Ashoka
2011 Stockholm Summit Strategy Thought Partners
Anousheh Ansari
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.
Jerry White
Jerry White is a global humanitarian whose life’s work has been to give others a way forward when trauma, war or other barriers have held them hostage. Jerry is a recognized leader in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He has over 25 years’ experience building history-making campaigns in arms control and human rights, working with hundreds of leaders from over 120 countries. A Senior Ashoka Fellow and leading expert on resilience and peer support, Jerry wrote about his philosophies in Getting Up When Life Knocks You Down: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis. He has a BA from Brown University, an MBA from the University of Michigan, and an Honorary Doctorate from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
John Grumbar
John Grumbar is a Director of Egon Zehnder International, the global executive search firm where he was Chairman and Chief Executive for 8 years. John sits on the European Board of Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise and is on the Executive Committee of IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Leo Figueiredo
Economy bachelor at FEA/USP, Law bachelor at Largo São Francisco Law University/USP and Master in Business Administration at FGV. Leo Figueiredo began working in the financial market in 1980 at Griffo Brokerage Company and, in 1986, assumed the general administration of Hedging-Griffo. In 1987, he was nominated CEO. As a CEO, Leo Figueiredo co-structured the investment and futures departments. He also co-created the asset management and private banking areas, for the later one he was the main responsible until 2009, when he left the company. Throughout his career at Hedging-Griffo, he was also devised and implemented most of the company's HR policies. Nowadays he is the founder and CEO of Quintessa.
Marc Castagnet
Marc Castagnet 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 and was sold to a private equity group. Marc holds multiple directorships in entrepreneurial companies in Asia and Europe. Marc is a Member of Young President Organization International and Chair of the North Asia Economic Development Network. 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.
Marc Koska
Alarm bells first rang back in 1984 for Marc Koska when he read a newspaper article predicting the spread of HIV through re-using medical syringes. Appalled at the prospect of such an avoidable catastrophe, Marc decided to do something about it. Some 26 years later his solution the K1, an Auto Disable (AD) syringe, not only physically prevents re-use, but can be manufactured inexpensively, by using existing machinery and is now under license to 14 manufacturers. Conservative estimates credit Marc with five million lives saved and 10 million diseases prevented. In 2006 he identified a glaring gap in the market and established The SafePoint Trust, a UK based not-for-profit, that produces hard-hitting, public information films. Marc now spends all his time working with SafePoint lobbying for government legislation change, spreading public awareness and ensuring adequate healthcare worker training is in force to complete the changeover to a safe healthcare system.
Maximilian Martin
Dr. Maximilian Martin serves as Founding Faculty in Residence at Ashoka University, where he works with senior faculty in the United States to enable them to teach social entrepreneurship effectively, and as a Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen. His previous work includes creating the first university course on social entrepreneurship in Europe at the University of Geneva, which he has kept teaching since 2003, and Europe’s first wealth management philanthropic advisory and knowledge exchange platform, UBS Philanthropy Services and the UBS Philanthropy Forum, which he established as the Bank’s global lead offering for the ultra-high net worth segment (2004-2009).
Nihar Kothari
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.
Per-Olof Soderberg
Per-Olof Soderberg has been active in the Swedish Business Community since the early eighties. He left the post as CEO of Dahl International after 14 successful years of management and introduction to the Swedish Stock Exchange, when he finally sold the company in 2004. He then turned his attention to start-ups by actively investing in different System Changing Ideas together with young business entrepreneurs. He is today successfully managing a portfolio of investments in companies in Sweden and US. Furthermore, he is Chairman of Soderberg & Partners Stockholm and Attivio Inc Boston as well as a member of the board of directors of Ratos, Stockholm School of Economics and WPO Swedish Chapter.
Peter Goldmark
Peter Goldmark is chair of Ashoka's Changemakers. Previously, he directed the Climate and Air program for Environmental Defense from 2003 through 2010. Prior to joining Environmental Defense, he was Chairman and CEO of the International Herald Tribune. Peter has had exceptional careers in both the public and private sectors. His public service was highlighted by his tenure as Budget Director for the State of New York during the 1970s city- and state-wide fiscal crisis where he was an architect of its rescue; and as Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey through to 1983. He served as president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1988 through 1997, encouraging its involvement in environmental issues, particularly as they related to energy.
Shane Tedjarati
Shane Tedjarati is responsible for Honeywell's entire business portfolio in China and India, the company's most strategic growth markets. With a mission of not only achieving strong growth within China and India, but also building them into Honeywell's global innovation hub and a platform for promoting Honeywell's globalization, Tedjarati is driving the unique East to West strategy to enable China and India to contribute more to Honeywell's growth in other parts of the world. Tedjarati brings broad experience to the task of running Honeywell's complex array of businesses in China and India. He has more than 20 years of experience in consulting to various industries and has been working in China since 1992. He has a proven track record of creating localized go-to-market strategies, fostering cross-business cooperation and nurturing business partnerships.
Steve Killelea
Steve Killelea is an accomplished entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent research institute dedicated to better understanding the social and economic factors that develop a more peaceful society. Steve currently serves on a number of influential Company Boards, Advisory Boards and President Councils. In 2010 he was honoured as Member of the Order of Australia for his service to the global peace movement and the provision of humanitarian aid to the developing world. In 2013 Steve was nominated one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Armed Violence Reduction”.
Steven Serneels
For over 20 years, Steven Serneels has been working in the professional service industry as a management consultant. In 1992, he left a Big Five consultancy to start his own company: S&V Management Consultants. S&V, about 100 people, works with senior management of medium to large international companies in Europe and abroad. In 2008, S&V has been acquired by Mahindra Satyam, an Indian ICT company. Besides being CEO of S&V, Steven is senior researcher and lecturer at the Vlerick Leuven Ghent Management School, and is regularly invited as keynote speaker at international conferences. In 2004, S&V embarked successfully on a CSR journey under his guidance. In the social sector, Steven has been active in fundraising for several projects in Africa and is (ex-)board member of Managers without Frontiers.
Steven Wilkinson
Steven Wilkinson is Managing Partner of the value-based investment boutique Buchanan in Munich. Buchanan develops and manages innovative entrepreneurial investment concepts in a variety of areas such as Venture Capital, Real Estate, Energy, Infrastructure and Agricultural Commodities and operates as a passionate mediator between entrepreneurs and investors. As a recognised expert in asset management and business financing, Steven Wilkinson has advised numerous medium-sized firms as well as developing a number of alternative asset management businesses over the last 13 years. Before this, the British national worked for Merrill Lynch International Bank and Hartz, Regehr & Partner and gained extensive international experience.
Sushmita Ghosh
After completing a five-year term as President of Ashoka, Sushmita continues as a member of Ashoka's Leadership Team, and Chair of Changemakers which she founded. A former journalist who served as Research Director and Executive Director of Maneka Gandhi's national Indian news magazine Surya from 1979 to 1982, Sushmita served as Ashoka's country representative for India from 1989 to 1997. During that time, she helped Ashoka launch its new programs in Latin America and direct its European fundraising efforts. She founded Changemakers in 1992, which she evolved from a magazine for social entrepreneurship to an online platform for open source problem-solving. Sushmita also leads Ashoka's Global Academy of Social Entrepreneurship that recognizes and connects the top tier of the world's social and business entrepreneurs.
Trisala Chandaria
Trisala Chandaria is the co-founder of Temboo, a cloud-computing company committed to demystifying information technology and liberating enterprise-level data-management toys from corporate clutches so that everybody can play. Prior to Temboo, she studied political science at Harvard and started a consulting firm for private equity and venture capital firms in Europe. Her passions include disruptive networks, entrepreneurship, and, via Temboo, banishing all complexity from IT software and services forever. She grew up in Switzerland, so she has a thing for chocolate, too.
Willie Cheng
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. He sits on the boards of Singapore Press Holdings, NTUC Fairprice and Singapore Health Services. 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. 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.