Ashoka
2016 Globalizer London - Strategy Thought Partners
David Rothschild
As Director of Social Entrepreneurship with Fossil Group, David Rothschild leads the Fossil Foundation’s global grants program, with an emphasis on unleashing the potential of underserved youth. Prior to Fossil, David was a Principle at the Skoll Foundation where he developed and structured funding opportunities to drive large scale change. David has worked for the Goldman Environmental Foundation where he was responsible for the Latin America and Africa program areas, as well as for the Inter-American Development Bank in Venezuela on a watershed management project. For the Field Museum of Chicago David managed a community-led mapping and conservation initiative in the Bolivian Amazon. From 1997 to 2003 David led the Amazon Alliance, a strategic partnership between environmental and indigenous organizations of the Amazon.
Gib Bulloch
Gib Bulloch is Founder and former Executive Director of Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), a corporate social enterprise hosted within Accenture, whose clients include many of the major international NGOs and development agencies. Gib is a regular blogger and speaker on the role of business in development, cross-sectoral partnerships/convergence and has played a key role in promoting the emerging concept of social intrapreneurship as co-founder of The League of Intrapreneurs and as a Visiting Fellow at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield University. In 2008, he was named as the Sunday Times sponsored Management Consultant of the Year in the Best Partner/Director category. Gib is a member of the UK Secretary of State for International Development’s Economic Development Advisory Group. Gib left Accenture in January 2016 to pursue new interests within the development sector.
Hanne Rasmussen
Hanne Rasmussen joined the LEGO Foundation on March 1, 2015 and has more than 20 years of experience with humanitarian and development work. She comes from a position as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in SOS Children’s Villages International – a global organization with 30,000 employees and programmes covering as much as 2 million people. Here Hanne’s main responsibility has been the global programme network – children’s development, SOS Children’s villages, schools, social centers and emergency relief. Previous work experience includes Danish Refugee Council and UNICEF Denmark. Hanne holds an MBA from Henley Business School.
Jeff Dunn
Jeff Dunn is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sesame Workshop. He leads the nonprofit educational organization in creating content that helps children grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Most recently, Dunn served as a 2014 Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) Fellow at Harvard University. Harvard’s ALI Fellowship is a unique, university-wide executive program for designing solutions to large-scale societal problems such as improvements in educational quality and healthcare delivery. Dunn served as the President and CEO of HiT Entertainment from 2008 until it was sold to Mattel in 2012. Prior to HiT, Dunn was the Chief Operating Officer of the Nickelodeon Networks group and the President of Nickelodeon Film and Enterprises. In less than 10 years, he built Nickelodeon Film and Enterprises into the world’s largest new media business for kids, the largest kids publishing brand, the largest producer of live family stage shows and the third largest licensing business in the world.
Jeffrey Montgomery
Jeffrey Montgomery is the Founder and Chairman of GMT Communications Partners, a pioneer in providing private equity for the telecoms, media and technology industries in Europe. GMT has raised $1 billion over 3 funds and invested in 39 companies across 19 countries. He has an MBA from the Wharton School, an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and is a fellow of the Lauder Institute of International Studies. He holds a BA from Hobart College. Jeff is a Trustee of The Hawn Foundation (US/UK), We Are Family Foundation (UK) and Finding Rhythms (UK).
Jeffrey Defries
Jeffrey Defries is the founder of the charity icould, an online resource of 1200 video career stories told by real people; the site attracts over 130,000 unique users per month. He was Chief Executive of CRAC, the specialist career and research charity, from 2006 to 2012. After early appointments in university administration, Jeffrey joined the Institute of Cancer Research in 1977, first as Deputy Secretary and then as Secretary. He was Assistant Director of the Science Museum between 1988 and 1998 before moving to London Business School where he held the post of Deputy Dean and Secretary from 1998 to 2001 He was Director of Corporate Services of NHSU from 2002 – 2005 CPFA qualified, Jeffrey has held a number of not-for-profit and charity board positions in the UK and Europe. For several years he maintained a role as Senior Advisor to EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development). He is a Fellow of the RSA.
Jeremy Large
Jeremy is a trader at the hedge fund, Tudor Investments, where he devises and manages various quantitative investment strategies. He also lectures, does research, and helps to manage a part of the endowment at Oxford University, where he is a Fellow in Economics at St Hugh’s College. After beginning his career in business strategy at Boston Consulting Group in 2001, he retrained as an economist. His economics and finance research subsequently appeared in several globally renowned journals. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 2005 and left to join the hedge fund industry in 2008.
Lior Shalev
Lior Shalev is one of Israel’s most passionate voices for transforming society through the combination of tech and social entrepreneurship. He is the founder and CEO of Infogan, an ed-tech startup that links parents and preschools. In three years, Infogan has scaled to serve more than 10% of Israel’s preschool marketplace. He is on the board of a few additional startups that combine tech with social commitment in agriculture and medtech. Lior has more than 10 year track record of seeding and enabling social impact organizations in all sectors of Israeli society, starting with his founding role in Topaz, one of Israels biggest NGO’s in the social entrepreneurship field. He is a board member of UNICEF-Israel and several other NGO’s focused on transforming society through social entrepreneurship. He is an active lecturer speaker of social entrepreneurship, giving recent talks at DLD TLV and the General Assembly of United Jewish Federations. Lior is a voice that is helping to turn the “startup nation” into the “give back” nation.
Mark Cheng
Since joining Ashoka, originally as a business mentor in 2007, Mark has assisted many Ashoka Fellows in raising investment. He has raised capital for projects across many sectors, including microfinance, renewable energy, conservation, healthcare, and education. Mark is founding Director of Chelwood Capital, a social investment firm that supports mission-driven organisations. He has more than 15 years of experience in finance having previously worked at Deutsche Bank and AMBAC Assurance. Since 2010 he has been sponsored by Hogan Lovells as a Senior Advisor to Ashoka on Social Finance.
Mark Dytham
Known for his ultramodern work, Mark’s modernist architectural style combines both Eastern and Western elements. Mark set up his own company with fellow Royal College of Art graduate Astrid Klein, called Klein-Dytham architecture. Mark’s philosophy towards architecture is simple; he injects humour and playfulness into his projects; Klein-Dytham were called ‘architectural funsters’, by Architectural Review. His energy and entrepreneurialism in the field was recognised in 2000 when he received an MBE from the Queen for his services to British design in Japan. In 2008, Klein-Dytham Architecture received the prestigious Innovation Award by the British Business Awards. Mark is also founder of SuperDeluxe and PechaKucha. SuperDeluxe was founded in 2002 as a creative space for independent artists to exhibit and display their works. Since 2003, PechaKucha is a rapid-fire presentation technique and usually involves presentation nights as a space to collaborate and share ideas. It has now gone global, reaching over 230 cities worldwide.
Nicolas Ponset
Apart from driving the future direction of Aleron as a business, Nicolas also leads Aleron engagements, supporting senior managers to identify and manage critical organisational issues and key stakeholders. Leveraging his expertise in strategy and reorganisation gained from over 15 years in the commercial sector, Nicolas brings a hands-on approach to any key strategic or operational issue faced by clients. Prior to founding Aleron, Nicolas was a Director in Strategy & Business Development at JPMorgan. He worked with the senior leadership across regions on the international expansion (organic and M&A) of JPMorgan’s wholesale bank, product and market growth strategies and the performance improvement of several lines of business. Previously, he held senior business development and line-role positions in both Accenture and IBM where he was involved in strategy development, large transformation programmes and outsourcing transactions. He also successfully restructured a global business unit over a 16-month period – restoring profitability through cost reduction initiatives and business refocusing.
Osman Zafar
Osman is a Senior Legal Advisor for Oxford University Press (OUP). He primarily advises OUP’s Asia Education division on legal issues arising in India and Pakistan, travelling regularly to the sub-continent. He also supports OUP’s English Language Teaching (ELT) division and other parts of the business on EU competition law issues. As a competition/antitrust lawyer in private practice for nearly a decade, he focused on the interface of EU competition law with intellectual property. Until recently he was the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the creative arts charity, People United. He remains a trustee, with oversight of the charity’s governance and legal issues.
Paul Lindley
Paul Lindley founded baby and toddler food brand Ella’s Kitchen in 2006. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG, then spent 9 years at children’s TV brand Nickelodeon. Paul has achieved several Entrepreneur of the Year and Business Person of the Year awards, and in 2013 was awarded an honorary doctorate for his work on children’s health and entrepreneurship. In 2014 Paul co-founded a social business The Key is E with South Sudanese, ex child soldier and award winning hip hop artist Emmanuel Jal which uses education and entrepreneurship to empower and engage Africa’s brightest social entrepreneurs to build businesses that improve children’s lives. In 2015 Paul launched Paddy’s Bathroom, a brand of natural and organic toiletries for young children in the UK and US, that makes getting clean as fun as it was to get dirty, whilst also creating safe, clean water for children in Rwanda through its integrated Drop Buy Drop program. Paul is an ambassador for the Family and Childcare Trust and a Counsellor at One Young World.
Sam Conniff
Sam Conniff, Co-Founder of Livity became a creative entrepreneur at 21 launching his first business, Don't Panic, from his bedroom, now a global franchise, cult youth brand and online community. Sam set up Livity to harness the power of brands and communications as a force for social change. Livity works with the worlds biggest brands, government, charities and, most importantly, young people, co-creating successful communications. Sam created the world's first interactive multi platform series Dubplate Drama. Dubplate Drama pioneered an innovative interactive mechanism to draw viewers into decision-making dilemma moments, engaging them in social issues and sensitive topics. Sam was appointed by the Cabinet Office as a UK Social Enterprise Ambassador, is a fellow of the RSA, on the review board of Cranfield University's Strategic Marketing MSC and a Community Governor at the Livity School for children with complex needs.
Sandeep Sachdeva
Sandeep Sachdeva, Founder-CEO of UKIN Global Solutions, is an international banker who, after running large global banking businesses in three continents, retired in his mid-40s to pursue his personal interests. He is now an Angel Investor with special interests in Social Enterprises and his firm provides growth and financial advisory to a range of large and medium social and conventional enterprises. He is also a co-founder and CEO of the www.safeinIndia.org, a worker safety initiative in India. Sandeep is an engineering graduate and MBA from IIT and IIM India. He currently divides his time between London with family, India with workers, and anywhere else golf or yoga take him.
Sheila Manji
Ms. Sheila Manji has been with Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) in Geneva since 2009. As Senior Programme Officer, Education she is the global lead for AKF’s early childhood development initiatives (birth to 8 years). Her role includes providing technical and strategic support to AKF’s early childhood programmes in over 15 countries, institutional strengthening, knowledge creation and policy dialogue. Additionally, she spearheads the Aga Khan Development Network Science of Early Child Development (AKDN SECD) initiatives in close collaboration with the Aga Khan University Institute for Human Development, Red River College and the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development at the University of Toronto. These initiatives aim to build a common understanding of early child development across multiple sectors and geographies through online and face to face settings furthering the Network’s commitment to ensuring young children reach their full potential. Prior to joining the Foundation, Sheila spent two years teaching Grade 5 in Mexico. Sheila holds a Master of Arts in Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning and Comparative, International and Development Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Education in Primary/Junior Education from Queen’s University.
Wendy Kopp
Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations that are cultivating their nations’ promising future leaders to ensure their most marginalized children have the chance to fulfill their true potential. Wendy founded Teach For America in 1989 to marshal the energy of her generation against educational inequity in the United States. After leading Teach For America’s growth and development for 24 years, in 2013, Wendy transitioned out of the role of CEO. Today, she remains an active member of Teach For America's board. Wendy has been recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards for public service. She serves on the Board of New Profit and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All (2011) and One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way (2000).