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Opening remarks – 2010 Skoll World Forum

Video Description

Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship Director Pamela Hartigan reflects at the 2010 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in her opening remarks at the closing plenary. She talks about the idea of the heroic social entrepreneur. “‘Is that not misguided?’ I am frequently asked. ‘Certainly it takes more than a visionary individual for his or her initiative to be successful.'”
Hartigan answers this question in her speech.

Speakers

  • 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.
  • 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.