Getting Beyond Business as Usual: Paving the Way for Social Progress
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Session Description
We live in a world in which GDP and quarterly earnings dominate, leaving critical aspects of social progress under-prioritized, underfunded, and marginalized. While solutions exist, their innovators continue to face systemic barriers, structural inefficiencies, and constrained resource flows—blocking benefits to those who need them most. Join leading reformers and systems thinkers to discuss how we can bring about a new status quo: a world in which social progress is valued, and where the most promising solutions are recognized and adopted by those with the power to bring about a just and sustainable future.
FORMAT: PANEL DISCUSSION
Time & Location
Time:
10:00 - 11:15, Wednesday, April 13, 2016
BST
Location:
SBS, Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre
Speakers
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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
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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Speaker
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
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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Moderator
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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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.
