Abigail Noble

 

 

 

 

 

Abigail began her career in management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy with Deloitte Consulting and conducting economic policy analysis for governments while at the Brattle Group. She has worked with governments in West and East Africa on rural economic development with the United Nations. More recently, she helped launch the Pioneers of Prosperity programme across 13 countries in Latin America. The Pioneers of Prosperity programme is an entrepreneurship awards competition designed to advance competitiveness and social impact. She has worked on the investment facilitation for social impact organisations, both non-profit and for-profit, through her work at Social Equity Venture Funds (SEVEN), New Profit Inc. and Fidelity Investments, as well as her volunteer work with microfinance organisations in Peru, Haiti and India. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study democracy and economic development in Uruguay. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Tufts University and her master’s degree in international development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

 

Arthur Wood

Arthur Wood presently forms the European arm of Total Impact Advisors. Before working in the social finance sector, Arthur worked for over 20 years for leading western financial institutions. Over his career he has held senior positions in both for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises. Arthur is a recognised innovator in social finance and is frequently invited to speak and write on innovative financing vehicles for social purposes.

Prior to his current roles with the World Sanitation Financing Facility and Total Impact Advisors, Arthur was Senior Vice President and a Leadership Group Member of Ashoka, the world’s largest supporter of social entrepreneurs. At Ashoka he was Global Head of Social Financial Services, serving three years in Washington DC and New York. Arthur has been instrumental in encouraging major global finance firms to enter the business of social investing in order to improve the way social capital is allocated and deployed. He is also deeply involved in the conceptualisation and creation of new legal hybrid structures to encourage social investment, most notably the L3C in the US and the SELLP in the UK. He has advised a range of broader social entrepreneurs in financing structures, including helping to launch a fund noted as “one of the top twenty ideas in new philanthropy” by Fast Company Magazine. Arthur has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a Master of Business Administration from SDA Bocconi, Italy, and HEC, France.

 

Carlo Chege

Carlo Chege is passionate about social enterprise development and is a Founder Board Member and Regional Director of East Africa Social Enterprise Network (EASEN). EASEN is a membership organisation that develops and promotes social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in East Africa. Carlo has worked extensively in the field of entrepreneurship and sustainable development, consulting for international and national development organisations, as well as community-led initiatives in enterprise and social development. Carlo has also been a lecturer at KCA University, a project auditor and finance trainer at CARE International Somalia/South Sudan, Regional Program Manager for Africa at MMD Africa and head of finance, grants and capacity building at CMS Africa. He is Vice Chair of St John Ambulance Marketing and Fundraising committee and member of the Kenya Institute of Management (KIM). Carlo has also written a book, ‘Factors Influencing the Development of Social Enterprises in Kenya’. He has a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Education both from the University of Nairobi.

 

Cyrille Langendorff

 

 

 

 

 

Cyrille Langendorff is the project manager of International Affairs at Credit Cooperatif (CC) and has over 20 years of experience in the investment banking sector. After achieving a masters in finance from Paris Dauphine University, Cyrille began his investment banking career working for Banque Paribas and ABN AMRO Bank in Abidjan, London and Paris for 15 years. Prior to his current role as project manager at CC, Cyrille worked for four years in analysing and monitoring for CC the solidarity investments portfolio of investment funds managed by Ecofi Investissements, an asset management company of CC, in France, and the european investments done with CC’s partners of the European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks (FEBEA). Cyrille represents CC on the supervisory board of Microfinance Solidaire, a microfinance subsidiary of a French NGO, Entrepreneurs du Monde. Langendorff is also a board member of a microfinance and fair trade financing Italian cooperative, Consorzio Etimos.

 

David Bonbright

 

David Bonbright, a human rights lawyer, is the founder and Chief Executive of Keystone Accountability, an international charity dedicated to bringing constituency feedback to performance management for social impact. In the early 1990s, he founded and led two African citizen sector resource centers, one relating to organisational and sectorial development (the Development Resources Centre, Johannesburg) and one relating to information and technology (SANGONeT, Johannesburg). As a grantmaker and executive with Aga Khan Foundation, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Oak Foundation , and Ford Foundation, David evolved and demonstrated innovative multi-stakeholder approaches to sustainable development as an alternative to prevailing bureaucratic, top-down models. He has successfully caused systemic change at the national level in two countries, with influence traceable across the world, forging networks and mobilizing tens of millions of pounds along the way. He is a regular contributor to professional journals, and has authored and co-authored a number of reports and books. David sits on a number of boards, advisory councils and knowledge networks, including the governing board of CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which he chairs.

 

Geoff Burnand

 

 

 

 

 

Geoff Burnand is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Investing for Good, a specialist provider of impact investment services to private banks, asset managers and foundations. These services included the development of a structured analytical framework that extended the traditional investment approach used in portfolio management from binary risk/return metrics to a three dimensional assessment, incorporating the positive social and environmental impact an investment can make. Prior to this Geoff enjoyed over 20 years of experience in private and institutional investment management working with a wide variety of clients. Geoff is also the Chief Investment Officer at Charity Bank.

 

Harold Rosen

Harold Rosen, the founder and Executive Director of the Grassroots Business Fund (GBF), is considered one of the leading innovators and entrepreneurs in the development field. In 2008, Harold led the restructuring of GBF and its establishment as an independent non-profit organisation. In its first two years, GBF committed $6.5 million of new investments to a range of enterprises that service the needs of the poor as producers, consumers and entrepreneurs. GBF has established an important place in the social investing field globally and also in the key markets of East Africa, India, the Andes, and Southeast Asia.

Prior to founding GBF, Harold worked for 30 years with International Finance Corporation (IFC) running major investment operations and a large technical assistance network, which grew and improved substantially. He also oversaw World Bank Group’s leading enterprises, spearheading IFC’s moves into SMEs, microfinance, and a number of new geographic and sectoral markets. Harold holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Jeremy Nicholls

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Nicholls became the chief executive of the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Network in 2008. Starting his working life as an accountant, his work has increasingly focused on understanding and managing the value of the impact of organisation’s activities. He set up the Cat’s Pyjamas running events to promote the value of social enterprise and shortly after started working on the development of SROI. He wrote’ There is no business like Social Business’ with Liam Black and co-wrote the UK Government supported ‘Guide to SROI’ He is the chair of FairPensions, a director of the FRC Group – a social business based in Liverpool and a director of Social Evaluator – an online platform for the analysis of social returns. As an occasional lecturer he has lectured at several Universities including Said Business School at Oxford University. Cambridge University and the University of Western Australia.

 

Lucy Bernholz, Ph.D.

Lucy Bernholz, the founder of Blueprint Research + Design, is passionate about philanthropy. She currently serves as a Managing Director of Arabella Advisors, to which she sold Blueprint Research + Design in 2011. Lucy has written numerous articles and books regarding the business of giving, and is the author of the annual industry forecast ‘Philanthropy and Social Investing’. Lucy is a frequent conference speaker, a visiting scholar at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, a Fellow with the Hybrid Reality Institute and former Fellow of the New America Foundation. Lucy serves as an advisor to various organisations, including the Center for Digital Information, and serves on the Board of Directors for The Craigslist Foundation. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a Master’s and PhD from Stanford University.

 

Morgan Simon

Morgan Simon is a serial social entrepreneur with particular expertise in impact investment and international development. She is the co-founder and CEO of Toniic, a global network of early-stage social investors. Toniic members share deal flow, due diligence and monitoring on global investments in this action-oriented community looking to move $100 million into global social enterprise. She is also the co-founder of Innovacion Investments, Texas’s first community development venture capital fund. In all her work, she emphasizes community empowerment, leadership and ownership.

As the founding executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition, Morgan brought together 100 colleges and universities from across the country, helping to move their $200 billion in endowment dollars towards impact investment. Morgan has also worked with grassroots organizations and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Mexico, Honduras and Sierra Leone, and in domestic microfinance with Women’s Initiative for Self Employment.

She has served on the boards of the Social Venture Network, the SJF Institute (affiliated with SJF Ventures), is on the board of La Base and is an advisor to Agora Partnerships, Nexii and Grupo Yansa. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other media.  She received a B.A with High Honors in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore College.

 

Rodrigo Villar Esquivel

 

Rodrigo Villar Esquivel is the Director General of New Ventures Mexico, a leading sustainable business accelerator that was launched in Mexico by Rodrigo in 2004. Rodrigo was also instrumental in the creation of Las Paginas Verdes, the only sustainable product directory in Mexico and one of the largest in the world with an annual circulation of 300,000 copies.

As an Ashoka Fellow, Rodrigo is widely recognised as one of the country’s leading figures on social and environmental sustainability, and accordingly received the 2008 UBS Visionaris Social Entrepreneurship Award. He is also a Funding Partner at Adobe Capital and a Board Member of Iniciativa Mexico. Rodrigo received a Masters of Business Administration from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Financial Management from the Tecnologico de Monterrey.

 

Steve Wright

Steve Wright, the Director of the Social Performance Management Center of the Grameen Foundation, has worked for more than 15 years at the intersection of technology and education.  Before joining the Grameen Foundation in August 2010, he served for a number of years as the Director of Innovation and Technology at Salesforce.com Foundation. While there, he established himself as a thought leader in the social metrics space through extensive experience working with organisations such as the Acumen Fund, GIIN (Global Impact Investing Network) and members of ANDE (Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs).

Steve also has a long history as a high school administrator and classroom teacher, and started his career in the Peace Corps. While teaching at a high school in 1990, Steve became interested in the role that electronic communications could play to promote and facilitate interactions between students in underserved communities and the rest of the world. Today, Steve’s work centres on helping microfinance institutions and other development organisations measure and manage their social performance using the Progress Out of Poverty Index™.