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Panelists

Creative Global Development Strategies

Dr. Djordjija Petkoski (Moderator)
Adviser/Consultant, The World Bank Group

Dr. Djordjija Petkoski was Lead Specialist at the World Bank and the Head of the Business, Competitiveness, and Development team at the World Bank Institute until his retirement in 2010.  Since joining the World Bank in 1992, Dr. Petkoski has focused on competitiveness and sustainable development, governance, corporate responsibility, ethics and anti-corruption, leadership and leading change, with work experience in Asia, Latin America, the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In this capacity Petkoski has engaged with over 100 companies worldwide, including Nestle, Unilever, SAP, Mars Co., Siemens, Pepsi Co, CEMEX, Tetra Pact, and Britannica.

Dr. Petkoski received his Master's degree in Public Administration at Kennedy School of Governance, Harvard University, Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Zagreb, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade.  He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in the early 1990's and a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979-80.  He has also completed the Harvard Executive Development Program for World Bank senior management.

Daniela Hammeken
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Agora Partnerships

Before joining Agora Partnerships, Daniela worked on child labor issues and developed a girl empowerment program in Ghana. Soon after, Daniela realized the incredible potential of business to solve social and economic challenges, which led to positions in ACCION San Diego, NYC Small Business Services, and microenterprise consulting in Tanzania. Daniela has BA degrees in International Relations and Psychology from the University of Southern California and an MPA from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. Daniela speaks Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. At Agora, Daniela focuses on building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders, fundraising, expansion strategy, and branding.

Jo-Ann Tan
Leader, +acumen

Jo-Ann is the lead architect of Acumen Fund's community.  She is working to create a step change in terms of awareness and engagement for Acumen Fund through its online presence and volunteer chapters.

Before Acumen Fund, Jo-Ann built a marketing analytics team and developed and new marketing strategies for a $1 billion apparel distributor. Jo-Ann has also worked at strategy consulting firm Marakon Associates in New York and Singapore. She began her career at the Monetary Authority (Central Bank) of Singapore. Jo-Ann received a BA in Economics and an MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

Andria Thomas
Project Manager, Dalberg Global Development Advisors

Andria Thomas is a Project Manager in Dalberg’s Washington, DC office and a member of the Strategy & Performance practice.  She advises leading foundations, NGOs, corporations, and multilateral organizations in areas of strategy, innovation, effectiveness, and organizational change.  Her recent experience includes work in Haiti and Afghanistan for the US government, projects for multiple UN agencies, and a current endeavor for the G20 to support inclusive business globally.

Prior to joining Dalberg, Andria was a Project Leader in The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Financial Services practice.  Her project experience includes developing the strategy and five-year business plan for an innovative educational program conducting a pilot with the Gates Foundation, developing the strategic plan for a non-profit cultural institution, and assessing business plans across the non-profit and corporate sector.  Andria’s other professional experience includes work with a number of technology start-up companies, and teaching English, Math, and computer skills as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia. 

Andria holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University with a concentration in Social Entrepreneurship, and a BA from the University of Virginia in English and Math.

Vikki Tam
Partner, Bain & Company

Vikki Tam joined Bain & Company in 1998 and is a partner in Bain’s New York office. Prior to joining New York, she was a partner in the Greater China office. Vikki has advised clients across multiple locations in the Asia Pacific region, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. 
 
While in China, Vikki led Bain’s Greater China Telecom, Media & Technology Practice as well as Organization Practice.  She advised multinational and local companies on growth, market entry, sales and marketing strategy, organizational design and performance improvement.   In particular, Vikki has led multiple telco transformation efforts across various Asia Pacific locations.  In addition to her client work, Vikki also led a multi-year relationship with One Foundation, China’s first non-government public foundation.

Now based in New York, Vikki has assumed a global leadership role to head up the firm’s social impact efforts in global development. In particular, she is leading Bain’s partnership with Endeavor, a global non-profit focused on catalyzing long-term economic growth in developing countries through high-impact entrepreneurship.

Vikki is also a member of Bain’s Global Women Leadership Council.

Vikki earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.  She graduated phi beta kappa from the University of Pennsylvania where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics.
 

Legal Aspects of Social Impact

Praveen Kosuri (Moderator)
Associate Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School 

Praveen Kosuri utilizes his unique background in law, business, and public interest to direct Penn Law’s Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic. His experience representing businesses as a corporate lawyer and commercial litigator allowed him to apply an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to solving his clients’ problems.  Kosuri has marshaled the resources of the Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic to positively impact distressed communities by creating a mix of clients which range from the small business owner starting a business in the inner-city to nonprofit organizations engaged in redevelopment projects to ventures creating technologies that can benefit society at large.

Kosuri began his clinical teaching career at the University of Chicago Law School where he was Assistant Director of the Institute for Justice Entrepreneurship Clinic. He was also an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Kosuri began his career as a Cook County Public Defender.  He holds an M.B.A from the University of Chicago, a J.D. from Washington University and a B.A. from Duke University.

William H. Clark Jr.
Partner, Drinker Biddle and Reath, LLP

William Clark is a partner in the Business and Finance Department of Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP, where he focuses on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, general business law, and government affairs.  Bill drafted the statutes that have been enacted in California, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Virginia authorizing the organization of benefit corporations.   Bill represents both publicly-traded and privately-owned companies in mergers and acquisitions as either buyer or seller.  He also represents for-profit and nonprofit entities in connection with the establishment and governance of joint ventures.  Bill is the former chair of both the Business Law Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Business Law Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association.  He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the American Law Institute. 

Bill is listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Who’s Who in America, and The International Who’s Who of Corporate Governance Lawyers.  Bill graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College and received his J.D. magna cum laude from Temple University.  He also has a masters degree in theology from Westminster Theological Seminary.

Kate Houstoun
Managing Director, Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia

Kate Houstoun is SBN’s Managing Director and oversees personnel and operations, including membership, education, research, communications, and fundraising. In her previous position at SBN, Kate conducted market research on emerging industries in Greater Philadelphia, including sustainable manufacturing, waste management, energy efficiency, and stormwater management. Previously, Kate served as Deputy Director of The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able Philadelphia program, a workforce organization for formerly incarcerated and homeless adults. There, Kate led fundraising, strategic partnerships, and earned income initiatives. Kate has also worked in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, managing a community development program for American Friends Service Committee. Kate is a Mayoral appointee to SEPTA’s advisory commission and a proud fellow of Truman National Security Project, Center for Progressive Leadership, and Bryn Mawr College’s Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute.

David Bolotsky
Founder & CEO, UncommonGoods, LLC

Dave spent his early years on the Lower East Side of New York City, where his grandfather ran a candy store just a few blocks away. His father worked for the United Nations and collected art, while his mother served as a social worker with the elderly.  A vegetarian since he was 11, Dave spent time working at nature centers and animal shelters in high school after his family moved to the suburbs, as well as at a record store and at his own lawn care start-up, Dynamow.  After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the State University of New York at Binghamton, he spent twelve years as a retail research analyst for Goldman, Sachs & Co. Not the typical Wall Street analyst; he also obtained a license to drive a pedicab and moonlighted as a bicycle taxi driver.   Finding the retail landscape of the late 1990s homogenized by mass-produced merchandise, Dave recognized an opportunity with the internet. Combining his interests in artistic creativity, individuality, social responsibility and retailing, he founded UncommonGoods in 1999, a pioneering website in the field of independent design.   UncommonGoods became a founding B Corp in 2007 and Dave worked to help public benefit corporations receive legal standing in NY through legislation passed in 2011.
 
Dave lives his wife and two sons on the Lower East Side (in his grandparents’ old apartment), where he’s helped create a neighborhood composting project and restore a local park (GulickPark.org).  Dave also helped start Comprehensive Development, Inc., a non-profit that works with an innovative NYC public high school to provide tutoring, legal and medical advice, job placement, and homelessness prevention to its student body, which consists of 17-22 year-old students who are either previous drop-outs or recent immigrants to the U.S.

 

Innovation in Corporate Social Responsibility: How Is CSR Leading to Innovation in Enterprises?

Daniel Korschun (Moderator)
Assistant Professor, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University

Daniel Korschun is an Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and a fellow of the Lebow Center for Corporate Reputation Management. His primary research interest is stakeholder engagement, with an emphasis on corporate social responsibility and corporate reputation management. His work examines the relationships that stakeholders form with the company and other stakeholders.

Dr. Korschun’s research is managerially oriented, but takes a decidedly stakeholder-centric perspective. He believes that individuals seek out strong, enduring, and multi-faceted relationships with companies that share their personal values and goals. Thus, managers should steadfastly seek to identify and communicate the shared values of otherwise disparate stakeholders. His latest work examines how and when corporate social responsibility initiatives encourage employees to foster quality relationships with customers.

Dr. Korschun’s work appears in the MIT-Sloan Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He is also co-author of the book Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Business and Social Value (Cambridge University Press 2011). His managerial experience is in marketing strategy and market research at Sony Electronics and Hill, Holliday advertising. He teaches marketing at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels and lecturers at MBA and Executive Education programs such as the Wharton School, Boston College, Babson College and Beijing University. 

Diane Melly
Director, Global Community Initiatives, IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs

Ms. Melley is currently the Director of Global Community Initiatives in IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs.   Her responsibilities include leading the IBM Centennial Celebration of Service, and specifically, the Celebration of Service Day where IBM had over 335,325 volunteers in 120 countries.  Ms. Melley also leads the On Demand Community initiative, IBM's global strategic initiative to support employee and retiree volunteering efforts worldwide. Over 217,000 IBM employees and retirees volunteered over 12 million hours in On Demand Community services. Ms. Melley leads the Business Integration team where Corporate Citizenship assets are integrated with IBM’s business strategies in Public Sector, Education and the Small Medium Business industry segments.  She also supports IBM's Humanitarian Disaster Response efforts worldwide.

Recently, Ms. Melley was named as the lead for Corporate Social Responsibility and the annual CR report.   Ms. Melley helps IBM maintain their excellent corporate citizenship status.   She is constantly looking for ways to use technology as an integrated tool to effect change.

Ms. Melley is a 2001 Eisenhower Fellow to Belgium and Ireland and chairs the Eisenhower Alumni Regional Fellows Group.   She serves on the boards of the Points of Light Foundation/Hands on Network, Philadelphia Education Fund (current chairperson), Chamber of Commerce/Arts and Business Council, and is co-chair of the Corporate Affinity Group at the Brookings Institute on International Volunteerism. She is also on the Conference Board’s Executive Committee/Corporate Contribution Council.

Ms. Melley has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from La Salle University.  She is certified by both IBM and the Project Management Institute as a Project Executive.  She lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and two young daughters.

Chhavi Ghuliani
Manager, Advisory Service, BSR

With a strong management background, Chhavi brings critical leadership to BSR's financial services practice. Based in New York, Chhavi also supports clients in the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, information and communications technology, and travel and tourism sectors. He leverages his knowledge of emerging markets for several field projects in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Prior to joining BSR, Chhavi worked for an SRI firm where he combined financial analysis with ESG analysis to make socially responsible investment recommendations. He also spent several years as an operations manager for Oracle, where he managed the company's Asia-Pacific and Americas regions. He has worked as a freelance CSR consultant, and for the Institute of Public Health in Mexico, where he was charged with creating a business case for CSR.

Chhavi holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business and an M.A. in International Studies from the Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. in English and Computer Science from Rutgers University. Chhavi speaks both Spanish and Hindi.

Catherine Potter
Senior Associate, GreenOrder

Catherine Potter brings expertise in business strategy and operations, policy and communications to GreenOrder. She has a passion for taking an interdisciplinary, practical approach to creating win-win solutions for business and the environment.

Prior to joining GreenOrder, Catherine worked at OPOWER, a fast-growing software company providing utilities with a suite of tools to realize savings from energy efficiency. She worked on a broad set of projects while at OPOWER, including developing and executing a strategy for educating consumers on energy efficiency through the use of targeted, customized messages. Catherine previously worked at Bain & Company, where she served several public and private clients on growth, pricing, and product strategy. Among her projects, she worked on the consumer strategy for a major PC company, the growth strategy across two historically separate business units within a major telecom company, and the product line strategy for a privately held food company.

Catherine's policy experience includes serving as an adviser on energy and environment policy for a U.S. Senator, covering everything from automobile fuel efficiency to natural resource management to air emissions standards. She also worked in the policy office of the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she focused on transportation as an economic development tool.

Catherine received a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar. She has published articles in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and has spoken to a wide range of audiences on energy policy and business strategy.

 

Sustainable Solutions to Local Issues

Kate Houstoun (Moderator)
Managing Director, Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia 

Kate Houstoun is Managing Director of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that serves 500 independent and locally-owned companies in the Philadelphia region. Kate oversees personnel and operations, including membership, education, research, communications, and fundraising. In her previous position at SBN, Kate conducted market research on emerging industries in Greater Philadelphia, including sustainable manufacturing, waste management, energy efficiency, and stormwater management.
 
Previously, Kate served as Deputy Director of The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able Philadelphia program, a workforce organization for formerly incarcerated and homeless adults. There, Kate led fundraising, strategic partnerships, and earned income initiatives. Kate has also worked in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, managing a community development program for American Friends Service Committee. Kate is a Mayoral appointee to SEPTA’s advisory commission and a proud fellow of Truman National Security Project, Center for Progressive Leadership, and Bryn Mawr College’s Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute.

Della Clark
President, The Enterprise Center

Della Clark is President of The Enterprise Center; an entrepreneurial center that provides access to capital, capacity building, business education and economic development opportunities to high potential minority entrepreneurs. During her 20-year tenure, she has cultivated relationships with key corporate and industry leaders from the wider business world, representatives from educational institutions, and high-ranking government officials at the city, state and federal levels.

A native of Texas and a graduate of Washington, DC's American University in Business Administration, Ms. Clark is a recognized leader. She was selected for and completed participation in the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship's Philadelphia International Leadership Initiative. Through the Fellowship, Ms. Clark explored international entrepreneurial activities in Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic in 2002 and Ireland in 2004. Ms. Clark also served as a Senior Policy Fellow (1998-2000) at the George V. Voinovich Center for Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University.

Alyson Goodner
Co-Founder, the school collective

Alyson Goodner graduated from Princeton University in 2000.  After a short stint in business, she joined Teach For America in 2002.  During this time she pursued her Masters in Education and was awarded a national teaching honor. Following this she was the Program Director for Teach For America Philadelphia’s high schools, working closely with teachers and administrators on management, instruction and professional development.

In 2007, Alyson graduated with distinction from Oxford’s Saïd Business School with a focus in social enterprise management.  She then returned to consult for the School District of Philadelphia and launch the school collective, an online professional development network that enhances school and teacher quality. Growing to ten schools this school year, the school collective stretches across public, charter, parochial and independent schools.

Alyson is on the Executive Committee of Philadelphia CORE Leaders, which pulls together emerging leaders to promote change in the Philadelphia education system. She is also an active board member for several education organizations and schools in the Philadelphia area.

Matt Joyce
Executive Director, GreenLight Philadelphia

The GreenLight Fund identifies innovative, high-performing nonprofits in cities across the country working on issues relevant to Philadelphia and supports their successful expansion into the local community. GreenLight supports organizations that address issues affecting primarily low-income children and families in key areas such as education, youth development, workforce development, and health. The GreenLight Fund was founded in Boston in 2003 and expanded to Philadelphia and San Francisco in 2011.

Prior to working at the GreenLight Fund, Matt co-founded and led Philly Fellows. Philly Fellows is a year of service and leadership development program that connects talented graduates from Philadelphia area colleges with capacity-building positions in Philadelphia’s nonprofit sector.

Matt has also worked with the William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia and consulted on federal Race to the Top implementation in Delaware. He was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship at Harvard Kennedy School, where he received an MPP, and has BA from Haverford College.

Rich Sedmak
Co-Founder, Startup Corps

Rich is the co-founder and Executive Director of Startup Corps, a non-profit which empowers high school students to “start something real” by helping them develop entrepreneurial mindsets and skills. Now in its third year, Startup Corps has helped over 200 high school students start businesses and non-profits across Philadelphia.

Prior to founding Startup Corps, Rich was an active angel investor and entrepreneur.  In 2004, he co-founded HBG Group, a technology company, and served as CEO until its sale in 2007.  He is currently an adviser to several early stage technology companies and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Wharton.

 

Social Finance and Impact Investing

Lydia Cutrer (Moderator)
Investment Officer, Calvert Foundation

Lydia Cutrer has pursued a career combining real estate finance and community development investing.  Currently, she is an Investment Officer at Calvert Foundation where her focus is to explore and implement new platforms for bringing capital to underserved communities to develop and preserve affordable housing. She manages a portfolio of investments to over 30 housing developers and lenders totaling $26 million.

Prior, she served as an Asset Manager at PNC Realty Investors where she was responsible for the leasing and operating performance of a 1.5 million square feet portfolio of commercial real estate assets of the $2.0 billion AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust.

Lydia also worked at JPMorgan Chase as an Analyst in their Syndicated & Leveraged Finance division where she performed analysis to recommend $5 billion in financing to major corporations.  She also worked in JPMorgan Chase’s Real Estate Lending group in Community Development and helped originate $25 million in affordable housing loans.

Lydia received her MBA in 2006 from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Real Estate and Strategic Management and earned three academic fellowships. Lydia is a 2001 summa cum laude graduate of Temple University earning a BBA in Accounting.

Tom Balderston
Managing Principal, SustainVC, LLC; General Partner, Patient Capital Collaborative Funds

Tom Balderston has been helping to build and manage diverse venture capital portfolios for 20 years, as general partner, limited partner and angel investor.

Tom is Managing Principal of SustainVC, which makes investments in the early and expansion stages of companies that provide social and environmental benefit to the world. SustainVC manages a series of private equity/venture capital investment funds through a program called the Patient Capital Collaborative.

Tom formed Balderston Capital in 2001, to serve as a private equity investment, advisory and strategy firm providing custom advice on a variety of complex strategic and financial matters to investors, funds and companies. From 2006 to 2009, Tom also served as President and CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance (now called Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies), the regional venture community association in Greater Philadelphia.

Tom holds an M.B.A. from the UCLA Graduate School of Management with a concentration in Finance, and a B.A. from Williams College. Currently, he serves as a Board Member of Investors Circle, and of the Ben Franklin Technology Center of Southeastern PA as Chair of the Finance Committee, Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee.

John M. Buley
Former Head of Principal Investing for Social Finance, JP Morgan; Adjunct Professor, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business; Advisory Committee Chair of the Impact Investing Initiative of CASE@Duke

John is Adjunct Professor of Finance at Duke University, Fuqua School of Business and Advisory Committee Chair of the Impact Investing Initiative of CASE@Duke. In 2012, John retired from JP Morgan, where he was Head of Principal Investing for Social Finance. As a unit of JP Morgan’s Investment Bank, the Social Finance Group is responsible for investing JP Morgan’s capital commitment of $100mm in impact investments in the Emerging Markets.

Prior, John was Chairman and Head of the Investment Committee of JPM Mezzanine Capital, a proprietary investment strategy focused on subordinated debt and equity co-investment for mid-cap U.S. and European companies. JPM Mezzanine Capital invested over $1bn in over 40 private companies in the U.S. and Europe during his tenure.  John has held Board of Director responsibilities or Board observer rights for over 20 private U.S. companies

John started his career as an attorney in the banking practice of White & Case. John earned a J.D. from Temple University and an LL.M in International Taxation from Villanova University.  John is a member of the New York Bar and admitted to practice in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Ami Dalal
Portfolio Performance Manager, Acumen Fund

Ami joined Acumen Fund as Portfolio Performance Manager from Macquarie Bank, where she spent nearly 5 years focusing on investments in infrastructure and special situation opportunities. She has private equity investment experience in the real estate, energy, water, transport and consumer products sectors. Most recently at Macquarie, she focused on the turn-around of a consumer products company and helped lead their portfolio management initiative. She previously worked at the JBG Companies, a real estate investment fund and India Development Fund, an infrastructure investment fund. Ami also sits on the Board of Directors at Palladia, one of New York City's largest multi-service agencies. Ami received her BS in Finance and Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mona Sinha
Advisor, Impact Investment Exchange; Director of Strategic Initiatives and Board Member, Impact Investment Shujog

Mona Sinha is an Advisor to Impact Investment Exchange, the first social stock exchange being set up in Asia.  She is also Director of Strategic Initiatives and Board Member of Impact Investment Shujog, which prepares social enterprises to raise investment capital. 

Mona began her professional career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, followed by a marketing career at P&G and Unilever, during which she restructured the Asia Pacific operations of Elizabeth Arden. In 2010, she worked on a project for Goldman, Sachs Asia on the development of Asian leadership.

Mona has previously served as an Advisory Director to Breakthrough, a human rights organization based in the US and India, and has been a  Trustee to All Souls School, NY and Girls Learn International, NY.  She and her husband are patrons of the Science and Nature Program (serving inner-city girls) at the American Museum of Natural History, NY. She is a founding Board member of the Asian Women’s Leadership University project.

Ms. Sinha holds an undergraduate degree Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa in Economics (with a minor in Art History) from Smith College and an MBA, Beta Gamma Sigma in Finance and Marketing from Columbia University.

 

Technology and Social Impact

Tyler Wry (Moderator)
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, The Wharton School

Before joining the Wharton faculty last July, Tyler Wry was at the University of Alberta, where he taught classes on social entrepreneurship and earned his Ph.D. in Strategy and Organizations. Tyler has written award-winning papers on how technological innovation and entrepreneurship can interact with society, especially in the area of microfinance. He also has had experience with startups and social entrepreneurship. In 1999, he founded Slickfrog.com, an online portal for students, which grew to have 30,000 members and 30 employees before it fell victim to the dot.com crash. Tyler has sat on the Steering Committee for the Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and founded a "Bikes for Boys" Program with Big Brothers and Big Sisters. He is currently researching nanotech entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, while also teaching the foundation undergraduate class in entrepreneurship at Wharton.

Dr. Djordjija Petkoski
Advisor/Consultant, The World Bank Group

Dr. Djordjija Petkoski was Lead Specialist at the World Bank and the Head of the Business, Competitiveness, and Development team at the World Bank Institute until his retirement in 2011.  Since joining the World Bank in 1992, Dr. Petkoski has focused on competitiveness and sustainable development, governance, corporate responsibility, ethics and anti-corruption, leadership and leading change, with work experience in Asia, Latin America, the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In this capacity Petkoski has engaged with over 100 companies worldwide, including Nestle, Unilever, SAP, Mars Co., Siemens, Pepsi Co, CEMEX, Tetra Pact, and Britannica.

Dr. Petkoski received his Master's degree in Public Administration at Kennedy School of Governance, Harvard University, Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Zagreb, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade.  He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in the early 1990's and a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979-80.  He has also completed the Harvard Executive Development Program for World Bank senior management.

Sean DeWitt
AppLab Indonesia Technical Program Manager, Grameen Foundation

Sean DeWitt is passionate about unlocking human potential through innovation in social entrepreneurship, mobile technology and microfinance. At Grameen Foundation, Sean first worked on our Village Phone initiative, collaborating with microfranchise companies in Uganda and Rwanda. Sean then moved to Indonesia to help launch a social enterprise (PT Ruma), working with Grameen’s Application Laboratory team to develop and deliver a suite of mobile applications that enable new microfranchise business opportunities for the poor.

Sean joined Grameen Foundation with 10 years of experience in the public, nonprofit and private sectors. He led the development of an open-source solution for a New York City-based foundation, optimized supply chains for Intel Corporation and the Walt Disney Company. He also led various technology projects with local partners in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Sean holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Purdue University and a Master’s in Development Finance from the University of London.

Keya Dannenbaum
Founder and CEO, ElectNext

Keya Dannenbaum studied and worked in politics as an undergraduate at Stanford and a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton; internationally in Bogota, Colombia as a Fulbright Scholar and in Mumbai, India; nationally for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and locally for several municipal candidates in New Haven, CT. She began an MBA as as part of the Wharton class of 2012 and is currently on leave.

Drawing on her various experiences in politics, as a first year MBA Keya founded ElectNext.com, a political preference engine that works like "eHarmony" for elections -  it matches you to the candidates running in your upcoming elections based on the issues you care most about. In six short months ElectNext has been selected to the Wharton Venture Initiation, GoodCompany Ventures and DreamIt Ventures accelerator programs; won the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 Conference, presented at TEDx Philly, and were the GovFresh "best civic startup" of 2011; and they've been covered in TechCrunch, FastCompany and the Huffington Post among many others. Their advisors include Facebook's first product manager and the CEO of IDEO.

Kevin Conley
Student, University of Pennsylvania & Vice President of the Institute of Electrical and Eletronics Engineers - the Penn Branch (IEEE)

Kevin Conley loves improving lives with technology.  He won the grand prize at the 2010 World Embedded Software Contest in Seoul, Korea for creating AutoPlug, an on-board computer for cars.  In 2011 he won first place at the Google Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon in Mountain View, California for developing SMSPersonFinder, a text-message interface for Google Person Finder.  SMSPersonFinder is the innovation could help governments cope with catastrophes. Kevin has also worked as an Information Technology Advisor (ITA) at Penn, helping residents in his dorm with their computers. During high school, he worked at Intel Corporation and last summer he helped Bump Technologies build a consumer electronics device that interacts with users via the Bump smartphone app.

 

Social Entrepreneurship and Business Models

Garrett Melby (Moderator)
CEO and Co-Founder, Good Company Ventures

Garrett Melby is co-founder and CEO of GoodCompany Ventures, a nonprofit incubator for social entrepreneurs seeking market-based solutions in the community, clean-tech, education, healthcare and social-finance sectors. Good Company Ventures was launched in 2009 with support from a public/private coalition that included Murex Investments, a double-bottom line venture firm; the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and the Wharton School. Melby is also a founder and managing director at Iolite Social Capital, a nonprofit organization that develops and markets new ways to finance social innovation. Iolite is the exclusive distributor of Private Equity Philan¬thropy Strips, a financial structure designed to boost investors’ rate of social return. Melby earned a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Boston University, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

Darlene Daggett
Founder, Ikatu International

After an 18 year tenure at QVC Inc., most recently as President of QVC U.S. Commerce, Darlene transitioned into her official second career as a Social Entrepreneur. In April 2007 she founded Ikatu International, a nonprofit organization focused on leveraging markets to create employment opportunities for the world’s youth population.

Throughout her career, Darlene has been recognized by her peers for integrated social initiatives including the launch and cultivation of QVC’s philanthropic program. Darlene also serves as a delegate at both the Clinton Global Initiative and the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurs. In addition, she is an active member of the Advisory Board for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the Board of Overseers at the Peabody-Essex Museum, in Salem, Massachusetts.

Combining her diverse business acumen and social sensibilities, Darlene hopes to initiate and lead change on transparency, accountability, partnerships, and hybrid business models.

Joe DeLoss
Founder, Nobul

Joe is a restless banking analyst turned social entrepreneur – committed to making an authentic mark on communities and people.  In the spring of 2011, Joe founded Nobul, a bold start-up driving profitable change through business creation, early stage investing, and consulting. Nobul’s currently developing a large employment system to meet unmet demand for entry-level labor. Previously, Joe founded a successful social enterprise venture called Freshbox Catering for Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio. The business provides transformative employment for residents at Faith Mission homeless shelter while sustaining itself as a market-leading small business. In 2010, Joe’s contributions to Freshbox landed him a spot in the top 5 of BusinessWeek’s Young Entrepreneur competition. Joe graduated Summa Cum Laude from Capital University in 2006 with bachelor degrees in both Business and Communication.

Alla Jezmir
Co-Founder, EGG Energy and Business Development Associate, AES

Alla Jezmir joined the Business Development group at AES Corporation, where she currently focuses on Latin America, in 2010. She is founding team member and director of capital raising and corporate development of EGG-energy, an energy distribution company that provides portable, rechargeable batteries to low-income African households and small enterprises lacking access to the power grid. Previously, as Principal of the Green Portfolio at Calvert Foundation, she led the organization’s Green Initiative. Alla worked in TechnoServe’s Swaziland and Kenya offices, was a consultant at Reingold and participated in the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. She has consulted for the ILO, GreenFuel Technologies, and Masdar. Alla also interned in the CEO’s office of Fabindia, one of India’s emerging retailers, and the Cleantech Group, Investment Banking Division, at Jefferies & Company.  Alla has an MBA from the Harvard Business School, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a B.S. in international business and political science from Washington University in St. Louis..

 

Innovative Approaches to Education

Ira Harkavy (Moderator)
Associate Vice President and Founding Director, Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, University of Pennsylvania

Ira Harkavy has been director of the Netter Center since 1992 and has helped to develop service-learning courses as well as participatory action research projects that involve creating university-assisted community schools in Penn's local community of West Philadelphia. He is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR); the International Consortium on Higher Education, Civic Responsibility, and Democracy (U.S. chair); and the Coalition for Community Schools (chair). His recent publications include: Dewey's Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform (Temple Press, 2007), which he co-authored with Lee Benson and John Puckett, and The Obesity Culture: Strategies for Change. Public Health and University-Community Partnerships (London, Smith-Gordon, 2009), co-authored with Francis E. Johnston.

Marc Mannella
CEO, KIPP Philadelphia Charter Schools

Marc Mannella founded KIPP Philadelphia Charter School (KPCS) in 2003, and served as its School Leader for five years. Prior to founding KPCS, Mannella taught middle school science in Baltimore as a Teach For America corps member, and then taught high school biology and environmental science at a charter high school in Philadelphia. Seeing very bright children in his high school classes struggle to do basic mathematics and read science textbooks, he decided to take on education reform on a larger scale, which led him to KIPP. He has laid forth a plan for KIPP to grow from one high performing charter school to a cluster of ten high performing charter schools, by 2019. At full enrollment this cluster of schools will serve grades K-12, and increase the number of minority students in North and West Philadelphia who are prepared to matriculate to college by 36%. Mannella holds a BA in Psychology and Biology from the University of Rochester, and an M.Ed.in Education Leadership from National Louis University.

Amanda Jefferson
Executive Director, Summer Search

Amanda Jefferson received a B.A. in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. During this time, she studied abroad in Spain and Chile, which ignited her love for travel and adventure. After graduating from Maryland, she moved to Washington, D.C. and began working in the international education arena, working with Youth for Understanding International Exchange and Hostelling International. Amanda then joined Chemonics International to support international development projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Her travels then led to her to Santiago, Chile, where she lived for two years while working at the Chilean-American Chamber of Commerce and pursuing her MBA from the Universidad de Chile in conjunction with Tulane's Freeman School of Business. Upon moving back to the U.S., she joined the Wharton School’s Executive Education division where she served as Director of Partnerships for Social Impact. After several years volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters and Summer Search Philadelphia’s Young Professional Network, she joined Summer Search as Executive Director in March 2011.

Fahad Hassan
Founder & CEO, Always Prepped

Fahad Hassan is currently the CEO and Founder of Always Prepped, an online math learning and assessment product that serves the K – 5 market.  They allow students to practice math skills based on common core standards, receive real time progress reports, and earn rewards, points, and prizes. Fahad sold his first company, which developed online calendaring and retention tools for colleges after attending Virginia Tech. They were later acquired  by Intelliworks, a national CRM provider for the collegiate market.  Fahad recently left to start Always Prepped. In 2011 he was named one of Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best Young Entrepreneurs under 25.

Nick Rodriguez
Program Director, US Education Delivery Institute

Nick manages content development and internal learning at the U.S. Education Delivery Institute. Previously, he worked with McKinsey where he assisted in the launch of EDI and coauthored the Deliverology 101 Field Guide. He has worked to implement reforms in several domestic and international governmental systems, including the Ohio Department of Education. Nick holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Stanford University. He was also awarded the British Marshall Scholarship for graduate study in the United Kingdom. There he earned a Master's in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Master's in Latin American Studies from the University of Oxford.

Hoyt King
Director, Imagine Charter Schools

Hoyt King brings over 14 years of work experience in public charter school and private sector industries.  Hoyt currently works as the Director of School Development in Maryland and the District of Columbia for Imagine Schools where he has developed multiple charter schools. Prior to his current position, he served as the Director of Regional Finance for Maryland and the District of Columbia for Imagine Schools.  Among his accomplishments, Hoyt managed the development of the first public charter school in the United States to be built on a military base in order to educate military and civilian families. Prior to his work in public charter school education, Hoyt worked in marketing and business development in the private sector telecommunications and insurance industries, respectively.  Previous to this Hoyt worked for an insurance company to develop new lines of business to invest. Hoyt King received his Masters of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business and his Bachelors of Business Administration in Finance from Howard University. 

 

Wharton's Own Entrepreneurs

Vikram Bellapravalu
pledge4good

Vikram Bellapravalu is a co-founder of pledge4good, an innovative fundraising application for nonprofit organization that combines the demonstrated effectiveness of giving tied to real world events with the scale of social networking. Vikram previously worked as an analyst covering Internet and media at Tracer Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund, and as an investment banker at Citigroup. Vikram graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and is an MBA candidate from the Wharton School.

Gabriela Mandujano
washcyclelaundry

Gabriel Mandujano is the founder of Wash Cycle Laundry, a for-profit social enterprise that delivers laundry on bicycles to businesses, consumers, and institutions and processes it using a highly sustainable, cost-competitive wash process.  In its first year of operations, WCL hauled over 100,000 pounds of laundry by bike, created 8 jobs, and assisted three individuals formerly dependent on welfare attain self-sufficiency.  Previously, he served as the Manager of Strategic Alliances for the Center for Sustainable Transport in Mexico City and the Executive Director of the Enterprise Center CDC in West Philadelphia. He graduated from the Huntsman Program at Wharton in 2005 and attended Cambridge and LSE under the Marshall Scholarship.

Charlie Javice
PoverUP

Charlie is a student at the Wharton School of Business (WUG ’14) at the University of Pennsylvania and a Penn Civic Scholar. She volunteered in a border refugee village in Thailand and at PlaNet Finance in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is an Ashoka Youth Venturer, winner of 2010 Sparkseed Social Innovation Competition, the youngest member of the Wharton Venture Initiation Program and a recipient of the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurship Award. Charlie has been featured on TV Tokyo and Inc. Magazine as one of the “2011 Coolest College Startups,” and named one of Fast Company’s 2011 “100 Most Creative Business People.”

Keya Dannenbaum
Founder & CEO, ElectNext

Keya Dannenbaum studied and worked in politics as an undergraduate at Stanford and a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton; internationally in Bogota, Colombia as a Fulbright Scholar and in Mumbai, India; nationally for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and locally for several municipal candidates in New Haven, CT. She began an MBA as as part of the Wharton class of 2012 and is currently on leave.

Drawing on her various experiences in politics, as a first year MBA Keya founded ElectNext.com, a political preference engine that works like "eHarmony" for elections - it matches you to the candidates running in your upcoming elections based on the issues you care most about. In six short months ElectNext has been selected to the Wharton Venture Initiation, GoodCompany Ventures and DreamIt Ventures accelerator programs; won the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 Conference, presented at TEDx Philly, and were the GovFresh "best civic startup" of 2011; and they've been covered in TechCrunch, FastCompany and the Huffington Post among many others. Their advisors include Facebook's first product manager and the CEO of IDEO.

Aakash Mathur
Hydros

Mathur conjured up the idea of Hydros in the basement of a study hall at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, when he was just 21. Frustrated by the feeling that he was not heading down a path that would allow him to leverage his education and personal motivations to make a larger impact on the world, Mathur turned his attention to finding a way to contribute to greater global good during his senior year of college.

Inspired by his coursework in social entrepreneurship, Mathur, along with Hydros co-founder Jay Parekh, developed a unique two-pronged business approach: one that was both profitable but also profound.  First, they would create a unique filtering water bottle that would provide consumers with unparalleled access to great tasting, fresh, filtered water on- the-go. Second, they would build a company that not only met consumer demand, but that also worked hard to protect the environment and help those without the good fortune of having daily access to clean, drinkable water.

From there, the Hydros Bottle was born. Today, the product is the only filtering water bottle on the market to feature proprietary side-fill innovation. The sale of each and every bottle provides one person with clean water for one year, while also protecting our environment by keeping billions of bottles out of landfills each year.

Recently re-launched to popular demand, the product is sold nationally via online channels, in select Whole Foods and at specialty retailers with growing distribution.  Mathur remains busy growing retailer relationships, overseeing marketing efforts and expanding distribution channels.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Economics with concentrations in Finance and Management, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.