Mobilising Underutilised Assets To Realise Social And Environmental Value 8. Moving From Top Down To Bottom Up Strategies

Speakers

• Susan Davis

  Speaker

  President and CEO, BRAC USA

  Susan is President and CEO of BRAC USA, a member of Ashoka's International Selection Committee for Ashoka Fellows and she has also led the Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship since its inception. She also oversees Ashoka's expansion into the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia regions. Susan also serves as a senior advisor to the Director General of the International Labour Organization on globalization and gender issues. She helped to found and now chairs the board of the Grameen Foundation USA. She also serves on the Human Rights Advisory Council of Mary Robinson's Ethical Globalization Initiative and on the boards of Project Enterprise and Aid to Artisans. Susan was the Executive Director of WEDO, a global women's advocacy organization that pioneered new mechanisms for the global women's movement to influence negotiations at global United Nations meetings from 1993-1998. Prior to that, she led innovative initiatives aimed at scaling up microfinance institutions that were owned and governed by poor women at Women's World Banking and the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh. During her four and half years in Dhaka from 1987 to 1991, she helped to start Ashoka in Bangladesh and served as its first volunteer representative. Susan served as the Assistant Director of the first quasi-publicexport trading company launched in the 1980s by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Susan was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities and is from Louisiana.

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• Arthur Wood

  Speaker

  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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