Kenny Clewett, Spain
The most recent addition to the Ashoka team in Spain after a year as an intern, Kenny brings a multicultural mix to the organisation. Part of a missionary family in Spain for over 15 years, he has been involved for years in a diversity of programs and approaches in finding practical ways to serve the local community. From leading mission teams to more than 20 countries, to starting a web design company for NGOs, to founding an initiative that pushes musicians beyond simply playing music to getting involved in serving the community, Kenny has always worked towards provoking real transformations in the lives of those who need it the most. In his last years as a student obtaining his degree in Humanities from the Alcalá University Kenny has also been involved in setting up a collaboration program between Spain and Nepal as well as in the planning of Sunshine in Heart in China, an initiative that aims to teach top Chinese students values such as teamwork, leadership and integrity in practical ways through intense summer camps and year-round programs that involve people from over 20 nations. Now in Ashoka he is particularly excited about encouraging entrepreneurship and efficiency into the Spanish citizen sector. He spends most of his free time playing with musicians and travelling with pick-up bands.

Andres Dussan, United Kingdom
Andres is an experienced social entrepreneur and professor, with special expertise in social change projects in North and South America. His background includes work with non-profit, academic, government and private sectors. In 1992, while a student at Universidad de los Andes, in Bogota, Colombia, Andres recognized the power of universities to affect social change and so he founded and directed Opcion Colombia Corporation, a not-for-profit organization, implementing social development programs for governments and international organizations in a variety of countries in Latin America in partnership with hundreds of universities. The organization took off rapidly, soon handling 14 million US$ of contracts. The organization has since spread to other parts of Latin America and, while Andres remains involved, he decided that the leadership should remain in the hands of the students it serves. While at the University he also created a prize for social entrepreneurs. Since then he has worked in a variety of consulting roles and as a professor of social entrepreneurship. Andres worked until December 2007 at Ashoka Canada. Most recently, Andres moved to London, England, to direct Ashoka's Citizen Base Initiative in Europe. Andres also serves as a Director with Harbinger Foundation in Toronto. Born in Colombia, he has lived in Mexico, Brazil, the United States and Canada, and now lives in London with his Canadian wife and their two children.

Andres Falconer, United Kingdom
Andres joined Ashoka in 2007 as Managing Director of the Global Ashoka Support Network (ASN), and is overseeing ASN’s rapid expansion throughout the world. Before Ashoka, Andres served for six years as Executive Director of ABDL, a Brazilian NGO devoted to leadership for sustainable development, affiliated to the LEAD International Network. Prior to that, as he worked towards completing his Masters in Management, he co-founded and managed CEATS, the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Third Sector Management of the University of São Paulo. Andres was a fellow of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and is a partner of the AVINA Foundation. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he has lived most of his life in Brazil and is currently based in London. His main interests are civil society and building cross-sector bridges for sustainable development.

Jen Fry, Czech Republic
Jen has been with Ashoka for two and a half years and started as Executive Assistant to Bill Drayton. She is now a part of the Europe team as Europe Integrator – aiding in communication flow and coordination amongst the team and with the Global office. Jen is a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia with a B.S. in Neuroscience, and although she decided not to pursue scientific work, considers her knowledge of neural networks and psychology to be a strong foundation for understanding networks of social entrepreneurs. Jen is also a Gold Award Girl Scout and for her senior project worked with local nurse practitioners to organize and implement a Community Safety Day at the Boys & Girls Club. She was also Philanthropy Co-Chair and Chair for her college sorority for two years, coordinating annual campus-wide events to raise money for Prevent Child Abuse America. In her free time she tutors English, studies classical vocals, and serves as Prague Ambassador for Internations.org and as city administrator for MEETinPRAGUE, a 200+ member social networking group which she founded this past summer.

Silvia Giovannoni, United Kingdom
Silvia Giovannoni is the Global Program Director of Ashoka’s Support Network (ASN), working closely with the Program’s Managing Director and the Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur(E2E) team to further expand ASN. Silvia originally joined the UK team in October 2005 as a consultant to support the launch of the UK program, particularly systematizing the support provided by Ashoka to Fellows traveling through the UK. Silvia also played a key role in the European roll-out of the ASN program.
Silvia is a qualified lawyer in Brazil and relocated to London to pursue a Masters at Warwick University. As student her interests had always been geared towards the Third Sector, having led several initiatives that promoted Third Sector awareness, particularly in view of new legislations in the country at the time. After graduating, she joined a colleague who had set up her own law firm specializing in Third Sector law, where she concentrated on providing legal advice and support to a number of commercial and not-for profit clients – some of which have now been elected Ashoka Fellows in Brazil. She was born in Brazil, having lived in Rio, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Milan and now London.

Oda Heister, Germany
With an interest in economics and roots in a social-oriented familiy, Oda has always looked for ways to combine economic thinking and societal goals. She studied economics in Freiburg, Brighton (UK) and Berlin. In Berlin, she co-founded the Economic Forum with a focus on ethics and society. Looking for a way to build on her business and citizen sector interests, Oda went to Warsaw, Poland, where she worked for four years with a foundation on fostering democracy, social market economy and human rights. She created dialogue programs that brought together actors from the third sector, politics and business to overcome the communication gap between both worlds, and went on to start a new country program for the foundation in Belarus. When finding out about Ashoka, Oda felt that Ashoka and its programs were the missing link she had been looking for.

Ewa Konczal, Poland
As the Polish Country Representative, Ewa oversees the search and selection of Ashoka Fellows in Poland, as well as fellowship activities and marketing and communications. Ewa joined Ashoka in 1999 after spending time in India volunteering with the Global March Against Child Labour. Prior to that she worked with AIESEC in Egypt as Vice President for Human Resources Development.

Ewa is the founder of the Magic Mountain Foundation, which provides top-quality, life-changing experiences for disadvantaged, mentally challenged and marginalized youth through contact with the natural environment and active mountainous sports. They conduct mountain based rehabilitation programs and have created one of the few rock climbing areas in the world accessible for the physically disabled and mentally challenged.

Angela Lawaldt, Germany
Angela Lawaldt has engaged in numerous social, interreligious and intercultural projects since childhood. While at university she founded an arts-based youth program in Bosnia and Kosovo with the UNV that empowered young children in post-conflict areas to initiate change in their own lives. The program is still up and running. She also set up a university centre that helped students from East Germany develop the confidence and soft skills necessary to improve their career opportunities. Her interest in business led her to co-found a student management consultancy, a biotech-start up, and work in the human resources field for General Electric. Angela studied psychology and intercultural management at the Universities of Jena and Oxford where she researched on youth entrepreneurship and Islamic work ethics. She has German and Iranian roots and worked and lived in Germany, Canada, the UK and Israel. Looking to integrate her various interests Angela started freelancing in the field of social entrepreneurship only to find her home with Ashoka's visions and goals.


Ben Metz, United Kingdom
Ben Metz joined Ashoka to lead development in the UK.  During the course of his career he has been involved with the raising of circa £100million of grant funds from central government, the lottery, foundations and the private sector.  Ben is a successful social entrepreneur who brings to Ashoka 16 years of experience in community and environmental regeneration and running not-for-profit enterprises in the UK.  He has founded grassroots campaigning and housing organizations, a number of social enterprises and served as a director or advisor to several not-for-profit organizations. Ben brings to Ashoka the hands-on experience of being a social entrepreneur in the UK, a passionate commitment to the modernization and growth of the UK third sector, and eagerness to build bridges with the business sector and facilitate cooperation with social entrepreneurs worldwide.

Paul O'Hara, Ireland
Based in Dublin, Paul is directing Ashoka and Youth Venture in building the organization in Ireland and launching key programmes in support of social entrepreneurs. Born and raised in the beautiful West of Ireland, Paul studied Commerce at NUI, Galway, Marketing at the Smurfit School of Business - University College Dublin, and spent the next five years working in various marketing and commercial roles at Unilever Bestfoods and Cadbury Schweppes. In 2005, Paul founded a social enterprise called The Hope Concept that would launch a new bottled water brand with all profits to be transferred to innovative water projects in Africa. Recognising this opportunity, two of Irelands leading bottled water companies, including Coca-Cola and Tipperary Water, entered the market with products that promise to contribute €millions to water initiatives in the developing world through new partnerships with UNICEF and Concern. Paul’s experiences have shown him the power of entrepreneurship and competition for creating positive social change, the possibilities for building productive partnerships between the business and social sectors and the challenges that social entrepreneurs face in bringing their ideas to fruition … all of which brought him to Ashoka.

Ryszard Praszkier, Poland
Dr. Ryszard Praszkier is the Professional Development and Training Director for International Staff in Ashoka and is the Director for Bridge for Universities and Society (BUS), Global Initiative of Ashoka. Ryszard joined Ashoka as the Poland Country Director for Ashoka in 1994.
Prior to working at Ashoka, Ryszard was a practicing family psychotherapist, Founding Director of the Community Mental Health Center for Children and Youth in Warsaw, and the Polish national supervisor for psychotherapy. He has authored over 20 books and articles on the emotional dimension of children and families, and has presented at international conferences on family psychotherapy in England, Finland, Germany, Austria, and the U.S.
During the 1980s, Ryszard participated in the underground Polish Solidarity movement and was consultant for Solidarity candidates for the first free elections in 1989. In the early 1990’s he was a co-founder of several grassroots NGOs.
He has coordinated Ashoka's expansion to the Baltics and has helped in building nominator networks in the US. Ryszard also participated in launching Ashoka in Ireland and Great Britain.
Along with staff and Ashoka Fellows in Poland, Ryszard launched Ashoka's School for Social Entrepreneurship (BUS), an initiative designed to link business students and social entrepreneurs in productive, hands-on internships. He has been involved in designing Ashoka's staff training programs and has facilitated training events for staff.
Ryszard also collaborates with the University of Warsaw researching social entrepreneurship, has completed a research analysis “Social Entrepreneurs and Social Activists: A Comparative Analysis,” and has authored and co-authored several articles on this issue. His Ph.D. dissertation was on the specific personality traits and specific methods used by social entrepreneurs.
Ryszard has chaired the Ashoka selection panels in Canada (twice,) Uganda (twice,) Nepal (3 times,) Pakistan (3 times,) Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Indonesia, has done 2nd opinion reviews in USA, Hungary and Germany.

Seyda Taluk, Turkey
Seyda’s lifelong interest in social issues led her to Ashoka, where she assumed leadership of Ashoka Turkey in January 2006. Before joining Ashoka, Seyda pioneered the field of social and political communications in Turkey. As a social entrepreneur, Seyda has been instrumental in advancing women’s rights in Turkey. With a few others, she founded Ka.Der, a prominent citizen organization begun in the early 1990s to secure greater women's representation in Turkish politics. In the years since its founding, the ratio of female to male politicians in Turkey has increased dramatically, in part a result of Ka.Der’s persistent and creative efforts to shape policy and help women see a new role for themselves. Seyda has an MA in Political Science and a BA in Journalism and Public Relations, and lectures at Istanbul-area universities on political and social campaigning, public relations, and media relations.

Filip Vagac, Ashoka Central Europe and Baltics
Filip was a student during the Velvet Revolution, very much living two separate lives: one as a student of geophysics and the other as a leader in the anti-regime student movements. After the Revolution, contrary to the paths of many of his peers, he gave up geophysics in order to pursue a career in public service. Filip was elected as the Chairman of the Youth Council of Slovakia, where he served as full time CEO for three years. During a two year Fellowship to study Nonprofit Management in the United States, he gained many skills and experiences which he later applied to the launching of Children of Slovakia Foundation. For five years Filip grew this organization, starting initiatives such as the "Children's Hour", a fundraising strategy where employees are able to donate the equivalent of one hour's pay from their monthly salary. As over 250,000 people donated to the organization through the "Children's Hour", Filip and his team made this an annual event. After successfully launching and stabilizing the Children of Slovakia Foundation, Filip was eager to gain experiences in other sectors. This interest led him to work for the Embassy of the Slovak Republic. He then pursued an understanding of the business sector so he took a job as CEO for a consulting business specializing in EU funding. Most recently, he was responsible for running the presidential campaign of the former ambassador, a former leader from the NGO sector. Although the candidate was unlikely to win, Filip wanted the experience and the opportunity to work with a leader with such strong ideas. Now that Filip has situated himself in the middle of three significant sectors, he is eager to "operate from somewhere in the middle" and is excited to work with Ashoka.

Christelle Van Ham, France
Christelle joined Ashoka in January 2005 as an intern before finishing her Master's from HEC School of Management in Paris. Her thesis explored philanthropic strategy and evaluation tools. She was also instrumental in making her university's international theater festival a participatory platform for student debate and exchange. Christelle grew up in a small French town, but her passion for diversity and foreign cultures led her to study in Paris, Dublin, and Ann Arbor (Michigan, U.S.), and to work in Germany, the United States, and France. Led by the belief that open-mindedness, creativity and participation can solve some of society's most pressing issues, she has organized social and cultural events such as roundtables on Africa's future and food-drives for the homeless; she also co-piloted a student relief mission to Belarus in 2002. At Ashoka's global office in Arlington, Virginia, she worked on the Africa and Middle East teams, and with Ashoka's global recruiting challenge. Christelle is thrilled to be back in Paris to contribute to Ashoka's Youth Venture expansion in Europe.

Lilli von Bodman, Germany
Lilli von Bodman joins Ashoka from the Quandt Foundation where she was responsible for scholarship programs that brought students from Eastern Europe and Latin America to Germany. She also set up a forum at the WHU, a renowned management school in Germany, to raise awareness about social and political issues among students and to attract stakeholders from business and politics to engage in campus life. While at university, Lilli studied economics in Germany and India with a focus on development theory. In Mumbai, she built up an organization that worked with street children and innovated creative methods to combat the spread of HIV/Aids. Her program replicated nation-wide. Lilli grew up in Germany, Belgium and the former communist Soviet Union – an experience that she felt made her realize at a very young age how important human rights and freedom of speech are for society's development. She is excited to join the European Youth Venture Team, and to empower young children to create and experience change. Lilli loves traveling, particularly through Asia, and plays the piano

Maria Zapata, Spain
In 1999, while working in GE Capital México, Maria helped Ashoka México launch the E2 Program, fostering a unique alliance with GE to promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences between Ashoka Fellows & GE Executives. In 2003, Maria joined Ashoka to launch the organization in Spain and Western Europe. Prior to Ashoka, Maria worked for General Electric in several countries including the US, UK, Netherlands, Mexico and Spain. She had various roles in Finance, Sales, and Integration of newly acquired businesses. As Quality Leader, Maria focused on improving GE´s service levels & internal/external processes. Maria was a Board member of GE Elfun Mexico (GE Volunteers Association) and GE Fund Mexico (the company's philanthropic arm). She was also Mexico Launch Director & Regional Leader of the GE Women´s Network (created to Foster Professional Women´s Development and Growth). Maria was part of an innovative pan-European university program and holds a Business degree sponsored by five leading European Universities. She is also an FMP (Leading Financial Program in Corporate America) Graduate.