys.com's (unsuccessful) expansion to Germany during the first dotcom era.
Obi is a startup mentor and angel investor, with a focus on women entrepreneurs. She set up Campus London, a Google-funded space for tech entrepreneurs. She is on the board of Shift, a charity designing products to address social problems like youth mental health. She is also on the board of Picasso Labs, a tech startup offering real-time image analytics based on machine learning algorithms.
Obi grew up in Berlin and saw the wall come down. She has a BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Oxford University. She lives in San Francisco with her husband (a beekeeper/triathlete), son (an inventor/clown) and daughter (too early to tell, but high hopes that she'll be a rocket scientist/diva). She loves yoga, bicycling, travelling, contemporary art and design, cooking, eating and her family.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Co-Impact
Olivia Leland is the Founder and CEO of Co-Impact, a global philanthropic collaborative for equitable systems
change at scale, focused on advancing gender equality and elevating women and
girls’ power, agency and leadership at all levels. Olivia has more than two decades of international
experience in philanthropy, government, and the non-profit sector. Prior to
Co-Impact, Olivia was the founding director of the Giving Pledge – an effort
launched by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett to help
address society’s most pressing problems by encouraging increased philanthropy.
Previously, Olivia worked in microfinance and financial inclusion, and in the
areas of strategy development, multi-sector collaboration, and advancing gender
equality.
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Speaker
President, Durable Good
Noah Manduke is the President of Durable Good, a management consultancy focused on helping nonprofit organizations leverage brand-building disciplines to accelerate impact. A seasoned strategic identity expert, Noah has for over 35 years helped organizations to define, dramatize, and deliver upon their unique significance with clarity, focus and results.
Durable Good clients have included the Skoll Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, King Philanthropies, Fossil Foundation, American Forest Foundation, Half the Sky Foundation, World Vision Canada, ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Institute for the Future, Water for People, Social Progress Index, North American Association for Environmental Education, The Philanthropy Workshop, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Viewpoint School, and the corporate social responsibility divisions of Disney and Mattel.
Noah is the former Chief Strategy Officer of the Jeff Skoll Group, a portfolio of social impact organizations created by renowned philanthropist and social entrepreneur, Jeff Skoll, to pursue his vision of a more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world. Noah worked closely with Skoll’s leadership to continually sharpen impact strategies and cultivate opportunities for collective impact.
Prior to serving the social sector, Noah spent over 20 years helping businesses such as Microsoft, Adobe, Lexus, Sony, Mattel, and Disney to optimize their branding, marketing, and communications practices. During that time, he spent 13 years at global advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather, and 8 years at leading strategic branding firm, Siegel & Gale, where Noah was named President and Chief Operating Officer 18 months after the company’s sale to Omnicom (NYSE: OMNI).
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Speaker
Founder & Partner, Dasra
Neera Nundy is the Co-founder and Partner at Dasra India, a strategic philanthropic organization that started in 1999. Her overarching goal is to enable social entrepreneurs and funders with the support they need to achieve big goals in areas such as gender, urban resilience, and sanitation through system change and collaborative philanthropy. Neera plays a crucial role in bringing capacity building, knowledge, funding, and networks to the sector. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a fellow of the third class of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship of the Ananta Aspen Center and a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She is a Board Member of The Hunger Project, American School of Bombay, and Aangan Trust. She is Canadian, has lived in Mumbai for 21 years, runs Dasra with her husband Deval, and busy raising feminist sons – Ayush, Laxman, and Akbar – all teenagers!
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Speaker
Filmmaker, Coco Films
Nicole Newnham has been a documentary filmmaker for over twenty years. Most recently she produced “Collisions”. Previously, Nicole co-directed & produced the Emmy-nominated documentary The Revolutionary Optimists, which screened globally and was selected by the Emmy-award winning PBS series Independent Lens. The film, which followed an extraordinary group of young activists in the slums of Kolkata, inspired her to develop Map Your World, an online community and storytelling platform for young changemakers that enables youth to leverage mobile technology to map data on public health issues as the centerpiece of a campaign for change in their communities.
Nicole initiated, co-produced and directed The Rape of Europa, about the fate of Europe’s art treasures during WWII. The Rape of Europa enjoyed a successful theatrical release, has been a much-broadcast PBS primetime special, was nominated for two national Emmys and a WGA award, and was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar.
She was nominated for an Emmy for directing and co-producing the documentary Sentenced Home, also broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens, which follows three Cambodian refugees in Seattle who are deported back to Cambodia after 9/11. She co-produced They Drew Fire, a widely acclaimed special for PBS about the combat artists of World War II, and wrote the companion book distributed by Harper Collins.
Films she has directed have played at many prestigious venues, including the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Lincoln Center and the Walker Art Museum. Nicole earned a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from Stanford University in 1994.
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Delegate
Founder, The Invitation
Writing a book on Ukraine, building an Invitation to starve child welfare of children and families who have no place in that system, and welcoming each day with a smile and a bit of light.
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Speaker
Director of Brand Development, SYPartners
For the past fifteen years, Natalie Silverstein has worked at the intersection of innovation and social change. With experience spanning sectors, from startups to nonprofits, philanthropy to private industry, she’s committed to creating positive change in the world.
In her role at SYPartners, Natalie is responsible for marketing and positioning one of the most sought-after leadership and transformation firms in the world. She leads a team dedicated to expanding the company’s impact, amplifying the ideas and insights stemming from the company’s work alongside the CEOs of iconic companies and leaders of movements driving lasting, systemic change.
Prior to joining SYPartners, Natalie led global communications for the Goldman Environmental Prize, where she worked alongside leaders fighting to protect the environment and to secure a healthy future for people around the world. She’s consulted on sustainability programs for companies like Walmart, and was on the founding team of a first-of-its kind DVD “magazine” that sought to bring together online and offline organizing with documentary filmmakers.
Natalie started her career in independent film, and has worked as a producer and consultant for change-driven companies and organizations. She holds a BA in Communication and Women’s Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Delegate
Philanthropic & Impact Investing Advisor, Conine Family Foundation
Namrita is a lecturer at the Yale School of Management and advises on the philanthropy of founders of one of the oldest VC firms and of a Fortune 500 company. She was part of the founding team of Root Capital; built and led Environmental Defense Fund’s Sustainable Finance strategy; and advised National Geographic on its impact investing strategy. Namrita is also an angel investor in the Portfolia fund of funds, which focuses on educating and activating female angel investors.
She serves on the Boards of Environmental League of Massachusetts, Center for Business & Environment at Yale, IE-Brown Executive MBA Program, Massachusetts Environmental Justice Council and the Museum of Science. She holds two degrees from Yale and one from Princeton.
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Speaker
Program Lead, innovation Labs, World Bank Group
Natalia Agapitova is Senior Program Officer at the World Bank Group where she leads the Social Enterprise Innovations program. Natalia has joined the World Bank Group in 2002 after spending three years working for a Russian investment company in the midst of the 1998 financial crisis, and working as a lecturer and researcher in Economics at the University of Poitiers, France. Natalia has first-hand experience in using science, technology and innovation as tools to bring inclusive and sustainable growth to the developing world. During her work at the World Bank, Natalia has played a key role in advising countries in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America and South Asia on how to build science, technology and innovation capacity. Natalia also worked on a broad range of issues related to capacity development and results agenda, and is one of the main authors of the Capacity Development and Results Framework that is used by World Bank teams and clients for design and M&E of capacity development programs. Natalia has published numerous papers on economic development. Natalia earned a Master (D.E.A.) and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Poitiers, and Bachelor's degrees in Economics and Mathematics from Perm State University (Russia).
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Delegate
Chief Innovation Officer, 17 Triggers
Before founding 17 Triggers, Mike was a creative adman working for clients ranging from Nike to Coca-Cola to United Colors of Benetton. He has worked with big ad agencies in USA, England, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia where he earned the name 'adman with a bleeding heart'. After the guilt of selling beers and cigarettes to people making less than a dollar a day caught up with him, he quit to start consulting for the development sector until opening 17 Triggers in 2010.
Once called ‘a Social Innovation Lab on steroids’ 17 Triggers teaches organizations and governments how to innovate like tech startups - using lean, design thinking, HCD, rapid prototyping, and quick and dirty RCTs – while also providing them with full service advertising and design support. With work spanning across 15 countries, their clients include UNICEF Global, iDE, DAI, ADB, World Vision, WSUP, Plan International, Stone Family Foundation, and MTV EXIT. Mike is also an Unreasonable Institute Mentor, TEDx-er, and happy husband. He is based in sunny Cambodia.
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Speaker
I’m so excited to join in the vibrant dance of the Skoll World Forum this year.
I am the Founder and Creative Director of Tostan, an NGO which implements a holistic, 3-year empowering education program in national languages that has engaged over 3,000 rural African communities in themes of democracy, human rights, health, literacy, and project management skills. The program has led to over 20,000 rural women holding leadership posts and over 9,500 communities in eight African countries publicly declaring their commitment to abandon harmful traditional practices.
Molly and Tostan have received international recognition for their successful work in the areas of health, literacy, social entrepreneurship, social norm transformation and human rights education including: Government of Senegal’s Knight of the National Order of the Lion, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, The Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, The Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Prize, and UNESCO’
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Delegate
University Professor, Harvard Business School
BSE (Hons) in Aerospace and Mech. Eng., Princeton Univ.; MBA (Hons), Harvard Bus. School; PhD in Business Economics, Harvard Univ. Bishop William Lawrence Univ. Prof., Harvard Bus. School. Authority on company strategy, the competitiveness of nations and regions, and strategic approaches to societal problems. Chairs Harvard Bus. School's progr. for newly appointed CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations. Adviser to business, government and the social sector. Active role in US economic policy. Founder: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City; Center for Effective Philanthropy; FSG. Author of 19 books and numerous articles. Awards and honours.
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Delegate
Board Member, Exploratorium
Michelle Yee continues to be a geek, a late-bloomer, and a contented introvert. After graduating with Honors in Linguistics at Stanford University in the previous millennium, Michelle completed her doctorate in education in 2014 at the University of San Francisco
with an emphasis on international human rights education. Her dissertation focused upon the lived experiences of women with hidden disabilities. As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, Michelle has worked in early intervention and pre-school programs - in both
clinic and home settings - to serve children (ages birth to five years) with speech and language disorders. She currently serves on the Board of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Her latest personal project has been working through her Bucket List; items on this growing list have included exploring equine-facilitated therapy to assist children
with disabilities and developing a meditation practice to prepare for a month-long solo meditation retreat.
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Speaker
Michael Green is Chief Executive Officer of the Social Progress Imperative. An economist by training, he is co-author (with Matthew Bishop of ‘The Economist’) of Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World and The Road from Ruin: A New Capitalism for a Big Society. Previously Michael served as a senior official in the U.K. Government’s Department for International Development, where he managed British aid programs to Russia and Ukraine and headed the communications department. He taught Economics at Warsaw University in Poland in the early 1990s. His TED Talks have been viewed more than three million times. His 2014 Talk was chosen by the TED organisation as one of the ‘most powerful ideas’ of 2014 and by The Telegraph as one of the 10 best ever.
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Delegate
Partner, Bridgespan Group
Michael Etzel is a partner in The Bridgespan Group’s Boston office. Since joining Bridgespan in 2006, Michael has focused on effectiveness across the full spectrum of financing for social impact.
Michael focuses on overcoming the risk of “impact-washing” in impact investing. His clients include Bain Capital’s Double Impact Fund and Texas Pacific Group’s (TPG) Rise Fund—where Bridgespan has partnered to develop and deliver rigorous, quantitative impact underwriting, as detailed in Harvard Business Review’s “Calculating the Value of Impact Investing.” Michael has also worked with institutional, family, and corporate philanthropists, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The MacArthur Foundation. He currently serves on the board of Splash.
Michael has contributed to the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, leading a Bridgespan team that supported the development of a first-ever bipartisan policy agenda for the growing field of impact investing. Michael has also explored opportunities for philanthropists to get involved in ‘catalytic’ forms of impact investing in “Philanthropy’s New Frontier—Impact Investing.”
Michael earned his AB cum laude with high honors from Harvard College, and his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. He lives in Boston with his wife and daughter.
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Delegate
Distinguished Teaching Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
Maura O’Neill through her work in the public, private and academic sectors have created entrepreneurial and public policy solutions for some of the toughest domestic and global problems. Maura has started four companies in the fields of electricity efficiency, customer info systems and billing, e-commerce and digital education. In 1989, she was named Seattle Business Person of the Year.
President Obama appointed her the first Chief Innovation Officer and Senior Counselor to the Administrator at USAID where she had responsibility for inspiring and leading breakthrough innovations in $22 billion of foreign assistance worldwide. Maura co-led USAID Forward, the Agency's major reform initiative as well as oversaw over 600 global public-private partnerships. Groundbreaking ones included mobile money; supply chain elimination of ingredients/packaging from virgin forests; water and health interventions; gender equity and entrepreneurship. Maura is most well known for adapting venture capital and drug discovery methods to development by co-creating the Development Innovation Venture Fund. She served on the White House Innovation Cohort assisting with innovation across the federal government.
Maura was Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary at U.S. Department of Agriculture, and served as Chief of Staff in the U.S. Senate (Cantwell D-WA) addressing the 2008 financial crisis, oil price explosion, renewal of clean energy tax credits and range of domestic and international issues.
Currently at the Business School at UC Berkeley Maura received 2016 Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching. She also has taught at Stanford and Columbia Universities and regularly advises early stage companies, global government institutions and foundations.
Maura is founding Vice Chair of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (public charter school). She has M.B.As from Columbia University and UC Berkeley; PhD from University of Washington.
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Delegate
Martin Von Hildebrand has spent the last five decades accompanying indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time, he has been a fundamental actor to obtain the recognition of indigenous communities rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rainforest. Their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many governments.
Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).
He is an ethnologist with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards.
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Delegate
Dr. Martín Burt is a world-renowned social entrepreneur who has developed anti-poverty and educational social innovations that are currently being implemented worldwide. He is founder (1985) and CEO of Fundación Paraguaya, a social enterprise named Latin America’s most impactful and innovative development organization in 2018 by the IADB. Dr. Burt is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum. He has also served as Chief of Staff to the President of Paraguay, was elected Mayor of Asunción, and was appointed Vice Minister of Commerce. His latest book “Paraguay without Poverty” was published in November 2023. He has received several international awards. He holds a PhD from Tulane University and is Lecturer & Social Entrepreneur in Residence at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Research Associate at University of California, Irvine, and Professor, Master’s Program in Microfinance, at Universidad de Alcalá.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Qatar Foundation International
As Executive Director of Qatar Foundation International, Maggie champions K-12 Arabic language & Arab culture education and interactions between young people across geographic, cultural and social boundaries. Prior to joining QFI, Maggie was Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), a leading democracy and governance NGO, where she implemented innovative programs in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. Prior to IFES, Maggie worked as an independent communications consultant to leading U.S., European and Middle Eastern companies, nongovernmental organizations and academic groups. She also served as director of communications and external relations at the Middle East Institute where she developed a five-year strategic media plan and placed more than a dozen op-eds and letters to the editor in American newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle and The New Yorker. Maggie's career began as a foreign service officer for the U.S. State Department where she served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and as a staff assistant to Ambassador Martin S. Indyk at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. A Fulbright to Syria in 1990 shaped her understanding of the peoples of the region and shaped her career aspirations. Maggie completed coursework for a master’s degree in contemporary Arab studies at Georgetown University and holds bachelor’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University in political science and psychology
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Delegate
Program Director, Gender Equity and Governance,
BreakthroughMallika Dutt is the Program Director of Gender Equity and Governance at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She is a longtime advocate for equity and well-being for people and planet, with deep experience in advancing justice through an intersectional lens. Prior to joining the foundation, she founded and led INTER-CONNECTED, where she supported transformational change through her unique methodology combining ancient wisdom, contemplative practices, storytelling, and social justice activism.
As the founder and leader of Breakthrough, she has used culture to change culture through award-winning multi-media campaigns that have touched millions. She also headed a social justice and human rights program in South Asia with the Ford Foundation. A recipient of multiple awards, she received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2016. Mallika has served on several boards and committees and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mallika is a graduate of NYU Law Schoo
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Delegate
Madhav Chavan moved from the field of Chemistry to the field of literacy a few years after his return to India having acquired a Ph. D. in the United States and some post-doctoral experience there. He worked in the field of adult literacy from 1989 to 1994 inspired by the National Literacy Mission launched by late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. In 1994, Unicef in Mumbai put him in charge of creating a ‘societal mission’ to universalize primary education in the city of Mumbai. As a result he co-founded Pratham that started in 1994-95 as a Mumbai based organization and has now grown to be one of India’s largest NGOs working across the country with millions of children every year with a focus on basic learning outcomes including reading and math. Its flagship programs, Read India and the Annual Status of Education Report have earned the organization a reputation as a pedagogy and advocacy innovator that has influenced policy and practice at the national and international level. He stepped down as CEO of Pratham Education Foundation but continues to be on its Board and actively leading the new experimentation in use of technology for education.
Madhav has been personally recognized for his work with the WISE Prize and The Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship among other honors. His organization, Pratham, has received the Kravis Prize for Leadership, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for developmental work and the LUI Che Woo Prize for positive energy.
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Delegate
Mabel van Oranje is a global advocate for equality, justice and freedom and serial entrepreneur for social change. During the last decade, she played a catalytic role in the creation and growth of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, the Girls First Fund and VOW for Girls. Mabel is currently a board member of Fondation Chanel, the Lego Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and VOW for Girls (chair). She is also an advisor to Apolitical Academy Global, Co-Impact’s Gender Fund, Global Witness, the Graca Machel Trust and The Elders. Mabel is a champion of Girls Not Brides, and a co-founder and chair emeritus of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
You can follow her tweets @MabelvanOranje
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Delegate
LUIS SZARAN
Artist for PEACE of UNESCO
Orchestra conductor, composer and musicologist
As a social entrepreneur, in 2002 he founded the social and community integration program through music: Sounds of the Earth, aimed at low-income children and young people. In 2005, he received the “Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship” from the Skoll Foundation. In 2013 he was recognized as Global Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum.
In 2008 he was chosen, by the American University, as one of the 12 most outstanding leaders of Paraguay. He is the author of books published in Paraguay, Germany, Italy and Spain.
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Speaker
Artist/Filmmaker, Studio Wallworth
Lynette Wallworth is an Australian artist/filmmaker who has consistently worked with emerging media technologies. Wallworth’s work has shown at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Smithsonian, Royal Observatory Greenwich for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad; Auckland Triennial; Adelaide Biennial; Brighton Festival and the Vienna Festival among many others as well as film festivals including-Sundance Film Festival, London Film Festival, Tibeca Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Adelaide Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival and the Margaret Mead Film Festival. She has been awarded an International Fellowship from Arts Council England, a New Media Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts, the inaugural Australian Film, Television and Radio School Creative Fellowship and the Joan and Kim Williams Documentary Fellowship. She has had artist residencies in many parts of the world including Southern Italy, Iran, Northern England and New Mexico.
Her works include the interactive video Evolution of Fearlessness; the full dome feature Coral, with accompanying augmented reality work; and virtual reality narrative Collisions, developed through the inaugural Sundance Institute New Frontier - Jaunt VR Residency. In 2014, Wallworth’s feature documentary Tender won the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award for best televised documentary. In 2016, Wallworth was awarded a UNESCO City of Film Award, the Byron Kennedy Award for Innovation and Excellence and Foreign Policy magazine named Wallworth as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers’ of the year. Wallworth lives in Sydney and mentors regularly at Sundance Labs.
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Delegate
Managing Director, Osprey Foundation
Louis is Managing Director of the Osprey Foundation, where he leads programs on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and sustainable energy/cleaner cooking. In addition to managing a portfolio of grants and impact investments, Louis works to advance these sectors through systems change, innovative finance, and new service delivery models.
From 2005-2013, Louis founded and led the WASH program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, building a portfolio of more than US$ 300 million.
Prior to that, he worked for 15 years at the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, where he led the environmental finance team from 1997 to 2004 and helped to pioneer the impact investing field.
Louis currently sits on the boards of IRC WASH and the RICE Institute, and he advises several other social ventures and non-profits. He holds a BA in economics from Yale University and an MBA and MA (Development Economics) from Stanford University.
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Delegate
Principal, Lindsay Miller Consulting
Lindsay Miller is an independent strategy and organizational development consultant, supporting nonprofits, foundations, and social enterprises through strategic and business planning and multistakeholder collaborative design and facilitation. She serves as a Project Manager for Public Equity Group, a boutique consulting firm specializing in racial equity strategy, and is a member of the Flexible Leadership Awards consultant network. She has worked with clients spanning the social service, healthcare, K-12 and higher education, legal services, food manufacturing, waste management, and prison reform sectors. Recent clients include the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, Next Gen Sector Partnerships, Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, Emory University, Mt Adams Institute, Tofurky, and United We Dream.
Lindsay graduated cum laude from the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College with a BA in Fine Arts, a BS in General Science, and a minor in Spanish. She went on to earn an MBA from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, where she attended as a Skoll Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship. Lindsay is based in Hood River, Oregon and enjoys outdoor pursuits of all kinds and spending time with her husband and two daughters.
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Delegate
Dr. Larry Brilliant is a physician and epidemiologist, CEO of Pandefense Advisory, senior advisor at the Skoll Foundation and a CNN Medical Analyst. Previously on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the NGO Ending Pandemics; president and CEO of the Skoll Global Threats Fund; vice president of Google, and founding executive director of Google.org. He co-founded the Seva Foundation. Earlier, he co-founded The Well, a progenitor of today's social media platforms. He was an associate professor of epidemiology and international health planning at the University of Michigan. He lived in India for nearly a decade where he was a key member of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme for SE Asia as well as the WHO Polio Eradication Programme. He was the founding chairman of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee (NBAS); member of the World Economic Forum's Agenda Council on Catastrophic Risk; and a "First Responder" for CDC's bio-terrorism response effort. He is also an author.
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Delegate
Director, Social Impact and Innovation Marketing, Facebook
Working at Facebook is an important opportunity to help achieve a noble mission focused on human potential. I work at the center of our brand, our business and it’s impact. I humbly invite you to provoke big conversation, but even bigger opportunity.
Prior to Facebook, I practiced strategy and crafting company’s purpose with a firm called thinkbrandnew. We collaborated with executives and client teams to gain first hand insights from customers, envisioned innovative paths to differentiation, and incubated breakthrough products and communications. We had the honor to work with some incredible enterprise and start-up companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Dolby Labs, One Kings Lane, Plum District, Rocket Lawyer, and Coursera.
I’ve enjoyed a varied career as a marketing executive, leading all facets of consumer marketing and design as part of great teams developing high-impact strategies for American Airlines, JCPenney, Wesson Oil, Levi’s, Dockers, violet.com, Good Technology, eBay and Timbuk2 Designs.
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Speaker
Multi-Grammy Award-Winning Musician & Founder, Fundacion Mi Sangre
With seven solo albums to his credit and multi-platinum sales of over 16 million copies, Juanes is the world’s leading all-Spanish language rock artist - both a 2-time GRAMMY and 20-time LATIN GRAMMY winner with ten #1 singles on Billboard’s Latin charts. Hailed as “The single most important figure of the past decade in Latin music” (Los Angeles Times), Juanes is also frequently recognized as one of the Spanish-speaking world’s leading social media voices with an online following of over 20 million fans. The Colombian superstar’s dedication as a global activist also extends far beyond his passionate lyrics and is seen in his wide ranging charitable work for his own Mi Sangre Foundation and as a co-founder of the "Paz sin Fronteras" (Peace Without Borders) organization. Juanes’ latest album “Loco De Amor” was released in the Spring of 2014 and debuted at #1 on Billboard’s “Latin Pop Albums” chart and topped iTunes sales in over a dozen countries. ‘Loco De Amor’ was hailed as “One of the Five Best Albums of 2014 so far” by PEOPLE Magazine, saying it “is one of the best records out now in any tongue… Juanes has never sounded better.” Juanes’ latest single “Juntos (Together)” also leapt to #1 in iTunes Latin sales in the United States and numerous other countries, and reached a global audience of millions with a groundbreaking performance of the track on this year’s Grammy Awards.
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Speaker
Former Chief Executive Officer, Medic
Josh Nesbit is the co-founder and former CEO of Medic, a nonprofit organization founded to improve health with and in the hardest-to-reach communities. The open-source software helps over 35,000 community health workers provide care for more than 20 million people in Africa and Asia. These health workers deliver care and services, door-to-door, through more than 1.5 million home visits each month. Together with our partners, we envision a more just world in which health workers are supported as they provide care for their neighbors, universal health coverage is a reality, and health is secured as a human right.
Before co-founding Medic, Josh studied global health and bioethics at Stanford University, where his qualitative research focused on pediatric HIV/AIDS in Malawi. Josh is an Ashoka Fellow, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, Echoing Green Fellow, and Rainer Arnhold Fellow. He has served on the Board of Directors for Developing Radio Partners and IntraHealth International. Josh was selected by Devex as one of 40 Under 40 Leaders in International Development, received the Truman Award for Innovation from the Society for International Development, and was named by Forbes as one of the world’s 30 top social entrepreneurs. In 2014, Medic received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2016, Josh accepted a Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award. Josh is continually inspired by health workers around the world.
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Delegate
Partner, Hornthal Investment Partners
Jim Hornthal is a parallel entrepreneur, angel investor, and educator. Jim is the co-founder and Chairman of Zignal Labs, LaunchPad Central, and M34Capital. His private investment partnership has invested in more than 50 startups including Lyft, Lending Club, KIND Snacks (Mars), Krave Jerky (Hershey), Hightower Advisors, NeuroTrainer, and Flywire.
Jim has taught the cornerstone entrepreneurship course (The Lean LaunchPad) since it began at Berkeley in 2011. He has also taught the course at Stanford, UCSF, and Princeton and has led innovation teams for major corporations including The Mayo Clinic and WL Gore.
He was instrumental in translating this course to become the foundation of the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program which has since been adopted by the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies. Jim is the former Chairman of the Young/World Presidents’ Organization Peace Action Network and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Delegate
Founder/former CEO, Benetech, and Founder/CEO, Tech Matters,
BenetechJim Fruchterman is a leading social entrepreneur, a MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and a Distinguished Alumnus of Caltech.
After starting two successful machine learning companies, he went on to found Benetech, the award-winning tech nonprofit. He’s built tools which help people with disabilities read independently and human rights groups document and analyze abuses.
His current nonprofit projects at Tech Matters include Aselo, a shared modern contact center for the crisis response field, and Terraso, a platform to bring better tools and more funding to locally-led sustainability initiatives to respond to climate change.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Peery Foundation
Jessamyn Shams-Lau joined the Peery Foundation as its first staff member in 2009, helping to shape the foundation’s initial strategy and portfolios. As Executive Director, Jessamyn supports the Peery Foundation team, guides overall strategy, and develops a grantee-centric approach across the foundation’s portfolios. Jessamyn uses her experience as part of the founding Ashoka U team in her hands-on role as a Board Member of BYU’s Ballard Center, where she created curriculum now taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Jessamyn has a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Arts London and an MBA from Brigham Young University.
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Delegate
Jess joined BasicNeeds in 2011 and is now responsible for leading and managing BasicNeeds’ global operations. Prior to this, she worked for over 20 years in a variety of NGOs; managing and developing projects and organisations which support marginalised and vulnerable people. Jess has a BSc in Psychology, an MA in Social Work and a post graduate qualification in leadership and management.
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Speaker
Jess is a founder of Doc Society, which has funded and championed the work of independent documentary filmmakers around the world since 2005. Writing with Fire, I Am Softie, The Edge of Democracy, CITIZENFOUR, The Territory, The Square, Virunga etc Currently obsessed with Climate and Democracy narratives and protecting the space for independent storytelling.
Jess is also a trustee of MSI Reproductive Choices, the world's most effective family planning and abortion provider in 37 countries. Jess is also chair of UK think tank IPPR and a board member of crowdfunding innovator Kickstarter.
Jess is a big fan of the Skoll World Forum.
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Delegate
Jeremy Hockenstein is the Chair of Digital Divide Data, the Skoll award winning organization he co-founded in 2001. He is now the Co-founder and Managing Director of Livelihood Impact Fund, a foundation focused on increasing incomes in Africa.
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Delegate
Partner, Nonprofit Portfolio, Praxis
At the age of 22, Jena founded Blood:Water alongside the GRAMMY Award winning band, Jars of Clay. Under her leadership, the organization has raised more than $20M, providing small grants to grassroots organizations in sub-Saharan Africa addressing HIV/AIDS and water, sanitation and hygiene.
Jena is the author of "One Thousand Wells" (Simon & Schuster, 2015) which shares a captivatingly honest account of how her passion for saving the world grew to a more humbler, long-term calling of loving the world in all its brokenness. Jena has been named one of Chronicle of Philanthropy's 40 under 40 and Christianity Today's 33 under 33. In 2012, she was invited by President Obama to pray for the nation in front of a TV audience of twenty million.
Jena serves on the core team for Praxis, a venture group building a community of high-capacity, faith-motivated entrepreneurs who have committed their lives to cultural and social impact. Jena and her husband, James, and their children, Jude and Haven, live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Delegate
Co-founder and Partner, Bridgespan Group
Jeff is the co-founder of The Bridgespan Group, a global nonprofit organization that collaborates with mission-driven leaders, organizations, and philanthropists. He served as Bridgespan’s managing partner from its founding in 2000 to 2021. Jeff now advises leading philanthropists and nonprofits, and writes and speaks on philanthropic strategy and operating models, transformative scale, community driven change, and racial equity in philanthropy. Jeff’s publications include: “The Problem with Color-Blind Philanthropy,” (Harvard Business Review, 2020), “The Impact of Large, Unrestricted Grants on Nonprofits: A Five Year View” (CEP, January 2023), and "Transformative Scale" (SSIR 2014).
Jeff has served on nonprofit and for-profit boards, including Giving Tuesday and PolicyLink. He is former board chair of Independent Sector. Prior to Bridgespan, Jeff taught at Harvard Business School, where he was a member of the Organizational Behavior and Social Enterprise Initiative faculty.
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Delegate
Founder & Chairman, Jeff Skoll Group
Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Skoll Foundation
Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Participant Media
Founder of Capricorn Investment Group
Co-founder and GP of the RISE Fund
First fulltime employee and President of eBay
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Mission Measurement
Jason Saul is one of the nation's leading experts on measuring social impact. He is the Founder and CEO of Mission Measurement which seeks to transform the social sector by measuring and predicting social outcomes. He has advised some of the world's largest corporations, government agencies and nonprofits.
In addition to his advisory work helping organizations create value by improving their social impact, Jason serves on the faculty of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he teaches corporate social responsibility and nonprofit management.
Jason is an award-winning author of numerous books and articles on social strategy and measurement, including: Benchmarking for Nonprofits, Social Innovation, Inc., and The End of Fundraising.
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Speaker
Managing Principal, Capricorn Investment Group
Ion Yadigaroglu has been Managing Partner at Capricorn Investment Group since 2004, and is an early investor in iconic technology companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Planet, QuantumScape and Saildrone. Capricorn was born from the desire to demonstrate the huge investment potential that resides in breakthrough commercial solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and as such is one of the original impact investors. Prior to Capricorn, Ion was a Director with Koch Industries, executing a range of acquisitions and investments. Prior to Koch, he was a founder and Chief Executive Officer at Bivio, a software startup in Colorado, and the second employee of Olsen & Associates, a foreign exchange analytics company. Ion was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University and holds a Masters in Physics from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich in Switzerland and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Stanford University.
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Speaker
Managing Director, Circle of Blue
J. Carl Ganter is founder and director of Circle of Blue, the center for frontline reporting, research, and analysis on water resource issues and their relationship to food and energy in a changing climate. Ganter is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and photojournalist whose work has appeared in most major magazines, newspapers, and television and radio networks. He earned his MSJ in investigative and magazine reporting at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism after graduating with honors from the University’s American Studies Program. He is past vice chairman and current member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water Security, and is recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award.
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Delegate
Founder, World Toilet Organization
Prof Dr Jack Aim aka Mr Toilet. Creator of the UN World Toilet Day 19 Nov. Created the World Toilet Movement that brought access to sanitation for 2.4 billion people over the last 20 years through effective policy influence.
Serial entrepreneur turned serial social entrepreneur.
Founder of the World Toilet Organisation and BOP HUB.
Time Magazine Hero of the Environment. Ashoka Global Fellow. Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
Now focus on ending global poverty for 4 billion earning less than USD 5.50 a day, through creating efficient marketplaces empowering the poor to increase their income and value-addedness sustainably.
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Delegate
Professor, Oxford Martin School
Ian Goldin is Oxford University Professor of Globalisation and Development and the founding Director of the Oxford Martin School, the University and the world’s leading centre for interdisciplinary research into critical global challenges. Ian previously was World Bank Vice President and the Group’s Director of Policy. Before joining the World Bank he was Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Economic Advisor to President Nelson Mandela. Ian is an advisor to businesses, governments and international agencies. Ian was knighted by the French for his services to development and is a founding trustee of the International Center for Future Generations and of Core-econ.org which aims to transform economics. He has written and presented three BBC series, After the Crash, Will AI Kill Development and The Pandemic that Changed the World and his BBC Analysis The Death of Globalisation?. The most recent of Ian’s 24 books is Age of the City. iangoldin.org @ian_goldin
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Delegate
Executive Director, Youth with Physical Disability Development Forum
Nyombi Henry is the Executive Director of Youth with Physical Disability Development Forum, a nonprofit and Community Based Organization. He is also a defender and human rights advocate especially on issues regarding mainstreaming disability.
Currently Henry serves as the chairperson of National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU) an umbrella organization for all persons with disability. Before his election as chairman NUDIPU, Henry served as a board member representing the youth with disability.
In his capacity he advocated for mainstreaming the rights of the minority disability groups in the disability fraternity in Uganda. Under a coalition in Wakiso District, he has led the formulation of an Accessibility Ordinance (Law), which will enable persons with disabilities to freely access private and public places.
Henry received an award for the “Defense of Disabled People’s Rights” during the 8th Annual International Service Human Rights Awards Ceremony in 2010 in the UK and he is also a lawyer by professional with specialization in the rights of venerable people. Henry has had specific training on the mechanisms of mainstreaming people living with disabilities in community programs from Japan. He has led campaign of advocacy of changing lives of the poorest in the community including Youth with disabilities.
Henry had provided presentation concepts on how international and national programs may integrate disability and the best way to have the sustainable development goals may be implemented. This has happened to different forum at the international and national level.
Right now Henry's current work is to support children and their families to access livelihood programs through income generating activities for house hold levels as well as supporting youth with disabilities with specific special programs for female youth with disabilities to ensure that they are not left out in the development programs.
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Speaker
Executive Vice President, Ford Foundation
Hilary Pennington is the Executive Vice President of the Ford Foundation, overseeing all of Ford’s programs globally, working closely across programs and offices to ensure strategic, meaningful, and well-aligned global grant making. She also oversees the foundation’s BUILD program, and the Office of Strategy and Learning. Before assuming her current role, she served as the foundation’s vice president for Education, Creativity, and Free Expression. A national expert on postsecondary education and intergenerational change, Hilary joined the foundation in 2013. Earlier, she was an independent consultant whose clients included the Next American University project of the New America Foundation and Arizona State University. She also led the Generations Initiative, a project funded by national foundations to develop effective responses to the dramatic demographic shifts occurring in the United States.
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Delegate
Heidi Kühn is the Founder and CEO of Roots of Peace. Since launching the organization in 1997, ROP has developed over 30 agricultural value chains impacting over a million farmers in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Croatia, Guatemala, Israel, Palestine and Vietnam.
In 2021, Heidi's visionary leadership was acknowledged with her inclusion in the inaugural Forbes 50 Over 50 “Women Who Are Leading the Way in Impact” List. Heidi has also received other prestigious awards including: the UC Berkeley Alumni of the Year Award for Excellence in Achievement (2002), the World Association of NGOs Peace & Security Award (2005), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2006) and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service (2007).
Heidi is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Political Economics, and a former CNN reporter and producer. She lives in California, with her husband, Gary, with whom she has 4 children and 6 grandchildren.
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Speaker
CEO, B Team
Halla is a Change Catalyst on a quest to inspire and empower leaders to release the value of principle-based and gender balanced leadership. She has passionately pursued this purpose as a business leader in Corporate America with M&M and Pepsi Cola, as the first female CEO of Iceland’s Chamber of commerce and as an executive and non-executive director for diverse businesses. An entrepreneur at heart, she joined the founding team of Reykjavik University where she founded the Executive Education department and led a successful initiative focused on empowering women and girls as entrepreneurs, leaders and investors. In 2007 she co-founded an investment firm with the vision to incorporate feminine values into finance. The company made international headlines when it successfully survived Iceland’s infamous economic meltdown. In 2016, Halla ran for President in Iceland. She was an independent candidate with no prior political experience and surprised everyone as she emerged from an initial 1% in the polls to becoming the runner-up with 28% of the vote.
Halla holds an international MBA from Thunderbird and has lived and worked in the US, the UK and across the Nordics. Her work led her to the TED stage twice and she has delivered keynotes and participated in dialogues about leadership and gender for companies and conferences around the world. In 2011, Newsweek named her to a list of 150 women who shake the world and after following Iceland’s Presidential Elections in 2016, the New Yorker called her A Living Emoji of Sincerity.
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Delegate
Analyst, Skoll Foundation
Hannah Darnton joined the Skoll Foundation in 2015 and currently serves as a Analyst on the Portfolio & Investments Team. As an Analyst, Hannah focuses on identifying social entrepreneurs with the potential to drive large scale social change and solve the worlds most pressing problems.
Prior to joining Skoll Hannah worked with multiple anti-human trafficking organizations across West Africa and Southeast Asia. For the three years prior to joining Skoll, she worked as Asia Program Manager for the San Francisco-based anti-trafficking non-profit, Not For Sale.
Hannah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and French from the University of Michigan and a Masters in NGOs and Development from the London School of Economics.
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Delegate
President, Visa Foundation
Graham Macmillan is Head of Global Philanthropy and Volunteerism at Visa where he is responsible for developing and executing Visa Foundation’s grantmaking and investing strategy worldwide. Visa Foundation seeks to support inclusive economies where individuals, businesses and communities can thrive. Through grants and investments, the Foundation prioritizes the growth of gender diverse and inclusive small and micro businesses. The Foundation also supports broader community needs and disaster response in times of crisis.
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Speaker
Founder & President, Global Grassroots
Gretchen Ki Steidle is the founder and President of Global Grassroots, an international organization working at the intersection of mindfulness and social entrepreneurship to catalyze the ideas of grassroots change agents working for women’s rights and well-being post-conflict. In 2006, she launched Global Grassroots’ work among widowed genocide survivors of sexual violence in Rwanda. To date, her incubator for conscious social change has trained over 700 change agents who have designed over 100 organizations across Rwanda, Uganda, Liberia, Cameroon and the US. Gretchen is a producer of the documentary film, The Devil Came on Horseback, nominated for three Emmy Awards in 2009. She is also co-author of the memoir, "The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur", published by PublicAffairs, about her brother, Marine Capt Brian Steidle’s experience as a military observer in Darfur. She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where she attended as a Jefferson Scholar. Gretchen believes that cultivating inner awareness and contributing to the common good are both necessary to advance the greatest level of positive social change. She is a certified Integrative Breathwork Practitioner and trained in Coherent Breathwork, which she utilizes in her work globally to help women and children heal trauma from war, disaster and gender-based violence. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. In 2010 she was recognized as a CNN Hero working in Haiti after the earthquake. In the same year she was awarded the inaugural Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust and Genocide Awareness by the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College. In 2011 she was chosen one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine.
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Delegate
Gidon Bromberg is the founder and 3 decade Israeli co-director of EcoPeace Middle East. EcoPeace is a unique regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the Middle East.
Mr. Bromberg has spearheaded the organization’s advocacy campaigns in the Middle East and internationally. He developed a cross-border community peace-building program known as “Good Water Neighbors.” The program has helped advance rehabilitation efforts in the Jordan River and defuse the sanitation crisis in Gaza, leading to the removal of most of the pollution from Gaza Strip and southern Israel beaches. The program is seen as a model for environmental peacebuilding in other conflict areas around the world.
Bromberg co-authored EcoPeace’s call for a Green Blue Deal for the Middle East, to advance climate resilience and peace. The report and later EcoPeace efforts led to the signing in November 2021
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Delegate
President, Gillian Caldwell Consulting LLC
Gillian Caldwell serves as a Deputy Assistant Administrator at USAID overseeing several climate and environmentally oriented centers. She also serves as USAID's Chief Climate Officer, responsible for helping guide and oversee USAID’s climate and environment work across the agency. Gillian is a filmmaker and an attorney and has been working to protect human rights and the environment throughout her career. Prior to joining the Agency, she served as the CEO of Skoll Award Winner Global Witness which has a focus on tackling climate change and deploys investigations into corruption and natural resource extraction to drive systems change worldwide. From 2007-2010, she launched and led 1Sky, a highly collaborative cross-sector campaign with over 600 allied organizations to pass legislation in the US to address the climate crisis. Gillian is a 2005 Skoll Award winner for her leadership of WITNESS, founded my musician Peter Gabriel.
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Delegate
Chief Medical Officer, Telenor Health
Fred Hersch is a medical doctor (MD/MPH) and technologist. He is passionate about global health and the role of (design led) technology in transforming health care delivery for the better. He was an early pioneer in the tele-medicine space co-founding MedTech Outreach Australia (2002) and developing one of the first web based tele-medicine platforms. Following a short stint in Academia (Research Fellow in Healthcare Innovation at Oxford University), he now lives and works in Bangladesh where he is the Chief Medical Officer for Telenor Health, a new purpose driven business focussed on large scale digital health products and services for resource poor settings.
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Delegate
Fred de Sam Lazaro is a correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and executive director of the Under-Told Stories Project. He was a regular contributor and substitute anchor for PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Fred also has directed films from India and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the acclaimed documentary series, Wide Angle.
Fred has reported from 70 countries with a focus on the myriad issues that underlie poverty and human suffering. He founded the Under-Told Stories Project, now located at the University of St. Thomas, designed to use storytelling to enhance students’ understanding of the pressing global issues of our time.
Fred has received three honorary doctorates, numerous journalism awards and fellowships from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Michigan. He serves on the board of Sahan Journal, a non-profit news service focused primarily on the affairs of Minnesota's BIPOC and immigrant communities
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Delegate
Lead, Regenerative Food & Agriculture Systems and Nature Based Solutions, Climate Champions Race to Zero campaign
I am an experienced professional with 20 years' full-time professional track record in international development, strategic philanthropy, corporate responsibility, and partnership-building for sustainable development and systems change in Latin America, USA, and Europe.
My current professional ambition is on large scale systems change for regeneration, and in finding ways in which we can effectively collaborate and scale systemic nature based solutions to climate change, primarily in Latin America, but drawing on international best practice too.
Currently I do this through collaboration with the COP26 High Level Champions and the Climate Ambition Alliance, as well as through advising on global strategy to Sistema B and the BCorp movement, with a substantive focus of low carbon resilient food systems as a major climate drawdown pathway.
My last career positions have been as Managing Director for Latin America at Porticus, the global international private foundation of the C&A holding; and as International Portfolio Manager for the Amazon Basin at Avina Foundation, where I developed a Pan-Amazon program addressing climate change by developing alternatives to deforestation. I started my career as an international development consultant with the Spanish International Development Agency (AECID), designing sustainable livelihood programs across Latin America.
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Speaker
Deep Listening - Senior Visiting Research Fellow, King's College London
Emily Kasriel is writing a book on Deep Listening, developing the approach as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College in London and previously as a Practitioner in Residence at the LSE. With the British Council and the BBC, she recruited 1000 people in 119 countries to train in Deep Listening and trains cohorts of leaders with the UK’s Forward Institute for responsible leadership. She is a journalist and has been a media executive at the BBC for many years, leading multiple high impact global projects as well as producing and reporting from five continents. Previously she has been a Senior Adviser to the Skoll Foundation and a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford. She has written for a number of major publications and chairs a wide range of panels, and hosts interviews. More on her website EmilyKasriel.com
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Delegate
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Trauma Resource Institute
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW is an author, radio show host, social worker, trauma therapist, co-founder, former Executive Director and current Director of Innovation of the Trauma Resource Institute and key developer of the Community and Trauma Resiliency Models.
She is the author of Building Resiliency to Trauma, the Trauma and Community Resiliency Models® (2015). She is committed to bringing accessible and affordable interventions based on neuroscience and the biology of the human nervous system to our world's community. Her models have been introduced to over 102 countries.
Her radio talk show launched on VoiceAmerica in January 2021 and is entitled Resiliency Within, Building Resiliency during unprecedented times. Her guests are inspiring global leaders promoting healing and resiliency from a variety of backgrounds.
https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/3997/resiliency-within
She is a recognized international speaker and has presented at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford University, Resiliency 2021 and the United Nations. Elaine’s book was selected by the United Nations and Taylor and Francis’ curated on-line library as one of the innovations helping meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/sdgo
She is a founding member of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition, an organization focused on healing the human trauma connected to climate change. http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/intl-tr-coalition
Elaine is dedicated to the world's children and she has worked with collaborators to develop interventions for children, parents and teachers to help reduce the impact of trauma. She is a Senior Consultant to Emory University’s SEE Learning program, inspired and launched by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2019, building compassionate and ethical curriculum to the world's children K-12. www.seelearning.emory.edu
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Speaker
Deputy Chief Executive Officer, United Nations Foundation
Before joining the UN Foundation, Elizabeth Cousens served as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council and Alternate Representative to the UN General Assembly (2012-14). She previously served as Principal Policy Advisor and Counselor to the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Susan Rice (2009-12). In this capacity, she was lead U.S. negotiator on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, including representing the United States in the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. During her stint as ambassador, she led U.S. diplomacy at the UN on human rights, humanitarian, social and environmental issues; served on the boards of UN agencies, funds, and programmes, and was the U.S. representative to the UN Peacebuilding Commission. She was also sherpa to Ambassador Rice for the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Dr. Cousens has lived around the world, serving with UN political missions in Nepal and the Middle East and working as an analyst in conflict zones, including Bosnia and Haiti. Her prior experience includes Director of Strategy for the HD Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue which promotes and conducts mediation of armed conflict; Vice President of the International Peace Institute, where she led initiatives on global crisis management and UN reform; and Director of the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, a research group that provides country and regional expertise to the UN on conflict and crisis situations.
Dr. Cousens has a D.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in history and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Puget Sound. She has written widely on conflict management, peace processes, state-building, and the United Nations. She and her husband, Bruce Jones, have one child.
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Delegate
Edith Chapin is the Vice President and Executive Editor of NPR News. In that role she resumes responsibility for the NPR newsroom, setting daily news priorities, and directing all of NPR's news-gathering teams. She has full authority to work across the newsroom to ensure that desks, shows and digital teams are rowing in the same direction on major stories and coverage, so that NPR can be consistent and collaborative in our approach to news on all of our platforms.
From 2017-2019 she led NPR's efforts to build a collaborative journalism network with NPR Member stations. When Chapin was named Executive Editor in 2015 she was charged with overseeing all desks and reporters, and helping to set the agenda for the entire News division.
Previously, Chapin was the senior supervising editor of NPR's International Desk. She managed a team of correspondents based outside the United States committed to bringing listeners dynamic stories of the world's people, politics, economy, and culture.
Prior to joining NPR in 2012, Chapin spent 25 years at CNN and worked her way up from intern, to bureau chief to vice president. Most recently, Chapin was the Vice President and Deputy Bureau Chief of CNN's Washington, D.C. bureau, where her strategic editorial and management responsibility included oversight of the 2009 presidential transition coverage and daily coverage of the White House and Capitol Hill.
Chapin contributed to Covering Catastrophe (Bonus Books, 2002), a book recounting the events of 9/11 in an oral history format. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations sits on the board of The Masters School.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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Delegate
-, Individual
As Director of Analysis & Insight for the Skoll Foundation, Ehren Reed is responsible for assessing the impact and effectiveness of the foundation’s efforts in order to support ongoing learning and evidence-based decision making.
He was previously a Director of Innovation Network, a Washington, DC-based evaluation consulting firm. He brings over ten years of experience managing research and evaluation projects for grantmakers and grantees in the fields of human services, human rights, and advocacy. He is a diehard promoter of evaluation use and a firm believer in the power of evaluation and learning as a support for effective strategy. He speaks frequently on emerging trends in evaluation and has presented at many sector conferences including Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the Council on Foundations, Grantmakers in Health, the American Evaluation Association, and the Communications Network.
Ehren earned both a B.A. and M.S. in Education from the University of Connecticut. He is an avid fan of craft beers and Nationals baseball, especially when combined.
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Delegate
Director, Business for Social Responsibility
I've spent 20 years working at the nexus between private sector innovation, sustainable markets and social development. I'm passionate about enabling entrepreneurial innovation within corporations in collaboration with civil society, development and impact investing partners. I've had the pleasure of driving and supporting the development of inclusive business models for low income communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
I believe social entrepreneurship and impact investing are exciting fields, yet are not reaching scale and financial sustainability nearly quickly enough. Likewise, progressive corporations are driving exciting innovations in inclusive business and governments are reconceiving the role of entrepreneurial innovation in aid, but progress is too much slow.
Breaking down the barriers and fostering new forms of partnership between these groups holds the key to more rapidly scalable, sustainable models that can make markets work for all. That's my mission, and day job - I'm interested in meeting people who also want to make that happen!
Other focus topics and areas of expertise include healthcare, agriculture, food & nutrition, innovative financing, climate change, human rights, supply chains, business ethics, CSR and leadership development.
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Delegate
CEO/Co-Founder, Rippleworks
Doug Galen is the co-founder and CEO of Rippleworks, a nonprofit foundation that delivers the practical support social ventures need to scale faster and improve lives. Through Rippleworks’ customized high-impact projects, expert-led learning programs, and access to capital, social ventures gain the knowledge, training, and funding necessary for them to tackle operational challenges and meet the needs of the communities they serve. Since launching in 2015, Rippleworks has managed 250+ projects with 200 social ventures across 59 countries, partnered with experts to train 300+ ventures, and dispenses scaling capital loans and grants worldwide.
Prior to Rippleworks, Doug was part of founding or early-stage leadership teams for venture-backed, consumer-tech ventures -- including Shutterfly, Shopkick, eBay, and E-LOAN. Doug has been teaching Startup Garage at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for ten years.
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Speaker
Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group
Dipender Saluja is Managing Partner of the Technology Impact Fund, Capricorn Investment Grp, an investment firm founded to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change. TIF is an early investor in iconic companies like Tesla, Redwood Materials, Planet, SpaceX, FORM & Helion. Prior to CIG, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global leader in electronic design, where he built & managed businesses that worked closely with electronics companies around the world. Prior to that he was at Data General (EMC), Honeywell, ROLM (IBM), & GFERC. He’s an electrical engineer by training & attended UND, Univ of Minnesota & Stanford. Dipender serves on the boards of AST, Electric Hydrogen, Halio, Joby (NYSE:JOBY), Navitas (NDAQ:NVTS), QuantumScape (NYSE:QS), Saildrone, SPAN & Summit Nanotech, International Solar Alliance, IonE, the Cyclotron Road Leadership Council, PRIME IAC, & commissioner of the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty (GCEEP).
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Delegate
Director, Stanford University
Debra is focused on achieving a more just and sustainable economic system through collaborative action, human centered design and transformational systems change. She serves on the Boards of the Skoll Foundation, B Lab, IDEO.org, Imperative 21 and the global advisory boards of the African Leadership University and the Wellbeing project. She also works as an advisor to social ventures around the world.
Pre-Covid, Debra was a faculty member at Stanford University's d.school where she co-founded the FEED (Food Entrepreneurship, Education and Design) Collaborative.
Pre-Stanford, Debra was a business executive at Hewlett Packard where the common threads in her broad, 22-year career were driving large scale change, creating new businesses and producing positive social impact and good business results concurrently.
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Delegate
Co-Innovation Architect / Principal Program Manager, Microsoft
David is a 28-year R&D veteran at Microsoft focused on innovation, productivity, and the future of work. He is interested in connecting and sharing ideas with people thinking about how technology will impact the way we live and work in the coming decades.
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Delegate
Senior Partner, Generation Investment Management LLP (U.S.)
David Blood is co-founder and Senior Partner of Generation Investment Management. Previously, he spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs including serving as co-CEO and CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management from 1999-2003. David received a B.A. from Hamilton College and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He is on the Board of New Forests, Dialight, SHINE, The Nature Conservancy, Ashden and Social Finance UK, as well as a Life Trustee of Hamilton College.
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Delegate
Co-Founder & CEO, Solutions Journalism Network
David is CEO and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), which is leading a global movement to transform journalism, anchored by a focus on spreading knowledge through rigorous reporting about potential or demonstrated solutions to global problems. SJN has directly engaged with > 650 news organizations and 47,000 journalists and now has hundreds of training partners in 50 countries. As a journalist, David examined social innovation efforts for three decades. He created and co-authored the “Fixes” column in The New York Times, which ran for 11 years and published over 600 articles about social innovators. He is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, which has been published in 25 languages, The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, and Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.
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Delegate
Co-founder and President, Sanergy
David Auerbach is a co-founder of Regen Organics, part of the Sanergy Collaborative, which develops regenerative agriculture products such as organic fertilizer and insect protein from organic waste streams in emerging markets. Regen's circular economy approach both solves environmental challenges and promotes regenerative, local agricultural production and improves waste management in fast-growing cities. Previously, David built partnerships at Endeavor and the Clinton Global Initiative. David is an Earthshot Prize finalist, and an Ashoka and Echoing Green Fellow. He holds an MBA from MIT and a BA from Yale University. He has lived in Nairobi, Kenya since 2011.
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Speaker
President, Ford Foundation
Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $16 billion international social justice philanthropy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond to stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.
Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at Rockefeller Foundation. Previously, he was COO of Harlem’s Abyssinian Development Corporation.
Darren co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. He serves on many boards, including the National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the High Line, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, Committee to Protect Journalists, Block Inc., and Ralph Lauren.
Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first Head Start class in 1965 and received BA, BS, and JD degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been included on numerous leadership lists including Time’s annual 100 Most Influential People and Out magazine’s Power 50. He is the recipient of 16 honorary degrees, Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal and was named the Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator.
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Delegate
Educator, Systems-led Leadership
Daniela Papi-Thornton is an educator whose work focuses on systems-led social interventions. Daniela has served as a Lecturer at Yale School of Management, Watson Institute, and Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she was the Deputy Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. She continues to consult with Oxford’s Skoll Centre and other corporate and educational clients and she lectures globally on systems-led leadership. Her report and subsequent article, Tackling Heropreneurship, have been widely referenced. From that research she designed a tool called the Impact Gaps Canvas, used at universities around the world. At Oxford she launched educational programming designed to help incorporate systems thinking into social entrepreneurship education, including Map the System, a contest now running at ~40 global institutions. Daniela’s work in education design builds upon six years of emerging market entrepreneurial experience in Cambodia, running a hybrid social enterprise. She co-authored a book, Learning Service, focused on shifting mindsets and practices related to volunteer travel. Her 2018 Ashoka U Big Idea Talk and her TEDx talk on Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship highlight some of her philosophies.
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Delegate
Founder and President, Article 3 Advisors
Darian Weltman Swig is deeply engaged in the field of human rights and social justice. Darian’s life experience has been shaped by extensive global travel with NGO led missions to refugee camps, migrant centers, landmine/de-mining fields, post man-made and natural disaster crises locations, as well as post-genocide reconciliation and reintegration facilities and communities. Darian dedicates her time and resources – personally and professionally – to promoting universal human rights and in doing so, has helped to build a robust human rights ecosystem among philanthropists and change agents in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2006, Darian founded Article 3 Advisors, a not-for-profit consultancy focused on the nexus of human rights and strategic philanthropy. A3A is the culmination of Darian’s extensive experience in human rights related causes and projects. Each year, Darian hosts the A3A Human Rights Day Luncheon program in San Francisco to convene human rights philanthropists, thought-leaders, civic leaders and change agents.
Prior to A3A, Darian worked for over a decade in the field of international protocol and consular corps relations, specializing in dignitary coordination and head of state visits.
Darian currently serves on the governance boards of Human Rights Watch and The Philanthropy Workshop (founding board member). She also serves on the advisory boards of the Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University, the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.
Darian holds dual master’s degrees in Political Science and International Area studies from the University of California at Berkeley. She is also an early and ardent supporter of advancing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework.
Born in Germany, Darian resides in San Francisco, California, with her husband, Rick Swig.
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Delegate
Founder, Spring Impact
Dan founded Spring Impact based on his experiences working across a range of social sector organisations, and his frustration on seeing great ideas not scaling up. With Spring Impact, Dan has developed scale strategies and implementation plans with over 200 organisations ranging from Skoll Awardees such as Tostan and FES to Bezos Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and several leading social businesses. Dan is always looking for ambitious teams seeking to break through barriers on their journey to impact.
A regular presenter and writer, Dan is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, a Clore Social Leadership Fellow and a Rothschild Fellow at the Cambridge Judge Business School. He graduated from the University of Nottingham and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Global Leadership and Public Policy Executive Program.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, WE
Craig Kielburger is a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of a family of organizations dedicated to the
power of WE, a movement of people coming together to change the world. Along with his brother Marc
Kielburger, Craig co-founded WE Charity, which provides a holistic development model called WE
Villages, helping to lift more than one million people out of poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Back at home in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, WE Schools & WE Day provide
comprehensive service learning programs to 10,000 schools, engaging 2.4 million young change-makers.
Lastly, he is the co-founder of ME to WE, a pioneering social enterprise, the profits from which help
sustain the work of his charitable organization. His work has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show,
60 Minutes and the BBC.
Craig is the youngest ever graduate from the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program. He has also
received 15 honorary doctorates and degrees for his work in the fields of education and human rights.
Craig is a New York Times bestselling author who has published 12 books, as well as a nationally
syndicated columnist. Craig has received The Order of Canada, the Nelson Mandela Freedom Medal and
the World Children’s Prize.
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Speaker
Producer, Strongheart Group
CORI SHEPHERD STERN is an Academy Award nominated producer focused on both documentary and fiction film projects. Her most recent film, which she wrote and produced, is BENDING THE ARC - a feature documentary about the epic arc of the global health rights movement through the intimate story of the extraordinary team who led the fight. The film, which premiered at Sundance 2017, was called by The Hollywood Reporter "a stunning documentary...a glorious and uplifting film."
Cori's past projects include WARM BODIES, a box office smash for Summit/Lionsgate and OPEN HEART, a 2013 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. She has a first-look producing deal with Rocklin|Faust, producers of Oscar-winning Best Picture SPOTLIGHT. Current projects include THE ARIZONA PROJECT with Miramax and Adaptive Entertainment, a narrative feature. Cori has also executive produced two virtual reality films: COLLISIONS, which premiered at Davos and Sundance 2016, and FRANCIS, which premiered at the World Bank and WHO in support of world body policy change for global mental health.
In addition to film, her experience includes hands-on work as a social change strategist and social entrepreneur. She appeared in the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winning documentary SONITA, working to help the young woman/rapper escape child marriage in Afghanistan and pursue her art. Cori's social justice projects have been featured on BBC, NPR, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
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Delegate
Principal, Sherry Consulting
Christine Sherry founded and leads Sherry Consulting, a philanthropic advising practice. Her firm provides strategic, due diligence, market analysis and organizational development services for foundations, private donors and nonprofit organizations. Christine is also a Visiting Practitioner at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. She teaches two courses at Stanford University through its Continuing Studies program, one on emerging trends in philanthropy and the other on high impact nonprofits.
Christine is a respected and seasoned consultant, teacher, facilitator, moderator and lawyer with deep expertise in strategy development, market analysis, and organizational capacity building. Her work includes extensive landscape and field analysis in the areas of climate change and the environment, global development, health, the arts and education. She and her firm have conducted more than two dozen in depth field scans of emerging opportunities and needs for funders in diverse areas, designed to help funders with a strategic assessment of where additional funding can be most leveraged. She also publishes and speaks extensively on these topics. Her clients include some of the most well respected new foundations in Silicon Valley, as well as national and international foundations and individual donors.
Before starting her practice, Christine was the founding Director of The Philanthropy Workshop West, created in 2001 as a partnership among the William and Flora Hewlett, TOSA and Rockefeller Foundations. She also served as Vice President and General Counsel of SRI International and in private law practice for 20 years prior to entering the field of philanthropy. Currently, she serves as a Trustee of the Swanson Foundation, a private grant making foundation in Silicon Valley, California, and for the San Francisco Ballet. Christine graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in International Relations and with a JD from UC Berkeley.
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Delegate
Director, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Christian Seelos is Codirector of the Global Innovation for Impact Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Most recently he served as the Leo Tindemans Chair on Business Model Innovation at the Department of Economics and Business at KU Leuven (Belgium) and as the Director for Social Innovation Practice at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Social Innovation for Change Initiative. Previous positions included academic visitor at the Skoll Center at Oxford University (UK), Director of the Platform for Strategy and Sustainability at the Strategic Management Department at IESE Business School (Spain), and Associate Professor at the Institute for Tumor Biology and Cancer research at the University of Vienna (Austria). He teaches MBA and executive courses in International Business, Global Strategic Management, Innovation Strategy, and Social Innovation and consults with various organizations in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.
Christian’s research on innovative business models in the context of deep poverty was recognized by the Strategic Management Society (Best Paper Award for Practice Implications, 2007) and also won him the gold price, 2008 of the IFC-FT research competition on private sector development. Together with Johanna Mair, he recently published the book "Innovation and Scaling for Impact" by Stanford University Publishing that won the Terry McAdam Book Award 2017 for “the most inspirational and useful new book contributing to nonprofit management“, the 2018 Academy of Management ONE award for “best organizations book 2015-2017", and was nominated for the thinkers50 award 2017 in the category of innovation. Christian earned his PhD in Molecular Biology and is widely published in both the Natural- and Social Sciences. He also held management positions in the private industry and at the United Nations where he co-led the disarmament work of Iraq’s biological weapons.
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Delegate
Director - Global Partnerships, USAID / Global Development Lab
Chris Jurgens leads Center for Transformational Partnerships at the U.S. Global Development Lab, which champions USAID’s efforts to engage the private sector to advance development outcomes. His office manages the Global Development Alliance (GDA) – the Agency's flagship model for building shared value partnerships with global corporations, local businesses, investors, and philanthropic partners – and works with USAID Missions worldwide to help them integrate partnerships with the private sector into their programs.
Chris also oversees the Lab’s Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing portfolio, which aims to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems in developing countries and unlock the potential of entrepreneurs to drive economic growth and innovation. This portfolio includes a major partnership with the Skoll Foundation to co-invest in scaling up promising social entrepreneurs, as well as the Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) initiative, through which the Lab is partnering with a range of seed stage impact investors and accelerators to catalyze private investment into promising entrepreneurs and support their growth.
Prior to joining USAID, Chris served as Director of Global Programs for Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), Accenture’s not-for-profit consulting practice, where he oversaw ADP’s global portfolio of work with over 50 NGOs and donor agencies and led Accenture’s efforts in North America to engage its corporate clients in global development issues via cross-sectoral partnerships.
Chris has a Master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a B.A. in
Economics from Miami University, where he was a Truman Scholar and Harrison Scholar. He lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and 2 year old daughter.
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Delegate
Co-Founder, B Lab UK
Charmian believes in the power of business as a force for good. She is the Co-Founder and Chair of B Lab UK and Entrepreneur in Residence at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Her areas of focus include the rise of profit and purpose business models, circular economy and mobilizing a ‘Movement of Movements’.
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Delegate
Chuck Slaughter is the founder of TravelSmith and Living Goods, is a managing Director of The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and a Senior Advisor to TPG’s Rise Fund, a $5 billion impact investing platform. Chuck earned a BA and Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale. In 1991 he founded TravelSmith, a leading travel gear company, and grew it to over $100 million in catalog and online sales. As an advisor to several private equity funds, he has participated in the acquisition of over $2 billion in consumer businesses. As its pro-bono president Chuck lead the turnaround of a network of clinics serving the poor in Kenya. This inspired him to create Living Goods, which supports government community health workers who provide health care on call delivered to the doorsteps of over 8 million people. Living Goods Smart Health app automates diagnoses, enables managers to optimize the performance of thousands of health workers in in remote villages, and provides real-time, auditable data to health ministries and funders. A RCT shows this approach is reducing child mortality by over 25%, for less than $3 per capita. LG’s is helping partners replicate the model in Uganda, Kenya Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia. Chuck serves on the boards of Yale’s School of Management, Tidepool, Digital Square, Aspen Management Partners, PATH’s Digital Advisory Board, and was previously the Vice Chair of the Initiative for Global Development (Co-founded by Bill Gates Sr). He received a Skoll Award, an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a Draper Richards Fellowship, and is a World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
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Delegate
Abogada con estudios de Historia, tiene una larga experiencia en conservación, áreas protegidas y trabajo con comunidades locales, especialmente indigenas.
Desde Amazon Conservation Team, Carolina y su equipo han trabajado arduamente con Indígenas y Campesinas en la protección de los bosques de la Amazonia y los medios de vida de las comunidades locales. Trabajo que han extendido a la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Antioquia y la Orinoquia. Es una convencida del trabajo en equipo y de la acción colectiva, cree que la mejor forma de construir liderazgo es desarrollando capacidades en los distintos actores que interactúan en el territorio, un buen líder local o institucional dependen de las fortalezas de su comunidad y de su equipo. Es especialista en tender puentes y articular el trabajo de la sociedad civil, con las comunidades y la institucionalidad pública para el logro efectivo de resultados orientado a la protección de los bosques.
Bajo su coordinación y gracias a la “acción colectiva”, el equipo que lidera en Colombia ha impulsado de manera articulada con las comunidades locales y las entidades del gobierno importantes logros para la conservación ambiental y el fortalecimiento de las comunidades.
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Delegate
Founding Director, International Resource for Impact and Storytelling
An award-winning independent media field builder, Cara is Founding Director of the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling (IRIS), a donor collaborative supporting creative visual storytelling and narrative analysis in the public interest. IRIS is a grantee partner of Skoll Foundation. Cara served at Ford Foundation as Director, JustFilms, piloting a network-focused, narrative-informed, cultural grantmaking strategy which was integrated across Ford’s ten regions and global strategies. She was Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, funding dozens of non-fiction films, co-founded Doc Society’s Good Pitch event and training model and created the Stories of Change initiative with the Skoll Foundation. Cara has received multiple Emmy Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, and duPont-Columbia Awards.She received a Webby Award for creating P.O.V.’s Borders, a pioneering web series on PBS. She is a member of AMPAS and the WGA and lives in New Jersey, USA.
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Delegate
Global Curator, TED Conferences Europe
Bruno Giussani is the Global Curator of TED, the organization behind the TED conferences and the popular online TEDTalks (ted.com), and lead organizer of TED's climate initiative, Countdown (countdown.ted.com), which identifies and champions solutions to the climate crisis. Since joining TED in 2005, he has curated hundreds of TEDTalks, including two by HH Pope Francis. Prior to joining TED Giussani was the Head of Online Strategy at the World Economic Forum; a Knight Fellow at the University of Stanford; and an Internet columnist for the New York Times. He has written for numerous media outlets in Switzerland and abroad, co-founded three Internet companies, is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Swiss software house Tinext (tinext.com) and advises a number of companies and non-profits. He lives in Switzerland, where he is also the Chairman of the Geneva International Film Festival on Human Rights (fifdh.org).
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Delegate
In 1966, as a young post-graduate student from a privileged urban background, Bunker Roy volunteered to spend the summer working with famine affected people in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. This experience changed him. He committed himself to fight poverty and inequality. He founded the Barefoot College in Tilonia (also known as Social Work and Research Centre) in 1972 to bridge the inequality gap and demystify technology with the people and put it to good use in the hands of poor communities. This radically simple approach to ending poverty, by tapping the wisdom, skills, and resourcefulness of the poor themselves, is less expensive and more successful than approaches that rely on external experts. Barefoot College recruits illiterate villagers and trains them to build and maintain life-changing technologies and systems such as solar electricity, water and sanitation, schools and clinics, artisan businesses, and community engagement.
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Delegate
Founder and CEO, Aceli Africa
Brian is Founder & CEO of Aceli Africa, a market incentive facility to mobilize private capital for small- and medium-enterprises in the agriculture sector across Africa. Since launching in 2020, Aceli has partnered with 25 commercial banks and impact investors to mobilize $80M+ in lending to SMEs that link 500k smallholder farmers to markets. Incentives reward lenders for serving first-time borrowers and impact across gender and youth inclusion, climate & environment, and food security & nutrition.
Previously as Chief Innovation Officer for Root Capital, he led the impact and advisory teams and designed impact-linked finance mechanisms in Africa and Latin America. He is also a co-founder and serves as Director of the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF), an alliance of 17 impact lenders that promote industry standards and best practices for agricultural SME lending globally. He was named a 2020 Rainer Arnhold Fellow by the Mulago Foundation.
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Delegate
Bruce’s work at Skoll focuses primarily on collective impact issues, many carried over from the Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF). A former diplomat, Bruce brings a policy lens to questions of scale, a key focus for all Skoll philanthropic activities. His current remit includes COVID-19 response, climate change, U.S. democracy, and nuclear nonproliferation.
Bruce originally joined the Skoll Foundation in 2008 as communications director, then helped inaugural president Larry Brilliant launch SGTF in 2010, taking on a policy and advocacy role. Bruce ran the nuclear nonproliferation program and oversaw SGTF’s MidEast conflict work, while also playing a leading role in the launch of the Climate Advocacy Lab, SGTF’s primary climate effort which went independent in 2017.
Bruce helped conceptualize and launch two funder collaboratives, Climate Nexus, on climate communication, and N Square, an initiative to bring new players into the nuclear nonproliferation sphere. While SGTF sunset at the end of 2017, Bruce is still on the advisory boards of all three efforts. Bruce also served for a period of time at SGTF’s interim president.
Prior to joining Skoll, Bruce spent nearly a decade in the technology sphere with Oracle and Novell, largely in communications roles. He had a 14-year stint as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, serving overseas in Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and Italy, and in various economic roles in Washington, D.C., working on, among other issues, the G-7 process, Middle East peace, European regional issues, Ukraine, and nuclear safety.
Bruce holds a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College and a M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Bruce chairs the board of Cazadero Music Camp. A recovering French Horn player, he is now learning the Scottish smallpipes. He also enjoys playing low-key pickup soccer.
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Delegate
Senior Director of Social Innovation, Indiegogo
Breanna DiGiammarino is the Senior Director of Social Innovation at Indiegogo, the world’s largest global crowdfunding company.
Since joining Indiegogo in 2012, Bre built the first operational infrastructure for the company’s vertical team and led the development and launch of Generosity.com, the company’s dedicated cause site. Today, Bre raises awareness about the value of crowdfunding for social innovation and works to empower many of the most impactful fundraisers on the site, such as blogger Humans of New York’s initiative to address bonded labor in Pakistan with a $2.3M fundraiser from 76,000 donations and the hundreds of fundraisers to support Syrian refugees.
Before Indiegogo, Breanna was the Senior Associate at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, a social venture fund and an Associate Consultant at The Bridgespan Group, the non-profit arm of Bain & Company. Breanna holds a Master of Public Administration in Nonprofit Management from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Government from the University of Virginia.
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Delegate
Former Chief Executive Officer, Polaris
Bradley Myles is former CEO of Polaris, a global leader in the fight to eradicate human trafficking and to restore freedom to survivors. Since 2002, he has devoted himself to combating human trafficking and modern slavery on a local, national, and global scale. Mr. Myles' early efforts focused on directly serving survivors, researching local human trafficking markets, and helping to build Washington DC's first-ever Human Trafficking Task Force. Under Myles' leadership, Polaris has worked to strengthen the U.S. national movement against human trafficking through policy advocacy in all 50 states and through a wide range of training and capacity-building programs. He also helped launch Polaris's operation of the United States National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888), a 24/7 operation that has now identified and responded to more than 50,000 cases of human trafficking nationwide, received calls directly from over 10,000 survivors, and formulated a unique typology of the 25 major types of human trafficking that exist in the present-day United States. This hotline and data hub model is now regarded as one of the best-functioning anti- trafficking hotlines in the world and has become a focal point of Polaris' growing global programs.
Mr. Myles is currently focusing his efforts on Polaris’s future strategy for the next decade, which includes working towards better anti-trafficking hotline coverage globally to build a stronger safety net for all 25 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, strengthening partnerships with the world's leading technology companies, and undertaking new data-driven intervention efforts targeted towards eliminating specific types of modern slavery in the U.S. and around the world. Mr. Myles holds degrees in Psychology and Political Science from Stanford University. He is the 2017 recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
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Speaker
Founder and CEO, Ashoka,
AshokaBill Drayton is a social entrepreneur with a long record of founding organizations and public service. As the founder and CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, growing a global association of over 3,900 leading social entrepreneurs who work together to create an ‘Everyone a Changemaker’ world. Ashoka Fellows bring big systems-change to the world’s most urgent social challenges. Over half have changed national policy within five years of launch.
As a student, he founded organizations ranging from Yale Legislative Services to Harvard’s Ashoka Table, an inter-disciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. After graduation from Harvard, he received an M.A. from Balliol College in Oxford University. In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School. He worked at McKinsey & Company for ten years and taught at Stanford Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. While serving the Carter Administration as Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, he launched many reforms including emissions trading, a fundamental change in regulation that is now the basis of much global as well as US regulatory law, including in fields beyond the environment.
Bill launched Ashoka in 1980; in 1984, he used the stipend he received when elected a MacArthur Fellow to devote himself fully to Ashoka. Bill is Ashoka’s Chief Executive Officer. He also chairs Ashoka’s Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working! Bill has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He has been selected one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. In 2011, Drayton won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award and, in 2019, Drayton was elected as member of the American Philosophical Society. Other awards include Honorary Doctorates from Yale, NYU and more.
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Delegate
Beto Veríssimo is a co-founder and associate researcher at Imazon, a think and do tank in the Brazilian Amazon. He is also co-founder of Amazon Center for Entrepreneurship. Moreover, he is Co-Director of Amazon 2030 Program, an initiative that seeks to develop an action plan for sustainable development of the Brazilian Amazon and Director of Social Progress Brazil. He received several awards including the 2010 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Verissimo has a graduate degree in Agriculture by Federal University of Brazilian Amazon and Ecology by Penn State University.
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Delegate
Bart Houlahan co-founded B Lab in 2006. B Lab is a non-profit organization with offices in 33 countries, driving economic systems change to build a more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy. Its mission is to serve a movement of people using business as a force for good by shining a light on leaders through a corporate certification (6000+ Certified B Corporations in 70+ countries), and then providing easy pathways for others to follow. B Lab encourages all companies to manage their social and environmental impact using the B Impact Assessment (250,000+ companies engaged). The organization also advances policy initiatives to upend shareholder primacy and advance stakeholder governance (Benefit Corporation legislation passed in 43 states and 10 countries). Prior to B Lab, Bart was President of AND 1, a $250 MM basketball footwear and apparel company. Bart is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a recipient of the 2014 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
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Speaker
Bart is a Zen Buddhist monk and social entrepreneur.
He took the initiative to train giant African rats (AKA HeroRATs) as sustainable detectors in response to the global landmine problem. What started in 1995 as a modest research initiative in detection rats technology, gradually grew into a global humanitarian operation through his organisation apopo.org which became one of the leading social enterprises in the world, recognised and awarded by networks like Ashoka, the Skoll Awards and the World Economic Forum.
Bart transitioned from his executive role in 2015 to focus on the practice of Zen. In the same year he got involved in The Wellbeing Project which aims to catalyze a culture of inner wellbeing for all changemakers.
While exploring the relationship between personal growth and social innovation, he recently co-founded a new initiative innerpreneurs.org which is a brave space for entrepreneurial leaders to fulfilll their noble life purpose.
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Delegate
First degree: philosophy. Post-graduate: law. First career: journalism: The Guardian, BBC etc. Second: business/corporate communication consultant. Third (and final?!) devloping systems for reliable transport for health-care delivery in Africa.
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Delegate
Founder and Director, Altruism in Medicine Institute
Ven. Dr. Barry Kerzin is an American trained physician and Buddhist monk who is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the Centre for Buddhist Studies, HKU, as well as an Honorary Professor at the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences. He is the founder and president of the Altruism in Medicine Institute (AIMI) and founder and chairman of the Human Values Institute (HVI) in Japan. For 32 years he has been providing free medical care to the poor up to high lamas. He is training compassion for 18,000 nurses at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and for Google employees in Japan, London, Singapore and USA in 2021, as well as other big international companies. Barry has been a speaker in 2 TEDx talks, presented medical grand rounds at Stanford Medical School and lectured around the world including Oxford and Cambridge Universities. His brain has been studied at Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has authored four books.
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Delegate
Co-Founder Conveners.org, Conveners-Org
Bringing new companies from idea to reality is Avary Kent's passion. She blends scientific analysis with business acumen and operational expertise to help bring new companies and products to market. She excels in companies that are focused on creating new holistic systems to manage growth and scale to create high impact products and services. She is the Co-Founder of Conveners.org and through that role applied her expertise in facilitation, experience design, capacity building trainings, neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and human centered design to support organizations to increase the effectiveness of convening as a tool for change. For the last three years she has worked extensively with Kaiser Permanente and developed new programs and projects including www.resiliencecompass.org.
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Delegate
Innovative Finance Advisor, Individual
Aunnie Patton Power is the Innovative Finance Lead at the Bertha Centre and an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Saïd School of Business. In these roles, she manages projects on Social Impact Bonds/Development Impact Bonds, Impact Investing and sustainable philanthropy, consults to a range of organisations including start-ups, financial intermediaries, investment funds, family offices and foundations on social investment strategies, and researches and lectures in financial modeling, social finance and impact investment. Aunnie’s work has been published throughout the world, including by the Oxford University Press, the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), the World Economic Forum, the Impact Investing Policy Collaboration. She has experience in both the mainstream and the impact-oriented venture capital and investment banking sectors in North America, the United Kingdom, Africa and Asia. She has most recently worked with Unitus Capital, BMO Capital Markets, and the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology. She has a B.A. in International Political Economy from DePauw University and an M.B.A. from the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.
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Delegate
Founding Partner, Total Impact Capital
Arthur is TOTAL's (formerly known as Total Impact Advisors) Founding Partner in Europe. Over his career he has held senior positions in both "for profit" . Arthur is a recognized innovator in social finance and frequently invited to speak and write on innovative financing vehicles for social purposes. Historically he has or does sit on a number of boards / or in an advisory capacity including the WEF Social Finance Agenda Council, OECD Special Advisors Group to the G8 Impact Report, European B Corp Advisory Board, Big Issue Invest (UK) , Ecolint (Suisse) , Nexi (S Africa) , PeePoo (Sweden)
Prior to his current role at TOTAL he was SVP and a Leadership Group Member of Ashoka, the world's largest supporter of social entrepreneurs. At Ashoka he was Global Head of Social Financial Services, and a Leadership Group Member serving in DC, New York and London. Since 2005 he has been involved in the conceptualisation or origination of many of the ideas in Impact investing - including Social Impact Bonds, The Ashoka / DB Eye Fund (top 20 idea of New Philanthropy - Fast Company) - one of the first layered funding structures, metric frameworks including the Social Progress Index. His greatest pleasure is in working with ground breaking Social Entrepreneurs, Corporate and Institutions who have large scale ideas for change. As a former Banker specialising in Product development and Change management Arthur has been instrumental in encouraging major global finance firms including JP Morgan to enter the business of social investing. He is also deeply involved in the conceptualization and creation of new legal / financial hybrid structures to encourage equitable social investment -. One of his current focus is working with leading lawyers, Accenture, Sphaera (technology) in blending his knowledge of Finance / legal frameworks and IT to create genuine Outcome models. Educated LSE, HEC , Merill Lynch and SDA Bocconi, Married to a Norwegian, three children and a Labrador
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, Muso
Ari Johnson, MD, is co-founder and CEO of Muso, and Associate Professor at the University of California San Francisco, in the Department of Medicine and the Institute for Global Health Sciences. He has published peer-reviewed articles and essays in the fields of infectious disease, health systems design, socioeconomic determinants of health, AIDS, and migration. The co-recipient of the 2021 Charles Bronfman Prize, Ari trained at Harvard Medical School and completed his residency at the University of California San Francisco. Over the past fifteen years, Ari has supported Muso to design and build Rapid Care, a strategy to accelerate universal access to healthcare. A 2018 study in BMJ Global Health documented how communities served by this strategy achieved and sustained a rate of child death lower than any country in Sub-Saharan Africa for five years running. Muso cares for more than 500,000 patients, and supports governments to redesign their national community health systems.
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Delegate
Executive Director,
NidanArbind Singh is a social entrepreneur and activist working with informal workers and their children in India .He founded Nidan in 1996 which along with various offshoots today works with more than 10,00,000 informal workers for better laws and polices, livelihood promotion ,access to financial services ,skill building ,enabling workers to seize opportunities in market and promoting social security .Establishing inclusive models of growth has also been an integral strategy along with institution building which includes setting up for profit institutions.
A very successful initiative has been the National Association of Street Vendors of India(NASVI) which has brought security to hundreds of thousands of street vendors in India. NASVI got a National Policy for Street Vendors of India in 2004 which was adopted by 11 states of India .In 2014 ,the Govt of India enacted the Central Law for Street Vendors which mandates participation of Street Vendors in securing their livelihood and creati
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Delegate
A lifelong educationalist, I began my career teaching English at secondary level before focusing on children excluded from mainstream education. Following research in Zimbabwe, I founded CAMFED International to support and advance the education of rural girls in sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation has grown into six countries, working with Ministries of Education and an array of other partners to extend education beyond the secondary into the tertiary level as well as providing financial intelligence training and job creation programmes. CAMFED’s work is rooted in rural communities and credits its strength and success to the creative endeavours and resilience of these communities as well as the alumna of young women supported by CAMFED and now more that a quarter of a million strong.
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Delegate
Executive Director, Segal Family Foundation
Andy Bryant joined the foundation as Executive Director in 2010. He leads the foundation’s team and implements the vision of the board of directors. He has overseen an increase in the foundation’s annual giving from $2 million in 2010 to over $18 million in 2022 alongside the growth of the partner portfolio from 30 organizations to now well over 300. The most important quantifiable changes that Andy has overseen:
1) African staff: Zero in 2010 to 70% in 2022
2) African-led partners: Zero in 2010 to over 80% in 2022
3) Grant decisions made in Africa: Zero in 2010 to nearly 100% in 2022
He has worked in international development for many years in Africa and Asia, including positions with Tanzanian Children’s Fund and TechnoServe. Andy completed a BA from Princeton University in 2003 and subsequently graduated from Syracuse University in 2007 with a MPA in International Development.
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Delegate
Managing Partner, Silvan Ingredient Ecosystem
Andy is the founder and Managing Partner of Silvan Ingredient Ecosystem. Silvan is an ecosystem that enables the world’s most sustainable and regenerative ingredient growers to meet the demands of the modern brand and consumer.
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Speaker
International Director, Centre for Policy Development
Andrew is an international human rights lawyer with 20 years of varied UN and international advocacy experience. Andrew has held many positions at Crisis Action since joining in 2010, including New York Director and Deputy Executive Director. He provides world-class leadership to a global team and has spearheaded some of the organisation’s signature advocacy successes, as well as leading critical aspects of the internationalisation of Crisis Action.
Prior to Crisis Action, Andrew worked for four years at Human Rights First (formerly Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) in New York, where he coordinated UN advocacy, managed the Human Rights Defenders Program and led Latin American work.
Previously, Andrew was a lawyer in Australia representing indigent clients and refugees and spearheading major law reform projects. He has also worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Ecuador, the UN Regional Commission in Thailand, the Australian delegation to the UN General Assembly, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions. Andrew holds honours degrees in politics and law from the University of Melbourne and a Masters of Laws from New York University School of Law. He is a John Monash Scholar.
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Delegate
Andrew is co-founder and board co-chair of B Lab, the nonprofit organization behind the B Corp movement. B Lab’s vision is stakeholder capitalism - an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system for all. B Lab drives systemic change by changing the culture, behavior, and structure of business and the capital markets. The movement is led by the example of nearly 8,000 Certified B Corporations in 80 countries. Before leaving the private sector to co-found B Lab, Andrew spent 16 years as a partner in private equity funds at DLJ, Credit Suisse, and MSD Capital. He and his co-founders have won numerous awards and recognition, including a New York Times Visionary, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the McNulty Prize. He is a lecturer at Princeton University, where he teaches a course on stakeholder capitalism with his wife, Margot Brandenburg, and he has served on numerous for profit and non-profit boards. Andrew lives in Brooklyn with his wife and four children.
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Speaker
Investigative Journalist, Tiger Eye Foundation
Anas Aremeyaw Anas is an undercover journalist, attorney and private detective working in Ghana and across the African continent. In disguise, he finds his way into asylums, brothels, prisons, orphanages and villages, where he methodically gathers evidence for hard-hitting stories -- then presents the evidence to authorities to see criminals prosecuted.
On the 6th May 2018 Anas released Number 12, so named because corruption was the "12th player on the football team". This exposé implicated almost the entire football administration in Ghana and resulted in the President of Ghana dissolving the Ghana Football Association (GFA). The then GFA president, Kwesi Nyantakyi, who was also an executive member of FIFA, was filmed by Anas accepting a bribe. He was later banned for life by FIFA.
International referees were also involved, such as Kenyan FIFA referee Marwa Range. He was filmed receiving US$600 before a previous game from Anas's investigative team posing as top Ghanaian football executives, leading to Marwa's withdrawal from the World Cup. A week before the 2018 FIFA World Cup was due to start, the BBC released the documentary. In the weeks following, other figures such as Super Eagles Coach Salisu Yusuf were found to be involved in the scandal.
Two years prior, Anas went undercover for two years to expose a total of 34 judges engaged in corruption-related activities. These judges and over 105 judicial staff were caught on camera receiving bribes to influence judgment in Ghana’s courts.
Anas currently works as a lead reporter on Africa Investigates, a documentary series on Al Jazeera, which empowers African journalists to investigate and tell their own stories. Under the Africa Investigates project, Anas has so far produced over ten (10) award-winning investigative documentaries across the continent. He is best known for his works in anti-corruption and human rights, for which he has won countless national and international awards.
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Delegate
Andrea Coleman is co-founder of Riders for Health and founder of Two Wheels for Life.
She is life-long motorcyclist and co-founded Riders with Barry Coleman, her husband, and motorcycle sporting hero, Randy Mamola in 1996. She has worked for 30 years to show that a systematic approach to managing motorcycles and motorised vehicles in Africa means health care can be delivered – predictably and reliably, however harsh the conditions or however remote the community - money saved and people employed and trained to a very high standard. Andrea’s motorcycle racing life and her work in promotion and sports management provided her with a practical outlook and a set of skills that have helped to guide the financial and advocacy development of the work of Riders for Health.
In 2013 Andrea won the Women of the Year Award, sponsored by Barclays Bank for her part in revolutionising medical provision across Africa. In 2006 she won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award. Andrea was select
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Delegate
Co-Founder & Partner, Tribe Impact Capital
Amy is Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer at Tribe Impact Capital, a dedicated impact investment wealth manager and Best for the World B Corps. Amy is an environmental scientist by training with over 25 years’ experience in corporate sustainability and impact investing. Before founding Tribe, Amy headed up sustainability teams at both Bank of America and Microsoft, as well as the Private Client team at Charities Aid Foundation. She started her career in environmental consultancy, before broadening into sustainability consulting with EY and PwC. Amy sits on the Boards of Big Issue Invest and B Lab UK. She also sits on the Development Council of the Future Fit Benchmark and is an advisor to the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network.
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Delegate
We promote market based approach to poverty reduction. Till date 1.7 million smallholder farmers households moved out of poverty by adopting our small scale irrigation technology
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Speaker
Managing Partner, Merian Ventures
ALEXSIS DE RAADT ST JAMES
MANAGING PARTNER
Alexsis is an investor and entrepreneur with over 25 years investment experience. She is the founder and managing partner of Merian Ventures, a US and UK venture capital firm. Merian Ventures partners with exceptional female entrepreneurs who are driven to build competitive and profitable companies in fintech, consumer, mobile and cyber security. Prior to creating Merian Ventures, Alexsis held leadership roles and board seats with companies she funded or founded, senior executive roles in YBA Ventures, Commerce One, Shell International in London and Holland where she served in a number of management positions, including director of M&A, venture investments and treasury advisor. Alexsis is a frequent speaker and author on business, investing and the role of women in entrepreneurship and technology.
Alexsis She serves on the Fulbright Commission, the leadership board of The Osher Center at the University of California Medical School San Francisco and is an advisor to CapLinked, Provenance, Oorja and CirrusIdentity. Alexsis has an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MBA from Erasmus University, Holland and a BA from the University of Texas, Austin.
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Delegate
Professor Alex Nicholls MBA is the first tenured professor in social entrepreneurship appointed at the University of Oxford and was the first staff member of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in 2004. His research interests range across several key areas within social entrepreneurship and social innovation, including: social and impact investment; the nexus of relationships between accounting, accountability, and governance; public and social policy contexts; and Fair Trade.
To date Alex has published more than one hundred peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and six books. He has over twelve thousand citations of his work. He is also the Editor of the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.
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Delegate
Founder and President of Ciudad Saludable, and President of Healthy Cities International Foundation, all belonging to Healthy City Group; external Consultant for the InterAmerican Bank – IADB and the World Bank. Albina obtained her Ph.D. summa cum laude in Chemical Engineering, at the Universitat Ramón Llull, Spain (2010). Graduated as Industrial Engineer at the UNI (National University of Engineering), and as Sanitary Engineer in Solid Waste, as second specialty, Peru. M.A. in Ecology and Environmental Management at Ricardo Palma University (2000), Peru. Ashoka Social Entrepreneur Fellow since 1996, she is considered among the world’s best social entrepreneurs. Also chosen by Schawb Foundation and by Skoll Foundation as Outstanding Social Entrepreneur and Avina Leader as well, as a result of the work she develops in environmental issues and especially in solid waste and water care; she has performed several environmental studies of the basin of the Santa River, of the Yarinacocha Lagoon, due to the impact that solid waste and sewage water have on this water stream. She is Board Member at the Global Fairness Initiative in USA.
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Speaker
Former Vice President of the United States and Chairman of The Climate Reality Project, Office of the Honorable Al Gore
Al Gore
Former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate
An environmental, business, and tech visionary recognized as one of the world's leading activists, former US Vice President Al Gore was referred to by TIME magazine as “a businessman who is out to change the world.”
VP Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis, a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and a co-founder of Climate TRACE. He is also a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a member of Apple Inc.’s board of directors, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees.
VP Gore was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1982 and to the US Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th vice president of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years.
The former Vice President is the author of the #1 New York Times best-sellers "An Inconvenient Tru
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Delegate
Executive Director, New Media Advocacy Project
Adam is the founder and executive director of the New Media Advocacy Project and the CEO of LawHub. His work focuses on using media and storytelling to shift the balance of power in the world’s legal systems. As a young lawyer, Adam experimented with video as a tool to win challenging civil and human rights cases. He made the bet that his clients could be their own best advocates if he could get their stories in front of decision makers--which proved true time and time again. He launched N-Map to professionalize and innovate how lawyers for the world’s most vulnerable communities use media and storytelling in their work. N-Map has grown from a one-person startup to a global organization with offices in New York, Mexico City and Lagos. N-Map is supported by Echoing Green, Open Society Foundations, the MacArthur Foundation, and many others. Adam recently founded LawHub, a for-profit social enterprise that uses media to make legal information more accessible to consumers.
Adam is a graduate of Amherst College (1998) and Harvard Law School (2004). After finishing law school, he served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then received a Skadden Fellowship to work as a litigator at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. After his fellowship he joined Debevoise & Plimpton as a litigation associate. When not doing human rights work or producing media, Adam spends his time on a farm in upstate New York, where his wife raises grass-fed lamb and beef, and pastured chicken and eggs. He sits on the Board of Directors of the National Younger Farmers’ Coalition. Sometimes he even feeds the chickens himself!
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Delegate
Project Leader, Wellbeing Project
Aaron is excited about the interplay between our inner lives and the broader world. Aaron Pereira is currently Project Lead for The Wellbeing Project. The Wellbeing Project is focused on catalysing a culture of inner wellbeing for all changemakers. It emerged from a 7 year sabbatical ending in 2012. The Wellbeing Project is co-created with Ashoka, Georgetown University, Impact Hub, Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, and Synergos.
Aaron worked with the Guggenheim on an urban labs project, co-founded a pilot social enterprise to address housing issues in Mumbai slums, and explored neighbourhood life through a project in Paris. Aaron was co-founder of CanadaHelps and Vartana. CanadaHelps engages over 4 million Canadians and raises over $400 million a year for social sector organizations. It also works with over 20,000 charities on capacity issues. Vartana was focused on addressing financing needs in the social sector. Vartana played a key role in the early development of the field of social
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Delegate
Vivek founded Namati in 2011 to grow the movement for legal empowerment around the world. Namati and its partners have built cadres of community legal workers – sometimes known as “barefoot lawyers”– in ten countries. The advocates have worked with over 65,000 people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to healthcare and citizenship.
Namati convenes the Global Legal Empowerment Network, more than 1,000 groups from every region in the world who are learning from one another and collaborating on common challenges. This community successfully advocated for the inclusion of access to justice in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Vivek is co-author of Community Paralegals and the Pursuit of Justice (Cambridge University Press). His TED talk, How to Put the Power of Law in People’s Hands, has been viewed over a million times.
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Delegate
Shivani Garg Patel is Chief Strategy Officer at the Skoll Foundation and focuses on developing and amplifying the Foundation's work to enable lasting social change. She has been a social entrepreneur, investor and advisor and brings a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary view to her work.
Before joining the Skoll Foundation, Shivani co-founded and led Samahope, a non-profit that invested in local medical providers who provide critical medical care to women and children in low-income communities around the world. Her technology-driven social innovation work has spanned the Grameen Foundation, World Bank and World Health Organization. Earlier in her career, Shivani was a strategy consultant and product manager in the private sector.
Shivani is a proud and under-caffeinated mom of two. She has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.A. in Cognitive Science from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.
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Delegate
Safeena Husain is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls, a non-profit working towards empowering communities for girls’ education in remote villages of India. Under Safeena’s guidance, Educate Girls has mobilised 1.4 million+ girls for enrolment to date, supporting over 18.6 million+ children.
Safeena’s efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been instrumental in Educate Girls achieving the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education and becoming an Audacious Project.
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Speaker
Global Director of Inclusive Finance, Citigroup, Inc.
Bob Annibale
Global Director,
Citi Community Development and Inclusive Finance
Bob leads Citi’s partnerships with global, national and local organizations to support inclusive finance and community development through economic empowerment. He also leads Citi’s commercial relationships with microfinance financial institutions, corporations, investors and municipalities, working across Citi’s businesses and geographies to expand access to financial services in underserved communities.
Since joining Citi in 1982, Mr. Annibale has held a number of senior regional and global treasury, risk and corporate positions in Athens, Bahrain, Nairobi, London and New York.
Bob serves on the U.S. FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs Advisory Council on Financial Education and Inclusion. He serves as a Founding Member of SAGE’s Housing Advisory Council supporting the senior LGBT community, and serves on the board of the Citi Foundation, Accion International and the Bedford Stuyvestant Restoration Corporation.
In 2014, Bob was honored by the Obama Administration as a White House Champion of Change for his work leading Citi’s programs promoting immigrant integration and citizenship in the United States. His leadership contributed to Citi’s recognition by Euromoney as the inaugural “Best Bank for Financial Inclusion” and “Latin America’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance”. Bob was individually recognized by Euromoney as a “Global Impact Banking Champion”. In 2018, he was again named by the Financial Times as one of the OUTStanding Top 100 LGBT Business Leaders for the fifth consecutive year.
Bob, a U.S. and U.K. national, holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from Vassar College, New York, and an M.A. in African Studies (History) from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.
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Speaker
President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Since April 2017, Richard Besser, MD, has been president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is the former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ABC News’ former chief health and medical editor.
At RWJF, Besser leads the largest private foundation devoted solely to improving health in the US. They focus on building a comprehensive Culture of Health that provides everyone in America with a fair and just for health and well-being. Access to healthy food, clean air and water, safe housing, secure employment at a living wage, transportation, education, and the elimination of barriers from discrimination are all-important contributors to health and well-being.
The author or co-author of hundreds of presentations, abstracts, chapters, editorials and publications, Besser has earned many awards for his work in public health and for his volunteer service. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He received the Surgeon General's Medallion for his leadership during the H1N1 response and the Dean's Medal from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2012, he received an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of global maternal health issues, and two Peabody Awards for coverage of Hurricane Sandy and Robin Roberts’ health journey. In 2017 and 2018, he received an Emmy award for “Outstanding Morning Program” as part of the Good Morning America team. His book, “Tell Me the Truth, Doctor: Easy-to-Understand Answers to Your Most Confusing and Critical Health Questions,” was published in 2013.
Besser received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Williams College and medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a residency and chief residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.
He practices as a volunteer pediatrician at the Henry J. Austin Health Center in Trenton, N.J. He and his wife Jeanne, a food writer, have two sons, Alex and Jack.
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Speaker
Chair of The Elders, The Elders
Mary Robinson is a founding member and Chair of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, who work together for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet. She has served as Chair since 2018, and is a passionate advocate for gender equality, human rights and climate justice. She has addressed the UN Security Council on multiple occasions and has met with world leaders including President Ramaphosa in South Africa, Pope Francis in the Vatican, President Macron in Paris and President Xi Jinping in Beijing. She was the first woman President of Ireland (1990–1997) and is a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997–2002). From 2013- 2016, she served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change and then on El Niño and Climate. She was appointed Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice at Trinity College Dublin in 2019.
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Delegate
President, Samueli Family Philanthropies and COO, H&S Ventures, Samueli Foundation
Lindsey Spindle serves as President of the Samueli Family Philanthropies and Chief Operating Officer of H&S Ventures which oversees all the Samueli Family’s for-profit and not-for-profit activities. The philanthropic entities operating under the oversight of H&S Ventures include the Samueli Foundation, the Anaheim Ducks Foundation, the San Diego Gulls Foundation, the Irvine Ice Foundation, and The Rinks Foundation.
Spindle was President of The Jeff Skoll Group, where she connected and advised Mr. Skoll’s entrepreneurial portfolio of philanthropic and commercial organizations that include the impact entertainment company Participant, Capricorn Investment Group, and the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is centered on social entrepreneurship and innovation, with a focus on five main, interrelated areas: climate change, inclusive economies, protection of democracy, pandemics prevention and health systems strengthening, and racial justice. Participant has produced more than
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Delegate
COO & Head of Portfolio, Mulago Foundation
Kristin leads Mulago's grant and investment portfolio and oversees operations. She joined Mulago in 2013 to grow and support an exemplary portfolio of social investments – grants, debt and equity – in high-impact organizations with a scalable solution to meet the basic needs of the poor.
Her background spans the private, public and nonprofit sectors, including stints in investment banking, the US Peace Corps, the US National Park Service, and organizations focused on early childhood development and immigrant job placement. Kristin has brought these varied experiences to philanthropy since 2008.
Prior to Mulago, she was a Principal at the Skoll Foundation, where she worked with social entrepreneurs, and Program Finance Officer at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, where she focused on environmental conservation.
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Delegate
Head of Grants and Investments, Mulago Foundation
Laura is responsible for Mulago’s operations, investment strategy and execution, leading a team that sources, vets and manages over 100 funding relationships (grants, debt and equity) with social enterprises in Africa and South/Southeast Asia. Since Laura joined the foundation in 2007, Mulago has provided over $150 million in early stage funding for many iconic social enterprises, including Educate Girls, Last Mile Health, Living Goods, Muso, Zola and One Acre Fund. Laura is also a Lecturer in Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business – teaching Formation of Impact Ventures – on the board of Innovations for Poverty Action and an advisor to many social enterprises around the world. Laura thrives in entrepreneurial environments and most of her professional career has been in early stage companies. She received her BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and her MBA and Certificate in Public Management from Stanford University.
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Delegate
CEO, Mulago Foundation
Kevin Starr leads the Mulago Foundation. Mulago finds, funds, advises, and promotes organizations with scalable solutions to poverty. Mulago’s two fellows programs teach early-stage social entrepreneurs how to 1) design for maximum impact and 2) build strategies for maximum scale. Most fellows become part of the Mulago solutions portfolio, which provides unrestricted funding as long as there is impressive progress toward impact at scale.
Kevin started out in medicine and practiced until founding Mulago. He and his team now work with 50 portfolio organizations, many of which have become leaders in the social sector, along with 40 fellows leading organizations in Africa, South Asia, and South America.
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Delegate
Founder, MCE Social Capital
Author, The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur (June, 2017). Bio: http://www.jonathanclewis.com/the-author/
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Speaker
An international human rights lawyer, ordained minister and former San Francisco public defender, Karen founded IBJ in 2000 after witnessing hundreds of prisoners of all ages being held without trials, usually after being tortured into making 'confessions’. She realised that systematic early access to a lawyer can create global conditions for a “new normal” in which democracy is strengthened, people have access to justice, and we end the use of torture as an investigative tool. IBJ now has a presence in 52 countries and over 22 years, IBJ has supported more than 40,000+ lawyers and defenders who have represented more than 500,000 detainees.
Karen is a recipient of awards from the Skoll Foundation, Echoing Green, Ashoka, and among others, the American Bar Association Human Rights Award, the Gleitsman International Award, Harvard Divinity School Gomes and Alumna awards. Karen is named as one of America’s best leaders by the US News and World Report.
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Delegate
CEO, Alight
Jocelyn Wyatt is the CEO of Alight, where she leads more than 3,500 team members globally. Her vast experience in strategic development on a global scale is intrinsically human-centered. Alight works in more than 20 countries, co-creating dignified spaces and human-worthy services for and alongside more than 3.5 million displaced people every year.
Prior to Alight, Jocelyn was the Cofounder and CEO of IDEO.org, a global design studio partnering with NGOs to design products and services that create a more just and inclusive world. During her decade of leadership there, she spearheaded collaborations with DFID (the UK’s Department for International Development), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PSI (formerly Population Services International), and many other organizations with broad global reach. In addition to her role as a founding board member of Airbnb.org, Jocelyn serves on the advisory boards of Marketplace and the Drucker Institute. She is also a founding member of Chief.
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Delegate
Managing Partner and Founder, Grove Social Impact Partners
J.B. Schramm is Managing Partner of Grove Impact, a national partnership of social change pioneers catalyzing bold systems-change initiatives. Schramm formerly led New Profit’s $25M Learn to Earn fund to help learners achieve economic mobility by weaving work and study together. Forbes named J.B. to its “Impact 30” list of top social entrepreneurs for leading College Summit (now called PeerForward), which was recognized by President Obama with a portion of his Nobel Peace Prize. Selected as the U.S. Social Entrepreneur of the Year at the World Economic Forum (2007), J.B. is a fellow of the Aspen Institute, Skoll Foundation, and Manhattan Institute, and has been published by media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Consumer Electronics Show.
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Speaker
Gary Cohen has been a pioneer in the environmental health movement for thirty eight years. He has helped build coalitions and networks globally to address the environmental health impacts related to toxic chemical exposure and climate change. Gary is Co-Founder and President of Health Care Without Harm (www.noharm.org), and Practice Greenhealth (www.practicegreenhealth.org). Both organizations were created to help transform the health care sector to be environmentally sustainable and anchor institutions to support environmental health and resilience in the communities they serve. In 2013, he was awarded the Champion of Change Award for Climate Change and Public Health by the White House. In 2015, Cohen was named a MacArthur Fellow and was a recipient of a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
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Delegate
Director, Schwab Foundation for Social Entreprenuership
Dr François Bonnici is public health physician, professor, social change practitioner and foundation leader with over two decades of experience working across multiple countries, and sectors. Deeply rooted in context and frontline work, he has worked extensively with civil society, movements, foundations, governments, multilaterals and business in progressive and catalytic partnerships that seek to advance the work of primary actors, and understand the organizational practices of “systems work” towards more transformative social change.
He currently serves as Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, an international foundation dedicated to advancing the most impactful and innovative models of social change, and concurrently as Head of Social Innovation at the World Economic Forum. He was Founding Director of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cape Town from 2011-2018, establishing a globally recognized institute for knowledge, capacity and action advancing the discourse and systemic impact of social innovation in Africa.
He is the co-author of the upcoming book, The Systems Work of Social Change, and is an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town. He has been recognised as an Archbishop Tutu African Leadership Fellow, Rhodes Scholar and Associate Fellow of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford. He was a founding board member of the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education in South Africa, and a board member of the Social Innovation Exchange.
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Delegate
Chief Executive Officer, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Antonio Zappulla is CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the corporate foundation of the global news and information services company. Through news, media development, free legal assistance, and convening initiatives, the Thomson Reuters Foundation combines its unique services to advance media freedom, raise awareness of human rights issues, and foster more
Antonio is the founder of Openly, the world's first platform dedicated to fair, accurate, and impartial coverage of LGBT+ stories with global distribution through the Reuters wire. In 2018, he ranked first in the OUTstanding list of third sector LGBT+ executives published by the Financial Times. In 2017 he was named a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe, and in 2016 he was awarded the Talented Young Italians Award by the Italian Chamber of Commerce. Antonio is a One Young World Ambassador and a World Economic Forum agenda contributor. He sits on the boards of Open for Business and the International News Safety Institute (INSI) and is a member of the steering committee of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
Prior to his present role, Antonio was director of communications and COO at the Thomson Reuters Foundation and executive producer at Bloomberg Television in charge of news, factual programming, and documentaries for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, developing
award-winning TV series.
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Delegate
Anushka is recognized as a Global Leader in designing digital financial tools for smallholder farmers & designing for greater gender inclusion. She’s a serial entrepreneur who has had leadership roles in some of the most awarded and recognized social enterprises in the last two decades – Kiva.org, One Acre Fund and now myAgro. She’s a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, TED speaker, and Skoll Awardee for Social Entrepreneurship. She lives in Senegal, where myAgro is headquartered. myAgro served 115,000 farmers across West Africa last year and helped them increase their income by 35%. myAgro’s North Star is to reach 1 million farmers by 2026.
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Speaker
Andrew Youn co-founded One Acre Fund in 2006. Most of the world’s people living on $1-a-day are farmers, and One Acre Fund helps make them more productive. One Acre Fund provides finance, farm input delivery, and training to smallholder farmers in East Africa. One Acre Fund has 8,000 full-time staff who serve 1,500,000 families per year, plus 2,500,000+ more families through partnerships. Andrew graduated from Yale, is a former management consultant at Oliver Wyman, and received his MBA from Kellogg School of Management.
