Speakers

Richard Robbins
Richard Robbins is an innovator with a long track record of developing corporate partnerships with the entertainment, political and non-profit worlds.  As Director, Social Innovation at AT&T, the world's leading telecommunications company, Robbins is working to develop programs with non-profit and political groups to use AT&T technologies to enable citizens to be more informed and engaged in their communities.  Robbins led AT&T’s entry into the mobile politics arena with a groundbreaking partnership with Rock the Vote, the leading non-profit, non-partisan youth political organization.  AT&T helped RTV achieve its mission of engaging 18-29 year olds in the political process by reaching them where they spend their lives – their mobile phones.  This effort resulted in a new level of engagement for Rock the Vote with over 250k potential voters connecting with the organization on their mobile phones.  In April, Robbins participated in a technology delegation in Baghdad organized by the US State Department to explore ways that social media and mobile phones can be used to increase civic participation in Iraq.  Robbins developed a partnership for AT&T with the nation’s leading premium TV network to create HBO Mobile, a mobile program encompassing video, ringtones, games, answer tones, graphics and mobile Internet content.  Robbins’ other experiences at Cingular and AT&T Wireless include Marketing / Brand Management, Distribution Strategy and Sponsorship.  Prior to joining AT&T, Robbins worked for leading entertainment marketing / sponsorship agencies Festival Marketing and EMCI for clients such as American Express, Guinness and HBO.  At Festival, he led the American Express Gold Card Events program, providing American Express with a unique, differentiating consumer benefit while providing new audiences for live arts and entertainment events.  Robbins received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Tufts University and his MBA in Marketing from Columbia Business School.  He lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.
Speaker at: The Power of ICT in Social Enterprise
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Xavier Faz
Xavier recently joined CGAP, supporting research around several aspects of the branchless banking agenda and other topics of the technology program (shared technology platforms, IT in MFIs). He oversees the development of the "IS Program" and provides support on overall program management activities. Before joining CGAP, Xavier worked at BANSEFI, a development bank in Mexico where he was in charge of deploying a shared core banking solution to strengthen the MFI Sector in Mexico and to support the transition of deposit-taking MFIs to a regulated environment. Previously, Xavier worked at McKinsey and Company, where he worked in several aspects of strategy, operations and organization in large corporations both in the public and private sectors. Xavier holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and an Engineering degree from the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, México.
Speaker at: The Power of ICT in Social Enterprise
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Murray Low
Professor Low is the Director of the Lang Center. He co-teaches the "Private Equity and Entrepreneurship in Africa (PEEA)" Master Class at Columbia Business School, which examines how private equity investors and entrepreneurial managers design, negotiate, and execute financial agreements that make use of resources and opportunities in the challenging environments of continental Africa. He is the Columbia program lead for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative to develop business and management education in emerging economies-especially for underserved women-through the creation of university partnerships. Columbia Business School focuses on strengthening African business education through capacity building and partnerships with African Business Schools— the United States International university (USIU) in Nairobi, Kenya, and the University of Dar es Salaam (UDBS) in Tanzania.
Speaker at: Connecting Markets: Value Chain Strategies that Promote Development
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Robert Henning
Rob Henning, Director with OTF Group, has spent much of the past 14 years advising small businesses in developing countries enhance their competitiveness. Over the past 7 years, he has developed a particular expertise in the application of business strategy and innovation to solve competitiveness challenges in post-conflict economies such as Haiti, Rwanda, Burundi, and Afghanistan. Rob is currently based in Washington, DC where he continues to advise corporate, government and international donor clients on issues of business strategy, cluster & value chain competitiveness, and private sector development policy.
Until September 2006, he was Chief of Party for the two-year Afghanistan Competitiveness Project, a USAID funded program. The project designed strategies to upgrade the competitiveness of 3 major export clusters in Afghanistan, developed cross cutting solutions to the problems facing the export sectors and established a national competitiveness council. Prior to Afghanistan, Rob was working on the two-year Rwandan National Innovation and Competitiveness project—he managed the financial services sector. Before joining the OTF Group, worked for the Peace Corps in West Africa; he supervised micro-credit and small enterprise development in Benin and Guinea-Conakry.
Rob earned a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, as a John F. Connelly scholar. He also earned a B.A. from the University of Vermont with a double major in Economics and French. He is a recognized expert in private sector development and is currently authoring several publications for USAID on best practices and techniques for value chain upgrading. He is a contributor to an original book of essays focused on private sector development called “In the River They Swim”, released by Templeton Press in April 2009.
Speaker at: Connecting Markets: Value Chain Strategies that Promote Development
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Maurice Wiener
Maurice Wiener, USAID’s Chief of Party in Haiti, is an accomplished agribusiness and enterprise development expert, having served more than 18 years in agriculture and SME development with USAID-funded projects. Maurice is currently directing a $25 million value chain project in Haiti aimed at stimulating and facilitating the development of competitive markets in the agribusiness, handicrafts, and tourism sectors through technical assistance.
Previously, Maurice worked as a Director for Chemonics International in Washington D.C. from where he supervised major agricultural and economic development projects taking place in Africa. Before moving to the United States, Maurice lived for 12 years in Africa, primarily in Morocco and Rwanda. In Rwanda, Maurice was USAID’s Chief of Party for the Agribusiness Development Assistance to Rwanda (ADAR) project which spearheaded Rwanda’s successful entry into the specialty coffee market. ADAR established linkages between Rwandan private investors, American and European coffee importers, and various roasters while raising the profile of Rwandan coffee with well-recognized international brands, like Starbucks.  Prior to Rwanda, Maurice worked on several high-profile USAID-funded projects in Morocco, where he strengthened the value chain to increase production and sales in the private sector. Maurice’s career with USAID began in Haiti, his birth country, where he worked to improve Haiti’s competitive position in global markets as the director of the Center of Management Productivity. Before joining USAID Maurice worked in a family-owned coffee and cocoa export business in Haiti.
Maurice earned a MSc in Management from the University of Paris Dauphine and a B.A in Economics and Finance from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.
Speaker at: Connecting Markets: Value Chain Strategies that Promote Development
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Melissa Berman
Melissa Berman is President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service founded by the Rockefeller family. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ mission is to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world. The organization manages foundations and trusts; structures giving programs and major gifts; offers a charitable giving fund; and coordinates donor collaboratives. In 2008, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors managed or facilitated $175 million in giving to 30 countries. It has offices in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A frequent speaker, Ms. Berman has been profiled in the New York Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her ideas and views are featured regularly in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Financial Times, USA Today and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has been interviewed on the Today Show, NPR, CNBC-TV and Bloomberg. She has written articles for the New York Times, Across the Board, The Miami Herald, and other national publications.
Ms. Berman has led Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors since January 2001. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President, Research and Program Development at The Conference Board, a nonprofit, independent business research organization. She oversaw all research and publications on management practices, including global corporate citizenship and governance.
Ms. Berman is a director of City Harvest, the Foundation Center and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. She is Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Business School. She serves as a member of the national advisory panel for New Ventures in Philanthropy and as a Judge for the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Citizenship, a presidential award.
Ms. Berman holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Speaker at: Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategy in the Social Sector
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Jerry Hirsch
Jerry founded the Lodestar Foundation in 1999,and has been its chairman ever since. Lodestar’s mission is to expand and maximize philanthropy through the utilization of two strategies: to support organizations that encourage philanthropy, public service and volunteerism; and to support efforts to encourage nonprofits to use business practices and to collaborate, to increase their efficiency and/or impact. Some of Lodestar’s initiatives include the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation, a partnership with Arizona State University, and The Collaboration Prize, a national contest to identify and disseminate models and other information regarding successful nonprofit collaborations. Lodestar maintains an opportunistic philosophy in pursuing its mission and has become involved in projects in various parts of the developing world.
Jerry has a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He is an alumnus of The Philanthropy Workshop, created and sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Speaker at: Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategy in the Social Sector
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Jemina Bernard
A native of the South Bronx, Jemina oversees the New York region, Teach For America’s largest. This fall, more than 800 corps members will collectively reach nearly 45,000 students in our city’s most under-resourced schools. She joined Teach For America in 2007 after working for four years in the New York City Department of Education, where she was most recently Chief Operating Officer for the Office of New Schools. In that and other leadership roles in the department, she worked closely with Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott. She also managed a cross-functional team that closed six poor-performing high schools and replaced them with new schools, oversaw a parent-support staff of more than 1,300 people, and managed the launch of 34 Community and Citywide Education Councils. Jemina has also worked at Deloitte Consulting and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation. An alumna of Prep for Prep, she earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School.
Speaker at: Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategy in the Social Sector
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Roger Leeds
Dr. Roger S. Leeds is a Professor of International Finance at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University, the Director of the School's Center for International Business and Public Policy, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA). Dr Leeds’ 35 year career in the public and private sectors, as well as academia, has included positions as a New York-based investment banker and private equity investor structuring and valuing a range of cross-border transactions in emerging markets; as a senior professional of the International Finance Corporation (World Bank); as a policy advisor to governments on privatization, financial market reform, and project finance; and as an academic, teaching and writing on subjects pertaining to private equity investing, international financial markets, and corporate governance. Dr. Leeds is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York and the Cosmos Club in Washington. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his M.A. and PhD from Johns Hopkins.
Speaker at: Private Equity for Social Impact
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Raj Kundra
As Director at Acumen, Raj is responsible for Acumen’s work in the Capital Markets and also oversees the Energy Portfolio. In Capital Markets, Raj has led the creation and marketing of Acumen’s first invested capital fund that will allow Acumen to raise and deploy investor capital into social enterprises serving the poor. In Energy, Raj has led the launch of a new portfolio focused on bringing renewable energy solutions to the poor. Prior to joining Acumen, Raj was Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers, New York. At Lehman, Raj worked in the Energy Division, where he focused on understanding investment opportunities and creating innovative financing/risk management solutions in this sector. Raj also worked in Lehman’s Emerging Markets and Capital Markets groups in various trading and structuring roles. Prior to joining Lehman, Raj was a Vice President at J.P. Morgan, where he oversaw the marketing and structuring of interest rate hedging products for U.S. corporations. Raj has a BS in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker at: Private Equity for Social Impact
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Antony Bugg-Levine
Antony Bugg-Levine joined the Rockefeller Foundation in New York in January 2007. Among other responsibilities, he leads the Foundation’s Initiative on Harnessing the Power of Impact Investing that seeks to help catalyze an efficient industry that can deploy investment capital to complement philanthropy in solving social challenges at scale.
Prior to joining Rockefeller, he served as the Country Director of the international NGO TechnoServe in Nairobi, Kenya, where he helped to design and implement business solutions to rural poverty focused on smallholder farmer economic integration and consulting to medium-scale enterprises.
In Kenya he also worked with various capital providers – including micro-finance institutions, commercial banks and private equity managers — to develop profitable mechanisms to extend lending to rural businesses and smallholder farmers.
Earlier in his career, as a consultant with McKinsey, he focused in financial services and healthcare, managed the team that undertook a strategic review for the United Nations' Global Compact, and helped to develop new frameworks to incorporate social dynamics into corporate strategy.
A native of South Africa, he served in the late 1990s as the communications director at the South African Human Rights Commission and as a speechwriter and media strategist for the African National Congress's 1999 election campaign.
He is an associate adjunct professor at the Columbia Business School where he teaches Business Innovations in International Development.
Bugg-Levine is a graduate of Yale College and earned an MPA focused on Economic Development from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School.
Speaker at: Private Equity for Social Impact
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Alonso Bustamante
As Senior Investment Manager at IGNIA, Alonso Bustamante is responsible for new investment analysis and oversight of Primedic and Pro-Orgánico, two portfolio companies. Prior to joining Ignia, Alonso worked for Grupo Vitro, one of the largest glass manufacturers in the world. There he was part of the Strategic Planning and Business Development team, where he was responsible for investment valuations and financial planning for the Automotive Division. In addition, Alonso is the co-founder of Katalysis, a pro bono strategy consulting firm that provides advisory services to non-profits. He holds an A.B. from the University of Chicago, with majors in International Relations, Political Science, and Latin American History.
Speaker at: Private Equity for Social Impact
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Geoffrey Heal
Geoffrey Heal, Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Columbia Business School, is noted for contributions to economic theory and environmental economics. Author of 14 books and about 200 articles, he is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, Past President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, recipient of its prize for publications of enduring quality, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Environmental Protection Agency and a Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He chaired a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on valuing ecosystem services and was a Commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission.
Speaker at: The New Green Economy
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John Voelcker
JOHN VOELCKER is an automotive journalist and industry analyst. He specializes in advanced technologies, particularly powertrains and the energy policies that affect them. He currently edits GreenCarReports.com and contributes regularly to TheCarConnection.com. His work also appears in IEEE Spectrum, Wired, Popular Science, and other periodicals, and he is a regular guest on Fox Car Report and Sirius Satellite Radio. He recently completed a 20,000-word report for UK industry analyst Just-Auto on the market prospects for electric-drive vehicles between now and 2015, and he has been invited to speak on that topic to automakers and at industry events.John received a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. He splits his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains.
Speaker at: The New Green Economy
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Michael Sadowski
As Director of Client Services at SustainAbility, Michael helps companies improve their environmental, compliance and ethics performance.  He advised clients in sectors including retail and consumer goods, financial services and energy.  As an independent consultant, he helped develop the business case for sustainability at Nike, and  worked with Holcim on the business case and its alternative fuels and raw materials program.  Michael also worked with the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems researching renewable energy and sustainable agriculture, and served as a Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.  Prior to his sustainability career, Michael worked in the finance sector, experience which he leverages in his current work.
Speaker at: The New Green Economy
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Liddy Karter
Liddy Karter is Managing Partner of Industrial Symbiosis Partners, LP (www.industrialsymbiosispartners.com) an early stage private equity firm investing in companies that enable reuse of waste materials, energy and water. She has been actively engaged in private investing since 1990.
Liddy started her career in finance at in the Financial Services Group at Morgan Stanley and Co. Inc. She led several IPO’s, multi bank mergers and collateralized debt transactions.
As CEO, she successfully led Resource Recovery Systems, a municipal recycling company, from a prototype company into a multi-state company developing recycling plants under multi-year contracts with municipalities. She sold Resource Recovery to a large waste hauler where recycling has become a core business unit.
As CFO, she raised substantial venture capital for Netkey, Inc., an enterprise software company focused on self service e-commerce. Netkey was sold to a private equity firm and continues as a successful enterprise. .
Liddy received her MBA from Yale University and a BA in History and Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.
Speaker at: The New Green Economy
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Daniella Ballou-Aares
Daniella Ballou-Aares leads Dalberg’s Global Health Practice and the firm’s New York office. She advises foundations, multilateral organizations, NGOs and companies on strategy, international development policy issues, and the design and launch of new initiatives. Daniella led the creation of Dalberg’s Global Health Practice and has been instrumental in building the firm’s presence in the sector.  Daniella’s experience includes designing innovative financing structures to improve the effectiveness of donor funding,  addressing barriers to access to essential medicines and developing strategic plans for global NGOs.  She also leads multi-stakeholder facilitations, engaging public and private actors to create novel development strategies.  Daniella’s clients have included the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UN Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, UNDP, UNFPA, Human Rights Watch, Millennium Promise, and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Before Dalberg, Daniella worked for Bain & Company in the US, UK and South Africa.  Daniella also worked for the International Rescue Committee in Liberia and is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Daniella has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government and a BS in Operations Research from Cornell University.  
Speaker at: Measuring the Impact of Social Enterprise
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Marc Manara
Marc Manara joined Acumen Fund in 2006 and is currently the Water Portfolio Manager, managing investments in market based approaches to the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation.  He has also worked on Acumen Fund’s performance management and metrics efforts and led a collaboration with engineers from Google to build a portfolio management software system known as Pulse. Acumen Fund is now making the Pulse system available to peer social investors. Marc has contributed to the drafting of a set of standards for tracking impact investments – known as IRIS (Impact Reporting and Investing Standards).  Prior to Acumen Fund, Marc came from the technology sector. He worked previously at Appian Corporation in the DC metro area, serving as a technical consultant on engagements with the World Bank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the Department of Homeland Security, among others. Marc holds a BA in computer science from Harvard University.  
Speaker at: Measuring the Impact of Social Enterprise
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Geeta Batra
Geeta Batra is Head of the Results Measurement for Advisory Services Unit of the Small and Medium Enterprise Department at the IFC. She has over 14 years of experience in working on issues related to private sector growth and development. Prior to joining the IFC, she was regional program co-ordinator for Central America and the Caribbean in the Investment Climate Department where she managed PSD projects. Prior to joining the World Bank Group she worked as a Senior manager for Small Business Credit Risk at the American Express Company, New York, and earlier as an investment officer in India. Currently, she is working on integrating M&E methodologies into all advisory services work at the IFC, which includes working with Donor-Funded Operations. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an MBA in Finance.
Speaker at: Measuring the Impact of Social Enterprise
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Shiranthi M. Gnanaselvam
Shiro Gnanaselvam is the Senior Director for Monitoring, Evaluation and Economics at the Millenium Challenge Corporation in Washington DC. She currently manages a 12 person team that has responsibility for monitoring, evaluation and economic analysis of a $6.4 billion portfolio of development projects. Prior to assuming her current responsibilities, she served as a senior advisor to the Vice President of the Department of Compact Implementation where she led a series of departmental and Agency-wide change initiatives. She also led monitoring and evaluation interventions for Ghana and Namibia.
Prior to joining the federal government, Ms. Gnanaselvam worked in the private sector as a management consultant and at the World Bank as a public sector management specialist. Her professional expertise is in monitoring, evaluation, performance management, and strategic planning. Her development experience has been primarily in sub-saharan Africa.
Ms. Gnanaselvam has an MBA from the Robert H Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and an MPA from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University where she received the Master’s Prize for her contributions to academic and community life. She has an undergraduate degree (cum laude) in Economics and Political Science from Bryn Mawr College. She speaks Tamil, Sinhala, and some French.
Speaker at: Measuring the Impact of Social Enterprise
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Jimmy Sylvester
For the past four years, Jimmy has worked in the results measurement units for IFC investment and advisory projects. He has worked primarily with projects in Global Financial Markets and Latin America, and has led the upgrade to the new development outcome tracking system. During the past year, Jimmy has produced a series of short films that document a project's development results from an M&E perspective (www.youtube.com/wbifc). Prior to joining IFC, Jimmy worked in banking at Lazard Freres in New York and helped start a bottled-water business in Venezuela. He holds an MPA/ID from Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker at: Measuring the Impact of Social Enterprise
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Anthony J. Orlando
Mr. Orlando is President, CEO, and Board Member of Covanta Holding Corporation, which is listed on the NYSE and included in the Russell 1000 index. Mr. Orlando is a member of Covanta’s Board of Directors. He serves on three Committees: Public Policy, Finance, and Technology. Covanta is the largest Energy-from-Waste company in the world, annually generating enough electricity to power over 1,000,000 homes while processing about 19 million tons of municipal solid waste. Covanta has operations in Asia, Europe, Canada and 18 States throughout America and employs approximately 4,000 people.
Under Mr. Orlando’s leadership, Covanta increased its revenue from $600 million in 2004 to $1.7 billion in 2008. Furthermore, Covanta has become a founding reporter of the Climate Registry and an active member of American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, the California Climate Action Registry, and the Energy Recovery Council. Covanta facilities have received prestigious awards such as the Sustainable Florida Leadership Award, Michigan’s Clean Corporate Citizen Award, and most recently the Energy Innovator Award from the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Mr. Orlando earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. in Finance from Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey
Speaker at: Leading Successful Companies in Clean Tech
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Ariel Zylbersztejn
Ariel Zylbersztejn is Founder and Managing Director of Cinepop, a for-profit social enterprise in Mexico that offers free outdoor movie screenings to people living in suburban communities. One of Mexico’s leading social entrepreneurs, Mr. Zylbersztejn was recognized as Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum in 2006 and is one of the youngest members of the World Economic Forum. In 2007, Cinepop was selected for the 2007 American Express Corporate Card and Dell Award for “Most Innovative Company”. Prior to founding Cinepop, Mr. Zylbersztejn has created several movie shorts that competed and were shown in more than 70 film festivals, including the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Mr. Zylbersztejn holds a BA in Communications Science from Universidad Anahuac of Mexico.
Speaker at: Entertainment as an Innovative Platform for Social Services: A Case Study from Mexico
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Nancy Lublin
Since August 2003, CEO and Chief Old Person Nancy Lublin has overseen Do Something's growth and led the effort to begin awarding more grant money to young people who want to make a difference. She turned the organization from a debt-ridden, "old school" not-for-profit with offices in multiple cities nationwide, to a fast-moving internet-y company capturing the attention of a generation of doers.
Nancy is deeply passionate about Do Something and the activist mission behind the organization. She says her first activist campaign was liberating the purple crayons in pre-school after one loud boy had declared them "not allowed for girls." Armed with a $5,000 inheritance from her immigrant great grandfather at the age of 23, Nancy founded the organization Dress for Success, which to this day provides women with interview suits, career development training, and boosts in their self-confidence in more than 70 cities in four countries.
Nancy graduated from Brown University, Oxford University (where she was a Marshall Scholar), and New York University School of Law.
Speaker at: Wikipedia and Social Media: Growth Strategies
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Jimmy Wales
Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Wikipedia.org, as well as other wiki-related organizations, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.
Wales received his Bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and his Masters in finance from University of Alabama. He was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in 2005, and in 2006 he joined the Board of Directors of the non-profit organization Creative Commons.
In January of 2001, Wales started Wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and today Wikipedia and its sister projects are among the top-five most visited sites on the web (comScore, January 2009).  In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida, to support Wikipedia.org. The Foundation, now based in downtown San Francisco, boasts a staff of close to thirty focusing on fundraising, technology, and programming relating to the expansion of Wikipedia. Wales now sits on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation and as founder continues to act as a key spokesperson.
In 2004, Wales co-founded Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company that enables groups of people to share information and opinions that fall outside the scope of an encyclopedia. Wikia’s community-created wikis range from video games and movies to finance and environmental issues. Wikia, Inc., attracts more than 30 million unique visitors per month to its 10,000+ enthusiast communities.
In 2007, The World Economic Forum recognized Wales as one of the “Young Global Leaders.” This prestigious award acknowledges the top 250 young leaders for their professional accomplishments, their commitment to society and their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. In addition, Wales received the “Time 100 Award” in 2006, as he was named one of the world’s most influential people in the “Scientists & Thinkers” category.
Speaker at: Wikipedia and Social Media: Growth Strategies
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Suzanne Fallender
Suzanne has over 14 years of experience in the fields of corporate responsibility and corporate governance research and communication. At Intel, Suzanne manages reporting and communication of Intel’s corporate responsibility programs and performance, including publication of Intel’s annual corporate responsibility report. Suzanne regularly engages with groups both inside and outside of Intel to identify opportunities for continued performance improvements, track and report on key performance indicators, and improve decision-making and strategic planning processes. A key element of Intel’s corporate responsibility strategy is the application of technology to address global and societal challenges.
 Prior to joining Intel, Suzanne was Vice President at Institutional Shareholder Services (now RiskMetrics Group) where she managed the firm’s social investment research department, providing research and advisory services to institutional investors on the environmental and corporate responsibility performance of U.S. corporations. Suzanne holds an M.B.A. from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, CT and serves on the boards of directors of the Tempe Community Council and Arizona Businesses Advancing Sustainability.
Speaker at: The Power of ICT in Social Enterprise
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Gil Crawford
Mr. Crawford is Chief Executive Officer of MicroVest Capital Management, responsible for leading the company’s investment operations and strategy. As MicroVest’s founding manager, he led the launch of MicroVest I, LP, the first commercial private equity vehicle focused on microfinance in North America. He has over 20 years experience with microfinance institutions and capital markets, and has worked extensively in Latin America and Africa, as well as in Asia. Before helping to found MicroVest Capital Management, Mr. Crawford worked for the Latin American Financial Markets Division at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and focused on investments in microfinance institutions. Prior to joining IFC, Mr. Crawford created and ran Seed Capital Development Fund, a US based non-profit firm, involved in creating financial instruments and attracting funds to capitalize microfinance institutions, primarily in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Specific projects included: Latin American Challenge Investment Fund (LA-CIF), a US$ 20 million loan fund for microfinance institutions in Latin America; DEVCAP, a “shared return mutual fund” whose total assets reached over US$ 27 million dollars. Mr. Crawford has also been a Member of ProFund’s Investment Committee and alternate member to the Board of Directors for many years. Prior to creating Seed Capital, Mr. Crawford was the Assistant Project Director for Africa Venture Capital Project, designed to create risk capital firms in Africa.
Mr. Crawford received his bank training at Chase Manhattan Bank in the mid-80’s after working in Africa for the Red Cross and State Department. He graduated from SAIS at Johns Hopkins University in 1983 and Bates College in 1980.
Speaker at: Striking the Right Balance in Microfinance Investing
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Michael Rauenhorst
Michael Rauenhorst first established a microfinance program in 1990 to help Burmese refugees in Thailand better help themselves. He later worked with Deutsche Bank where he co-developed some of the microfinance industry’s first commercial investments. Michael currently is Managing Director of Minlam Asset Management, a $50 million microfinance fund. He has closed local currency loans totaling over $200mm to microfinance institutions in over 40 countries. Michael is a founder of Micro Credit Ltd, a profitable microfinance institution in Kingston, Jamaica, and Chair of the Opus Prize Foundation, which annually awards a $1mm prize for social entrepreneurship. Michael serves as director of the Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium and the Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund, and is an Advisor to Fonkoze, in Haiti. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University, a J.D. from William Mitchell Law School, and an AB from the University of Notre Dame.
Speaker at: Striking the Right Balance in Microfinance Investing
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Christina Juhasz
CJ Juhasz is director of the Women’s World Banking capital markets group. WWB provides support, advice, training and information to a global network of more than 40 microfinance institutions and banks that offer credit and other financial services to 20 million low-income people — primarily women — in 28 countries worldwide. The capital markets group has primary responsibility for promoting network members’ access to commercial sources of funding, especially local currency capital. This includes capital introduction and advisory work on capital markets transactions, as well as capacity building on investor readiness, financial risk management, business planning and projections, and performance monitoring. CJ recently managed the launch of the WWB private equity fund—representing the first direct investment of WWB-managed capital in network member institutions.
Prior to joining WWB, CJ spent 12 years structuring and marketing international fixed income capital markets transactions for banks and financial institutions globally. Most recently she served as a director in Deutsche Bank’s fixed income syndicate group in New York. Previously she had worked as a vice president in Deutsche Bank’s capital markets group in London and Merrill Lynch’s capital markets group in New York. She began her career as a military police platoon leader in the United States Army. She is currently a board member and treasurer of the Microfinance Club of New York. CJ holds a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from Stanford University. Speaker at: Striking the Right Balance in Microfinance Investing
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James Liebman
James S. Liebman is the Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.  He graduated with a BA from Yale in 1974 and a JD from Stanford in 1977.  Jim served as law clerk to Judge Carl McGowan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1977 to 1978 and to Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1978 to 1979.  He was Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1979 to 1985 where he specialized in school desegregation cases.  Jim joined the Columbia law faculty in 1985 and served as Vice Dean from 1991 to 1992. 
In January of 2006, he took a leave of absence from Columbia Law School to accept the position of Chief Accountability Officer at the New York City Department of Education.   Jim is the author of many articles, papers, and speeches on public education reform.  
He served as a member of the New York State Commissioner of Education’s Task Force on Educational Excellence and Equity in 1992 and as a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Committee on Education and Law from 1987 to 1990.  In 2002, he was the recipient of both the Law & Society Association Article Prize and the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers Champion of Justice Award.  In 2002, he was a Soros Senior Justice Fellow.
Speaker at: Conversations in Education Reform
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Eric Nadelstern
Eric Nadelstern is the Chief Schools Officer for the New York City Department of Education, overseeing instructional and operational support to the city's 1,500 schools.  Mr. Nadelstern has also served the New York City Public Schools as Chief Executive Officer for Empowerment Schools, a citywide district reform initiative serving 500 schools that have accepted performance contracting in return for major decision-making authority; Supervising Superintendent for the Autonomy Zone; Chief Academic Officer for New Schools; Senior Instructional Superintendent for School Improvement and Restructuring; Deputy Regional Superintendent for Region 2 in the East Bronx; and Deputy Superintendent for New and Small Bronx High Schools. As the founding Principal of the International High School at LaGuardia Community College, he created an innovative public secondary school for English Language Learners that has been widely replicated throughout the city and around the country.
During his tenure with the New York City Schools, Mr. Nadelstern served in institute leadership roles at New Visions for Public Schools, Stanford University, Teachers College at Columbia University and Bank Street College of Education. Mr. Nadelstern has been recognized for his contributions in the classroom by the New York City Schools, Angelo Patri School Award for School-Based Management, the Anti-Defamation League, and the International Partnership Award. Mr. Nadelstern has been the author and the subject of numerous articles and interviews on his recent work creating a critical mass of new small schools to increase student performance, establishing school-based autonomy as a school district reform strategy to foster greater accountability for student achievement results, and reforming central office operations in the largest school district in the nation.
Speaker at: Conversations in Education Reform
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Dan Weisberg
As Vice President of Policy & General Counsel, Daniel Weisberg leads The New Teacher Project's initiatives to align district, state, and federal policies to the goal of providing quality teachers for poor and minority students.
Prior to joining TNTP, Daniel served as Chief Executive of Labor Policy and Implementation for the New York City Department of Education. In this role, he led negotiations between the Department and the United Federation of Teachers that resulted in a series of groundbreaking reforms, including the city's highly-regarded "mutual consent" system, which gives teachers and schools the primary voice in school staffing. His distinguished record of policy achievements – including more rigorous tenure standards and principal and teacher bonus programs – has established him as a national leader on improving educational equality.
Daniel brings to TNTP nearly 20 years of experience in labor and employment law. Before working for the New York City schools, he was a Partner in the New York office of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Over the past two decades, he has been involved in several different programs mentoring and tutoring inner-city middle and high school students. 
He holds a J.D. from New York University Law School and a BA in Political Science from Columbia College.
Speaker at: Conversations in Education Reform
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Emary C. Aronson
Emary Aronson is the managing director of education at Robin Hood. Robin Hood supports a variety of schools and education-related programs, which embrace extending the school day and year, strong curricula, and high standards and expectations. These schools have well-earned reputations as being among the most innovative and highest performing schools in New York City. In 2008, Robin Hood awarded $100 million in grants of which more than one third was in education. Robin Hood is a leading funder of charter schools and a founding member of the New York City Charter Center, a public/private partnership with the New York City Department of Education.
Emary is also the managing director of the Robin Hood Relief Fund, a $65 million fund dedicated to addressing the needs of those affected by September 11th. The Robin Hood Relief Fund has committed all of its funds ensuring that those in distress because of the loss of a family member or those low income workers who were displaced by the attacks on the September 11th were able to access services. In the three years of its greatest activity, the Relief Fund supported over 110 organizations, made 190 grants and provided direct gifts to over 3,000 victims’ families.
Before joining Robin Hood, Emary was the Director of Education Initiatives at the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce. In this role, Emary helped develop a $29 million education reform program as well as manage a youth employment program and a school principal management training program. Prior to her work with the New York City Partnership, Emary taught history and economics at the two-year college level.
Emary holds a BA in History from Smith College, an MSc in Economic History from the London School of Economics, an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, and a PhD in History from the University of Chicago. She is a member of the board of directors of the Charter Center as well as the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a job training program for ex-offenders.
Speaker at: Conversations in Education Reform
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Mark Davis
Mark is an Associate at DFJ Gotham Ventures.  He works closely with DFJ Gotham portfolio companies ViVOtech and Drop.io. In addition, Mark is the author of Get Venture, a blog that addresses industry topics and offers guidance to entrepreneurs on how to raise venture capital.   Mark is also an occasional contributor to a number of industry news services, including CenterNetworks and Silicon Alley Insider. Mark organizes events for entrepreneurs through the Columbia Venture Community, a group Mark founded to serve Columbia University’s student and alumni entrepreneurs. He is also helping Duke University create an entrepreneurship community by serving on Duke’s Global Entrepreneurship Network taskforce.  Mark’s background includes venture investing, merger & acquisitions, consulting and startup roles with software and Internet companies.
Before joining DFJ Gotham, Mark was an active entrepreneur and advisor.  He was the Founder and CEO of Zotspot, an internet search destination and an advisor to numerous startups.  In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Mark consulted at both KPMG and Bain & Company to approximately 50 Fortune 1000 and private equity clients on the strategic and financial attractiveness of acquisition targets representing a cumulative transaction value in excess of $6.5 billion.Mark earned his B.A. in Economics, cum laude, at Duke University and his M.B.A. at Columbia Business School, where he was the Early Stage President of the Private Equity and Venture Capital Club and an InSITE Fellow.
Speaker at: Entrepreneurs’ Showcase: Transformative Business Models
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Thomas Shelton
Tom is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully incubated a diversity of businesses in the United States and Europe, including CyberStream Solutions, Strive Medical Technologies and Jeremy's Microbatch. He was the Deputy Director of a 25 year-old, non-partisan, national security non-governmental think tank where he created entrepreneurial public-private partnerships and dealt with government partners including the Treasury and Congress.
His first passion, however, is the student loan space. He began working in areas of human capital and education finance while attending The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1998 won awards for his business plan. He has also held the position of Vice President of Strategy & Operations for an education finance start-up. He has a BA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a major in Economics and a concentration in Management.
Speaker at: Entrepreneurs’ Showcase: Transformative Business Models
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Seth Tropper
Mr. Tropper is an experienced entrepreneur with proven track record in operations, finance, and strategy. Prior to Switch2Health, he was a founding partner of high-tech startup, PlasmaSol Corp., acquired by Fortune 100 medical device maker Stryker Corp. for $20 million. Mr. Tropper has nineteen years’ experience in management of research, development, engineering, and operations of technology organizations from concept to advanced product/service development through product support. As an entrepreneur in residence at Stevens Institute of Technology and previously a technology commercialization consultant to Rutgers University, along with former employment at AT&T Business Services and IBM Global Services, Mr. Tropper’s career includes government and commercial business development, strategic planning, intellectual property management, technology transfer, finance, and capitalization, as well as the design and optimization of information technology architecture, applications, and infrastructure. He is active in several local and national organizations, advisor for operational and strategic planning for small and early-stage companies, and an invited speaker on subjects ranging from entrepreneurialism to “doing business with the government”. He holds an Executive Masters of Technology Management degree from Stevens Institute of Technology and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Applied Statistics from St. John’s University. Mr. Tropper has held several Board positions including director to the New Jersey Technology Council (NJTC); chair of the NJTC Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Industry Network; advisor to the Rutgers Technology Commercialization Fund; the NJ Economic Development Authority’s Technical Advisory Board; and advisor to the Columbia Business School’s Lang Fund.
Speaker at: Entrepreneurs’ Showcase: Transformative Business Models
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Marc Kirschner
Marc Kirschner is the founder and General Manager of TenduTV. He oversees TenduTV's content acquisition efforts and distribution partnerships, and he works closely with industry leaders to ensure the protection of dance in the digital age. Kirschner created the concept of digital licensing for choreography and executed the first such licensing deals in the dance industry. Prior to TenduTV, Kirschner ran his own digital media strategy consultancy, advising content owners such as the United States Tennis Association and producers of programming for leading networks such as Discovery, Discovery HD Theater, and National Geographic on strategies to prepare for emerging distribution opportunities and revenue models. He was also the publisher of The Short List, a local content and guide book company that is now part of Time Out. Kirschner received his MBA from Columbia Business School and lives in New York with his wife, Susanna, who is a member of Jennifer Muller/The Works.
Speaker at: Entrepreneurs’ Showcase: Transformative Business Models
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Hitendra Wadhwa
Professor Wadhwa has thirteen years of professional experience in strategy consulting, quantitative marketing and technology entrepreneurship. He teaches elective MBA and executive-MBA courses on Strategy Consulting Skills, Personal Leadership, Pricing Strategies, Customer Centricity and Marketing Channels. He also consults to corporations and teaches executive seminars on these topics. Professor Wadhwa is the recipient of the 2007 Lear Award for distinguished service to students and the 2007 Most Engaging and Dynamic Professor Award by the Marketing Association of Columbia.
Prior to Columbia, Professor Wadhwa was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he counseled senior executives on a range of strategy issues. He also founded and led Paramark, a technology company backed by $10 million in venture capital that developed the first real-time optimization platform for online marketing and was selected as a Top 100 Internet Technology company by Technologic Partners/Venture Wire in 2000 and 2001.
Professor Wadhwa received his MBA and Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and his B.A. (Honors in Mathematics) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Speaker at: Consulting for Social Impact
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Laura Clancy
Laura Clancy was Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations from 2003 to 2005 with the national office of Big Brothers Big Sisters. She then entered Columbia Business School while continuing to working as a development and strategy consultant at New Visions for Public Schools, best known as the main conduit for Gates education funding for New York City. During her summer at business school, Laura worked at Community Resource Exchange, a management consulting firm focusing on grassroots nonprofits. Post business school Laura worked as a consultant at The Bridgespan Group, a spinoff from Bain offering management consulting to nonprofits. Her clients included the White House Office of Social Innovation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Boston Foundation, College Summit, Communities in Schools, and Center for Health Care Strategies.  She just began a new role as Managing Director of New Sector Alliance, a social enterprise consulting firm with a dual mission: to accelerate social change by strengthening organizations today, and to develop social sector leaders for tomorrow.  Laura is also a graduate of Harvard University where she was awarded the annual Women’s Leadership Award, Donald W. Moreland Award for Public Service, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Boston Summer Public Service Fellowship.
Speaker at: Consulting for Social Impact
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Violetta Ostafin
Violetta Ostafin, project leader, New York, works with clients in the consumer goods and healthcare industries and has advised them on a variety of marketing and sales related issues. Violetta received her MBA from the Wharton School and her MA in International Studies from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her BS in Applied Economics and Business Administration from Cornell University. Prior to business school, Violetta was an analyst in real estate investment banking, an account manager at Merrill Lynch & Co, and a Fulbright Scholar in Poland. She enjoys traveling, learning new languages, and ethnic and folk dance.
Speaker at: Consulting for Social Impact
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Sonila Cook
Sonila is a Partner in Dalberg’s New York office and leads Dalberg’s Energy and Environment practice.  She advises leading multilateral organizations, government agencies, companies and NGOs in the areas of strategy, organizational effectiveness, and public-private partnerships.  She has extensive experience across a broad range of development topics including environment and energy, humanitarian assistance, governance, and economic development.  Her work spans a broad range of clients, and includes: developing the business plan for an innovative technology to produce biofuels; designing an innovative financing mechanism for climate change projects within UNDP; developing business models for the Montreal Protocol Secretariat to engage the private sector in the phasing out of CFC technologies in various parts of Latin America; conducting a strategic review of UNDP’s $2Bn trust fund portfolio; advising the IMF on private sector best practices in governance; assisting the UN Secretariat with a review of the governance and oversight system of the United Nations, encompassing over 30 UN entities; and developing, in collaboration with the UN Global Compact and Financial Times, the first ever market-based assessment of the partnership skills of NGOs. Prior to joining Dalberg, Sonila worked for McKinsey & Company, where she served organizations in the financial, non-profit and media sectors. She holds an MBA from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Harvard University.
Speaker at: Consulting for Social Impact
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Rena Zurofsky
Rena Zurofsky has devoted her career to enhancing the ways in which art, business and life connect through non-profit institutions—particularly museums.   Her consulting practice encompasses strategic and organizational planning, marketing analysis, revenue enhancement activities, and interim directorships. Her clients include the National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks for New York Harbor Conservancy, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. the Higgins Armory, and the Whitney Museum.
Ms. Zurofsky joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art directly after graduating Clark University.  As assistant to the Vice President and publisher, responsible for books, retail, and other revenue activities, she was inspired to attend Columbia for her MBA degree.   She spent five years in the commercial world as a management consultant for KPMG Peat Marwick and Manager of New Product Planning and Mass Skincare at Revlon before returning to the non-profit world.   Ms. Zurofsky then worked as Vice Director for Marketing at The Brooklyn Museum, Deputy Director of the Newark Museum, and Director of Publishing, Retailing and Licensing at American Museum of Natural History prior to founding her consulting firm eight years ago.  
Speaker at: Consulting for Social Impact
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Patricia Dandonoli
Patricia Dandonoli is Executive Vice President, Corporate Development at Natural Systems Utilities, LLC (NSU), a natural resources management company focused on sustainable, integrated onsite water supply, treatment, and reuse solutions designed with natural systems and biomimicry technologies. Ms. Dandonoli has worked on behalf of mission-focused organizations and philanthropies for over 25 years, with particular expertise in organizational assessment and design, strategic planning, marketing and communications, fundraising, program design and implementation, and governance and leadership development. Her experience includes working with triple-bottom-line enterprises, helping to align their financial, social, and environmental goals with appropriate organizational structure and social capital/financing strategies. Prior to joining NSU, Ms. Dandonoli was founding President & CEO of WaterAid America, an international nongovernmental organization whose mission is to overcome poverty by enabling the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education. Ms. Dandonoli previously served as Head of Resource Development in the office of Her Majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan, as Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Sundance Institute, and Executive Director of Strategic Planning at the American Museum of Natural History, among other posts. She joined NSU in July 2009.
Speaker at: Solutions for Clean Water Scarcity
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Olivia Zaleski
Olivia Zaleski is a journalist focused on environmentalism as it relates to business, corporate best practice and executive thinking. As CNNmoney's environmental correspondent, Zaleski has interviewed and reported on a wide range of sustainability issues and interviewed leaders including George Soros, Robert Kennedy Jr., Bill Ford, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The host and co-producer of CNN and Fortune Magazine's Emmy-nominated series, "Business of Green," Zaleski examines the corporate sustainability claims and business ethics of America's largest corporations. Zaleski is also the host of Money Magazine's popular do-it-yourself video series, Home Work. Here Olivia offers homeowners advice on simple yet effective ways to save energy and money while cashing in on stimulus dollars.
Speaker at: Solutions for Clean Water Scarcity
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G.G. Pique
G.G. Pique is an entrepreneurial leader who has managed the growth of Energy Recovery Inc. from a $1.5 million/year garage operation into a major player in the industry with 70% market share. Under his leadership, ERI is recognized as one of the fastest-growing global companies in the water desalination industry, with a very successful IPO in 2008.
G.G. has more than 35 years of experience in the water industry. Before joining ERI he was a Senior Vice President and Corporate officer of US Filter Corp., a Fortune 500 company, where he focused on the acquisition, turnaround, integration and growth management of more than 165 water treatment companies. He also directed and managed 16 operating businesses in Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America. Subsequently, US Filter was bought by Vivendi in 1999 for $7.5 billion.
G.G. has also held senior management positions in a variety of global companies including Ionics, Fluid Systems, Fluor, Dorr Oliver and Combustion Engineering. He is a board member of the International Desalination Association (IDA) and a member of several other industry associations. G.G. has authored numerous technical articles and publications in English and Spanish, and is considered an expert in the reverse osmosis field. He holds a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from the University of Hartford.
Speaker at: Solutions for Clean Water Scarcity
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Alexander S. Friedman
Alexander S. Friedman is chief financial officer for the foundation. Friedman oversees Finance, Financial Planning & Analysis, Strategic Planning, Impact Planning and Improvement, and a number of special initiatives.
Before joining the foundation in 2007, Friedman worked as an investment banker with Lazard, the international investment bank. Prior, he led corporate development at Medarex, a publicly held biotechnology company. He also served as a White House Fellow and as an assistant to the secretary of defense for special projects in the Clinton Administration.
Friedman holds a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, a Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of trustees of the Seattle Art Museum and the Access Fund.
Speaker at: Innovative Financial Instruments with Social Return
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Julie Sunderland
Julie Sunderland is the Senior Program Investment Officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she is responsible for consulting to program teams (global health, global development and US programs) on work involving program-related investments and innovative financial mechanisms. 
Prior to joining the foundation, Ms. Sunderland led Oriane Consulting, a firm that specialized in private sector development, especially entrepreneurship, small business development and capital markets. She has advised foundations, development finance institutions and governments on venture capital, SME financing and technical assistance programs and worked with private equity fund managers in Africa and Eastern Europe on investment strategies, portfolio management and exits.
Ms. Sunderland holds a BA from Harvard University, an MBA from Wharton Business School and a MA from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She has published a number of articles on private equity in emerging markets and is an alternate to Alan Patricof on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board.
Speaker at: Innovative Financial Instruments with Social Return
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Clara Miller
Clara Miller is President and CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), a national leader in nonprofit, philanthropic and social enterprise finance. NFF, which Ms. Miller created and has run for over 25 years, serves as a "philanthropic bank" serving both social sector organizations and their funders. A 2007 Fast Company Social Capitalist award-winner, NFF has helped thousands of nonprofit organizations strengthen their financial health and improve their capacity to serve their communities. NFF is a federally certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Directly and with others, NFF has leveraged $1 billion of capital investment into nonprofits, and also has provided over $200 million in direct loans. Other products available to both nonprofits and funders include workshops, business analyses, loan guarantees and multi-year contracts to build balance sheet strength.
Ms. Miller is currently a board member of GuideStar, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and Enterprise Community Loan Fund and is Treasurer of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Board. She serves on the Independent Sector's Nonprofit Programs and Practice Committee.
Ms. Miller was voted one of Power & Influence Top 50 by The NonProfit Times in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Ms. Miller has written and spoken extensively on nonprofit capitalization, and is the author of a number of articles on the subject including "The Equity Capital Gap (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2008);" "The Looking-Glass World of Nonprofit Money: Managing in For-Profits' Shadow Universe (Nonprofit Quarterly, Spring, 2005);" "Hidden in Plain Sight: Understanding Nonprofit Capital Structure (Nonprofit Quarterly, Spring, 2003)," cited by Jim Collins in his monograph, "Good to Great and The Social Sector." Recent articles by and about Ms. Miller have appeared in Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education and Worth magazines. Please follow this link to read a selection of Ms. Miller's articles.
Ms. Miller was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Treasury Department's Community Development Advisory Board in 1996, advising the then newly-created Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. She served until 2002, and was its chair from 1999 to 2002. Ms. Miller was a board member of the National Community Capital Association from 1992 to 2001, and was its chair for six years from 1995-2001.
Before her tenure at NFF, Ms. Miller worked at The New York Community Trust, The National Academy of Sciences, and as an economic development planner in Corning, NY. Ms. Miller has a Masters Degree from Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning, and she completed the Institute for Nonprofit Management at Columbia University.
Speaker at: Innovative Financial Instruments with Social Return
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John Eric Nelson
John Eric Nelson is the Managing Partner of Wall Street Without Walls. WSWW provides capital markets orientation and training programs nationally and financial technical assistance to community development organizations and public agencies through teams of volunteer finance professionals, including retired and active investment bankers volunteering their expertise as a new form of philanthropy.
Mr. Nelson has thirty years experience in community economic development, management consulting, and collaborative environmental policy. He designed and managed the Small Business Opportunity Project for HUD to assist public housing residents plan and run their own businesses. He founded the urban land trust program for the Trust for Public Land and managed non-profit liaison for the Chevrolet-Geo environmental program.
Mr. Nelson graduated from Yale College and recently co-chaired his class reunion; received his MA degree from the University of Michigan where he also taught social psychology; and has a certification in Community Development Finance from the Milano Graduate School of New School University. He has been a guest lecturer in community development finance at the McDonough Business School at Georgetown University from 2001 to 2008.
Speaker at: Innovative Financial Instruments with Social Return
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Leah Pedersen Thomas
Leah Pedersen Thomas is the Director of NetGuarantee, a subsidiary of Malaria No More (MNM), which is the first-to-market mechanism designed to accelerate the delivery of bed nets to Africa by hedging financial risks faced by malaria net manufacturers. As a driver behind the concept’s original formation, Leah joined MNM to launch NetGuarantee utilizing her experience in creating innovative financial products with social impact.
The bulk of her professional experience focused on initiating “double bottom-line” risk-transfer products which include micro-insurance for rural Southeast Asia and Africa as well as payment guarantees which stabilize production cycles and speed-up delivery of life-saving global health commodities for underdeveloped markets.
Previous to joining MNM, Leah was at Dalberg Global Development Advisors where she engaged clients in the areas of African frontier market engagement, micro-insurance expansion, and enterprise-based solutions for development. Prior to Dalberg, Leah was with AIG’s Global Product Development team, where she helped to institute several strategic public-private sector initiatives with organizations including the World Bank and United Nations Foundation. She spent the early part of her career with Accenture.
Leah is a current candidate for the joint MBA degree from Columbia Business School and London Business School, and she holds a BA in International Economics from the University of St. Thomas.
Speaker at: Innovative Financial Instruments with Social Return
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Kate Galbraith
Kate Galbraith joined The New York Times in June 2008 to write about renewable energy. She spent the previous year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, from which she also received her undergraduate degree in English literature. Before that, Kate wrote for the Economist magazine, which she joined in 2000 in London. After several years as an online editor she became a finance correspondent for the magazine covering insurance, securities exchanges and fund management. Kate holds a Masters degree from the London School of Economics.
Speaker at: Leading Successful Companies in Clean Tech
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Mike Picchi
Mr. Picchi joined Comverge in February 2006 as Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer responsible for all accounting functions and was named Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer in June 2006. Mr. Picchi was appointed to the additional role of Interim President and Chief Executive Officer in June 2009. From July 2004 to February 2006, Mr. Picchi was Senior Vice President – Finance and Controller for publicly-traded PRG-Schultz International, Inc., an audit recovery services firm. From February 2003 to July 2004, Mr. Picchi served as Chief Accounting Officer – Corporate Controller for Randstad North America, the U.S. operations of temporary staffing labor firm Randstad Holding, B.V. From November 1999 to January 2003, Mr. Picchi served as Vice President – Finance for publicly-traded AirGate PCS, Inc., a Sprint PCS wireless affiliate.
Mr. Picchi began his career at Coopers & Lybrand LLP and is a certified public accountant and chartered financial analyst. He obtained a BS in Accounting and an MBA in Finance from Indiana University.
Speaker at: Leading Successful Companies in Clean Tech
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Charles Ricker
Over the past thirty years, Charlie has compiled a strong record of entrepreneurial and executive leadership in the fields of engineering and construction, manufacturing, project development, and most recently, solar power.
Charlie joined BrightSource Energy in 2006 as its first employee and was instrumental in securing its first angel investor, its initial venture capital funding, and its first contract for the sale of utility-scale solar power. BrightSource has since raised over $160 million in equity, built and now operates the Solar Energy Development Center, the first concentrating solar power plant to use sunlight to directly convert water to super-critical steam (5500 C, 2500 psi), and signed over 2,400MW of long-term, utility-scale Power Purchase Agreements, about 25% of the world’s total. Last January, BrightSource was named a 2009 World Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and was recently spotlighted by BusinessWeek as one of “25 Companies to Watch” in energy technology.
Charlie holds an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Millsaps College.
Speaker at: Leading Successful Companies in Clean Tech
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Francisco Noguera
Francisco is NextBillion.net's Co-Managing Editor, as well as the Founder and Editor of NextBillion en Español, a website and blog aimed to advance the development through enterprise community in Latin America.
He works at and studies the intersection between sustainable development and enterprise, supporting the New Ventures programs in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia and Mexico), fostering the creation of ecosystems of support for small and medium sized enterprises.
His experience includes work in the investment banking and management consulting industries in Colombia. Before joining WRI he worked for StratCo Consultores in Bogotá, where he worked for four years in management and strategy consulting. His interest in the intersection between business and development led him to start and manage a microfinance program in Bogotá, as well as engaging in various socially minded projects while working for StratCo. Francisco holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Moderator at: Entertainment as an Innovative Platform for Social Services: A Case Study from Mexico
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Sangeeta Chowdhry
Sangeeta joined Acumen Fund in November 2008; she leads the Ripple Effect project in the Water Portfolio. Prior to joining Acumen Fund, Sangeeta was Executive Director of the non-profit League of Artisans, where she worked on developing livelihoods for artisans in India. She has also consulted with CARE India in New Delhi, developing the business plan for ACCESS, a CARE-funded project focusing on livelihoods and microfinance. She also consulted with American India Foundation in New York. Sangeeta transitioned to the non-profit sector after spending many years in Silicon Vallye's dynamic private sector. She served in various positions in the semiconductor industry, where her responsibilities included global product marketing and product and business development. Sangeeta holds a Master in Public Administration and a MS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in New York, as well as a MS in Physics from Northeastern University.
Speaker at: Solutions for Clean Water Scarcity
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Rick Surpin
Rick Surpin is the founder of a family of organizations in New York City committed to transforming the quality of the direct care jobs and the quality of the care provided to adults with physical disabilities and the elderly. He is the President of Independence Care System (www.icsny.org), a nonprofit organization which coordinates and arranges a wide range of health and social services for adults with physical disabilities, who are Medicaid beneficiaries and living at home. ICS began operations in the year 2000 and now has 1,400 consumer-members and approximately $85 million in annual revenue.
Rick is the chairperson of the two affiliated organizations. Cooperative Home Care Associates (www.chcany.org), is a worker-owned home care aide agency. It was started in 1985 and now has 1,200 aides and approximately $30 million in annual revenue. Rick was the President for the first 15 years of operations. PHI (www.phinational.org) is a national nonprofit organization which conducts policy research and advocacy and technical assistance to promote the “Quality Jobs-Quality Care” model developed by CHCA. PHI began in 1991 and has 30 staff and approximately $9 million in annual revenue.
Speaker at: Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategy in the Social Sector
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Andrea L. Taylor
Andrea L. Taylor is director of Microsoft Community Affairs, North America, based in Redmond, WA, where her team manages the Giving Campaign and Employee Engagement and develops strategy and oversees implementation of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Community Technology Skills Program in the U.S. and Canada, a global initiative that promotes digital inclusion and increased access to training in underserved communities. Taylor also works closely with nonprofit organizations, governments and businesses while making company investments that support economic development by advancing employability and workforce development.
Speaker at: Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategy in the Social Sector
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Giselle Leung
Giselle Leung is Manager, ESP Global Champions at Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. ESP is a start-up organization that mobilizes leading companies in India, China, Colombia and Mexico to build inclusive business strategies that engage low-income people. Giselle manages strategic relationships with MNCs as technical and financial partners, mobilizes corporate CEOs in knowledge exchange forums and supervises MBA consulting field studies. She began her career at Cambridge Associates providing investment portfolio analysis to non-profit organizations with multi-million dollar endowments, and was a business strategy consultant at Braun Consulting. From 2002 to 2004, Giselle served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama focusing on micro-enterprise development. She created market-entry strategies for a local artisan group and trained rural artisans in basic business skills throughout Panama. After returning from the Peace Corps, Giselle briefly worked for the ranking member of the Western Hemisphere Sub-Committee of the House International Relations Committee.
Giselle is a founding board member of the School for Ethics and Global Leadership, a new semester academic program for high-school juniors in Washington, DC. Giselle graduated from the joint MBA / Master of International Affairs program at Columbia Business School and The School of International and Public Affairs. She holds a BA in psychology from Harvard University.
Speaker at: Entertainment as an Innovative Platform for Social Services: A Case Study from Mexico
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Louise Schneider Moretto
Louise Schneider-Moretto is a Vice President in Global Social Investment Funds at Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Ms. Moretto was the Senior Director of the Capital Markets Group at Women’s World Banking in New York where she led WWB's efforts to promote its 30 network members' access to commercial sources of funding and managed the WWB / Citigroup alliance on Financial Risk Management. Louise has authored several articles on microfinance and delivered classes on microfinance and the capital markets at Wharton, SIPA and for various regional microfinance networks. She also serves on the board of Project Zawadi, a non-profit that provides orphaned and disadvantaged Tanzanian children the opportunity to attend school in Tanzania.
Previously, Louise worked for a Nicaraguan microfinance institution and was a consultant on microfinance and rural programs in Bolivia and Peru. Louise has nine years of banking experience at JPMorgan Chase and National Westminster Bank, where she last served as a Vice President in the Special Markets Group. She has a Masters in Latin American Studies and International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration from the University of Vermont. She speaks Spanish and has basic knowledge of French.
Speaker at: Striking the Right Balance in Microfinance Investing
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Elisabeth Rhyne
Elisabeth Rhyne is the managing director of the Center for Financial Inclusion. As senior vice president of ACCION International since 2000, Ms. Rhyne was responsible for ACCION’s initial entry into Africa and India. She directed the organization’s research efforts to develop new financial products and managed ACCION’s publications and educational activities.
Recognized as a leading thinker and writer in the field of microfinance, Ms. Rhyne has published numerous articles and four books on the topic, including Mainstreaming Microfinance: How Lending to the Poor Began, Grew and Came of Age in Bolivia (Kumarian Press, 2001). She was also co-editor of The New World of Microenterprise Finance (Kumarian, 1994), which provided the introduction to microfinance for many of the field’s current professionals.
Ms. Rhyne’s was director of the Office of Microenterprise Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1994 to 1998, where she developed and led USAID’s Microenterprise Initiative. While there, she contributed to the founding of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the Boulder Institute of Microfinance. Ms. Rhyne’s experience includes eight years of residence in Africa (Kenya and Mozambique) and independent consulting on microfinance policy and operations for governments, international organizations and microfinance institutions.
Ms. Rhyne holds a MA and Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. She earned a BA in history and humanities from Stanford University.
Speaker at: Striking the Right Balance in Microfinance Investing
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Linda Green
Professor Green focuses on the efficient design and management of service systems. Her early work led to the development of a patrol car allocation model that is used by many major cities in the U.S. as well as several other countries. More recently, she has been the co-author of numerous publications on service systems with time-varying arrivals which has led to a new, more effective method for determining staffing requirements in a large range of service systems, such as telephone call centers and hospital emergency rooms. Her current research involves operational efficiency and effectiveness in health care delivery systems and includes identifying ways to alleviate emergency room overcrowding, and the development of strategies for more efficient use of major diagnostic equipment such as MRIs. She is a founder and co-director of the Columbia Alliance for Healthcare Management, a partnership of the Medical School, School of Public Health and the Business School dedicated to providing a multi-disciplinary approach to education and research in healthcare. The author of dozens of publications, she has also been an Associate Editor for Operations Research and Management Science and is currently a Departmental Editor for Management Science. She has been a consultant for a variety of manufacturing and service organizations and has served as a board member and officer for several nonprofit institutions. Prior to joining Columbia, Professor Green worked at Bell Laboratories and AT&T.
Speaker at: Expanding Access and Lowering the Cost Curve: Challenges in Healthcare
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Casey Santiago
As a Senior Advisor at Emerging Markets Group's Healthcare Practice, Casey Santiago designs and manages economic growth and global health projects that engage the private sector in social investment, forge impactful public private partnerships, and strengthen sustainable social enterprises. Previously, Casey worked at Kiva.org, the first online person-to-person microfinance lending site. She began as a Portfolio Manager, overseeing multi-million dollar debt investments in West African microfinance lending institutions, and then became a Product Manager, responsible for Kiva's external partner-facing website. Prior to her tenure at Kiva.org, Casey was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Emerging Markets Group, where she managed a global portfolio of healthcare projects, and served clients like USAID, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the World Bank. She focused specifically on NGO sustainability, innovative financing mechanisms and private sector engagement. Casey graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from Wellesley College, and has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. She is fluent in French and has worked in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Palestine, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia.
Speaker at: Expanding Access and Lowering the Cost Curve: Challenges in Healthcare
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Andrew J. Sussman
Andrew J. Sussman, M.D., M.B.A. is President of MinuteClinic and SVP and Associate Chief Medical Officer of CVS/Caremark. MinuteClinic has over 500 ambulatory care practices located in CVS pharmacies in 25 states and provides care to over 2 million patients annually. Dr. Sussman took over as President of MinuteClinic on Sept 1, 2009, following a national search.
He was previously Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of UMass Memorial Medical Center, and was responsible for all clinical services and daily operations at the 800 bed academic medical center, the major teaching affiliate of UMass Medical School. UMass Memorial cares for 45,000 inpatients and provides over 1 million ambulatory visits and 30,000 surgeries annually, and is the largest healthcare provider in central New England. UMass Memorial has 10,000 employees and is the largest employer in central Massachusetts. UMass Memorial has been listed among the Top 10 Academic Medical Centers in the United States for quality and safety by University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC, 2007), and as a Thomson and Solucient Top 100 hospital for Performance Improvement (2007) and Cardiovascular Care (2008-9). Dr. Sussman is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Dr. Sussman is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School as well as Boston University School of Management. Before joining UMass Memorial in May 2004, Dr. Sussman served as Chief Medical Officer of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, a multi-specialty academic physician practice composed of 800 Harvard Medical School faculty members practicing at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is annually ranked among the Top 10 hospitals in the United States by US News and World Report. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he also practiced primary care internal medicine and taught as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has published work on health systems, provider risk sharing and compensation, medical management, quality improvement, health care finance, and integrated clinical network operations. He is listed among America’s Best Doctors.
Speaker at: Expanding Access and Lowering the Cost Curve: Challenges in Healthcare
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Georganne Chapin
Since Georganne Chapin assumed her post as President and Chief Executive Officer in 1989, Hudson Health Plan has become the premier provider of state-sponsored managed health care services delivering comprehensive coverage to 90,000 low-income people in New York’s Hudson Valley region.
Ms. Chapin earned her B.A. in Anthropology from Barnard College, and her M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. In 2003, she received a J.D., cum laude, with certificates in Health Law and International Law from Pace University School of Law. Ms. Chapin has also taught at Pace as an adjunct professor of law; her courses include Health Care for the Disabled and Disadvantaged, and Bioethics and Medical Malpractice.
In 2004, under Ms. Chapin’s leadership, the Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality (HCHEQ) was formed. HCHEQ’s role is to act as a regional voice on issues of health policy and the use of health information technology to streamline eligibility for state-sponsored insurance and to improve the services delivered under these programs.
Speaker at: Expanding Access and Lowering the Cost Curve: Challenges in Healthcare
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