Speakers

Erik Simanis is Co-Director of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol™ Project and a Ph.D. Candidate in Management at the Johnson School of Management. Lead author of the BoP Protocol™, Mr. Simanis served as Project Lead for the Protocol™ Pilot Test in Kenya with SC Johnson and consults to the start-up business established there. He currently heads a second BoP Protocol™ initiative in India in partnership with Dupont. Mr. Simanis co-founded with Mr. Stuart Hart the Base of the Pyramid Learning Laboratory in 2000 at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business (UNC-Chapel Hill) where he served as Director from 2000-2001.

Mr. Simanis’s experience includes establishing a manufacturing start-up in Latvia during the post-Soviet transition and serving as a manager of an SME based in the US wood products industry. He has worked to integrate BoP concepts into corporate strategy through engagements with the Monsanto Corporation, DuPont, SC Johnson, TetraPak, Friesland Foods, and Ecos Corporation, among others.

Mr. Simanis’s publishing and action research explore the strategic opportunities and ethical possibilities of collective corporate entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid. He has taught undergraduate and master's level courses in strategy and sustainability. Mr. Simanis holds a BA in Spanish from Wake Forest University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business, where he received the Norman Block Award for highest academic achievement.