Ashoka Panelists
Anousheh Ansari
Anousheh Ansari
Country:On September 18, 2006, Anousheh Ansari captured headlines around the world as the first female private space explorer travelling to and staying onboard the International Space Station for 10 days. Afterwards, back on Earth as a successful serial entrepreneur, Anousheh returned to her job as Co-founder and Chairman of her latest technology company, Prodea Systems. In her previous endeavor in 2001, Anousheh had served as Co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the board for Telecom Technologies, Inc.
An active proponent of world-changing technologies and social entrepreneurship, in 2004 Anousheh and her family provided the title sponsorship for the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million cash award for the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. Furthermore, Anousheh currently works to enable social entrepreneurs to bring about radical change globally, with organizations such as ASHOKA and the PARSA Community Foundation. She also hopes her tale of determination, hope and success inspires children to dream big and study hard to overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams.
Marc Castagnet
Marc Castagnet
Country:Marc Castagnet, Director of ICS, holds MBA degrees from both France and USA. After a career in banking in New York and starting his business in China in 1989, he started SgT Group in the 1990s and sold it in 2009. SgT has been a pioneer in offering quality control and outsourcing supply chain services in the garment and fabric industry and first introduced value added services at logistic platforms 7 years ago. SgT has 24 offices in 15 countries (Northeast and Southeast Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Africa, Europe and USA) and was sold to a private equity group. Marc holds multiple directorships in entrepreneurial companies in Asia and Europe. ICS services is an investment vehicle company serving companies in Real Estate, Tourism, Education and Wine mainly in Europe, Asia and North Africa and USA.
Marc also holds several official positions at different trade and business organizations. Namely, he is a Member of Young President Organization International (YPO) and Chair of the North Asia Economic Development Network; he is an Executive Council Director of Global Maritime Logistics Council since June 2006 and he is an Associate Member of International Apparel Federation (IAF). He is also a regular speaker at different supply chain and logistics summits and conferences. He is also a member of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce where he holds the Vice Chairmanship of the Europe and Asia-Africa committees.
Willie Cheng
Willie Cheng
Country:Willie Cheng is a former partner of Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm. Prior to his retirement in 2003, he was the country managing director of Singapore and the managing partner of its Communications and High Tech practice in Asia.
Since his retirement, he has stayed involved with the business and the InfoComm community. He sits on the boards of Singapore Press Holdings, NTUC Fairprice and Singapore Health Services. However, he spends the larger part of his time working with nonprofit organizations at the board and volunteer level. Among these, he is Chairman of the Lien Centre for Social Innovation and Caritas Singapore, and a Director of Council for Third Age, Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and the Singapore Golf Association. He is also a founding partner of Asia Philanthropic Ventures and was formerly Chairman of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre where he started applying his management consulting background to nonprofit work.
He is a member of the Ashoka Support Network and is helping with the establishment of Ashoka’s social-business hub in Singapore. Mr. Cheng has written extensively on the nonprofit sector. He is author of Doing Good Well: What does (and does not) make sense in the nonprofit world (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) and is currently editing a new book on the issues, trends and future of the social sector. Mr. Cheng lives in Singapore with his wife, Julie, and two sons, Ian and Ivan. He can be contacted at willie@doinggoodwell.net
Dermot Desmond
Dermot Desmond
Country:Dermot Desmond was born in Cork in 1950. His family moved to Dublin in 1956. He was educated at Scoil Mhuire in Marino and at Good Counsel College in New Ross. Before setting up his own company in 1981, he worked for Citibank, the Investment Bank of Ireland and as a banking consultant for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Europe. He founded NCB in 1981 and grew the business to become Ireland's largest independent stockbroker. In 1994 he sold NCB to the National Westminster Bank (now The Royal Bank of Scotland).
He is Chairman of International Investment & Underwriting (IIU), which he founded in 1995. IIU is a private company, operating from the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin, specialising in direct equity investment and underwriting, funds management and capital markets trading. Prior to founding IIU in 1995, he established a number of software companies serving the financial services sector. Through his private equity company IIU, he has investments in a variety of start-up and established businesses worldwide, in the areas of financial services, technology, education, information systems, leisure, aviation, health and sport.
He is Chairman of a charity called ‘Respect’, which was set-up by the Daughters of Charity to raise funds to develop their services to people with a mental and physical handicap. He is a Board member of several companies, charities and educational bodies. He is also a trustee of the Chester Beatty Library. He is a sports enthusiast, an eclectic art collector and a keen golfer with aspirations!
Ulrich Dietz
Ulrich Dietz
Country:Ulrich Dietz, born in 1958, founded the internationally leading IT service provider GFT in 1987 and has been Chairman of the Executive Board of GFT Technologies AG since its IPO in 1999. The GFT Group currently employs around 1,200 full-time and around 1,500 freelance employees at 20 locations in seven countries. In 2009, GFT’s turnover totalled approx. € 220 million. Ulrich Dietz studied mechanical engineering and product engineering at the university of Reutlingen and Furtwangen and graduated as a certified engineer. He is the co-founder of the Transfer Centre for Information Technology (TZI) at the Steinbeis Foundation for business development. Apart from his function as CEO of GFT Technologies AG, Ulrich Dietz is active as a member in international boards. In 2003, Ulrich Dietz became a member of the Presiding Committee of BITKOM (the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media). In this role, he is particularly committed to the promotion and the expansion of international relations in the German IT industry. Furthermore, he is a member of the task force which represents “ICT country Germany and innovative business applications” within the scope of the federal government’s National IT Summit. Within the framework of his activities it is Mr Dietz’s main aim to improve Germany’s position as an innovative country, as well as to promote entrepreneurship in the area of ICT.
Bill Drayton
Bill Drayton
Country:As one of the world’s leading thinkers on social change, Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship. He is the CEO and founder of Ashoka, a global organization that elects over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. Through Ashoka, Bill has introduced the world to a fundamentally new model of how ideas can change social systems across the globe, improving the lives of millions. In recognition of his achievement in the field of social entrepreneurship, Bill is the recipient of this year's Martin Essl Social Prize, which comes with a value of € 1,000,000 and will support the first edition of the Globalizer.
Bill has gained international acclaim and is recognized as a visionary. He was named one of America’s 25 Best Leaders by US News and World Report in 2005-2006. In 2004, he was renowned as one of Fast Company’s "Fast 50," a group of "idea elite" who are pushing their industries forward with the power of their vision. In 2002, Business Week named Ashoka’s approach to philanthropy as one of the eleven "most innovative" of the organizations it surveyed. Bill was also elected one of the early MacArthur Fellows for his work, including the founding of Ashoka. He has been a speaker at the World Economic Forum and has addressed audiences around the world.
Bill developed his ideas across an array of fields. As an Assistant Administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he successfully led a series of major innovations and reforms in the field, such as the introduction of emissions trading or the use of economic-defined incentives to remove the advantage of delaying compliance. During his time as a management consultant with McKinsey & Co, he gained wide experience serving both public and private clients, and built his understanding of how organizations operate. He also served briefly in the White House and taught both law and management at Stanford Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Universities.
Martin Essl
Martin Essl
Country:Martin Essl is CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of bauMax Group. In 2007, he founded the Essl Social Prize, an annual international award for social initiatives that offers sustainable support to those who help people in need. Mr. Essl first joined the Schömer bauMax group in 1984 as a Management Assistant where he built a controlling and cost accounting system and developed an enterprise resource planning system. He also served as the Managing Director and Vice-Chairman of the Management Board of the Schömer bauMax Group from 1989 until 1999.
Mr. Essl is a member of the Federal Association of the German DIY, building and garden specialist stores; and a member of the Board of EDRA (European DIY Retail Association). As CEO of bauMax, he was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in 2006 and also as one of the best employers in 2008. In 2005, Fortune Magazine rated bauMax as one of the ten top workplaces in Europe. Mr. Essl graduated from the Handeslakademie (Higher Secondary Business School) in 1982.
Richard Fishman
Richard Fishman
Country:Richard Fishman -- lawyer, technology executive and venture capitalist -- has recently become a member of Ashoka's senior leadership team. In 1972, fresh out of law school, Richard founded and directed the first Housing and Economic Development Law Program in the southern U.S. His success in developing innovative structures for financing low- and moderate-income housing and counseling minority business entrepreneurs led to his selection as Director of the American Bar Association's National Housing Law Program and Executive Director of the ABA-sponsored Commission on Housing and Urban Growth. In 1977, Richard became partner at the national law firm, Kutak Rock, and built one of the largest housing finance practices in the U.S., representing both state and local housing finance agencies and investment banks. Subsequently, at the international law firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, he headed the firm's Structured Finance practice, representing Wall Street investment banks in structuring and issuing corporate and asset-backed securities. He served as Managing Partner of the Washington, DC, offices of both firms. In 1994, Richard became President of Thinking Machines Corporation, which developed and manufactured the world's fasted supercomputers at the time. He reorganized and restructured Thinking Machines, selling its three core components to three major tech companies. As Thinking Machine's employees moved on to create new businesses in the early days of the Web, Richard was sought out as advisor and investor, and through three successive venture capital vehicles, had the good fortune to participate in nine IPOs. Richard has served on the boards of numerous publicly-traded and privately-held companies, and non-profit organizations.
Lance Fors
Lance Fors
Country:Lance received his BA from UC-Berkeley and his PhD from the California Institute of Technology, both in molecular biology. During his school years he also assembled a large real estate portfolio that he continues to own and manage. After receiving his PhD, Lance founded and built Third Wave Technologies into a leading DNA diagnostics company. Since Third Wave, Lance has focused on social entrepreneurship, founding and building a special needs housing provider, and venture philanthropy. In venture philanthropy, Lance currently serves as Chairman of the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2), New Teacher Center, and Reading Partners; a director of Social Venture Partners International and Jumpstart; and an advisor to a number of high-growth nonprofits. Lance is also lead director and co-owner of Lance Construction Supplies, an inventor on dozens of patents, an Ernst and Young entrepreneur of the year award recipient, and an avid tennis player and swimmer.
Arvind Gupta
Arvind Gupta
Country:Arvind Gupta is the Lead Finance Specialist in the Innovation Practice Group of the World Bank Institute where he manages the Development Marketplace Program of the World Bank. Arvind has more than 30 years experience in credit and portfolio risk assessment and management, and financial system and private sector development and regulation. He joined the World Bank in 1990 and has worked in the East Asia, Africa and Middle East Regions of the Bank and in the Industry and Finance and Private Sector Development Departments of the World Bank and IFC. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked in credit origination, risk assessment and risk control in corporate, agriculture and project finance in commercial banks in India. In 1985 he established the US office of the Export-Import Bank of India and until 1990 managed that bank’s lending and business development operations in North and South America. His academic background is in sciences and business management.
Ta-lin Hsu
Ta-lin Hsu
Country:Dr. Ta-lin Hsu is Founder and Chairman of H&Q Asia Pacific and has been investing in Asia for over 20 years. He joined Hambrecht & Quist Group in 1985 as a General Partner and founded H&Q Asia Pacific in 1986. Since inception, H&Q Asia Pacific has managed over $2.6 billion in capital, operates from eight offices throughout the region and has invested in more than 300 companies. Prior to H&Q, Dr. Hsu worked at IBM for 12 years. In his last position in senior management, Dr. Hsu held corporate responsibility for all of IBM’s advanced research in mass storage systems and technology.
Dr. Hsu received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley and a B.S. degree in Physics from National Taiwan University. Dr. Hsu plays an active role in developing business and policy relationships between the U.S. and Asia, including advisory positions with government, academic and industry organizations. Dr. Hsu was a founding member of the prestigious Technology Review Board, a group established to advise the Executive Branch of Taiwan on all technology matters. Dr. Hsu is a member of the Board of Directors for Marvell Semiconductor, an Advisory Board Member of the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Vice Chairman of Give2Asia, and represents H&Q Asia Pacific at the World Economic Forum.
Paul Bernhard Kallen
Paul Bernhard Kallen
Country:Diploma in Economics, University of Bonn;
PhD in Economics; University of Cologne.
1986 - 88, Assistant to Chief Executive Officer, PHB Weserhuette AG;
1988 -96, with McKinsey & Co principal;
1996, Managing Director of Burda Services, Munich.
Since 1999, Member of Executive Board of Hubert Burda Media (Technology, Digital Media, International, Treasury & Finance). CEO since January 1st 2010.
Olivier Kayser
Olivier Kayser
Country:In January 2009, Olivier founded Hystra (www.hystra.com), a global consulting firm that works with business and social sector pioneers to implement hybrid strategies and innovative business approaches that are profitable and scalable. They are designed to eradicate social and environmental problems, requiring the combination of insights and resources from the business and citizen sectors. Hystra’s first five clients are among the top 20 largest French corporations.
From 2003 to 2008, Olivier was Vice-President Europe of Ashoka, a global not-for-profit organization supporting social entrepreneurs. He launched its Paris and London offices, and designed and launched what is now the Ashoka Support Network, a rapidly growing global network of over 250 business people who support social entrepreneurs financially and with expertise. He was a leader in Ashoka’s global “Hybrid Value Chain” initiative, fostering partnerships between corporations and social entrepreneurs.
From 1985 to 2003, Olivier was with McKinsey&Company, being elected a Partner in 1991 and a Senior Partner in 1998. From 1998 to 2003, Olivier led the Corporate Finance & Strategy practice in France and served several leading industrial groups and private equity firms. From 1995 to 1998, Olivier was based in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, serving leading multinationals throughout Asia (China, India, Korea, and SEA), designing entry strategies, identifying JV partners or acquisition targets and restructuring their operations. He also initiated and led McKinsey’s first client relationship with a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise. From 1985 to 1995, Olivier was based in Paris (with a one-year stint in Chicago). He served industrial (including a Korean chaebol) and transportation companies in a range of strategy, organization and operations projects.
From 1980 to 1984, Olivier founded and led TER (Transports, Etudes, Recherche), a consulting firm specializing in Transportation economics. From 1979 to 1980, Olivier lived for one year in Belize living from shipping and trade. Since 2006, Olivier is a non-executive member of the board of two subsidiaries of La Poste, Coliposte and GeoPost (a €3 billion leader in the road express parcels industry) where he chairs the Strategy Committee. Since 2010, Olivier is also a board member of Belron, the global market leader in vehicle glass repair (Carglass). He is also a member of Danone’s Social Innovation Advisory Board and a board member of three non-profits: the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the Center for Digital Inclusion-Europe and LightYearsIP.
Olivier holds a diploma from HEC (1979). He was born in France in 1957 and spent his teenage years in Spain. He married his wife Christine in 1980. They have three children.
Nihar Kothari
Nihar Kothari
Country:Nihar Kothari is the Director and Executive Editor of the Patrika group of companies. He is currently in charge of editorial planning and readership development of the newspaper. Nihar holds a Masters Degree in Economics from University of Rajasthan and is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Rajasthan Patrika (owned by Patrika Group) is one of the largest media houses in India owning newspapers, cable networks, electronic media, radio stations, outdoor media, event management, education, mobile publishing, web publishing, publication, yellow pages etc. The flagship activity is Rajasthan Patrika, one of the largest circulated Hindi dailies of India with several editions across the country. Patrika is simultaneously published from a dozen cities in Rajasthan and also from other Indian cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Bhopal and Indore. Patrika is a widely read newspaper with a daily circulation of almost 2.2 million copies and an astounding readership of over 20 million. It is among the top five most read Hindi daily newspapers of India. The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has ranked Rajasthan Patrika as the 29th largest newspaper in the world. Patrika is placed among the top five successful Asian Community Newspapers in a survey conducted by AMIC and Singapore for UNESCO. Today Rajasthan Patrika is not just among the world's top 30 newspapers (World Association of Newspapers), it is a complete media conglomerate having spread its wings to web portals, yellow pages, outdoor advertising, mobile value added service, FM Radio, events, publications, Cable Network, among many other fast growing ventures.
Lawrence F. Lunt
Lawrence F. Lunt
Country:Lawrence (Larry) Lunt is a private investor from Belgium who manages Armonia (www.armoniallc.com), his family office in Greenwich, Ct, USA, focusing 100% on triple-bottom-line investments with a balanced emphasis on people, planet and profit. Armonia seeded TBL Capital (www.tblcapital.com), a venture fund focusing on social enterprises in the US. He is a Director of his family private equity group, Artal, that invests through its advisor, the Invus Group (www.invus.com). Prior to moving to the US in 1997, he was active in venture capital in Europe where he developed the Lino group focusing on retail outlets.
Larry has been actively engaged in various education projects internationally (Up With People, World Campus International) and locally (Whitby school, Convent of Sacred Heart of Greenwich where he founded the Barat foundation, whose mission is to educate students in philanthropy). He is also involved with Ashoka (promotion of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, www.ashoka.org ) which he helped launch in Belgium. He also has a strong interest in the preservation of the arctic where he has participated in several expeditions. He is a member of NRDC Global Leadership Council (www.nrdc.org) and of the International Polar Foundation (www.polarfoundation.org ) in Brussels.
He graduated in Economics from Louvain University in Belgium and received his MBA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He is married to Victoria and has 3 daughters (16, 15 and 9 yrs old).
Georg Pölzl
Georg Pölzl
Country:Harry Roels
Harry Roels
Country:Harry Roels (1948), a Dutch citizen, joined the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in 1971, after completing a masters degree in Physical Chemistry at Leiden university. He lived in Sarawak, Brunei, Scotland,the Netherlands,Turkey and England during various assignments, and travelled extensively worldwide in the course of his work. He was a member of the executive board of Royal Dutch/Shell, 1999-2002. In 2003 he joined RWE AG , a multi-utility conglomerate based in Germany, but with assets worldwide. As CEO, Harry refocused RWE strategically on its core competencies in electricity and gas, creating substantial shareholder value. He also spearheaded a programme of cultural change. As of 2008, Harry concentrates on personal priorities, which include the chairmanship of a charitable foundation with activities in Africa and South East Asia, which he started in 2005. His foundation focuses on improving health and education among the poorest. It also supports, through Ashoka, a number of social entrepeneurs in Asia. Outside the not-for-profit world, Harry continues in some non-executive and advisory roles. Harry is married and has two adult daughters.
Valeria Budinich
Valeria Budinich
Country:For over two decades, Valeria Budinich has designed and implemented innovative business development programs spanning 22 countries around the world. In 2003, Valeria joined Ashoka, a leading community of social entrepreneurs to launch the Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) Initiative. Through FEC Valeria is creating a movement around Hybrid Value Chains (HVCs) — commercial partnerships that leverage the critical strengths among business and citizen sector organizations. By advancing HVCs, Valeria is helping business create new markets that did not exist before due to important elements and players that were missing or because transaction costs were too high.
From 1986 to 1996, Valeria worked for Appropriate Technology International (ATI), a global non-profit foundation specializing in providing technical and financial assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas. As its Chief Operating Officer, she played a lead role in the development field by applying the value chain concept to transform small producers’ economies. From 1997 to 1998, she served as founding Vice-President for Latin America at Endeavor, a global organization specializing in linking entrepreneurs in emerging economies to venture capital investors in the US. Valeria launched Endeavor's first field operations in Chile and was part of the core team that designed Endeavor's search and selection process to identify high yield investment opportunities.
From 1999 to 2001, she served as VP for New Initiatives at BDA, a California-based consulting firm specializing in business process redesign and technology innovations for private sector clients worldwide. At BDA, Valeria developed unique services for small and medium-scale entrepreneurs and launched the first seed capital fund in Chile, financing exclusively enterprises at the start-up level. Since 1995, Valeria has also worked as an advisor to groups including Woman's World Banking, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNIFEM and others. Valeria was raised in Chile and trained as an industrial engineer.
Bill Carter
Bill Carter
Country:Bill Carter is Ashoka’s Diamond Leader for Africa, a position he assumed in February 2009 after nearly 30 years serving on the Ashoka Board of Directors. In his current role he guides Ashoka’s overall strategy for our programming in Africa, oversees the selection of African Fellows, and helps develop and launch new initiatives on the continent. Previously, Bill was a Co-Founder of an independent power company, the Long Lake Energy Corporation, a leader in hydroelectric generation.
He also played a leading role in developing Ashoka’s Indonesia program starting in 1981. A Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, he worked in Indonesia in the early 1970s helping the Ministry of Finance establish effective control of the timber industry. He has also spent a number of years in McKinsey & Co.’s international practice and served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he was responsible for wide-ranging management reforms. Mr. Carter was one of Ashoka’s founding Board members.
Jack Edwards
Jack Edwards
Country:Jack has worked with Ashoka as a volunteer since 2003, based from his home in Miami, Florida. He does interviews of Fellow candidates as part of Ashoka’s five-step search and selection process and has interviewed more than two hundred fellow candidates. He helped started the People team at Ashoka in 2004, has helped in recruiting and partnership building in Latin America and served as Ashoka Ombudsman.
Before joining Ashoka, Jack worked for Cummins Inc. as the President of its Power Generation Group with more than US $1 billion in sales and fifteen thousand employees. During his thirty years with Cummins, Jack lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, US and England. Jack was deeply involved in Cummins’ corporate social responsibility initiatives and he started a school for 700 children in Sao Paulo, Brazil; helped start a carpentry business for blind people in Mexico which now employs 100 people and a Women’s Engineering College in Pune, India which now has 1000 students.
Jack came to know of Ashoka during his time with Cummins as the company sponsored and supported six Ashoka fellows in the late 1990s. As part of enjoying his encore career in the citizen sector, Jack is also involved with a micro savings and credit program in Colombia and a health clinic for Mayans in Mexico.