Biographies

Sally Abrahms is an award-winning freelance writer and nationally recognized expert on baby boomers, seniors and aging. She has published in The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, AARP, PBS Next Avenue, Forbes and the Boston Globe, among others.

She also advises companies interested in appealing to the 50+ demographic, whether it is adult children and their parents or young entrepreneurs.

Sally is the author of two books and contributor to four. They include Not Your Mother’s Retirement and the 2017 and 2018 editions of AARP’s Where We Live: Communities for All Ages.

Her focus is on aging in place technology, 50+ caregiving, boomer housing/senior living, multigenerational initiatives and livable communities.

Sally is the recipient of two journalism fellowships on aging, one from the New York Times Foundation and the other through the MetLife Foundation.

She has spoken at the AARP national convention, What’s Next Boomer Summit (part of the American Society on Aging) and Harvard Business School. Sally has been a mentor for Aging2.0’s GENerator’s program and is a regular moderator at Aging2.0Boston events.

She holds a B.A. from Connecticut College and an M.S. in journalism from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Sally sees huge entrepreneurial opportunities in the aging space for Babson students and alumni.

Starting in business and having spent the last 20+ years at Business in the Community, HRH Prince Charles’s responsible business network, as International Director, Sue is a leader in global corporate responsibility and sustainability. She is the founder and CEO of The Collaborative Action Network, to support businesses and charities in their sustainable development. Providing strategic support and advice, Sue Is dedicated to corporate responsibility and shared purpose. She is committed to inspiring, engaging, supporting, and challenging business, brands, not for profit and community organizations, to build profitable partnerships and drive collaborative action, for mutual benefit.

Working in the UK and internationally, Sue has worked with leading businesses charities, governments, the EU, and the UN on the agenda. Her purpose is to positively contribute to the condition of people, profit, and planet. She has spoken at the UN, the EU, Harvard, a member of UN OCHA’s Private Sector Advisory Group amongst other things. Working across the CSR and Sustainability agenda, Sue has a strong focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), sustainable business models, community investment, international disaster relief and resilience, and cause-related marketing. Sue also has a significant body of published work across the agenda, including Cause Related Marketing: Who Cares Wins (Butterworth Heinemann), ‘International Disaster Relief, Business’ Unique Contribution, and Addressing International Disaster Relief and Resilience—Guidance for Business, amongst others.

Sue is committed to the power of business to help make the world a better place. She offers an energizing blend of strategic, practical and commercial acumen, and is driven by building a fairer society and a more sustainable future.

Maggi Alexander leads TPI’s Center for Global Philanthropy and in this role directs New England International Donors (NEID). An entrepreneurial leader, Maggi has spent over 25 years focused on improving the quality of life for low-income children, families, and communities in the United States and over 30 countries worldwide. She has extensive experience building partnerships and alliances that cut across traditional divides and has worked in the corporate, philanthropic, nonprofit, and public sectors. Maggi’s experience in organizational development spans the early start-up process to achieving scale and sustainability; she is passionate about turning great ideas into reality.

Maggi’s commitment to international development was ignited when she worked as a street educator providing direct services to working and street-based children in developing countries. In 1991, Maggi joined the International Youth Foundation (IYF) shortly after it was established, playing numerous key leadership roles as the organization grew, including direct program and organizational leadership of a fast growing network of partner foundations across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Today, IYF is among the world’s leading public foundations focused on investing in young people, with operations in more than 80 countries.

Most recently, Maggi worked with the ImagineNations Group to provide rural young people and smallholder farmers with relevant education, training, and finance, fostering a new generation of Africans who are prosperous along the field-to-fork agriculture value chain. In 2006, Maggi founded and continues to serve as volunteer Director for Kids-Take-Action, a nonprofit aimed at inspiring service and social action among school-aged children. Over her career, Maggi has held several other senior leadership positions with national and international organizations, including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, UNICEF, the Fetzer Institute, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Maggi has an MA from John’s Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Anderson is a practitioner faculty whose area of expertise is on complex networked industries and organizations of all kinds. His role is identifying new venture or innovation opportunities. He spent 20 years as a senior lecturer at Babson, and serves as the Lewis Family Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Social Innovation.

He travels the world documenting technologies that are rapidly changing networked human behavior at many levels.

Anderson has 30 years of international commercial and research experience in more than 40 nations. Before Babson he worked on large scale corporate turn-arounds that involved realigning entire demand and supply chains, and global sponsored research programs at MIT. Since coming to Babson he has done similar work in executive education and consulting on all continents.

For 10 years he watched first hand as more than six billion mobile devices were deployed in all areas of the world, and has been tracking how this network is changing global human systems in: media, education, communication, health care, and in basic infrastructure (water, energy, food, housing).

Anderson travels these ecosystems with colleagues capturing changes and opportunities on video, which is then assembled into “living cases” that seek to “bring the action” to people who cannot travel to it. He and colleagues are experimenting with VR to enhance this.

Recently he worked with the Lancet Commission on Global surgery to help document the deployment of laparoscopic surgery in Mongolia.

He is currently working on projects involving global healthcare, genomic innovations in water and waste, the conversion of electric grids to solar/wind, wearables, the infrastructure required for autonomous vehicles, and “the internet of things” that seeks to link all these together.

Stiles is President and partner at Studio/E, an Exploratory Leadership consultancy and development firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. From start-ups to middle-market companies to Fortune 500s and large-scale nonprofit organizations, Stiles has spent much of his career as a senior leader, consultant, advisor and advisory board member to organizations of all shapes and sizes. Stiles’ path has been winding, but along the way, he’s been driven by one thing—creating impact through proactive leadership, sound strategy, and deliberate execution. Stiles holds a degree in Business Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At Studio/E, Stiles leads strategy, operations, and finance, in addition to guiding client leaders and organizations of all types to discover more possibilities and create a thriving future ahead. Outcomes of Studio/E’s exploratory methods and practices include rapid problem solving, innovation, launching new ideas (e.g. products, services, and operational enhancements), navigating unknown situations, and building confidence and resilience through clarity and awareness. Current and past clients of Studio/E include: Target Corporation, Allina Health, Citizens League, General Mills, Cargill, Gardner Builders, Super Radiator Coils, Youth Frontiers, United Health Care, Medtronic, Price Waterhouse Cooper, GoKart Labs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Food Works Inc., Upsher-Smith, US Bank, Walker Art Center, Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Merchant & Gould, State of Minnesota, Jacobs Marketing, YMCA, and 3M.

In his spare time, you can find Stiles adventuring with the four most important people in his life: his wife and three children. They enjoy spending time on the North Shore of Lake Superior and in the mountains of Park City, Utah.

Carol Atwood is the founder and Managing Director of Spartacus Capital. Ms. Atwood is a successful entrepreneur who is actively involved in creating and participating in ventures that provide superior financial returns through incorporating better social, environmental and governance strategies. She is a recipient of many awards, including “NYC Entrepreneur of the Year” award, which was sponsored by NASDAQ, Kaufmann Foundation, and Ernst and Young.

Ms. Atwood formerly owned and operated TMG, an international marketing company that developed programs for Fortune 500 companies. TMG was named Company of the Year by the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies. Ms. Atwood is on the board of the Calvert Foundation. Calvert Foundation has provided over one billion dollars in lending to global communities since its inception.

Ms. Atwood is also the Chair of the board of directors of King Arthur Flour (KAF), one of the largest flour brands in America. Under the Spartacus Capital umbrella, Ms. Atwood has founded, incubated and seed funded private equity funds such as Tembo Capital. A private equity fund focused on investing in African mining. With over $100m in capital, Tembo can provide meaningful funding to mines that become the core economic drivers for local sustainable community building. Spartacus Capital is currently incubating a private equity fund focused on social impact investing in primarily the US market with a focus on TMT-fintech/banks, health care and opportunistically in energy efficiency.

Ms. Atwood recently served as a board member of IW Financial (IWF), an ESG screening tool for investors. She has previously been on the steering committee of Harvard Kennedy School's Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI). Finally, due to Ms. Atwood’s personal passion, she is the Chair of the Board for Filmmaker’s Collaborative.

Craig Bida is a dynamic, seasoned executive with extensive experience developing and implementing purpose-driven branding, marketing, and communications strategies across the public, corporate, and nonprofit sectors. He is the Founder and CEO of Think Design Disrupt, a brand-building consultancy that designs, reimagines, and activates brands to create simultaneous social, environmental, and economic impact for clients including the National Park Service, Sperry, and Luxottica.

From 2010–2014, Craig was the Executive Vice President of Social Impact and Nonprofit Marketing at Cone Communications, an award-winning public relations and marketing agency. At Cone, Craig led the development and execution of strategies and programs designed for clients including the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Disney, FedEx, Hilton, and Kenneth Cole. Prior to that, Craig was a marketing executive at Procter & Gamble for over a decade, where he led brand and marketing strategies for a portfolio of leading global brands including Braun, Duracell, and PUR. Earlier in his career, Craig worked for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where he partnered with stakeholders across sectors to lead multi-million-dollar economic redevelopment and urban renewal initiatives.

Craig is an Adjunct Lecturer, Executive in Residence, and Senior Fellow in Social Innovation at Babson College where he teaches in the Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship program—a collaboration between Babson, Olin, and Wellesley Colleges that activates community-based, participatory design approaches to address injustice in contexts around the world. Craig also teaches Nonprofit Marketing Strategy as part of The Institute for Nonprofit Practice’s Core Certificate Program, and serves as a Board member for the Charles River Conservancy and Gmin/Global Minimum.

​As a consultant since 1998, Bob Burke provides assistance in bringing natural, organic and specialty products to market across most classes of trade. This includes work in strategic planning, growth strategies, writing sales, marketing and business plans, budgeting, pricing, building distribution, broker selection and management, organizational development, strategic options, financing, branding, trade spending management and assistance around M&A, due diligence and venture strategy groups. He is also the co-author and co-publisher of the Natural Products Field Manual, Sixth Edition, The Sales Manager’s Handbook and Staking out Space on the Supermarket Shelf. Prior to consulting, Bob was with Stonyfield Farm Yogurt for 11 years as Vice President, Sales & Corporate Development and Vice President, Marketing & Sales. He has held marketing positions with Colombo, Inc. and Sperry Top-Sider. He received an MBA from Babson College.

Clients: Have had the privilege of working with and learning from exciting companies such as: Annie’s Homegrown, Oregon Chai, Snyder’s of Hanover, UNFI, No Pudge!, Kraft Foods, Bayer Consumer Care Division, ConAgra, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Kettle Cuisine, Small Planet Foods, New Hope Natural Media, Bushes Beans, Equal Exchange, Stirrings, Immaculate Baking, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Dancing Deer Bakery, The Natural Dentist, Rice Select, EcoFish, PMO Wildwood, S.C. Johnson, Blake’s All Natural Foods, Megafood/BioSan, Mighty Leaf Tea, Lesser Evil Snack Co., Theo Chocolate, The Jane Goodall Institute, Kashi, Project 7, Vermont Butter and Cheese, Yoghund, Bord Bia, American Halal, Orgain, Turtle Island, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Bausch + Lomb, Boehringer Ingleheim, Harbar LLC, Rhino Foods, Popcorn Indiana, Stonehouse 27, The ProBar, Hail Merry, Mamma Chia, 479 Popcorn, Heel USA, Nature’s Path, Pfizer, E & A Industries, Dave’s Gourmet, Via Sana, Sopexa USA, Mavea, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, Bob’s Red Mill, New England Natural Bakers, Quantum Health, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Califia Farms and others.

He currently serves as an outside director for EcoFish, American Halal, Orgain, and King Arthur Flour. He serves on the advisory boards of Soapbox Soaps, Smart Flour Foods, Exo, The Chaat Co., and Accel Foods. He is a former director of Stonyfield Farm, Equal Exchange, Stirrings, Wildwood, Nutrabella, FoodState Inc. and the Specialty Food Association. He is on the Selection Committee at Nutrition Capital Network. He is the Co-Chair of the Specialty Food Association’s Natural and Organic Council. He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Nutrition Business Journal. He is also on the board of directors of the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Bob was named one of the “Top 25 Business Builders of the Natural Products Industry for the last 25 years” by Natural Foods Merchandiser Magazine.

He has been qualified as an expert witness in federal court on the subject of the sales and marketing of natural, organic and specialty products.

Bob has delivered presentations, seminars and moderated panels at leading trade shows and conferences such as Natural Products Expo East & West, The Specialty Food Association’s Winter and Summer Fancy Food Shows, OTA’s “All Things Organic Trade Show and Conference,” Nutrition Capital Network, International Keynote speaker at Innovest in Auckland, New Zealand, Natural Products Europe in London, Bord Bia in Dublin, Canadian Consulates in Boston and Chicago, Quebec Delegation in Boston, Kosherfest in New York, The Soyfoods Conference, Agrifood Trade Services in Nova Scotia, Saskatoon and Quebec, the CHFA Expo East in Toronto, BevNet Live and BevNet’s FBU in New York and Santa Monica, the Global Access Advisors conference in Melbourne, Australia, the National Health Store Conference in London, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise educational programs throughout New Zealand, and has been a featured trainer and speaker at Management Venture Institute forums. He is also a presenter and panelist at the Stonyfield Entrepreneurial Institute Boot Camp. He authored the NASFT’s White Paper on Trade Promotion.

He also runs full day seminars and networking events on “Becoming a more Effective Sales Manager in the Natural and Specialty Channel,” “Financing your Natural and Specialty Products Company,” and “Making Your Supply Chain a Business Strength.”

Bob lives in Andover, MA with his wife, Kathy and four children: Conor, Caitlin, Devin and Rory.

Ann Marie Chischilly is the Executive Director at the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP). She is responsible for managing ITEP’s work with Northern Arizona University, state and federal agencies, tribes and Alaska Native Villages. In 2017, ITEP will celebrate 25 years serving over 95% of all the 567 tribes and Alaska Native Villages nationwide.

Ann Marie currently serves on several federal advisory committees including the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment, and the EPA’s National Safe Drinking Water Council. From 2013 to 2015, Ann Marie also served on Department of Interior’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science (ACCCNRS).

Ann Marie speaks both nationally and internationally on topics of Indian Law, Environmental Law, Tradition Knowledges, Water Law and tribes/indigenous peoples. She works with the United Nations on issues of the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and co-wrote, “Guidelines for the Use of Traditional Knowledge in Climate Change Initiatives” which have been widely accepted.

Before coming to ITEP, she served for over ten years as Senior Assistant General Counsel to the Gila River Indian Community (Community), where she assisted the Community in implementing the historic “Arizona Water Settlement Act” and founded the Community’s Renewable Energy Team. Ann Marie is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation (Diné). She earned her Juris Doctorate degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law and a Masters in Environmental Law (LL.M) from Vermont Law School. She is licensed in Arizona and has practiced in state, district, and federal courts. She is also a member of the International Bar Association.

Nancy Cushman’s experience includes the concept and creation of the highly acclaimed, award-winning o ya restaurant, as well as over a decade of prior experience in Brand Building and Marketing for Fortune 500 clients as well as Human Resources. Nancy Cushman’s passion for sake was sparked after over a decade in Account Management at top advertising agencies in the country including Leo Burnett, Arnold Worldwide and Hill Holliday, working on major national food clients, including Pillsbury, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Ocean Spray, Dunkin’ Donuts and Procter & Gamble. Following Account Management, Nancy spent a number of years in Human ​Resources from senior level management coaching to recruiting and ​training.

Nancy’s passion for sake was sparked during her career in Chicago. After her first sake experience, she became fascinated with it and made studying the beverage her mission. She left her career as an advertising executive and in 2006, she completed the Sake Professional Course in Japan with John Gauntner, who is recognized as the world’s foremost sake expert. In Boston in March 2007, she opened o ya, a contemporary Japanese restaurant, with her husband Tim Cushman. Within the past two years, Chef Tim and Nancy ​Cushman have expanded their restaurant group to New York City. In 2014, they opened Roof at Park South, a seasonal rooftop cocktail bar with a 360° view of the NYC skyline from the top floor of the Park South Hotel. In 2015, they opened a second o ya in Manhattan and a new Japanese Tavern called Hojoko in Boston’s Fenway Neighborhood. They plan on opening a new concept in the Park South Hotel in Early 2016.

o ya has received numerous awards, including being named by the New York Times’ Frank Bruni as the #1 new restaurant in the U.S. outside of New York and the top Zagat-rated restaurant in Boston in 2012. In 2012, Nancy travelled back to Japan to complete the Advanced Sake Professional Course and is now one of less than 100 people in the world to have this certification. In 2013, Boston Magazine recognized o ya as having Best Service in the city. In 2014, Boston Magazine ranked o ya the #1 restaurant in Boston.

Julie Davitz serves as Head of Impact Solutions for Wealth Management. She is responsible for the specialized Impact Solutions offering, integrating client values and assets for more efficient and impactful philanthropic and financial outcomes. With customized strategies combined with an array of opportunities, Julie leverages the local service excellence of Bank of the West with global access of its parent company BNP Paribas.

With over 20 years of experience in the impact sector, Julie Davitz is skilled at helping ultra-high-net-worth families, individuals, foundations, nonprofits, and businesses mobilize their resources to realize the change they envision.

Julie has worked with not-for-profit organizations, foundations, corporations, and philanthropists nationally and globally. She has served as Director of Development at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases UCSF, and Executive Director of the Silver Giving Foundation. She founded Julie Shafer Development & Philanthropy, specializing in thoughtful and effective strategic planning for donors, grantees, and impact investors.

Julie holds a BA from the University of California Davis and an MFCC from the University of San Francisco.

Steve Delfin is senior advisor to companies and nonprofit organizations seeking to bring increased effectiveness and impact of their philanthropic, social responsibility, and related social impact efforts. He has broad and deep experience counseling and leading major national and international philanthropic organizations, associations, and corporations focusing on philanthropy, corporate citizenship, social responsibility and related areas. Steve also has substantial and complementary credentials in corporate communications and public relations, marketing, public affairs and reputation management.

Steve has served as President and CEO of America’s Charities, a multi-million-dollar national charitable organization that connects employers, employees and charities for more social impact. America’s Charities raised more $150 million and leveraged another $300 million under Steve’s leadership and became a thought leader in employee engagement through workplace philanthropy.

As a senior executive at the Credit Union National Association Steve led the organization’s 501(c)(3) affiliated foundation, the National Credit Union Foundation (NCUF). With his direction the Foundation developed socially responsible, sustainable strategies, products and services to meet the needs of low-wealth households and emerging populations. Steve provided fiscal oversight and management of the Foundation’s $350+ million investment portfolio that generated funds for grants, programs and services.

Steve served as executive advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, a management, multi-billion-dollar strategy and management consulting form with a global footprint and some 20,000 employees. There he responsible for the firm’s award-winning philanthropic, social responsibility and related employee engagement across the global enterprise.

Earlier in his career Steve was hired by the national headquarters of the American Red Cross to create, launch and manage the organization’s cause related marketing program. Steve was the first full-time professional working for a major national charity to focus solely on this then emerging field. During his time with Red Cross he raised tens of millions of dollars through cause marketing and related corporate sponsorship programs. He was also responsible for the national public relations and fundraising efforts of United Way of America.

President Ed Doyle has worked 30 years in the food service industry and his passion for hospitality operations led him to form RealFood Consulting. A day at RealFood is not just another day at the office for Ed and his team. Instead, it is an opportunity to combine passion and skills with making a major impact on the food and beverage industry.

Ed received a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, and went on to enhance his craft and talents in some of Boston's finest kitchens. His culinary creations have gained praise and approval from diners and critics alike. As Director of Culinary Operations at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center in Boston, the Boston Herald awarded him four stars. Esquire Magazine selected the Seaport's Aura restaurant as one of the Best New Restaurants in the United States. Ed's culinary accomplishments as a chef have been featured in Food and Wine, Restaurant Business, and Food Arts​ magazines.

While the range of Ed's culinary skills give him an extensive advantage in the kitchen, it is his business and operational expertise that sets RealFood apart from the competition. Working in high-volume and top-quality food service facilities provided Ed the opportunity to perfect systems development, profit and loss, management and analysis, cost controls, and team development. He is proficient at identifying problems and implementing highly effective solutions. Ed's broad operations background is the foundation of the extensive design-specification work RealFood's team completes for its clients.

Ed's time away from work shares a similar intensity. Working with various non-profit groups fulfills his desire to give back to the community. Ed gets his competitive fix from bike racing and cooking on the National BBQ Circuit as part of Team iQue, who won the Jack Daniels BBQ World Championship in 2009.

Ed lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with Mary. Their dogs, Ferris and Lucy, can be found lying round the RealFood Cambridge office keeping an eye out for the UPS guy.

Patricia Duffy is an experienced marketing strategist, consultant, trainer/facilitator and connector focused on independent food and beverage entrepreneurs. Emphasizing sustainable business models, her priorities include: clear understanding of market needs/opportunities; business planning and competitive analysis; and identifying/developing mutually beneficial alliances for production, promotion, distribution and financing.

A champion of cooperatition in the food system, Patricia is active in initiatives/organizations designed to advance sustainable food businesses via market and industry connections. This includes hosting a monthly Community Table forum (pioneered by Babson College’s Food Sol) for food professionals and students at New York University; serving on the Executive Committee of Slow Money NYC’s Food+Enterprise Summit; and mentorship at the Brooklyn FoodWorks incubator.

Patricia became keenly interested in business start-ups in 2009 while working with Golden Seeds, a New York-based angel investment group committed to women entrepreneurs. Operating under Golden Seeds’ Academy umbrella, she conducted workshops in business planning, marketing strategy and investor pitching—drawing on past experience, along with observing/evaluating pitches and investor assessments of numerous technology, medical and consumer product companies.

Patricia's corporate experience includes 13 years at American Express where she managed key industry relationships in both the card and travel businesses. As Vice President, Travel Supplier Relations she managed teams in five cities, responsible for negotiations and program management for all major U.S. airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies, cruise lines and tour operators. As a Director and Vice President responsible for relationships and mutually building business with national merchants, Patricia’s industry responsibilities included (at various intervals) all U.S. restaurants accepting the American Express Card; national and international hotel chains; and key entertainment venues ranging from Radio City Music Hall to Disney and Ticketmaster.

Patricia began her career in advertising, gaining experience on both the client and agency sides of the business. She had roles as a copywriter, agency account management executive and a corporate advertising and public relations manager. This dual perspective cemented her consistent emphasis on developing win-win relationships to optimize effectiveness and success.

Patricia holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She lives with her husband (and son when home from college) in Brooklyn. Whenever possible, they escape to an ancient farmhouse in Tuscany that they lovingly restored in the last century—with the support of Italian friends who are now extended family.

Julie Engel Manga, Ph.D. has over twenty-five years of experience as an organization development consultant, executive coach, facilitator, trainer and researcher. Julie works with executives and managers, helping them be more resourceful and grounded as they meet and navigate the ever-changing, fast-moving, often challenging and uncertain circumstances of their work and personal lives through cultivating a strong foundation of resilience, courage, sensitivity and presence. She supports her clients in integrating systemic, interpersonal and individual perspectives in their decision-making and action. A special focus of Julie's practice is her work with leaders and teams in the nonprofit, public and corporate sectors who are working in service of a more just, peaceful and sustainable world. She supports these individuals and teams in cultivating their individual and collective ability to sustain themselves and their effectiveness in their work. A sampling of her clients across sectors include the International Rescue Committee, ACCESS Boston, Worksource Partners, Boston Public Schools, NASA, Celgene, AMD, Verizon, Google, Abbott Labs, Lonza, Sodexo, Petro-Canada and Suncor.

Julie is on the faculty of New Ventures West, an International Coaching Federation-accredited coaching school, where she trains coaches in the Integral Coaching methodology. Julie is also designated as a “social entrepreneur catalyst” at the Institute for Social Innovation, a center for facilitating students and alumni in their commitment using business as a vehicle for social innovation and a faculty-member in the MFA in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts. In addition, Julie was recently a featured blogger on the Skoll Foundation-sponsored website for social entrepreneurs, Social Edge.

Prior to launching her own consulting practice, Julie was a Senior Research Associate, consultant and faculty member at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. She supported and conducted applied research on executives and managers catalyzing their organizations toward more responsible and sustainable business practice. Julie provided consultation, one-on-one coaching, and facilitated a peer-to-peer learning network of corporate responsibility executives from fourteen Fortune 500 companies. Julie has authored or co-authored several reports and articles based on her research, including Integration: Critical Link for Corporate Citizenship and “Leading from the Middle,” in the book, Global Challenges in Responsible Business, a volume in the Cambridge Companions to Management series.

Dr. Manga holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tufts University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston College, where she focused her studies on political and cultural sociology. Her dissertation was published by New York University Press as a book, Talking Trash: The Cultural Politics of Daytime TV Talk Shows.

Mayor Coral Evans is a social (non) profit and public policy entrepreneur who believes in the concept of thrive-ability as it relates to individuals, neighborhoods and communities. Coral has over 20 years of extensive, applied experience and knowledge in the design, development, implementation, management, assessment and evaluation of initiatives and programs crafted to assist diverse populations experiencing the systemic effects of poverty.

First elected to office 2008, Coral served two terms (eight years) as a Councilmember prior to her election as Mayor of the City of Flagstaff in 2016.

In addition to serving on the Flagstaff City Council, Coral is the Executive Director of the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association of Flagstaff, Inc., a resident-driven social nonprofit organization that focuses on the redevelopment, growth, and prosperity of one of city’s most challenged neighborhoods. Prior to this role, she was the Vice-President of Mission Services for Goodwill Industries of Northern Arizona. She is also the owner of a small business (Destiney’s Creations) and the author of A Conversation with Alma.

Coral holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s level certificate in Public Management, a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, and is nationally certified in public participation practices. Presently Mayor Evans is pursuing a PhD in Education with an emphasis on Sustainability. Coral is a Flinn-Brown Foundation Center for Civic Leadership Fellow.

Coral was a Emily’s List Rising Star Nominee/Finalist in 2017, other recognitions include: Arizona Community Action Association’s Margie Frost Champion Against Poverty Award, Arizona Informant Newspaper Newsmaker Award, Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce Athena Award, United Way of Northern Arizona Community Builder Award, Coconino Hispanic Advisory Council Cesar E. Chavez Community Award, Arizona Informant Newspaper Newsmaker Award, and the State of Black Arizona Community Luminary Award.

She is the third generation of her family to live in Flagstaff. Her family (the Dorsey family) has been an active part of the Flagstaff and greater Northern Arizona community since the early 1900s. Coral currently lives in the family home that her grandfather built in 1942 in Flagstaff’s historic Southside neighborhood.

Coral believes in a balanced approach to the stewardship of community resources and is passionate about creating opportunities that allow for civic engagement, civil discourse, community revitalization, and genuine sustainability and advancement of all people.

Having grown up in a family business that manufactures award-winning premium Swiss chocolate, Damian Felchlin has had the opportunity to learn first-hand how equitable and sustainable business practices can also create a better product and yield financial returns. After graduating from Babson's MBA program with a focus in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, he recently joined the founding team of a  plant-based meat alternative startup. The startup was founded by Babson alum, Aakash Shah, whose vision is to disrupt the foodservice market by adding a wider variety of delicious plant-based meat alternatives to restaurant menus. During his time at Babson, Damian gained experience in venture capital and impact investing, which seeks not only financial but also social and environmental returns. Additionally, he had the opportunity to develop and teach a “How to Export Food” case study for graduate students.

Prior to completing his MBA in 2021, Damian worked as a Trade Commissioner for the Consulate General of Switzerland based in New York and San Francisco, where he advised Swiss companies entering the U.S. market. Damian also served as the subject matter expert for food and beverages for the official Swiss export promotion agency, Switzerland Global Enterprise, which has over 20 hubs worldwide.

Before joining the Swiss government, Damian was a product manager responsible for over 15 million USD in sales annually at the largest private U.S. food importer. He was responsible for sourcing specialty food items from all over the world and worked closely with international suppliers to optimize the supply chain and push sales in the foodservice and retail channels.

In his free time, Damian has been advising startups for the last eight years and has provided market entry consulting services to over 20 food companies by helping them determine their pricing, sales channels, branding, and supply chain strategies. He has been an official mentor of food startup accelerator programs including Food-X and Big Idea Ventures.

Damian loves to explore nature. In the summer you can find him climbing the Swiss alps with his partner or going for a ride on his mountain bike. During the winter he enjoys skiing black-diamond slopes and going for backcountry ski adventures. At home, Damian loves exploring new food ingredients and products. You can usually find him in his kitchen fermenting things like kombucha, beer, kimchi, or sourdough bread.

You can learn more about Damian and his work on his website, felchlin.co, or by connecting with him on LinkedIn.

Mark Feldman is Principal and Managing Director at Cause Consulting, a business strategy and communications firm helping companies simultaneously strengthen business and impact society. For over twenty-five years, Mark has advised Fortune 500 CEOs, marketing, and foundation executives to create impact-driven approaches, strong programs and memorable stories. Today, he is at the forefront of integrating corporate responsibility, social innovation and communications disciplines.

Mark is recognized as an “exemplary leader in corporate responsibility” by Corporate Responsibility Magazine and is the recipient of a 2015 Presidential Points of Light Award for his on-going leadership and commitment to community involvement and local change. Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, Aramark Building Community, Adobe Youth Voices and Hearst for Humanity are among his team’s many purpose-driven social issue leadership programs.

Mark’s experience spans the corporate, nonprofit, government and consulting sectors. He kicked off his career by helping ignite the corporate volunteerism movement at New York Cares and developing community programs at Citibank. While at the U.S. Government’s Corporation for National Service, he formed public-private partnerships to support and launch AmeriCorps. Later, Mark became the Executive Vice President of Omnicom’s Cone Communications, where he built and drove its Cause Branding and corporate responsibility practice.

Mark deeply enjoys sharing his expertise through workshops and trainings with leading industry associations and universities. He has written for Harvard Business Review and Corporate Citizen Magazine. Most recently, Mark and co-author Nikki Korn published “Evolution, Innovation and Best Practices in Corporate Social Impact,” a chapter within Spinger’s Managing for Social Impact guide book for corporate responsibility practitioners.

Ken Freitas brings a unique combination of marketing strategy, corporate responsibility, and communications expertise to business, non-profit, and education organizations. As a senior executive for leading brands and as an entrepreneur, he has over 25 years of experience in integrating strategy, brand building, communications, and corporate responsibility for premier brands including Timberland, City Year, Time Warner Cable, FIRST, Fidelity Investments, L’OREAL USA, Cartoon Network, Action for Healthy Kids, Communities in Schools, Citizen Schools, Citrix Systems, and Disney.

As Vice President of Marketing for Timberland, Ken led the development of the global brand position and creative platform to drive growth in new product categories and geographies. As Vice President of Social Enterprise, he led Timberland’s effort to establish a new initiative to make corporate responsibility a central part of the company’s brand. Ken’s role included directing Timberland’s innovative partnership with City Year.

As Vice President Corporate Responsibility and Cause Branding at Cone Communications, Ken led the team that developed Time Warner Cable’s strategic philanthropic initiative, “Connect A Million Minds.” He was also Director of Marketing & Communications for FIRST, the non-profit organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire people’s interest in science and technology.

As a faculty member at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, he developed and delivered executive education, custom programs, and on-line education in corporate responsibility strategy, nonprofit partnerships, strategic philanthropy, employee volunteerism, and sustainability reporting.

He has served as a board member of the Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins Community Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, Babson College School for Executive Education Advisory Council, and the New Hampshire Commission for National and Community Service.

Ken was selected as a “Top 100 Marketer” by Ad Age and “Best Client” by Adweek. He has been a guest lecturer at Babson College, Harvard University’s Social Enterprise program, Boston College, Boston University, and the University of New Hampshire.

Ken holds an MBA from Babson College and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Mary serves as the Executive Director and Vice-Chair of the Tecovas Foundation. The Tecovas Foundation funds social innovation and entrepreneurship by focusing on leveraging new service models and sustainable economic development both locally and internationally. A member of the board of trustees since 2000, and Executive Director since 2009, Mary has led Tecovas to develop a concrete vision to increase the foundation’s capacity and effectiveness. In 2010, the foundation added an impact investing and PRI portfolio to their endowment.

Mary served on the Board of the Council on Foundations, and chaired the Family Philanthropy Committee. Mary also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Shapers, an Initiative of the World Economic Forum. She is the Vice-Chair of the StartingBloc Social Innovation Fellowship Program. She is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Nexus Global Youth Summit on Social Innovation and Philanthropy.

She has spoken on the issues of generational transition and leadership cultivation in philanthropy and the nonprofit space at many venues, including the Council on Foundations, Advisors in Philanthropy, and The Nexus Youth Summit on Social Innovation and Philanthropy at the United Nations. She has also been a frequent contributor to WNYC’s The Takeaway on supporting military families during deployment. She is a 2008 StartingBloc Social Innovation Fellow. She was a participant in the Next Generation Leaders summit at the White House in 2010. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Washington, D.C. Hub. She and her husband currently live in Washington, D.C.​

Lara Galinsky is an author, speaker, expert on working on purpose, and senior vice president of Echoing Green, a groundbreaking nonprofit organization with the mission to unleash next generation talent to solve the world’s biggest problems.

She speaks and leads workshops at colleges, universities, corporations, and nonprofits around the world. Two themes run through Lara’s career: helping individuals identify their unique role within the ecosystem of social change; and recognizing and championing promising social innovators working to solve the mostly deeply entrenched social, political and environmental problems of our time.

Lara began her career at Do Something, where she was a national program director. There she worked with 20,000 educators and 4 million young people to organize service learning and community service projects. Lara also created Do Something’s BRICK Award (now called the Do Something Award) to celebrate and financially support the most outstanding young leaders in America generating community change with demonstrated impact.

After five years at Do Something, Lara moved to Echoing Green, the organization she now helps lead and for which she runs the day-to-day operations. Echoing Green is best known for its flagship Fellowship program, which has awarded over 500 emerging social entrepreneurs in over 40 countries with more than $30 million in seed funding over the last twenty-five years.

Most recently, Lara launched Echoing Green’s newest program, Work on Purpose, which inspires and equips the Millennial generation to build lives and careers that are both right for them and good for the world. She is the co-author of two books that have become cornerstones of the program: Work on Purpose (2011) and Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact (2007).

Lara sits on the advisory boards of the Institute for Social Innovation and the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Wesleyan University. She received her Masters in Communications with honors from Columbia University and her Bachelors from Wesleyan University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is a graduate of the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management Leadership Development Program at Columbia University, the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown, and was selected for CORO Leadership New York.

One of Lara’s favorite quotes sums up her career ideology: “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” – Basil King

Nate Garvis has operated at the crossroads of Fortune 100 business, government, academic institutions, health systems, media, non-profits and non-governmental organizations for the past twenty years. From those experiences, he has built the skills and relationships that help institutions navigate for success by earning influential reputations in addition to asserting their brands.

Prior to joining Babson and setting up his innovative public affairs practice, Naked Civics LLC, Garvis served as V.P. Government Affairs and Senior Public Affairs Officer for Target Corporation, one of the world's largest retail concerns. He serves on a number of academic, think-tank, business and non-profit boards throughout the country, including Allina Hospitals and Clinics, Rational Energy, the College of Arts and Sciences at St. Thomas University and the Public Affairs Council, which he formerly chaired. He is one of the co-founders of Dotopia, a social enterprise that is creating lifestyle philanthropy for all. Nate is a frequent lecturer and public speaker on the subject of cross-sector approaches to reengineering communities for better prosperity.

As Design Counsel at the Social Innovation Lab, Nate is partnering with Babson’s talent in designing multi-sector approaches to creating common good outcomes for communities. By maturing the corporate social responsibility community within businesses into a new form, corporate social relevance, businesses can mature from largely defensive activities into market creating social good while adding to their bottom line financial health.

Nate has a B.A. in history from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from the University of Oregon. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two young daughters.

Mary C. Gentile, PhD, is Creator/Director of Giving Voice to Values (GVV), Senior Advisor at Aspen Institute Business & Society Program, and an independent consultant on management education and leadership development.

Giving Voice to Values (www.GivingVoiceToValues.org), a pioneering business curriculum for values-driven leadership, has been featured in Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, McKinsey Quarterly, etc. and has had over 820 pilots in business schools, companies and other organizations globally. The award-winning book is Giving Voice To Values: How To Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right (Yale University Press (www.MaryGentile.com). There is an extensive GVV curriculum of readings, cases, exercises and a series of interactive online social cohort-based modules. Gentile is Collections Editor for the GVV book series with Business Expert Press. The edited volume is Educating for Values-Driven Leadership: Giving Voice To Values Across the Curriculum (Business Expert Press, 2013) includes chapters by a dozen faculty from different functional areas who describe how they use GVV.

From 1985–95, Gentile was faculty member and manager of case research at Harvard Business School. Gentile was one of the principal architects of HBS’s Leadership, Ethics and Corporate Responsibility curriculum. She co-authored Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School and was Content Expert for the award-winning interactive CD-ROM, Managing Across Differences (Harvard Business School Publishing).

Other publications include Differences That Work: Organizational Excellence through Diversity; Managing Diversity: Making Differences Work; Managerial Excellence Through Diversity: Text and Cases, as well as numerous articles, cases, and book reviews in publications such as Academy of Management Learning and Education, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Risk Management, CFO, The Journal of Human Values, BizEd, Strategy+Business, etc.

Gentile earned her bachelor’s degree from The College of William and Mary and her MA and PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo.

Bradley Googins received his B.A. in Philosophy and his Masters in Social Work from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University. He was a faculty member at Boston University for twenty years before joining the Carroll School of Management in 1997. He was the founder and Director of the Center for Work and Family which now resides at the Carroll School of Management. He was a National Kellogg Fellow from 1990-1997. He also served as the Director of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship located within the School, a research and executive education program with over 350 corporate members world wide.

His research interests include community relations, corporate citizenship, and work and family, and the role of business in Society. He has been the principal investigator on a number of research projects including The Impact of Work Redesign on Work-Family, an Evaluation of Family and Neighborhood initiatives, Work and Family Issues Among Leaders, and Productivity and Corporate Child Care Programs. His recent publications have appeared in the California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, as well as chapters in edited books on corporate citizenship and accountability. His current research interests include corporate citizenship and the role of business in society. He is the principal investigator on a number of research grants, including Business Leadership in Society, (Ford Foundation), and The State of Corporate Citizenship in the United States (Hitachi Foundation). He has also developed a new framework on the Stages of Corporate Citizenship (California Management Review 2006). He is building a global network of institutions from across the globe who are also focused on corporate citizenship that will promote cross national research and education, facilitate global dialogue, and serve as a resource for the field. He is currently developing initiatives in social innovation and the role of business in society.

Read the recent report co-authored by Philip Mirvis and Bradley Googins for The Conference Board: The New Business of Business: Innovating for a Better World.

Mike has led a uniquely multi-dimensional career. A former Silicon Valley engineer and McKinsey consultant, he's best known as a successful serial tech entrepreneur, startup mentor and board member, design sprint leader, award-winning professor, and innovation and AI consultant to senior executives of major global companies.

He was an early, pre-product team member and/or co-founder and CXO of eight VC-backed enterprise tech startups. Two went public on the NASDAQ and seven were subsequently acquired by large strategics, including IBM and Oracle. 

He has taught, and continues to teach, courses on corporate innovation, social innovation, leading social change, tech entrepreneurship, strategy, creativity, and AI at the master’s and Exec Ed levels at Harvard, Brown, Babson, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Oxford, and the Berkeley Engineering Leadership Professional Program for over 20 years.  He’s won numerous Professor of the Year & Global Teaching awards and was named Financial Times global Professor of the Week.

He’s been very active in the field of social impact and innovation. He served as a Community Impact Fellow for OpenIDEO, and established and co-led their Boston Chapter. He’s organized & facilitated countless social impact innovation tournaments, including #AI4Good hackathons for IBM Watson Health, Accenture, Nike, the MacArthur Foundation, the Hult Prize and Design for America, and #Hack4Humanity ideathons for many NGOs. He co-led the CoVent 19 Challenge global design sprint in conjunction with Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to create an affordable, open source, design of an ICU-class mechanical ventilator that can be manufactured anywhere in the world for 1/20^th cost of available alternatives. He’s led over 50 DEIB workshops nationally with leaders of Fortune 500 companies and NGOs. He was awarded the annual Rossof Award for DEI from the Boston Advertising Association for his leadership in bringing DEIB into technology companies and startups. He served on the WGBH corporate executive council for 10+ years.

He's especially passionate about advancing bright emerging global leaders and has provided mentorship and opened countless doors. One recent example is his serving as Sr. Advisor and mentor at the Oxford – St. Gallen Global Leadership Conference, focused on using Generative AI to help accomplish SDG 4: affordable, quality education for all.

He speaks on the TEDx circuit and has both keynoted and moderated panels at countless conferences, including the MIT Entrepreneurship Competition, MIT CIO Symposium, MIT Enterprise Forum, MIT Digital Learning Series, Harvard “Entrepreneurship Talks” Series, Harvard Cyberposium, the Stanford – Berkley annual conference on Innovation, the Berkeley X Innovation Series, Babson College AI Series, Eastern Academy of Management, the St. Gallen Symposium, the International Startup Festival, and countless others.

He has been published in Harvard Business Review, the California (Berkeley) Management Review, the Berkeley Haas Case Study Series, Wharton at Work, INSEAD Knowledge, Forbes, Money and the Journal of Creativity, amongst others. One recent case study was named as one of three finalists in the Berkley Haas Case Study Series Best case study of the year in 2022. The company has a unique hybrid business and operating model,  committed to preventing the poaching and slaughter of elephants and rhinos in the African bush while financing local communities to establish eco-tourism businesses to lift them out of poverty.

He has consulted to both national and provincial governments around the world to help establish robust startup and angel investor ecosystems.

He earned his MBA at Yale, where he was named the annual Jess Morrow Johns Scholar, and his BS in Engineering from Rutgers, where he was awarded the “Medal of Excellence” for career achievement.

Rachel Greenberger’s career in food was seeded at the Institute for Social Innovation. In 2011, she and Cheryl Kiser co-founded and launched Food Sol, a nationally recognized first-of-its-kind program centered around gatherings of food entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and students, which gave thousands of people direct access to an active and specialized network. For eight and a half years, she directed it, and for four, taught food entrepreneurship in the graduate school. Her writing on food has appeared in Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Boston Globe. 

In 2020, Rachel joined her husband’s company Food.Stories.Travel. (her three favorite things), which creates deep experiences of place and heritage through food. She serves on the Board of Directors to the Boston Public Market Association and is a 2020 Eisenhower Fellow in the USA program. Eisenhower Fellowships are awarded to ascendant leaders committed to creating a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world.

Dennis M. Hanno is a higher education leader, educator, and social entrepreneur.

Dennis is the founder and CEO of IDEA4Africa, which educates, mentors, and incubates young entrepreneurs strengthening society. He also serves on the boards of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative and the Global Business School Network, and is a commissioner of the New England Commission of Higher Education. He is the co-chair of the board of directors of Loop Academies in Liberia and serves on the Education Committee of Kigutu International Academy in Burundi.

During his term as president at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, Dennis sharpened Wheaton’s focus on creating positive change through the liberal arts. He led the college to establish a comprehensive set of programs that help students build the skills for social innovation and put their ideas into action, such as the Social Entrepreneurship Launch Program. Dennis also led the development of a state-of-the-art innovation facility and created an endowed faculty position in social entrepreneurship. Under his leadership, Wheaton increased opportunities for students to engage in experiential learning both inside and outside of the classroom. In recognition of these efforts and his own personal commitment to providing students with meaningful learning opportunities, he was awarded the 2021 William M. Burke Presidential Award for Excellence in Experiential Education by the National Society for Experiential Education.

Dennis also has served as dean, provost, and senior vice president at Babson College and, before that, as the associate dean of undergraduate matters at the Isenberg School of Management of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Rick is Senior Fellow at Synecticsworld, Inc. Prior to assuming his current role he was CEO and Managing Partner for several decades. Founded in 1960, Synectics has been an international pioneer in operationalizing creativity, originally drawing on experiences of the founders in the Invention Design Group of Arthur D. Little. Prior to joining Synectics, Rick was in marketing management and new product development at General Foods. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Rick holds a US patent. He co-wrote Creativity, Inc.: Building an Inventive Organization published by The Harvard Business School Press. The Best Practices Institute endorses Creativity, Inc. for its attention to results and return on investment for creativity and innovation programs. He is also the author of articles and book chapters on creativity in business.

The Fellow position suits Rick well as he is also an Innovation Fellow in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. Currently he co-teaches a course there in Innovation in Science and Technology.

Collaborating with Babson’s Vice-Provost for International and Multicultural Education and leaders in the Social Innovation Lab, Rick is working to develop a base in Tanzania for Babson students to introduce entrepreneurial thought and action through the Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy. As of June 2015, three teams of Babson students have taught this program there.

This team is exploring establishment of a Babson Entrepreneurship Center where Babson graduates will work in Tanzania to promote and catalyze entrepreneurial action throughout this country of great need and limitless opportunity.

Outside of work Rick is actively involved in several community organizations including The Cambridge Club, which focuses on the civic wellbeing of the City of Cambridge. He serves as the Chair of the Board of The Cambridge Community Foundation. For diversion Rick enjoys cooking, skiing, contemporary art and home renovation.

Zaid is a strategist, writer and facilitator. Zaid is the co-founder of Reos Partners, where he served as Managing Partner of the Oxford office from 2007-2014. Reos Partners is a social innovation consultancy that addresses complex, high-stakes challenges around the world. Reos helps teams of stakeholders work together on their toughest challenges.

Zaid has over a decade of experience in developing strategic responses to complex social challenges, including community development, climate change, child malnutrition, employment, energy, financial systems, global food systems, and security issues. His clients have included organisations as diverse as The World Bank, The UN Foundation, various governments, as well as Oxfam, WWF and many more.

He has a background in technology and communications. Zaid left university where he was studying physics to join the .com boom, where he set up his own company, Anthropic, which focused on both the delivery of new media and the social implications of technology. He has extensive start-up experience, including serving for two years as Chief Technology Office for smartchange, a .com nonprofit start-up.

Zaid is Strategic Advisor to a number of non-profit organizations.

Over 2009-10 he was an Associate Fellow of The Institute of Science, Innovation and Society, at the Said Business School. He has guest lectured at The University of Oxford, The University of Bergen, Norway, The New School in New York and many more institutions.

He is author of The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving Our Most Complex Challenges (Berret-Koehler, 2014).

A native Londoner, Zaid grew up in Bombay, New Delhi, Abu Dhabi and London. He currently lives in Oxford.

Cheryl Heller, PhD, is a designer, writer, educator, and entrepreneur, and President of the MeasureD Lab. She pioneered the field of social design, which is the application of a collaborative creative process to solving complex human challenges. She advises business, social, and philanthropic leaders around the world on identifying and acting on opportunities, and has extensive experience facilitating engagement to fulfill mission-critical strategic objectives and culture change. She founded the first STEM Master’s program in social design at the School of Visual Arts, whose graduates are working as creative leaders in government, industry, healthcare, technology, and global NGOs. She is currently on the faculty of Babson College and the CENTRO design school in Mexico City. She was Director of Design Integration and Professor of Practice in Innovation Design at Arizona State University, where she built the first transdisciplinary STEM Master’s program in Innovation and Venture Development.

Heller is a recipient of the AIGA Lifetime Medal for her contribution to design and a Rockefeller Bellagio Fellow. Her book, The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Universal Creative Potential of Social Design, is a manual for anyone wanting to use design to create a resilient future.

Heller has worked with the Ford Motor Company, American Express, Reebok, Mariott International, MeadWestvaco, StoraEnso, Medtronic, Mars Corporation, Discovery Networks International, Herman Miller, Bayer Corporation, Seventh Generation, L’Oreal, Hearst Publishing, The World Wildlife Fund, Ford Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Girl Scouts of America. She is the former Board Chair of PopTech and Designer in Residence at the Babson Social Innovation Lab. She created the Ideas that Matter program for Sappi, which has given over $16 million to designers working for the public good, and partnered with Paul Polak and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to create the exhibit, “Design for the Other 90%.”

Heller created the Ideas that Matter program for Sappi, which has given over $16 million to designers working for the public good. She partnered with Paul Polak and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to create the exhibit, “Design for the Other 90%.”

Darcy Hitchcock is leading the Sustainability Alliance, a coalition of local nonprofits working across disciplines to lead Northern/Central Arizona toward sustainability. Their organization has deployed a business certification, offers an annual conference for teachers and is developing a dashboard of community indicators based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This is her idea of “retirement.”

Darcy also was one of four founding members of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals and still teaches a distance learning class on Assessing Organizational Sustainability.

From 1990 to 2013, Darcy was president of AXIS Performance Advisors, a management consulting firm that first focused on highly empowered work teams and then transitioned to organizational sustainability around 1997. She and her partner, Marsha Willard, developed groundbreaking processes for assessing sustainability and developing sustainability plans. For approximately five years, Darcy taught at the prestigious Bainbridge Graduate Institute, one of the first MBA programs to integrate sustainability throughout the curriculum.

Throughout the years, Darcy has published 10 business books and countless articles. The first edition of The Business Guide to Sustainability (now in its third edition) won the American Library Association’s Choice Award for best academic titles.

Prior to AXIS, Darcy was an instructional designer and trainer, with an expertise in building instructional games and simulations.

Darcy views herself as a practitioner, not an academic. She is drawn to emerging fields, seeing opportunities, and inventing solutions. She lives in Sedona with her husband and two dogs. She enjoys hiking, kayaking, and volunteer vacations.

Ron Hubert is a serial business entrepreneur, focused on the long term performance benefits of sustainable business practices. He founded and/or significantly expanded six businesses in several industries, including strategy consulting, education, real estate, and economic development. He earned an MBA from USC, and was an Adjunct Professor for 13 years in USC’s Graduate School of Business. Prior to that Ron held various positions in international banking with Crocker Bank, after teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for two years.

After his retirement as a Senior Partner in the Deloitte & Touche strategy consulting practice, Ron earned an MS in Environmental Science and Policy and a Graduate Certificate in Conservation Ecology, both from Northern Arizona University (NAU) where he currently teaches in the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, and in the Sustainable Communities Master’s program. His master’s thesis investigated performance metrics for sustainable communities.

Ron also serves as Managing Director of Hozho International, a strategy consulting company. Hozho is a Navajo word which incorporates the concepts of balance, harmony, beauty and well-being. His company helps organizations discover how these characteristics support superior economic performance. Ron’s firm has worked with a wide range of organizations including for-profit firms, philanthropic foundations, universities, tribes, non-profits, and government bodies to develop and implement comprehensive sustainability strategies.

Ron is one of the founders and a current board member of the Sustainable Economic Development Initiative of Northern Arizona (SEDI), and serves on the advisory board of the Master’s program on Climate Science and Solutions at NAU, as an advisor on community food programs at NAU’s Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, and as Vice Chairman of the board of Grand Canyon Youth. During his career, Ron has served on over 30 corporate, government and non-profit boards, including the Center for National Policy, the Museum of Northern Arizona, Haley & Aldrich, and the Coconino County Industrial Development Authority.

During his career, Ron has contributed to six business strategy/policy books, and published 28 articles and policy white papers. He has also authored numerous policy and strategy analyses for clients. Ron is currently working on his first novel.

Recognized globally as a pioneering senior and intergenerational entrepreneurship expert, Elizabeth is leading a movement to transform the culture of aging and retirement. Her passion to ignite an Experienced Economy by unleashing the potential of 50+ year-olds to drive economic markets and generate social and environmental impact is grounded in data and metrics.

Elizabeth is part of the Experienced Economy. After a distinguished 30+ year career as an award-winning editor and author and with her four children grown and off on their own, Elizabeth was 70 when she founded SeniorEntrepreneurshipWorks in 2012. Almost immediately, she became the go-to person for all things regarding senior and intergenerational entrepreneurship (programs, policy, capitalization and research), including the Obama White House, US Congress, Clinton Global Initiative (CGI-America), EU Commission on Entrepreneurship, OECD, the Federal Reserve, the UN, the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), and global firms such as EY, among many others. She co-designed and was a key witness at the first ever U.S. Senate Hearing on Senior Entrepreneurship in February 2014, which was broadcast on C-span.

In 2015, she created and produced for Jeff Skoll's Participant Media (An Inconvenient Truth, Charlie Wilson’s War, Fast Food Nation, The Help, Lincoln) and Fox Searchlight Pictures a Global Summit Series on Senior and Multi-Generational Entrepreneurship. The Summits took place in Dublin, London, Washington, DC, New York City, Brussels, Phoenix, St. Louis, Sydney, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand, and Santiago, Chile. In each city, 25 leaders, representing a cross sector of action-oriented experts from government, banking, microfinance, business, education, foundations, nonprofits and public policy attended. They worked collectively to build a Blueprint for Action to catalyze research, programs, and policies to advance senior and multi-generational entrepreneurship.  

As a result of the successful summits, in 2017, Elizabeth expanded SeniorEntrepreneurshipWorks to found The Global Institute for Experienced Entrepreneurship, a comprehensive, cross-sector (business, government, education and research) ecosystem to catalyze and support cross-generational experience and entrepreneurship worldwide.

Elizabeth is a sought after speaker and is quoted often in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, PBS, NPR and Bloomberg Newsweek. She also writes for Forbes, Quartz and other major news outlets worldwide.

Two of her most recent articles are How Older Female Entrepreneurs Boost Rural Economies (Chatham House), and Older Workers Are the Economy's Most Underrated Natural Resource (Quartz)

Nan Ives is a brand marketer and social innovator who led marketing, communications and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies at Fidelity Investments for 22 years. Blending a dynamic communication style and an innovative mindset, Nan successfully held leadership roles across a diverse set of functions and business units. Her expertise includes brand strategy, experiential marketing, sponsorships, employee engagement, and design thinking.

Nan established Fidelity’s approach to public philanthropy, including the development of Fidelity Cares as the umbrella brand for community relations and volunteerism. Throughout her career, Nan has created successful cause marketing programs and thought leadership campaigns with a number of high-profile partners such as Boston Pops, Forbes, LA Phil, NBC Universal, NE Patriots, PGA Tour, and TED.

In her role as SVP of Corporate Sponsorships, Nan created Fidelity FutureStage, a ground-breaking CSR initiative that provided resources and life-changing opportunities to underserved students in public school arts programs. The program garnered national media attention, engaged consumers in 127 different countries, and attracted the involvement of many high-profile celebrities such as Elton John, Queen Latifah, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

As a champion of innovation, Nan became an expert in design thinking, leading strategies focused on emerging customers segments as well as the modernization of the associate experience. Her belief in social impact and innovation has led her to work leading design thinking strategic planning sessions with several non-profits, including Points of Light Foundation, the Hands-On Network, and the Children’s Museum of Providence.

Nan holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts but considers herself a lifelong learner, receiving certificates in Marketing Strategy, Global Social Responsibility, Next-Gen HR, Digital Marketing, and Design Thinking.

Stephen Jordan co-founded IO Sustainability in February 2013, and serves as president of the international research and management consulting firm. He is the CEO of IO's non-profit arm, the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD).

Previously, in May 2000, Jordan founded and served for 12 years as executive director of the corporate philanthropy arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where he received widespread recognition for his pioneering work in the fields of corporate social responsibility, community economic development and disaster response.

Before founding BCLC, Stephen served as executive director of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America. Previously, he worked in the publishing industry and on the staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Stephen has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including an award for “Outstanding Contribution to CSR” from the CSR World Congress in Mumbai, India. He has made appearances and been quoted in major media including CNN, CNBC, Fox News, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and many others.

Stephen holds an MBA from Georgetown University and an MA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia with high academic honors from both institutions.

Shainoor Khoja, Managing Director of Roshan Corporate Social Responsibility, has established an award-winning Corporate Social Responsibility Department and a full time medical, dental and physiotherapy clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan. Roshan’s CSR department encompasses activities in commerce, health, social welfare and education with a strong focus on social enterprise initiatives. Recent projects have included developing a telemedicine solution to address shortcomings in Afghanistan’s healthcare system, bringing e-learning and low cost computers to women and children, providing mobile money solutions to emerging markets, market prices of commodities to farmers, facilitating women in sustainable and profitable businesses and setting up the first ever corporate medical, life and disability insurance scheme for Afghan Employees.

Shainoor also operates as a business consultant in the area of corporate social responsibility and for business start-ups wishing to enter the Middle Eastern markets. She has a special interest in valued added services for the Telecommunications and Internet Technology sector.

Shainoor studied in England and Canada and holds a Bachelors of Physiotherapy, a Masters in Health Management and a Postgraduate Certificate from Cambridge University. Shainoor is an Executive in Residence at the Center for Women’s Leadership at Babson College, Boston, U.S.A, has been a Change Agent in Residence at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, is a member of Social Venture Networks and sits on several International and local Boards and Committees.

Denise Korn is the Founder and Principal of Yellow&, a dynamic creative consultancy working with impassioned leaders and fearless entrepreneurs—intertwining the power of a multi-disciplinary mindset with innovative human-centered design and collaborative teams to realize brands with meaningful business and social impact. 

Previously Korn was Creative Director/Design Director for Lifestyle Brand at Gensler. Formerly, the founder + visionary behind Korn Design, an award-winning brand strategy and design firm known for its purposeful approach to creating memorable brands, experiences + iconic places for a wide range of clients in hospitality, real estate and culture. 

A design industry speaker, mentor and activist, Korn is recipient of a Fellow Award from AIGA (American Institute for Graphic Arts) for contributions as a design visionary and youth advocate; was awarded a James Beard Foundation medal for design; and her work has been honored by AIGA, Communication Arts, Graphis, Hospitality Design, and Interior Design magazines.

A champion of diversifying the creative economy, Korn founded Youth Design in 2003, mentoring the next generation of urban talent—fostering career opportunities in design. Honored by the Boston Business Journal as a 2015 Leader in Diversity, she currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Massachusetts College of Art and Design, on the Advisory Council for Cornell University’s School of Architecture, Art & Planning, on the Advisory Board for AIGA/Boston and the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC).

Nikki Korn is Principal and Chief Strategy Officer at Cause Consulting, a business strategy and communications firm helping companies simultaneously strengthen business and impact society. She is a fast moving, high energy, passionate leader who loves to challenge the status quo, apply her creativity to help solve complex social issues and build substantive issue-driven social innovation, community engagement, and consumer marketing campaigns.

For over two decades, Nikki has worked with national and global brands on their social impact journey. She is continuously advancing the field and has been profiled as one of the Leading Women in CSR by Triple Pundit and as an “exemplary leader in corporate responsibility” by CR Magazine. Nikki loves to teach and write and is co-author of “Evolution, Innovation and Best Practices in Corporate Social Impact,” a chapter within Spinger’s Managing for Social Impact guide book for corporate responsibility practitioners.

With a keen focus on social and business impacts, Nikki develops powerful initiatives addressing financial inclusion, health and wellness, workforce readiness, youth development, STEM, child hunger, and other critical U.S. and global issues. She enjoys integrating her broad experience within the retail, fashion/beauty, technology, automotive, and the financial services sectors to connect her clients with international trends and popular culture. GoDaddy GoCommunities, Aramark Feed Your Potential 365, Hasbro Be Fearless Be Kind, HARMAN Inspired, New Balance SparkStart, JCPenney Afterschool, and Chevy R.O.C.K are among the many programs she has crafted.

Nikki spent her early career in Washington, DC counseling nonprofit, foundation and government clients as part of Millennium Communications Group. She later served for ten years as a Vice President at Cone Inc. where she helped build and advance its cause practice. She is a graduate of American University’s School of International Service.

Expect Nikki to be thinking and moving fast, focusing on the details, and persevering. When Nikki is not working on social impact issues or leading a design-thinking workshop, she’s with her family, on the tennis court, skiing at Sugarbush or at a Boston sporting event screaming her lungs out.

Deborah Leipziger is an author, lecturer and advisor in the field of Corporate Responsibility (CR). She advises companies, governments, and UN agencies on CR and sustainability issues. She has advised leading multinational companies on strategic and supply chain issues, as well as a wide range of CR initiatives, including the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Environment Programme, and Social Accountability International.

She is the author of The Corporate Responsibility Code Book, now in its second edition (Greenleaf, 2010) and Social Accountability 8000: The Definitive Guide to the New Social Standard (FT Prentice Hall, 2001), and co-author of Living Corporate Citizenship (FT, 2002) and Corporate Citizenship: Successful Strategies of Responsible Companies (FT, 1998). Her books have been translated into Portuguese, French, Korean, and Chinese.

Ms. Leipziger has trained representatives from hundreds of companies on CR issues, in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Peru and El Salvador. A frequent lecturer, she has had the opportunity to lecture to students at Cornell University, Marlboro College, and Wellesley. She is currently working to develop a Sustainability Fellowship Program with several graduate programs at leading Boston-based universities.

She serves as a member of several boards including the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment for Aviva plc in the UK and the Center for Ethics at Manhattanville College, USA. She has served on the International Board of Advisors of Instituto Ethos in Brazil.

Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger has a Masters in Public Policy from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts from Manhattanville College in Economics and International Studies.

Robert Lewis, Jr. is a nationally recognized thought leader, public speaker and passionate advocate for urban youth. He has become well known as a bridge-builder and catalyst for collaboration between diverse business, civic and public sectors throughout the country. A 2015 Boston Magazine cover story listed Robert among the city's 50 Most Powerful Leaders, calling him “a tireless advocate for inner-city kids.” In 2016, Robert was honored by the Boston Business Journal as one of Boston’s Top 50 Game-Changers.

Robert’s impressive career trajectory has included important roles such as Executive Director of the Boston Centers for Youth and Families, President and Executive Director of the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ), Senior Vice President of City Year’s national operations and Executive Director of City Year Boston, and Vice President for Program at the Boston Foundation where he directed the distribution of $16 million+ in discretionary grants. He was the chief architect of StreetSafe Boston—the country’s only privately-funded ($15m) gang program with a mission to dramatically reduce gun violence in the city during his tenure at The Boston Foundation.

In 2013, Robert pursued a lifelong dream to launch The BASE, with a mission to shift the national mindset about what it takes for urban Black and Latino youth to succeed. Under Robert’s direction, The BASE envisions a world in which urban youth are recognized as our nation’s greatest untapped asset. The BASE leverages the power and passion of baseball to help student athletes find pathways to success both on and off the field. Since 2013, the BASE has had 138 student athletes matriculate to college and has provided $25M+ in academic scholarships. At its core, the BASE methodology is rooted in the values of excellence, resilience, respect and the belief in what’s possible.

The BASE was built with the same values and culture as the Boston Astros, a baseball team Robert founded in 1978. Legendary baseball writer Peter Gammons has called The Astros, “Hands-down the best urban baseball program in the country,” and Triple Crown Sports awarded the Astros the 2012 “Team of the Year” award from a field of 40,000. The BASE Astros has also won the Triple Crown Sports United States Baseball Championship in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

Robert is a highly sought-after public speaker, facilitator and spokesperson on the topic of urban issues and opportunities, addressing attendees at major national conferences and inspiring students and faculty on college campuses across the country. He has worked collaboratively with government and civic leaders in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and has consulted with a number of foundations and non-profits including California Wellness Foundation, Delaware Valley Grantmakers, The Boston Foundation and the Stoneleigh Foundation, offering leadership, and critical and strategic thinking on urban youth development. Robert also worked with the Minister of Defense in Bermuda to launch StreetStafe Bermuda, and advised Prime Minister David Cameron during the tumultuous riots in the United Kingdom in 2011.

Among his many awards and distinctions are the 2015 Sports Museum’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Boston Baseball Writer’s Annual Dinner, the Mass Women’s Political Caucus’ “Good Guy” award, and has received three honorary doctor of humane letters degrees from Cambridge College (MA), Franklin Pierce College (NH) and Simmons College (MA). In addition, Robert is an advisor to MA Governor Charlie Baker, helping develop Baker’s statewide urban agenda.

Robert has been profiled in four books: Developing Better Athletes, Better People, A Leader’s Guide To Transforming High School and Youth Sports into a Development Zone, authored by Jim Thompson, Do More Than Give, the 6 Practices of Donors Who Change the World, by Leslie Crutchfield, John Kania and Mark Kramer, 10 Who Mentor, by Denise Korn, Men Who Dare, authored by the late Katherine Martin.

Freedom is your birthright.

Social entrepreneur and speaker Lorenzo Lewis models his life around liberation. As the founder and former Chief Visionary Office of The Confess Project, a leading national grassroots movement that empowers barbers to become mental health advocates for men of color, Lorenzo understands that releasing trauma is the only way to move forward.

In the barbershop, Lorenzo witnessed the intersections of poverty and violence and learned that people need more support—they need pathways to careers, wealth, and liberation. He helped create a revolution in mental health and in turn, it led him to look deeper inside himself.

Born in jail to an incarcerated mother, Lorenzo struggled with depression and anxiety throughout his youth. At 17, he almost re-entered the system of mass incarceration he had come from. It was then he snapped in and began his journey to wellness.

It started with an education at Arkansas Baptist College and continued with him facing his own emotional challenges, eventually becoming a mental health advocate and changemaker. Since then, Lorenzo has given talks at numerous entities across the country—Snapchat, Google, ADCOLOR, Stanford University, and Texas Rangers, to name a few. He is also a two-time TEDx speaker.

Building upon the work he has done over the past 15 years, Lorenzo is now dedicated to the empowerment, wealth-building, and wellness of others. His passion to help underserved folks like himself break into the free market led him to partner with Crown Cutz Academy founder Craig Charles to create Uplift Barber and Beauty Academy, the first barber school in the country that incorporates mental health and entrepreneurship into the curriculum. 

Lorenzo believes building generational wealth is key and has launched several family businesses that not only generate opportunities for his wife and daughter but help everyday folks succeed. Additionally, his parent nonprofit L&J Empowerment is focused on juvenile justice and workforce development.

Community comes first in all of Lorenzo’s endeavors—whether it's the people he serves or the talent he hires. He believes that when you empower individuals, you empower the community. His book, Jumping Over Life’s Hurdles and Staying in the Race, threads together these lessons to tell a story of how he became the visionary he is today.

Now, his story continues. Committed to fighting for his freedom and others, his unconventional experiences give him a unique perspective to explore the ultimate questions he seeks to answer in his work—how we connect, how we heal, and how we thrive.

Sarah Little is a journalist, author, and activist. At 23 years old, Sarah has spent time in nearly 40 countries and lived in the Middle East, Europe, and North & Central America. In 2018, Sarah spent sufficient time in refugee camps in Jordan, Kenya, and across Europe, documenting the lives of young women and girls. With widespread exposure to different cultures, Sarah feels inspired to work with young women and girls to help them reach their full potential.

Sarah has spoken at and participated in various events and conferences, including Babson College’s Social Innovation 2018 Youth Summit, U.N. Foundation’s Girl Up Campaign, and Refresh Women’s Conference in Midland, Texas. She is a Institute for Social Innovation Youth Fellow in Social Innovation and has served as a youth advisor to The World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa division as they wrote a report on how to effectively engage youth in the region on issues such as migration, displacement, and limited access to opportunity. Over the past two years, Sarah has interviewed girls and young women from across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. She is the author of More to Her Story and founder of the More to Her Story platform that gives space for marginalized young women and girls to tell their stories.

Sarah is currently studying Journalism at The New School in New York City.

Chris Lloyd is currently an Executive Advisor and Teaching Fellow at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship as well as a Senior Fellow in Social Innovation at the Institute for Social Innovation. He is passionate about helping organizations apply their core competencies to create business and social value.

He is the former executive director of corporate responsibility for Verizon Communications. For over 25 years he guided development of Verizon’s corporate responsibility strategy. He helped the business identify ways to apply its communication technology solutions to create shared value opportunities that addressed community challenges. He assisted business units in implementing responsible business practices that focused on Verizon’s most material environmental and social impacts. He served as executive editor of its first fifteen corporate responsibility reports and integrated financial and corporate responsibility performance reporting. He also oversaw the development of metrics and measurement systems to quantify the environmental and social impact of Verizon products and programs.

Chris was the Vice-Chair of the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) and served as a thought leader on the role of information and communications technology to enable the transition to a low-carbon economy and to support human rights. He also served on the member’s group of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), an international, nonprofit organization that provides resources to make the online world safer for children and their families.

Chris earned a B.A. in European History/German from Middlebury College, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Certificate in Environmental Management and Policy from the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar.

Lynnette McIntire has spent the last 20 years bringing big ideas to corporations for changing the planet and sharing do-able ideas that can inspire others to action. She is convinced that morals, values and social consciousness should lead business strategy.

At logistics giant UPS, she is part of a small leadership team that has established corporate responsibility as a strategic platform and elevated the company’s reputation as a global sustainability leader. Her career also has included leading employee and marketing communications programs in 40 countries for a multinational in Asia, heading up the consumer products practice at an international public relations firm in Bangkok Thailand, and managing scores of reputational crises, issues, mergers and acquisitions.

Her specialties are driving change at large organizations, transforming personal passions into business opportunities, and building credentials-based sustainability programs through stakeholder and employee engagement, thought leadership and strategic communications.

She is a frequent lecturer, blogger and public speaker on the risks and rewards of transparency, the power of passion in business, and using entrepreneurial thinking for corporate change. Lynnette has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Minnesota and lives in Atlanta, GA. She is a member of the Corporate Leadership Forum for Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship.

​​​“Good cooking is about small details done to perfection.”

Adam Melonas is a seasoned veteran of the culinary world. Over the last twenty years, he has pushed the limits of experimental and progressive cuisine with restaurants in five countries. Presently, he setting his sights on the consumer packaged goods industry.

Armed with an eclectic background in food and culture, Adam left his native Australia at the young age of 19 to become Executive Chef at Otto’s—a fine dining restaurant in London. From there, he went on to be Chef De Cuisine at the Shangri la Hotel in Dubai, Head Chef of Jade on 36 in Shanghai, Chef De Cuisine of Burj Al Arab in Dubai, and Culinary Director of the Lab at La Terraza del Casino (El Bulli Group) in Madrid.

Adam has developed, manufactured and launched 47 products across many international markets. He was Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder of Unreal Brands (Unjunked Candy) and developed many different product categories for The Australian Chia Co. Adam has also formulated and manufactured concepts for IKEA.

In 2013, Adam founded Chew, a food innovation lab that redefines what is possible in the world of packaged food by creating game-changing products that are not only delicious, but also nutritious and sustainable. Adam has scoured the world of food for talented and passionate food scientists and chefs to join his team. Two years later, the Chew team is now approaching 30 members in two separate locations in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Adam and his team bring the chef mentality to the start-up culture. Their passion for giving people better options in the food market has not only inspired their innovation labs, but also some of the world’s leading food companies.

[Chew partners with companies of all sizes to turn an inkling of an idea into something unbelievable in a matter of days or weeks. In order to create lasting and meaningful change, industry experts and Chew believe that delicious and nutritious are no longer mutually exclusive notions.]

Christine Riley Miller is Director of Sustainability at Samsonite where she launched the first-ever global sustainability strategy and program across nine brands. Previously Christine led the sustainability team and the Corporate Foundation for eight years at Dunkin Brands Inc. Prior to Dunkin Brands, Christine developed integrated campaigns and strategies for communicating sustainability and philanthropy at Cone Communications. She previously managed the CSR Initiative at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.

An engaging public speaker, Christine has been selected as a presenter and panelist on deforestation, coffee, and cocoa including at Citi’s Leadership and Ethics, SPECS, and Innovation Forum conferences. In 2012, Christine was named one of 12 White House Champions of Change for her leadership and influence. She holds a graduate certificate in Leadership for Change from Boston College and a Bachelor’s of Science in Sociology from Brigham Young University.

Katie Smith Milway, principal of Milway Consulting, has a background in journalism, nonprofit management, strategy consulting, and governance. She is a senior advisor at The Bridgespan Group, where for a decade she served as partner and head of the knowledge practice, leading research and multimedia content development in the US and India. Prior to Bridgespan, Katie spent 14 years at Bain & Company, becoming the firm’s founding editorial director and global publisher. She began her journalism career at The Wall Street Journal and her nonprofit service at Food for the Hungry. Her work in sustainable development across four continents includes program design and measurement, donor development, and communications and governance. 

A blogger and frequent conference presenter, Katie has been featured at the Stanford Nonprofit Management Institute, TEDx New England, Independent Sector, The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, Board Source, Social Impact Exchange, Clinton Global Initiative University, and Salzburg Global Seminar. She has served on the boards of Canadian Food for the Hungry, Veritas Forum, World Vision US, Boston SCORES, and is a trustee for the Anna B. Stearns Foundation. Katie is also a best-selling children’s book author and social entrepreneur.

She co-founded and chaired One Hen, Inc., a nonproft program that uses microfinance as a model to teach social entrepreneurship to youth, acquired in 2016 by Boston SCORES. With a focus on urban youth in the US and Canada, One Hen counts more than 10,000 program alumni, and online users from more than 100 countries who access free lesson plans or license curriculum. Katie is a two-time Rotary Scholar and holds a BA in English from Stanford University, a Masters in European Studies from the Free University of Brussels, and an MBA from INSEAD. She speaks fluent French and functional Spanish, Italian and German.

C. Sara Minard earned a Ph.D. in Economics (highest honors) from Sciences Po, Paris, under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen for her research on social entrepreneurship in the informal economy in Senegal, West Africa, where she served as a small business volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps (1998–2000). She is the Founder and CEO of Manarine LLC, an international consulting firm working at the intersection of new economic thinking, social innovation and entrepreneurship, impact and sustainable investing, and systems level design. As a socio-economist for international financial institutions (World Bank/IFC, OECD), regional governments (ECOWAS), universities, NGOs, community-based organizations, and companies from West Africa to Appalachia to India, Dr. Minard has 20+ years of experience working with diverse stakeholders in designing local development strategies and policies for sustainable and ethical private sector investment.

In addition to consulting, research, and teaching, Dr. Minard serves as part-time Associate Director of the Mockler Center for Faith and Ethics in the Public Square at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and teaches an award-winning course on impact and sustainable investing, and a course on impact management and measurement as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She has a Master of international Affairs from Columbia/SIPA and Sciences Po, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of San Francisco. She lives on a multi-generational family farm in New Jersey, speaks fluent French and Wolof, and is a certified yoga and mindfulness meditation teacher.

Philip Mirvis is an organizational psychologist whose studies and private practice concerns large-scale organizational change, the character of the workforce and workplace, and business leadership in society. An advisor to businesses and NGOs on five continents, he has authored ten books on his studies including The Cynical Americans (social trends), Building the Competitive Workforce (human capital), Joining Forces (the human dynamics of mergers) and To the Desert and Back (a business transformation case). His most recent is Beyond Good Company: Next Generation Corporate Citizenship.

Mirvis is a fellow of the Work/Family Roundtable, a board member of the Citizens Development Corporation, and formerly a Trustee of the Foundation for Community Encouragement and Society for Organization Learning.

Mirvis has a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan. He has taught at Boston University, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China and the London Business School and been visiting researcher at the University of Pretoria, South Africa and International Executive Development Center, Bled, Slovenia.

Read the recent report co-authored by Philip Mirvis and Bradley Googins for The Conference Board: The New Business of Business: Innovating for a Better World.

Bob is an international corporate and public affairs executive with a 20 year track record in the field of corporate social responsibility.

Prior to founding Foresight Strategy, for 14 years Bob served as Vice President, Public Affairs for InterGen, a global electric power company. At InterGen he established the company’s external brand/image—centered on its use of advanced technology and a focus on CSR.

As InterGen’s senior officer responsible for government, media and community affairs, he established the company’s approach to sustainable development and community outreach for its international power projects in over a dozen countries. This approach embodied the principles of effective CSR—stakeholder consultation, employee involvement and cultural sensitivity.

Bob is a firm believer that any company’s external image has to be based on not only substance but also employee buy-in. After conducting employee research, he developed theInterGen Core Values Program—an effort to establish a consistent corporate culture based on specific internal and external values. Bob was also instrumental in the environmental design components for the company’s new corporate office that was certified by the US Green Building Council.

Bob’s diverse background includes public affairs experience in the environmental services industry and at a global PR agency, NGO advocacy work, and service as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Latin America.

An active and persuasive proponent of corporate social responsibility, Bob has taught for the past three years at the Boston College Carroll School of Management Graduate School. His MBA course, Social Issues in Management, centers on CSR’s role in value creation.

Bob holds a bachelor’s degree in management from Boston College, a master’s degree in international Affairs from Ohio University, and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. He has served on the boards of several non-profit institutions including the Washington DC based Public Affairs Council, the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship, and the Friends of Minute Man National Park.​

Gael O’Brien is an executive coach, consultant, presenter, and leadership columnist. Her focus is helping leaders make their leadership mean something. Her expertise in leadership includes: aligning purpose and values with strategic direction and business decisions; communication and engagement; and building trust and reputation.

Founder and president of Strategic Opportunities Group, Gael is The Ethics Coach columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, a columnist for Business Ethics Magazine, and publisher of The Week in Ethics. Gael is the co-author with Deepak Chopra and Jack Canfield of Stepping Stones to Success.

Her extensive corporate background includes serving as a vice president of Mitsubishi Motors North America, president of the Mitsubishi Motors U.S.A. Foundation, and a general manager of Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America recruited to help lead a model workplace initiative and culture change after the company was sued by the EEOC. She was director of marketing at Price Waterhouse, Chief of Staff for an Ohio Senate leader, and assistant editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Gael is certified in Business Ethics (McCallum Graduate School of Business) and has worked with the Ukleja Center of Ethical Leadership at California State University Long Beach, the Center for Business and Ethics at Loyola Marymount University, and is a research fellow at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University.

Gael is a speaker at international and national conferences, universities, and business meetings. She is a member of the Southern California Business Ethics Roundtable, the New England Ethics Forum, Toastmasters International (ACB and CL), an associate member of the CA Society of Association Executives, and former member of the Forum for Corporate Directors and the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics; she is a past president of Professional Coaches, Mentors & Advisors. She has served on the boards of 10 non-profit and professional organizations.

Linda Novick O’Keefe is the Founding Chief Executive Officer of Common Threads. Her experience, desire to develop innovative solutions to social problems combined with her passion for food led her to start Common Threads with chef Art Smith and artist Jesus Salgueiro in May 2003. Their vision was for a non-profit organization committed to educating Chicago’s youth about cultural diversity, the culinary arts and the importance of nutrition.

Common Threads reverses the trend of generation of non-cookers who have been raised on over-processed food. Linda believes that food access is not only a key indicator of larger social justice issues, but also a common concern with the potential to both strengthen individuals and fortify entire communities; Common Threads is teaching children where poverty, race and access to quality food intersect. The program helps to combat the childhood obesity epidemic that is ravaging particularly the African American and Latino communities while honoring many families’ cultures.

Under Linda’s leadership, Common Threads has grown from the basement of a humble Church, in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood to over 200 schools in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington DC, and has broadened its curricular focus to include after-school, summer camp, parent outreach and teacher training programs.

Prior to launching Common Threads, Linda worked in pharmaceutical advertising; however, a desire to make a difference in the community led her to an internship with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and later to a position with the community-development savvy ShoreBank. Linda has an M.S. in Public Service Administration from DePaul University; was a 2009 Scholarship recipient and attendant of Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management; has been a Kellogg School of Management Board Governance Fellowship Mentor; served on the Building a Healthier Chicago Task Force; and currently is a Kitchen Cabinet Member for the Smithsonian Institute. She is the 2010 recipient of the Anti-Defamation League’s Rising Star Award and was featured by Today’s Chicago Woman as one of 100 Women Making a Difference in 2011. She, her husband Nick, their two children, Zachary and Julia, and Leo, a pit-sharpei rescue, live in Austin.

Celina Pagani-Tousignant is the president and founder of Normisur International, an international management-consulting firm that specializes in Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), workforce development, leadership training and executive coaching. Normisur International has a strong global presence with clients in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Celina’s goal is to create social change by building bridges between companies, government, NGOs, communities, and people from diverse backgrounds and forging relationships across cultural chasms. Her services include: executive briefings for senior leaders and board members, manager and worker training, project management, strategy development, organizational change management, executive coaching, facilitation, curriculum design, and speaker engagements.

Born and raised in Uruguay, South America, Celina fluently speaks Spanish, English and French, and has a working knowledge of Portuguese. She has an M.A. in Clinical Psychology, a MFT license, and is the author of Breaking the Rules—Counseling Ethnic Minorities as well as many published articles. Certified as a Life Coach with John F. Kennedy University, and an Integral Coach® with New Ventures West, she continuously inspires individuals and organizations to change and reach their best potential. Her corporate career spans 23 years, beginning with her work for large global and national companies such as Chevron Texaco, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Levi Strauss & Co. in research, analytical analysis, workforce development and community outreach.

Over the years, Celina has trained over 8,000 individuals and is often sought after nationally and internationally as a keynote speaker, facilitator, educator and consultant on topics related to Sustainability, CSR, Community Involvement, Work/Life, Diversity, Leadership and Cross-Cultural Communication. She has an innate ability to reach and inspire CEOs, board members and corporate senior leaders in embracing a sustainability agenda for their companies.

She has worked internationally with hundreds of executives in Latin America, Thailand, Mongolia, South Korea, Europe, South Africa, Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as various companies, government entities and international organizations including Servicio Médico de la Cámara Chilena de la Construcción in Chile, Forum Empresa in Panama, Asociación Empresarial Para el Desarrollo (AED) in Costa Rica, Ceres in Ecuador, DERES in Uruguay, CEDICE in Venezuela, Fundemas in El Salvador, Peru2021 in Peru, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Mongolia, Seoul National University in South Korea, and the European Union as part of a program to support the development of National CSR Plans for six Latin American countries. She partnered with Tellus Institute, the Inter American Bank and the Organization of American States (OAS) on numerous international assignments that were implemented in the Latin American region. Since 2001, she has presented on Sustainability and CSR topics all over the world through the U.S. Department of State Speaker Program. She has experience working with people around the world, including Argentina, Guatemala, Uruguay, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Panama, Slovenia and East Jerusalem.

As executive coach, Celina has been inspiring change and empowering individuals and work teams for over 25 years. She has worked with numerous corporate and private clients in the U.S., Mexico, Chile, Peru, South Korea, Brazil, El Salvador, Ecuador, Uruguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Mongolia, as well as clients from non-profits and academia. She has been coaching health care executives and high-potential leaders through several leadership programs at UCSF Center for Health Professions since 2007.

Celina’s extensive teaching experience includes serving as faculty for the International CSR Certificate at Vincular, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso; Tecnológico de Monterey in Mexico, Ecuador and Peru, John F. Kennedy University; the Boston College Center for Work and Family; and The Sloan Center for Aging & Work. She served as member of the Advisory Board at Upwardly Global, a non-profit organization that helps immigrant professionals with legal residency in the U.S. find jobs, and is now a board member at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California.

Currently Celina is a Teaching Fellow at the following global organizations dedicated to promote Sustainability and CSR in society: the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship (BCCCC) and the Centrum for Corporate Citizenship Deutschland (CCCD) in Berlin, Germany. In addition, she is part of the Faculty at World at Work (WAW), an international professional organization that focuses on the design of people strategies for talent management and AED, a nonprofit business network and consultancy dedicated to sustainability in Costa Rica.

Susan Pinkwater is the founder of ThrivAbility, a social impact venture using education, innovation, and corporate engagement to create a world where accessibility is inclusive, and all people, regardless of age or ability, can participate, connect, and thrive.

Using her business acumen and marketing expertise as a powerful tool, Susan is a passionate advocate for the rights of all humans. Her article about how to build a future-ready city, by making it accessible was recently published by the World Economic Forum. Susan was also interviewed by CUNY TV about designing tomorrow for universal accessibility.

Co-founder of Pinkwater & Putman, one of the first Social Impact strategy consultancies, she won multiple awards including, 1^st place D&AD White Pencil Social Impact award, 1^st and 2^nd place Cynopsis Media Social Impact awards, CSR International award, and runners up for Fast Company's World Changing Ideas award and Shorty Social Good.

Prior to this, Susan was the founder of Atmosphere (later assumed by BBDO/Proximity), one of the first global, full-service digital advertising agencies and she was identified in Ad Week’s Top 100 and “One to Watch.”

Susan’s now spends 100% of her time focusing on creating access, inclusion and better lives for people with physical disabilities.

Karen M. Proctor is founder and principal of Harbour Workshop LLC, a boutique social innovation firm that provides strategic advice and consultation to leaders and organizations working in and with the social sector. Karen’s accomplished career has been devoted to working across the public and private sectors to address issues ranging from hunger to school reform.

Karen has been the chief social responsibility administrator and strategist for media, publishing, and sports organizations including major market radio stations, Scholastic, and the National Basketball Association. A nationally recognized leader in the social impact space, Karen has advised corporate CEOs, non-profit, and philanthropic chief executives, as well as federal and state senior level officials. Her work in service of more than 200 organizations has honed her expertise in strategic thinking and planning, program design, implementation, evaluation, and cross-sector collaboration. Karen is known for her thought-leadership and passion for producing transformational outcomes. In addition to serving as a Fellow with the Institute for Social Innovation, she also serves on the ConvergeUS Council of Innovation Advisers.

Just prior to launching Harbour Workshop, Karen was Scholastic’s Vice President of Community Affairs and Government Relations where she established and led the company’s public affairs practices. During her tenure she spearheaded enterprising national education and public policy initiatives that markedly contributed to business growth and improved educational opportunities and conditions for millions of children and families. As Director of Community Relations for the National Basketball Association, Karen served as the chief community relations consultant to NBA and WNBA clubs.

Karen’s non-profit and philanthropic sector leadership includes roles as President and Trustee of the Maurice R. Robinson Fund and Chair of the Board of Directors for New York’s Literacy Assistance Center. Karen has served on numerous governance and advisory boards. She is currently a board member of PENCIL, New York City’s public education advocacy organization.

Karen has appeared on national television and radio programs including NBC’s Today Show, CBS This Morning, and The Tavis Smiley Show (radio) and has been a featured speaker and panelist at major business and industry conferences. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Judithe Registre, an Impact Entrepreneur correspondent, is a fusion of heart, energy and intellect—a true oracle. As a catalyst for global social progress and an ardent advocate for gender equality, she has collaboratively worked with an array of leaders and international organizations, championing both gender parity and economic inclusion. Her innovative approach to development and progress shattered established norms, giving rise to fresh models of progress.

Her impact transcends borders, spanning continents from Asia and Africa to Latin America, Europe, and North America. Her work spans countries including Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, South Sudan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

As a dynamic leader and advisor, Judithe champions economic progress and human dignity, operating at the intersection of ESG, DEI, SDGs, Philanthropy, and Entrepreneurship.Her nuanced understanding, style and approach surpass boundaries, propelling transformative insights to nurture a future with greater opportunity and more prosperous for a broader spectrum of individuals and communities.

In 2021, Judithe's influence earned her a distinguished place among Apolitical's "100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy." The subsequent year saw her honored with Babson College's prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award for 2022. She holds a Master of Science in Management specializing in Advanced Entrepreneurial Leadership from Babson College, a Master of Arts in Philosophy and Social Policy from American University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Boston College.

Anders Richtnér is associate professor and head of research at the Centre for Innovation and Operations Management at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). He is head of SSE Innovation Lab that is an interdisciplinary innovation laboratory working to imagine, design, test, and implement pioneering approaches to executive education. During 2014–2015 he was a visiting professor at the Institute for Social Innovation. At Babson he worked within the area of social innovation and developed a teaching cased on the social enterprise THINX called “THINX—a disruptive innovation in the feminine hygiene industry.”

Anders was from 2005 part of the founding team and later became chairman of the board at Inmotion Intelligence a start-up company developing training machines for functional testing and training. Anders left the company in 2014 when the company was acquired by external investors. He has been named one of Sweden’s 33 “super-talents” by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

​His doctoral thesis on how companies implement downsizing while sustaining innovation, knowledge and creativity was awarded the EFMD/Emerald Outstanding Doctoral Award (award for best thesis in Operations & Supply Chain Management published 2004–2006, worldwide). Anders is involved in three on-going research projects: Knowledge transfer in MNC; Measuring innovation; and Innovation through partnerships. All three are conducted in close co-operation with companies with a clear aim of contributing to their competitiveness, but also scientific knowledge.

Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx educator who believes that students should not have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one. An internationally acclaimed award-winning educator, Stephen is the author of the best-selling book, The Power Of A Plant, and founder of Green Bronx Machine. Known as “America’s Favorite Teacher,” Stephen is responsible for creating the first edible classroom in the world, which he has evolved into the National Health, Wellness and Learning Center. He and his students have grown more than 100,000 pounds of vegetables in the South Bronx, and in the process, Stephen has moved school attendance from 40% to 93% daily and helped provide 2,200 youth jobs in the Bronx.

Stephen was a Top Ten Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, named Global Humanitarian, Food Tank Hero, TEDx Prize Winner and a Global Food Educator, and has presented at the Obama White House three times. A replica of his classroom was installed in the U.S. Botanic Gardens in Washington, DC. His curriculum is being used in hundreds of schools across the United States, and internationally from Colombia to Dubai, from Canada to Cairo, to Doha, and beyond. 

Stephen’s TED talk boasts more than 1 million views, ranks in the Top 10 Food/Education TED Talks of all time, and is used for teacher training/workforce development globally. The State University of New York uses his curriculum to train teachers in all content areas. His recent appearance on PBS’ Growing A Greener World (Episode 808) won an Emmy Award. He and his students have been featured on the covers of TIME for KIDS and Scholastic Magazine, are the subject of a new, full-feature documentary, Generation Growth.

Stephen splits his time between his home in the Bronx and his residence in The Sustainable City in Dubai, UAE, where he serves as Director of Health, Wellness and Innovation for Esol Education at Fairgreen International School. Currently, Stephen is working with Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield to bring Green Bronx Machine programming to 22 American cities across 19 states. Stephen was just awarded the 2020 Change-Maker Award by NYC Food Policy Center for his work, advocacy and impact in public schools across NYC and America!

Steve Rochlin is co-Founder and co-CEO of IO Sustainability. IO (Impacts and Outcomes for Sustainable Development) identifies strategic solutions for private, public, and civil sector organizations that maximize economic, social, and environmental value for the long-term. He is also President of IO’s sister 501(c)3 non-profit, the Institute for Sustainable Development.

Steve has over 20 years of experience in sustainability and corporate responsibility (S&CR). He has advised leading companies across a wide variety of industry sectors on how to improve sustainability performance in a way that drives competitive success. He has been a senior executive at two leading S&CR organizations. For AccountAbility he served as the Director of Global Advisory Services and a member of the Board of Directors. For the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Steve served as the Director of Research and Development. Under his leadership both organizations demonstrated growth in revenues, reputation, and international presence.

Steve is co-author of two books on S&CR: Beyond Good Company: Next Generation Corporate Citizenship and Untapped: Creating Value in Underserved Markets. He is also lead author of the landmark study: Project ROI: Defining the Competitive and Financial Advantages of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. Executives and Managers frequently engage Steve to advise on designing enterprise-wide Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Strategy, building Sustainably Competitive Business Strategies, Stakeholder Engagement Strategy, Measuring the Returns and Impacts from S&CR, Designing Effective Management and Governance Structures for S&CR, Enhancing Reputation, Communicating Sustainability Performance, Effective Reporting, Community Investment Strategy, Base of the Pyramid Strategy, and Partnership Development among others. He is an expert facilitator and corporate trainer. He is frequently asked to speak on S&CR topics in conferences around the world. Steve serves on the Advisory Boards for Wharton’s Initiative on Global Environmental Leadership, New Earth(inventors of the Social Hotspots Database and Handprinter Initiative), and for the Global Services Leadership Initiative of the Meridian International Institute. Steve was named one of the first Senior Fellows of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center.

Steve started his career in the arena of Innovation and Technology-based Economic Development for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the National Academy of Sciences. He obtained his MPP from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and his A.B. from Brown University.

Richard Russell’s career in philanthropy spans decades and includes work with respected organizations and philanthropists around the world. Richard serves as adviser to a dozen of the world’s most generous individuals, families, and their foundations, helping them to achieve their goals effectively and efficiently.

He has planned and participated in hundreds of capital campaigns, has started or refined many dozens of major-gifts and planned-giving programs, and has worked with volunteer and executive not-for-profit leaders on projects ranging from board governance and recruitment to strategic planning to CEO evaluation and coaching.

Richard held leadership positions in philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy, San Francisco Opera, The Phillips Collection, Washington National Opera, Yale University, and ACLU, among others.

He founded Resilient Philanthropy, which provides counsel both to individuals and foundations and to not-for-profit organizations. Clients have included:

• Museum of Modern Art
• Whitney Museum of Art
• Fondation Beyeler
• Sammlung Goetz
• Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Santa Fe Opera
• Opera Philadelphia
• Aix-en-Provence Festival
• Yale University
• Conservation International
• Save the Chimps
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America
• Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
• Canine Companions for Independence
• American Institute of Architects
• Vermont Youth Conservation Corps

Richard holds degrees from Yale, Oxford, Harvard, and Episcopal Divinity School. After living for years in Cambridge MA, he now divides his time among his hometown, New York, Winter Park FL, South Hero VT, and his sailboat.

Carol Sanford is a consistently recognized thought leader working side by side with Fortune 500 and new economy executives in designing and leading systemic business change and design. Through her university and in-house educational offerings, global speaking platforms, multi-award winning books, and human development work, Carol works with executive leaders who see the possibility to change the nature of work through developing people and work systems that ignite motivation everywhere. For four decades, Carol has worked with great leaders of successful businesses such as Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and Seventh Generation, educating them to innovate and grow their businesses by growing people. Her work is routinely called groundbreaking, game changing, original, bold and inspiring.

Carol’s work is deeply rooted in the belief that people grow and develop beyond what their leaders or anyone sees possible: to be increasingly entrepreneurial, innovative, and responsible in their business and personal actions. She approaches her work as an ecosystem with stakeholders to the business in order to create the organizational conditions and human capability for people to innovate and contribute. Through a Socratic and contrarian approach, backed by research and stories, Carol challenges leaders to rethink everything they currently know about leadership, management, and work design. In the end, she guides people to find their individual and collective “promise beyond ableness,” embedding enormous possibilities into an organization.

For four decades, Carol has worked with great leaders of Fortune 500 companies, such as Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and Seventh Generation, educating them on how to develop their people, create an systematically ensure a stream of innovation that continually deliver extraordinary results. Carol is often called a human development visionary who offers revolutionary new ideas.

Phyllis Schlesinger has worked as an Organizational Behavior specialist in a variety of organizations.

For most of her career, she was on the faculty at Babson College, where she taught courses in Organizational Behavior and Organizational Design and Change at the graduate and undergraduate level. She was actively involved in College governance as a Program Coordinator, where she worked intensely with all MBA faculty on program delivery. She was an active participant in curriculum development for Babson, both in the design and delivery of the MBA program, and in the development of a team-oriented required core undergraduate course on management and entrepreneurship.

As Senior Lecturer in Management and Human Resources at Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University, she served as Director of the Fisher Leadership and Team Development initiative. She collaborated with faculty and local business executives to bring more leadership development activities into the MBA curriculum. In addition, she taught MBA courses on Teams and Leaders in High Performing Organizations, Self Assessment and Career Development, and Power and Influence. She also was involved in the design and delivery of Fisher College Executive Education programs in Leadership, Organizational Change, and Six Sigma Training.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, she has been a consultant to organizations on teamwork and team process, assisted with major organizational change initiatives, and coached high potentials in organizations.

Phyllis holds an Ed D from Boston University, an MST from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and an AB degree from Brown University.

Karon Shaiva is Chief Impact Officer & MD at Idobro Impact Solutions, Managing Trustee at RISE Infinity Foundation, and Secretariat at Maha PECOnet.

Karon Shaiva is a social entrepreneur, writer, speaker, and trainer. Karon firmly believes in the people-power of Citizenship, Entrepreneurship, and Partnership to address some of the world’s most pressing issues. She has been deeply involved in the women empowerment, community development, and social entrepreneurship space even before founding Idobro and RISE Infinity Foundation. Karon was awarded for the “Most Inspiring Social enterprise plan” at the hands of the late Dr. C. K. Prahlad and was selected to the top 30 of 20000 applicants for the Lufthansa - Pioneers of Tomorrow TV series. She has been selected as COVID Shereos by Twitter India and recognized for her work during the pandemic by multiple organizations. Karon truly believes that learning should never stop and is currently a student of Human Rights and Peace.

She's the convenor of the RISE PECOWorld an innovative space for thought leaders to influence action and outcomes for the SDGs. Karon firmly believes that PEACE is the ultimate indicator of development, not the esoteric variety, but one that comes from the absence of conflict, be it internal or external between people, people v/s nature or nature v/s nature. She's passionate about people-powered solutions based on Partnership, Entrepreneurship, Citizenship, and Ownership (PECO) to address some (if not all) of the world’s most pressing issues. She designed and propagates the RISE Values (Responsible, Inclusive, Sustainable, and Ecosystem-friendly) and the RISE framework to build partnerships for a Better World and a Greener Planet, the best-shared value that can be created.

Ankur Sharma has 14 years of strategy, operations and business development experience, having worked for Fortune 500 and early stage companies. Ankur focuses on growth and market development, organization and program design, and innovation. In his day job, he is the Management Director and VP of Operations/Business Development of Edible Ventures, focused on providing investment and operations guidance to early-growth stage companies in food and beverage and health and wellness.

Prior to Edible Ventures, Ankur worked for Gemini Consulting, Ernst & Young, Monitor Clipper Partners and KPMG. While at KPMG, Ankur sat on the CEO's Leadership Council and has spearheaded internal and external global transformation initiatives for the Chairman. Throughout his career, Ankur has helped executives solve their revenue, cost and other operating challenges. Ankur's clients have included the likes of Goldman Sachs, Lazard, United Technologies, Fiat-Chrysler, United Nations Programme Development, Disney, Glaxo Smith Kline, TPG Capital, State Farm Insurance, Soda Stream and Kraft-Nestle.

Ankur currently sits on the Advisory Board at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also serves as Chairman of the Board for Filmmakers Collaborative, sponsor of the Boston International Kid's Film Festival, focused on supporting independent filmmakers and kids through fiscal sponsorship and education. Ankur is also on the Board of Instinct Health Science that is developing a platform aimed at impacting health and nutrition globally. He enjoys his role as a mentor at the Harvard Innovation Lab and Stanford Ignite Program, where he guides entrepreneurs through their startup challenges.

Ankur is an avid traveler, foodie, chess player and loves the performing arts, including having performed in an Off-Broadway. He holds a Bachelors in finance, accounting and information technology from Drake University and has a Masters from Stanford Graduate School of Business focused on global leadership and innovation. Ankur grew up in Mumbai and has since then lived in Des Moines, New York, Palo Alto and now resides in Boston with his wife. He has a passion for making a difference in the world through curiosity, creativity and via shared experiences.

Dave Stangis is the Founder & CEO of 21C IMPACT. He most recently served as Chief Sustainability Officer and VP Corporate Responsibility/ Public Affairs at Campbell Soup Company, where he reported to Campbell’s President and CEO. Dave currently advises leading companies on ESG, technology, and reputation and resiliency strategies.

Over the course of 20 years, Dave led two very different Fortune 500 corporations, Intel and Campbell, from a standing start to clear and consistent world-class leadership in ESG, Sustainability & Social Responsibility. He guided both companies to multi-year runs on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, the 100 Best Corporate Citizens List, the Most Reputable Companies in the U.S, World’s Most Sustainable Corporations, and recognition among the World's Most Ethical Companies.

At Campbell, he created and led the Company’s strategies and external engagement related to CSR Strategy, Responsible Sourcing, Sustainable Agriculture, and Operational Sustainability. He served as an infotech and biotech expert.

Dave has served on the boards of many non-profit organizations and two Public Benefit Corporations (Plum Organics and The Soulfull Project). As Chair of the Board at Net Impact, a global community of 100,000 emerging leaders, he led a successful CEO search and transition.

As the creator and leader of Intel’s Global Corporate Responsibility function, Dave established corporate governance processes, operationalized citizenship and sustainability, and managed activist campaigns.

Dave has been named to the 100 Most Influential in Business Ethics by Ethisphere Magazine in 2008 & 2013, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America every year from 2011 to 2014. He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Babson College, a Mentor to the AgFunder Network, an Advisor to Magnomer and the co-author of two books on strategic corporate citizenship. Sept. 2018.

Dave earned a B.S. (Chemistry/Biology) from the University of Detroit, an M.S. in Occupational and Environmental Health from Wayne State University, and an M.B.A (Finance/Gen. Management) from the University of Michigan.

Dr. J. Janelle (Jan) Shubert is an educator and a consultant who has had almost forty years of experience in organizational development, organizational change, and leadership development.

As a consultant, she has worked domestically and internationally with a wide constellation of private sector organizations, not-for-profits, and public sector agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. Generally, her work is in helping to design and manage complex organizational growth and change and developing the leadership needed to sustain forward momentum. More specifically, her work for almost two decades has focused on women’s leadership.

As an educator she has designed and taught courses at The University of Michigan (1978–1985), Harvard Business School (1986–1990), London Business School (1990–1992 as a visiting professor) and The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard (1992–2004).

In 2004 Shubert joined Babson College as the Associate Director for the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership, going on to serve as its Director until 2011. At Babson she has also taught in the MBA programs and is a founder and continuing faculty member for Babson’s Executive Education programs for professional women.

At Babson she has had the enormous pleasure of collaborating with Cheryl Kiser, Executive Director of the Institute for Social Innovation, on a variety of program and projects, including the design of a graduate course at Babson focused on corporate social value creation and on the book Creating Social Value: A Guide for Leaders and Change Makers (Greenleaf Publishing, 2014), which was nominated as an Academy of Management Outstanding Business Book of 2014. Their chapter “ETA-ing from the Center: The Story of the Design of a Course, the Creation of a Book, and an Ongoing Adventure at the Lewis Institute at Babson College” appeared in Evolving Entrepreneurial Education.

Shubert’s Ph.D. is from the University of Michigan, her Master’s from Michigan State University and her undergraduate degree from Southwest Missouri State University.

With a great sense of urgency and agency after more than 25 years of leadership at five of Boston’s greatest institutions, Ellie Starr founded and launched Starrs Aligned in the spring of 2020.  A demonstrated builder, leader, fundraiser, communicator, and driver of successful mission-driven teams, Ellie thrives in roles that improve health, education, and opportunity for everyone everywhere. Having led teams of 15 to 50, Ellie and her teams have raised more than a billion dollars collectively for Brandeis University, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Perkins School for the Blind, The Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and the Museum of Science, Boston. Skilled at engaging Boards, creating donor engagement, and institutional alignment while growing a culture where philanthropy-driven impact and change thrives, Ellie is fiercely optimistic about this moment in time and is currently working with nonprofits in the conservation, youth development, food insecurity, disabilities, and education sectors.

Ellie has worked with some of the most powerful international funders—including creating and vetting complex gifts with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and corporate funders like MathWorks and Vertex. Ellie has also worked hand-in-hand with some of the nation’s most generous individual donors to help them shape their philanthropy for lasting impact. Ellie values her relationships and the connections she’s made as much as the impact she’s had for the institutions and teams she’s led.

Ellie has also played key volunteer roles, especially at the Lenny Zakim Fund since Lenny founded it in 1995. In 2018, Ellie was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker to serve on the State Rehabilitation Council and the Mass Rehabilitation Council which ensures that people with disabilities are provided with an equal opportunity to receive the programs, services, and supports needed to gain competitive integrated employment.

As the world grapples with devastating health outcomes, overwhelming socio-economic consequences, and a forever-changed global psyche, Ellie sees Starrs Aligned as her platform to address an urgent need for individuals, organizations, philanthropists, and all citizens to act now more than ever with clarity, equality and intention to optimize their available resources and maximize their impact. Ellie’s vision for Starrs Aligned is to creatively connect people, mission, and money for meaningful impact that will forever bend the arc toward justice.

Fran Z. Slutsky is a product developer, innovator, and entrepreneur. She has successfully launched new products, marketing programs, and businesses in both the consumer and commercial markets for over 20 years.

Throughout Fran's career, she has been awarded numerous patents in the consumer health care, home goods, and kitchen cooking space. Her products have been honored with a 2009 international Greener Gadgets Award, a 2010 Spark Award, a 2010 Bronze ISDA, and a 2012 International Housewares New Product Award.

Fran's early product development work focused on consumer medical products with the goal of finding new ways to help people manage chronic diseases, within the rigors of daily life. This work led to the development of health management products for individuals with asthma, diabetes, chronic pain, medication compliance, and women's health issues. Specialty products that resulted have been branded and marketed by Safety First, Sunbeam Health-at-Home, Medport, Schering Plough, Eli Lilly, Health Check and Health Solutions.

Fran's recent work has been geared towards developing consumer products for the home goods sector. By blending divergent ideas with design and human factors, Fran creates products that solve problems throughout our living environments. These products have been branded and marketed by Kitchen-Aid, Maytag, Full-Circle Home, Storebound and Dash Enterprises.

In 2010 Fran brought her passion for design and innovation together to create an inventive social program called The Stitching Studio. The program blends sewing, design and training to meet the needs of newly resettled refugees. The Stitching Studio is a unique start-up focusing on day-one training, micro-enterprise opportunities and personal growth for employment and family sustainability. From a small three-machine space, which provided sewing training for 6 refugees from Bhutan, the program has grown into a 3000 square foot studio and has placed over 85 graduates in jobs during a 24-month period. Fran believes that The Stitching Studio is perfect example of how organic and creative approaches can solve problems to meet individual needs.

Prior to launching her own businesses, Fran worked for both Textron, Inc. and Textron Financial Corporation (TFC). Her positions included Marketing and Communications Manager and in-House Marketing Consultant for TFC's nine divisions.

Fran holds a Masters from Tufts University, School of Engineering and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Since 1992, Neil Smith has been co-founder and managing partner of SmithOBrien, a management consulting firm, whose pioneering work in corporate responsibility/sustainability strategy, risk assessment, measurement and values-based systemic change has transformed the behavior, practices and financial performance of some of the country’s largest and oldest companies. Neil led the firm’s corporate responsibility strategy development and measurement services and Social Network Analysis practice before recently retiring.

He was a founding partner of innovation, measurement 21st century (im21), which specializes in the use of Social Network Analysis and mapping and on-line facilitation to produce inclusive stakeholder collaboration and communication in order to accelerate innovation, problem-solving, and corporate responsibility/sustainability.

SmithOBrien clients have included Calvert, Chiquita, Gillette, Starbucks, Symantec, Aon Hewitt, Covidien, Duke Energy, among others.

Neil brings a unique combination of skills and experience. He has directed nonprofit organizations for low-income and working-class communities, published weekly newspapers, and advised the senior leadership teams of global corporations. As a consultant and sometimes executive coach, he has helped corporate leaders recognize the business value of seeding and sustaining an organizational culture of respect, inclusion, accountability, ethics, etc., while integrating progressive operational practices and tying environmental, social and financial performance to their business strategies, market leadership and long-term shareholder value.

Neil now applies his expertise (10-20 hrs/mo) in helping smaller fund managers ($100M-$200M in assets under management) drive capital to place-based, growth-stage social enterprises ($10M-$75M in revenue), to assess whether there internal culture and practices are aligned with investors’ own values and are at the core of how the business operates. This includes working with asset managers to better inform their selection process, including defining clear and measurable success criteria and the probability of achieving it.

In collaboration with experts in place-based investing, he is developing a new cross-sector framework to measure the medium- and longer-term results of different social enterprises—in the same community and portfolio and linked by a common change strategy and key indicators and metrics—working collectively to reverse the systemic conditions in rural and urban, low-income communities of color that have allowed for disparities in income and asset building, housing, education, food security, community infrastructure, public policy, etc.

Neil also coaches social entrepreneurs on doing the right thing in how they manage a company’s growth, and in effectively leveraging its social mission as a key differentiator from competitors who don’t have similar social/environmental goals and transparent accountability standards.

He has been a mentor to inner-city entrepreneurs, participating in Entrepreneurs for All, an accelerator based in Lowell, Mass., and is on the Board of Interlock Media.

After moving SmithOBrien from Boston to New York City in 2005, Neil was a part-time faculty member at The New School University’s Milano School for International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy and previously, an adjunct professor at “Leadership for Change,” a graduate certificate program at the Boston College Carroll School of Management that prepared MBA students to become effective and responsible local and global change agents.

He has authored journal articles and books and contributed to many others, including Transforming Sustainability Strategy into Action (Wiley, 2005). A lifelong sailor, he authored Shopping for Safer Boat Care (International Marine/McGraw-Hill, 1997), which examines the environmental and health effects of more than 100 marine products.

Mick​ Smyer is currently focusing on the intersection of two global patterns: climate change and population aging. Climate scientists must reach out to older adults for support and action for two reasons: older adults’ own psychological development leads them to focus on succeeding generations; and older adults are a key leadership group in society, voting in disproportionate numbers and serving as respected leaders in traditional societies.

Mick Smyer is the Provost and a Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University, a post he has held since 2008. A national expert on aging and its ramifications, Smyer has written and lectured extensively on the topic. Mick is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the TIAA/CREF Research Institute. Mick has also been a Fulbright Fellow twice (Japan and India), as well as a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow and an American Council on Education Fellow. In addition to holding leadership roles in national organizations on aging, Mick has also consulted with Fortune 500 companies, state and national legislative leaders, and higher education organizations on the impacts of aging.

Before coming to Bucknell, Smyer was a professor of psychology, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and Associate Vice-President for Research at Boston College. While there, Mick was also co-director of the Sloan Center on Aging and Work, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

In addition to more than 100 scholarly articles and chapters, Mick is co-author of Aging and Mental Health (Blackwell) and co-editor of Challenges of an Aging Society: Ethical Dilemmas, Political Issues (Johns Hopkins); Changes in Decision-Making Capacity in Older Adults: Assessment and Intervention (Wiley); and Aging, Biotechnology and the Future (Johns Hopkins).

Mick has experience in translating issues of aging for larger audiences, including appearances on PBS, NPR, and other media outlets.

A native of New Orleans, Mick Smyer has provided vocals and “nuanced” washboard for more than 35 years with the Rustical Quality String Band, including on their most recent CD, Rescued from Oblivion.

Smyer holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Duke University.

​Leticia Stallworth is a Financial Advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. She started her career as an employee advisor with American Express Financial Services, now Ameriprise Financial. She spent the first three years learning the industry and building her book of business. Leticia became a franchise advisor on her third anniversary. In her role as an advisor, she provides wealth management helping busy professionals organize their finances, save, and invest for their financial goals. She is licensed to practice in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

Leticia has always had a passion for economic empowerment through education. She believes that wealth not only increases our ability to acquire assets, but to have sustainable social impact for the greater good. She had her first entry into social entrepreneurship 20 years ago, when she founded the Babson Black Affinity Conference as the President of its Black Student Union. Her service to Babson College has been recognized many times, including a Distinguished Recent Alumni Award in 2003, the Babson College Black Affinity Achievement Award in 2013, and the Richard J. Snyder Award for Distinguished Service to the College to be awarded in September of 2017.

In addition to having served 4 years on Babson College’s Alumni Board of Directors, Leticia is also very active in her greater community. From serving various leadership roles in her local chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated to volunteering with A Better Chance, she always finds opportunities to serve, educate and empower.

The fourth of five children, Leticia is a first generation college graduate. She holds a B.S. with concentrations in Entrepreneurship and Finance from Babson College and an MBA from its F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

Erin Thornton specializes in the nexus between policy and public engagement with a special focus on global health, women and girls and international development. She’s helped to start two global advocacy organizations, and consulted for many others on how best to authentically and meaningfully make a difference by marrying smart engagement of policymakers with the power of an informed and energized public.

From 2010 to 2015, she worked side by side with co-founder Christy Turlington Burns as the Executive Director of Every Mother Counts (EMC), a highly effective campaign designed to engage the public on the issue of global maternal health. In this role, Erin led efforts to evaluate what was needed on the issue of maternal health and then went on to build a new nonprofit organization to address those needs. A major part of this work involved collaborations with corporate entities including Starbucks, TOMS, Merck, Stella & Dot, and many others to engage their consumers and employees as meaningful partners in EMC’s work.

Prior to EMC, Erin spent eight years on the Executive Leadership team as the Global Policy Director of DATA and later the ONE campaign to fight global poverty. Erin joined co-founders Bono and Bobby Shriver at the organization’ inception and was responsible for establishing ONE as a critical partner for policymakers and lead thinkers alike, linking them to creative solutions that were understood and meaningful for the public.

Before DATA and ONE, Erin was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow and worked at the United States Export-Import Bank as a Country Risk Analyst and at the U.S. State Department in the International Health Affairs office. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and received her master’s degree in International Relations from Yale University. Erin was recognized as one of the Top 40 Leaders in Global Development Under the Age of 40 in 2010.

She lives outside of Boston with her husband and three daughters.

Sandra Waddock is Galligan Chair of Strategy, Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, and Professor of Management at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Her forthcoming book is Building the Responsible Enterprise (with Andreas Rasche, 2012). Other recent books include SEE Change (2011, with Malcolm McIntosh), The Difference Makers, Leading Corporate Citizens (2008, winner of the Social Issues in Management Division, Academy of Management Best Book Award 2011) and Total Responsibility Management (2005, with Charles Bodwell).

Author of over 100 papers on corporate responsibility, system change, collaboration, among other topics, Waddock was a co-founder of the BC Leadership for Change Program, the Institute for Responsible Investing, and the Business Ethics’ 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking, and edited the Journal of Corporate Citizenship from 2003–2004.

She received the 2011 David L. Bradford Outstanding Educator Award from the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, the 2004 Sumner Marcus Award for Distinguished Service from the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management, and the 2005 Faculty Pioneer Award for External Impact by Aspen Institute’s Business in Society Program and the World Resources Institute.

She is Senior Research Fellow in the Initiative for Responsible Investing at the Harvard Kennedy School (Fall 2012) and holds an adjunct appointment at Brisbane’s Griffith University. Waddock was a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (2006–2007) and University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business (2000).

Mitchell Wade, founder of Institu3, helps innovators turn insights into change. He was lucky enough to work with public policy analysts at RAND, executives at Schwab, technologists at Accenture—plus architects, priests, and rowing coaches. Then Mitchell struck gold, teaming up with seven social entrepreneurs working in the poorest villages of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They helped 60,000 people escape extreme poverty, quadrupled per-dollar impact, and launched their organizations toward sustainability.

Most importantly, the team created a simple; proven method that enables sustainable growth. It scales, spreads organically, and boosts large organizations’ impact without wrenching change. The model also adapts to the “top of the pyramid”—for donors, skilled volunteers, and overtaxed staff.

Mitchell’s goal now is to share the method much more broadly—and to collaborate with innovative social entrepreneurs to enact widespread change. So he’s writing a third book. (The first two, both co-authored with B-school professor John Beck, went beyond business as usual.

Mitchell’s latest project is creating Institute3, a thinktank for practitioners obsessed with sustainable growth.

Kristen Wainwright has worked over her career in and around the intersection of the arts and business, often during the start up phase, with segments of her life teaching. On the arts side. She served as the Director of Visual and Environmental Arts for the City of Boston. Before that she was a co-founder of the The Christmas Store, an artists cooperative which continues to operate more than 30 years later, and she was the co-founder of large community celebration events such as the Sandcastle Competition which featured elaborate architect-built sand structures and tongue in cheek awards (Golden Shovel Award). She is a Senior Associate Guide at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

On the business side Kristen worked in product management for a classic marketing company, Gillette, and as Director of Development for the start up that has become a international leader in the digital marketing arena, DigitasLBI. She was a co-founder and for ten years a managing partner of the Boston Literary Group representing experts from universities in the Boston area to publishers. She taught the creation of business plans at Lasell College Executive Education.

Her work has been balanced with community activism, serving on the board of directors for a school (Shady Hill), for community service organizations (Cambridge Dispute Settlement Center, The Cambridge Community Foundation) and a civic leadership organization (The Cambridge Club). As a Social Innovation Fellow in the Institute for Social Innovation Kristen is involved in bringing the fundamentals of Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® to rural Tanzania.

She resides in Cambridge with her husband.

Sean Webster is the founder of Copper Civic, a grassroots organization focused on improving the landscape of urban communities through civic engagement.

As a social entrepreneur and a proud native of Roxbury, he believes that urban demographics possess a great deal of untapped resources that can be used to transform communities and cultivate the next generation of change agents. In addition, Sean serves as a youth advocate and an alumni mentor at The Base, a non-profit that uses sports and mentorship to shift the national mindset and re-imagine pathways to success for urban youth.

He is a graduate of Southern New Hampshire University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration in three years. Sean is a self-starting creative thinker with ambitions to further his education in the future. Through his actions, he hopes to inspire young people from similar backgrounds to be relentless in their pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.

Tom is the founder of WieseLaw Studio and Studio/e as well as many other ventures. Since 1990, Tom Wiese has practiced his unique brand of deal making through a simple guiding philosophy: The value of your business is the sum total of its deals.

Tom has dedicated his career to increasing the value of his clients’ businesses (and lives) by helping them conceive, analyze, ideate, negotiate, design, produce, draft and close better deals, while also teaching and providing methods, frameworks, drawings and tools to improve their practices in these areas.

Tom has produced tool kits, events, learning communities, video content (e.g., Daniel Pink’s a Whole New Mind, Jack Canfield’s Success Principles) and experiences for his clients.

Some of WieseLaw Studio’s many cool clients include: Wells Fargo, Citibank, U.S. Bank, Sterling Bank, Share Save Spend, Spunk Design Machine, Moving Pictures, Terry Gross of Fresh Air, Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods, Dr. David Walsh of Say Yes to No, Belinda Jensen, and Joan Steffend.

Some of Studio/e’s amazing clients include: Target Corporation, Citizens League, General Mills, Keystone Search, Youth Frontiers, United Health Care, Wells Fargo, Allina Health, Price Waterhouse Cooper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Experience Life, Food Works, Upsher-Smith, Great Clips, US Bank, Walker Art Center, Temple Israel, Merchant Gould, State of Minnesota, Delta Dental, Phillips Distilling & 3M.

Tom is a proud member of Vistage, Strategic Coach & Studio/e.

Tom loves to laugh, learn, teach, and ski, and then laugh some more.

Rick Yngve has over 20 years of extensive experience working in entrepreneurial development, consulting, and education. He currently oversees learning & development for Caterpillar’s Resource Industries Sales, Services & Technology division at their global mining headquarters in Tucson.

Previously, Rick was on the faculty and director of the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona where he taught corporate innovation and new venture development. He also was the co-director of Eller Social Innovation where he partnered with Microsoft on their Cloud for Good education initiatives. Prior to joining the McGuire Center, Rick’s was cofounder of StageXchange – a deal management platform that connects entrepreneurs and developers to lenders and investors for capital raising and due diligence throughout the lifecycle of a deal. As a consultant, he provided strategy and marketing consulting to both corporate and nonprofit clients.

In the community, Rick recently served as the Co-Chair of the TENWEST Festival, as a Social Innovation Fellow for the Institute for Social Innovation, and an instructor in the military’s Boots to Business program working with veterans and active-duty members overseas.