Great business ideas go global to serve customers around the world. By contrast, no such market forces are at work in the social sector. Social innovation too often remains local or national. Although many of the ideas and the entrepreneurs behind them have the potential for global spread, the social sector still lacks a process that focuses specifically on the global scope of change and the resources and mechanisms necessary for globalizing an idea successfully.
After defining and developing the practice of social entrepreneurship around the world, Ashoka now aims to leverage its global reach, selection process and network of social and business entrepreneurs to link initiatives ready for a global scale to the financial, strategic and intellectual support they require to go global.
The Globalizer program taps into Ashoka’s broad network of changemakers across the business, government, and citizen sectors. It begins with a three-month advisory phase where a support team of volunteer advisors—leading strategy consultants and high-level business leaders—help Ashoka Fellows reflect on key issues and establish a solid strategy to spread their impact.
The process culminates in a Summit meeting where participating Ashoka Fellows gather with highly successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, and experts to further refine their strategies, solve key challenges, and open strategic doors. The Globalizer also identifies underlying patterns in innovative solutions and disseminates them, empowering social entrepreneurs everywhere to develop more effective strategies to spread their impact.
Advisor support comes from the Ashoka Support Network and organizations including McKinsey and Company, AT Kearney, AlphaSights and PWC.
Over the past three decades, Ashoka has developed its Fellowship to include over 3,500 individuals in more than 90 countries – the world’s pre-eminent network of social entrepreneurs. Through a rigorous internal selection process, the Ashoka Globalizer identifies the Fellows within this network with the greatest potential for catalyzing global systems change. These entrepreneurs are challenged to further refine their leading social innovations, in order to adapt their strategies for the accelerated global spread. Throughout this intense process, they are supported by experts from the Globalizer team, working alongside experienced advisors from partners consulting agencies and the Ashoka Support Network of business leaders committed to social change.
Retrace the extraordinary Globalizer journey towards systemic change, take a deep dive into some of the stories and successes of our social entrepreneurs, and get insights on the impact of the program — by clicking on the image below to read the full report:
“The Globalizer program is a much-needed experience for social entrepreneurs who have gained traction in their work. It is a truly helpful exercise for those how are actually scaling and those who are looking to scale. It allows entrepreneurs to do what they should, think about the future of their...
Abu MusuuzaAshoka Fellow
“Once you pass the Globalizer process, you start to figure out how your impact can change, not just to increase or scale to get more beneficiaries, but rather systemic changes.”
Gaby ArenasAshoka Fellow
"Helping out in the Ashoka Globalizer program allowed me not only to apply our thinking and our methods to a challenging and very interesting project, it was also an extremely rewarding experience. It was 1) tremendously inspiring to work directly with social entrepreneurs that are full of passion...
Markus WilthanerAdvisor
"Working with Ashoka's social entrepreneurs has been an exceptionally inspiring and fulfilling experience. I found the thought partnership with innovative global leaders Fabio Rosa and Eric Dawson an eye-opening experience that has shaped the way I view my aspirations and career. I know we all...
Raffi MadirosianAdvisor
"I found working with the Ashoka Globalizer Fellows truly inspiring. In fact looking back now, I think it has helped shape my view on what the purpose of a company can be. The Ashoka Fellows are super engaged entrepreneurs, extremely willing to learn and grow. I really enjoyed being able to offer my...
Max MaendlerStrategy Thought Partner
Maria Zapata is ASPI-Re Global Leader, a program to pioneer and codify how to unleash network effects for social change through platforms. She´s also Globalizer Co-Director, a program she co-founded in 2009 to help social entrepreneurs scale their impact and to re-shape the field of social scaling.
Maria joined Ashoka in 2003, to launch Ashoka Spain and to support the setup of Ashoka in Western Europe. She has been a key figure in the development of the SE field in Spain.
Prior to Ashoka, Maria worked for General Electric. She sits on the Board of United Way Spain and on the Advisory Board of Fundación Haz lo Posible
Nadine Freeman is Ashoka’s Globalizer Co-Director. She has over 20 years of experience working closely with social entrepreneurs. Through the Globalizer she has helped build and hone an innovative process that places leading social and business entrepreneurs together to develop effective strategies to spread social impact and create long term systemic change.
Before joining the Globalizer team she led Ashoka’s Andean Region and Latin America Fellowship programs, contributing to establishment of social entrepreneurship as a critical field in the region.
Prior to joining Ashoka, Nadine was Director of Programs at South North Development Initiative where she helped to create some of the first impact investment funds in southern Africa and Latin America.
Nadine, a fomer teacher, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Spanish and an M.B.A. from the Anderson School at U.C.L.A
Odin Mühlenbein is a Partner at Ashoka Germany and co-leads the Systems Unit at Ashoka Globalizer. Globalizer develops impact strategies for advanced social entretreneurs from around the world with the goal to promote social system change.
Before his job at Ashoka, Odin worked at McKinsey & Company and co-founded two social ventures that are now led by successors. He studied in Munich, Oxford, and Cambridge and holds degrees in Philosophy, Logic, and Political Sciences.
Michela helps co-ordinate and implement programs within the Globalizer Team, across various partnerships within Ashoka. She is part of a team that works to engage social and business entrepreneurs in a process that challenges traditional notions for scaling social impact. Before joining Ashoka she worked as a corporate lawyer in Malta and was involved in local human rights, environment and social business initiatives. She studied International Environment Law and Corporate Law at Cambridge University and is finishing a part-time MSc in Sustainability.
Florentine Roth has been with Ashoka since 2018. As a partner at Ashoka Germany, she is currently accompanying potential new Ashoka Fellows through the intensive selection process. In doing so, she places particular emphasis on diversity and inclusion. As a member of the Globalizer team, she also develops strategies for systemic change with fellows worldwide. Before Ashoka, she conducted research on value systems in social entrepreneurship and led social projects at a local level for an NGO in Peru.
Work on thought partner engagement and summit planning for the Globalizer team
Accenture, a consultancy firm specialised in management, technology and outsourcing, supports since 2012 initiatives improving access to employment and skills development through its "Skills To Succeed 'approach.
With a deep and longstanding commitment that has expanded and evolved as the firm has grown globally, Hogan Lovells has been a pioneer in the provision of pro bono legal services to those in need. We were the first law firm – in 1970 – to establish a legal practice devoted entirely to pro bono. Our practice draws on the experience of our professionals worldwide to improve the lives of those most in need and least able to pay. Each year Hogan Lovells lawyers devote more than 100,000 hours globally to pro bono; whether by acting on behalf of individual clients, meeting the legal needs of non-profit organizations and social enterprises, or through policy advocacy, our goal is to tackle injustice on a global scale.
By providing pro bono legal services to Ashoka Fellows, Latham & Watkins LLP takes an active role in Ashoka communities and makes public interest issues an integral part of their practice of law. Latham & Watkins is an international company that comprises of more than 2,200 lawyers situated in 13 countries.
LEGO Foundation and Ashoka believe that playful learning can change the world. Together, Ashoka and Lego have begun to identify play-based learning innovations around the world and to re-imagine learning for the 21st century.
Unser Münchner Team ist bei Linklaters zu Gast - und mehr als das: Experten von Linklaters stehen auch Ashoka Fellows immer wieder für Rechtsberatung zur Seite.
The Philips Foundation seeks to be different from the traditional grant-making foundation. Together with its partners, the Philips Foundation seeks to identify global challenges where the innovation capabilities of Philips and expertise of partners, visionaries and innovators, can be combined to create lasting impact. Both Philips Foundation and Ashoka believe in the power of collaboration and its ability to mobilize expertise, innovation and impact. In 2016, Philips Foundation and Ashoka collaborated to run a 6 months accelerator program: The Globalizer on Health and Lighting, which helped 12 leading social entrepreneurs scale their innovations.
A strategic consulting company, McKinsey & Company creates strategic missions and conducts evaluations of social impact studies for Ashoka and for Fellows around the world. McKinsey & Company also support Ashoka Fellows with personal consultations that will help launch and scale Fellows' strategy and impact.
Strategy consulting firm among the leading professional services in the world, PwC helps organizations and individuals create the value they’re looking for by delivering quality in assurance, tax and advisory services.
