Senior Advisors

David Pollock

David joined Ashoka, as a volunteer in 2006 working from his office in Portland, OR.  During the past six years he has been involved in recruiting, training, advising Fellows on scaling strategies (Globalizer), developing the Ashoka Support Network and participating in the expansion of Ashoka’s presence in East Asia.

Previous to Ashoka, David held leadership positions in a number of companies spanning 35 years and living on three continents.  The companies include:  Stormwater Management Inc. (Portland OR), Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug (Senden, Germany), Hyster/NACCO Materials Handling Group (London, UK) and Cummins Engine Company (Indiana, the Philippines, Singapore).  Throughout his career, David guided organizations to exceptional performance through high degrees of team participation and effective hands-on leadership.   He has also been deeply involved with the social sector from founding Opportunity Consultants, Inc. to Cambodian relief, micro credit participation with the Katalysis Foundation in Central America, support trips for Mercy Corps, and education in Oregon.

He is active in the Young President’s Organization/World President’s Organization (founding board of WPO Portland Chapter), Stand for Children (Board), Ecotrust Forest LLC (Board), Vigor Industrial (Board), EVO Electric Ltd. (Advisory board), Friends of PIR (Founding board), Oregon Business Association (Economic board) and a variety of other business and philanthropic endeavors.

Pollock has degrees from the University of Redlands (BA) and the University of Virginia
(MBA). He and Shirley, his wife of 44 years, were Peace Corps Volunteers (Korea) from 1969-1972.  They have two grown children and two grandchildren.

David says of working with Ashoka “The opportunity to work with Ashoka people is the pinnacle of many years of entrepreneurial endeavors.  This is a great encore career!”

Jack Edwards

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 has 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.