Social Enterprise Conference: Capital for Good
October 11, 2019 | Columbia University, Alfred Lerner Hall
The business and investor community once questioned whether it could afford to prioritize social impact. The consensus is now clear—how can businesses afford not to? The Millennial and Gen Z generations are driving trends in impact investing, using their purchasing power to demand change, and seeking employers that are socially conscious. As a result, funders and the organizations they invest in are directing their attention not only to the bottom line, but also to how business and financing models can be aligned to positively contribute to society.
This headline event, located in the finance capital of the world, provides a unique opportunity to tap into the vibrant ecosystem of capital for impact through the lens of philanthropy, impact investing, ESG, and social venture and business examples. Social impact leaders in business, government, nonprofit, and philanthropy will speak to how they are changing the way we think about how capital is sourced and used to generate sustainable solutions to global, systemic challenges. Hear where opportunities exist to pursue future careers of impact on both the financing and implementation sides of social impact capital.
Join us on October 11, 2019 as we bring together industry leaders, investors, philanthropists, professionals, faculty, students, and alumni to share best practices and engender new ideas surrounding the intersection of capital and society. Speaker presentations will catalyze conversations of change and embolden a generation to take risks in order to create a world in which everyone, regardless of where they were born, has the equal opportunity to succeed in creating a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.
This conference was founded by Columbia Business School’s Social Enterprise Club members in 2002, and has grown to engage students across Columbia University, as the pre-eminent forum to explore and address the ever-changing topics of social justice and innovation from the lens of business solutions.
Agenda
8:45–9:00 a.m. | Welcome to the Social Enterprise Conference: Professor Bruce Usher | |
9:00–9:50 a.m. | Keynote: Private Equity’s Role in Building Mission Driven Businesses | |
10:15–11:15 a.m. | Breakout Sessions: 1. ESG: How effective is it in changing corporate practices? | |
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Breakout Sessions: 1. Where are all the female founders? | |
12:30–1:00 p.m. | Lunch | |
1:00–1:50 p.m. | Keynote: Women + Philanthropy | |
2:00–3:00 p.m. | Breakout Sessions: 1. Has journalism become a social enterprise? Dispatches from the frontlines of the sustainable information movement | |
3:15–4:15 p.m. | Breakout Sessions: 1. Capital for clean energy | |
4:30–5:20 p.m. | Keynote: Character, Community, and Capital: Insights on Social Justice | |
5:20–5:30 p.m. | Closing Remarks by conference co-chairs and organizers: Kyle Finck ’20BUS, John Cheriyan ’20BUS, Ellie Dorsey ’20BUS, Kyle Finck ’20BUS, Natasha Gabbay ’20BUS, Sakchi Ruia ’20BUS, Gabriel de Santis ’20BUS | |
5:30–6:30 p.m. | Networking Reception | |
Private Equity’s Role in Building Mission Driven Businesses
Deval Patrick, Managing Director, Bain Capital Double Impact
Bruce Usher, Co-director, Tamer Center for Social Enterprise; Elizabeth B. Strickler ’86 and Mark T. Gallogly ’86 Faculty Director; Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Business School
Bios
Originally from the South Side of Chicago, Deval Patrick came to Massachusetts at 14, when he was awarded a scholarship to Milton Academy through the Boston-based organization A Better Chance. After Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal appellate judge and then launched a career as an attorney and business executive, becoming partner at two Boston law firms and a senior executive at Texaco and CocaCola. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick to the nation’s top civil rights post, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. In 2006, in his first bid for public office, he became the state’s first African American governor. In his two terms as Governor, Patrick oversaw the expansion of affordable health care to more than 98 percent of state residents, launched initiatives stimulating clean energy and biotechnology, won a national Race to the Top grant, and steered the state out of recession to a 25-year high in employment. Patrick currently serves as a managing director of Bain Capital Double Impact, where he focuses on investments that deliver both a competitive financial return and significant positive social impact. He is a Rockefeller Fellow, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and the author of two books, A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life and Faith in the Dream: A Call to the Nation to Reclaim American Values.
Bruce Usher is a Professor of Practice and the Elizabeth B. Strickler ’86 and Mark T. Gallogly ’86 Faculty Director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Professor Usher teaches on the intersection of finance, social, and environmental issues, and is a recipient of the Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom and the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Prior to his work at Columbia, Professor Usher was CEO of EcoSecurities Group plc, which developed greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in developing countries. EcoSecurities was acquired by JP Morgan in 2009. Professor Usher was previously the co-founder and CEO of TreasuryConnect LLC, which provided electronic trading solutions to banks and was acquired in 2001. Prior to that, he worked in financial services for twelve years in New York and Tokyo. Professor Usher is an active investor and advisor to entrepreneurial ventures focused on climate change and clean energy (UsherWorks.com). He is a board member of Community Energy Inc., OptiRTC Inc, the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, and is chair of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures. Usher earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.
ESG: How Effective Is It In Changing Corporate Practices?
Mainstream investors are increasingly applying Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors in their portfolio decisions. How effective is this investment practice in terms of financial returns? Do ESG investors change corporate behavior? How do investors identify material factors that both influence the long term sustainability of the business, as well as its impact on the environment or community in which they operate?
Jamie Martin, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley
Mary Jane McQuillen ’07BUS, Managing Director & Portfolio Manager, Head of ESG Investment, ClearBridge Investments
Jamieson Odell, Portfolio Manager, Goldman Sachs
Michael Rauenhorst ’95BUS, Managing Partner, SIMA Funds
Elizabeth Seeger, Director, Sustainable Investing, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR)
Bios
Jamie Martin is an executive director in Morgan Stanley’s global sustainable finance group, responsible for delivering sustainable investing products and solutions to the firm’s institutional and wealth management clients. In this role, Jamie collaborates across the firm’s institutional securities, investment management, and wealth management divisions to drive adoption of sustainable investing strategies seeking to achieve competitive financial returns alongside measurable positive environmental and / or social impact. He is a representative on the executive committee of The Green Bond Principles and B Lab’s Multinational and Public Markets advisory council. Jamie started his career at Citigroup, working in the firm’s global investment research division. He graduated from Colgate University with a BA and received an MBA after studying at HEC Paris and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Mary Jane McQuillen is a portfolio manager and the head of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment program at ClearBridge Investments. Mary Jane co-manages the ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy, as well as a number of other active equity ESG strategies. She has been with the ESG program at a predecessor firm since 1996 and has 23 years of investment industry experience, and is a member of the ClearBridge Investments Proxy Committee. Mary Jane serves on the board of directors for the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2). She is a former board member of the IRRC Institute and the CFA Society New York. She is also a former board member of the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF). Mary Jane is a member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) Listed Equities Steering Committee and the ESG Integration Sub-Committee. In 2015, Mary Jane was named to the “Women Worth Watching” list for financial services. In 2008, Mary Jane was named a “Rising Star of Corporate Governance” by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management. She is also a member of Bpeace, a volunteer organization that works to introduce sustainable business skills to women in Rwanda, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Mary Jane received her MBA in finance from Columbia Business School. She holds a BS in finance from Fordham University.
Jamieson Odell is the co-portfolio manager of GSAM’s Imprint Emerging Markets Equity Fund, a concentrated strategy that invests in emerging and frontier markets with full ESG integration and an emphasis on active ownership. He joined GSAM in April 2019 with the acquisition of the fund from GCA Investment Management. Prior to joining GCA, Jamieson was a partner and portfolio manager at Caravel Management, a specialist emerging and frontier markets investment firm. He started his finance career as an investment banker with J.P. Morgan, where he was a member of both the financial institutions coverage and the securitization groups in New York, as well as the firm’s South Africa corporate finance team, where he focused on transportation, mining, financial services, and retail. Jamieson holds an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Rauenhorst is managing partner of SIMA, which manages off-grid solar and microfinance funds, and advises investors on impact investments. He previously was with Deutsche Bank, where he co-developed some of the first impact investment funds in microfinance and healthcare. He has also worked at Moody’s Corporation, where he helped develop a social rating assessment for financial institutions. Michael serves on the boards of the Deutsche Bank Microfinance Development Fund, Stichting Social Investment, and Microlumbia. He is an advisor to Catholic Relief Services’ Impact Investment Committee, ACCION International, and Gregorian University Foundation. Michael is an alum of the University of Notre Dame (BA, class of ’80), the Mitchell Hamline School of Law (JD, ’84) and Columbia Business School (MBA, ’95).
Elizabeth Seeger joined KKR in 2009 to help oversee the consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues throughout KKR’s investment process, including the management of KKR’s ESG-focused value creation programs for its portfolio companies. She is also a member of KKR’s global impact team. Ms. Seeger was previously a project manager in the corporate partnerships program of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Prior to EDF, she was a consultant with the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), where she advised companies from a broad range of industries in Europe and the United States. Before CEB, Ms. Seeger was an associate at the Environmental Law Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on environmental law and policy research and education. She is a 2013 Aspen Institute First Movers Fellow and became a member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards board in 2017. Ms. Seeger has close to 20 years of experience working on corporate environmental and social issues and earned a BA with honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Entrepreneurship: A source of opportunity for veterans
There is a growing opportunity for returning veterans to launch their own ventures as a way to gain financial independence. What are the programs providing training and access to capital?
John Anderson ’13BUS, Army Officer, Pentagon
Katie Horgan ’14BUS, Owner, KMH Consulting & Veteran Owned Collective
Taylor Justice ’14BUS, Co-founder & President, Unite Us
Mark Rockefeller ’11LAW, Co-founder & CEO, StreetShares
Bios
Katie Horgan graduated from USC in 2006 and served as a Marine Corps Officer from 2006 to 2012. After leaving the service, she got her MBA from Columbia and joined the NYC startup scene. She has run operations at several early-stage startups and consulted with dozens of venture-backed companies. She founded KMH Consulting in 2018, a small consulting firm that provides operations, logistics, and supply chain support to early-stage CPG companies. She also started the Veteran Owned Collective (VOC) in 2018. The VOC helps veteran owned businesses compete and grow by providing the exposure, resources, and information needed to build a smart, sustainable business. They are leveraging social media and strategic partnerships to create a hyper-engaged, self-supporting community.
Taylor Justice is co-founder and president of Unite Us and a US Army Veteran. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army as an Infantry Officer and received an honorable medical discharge from active duty. In 2013, he co-founded Unite Us, an outcome-focused technology company that extends traditional health care delivery by powering networks of clinical and social service providers. Unite Us helps systems and communities integrate physical, behavioral, and social services into care delivery. Their platform supports organizations along the continuum to collaborate in real-time, track the entire patient journey, and report on outcomes together. Through their work with communities across the country, they have emerged as the national leader in cross-sector collaboration and community-wide care coordination software. They have recently been recognized as an Amazon Web Services’ city on a cloud innovation award winner, 2018 EPIC’s App Orchard Startup Pitch Competition winner, a Gartner Cool Vendor for health value delivery, selected by North Carolina to be their statewide social determinants of health solution, and the enterprise-wide social determinants of health solution for Kaiser Permanente and their Thrive Local initiative. Taylor holds academic allegiance to both the United States Military Academy at West Point and Columbia Business School. He lives in New York City with his wife, Meghan.
Mark Rockefeller is the co-founder & CEO of StreetShares, one of America’s fastest-growing financial technology companies. StreetShares provides small business lending-as-a-service (LAAS) technology to banks, credit unions, and non-financial organizations. StreetShares has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, American Banker, CNBC, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fox News, MSNBC, Huffington Post, and other media. Significant recognition for StreetShares includes: EY Entrepreneur of the Year (2018, Mid-Atlantic Region, Financial Services); Innovator of the Year (2017, Washington DC Region, Professional Services); and First place, Harvard Business School Alumni New Venture Competition (Global Best Investment, 2015). Mark started his career as a US Air Force Officer and served in Iraq. Following a graduate program at Columbia University, he joined the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP as a litigation associate where he worked on financial and securities disputes, including efforts to return investor money following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. He left Milbank in 2013 to co-found StreetShares with former Capital One executive Mickey Konson. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in finance, MBA, and law degrees. Entrepreneur Magazine called Mark one of “12 Remarkable Veterans Who Changed Business Forever.” Inc. Magazine placed him on a list of the “Top 20 Military Veteran Tech Entrepreneurs in America.” Mark is the chairman of the StreetShares Foundation, which provides free business coaching and grants to military-veteran entrepreneurs. He sits on the board of the Foundation for Innovation and Discovery and on the US Small Business Administration’s Veterans Business Task Force.
Internships for All: The future of youth employment
According to the McKinsey Global Institute’s Future of Work Report, the next wave of automation has the potential to displace jobs in office support, food service, transport, and logistics in customer service roles, which may farther increase the disparity in income inequality across the country. Great investment is needed in the education and training of young people to prepare them for ending careers. Gaining first-hand experience in the workplace is an essential step for making decisions about future career pathways. What would it take to guarantee every high schooler in America (14.4M) a paid internship?
Nelson J. Luna ’22CC, Co-founder, Teens Take Charge
Taylor McGraw, Executive Director, The Bell
Ikeia Miller, Team Lead, High School Partnerships, HERE to HERE
Lazar Treschan, Vice President, Policy and Impact, HERE to HERE
Bios
Nelson J. Luna is a first generation Puerto Rican and Dominican Columbia student from the Bronx. Through his use of art as a medium for activism in high school with spoken word, he was able to develop the tools to eventually co-found Teens Take Charge his sophomore year in high school. Teens Take Charge is a student-led organization that is working to build educational equity through art and civic engagement. He is currently a writer for the Columbia Spectator and hopes to earn a major in race and ethnic studies and Columbia’s special business concentration.
After teaching for five years in Harlem and Brooklyn, Taylor McGraw left the classroom in 2017 to help launch The Bell, a nonprofit that puts students at the center of the fight for educational equity. He collaborates with high school interns to produce the Miseducation podcast about inequity in NYC schools and serves as the adult advisor of Teens Take Charge, a student-led advocacy group that has pushed the city to move faster to integrate schools. His writing has appeared in USA Today, The Hechinger Report, and Narratively. In his spare time, he works on a book about a summer he spent playing chess with men in Washington Square Park. He has degrees from the University of Mississippi, Relay Graduate School of Education, and The New School, but his most impactful educational experiences took place in the Oxford, Mississippi public schools.
Ikeia Miller is the team lead for High School Partnerships at HERE to HERE, a recently-formed Bronx-based intermediary that prepares young adults ages 14 to 25 to succeed in family sustaining-careers through working with a network of employers, educators, and community-based partners. Ikeia previously served as an AmeriCorps member within City Year Columbia, an educational nonprofit focused on closing the achievement gap, which strengthened her desire to advocate for policy and system changes that would lead to the creation of a more equitable educational experience for all students. Prior to HERE to HERE, she served as a servant leader intern for Freedom School Partners; an intern for United Way, where she developed social emotional learning programming; and a consulting intern for the Edwin Gould Foundation.
Lazar Treschan joined HERE to HERE as the organization’s vice president for policy and impact in the summer of 2019 after 12 years as the director of youth policy at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS). At HERE to HERE, he leads the organization’s efforts to translate and expand on its work to demonstrate how work-based learning and career pathways can improve outcomes for young people and employers in the Bronx and citywide. At CSS, he was successful in reforming and expanding the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), changing admissions at the city’s specialized high schools, and other efforts to increase investments and change policy to improves the lives of young people who interact with public services. He is a native New Yorker, adjunct professor at several local universities, and has a master’s from Harvard University.
How do successful social ventures grow from startups to scaleups?
With the rise of impact investing has also come the growth of purpose-driven for-profit ventures. The greatest social problems of our time demand innovation at scale, so how do successful social ventures transition from startups to scaleups? Are there specific barriers to operating and raising funds at a double bottom-line company? What can we learn from successful for-profit social enterprises?
Andrew Hermalyn, President, Global Partnerships, 2U, Inc.
Sarah Holloway ’03SIPA, Lecturer in the Discipline of International and Public Affairs; Director, Management Specialization; Director, Global Ed Tech Entrepreneurship Program, Center for Development Economics & Policy, Columbia | SIPA
Michael Martin, CEO & Co-founder, RapidSOS
Bios
Andrew Hermalyn is president of university partnerships at 2U. He is responsible for university relations, program management, and enterprise business development. Hermalyn joined 2U in 2008 as its founding intern. He has held a wide range of leadership positions, most recently as executive vice president for strategic partnerships, and is responsible for many of the company’s university partnerships since inception.
Michael Martin is a leading voice on public safety, personal security, and technology innovation. Michael has spoken before federal agencies and at top industry events on innovation, technology, safety, and security. Michael is co-founder and CEO of RapidSOS, an advanced emergency tech company, commercializing technology to predict and preempt emergencies before they occur, dynamically warn people in harm’s way, and provide a rich data link from any device directly to first responders globally. Michael’s personal experiences around the challenges of emergency communication led him to found RapidSOS in 2013. Michael brings extensive experience in startup commercialization, financing, and strategy to RapidSOS. Previously, Michael worked at Braemar Energy Ventures, a $600M venture capital firm focused on energy technology. Michael also co-founded MS Consulting, a startup strategy, financing, and operations consulting company with clients in the internet and mobile sectors. Between Braemar and MS Consulting, Michael served as a board member or board observer for eight companies in four countries. Before Braemar, Michael worked at Piper Jaffray in the Clean Technology Group. In the course of his principal investing activities and advisory work, Michael assisted nearly 50 companies commercialize their technologies, helping them secure in excess of $2 billion of capital. Michael holds an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he received the R.F. Jasse Distinguished Award in Entrepreneurship and Leadership (top entrepreneurship award for class of 2015) and was named one of the “World’s Best & Brightest MBAs” and one of the top two HBS ‘15 graduates by Poets & Quants. Michael received his BA summa cum laude from Carleton College, where he was a Rhodes Scholar Finalist. In 2017, Michael was named to the top of Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list. Michael has published pieces in a variety of media outlets, including the Washington Post, has been featured on the homepage of MIT and across national media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Fox News, TechCrunch, New Scientist, Smithsonian Magazine, and Popular Mechanics.
Sarah Holloway is a member of the faculty at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where she teaches nonprofit management, social entrepreneurship and a new course on design for social innovation. She is a former management consultant, a serial social entrepreneur, and the co-founder of six K-12 social ventures including MOUSE.org and Computer Science for All (CSforALL). Sarah has a BA from Bowdoin College and an MPA from SIPA at Columbia.
Where are all the female founders?
Venture capital funding has surged in recent years, with over $131 billion invested in the US last year, according to Pitchboard’s dashboard. However, female founders received only two percent of venture capital investment in this last year. If systems give us the outcomes they are designed to deliver, what are the flaws in the system? A growing network of funders, incubators, and accelerators see an opportunity and are trying to change that. How are they addressing the root causes? Is it really a pipeline problem? And, what does the future hold for funding female founders?
Eve Burton ’89LAW, Senior Vice President & Chief Legal Officer, Hearst
Reham Fagiri, Co-founder & CEO, AptDeco
Andrea Turner Moffitt ’07BUS, Co-founder & President, Plum Alley
Bios
Eve Burton is a senior vice president and the chief legal officer of Hearst, one of the nation’s largest diversified media, information, and services companies with more than 360 global businesses. Hearst’s major interests span business information companies that create and deliver content, analytics and workflow solutions for the finance, healthcare and transportation industries worldwide as well as cable entertainment and syndication, interactive and emerging digital media, local broadcast television, magazines, newspapers, and real estate. Burton is a member of the Hearst Board of Directors. She has overall responsibility for legal services to all of Hearst’s businesses around the world. She also manages corporate human resources issues, Oracle HCM Operations, labor relations and government affairs. Burton has been one of Hearst’s leaders in establishing worldwide strategic enterprise deals with partners. Additionally, she is a member of Hearst’s venture committee, which funds digital initiatives and is a founder and chairwoman of HearstLab, which fosters innovation and investment in early stage businesses led by women. Burton sits on the board of directors of Intuit, Inc., and prior to that was on the AOL board until its sale to Verizon. She is a member of the advisory board of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Stanford and Columbia Universities, and is a trustee of Middlebury College. Burton has a JD from Columbia University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Asia.Prior to joining Hearst, Burton served as chief legal counsel at CNN where she led the first efforts by the press to gain streaming access from the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. From 1995-2000, she was at the New York Daily News where she supported the newsroom to open up family courts to the press and gained access to information Mayor Giuliani and his administration kept sealed in many areas of city government. Burton began her career at Weil, Gotshal & Manges after serving as a law clerk for the late Hon. Leonard B. Sand in the United States District Court of New York. The Hearst Office of General Counsel has a dedicated initiative to the ongoing protection of First Amendment rights for its journalists and the preservation of a free press and was awarded a lifetime First Amendment Award from the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press in 2016.
Reham Fagiri is the co-founder and CEO of AptDeco, the easiest way to buy and sell furniture in the New York metro area. AptDeco is a vertically integrated platform combining both the marketplace and logistics in one. Prior to AptDeco Reham spent 5+ years at Goldman Sachs in various engineering and management positions. During her time at Goldman Sachs she built various internal technology applications. She also managed large scale engineering teams focusing on designing, building, and launching new technology applications for the firm. Reham holds a BS. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrea Turner Moffitt is the co-founder and president of Plum Alley Investments, a venture firm investing in next-generation technology and health care companies with at least one woman in the founding team. Plum Alley engages women, men, families, and institutions looking to investment in innovative new technologies and medical advancements. Turner Moffitt is also a thought leader on women investors and author of the book Harness the Power of the Purse: Winning Women Investors, which was the culmination of two years of research. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, among other media outlets. Turner Moffitt worked previously as an investment banker at Citibank and Robertson Stephens and as an analyst at a hedge fund of funds. A graduate from Columbia Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs, she earned her BA from Tulane University. Turner Moffitt is the co-chair of Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center for Social Enterprise Alumni Circle. She lives in Brooklyn Heights with her husband and three children.
What is the solution to affordable housing in New York City?
A recent poll by Citylab indicates overwhelming support across the United States for affordable housing to be a national priority. More than 80 percent of Americans polled want the government to take major action to prevent homelessness. Is the solution to the housing crisis in NYC and other big cities simply allowing developers to build more housing – regardless of which income band it targets? What are the arguments for and against this approach? How would you accomplish this from a policy perspective and how would you overcome neighborhood objections? Additionally, what are the considerations for urban planning and design?
Rachel Diller ’99BUS, Senior Managing Director, Hunt Real Estate Capital
Carlos Menchaca, District 38 Council Member, New York City Council
Steve Mott, Chief of Staff, HELP USA
Matthew Murphy, Executive Director, NYU Furman Center
Bios
Rachel Diller is senior managing director and head of private real estate equity strategies at Hunt Capital Holdings. She joined Hunt from UrbanView Capital specialist fund manager dedicated to sustainable real estate investing. Previously, she was a managing director at Goldman Sachs in the firm’s urban investment group (UIG), a principal investing platform that deploys capital to underserved domestic urban markets. At Goldman, Ms. Diller was responsible for the group’s national lending and investing, deploying over $750 million of capital into public-private financed projects. Prior to joining Goldman in 2009, Rachel was a managing director in the Commercial Real Estate Group of Centerline Capital Group, where she led the affordable housing lending businesses and was responsible for financing over $1 billion of commercial real estate in 18 states. Rachel began her career as a New York City Urban Fellow, developing transitional housing projects for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services, where she was the director of facility, planning and development. Ms. Diller serves on the board of Corporation for Supportive Housing and is an adjunct professor in Columbia Business School’s real estate MBA program. Ms. Diller earned a BA in urban studies from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Carlos Menchaca represents New York City Council District 38, which includes Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and portions of Borough Park, Dyker Heights, and Windsor Terrace. He is New York State’s first Mexican-American elected official and Brooklyn’s first openly gay office holder. Carlos has authored over 80 pieces of legislation, of which 24 have been approved, and he is co-sponsor of 625 legislative items of which 277 have been approved. Recent legislation he has introduced includes proposals to promote workplace safety with apprenticeship training, to punish predatory landlords, and to improve street safety for cyclists and pedestrians. Carlos authored the legislation for New York’s first municipal identification card, IDNYC, which now serves over one million registrants. As chair of the Committee on Immigration, Carlos led negotiations that funded the nation’s largest public defender program for undocumented immigrants, and for the greatest City allocation in recent history for adult literacy services. He has supported innovative programs for immigrant day laborers, street vendors, and worker cooperatives. Carlos’ commitment to direct democracy is shown in his annual allocation of more than $2 million to participatory budgeting (PB) where residents nominate and vote for capital budget projects. In 2017 for the fourth year in a row District 38 produced the highest number of PB voters City wide, and welcomed voting by all residents regardless of immigration status, and for the first time, middle school students.
Steve Mott is the chief of staff of HELP USA, a national homeless service and supportive housing nonprofit headquartered in New York. Steve is responsible for strategy, long-term planning, and government and community relations. During his six-year tenure, the organization has doubled its programmatic spending and opened fifteen new residential facilities. Prior to joining HELP, Steve was the chief of staff at an antipoverty nonprofit that developed software to connect people with public benefits. In addition to his nonprofit experience, Steve has worked as a policy advisor to members of the House and Senate, most recently in the office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, where he focused on commerce and technology. Steve has a BA from Harvard University, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He lives in Larchmont, NY with his wife, two children, and two dogs.
Matthew Murphy is the executive director of the NYU Furman Center. Previously, he served as deputy commissioner for the Office of Policy and Strategy for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), and was responsible for creating strategies to advance HPD’s housing policy and objectives and overseeing initiatives to help achieve agency goals and improve operations. He directly oversaw two divisions: Housing Policy and Strategic Operations & Analytics, playing a central role in many of the City’s signature achievements, including the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, the reform of 421-a, and the new Certification of No Harassment policy, among others. Matt started with HPD as assistant commissioner for strategic planning in 2015 after having served as a senior project manager and policy advisor at HDC since 2011. Matt began his urban planning career as a graduate research assistant with the NYU Furman Center, during which time he completed a master’s of urban planning at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. He holds an undergraduate degree from DePaul University.
Funding understanding and development of therapeutics for women’s health
How does traditional funding of medical research incorporate or exclude issues of women’s health? What are some new approaches that can help support the development of new treatments and diagnostics in women’s health? From the support of basic research to the commercialization of new technologies, there is a funding gap in both research and entrepreneurship for individuals looking to address women’s health issues and solutions. To close the gap, there is a need for specialized and targeted funding of medical research in women’s health, as well as building a pipeline of women entrepreneurs and professionals in the sector who are addressing the needs of women’s issues. What are the ways in which early-stage investors are allocating their capital in order to address the needs of women within the health care industry?
Stacy Blain PhD ’95GSAS, Associate Professor, Departments of Cell Biology and Pediatrics, SUNY Downstate Medical Center; Founder & CSO, Concarlo Holdings LLC
Rachel Butler, President, The Cavendish Impact Foundation
Stan Kachnowski, Chair, HITLAB
Carolee Lee, Founder & CEO, Access Circles & WHAM
Bios
Stacy Blain is an internationally known expert in cell cycle and cancer biology and has been studying cell cycle regulation for more than 20 years. She is an NIH funded investigator and associate professor in cell biology and pediatrics at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, who has two several basic science and translational projects, studying the role of the oncogene cyclin D-cdk4 and p27 in breast cancer and multiple myeloma. Dr. Blain is a decorated educator and is currently the director of the Neoplasia subunit in the College of Medicine at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. She has mentored more than 20 graduate and medical students in her laboratory, and several have graduated with research in excellence commendations or the prestigious Robert F. Furchgott Award for Excellence in Research. Dr. Blain is the co-founder of CONCARLO Holdings, LLC, which has the goal of developing diagnostic and therapeutic applications for cdk4-dependent diseases. CONCARLO’s first project, IpY, is a peptide inhibitor, packaged in lipid-based nanoparticles, which will be used to treat women with ER/PR+, Her2- breast cancer. CONCARLO’s second project, ApY, is a companion diagnostic to identify patients responsive to cdk4 inhibitory therapies. CONCARLO Holdings, LLC and Dr. Blain were selected by the NYC Economic Development fund for the highly competitive SBIR Impact program, which provides one on one mentorship in the development of STTR and SBIR applications for the NIH.
Rachel Butler is president of Cavendish Impact Foundation (CIF), a nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate innovations in health to address the world’s unmet medical needs. CIF uses philanthropic funds as catalytic capital for impact investing to support early-stage health and life-science companies developing innovative and transformational technologies. Previously, Rachel served as senior vice president of family office and investor relations at Cavendish Global. She managed relationship development for the investor side of the Cavendish community, as well as the programing for Cavendish Global’s Impact Forums. Earlier in her career, Rachel was co-founder and editor-in-chief of Asthma Magazine, a direct-to-consumer patient education publication on asthma and allergy. Asthma Magazine was the source of all patient education materials for the launch of Merck Pharmaceutical’s first-in-class asthma drug, Singulair. The magazine also was employed in patient education by the American Lung Association; the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology; the National Association of School Nurses; and physicians throughout the country. Rachel was instrumental in facilitating the sale of Asthma Magazine to Elsevier Health Sciences, a leading publisher of medical journals, where she continued as editor-in-chief.
Professor Stan Kachnowski, PhD MPA CSEP, an Oxford trained researcher, has taught over 5,000 students from Columbia University, IIT-Delhi, and Quinnipiac College. His teaching and research over the past 25 years includes educating graduate level and executive students on four continents and conducting extensive studies on the efficacy and diffusion of digital health, including electronic data capture, ePRO, wearables, and predictive algorithms. Professor Kachnowski has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers and presentations for national and international journals and societies in digital health development, management, and diffusion. He was selected as a fellow to CHIME in 1998. In 2003 he received a letter of commendation for teaching excellence from the Dean of the School of Public Health at Columbia University. Professor Kachnowski was named a fellow to England’s Royal Society of Medicine for his research demonstrating the outcomes effectiveness of using the Palm Pilot in managing haemophilia patients in 2005. Professor Kachnowski has received grant funding from a wide ranging groups of sponsors, including over a dozen nations, AARP, WHO, USAID, Gates and Dell Foundations, and most of the top 20 global life science companies. Over the past 25 years he has also served as interim CTO for life science organizations, including Eyetech and Oncology.com. He currently serves on the board of directors for Oursmedicina, The Hudson Center for Health Equity, and Aptus Health. Professor Kachnowski holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Vermont, and a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
AccessCircles was founded in 2007 by Carolee Lee, the former CEO and founder of Carolee Designs, one of the world’s leading accessories brands. After the sale of her business in 2005, Carolee focused her passion and energy on women’s health and life planning with a vision to create AccessCircles, a global by-invitation network for women providing connectivity, knowledge, and access to thought leaders, resources, and experiences that transform our lives. AccessCircles is committed to improving the health and wellbeing of women through the discovery, research, dissemination, and integration of sex and gender-based differences and the application of this knowledge to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for women so that they may lead healthy, long ,and productive lives. In July 2018, WHAM! was launched by Carolee Lee as an initiative of AccessCircles (a 501(c)(3)) to focus on increasing awareness of women’s health issues, investing in women’s health research, and implementing strategies that will improve the inequities and bias in research while accelerating scientific discovery in women’s health. The Connors Center at Brigham / Harvard is WHAM!’s lead scientific partner. Carolee has served on the board of the Women’s World Bank and the Museum of Arts and Design in NY. She is a past chair of the Committee of 200, the organization of preeminent businesswomen and also served as the chair of its Foundation Board. She currently serves as a director on the board of DSW, Inc., a leading shoe retailer; The Women’s Leadership Board at The John F. Kennedy School of Government and as a founding board member of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, where she has served since 1986. Carolee has been recognized with numerous awards and recognitions for her professional and philanthropic achievements.
Social Venture Pitch Mix & Match
Looking to learn about innovative startup ideas? Want to hear about the business models they are using to solve social and environmental challenges? Interested in joining a team or getting involved with a startup?
This session will have lightning round venture pitches from a variety of Columbia-affiliated social and environmental startups, as well as time to network with them and others in the audience. It’s fun, easy, and informal!
Pitch Presenters
David A. Browne ’86BUS, ToughLove Corporation (TLC)
Pamela Davis ’07TC, Wellbotics
Norin Yasin Chaudhry, Saving 9
Bryan M. Eagle III ’85BUS, Glanris
Harry Etra ’16BUS, HXE Partners
Jason Fan ’19BUS, Brainceek, Inc.
Daniel Fountenberry ’08BUS, Coteacher
Nigel Frazier, Justify & Teachers College
Jonas Goldman ’20EI, Scarcity Analytics
Angelica Gregory ’15SOA, Art 4 New York
Desiree Hunter ’08SW, Future Leaders Incubator
Brian Keenan ’20BUS, OdysseyAlly
Ryan Christopher Lang ’19BUS, xipi
Jonathan Levine ’11SEAS ’04CC, Folia Materials
Marci Lobel-Esrig ’89CC, SilverBills
Matthew David Marko PHD ’15GSAS ’12GSAS, Marko Motors
Joshua Morrison ’07CC, Rikers Debate Project
Amelia Hopkins Phillips, Somo Africa
Karen Rios ’12GS, Lifesaver
Ariel Rojas ’03GSAS, Transdiaspora Network
Elise Schuster ’09PH ’04BC, okayso
Seun Shokunbi ’20TC, Karfi
Tejaswini Thethi ’20SPS, The Waste Traceability Project
Alexi Thomas ’19CLS ’19BUS ’16CC, Afrodemics
Alexander van Geen, Community Soil-lead Screening & Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University
Nakul Verma, Reylu Analytics & Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University
Lawrence Wang ’19BUS, Kato
Rob Watson ’06BUS, SWEEP Standards
Sultan White ’19TC, Civil Impact
Simone Worthy, Afrodemics
Mohamad Yaghi ’15JRN, Rakr Inc.
Women + Philanthropy
Melissa Berman, President & CEO, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc.
Elizabeth Carlock-Phillips, Executive Director, Phillips Foundation
Mona Sinha ’93BUS, Chairwoman, Women Moving Millions
Bios
Melissa Berman is the founding president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family in 2002. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ mission is to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors develops strategic plans, conducts research, manages foundations and trusts, structures major gifts, coordinates donor collaboratives, and provides regranting and fiscal sponsorship services. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors also publishes, convenes and speaks about innovations in thoughtful, effective philanthropy. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors annually manages or facilitates over $250 million in giving to more than 25 countries. It has offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and London. Melissa has led Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors since its inception, building it into one of the world’s leading philanthropic advisory, grantmaking, research and project management services. Under her leadership, RPA developed and published the “Philanthropy Roadmap” series of donor guides with support from the Gates Foundation. She developed and leads Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ research initiative, “The Theory of the Foundation,” and is the author of multiple reports in that initiative. A frequent speaker, Melissa has been a guest lecturer at universities across the US, Europe, and Asia, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, IMD (Lausanne), Oxford, Sun-Yat Sen, and Beijing Normal universities. As a widely-recognized expert in philanthropy, Melissa has been profiled in the New York Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Recent articles she has authored appeared in the Foundation Review and in the International Family Offices Journal. Her ideas and views are featured in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has been interviewed on the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, NPR, BBC Radio, CNBC-TV, and Bloomberg TV. An adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Business School, Melissa is also a director / trustee of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation and the Foundation Center. She serves on the advisory boards of the Marshall Center for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia University. Melissa holds a BA from Harvard University and a PhD from Stanford University. She’s proud to have majored in folklore and mythology.
Elizabeth Carlock Phillips is a social entrepreneur and millennial philanthropist at the helm of Phillips Philanthropies, which includes the Phillips Foundation. She graduated from Southern Methodist University with degrees in corporate communications and public affairs and french. Elizabeth started a jewelry business in high school that became her career for seven years and led her to Uganda, where she was founding designer of Akola. In 2017, she co-founded Gems by the Foot, an e-commerce jewelry brand that is “Made to Order, Beyond Borders,” benefiting refugee women and their families resettling in North Texas through the IRC. Since 2013, Elizabeth has led the Phillips Foundation’s implementation of generational grants that “move the dial” in Guilford County, NC; developed the foundation’s total portfolio activation strategy; and launched its Impact Investing Think Tank and PRI programs as well as, more recently, the Healthy Relationships Initiative (HRI) and Give As We Grow platform, an online destination for philanthropic education and tracking. Elizabeth serves as a Governor-appointed trustee of UNC Greensboro and is on the boards of Women Moving Millions, Texas Women’s Foundation, The Dallas Foundation and Say Yes to Education, along with other affiliations. She has appeared in featured stories on broadcast news and in a variety of publications, including The Financial Times, Barron’s, Bloomberg, Dallas Morning News, Forbes, and as a recipient of Triad Business Journal’s “Women in Business” award in 2015. Elizabeth and her husband Kevin are cofounders of The ImPact and principals of Phillips Enterprises. They enjoy life with their young family in Dallas, TX, and Greensboro, NC.
S. Mona Sinha is an advocate for expanding the rights of women and girls. She has parlayed a career in finance (Morgan Stanley), marketing (Unilever), and restructuring (Elizabeth Arden / Unilever) to work at the intersection of social change and women’s leadership. Mona works with organizations to develop capacities to uplift women and girls across different sectors. She is cofounder of Raising Change, which coaches mission-driven organizations to raise resources for social change. She is currently the board chair of Women Moving Millions, a community of women who fund big and bold to create gender equality. She also serves on the boards of the ERA Coalition (working to ratify the constitutional amendment on Equal Rights), Breakthrough (shifts culture norms to end violence against women), Direct Impact Africa (empowers women to be leaders in the lower Zambezi), and CHIP (Center for High Impact Philanthropy at UPenn). She is on the advisory boards of Apne Aap International (works to end sex trafficking), the Museum of Natural History (sponsors science education for inner city girls), Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center Social for Enterprise (building awareness of social justice in future business leaders), Women Creating Change at Columbia University (ensuring that curriculum reflects all diverse voices), and Columbia Global Mental Health program (promoting mental health as integral to overall healthcare around the world). She is a trustee emerita of Smith College, her alma mater. She has also served on the founding board of Impact Investment Exchange in Singapore and the All Souls school in New York city. Mona is an active financial investor in women-led businesses. She has a BA in economics and art history (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Smith College and an MBA in finance and marketing (Beta Gamma Sigma) from Columbia University. She is a published contributor to What I Told my Daughter Lessons from Leaders on Raising the Next Generation of Empowered Women edited by Nina Tassler and Cynthia Middleton. In April 2019, Breakthrough honored Mona with a Lifetime Inspiration award. Smith College honored Mona with the 2018 Exemplary Leadership in Development award. In 2017, Mona was awarded The Last Girl Champion award by Gloria Steinem on behalf of Apne Aap. In 2015, she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which is presented annually to US citizens whose accomplishments in their field and service to the world are cause for celebration.
Has journalism become a social enterprise? Dispatches from the frontlines
From co-ops to memberships to blockchain, news is in a fight for its life. As media organizations grapple with social media, tech’s disruption of business models, “fake news,” and distrust by segments of audiences in society, how can they establish their role in democratic societies? How are they keeping themselves accountable the various actors in society, including itself? How can philanthropy, readers, and technology enable quality and sustainable journalism without narrowcasting and focusing on the silos that draw from fear and difference?
Benedicta Cipolla, Editor in Chief, Chalkbeat
Kyle Finck ’20BUS, Columbia Business School
Mazin Sidahmed, Co-founder, Documented
John Wotowicz ’90LAW, Publisher, The City
Bios
Bene Cipolla is the editor in chief of Chalkbeat, overseeing seven local bureaus, the national desk, story editing, and engagement. Bene brings 25 years of media experience to her role at Chalkbeat, including print and radio journalism, film production, and digital startups. She started her news career covering the Vatican in Rome and then worked as an editor at major magazines in New York, including Cosmopolitan. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Time, and Fortune. She has also led content development for several digital startups, most recently Birchbox, with a focus on growing readership and engagement. Bene is a graduate of Princeton University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy.
Mazin Sidahmed is a co-founding editor and senior reporter at Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigration in the New York area. Before founding Documented, he was a reporter at the Guardian US in New York on the national desk as well as with the award-winning Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab. He started his career covering the Syrian refugee crisis in Beirut, Lebanon for the local English language newspaper The Daily Star.
John Wotowicz leads the business of THE CITY, overseeing all non-editorial activities including revenue, technology, finance, and operations. John brings decades of experience in investment banking, venture capital, and nonprofit governance including senior executive management roles at Morgan Stanley (managing director, member – European investment banking operating committee) and at Dimensional Fund Advisors (vice president, member – management committee). John was an active board member (2012–2018) and vice chair of NPR, Inc, the operating company of National Public Radio. John was also a founding board member of the Texas Tribune and actively participated in the development of the Tribune’s business model. John is currently a board member and treasurer of the New Museum of Contemporary Art and a past board member (2003–2008) of the Judd Foundation. John is a graduate of Duke University (AB) and Columbia University School of Law (JD), is an instrument-rated private pilot, and has produced numerous London West End theatrical productions.
Kyle Finck is a rising second-year MBA student with a focus on entrepreneurship, data science, and diversity. Before Columbia, he led youth journalism at the LA Times through a digital startup called High School Insider (HS Insider). The program works with over 250 schools and 2,000 students to help define the high school experience and empower them to make their voices heard in Southern California. Beyond content, HS Insider offers paid internships, events, contests, and conferences throughout the year with a focus on elevating underheard voices. Finck also helped lead various venture projects across the company, including the Times’ first major audio venture Dirty John. The six-part series was published simultaneously in print, podcast, and digital, garnering over 4 million listens and 1.7 million page views in its first two weeks and recently appearing as a scripted series on Bravo. Prior to joining the LA Times, he worked for the Center for Investigative Journalism in Berkeley, CA, CNN Money, and Sports Illustrated.
How effective is fintech in reducing inequality?
Research shows that countries with deeper levels of financial inclusion — defined as access to affordable, appropriate financial services — have stronger GDP growth rates and lower income inequality. What role is fintech playing in bringing financial services to the underserved? What are the challenges to making these services accessible? What strategies are fintech ventures using to improve the financial wellbeing of lower income customers?
David Derryck ’99BUS, Chief Impact Officer, Earn.org
Nicky Goulimis, Co-founder & COO, Nova Credit Inc.
Jeff Kaiser, COO, Propel
RA Farrokhnia, Executive Director, Dean’s Office; Adjunct Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School
Bios
David Derryck is a core member of EARN’s executive leadership team, leading the development and implementation of EARN’s overall strategic direction and holding primary day-to-day operational responsibility for EARN’s success. David has been working in the intersection of business and social impact for over a decade. During that time, he advised, launched, and restructured numerous enterprises. An experienced executive and social entrepreneur, he has led revenue model development, operations, systems development (finance and technology), talent management, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and sales. Previously, David was founder and principal of Social Impact Ventures, a specialty consulting firm that provides hands-on interim executive management and advisory services to organizations seeking to accelerate performance and maximize impact. He has also held leadership positions at REDF and Juma Ventures. Prior to entering the social enterprise space, David worked in corporate development and co-founded a startup in international trade. He began his career as a private equity analyst with Rosecliff, a private merchant bank. David received his MBA from Columbia Business School and BA from Wesleyan University.
Nicky Goulimis is the co-founder and COO of Nova Credit, the world’s cross-border consumer reporting agency. Nova has built a global infrastructure of credit bureau data which it delivers to lenders and landlords so that they can finally acquire and serve immigrant customers. Nova’s mission is to “enable immigrants to access capital to realize their potential.” Nicky oversees the overall strategy and operations of the firm as well as leading Nova’s partnerships with financial institutions in multiple countries. Nova has emerged as one of the most promising financial technology companies from Silicon Valley in the last few years. Before Nova, Nicky was a consultant at Bain & Company where she served a number of European retail banks. Nicky began her career in the international development space working for Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture on its smallholder farmer financial access initiatives, as well as for a Ugandan NGO. Nicky is from Greece originally and grew up in the UK She holds a BA from Cambridge and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was awarded the Miller Social Change Leadership Award.
Jeff Kaiser is the chief operating officer at Propel, a Brooklyn-based technology company that builds software to improve the financial lives of low-income Americans. Propel operates Fresh EBT, a smartphone app that allows SNAP participants to easily manage their benefits and find ways to save money and earn income. Over 2 million households across the country now use Fresh EBT every month. Prior to joining Propel, Jeff was a project manager with Dalberg Global Development Advisors based in Lagos, Nigeria and Washington, DC. Jeff holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in political science.
R.A. Farrokhnia inhabits the intersection of academia and practice, with a multidisciplinary research and academic focus as well as professional experience in finance, startups, and venture investing. He is a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, teaching at both Columbia Business and Engineering Schools, and a board member of the Knight-Bagehot Program at Columbia School of Journalism. He is the founding executive director of “Advanced Projects and Applied Research in Fintech” at Columbia Business School (fintech.gsb.columbia.edu), with a growing number of activities under its umbrella. He also leads a research, development, and deployment lab focused on fintech, data / AI, and enterprise software. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University.
The nexus of food and climate change
Globally, food and agriculture are responsible for over 20 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions and 75 percent of global deforestation. At the same time, climate change will profoundly impact our food and agriculture systems through changes in temperatures and growing seasons, extreme weather and water patterns, and ranges of pests and plant diseases.
What is the global food system’s role in climate change, and how are businesses tackling these issues? For companies that grow, make, and serve food, how are they taking into account climate change and the role that food, food waste, and agriculture play in this global challenge?
Shlomi Goren, Co-founder, CBO, & Director, Rilbite
Adam Kaye, Co-founder & Chief Culinary Officer, The Spare Food Co.
David Rosenberg ’02BUS, CEO & Co-founder, AeroFarms
Sara Tjossem, Senior Lecturer, Columbia University | SIPA
Bios
Shlomi Goren holds an MBA and professional specializations in the field of risk management. He has 12 years of experience in C-level positions in the start-up industry, during which time three of the companies were sold. After a five-year relocation in the United States, Shlomi established a consulting office, and his customers successfully raised over $100M.
Adam Kaye’s journey to The Spare Food Co. began when he interrupted a nascent career at an environmental law think tank to attend the French Culinary Institute as a recipient of a James Beard scholarship, and went on to cook in and lead some of the most influential kitchens in DC and NY. For the past eighteen years Adam has worked side bys ide with Dan Barber at Blue Hill as chef, culinary director, and educator. He co-created the successful wastED popup restaurant concepts in New York and London, which garnered international acclaim. Adam is a leading light at the forefront of culinary innovation in the burgeoning Food Waste movement.
David Rosenberg co-founded and leads AeroFarms, a clean technology company that builds and operates advanced vertical farms in urban environments. AeroFarms has been recognized as a Circular Economy 100 company, was listed on Fast Company’s 2019 global list of Most Innovative Companies, and Inc. Magazine’s list of the 25 Most Disruptive Companies. AeroFarms also received the New Jersey Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence and was voted as the Best Growth Company to invest in at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference in addition to being a finalist for The Circular Awards at the World Economic Forum. Most recently, AeroFarms received the inaugural Global SDG Award for Zero Hunger as well as being named a THRIVE Top 50 leading AgTech company. David dedicates his time to a number of local and international organizations. As a member of the World Economic Forum, David co-chairs the Young Global Leaders Circular Economy Taskforce and is a member of the WEF Global IoT Council. David is also a member of the US delegation to the B20 Sustainable Food System Taskforce, which advises the G20. In addition, David serves as a managing trustee of New Jersey’s Liberty Science Center – a prominent US interactive science museum. David was also privileged to co-chair New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s Agriculture Transition Committee. In 2018, David was honored as Ernst & Young’s (NJ) Entrepreneur of the Year (Food and Beverage). David received his BA from UNC Chapel Hill and holds an MBA from Columbia University. He competed for the United States in fencing where he was a finalist at a world cup and represented the NYAC, winning three US National Team Fencing Championships and two individual silver medals.
Sara Tjossem is a senior lecturer in SIPA’s Master of Public Administration program in Environmental Science and Policy, and the program’s associate director of curriculum. Her teaching and research interests are on the intersection of science and society, the history of science (particularly biology and ecology in the 20th century), agriculture, marine science, and the development of environmental movements and policy.Tjossem’s book, The Journey to PICES: Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific (Alaska Sea Grant Press, 2005), traces the events and explores the impediments to the eventual formation of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization in 1992. PICES is now the premier intergovernmental marine organization for the Pacific Ocean, promoting and coordinating advances in marine science. Other publications include Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific: The PICES Project with Warren S. Wooster in Multilateralism and International Ocean-Resources Law (Law of the Sea Institute, 2004) and several reviews of history of science books and articles. Tjossem taught history of science at the University of Minnesota from 1995 to1998 and was assistant director of the Institute of Social, Economic and Ecological Sustainability (ISEES) from 1996 to1998. From 1998 to 2003 she served as lecturer and capstone instructor in history and in the program on the environment at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Partnerships to support displaced persons
The refugee crisis has displaced more than 28 million children globally. The trauma inflicted can have particularly negative and long lasting adverse effects on children. However, innovative partnerships have helped bring mobile classrooms and health clinics to many Syrian refugees. Can public / private partnerships alleviate this suffering for children living in refugee camps or in other displaced homes around the world?
Manal Kahi ’15SIPA, co-founder and CEO, Eat Offbeat
Stefanie Leigh Plant, Technical Advisor for Enterprise Development and Employment, International Rescue Committee
Melanie Edwards, Stanford, Columbia Business School, Mobile Metrix, and Echoing Green
Bios
Manal Kahi is the co-founder and CEO of Eat Offbeat, a social enterprise that delivers authentic meals made by refugees who now call New York City home. She has a passion for traveling, social impact, and great food (not necessarily in that order). She moved to NYC to pursue a career in international affairs but the hummus she found in grocery stores led her on a different journey. She co-founded Eat Offbeat in 2015 to help New Yorkers discover authentic dishes from around the world all the while creating quality jobs for recently resettled refugees. In less than three years, Eat Offbeat trained and hired over 40 chefs, served close to 150,000 meals, and reached over 10 million individuals through content. Manal and Eat Offbeat’s stories were featured in media outlets including Forbes, The Guardian, the Huffington Post, Food & Wine, Newsweek, Fast Company, and others. Prior to launching Eat Offbeat, Manal worked as an environmental consultant between Beirut, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Panama City, and New York City. She holds a master’s in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, a master’s in environmental management from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and a BA in geography from Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
Stefanie Leigh Plant serves as a focal point for all economic recovery and developing programming across several key geographies. In this role, Stefanie works to smooth the transition from basic needs-based humanitarian assistance to longer term economic development through the design and stewardship of initiatives centered around entrepreneurship, job skills training and placement, SME growth, private sector partnerships, and financial inclusion — all aimed to improve the livelihoods of displaced persons, impoverished host communities, and refugees. Prior to IRC, Stefanie worked to improve health infrastructure in Tanzania as a program director with the Touch Foundation, served as a strategy and implementation consultant to NGOs and nonprofits in human rights, advocacy, healthcare, and education with the firm CCS, and managed an international industrial supply chain and distribution operation in the private sector. Her background working with NGOs, nonprofits, and social enterprises is complemented by a wealth of experience across the developing world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has additional regional experience in Middle East / North Africa (MENA), Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Stefanie holds a BA in economics from Harvard University and an MBA with concentrations in strategic management, entrepreneurship, and marketing from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She speaks English, has professional proficiency in French, and as usual, her Swahili needs improvement.
Melanie Edwards educates the next generation of impact leaders for social and environmental change. As an adjunct professor at Stanford University and Columbia Business School, she instructs and advises undergraduate and graduate students in developing their impact ventures, careers and leadership. As senior portfolio advisor with Echoing Green, Melanie coaches global Climate Change Fellows on their award-winning ventures. Melanie founded the social venture Mobile Metrix, an inclusive market research company serving marginalized populations. By hiring local young adults to collect data on needs and impact in their own communities using handheld technology, life-saving products are more effectively designed for and channeled to hard-to-reach people. While under her leadership as CEO, Mobile Metrix was selected by Cannes Lions Innovation as one of the world’s “Top 50 companies innovating the future of marketing and market research”. She is an Echoing Green Fellow, PopTech Fellow, Social Capitalist (SoCap) Social Entrepreneur, AVINA Leader, PBS NewsHour Agent for Change and Fast Company Innovation Agent. Melanie was also a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University and a social entrepreneur-in-residence at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Previous to CEO of Mobile Metrix, Melanie worked in management with J.P. Morgan, International Data Group (IDG), and as an executive of key accounts at AT&T. She launched the Global Technology Corps, a “digital Peace Corps,” with the US Department of State and co-created the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS). She is also a Return Peace Corps Volunteer from Togo, Africa. Melanie was raised on a fourth-generation family farm in the rural Midwest, graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and received her master’s from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston.
Capital for clean energy
Despite the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the economics of renewables continues to improve around the world. Investors are allocating significant funds to clean energy. What projects are they investing in? Are they profitable? Are there enough places to invest? How quickly are we replacing coal and natural gas? Will this be a big enough impact to mitigate climate change?
Thomas Byrne, Co-founder, CleanCapital
Geoffrey Heal, Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise, Columbia Business School
Jiong Ma, Senior Partner, Braemar Energy Ventures
Martin Torres, Managing Director, BlackRock
Bios
Jiong Ma has more than 20 years of research, operating, and venture capital experience in the technology industry. Prior to joining Braemar, she was with the venture group at 3i, Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs in product portfolio strategy, new product launches for optical and data networking, and R&D, She was also with Nortel Networks and a founding member of Onetta.Dr. Ma received a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an MS in electrical engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, and a BS in physics from Lanzhou University, China. She is a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program, has published or co-authored 15 technical papers, and holds one US patent. Dr. Ma serves on the boards of Aledia, Fulham, LO3 Energy, MC10, and Voxel8.
Martin Torres is head of the Americas for the renewable power group within BlackRock Alternative Investors (BAI). Martin is responsible for originating investment opportunities, establishing industry partnerships, leading transaction executions, and developing new investment strategies in the renewable power sector. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2016, Mr. Torres was a managing director and the head of renewable power project financing at Morgan Stanley. In this role, Mr. Torres was responsible for Morgan Stanley’s capital markets financing, principal lending, and principal equity investing (tax equity) for renewable power projects. Mr. Torres was also responsible for actively managing Morgan Stanley’s controlling interests in various renewable power project development and operating companies. In addition to his experience and responsibilities in the renewable power sector, while at Morgan Stanley Mr. Torres also advised clients on capital structuring and raised capital for clients across the energy and infrastructure space more broadly. Previously, Mr. Torres worked for Merrill Lynch and Citigroup in various structured finance and securitization businesses. Mr. Torres began his career in finance working for The Pullman Group, a boutique investment bank focused on entertainment royalty securitization. Mr. Torres holds a bachelor of science in economics degree (finance concentration) from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a juris doctor degree from The Law School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Geoffrey Heal, Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, is noted for contributions to economic theory and resource and environmental economics. He holds bachelors (first class), masters and doctoral degrees from Cambridge University, where he studied at Churchill College and taught at Christ’s College. He has also taught at Sussex, Essex, Yale, Stanford, École Polytechnique, Stockholm and Princeton. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Universite´ de Paris Dauphine. Author of eighteen books and about two hundred articles, Professor Heal is a fellow of the Econometric Society, past managing editor of the Review of Economic Studies, past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, recipient of its prize for publications of enduring quality and a life fellow, recipient of the 2013 Best Publication Prize of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, a director of the Union of Concerned Scientists and a founder and director and chairman of the board of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, developers of the REDD policy for reducing deforestation by awarding carbon credits for forest conservation. Recent books include Nature and the Marketplace, Valuing the Future, When Principles Pay, and Whole Earth Economics (forthcoming). Professor Heal chaired a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on valuing ecosystem services, was a commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission, was a coordinating lead author of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, was a member of President Sarkozy’s Commission on the Meaurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, was a member of the advisory board for the World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report and the United Nations Environment Program’s 2011 Human Development Report, and acts as an advisor to the World Bank on its Green Growth project. He is also a director of Public Business, a foundation that promotes in-depth public interest journalism and a member of the advisory board of Green Seal. He has been a principal in two startup companies, a consulting firm and a software and telecommunications company, and until recently was a member of the investment committee of a green private equity group. He teaches MBA courses on Current Developments in Energy Markets, Business and Society: Doing Well by Doing Good?, and The Business of Sustainability, teaches a doctoral course on advanced microeconomic theory, and advises doctoral students interested in sustainability.
UBI as cash grants: Do they work?
Universal Basic Income (UBI), a theory where cash grants are provided to all citizens regardless of need, is increasingly drawing attention as we approach the 2020 election. Supporters range from tech entrepreneurs — Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — to political candidates — 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang — who are worried about the future of automation in the workforce. However, advocacy for cash grants dates back to Thomas Paine, a founding father of the United States of America, and they have continued to be supported by major political and economic figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Milton Friedman. How pragmatic is this approach towards alleviating poverty and increasing wellbeing? What has been the experience of pilot programs in other countries and in the United States? How might this be founded and what are the intended consequences, for example, in work participation?
Amy Castro Baker, Assistant Professor, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania
Michael Faye, Co-founder & President, GiveDirectly
Amy Houston, Adjunct Professor of Business, Management, Columbia Business School
Bios
Amy Castro Baker PhD, MSW is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Social Policy and Practice and serves as the co-PI of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration under Mayor Michael Tubbs. She is also a distinguished visiting professor at Penn’s School of Nursing (AY 19–20), an affiliated faculty member of the Alice Paul Center, and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. She was the 2017 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award at the School of Social Policy and Practice, where she teaches courses on policy analysis, gender, and impacting government. Dr. Baker’s research explores economic mobility, guaranteed income, innovation, and how social policies produce gender and race disparities in housing and lending. She was awarded the GADE Research Award, the Society for Social Work and Research Outstanding Dissertation Award and the Nina Fortin Award for her work on women and risky lending during the foreclosure crisis. Dr. Baker is also the principal investigator of a longitudinal economic mobility intervention following intergenerational cohorts of immigrant families in Jersey City and the South Bronx. Prior to her time at Penn, she spent more than a decade working with nonprofits and community-based agencies in Philadelphia and New York City. She has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Economic Security Project, the Asset Funders Network, and the Pascale Sykes Foundation. Her research has been published by Social Service Review, the Gerontologist, Social Science & Medicine, Social Work, The American Journal of Public Health, and featured throughout the popular press. She earned a PhD in social welfare and a master of philosophy from the City University of New York, a master’s of social work from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s in social work from Cairn University.
Michael Faye is the president and co-founder of GiveDirectly, which has been ranked a top international charity by GiveWell, recognized by FastCompany as one of the top 10 most innovative companies in finance, and was said to be “sending shockwaves through the charity sector” by the Guardian. He’s also the CEO and co-founder of Segovia Technology, which is making it easier for organizations to pay anyone, anytime, anywhere in the emerging markets. Michael’s work on international development has been published in the American Economic Review, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Foreign Affairs and he’s spoken extensively on development and philanthropy. This year he joined the World Economic Forum’s community of Young Global Leaders. In addition, Michael is a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 leading Global Thinkers in 2013. He holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard, where he also studied Math and Classics.
Amy Houston runs the Thompson Family Foundation, which funds historic preservation, arts and culture, medical research and social services in New York City. Founded by Wade Thompson in 1986, the foundation was instrumental in the revitalization of the Park Avenue Armory. Amy previously ran management assistance and administrative operations at Robin Hood. Robin Hood targets poverty in New York City by finding and funding the most effective programs and partnering with them to achieve results. Since inception Robin Hood has provided over a billion dollars through a model that combines targeted funding with management assistance to support its nonprofits in strengthening their performance. Prior to Robin Hood, she was a vice president at Aspect Education, a private company running language schools worldwide. She joined Aspect’s senior team just after its purchase from Sylvan Learning Systems in 2000; the company was sold successfully to Kaplan in 2006. She was also a principal consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ higher education and nonprofit practice and the general manager of a nonprofit focused on school reform in Chicago. Amy earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She previously served on the advisory council at Tuck and the board of the Nichols School in Buffalo. She also co-founded and served on the board of the Mad Housers of Chicago, a homeless advocacy organization. She is currently a trustee of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, where she chairs the finance committee.
How can art be used to tackle mass incarceration?
Art can be powerful, as it tends to represent the soul, culture, and heartbeat of a civilization. When Agnes Gund, a philanthropist and civic leader for education of the arts, announced her plan to use the sale of her private collection to fund a new initiative, Art for Justice Fund was formed. The Art for Justice Fund is aimed at turning art into action by investing more than $100 million into strategic efforts to reform the criminal justice system and reduce mass incarceration.
Each year, nearly 2.3 million adults are incarcerated in the United States, and about 650,000 people are released from prison to low-wage jobs. The unemployment rate for this demographic is 60 percent just one-year one year after release. This featured fireside discussion will look at the Art for Justice Fund’s grant-making strategies to reduce mass incarceration and reform the criminal justice system. Their four strategies are: keeping people out of jail and prison; shortening sentences; promoting reentry; and changing the narrative through art.
Terrence Bogans, Advisor, Art for Justice Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc.
Amy Holmes, Director, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Raymond Horton, Frank R. Lautenberg Professor of Ethics and Corporate Governance; Faculty Director of Programs in Social Enterprise at Executive Education; and Founder of the Social Enterprise Program, Columbia Business School
Bios
Terrence Bogans oversees Art for Justice Fund activities and helps coordinate the fund’s staff and stakeholders, including donors and grantees. His focus is the fund’s grantmaking function, and he is also responsible for the day-to-day management of the initiative, specifically facilitating governing board activities, acting as an RPA liaison with the Ford Foundation, and supporting communications related to the fund. Terrence comes to RPA after years of both direct representation and policy-level advocacy within the criminal justice reform space. Most recently, Terrence was the director of bail operations at the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund (BCBF), a nonprofit that pays bail for low-income New Yorkers. There, he managed all aspects of bail payment, oversaw client referrals, and supervised a team of associates. Prior to BCBF, Terrence was a public defender at Brooklyn Defender Services, representing hundreds of clients per year. He holds a BA in psychology and sociology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Amy Holmes leads Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ New York Advisory team, and directs strategic planning and program development for families, donor collaboratives and private foundations. She helps donors define their philanthropic goals and implement giving programs to achieve them. She manages philanthropy focused on music, literature and the arts, education, green spaces, and criminal justice system reform, and has overseen large-scale disaster response and community resilience initiatives. Amy joined Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in 2004, and has researched and led giving programs in youth development, education, and the Afghan Women Leaders Connect collaborative fund. Amy previously served as Development Associate for the Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center, a settlement house in Yorkville and East Harlem in New York. She serves as Chair of the board of the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, and as Secretary of the board of Harlem United, an agency providing medical, social, and supportive services for adults with HIV/AIDS. Amy received a Master of Public Administration degree from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, and a B.A. from the College of William and Mary in English Literature.
A lawyer and political scientist, Professor Ray Horton teaches the popular elective course Modern Political Economy. A member of the Columbia Business School faculty since 1970, he served two years while on leave from the School as executive director of the Temporary Commission on City Finances during the New York City fiscal crisis, and later served 15 years as director of research and president of the Citizens Budget Commission. His publications on municipal finance and management include 14 books, numerous journal articles, and policy studies. In 1981, he founded the Public and Nonprofit Management Program at the School. In 2000, that program morphed into the Social Enterprise Program, which Horton directed until 2009. In 2009, he was named faculty director of Programs in Social Enterprise in the School’s Executive Education division.
Design for social impact
As IDEO.org’s website states, “the social sector needs a design organization that is willing to do things differently.” At the forefront of innovation, IDEO.org creates impact in the lives of low-income communities around the world through designing, teaching, and inspiring localized solutions to global systemic challenges. Known for their human-centered design, Ben Chase will go into what it takes to deliver success at IDEO.org and the innovations they are seeing and implementing around the world to address some of today’s most pressing issues.
Ben Chase, Managing Director, IDEO.org
Joseph Heritage ’17SIPA, Design lead, Columbia Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Design
Bios
Ben Chase is the managing director of IDEO.org’s Equity Practice. Based in IDEO.org’s New York studio, he helps build partnerships, support and guide program teams, and chart a course for the New York studio to make an impact on both local and global challenges. Prior to joining IDEO.org, Ben directed strategy teams at Purpose, a mission-driven consultancy and creative agency building social movements on global issues. As co-lead of the corporate practice, Ben helped brands define social impact goals and activate their audiences to realize that impact together. Previously, Ben served as a policy advisor in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, focusing on solid waste and public health. Ben began his career as an officer in the US Marine Corps, where he led teams and directed operations in the United States, East Asia, and the Middle East. A New York City native, Ben holds an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business with a specialization in marketing and an MFA in design and technology with honors from Parsons the New School for Design. Ben is an avid backcountry skier, illustrator, and a completely unsalvageable history nerd.
Joe Heritage is an agricultural development specialist and human centered designer with over 10 years of project design, facilitation, and project management experience. Joe has worked on agrarian-based social enterprises, agribusiness value chain development, IDP post-conflict resettlement, entrepreneurship accelerator training, human centered design, sustainable finance, and market access with a regional focus in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Joe lived in Kenya for seven years and co-founded and managed Freedom Global, a social enterprise that employs and educates internally displaced persons working in staple, livestock, and commodity crop value chains. Joe is currently the design lead at the Design Studio at Columbia University in New York where he leads workshops on social enterprise creation, need-finding, prototyping, ideation, and how to develop and deliver a strong pitch. He has led over 130 design workshops, taught over 4,000 students and coached dozens of early-stage startups. Additionally, he has acted as a design consultant for Columbia Genetics, Columbia Herbert Irving Cancer Center, Columbia Office of Alumni and Development, Columbia World Projects, Columbia Law, Columbia Engineering, Columbia Business School, SIPA, Lemann Foundation, The Obama Foundation Scholarship, CoWrks-India, Rainforest Alliance, One Acre Fund and UNDP-Innovation. Joe believes that at the intersection between sustainable development and human centered design, therein lies tremendous opportunity to create lasting solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Joe is leading the “Design for Social Innovation” program at Columbia Entrepreneurship; connecting student teams with international clients to create tangible and sustainable design deliverables to some of the world’s most complicated problems. Joe has worked in Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, Thailand, Brazil, Tunisia, India, Indonesia, is proficient in Kiswahili, and completed his MPA in development practice at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in May 2017.
Character, Community, and Capital: Insights on Social Justice
Wes Moore, CEO, Robin Hood
Melanie Edwards, Adjunct Professor, Social Entrepreneurship, Columbia Business School & Stanford; Founder & Board Chair, Mobile Metrix; Senior Portfolio Advisor, Echoing Green
Bios
Wes Moore is the CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty forces in the nation. He is a bestselling author, a combat veteran, and a social entrepreneur. Wes’ first book, The Other Wes Moore, a perennial New York Times bestseller, captured the nation’s attention on the fine line between success and failure in our communities and in ourselves. That story has been optioned by executive producer Oprah Winfrey and HBO to be made into a movie. He is also the author of the bestselling books The Work, Discovering Wes Moore, and This Way Home. Wes grew up in Baltimore and the Bronx, where he was raised by a single mom. Despite childhood challenges, he graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. He earned an MLitt in international relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. Wes then served as a captain and paratrooper with the United States Army’s 82nd Airborne, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. He later served as a White House Fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Before becoming CEO at Robin Hood, Wes was the founder and CEO at BridgeEdU, an innovative tech platform addressing the college completion and job placement crisis. BridgeEdU reinvents freshman year for underserved students. Wes remains chairman of the board of directors at BridgeEDU. He has also worked in finance as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in London and with Citigroup in New York. Wes’ proudest accomplishments are his two children with his wife Dawn.
Melanie Edwards educates the next generation of impact leaders for social and environmental change. As an adjunct professor at Stanford University and Columbia Business School, she instructs and advises undergraduate and graduate students in developing their impact ventures, careers and leadership. As senior portfolio advisor with Echoing Green, Melanie coaches global Climate Change Fellows on their award-winning ventures. Melanie founded the social venture Mobile Metrix, an inclusive market research company serving marginalized populations. By hiring local young adults to collect data on needs and impact in their own communities using handheld technology, life-saving products are more effectively designed for and channeled to hard-to-reach people. While under her leadership as CEO, Mobile Metrix was selected by Cannes Lions Innovation as one of the world’s “Top 50 companies innovating the future of marketing and market research”. She is an Echoing Green Fellow, PopTech Fellow, Social Capitalist (SoCap) Social Entrepreneur, AVINA Leader, PBS NewsHour Agent for Change and Fast Company Innovation Agent. Melanie was also a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University and a social entrepreneur-in-residence at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Previous to CEO of Mobile Metrix, Melanie worked in management with J.P. Morgan, International Data Group (IDG), and as an executive of key accounts at AT&T. She launched the Global Technology Corps, a “digital Peace Corps,” with the US Department of State and co-created the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS). She is also a Return Peace Corps Volunteer from Togo, Africa. Melanie was raised on a fourth-generation family farm in the rural Midwest, graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and received her master’s from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston.