The Skoll Scholar community

Achyut Gautam is a co-founder of Khetipati Organics, a Nepali agro-based social enterprise dedicated to empowering rural smallholder farmers and reducing post-harvest loss in the Himalayan region. He envisions to create a robust agricultural ecosystem that values and uplifts the contributions ofsmallholder farmers, ensuring economic stability in the rural communities. His work focuses on creating impactful, community-driven agricultural practices that support the livelihoods of farming and local communities in the Himalayas. He aims to bring the stories and produce of these rural farmers to the global forefront
while developing sustainable and replicable solutions to this mass challenge. Achyut is a CFA Charterholder and completed his undergraduate degree from Ramapo College of New Jersey, USA. He has previously worked in the financial sector in New York and is also a founding member of one of Nepal's first private equity and venture capital firms.

Aisha Raheem is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Farmz2U. With over 14 years of experience in Strategy, Project Management and Operations, she facilitates strategic implementation, business development and corporate engagements at Farmz2u. Under her leadership, the company has seen significant growth and has won numerous awards for its innovative solutions, most recently the Africa Prize Alumni medal awarded by HRH, The Princess
Royale. 

As a Harambean Fellow she is committed to building Africa’s future. She is also a member of the global entrepreneurial networks, Endeavor, NASDAQ Milestone Makers and Techstars. With a deep focus on delivering impact socially and environmentally, she is a signatory of the United Nations’ Women Empowerment Principles and a member of Rothschild’s Council for Inclusive Capitalism.

Amadeus Driando Ahnan-Winarno, PhD (a.k.a "Dr. Driando, The Tempeh Doctor") is a food sciencepreneur and activist with a life mission of giving more people access to nutritious, sustainable, and affordable foods. He does it by innovating on and promoting tempeh and tempeh fermentation, which originated in Indonesia 400+ years ago. In 2014, Dr. Driando co-founded the world's largest tempeh network, the Indonesian Tempe Movement, which now has involved representatives from 24 countries. In 2018, Dr. Driando co-founded the UK's fastest-growing tempeh brand, Better Nature Tempeh. Since pursuing his PhD in Food Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (then #1 in the US according US News and World Report), Dr. Driando has received 33 national and international awards for his works in tempeh fermentation, food science, entrepreneurship, and science communication. 

Dr. Driando first-authored "The Tempeh Bible" i.e. the world's most updated manuscript on tempeh and tempeh fermentation, published in CRFSFS, then the
world's #1 non-annual food science journal according to Scopus. Dr. Driando has invented 4 patents and launched 10 products onto the European and Middle-Eastern markets. To further promote tempeh, Dr. Driando has run 5 out of the 6 World Major Marathons and published 22 songs (including 2 albums) on global music platforms.

Sebastián Jaramillo is the Colombian founder of Tirando X (TxC), where he leverages artificial intelligence for massive and personalized behavioral change interventions. With over a decade in innovation, Sebastián focuses on the intersection of technology and social impact. He is dedicated to reducing the poverty trap caused by teenage pregnancies through AI-enabled interventions. Sebastián has a strong research background, contributing to significant health education and policy-making initiatives. He has collaborated with the United Nations Development Program, advised the Government of Colombia on the AI for Nations initiative, and worked with various other governmental bodies to address real-world problems using technology. He holds a Master's in Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation.

Diana Chao is a Buyi Chinese-American immigrant who founded Letters to Strangers (L2S) in high school after bipolar disorder and a blinding eye disease nearly ended her life. Today, Letters to Strangers is the largest global youth-for-youth mental health non-profit, directly impacting over 35,000 people every year.

Diana has been honoured by two U.S. presidents at the White House, the Princess Diana Awards as a 2021 Legacy Award Winner, L'Oréal Paris as a 2020 Women of Worth, Oprah Magazine as its 2019 Health Hero, the We Are Family Foundation as a Global Teen Leader in 2017, the youngest-ever winner of the Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Award, and she gave a TEDxTeen speech at the PlayStation Theater in Times Square. 

Echika is the Founder and CEO of Mwanga and Yapha Academy, leveraging technology to drive responsible use of credit via ethical collections, credit education, intelligent debt management and access to economic opportunities. She aims to support over ten million Africans to have a healthier relationship with credit by 2030.

Echika is a serial entrepreneur, with over 10 years’ experience across industries; financial services sector spanning actuarial analytics, corporate finance, consulting, advisory and entrepreneurship. A Forté Fellow, she has been instrumental to the business development of a number of start-ups.

Hudson has spent his career in economic mobility, most recently as co-founder of PelotonU - a nonprofit focused on degree attainment for working adults. His team built a model that supported over 4,000 students while providing a 5x improvement on graduation rates.

Hudson was previously co-founder of Voters Act and MPI: Guatemala.

Julian is a co-founder of Zmudri.sk, an online platform with free entertaining video courses about topics that prepare students for adulthood, such as financial literacy, job search, digital security, critical thinking and many more.

Zmudri.sk was featured in major Slovak media such as RTVS, Markiza, JOJ, Dennik N, SME, Hospodárske noviny, Trend, Refresher, StartitUp, Dobré noviny, etc. and was awarded Forbes 30under30, European Citizen's Prize in European parliament in Brussels, Social Impact Award, Learning & Development Award.

Simeen is the Co-founder and COO at Gramhal, a social impact organisation that aims to democratise data for farmers. Gramhal works with more than a quarter million farmers. Beyond Gramhal, Simeen is a strong advocate of carving spaces for women's leadership. 

Over the past 8 years, Avinash has helped build two social enterprises as an early team member - Thinkerbell Labs (inclusive education) and SocialCops (data-driven decision-making). Thinkerbell Labs builds ed-tech solutions to improve learning outcomes for the visually impaired. Thinkerbell Lab’s flagship product, Annie, is the world's first Braille literacy device. Avinash was a core part of Annie's journey from a prototype to a fully-fledged Braille teaching device, being used by children across continents. Prior to this, Avinash worked with SocialCops to help governments and non-profit organisations make better decisions using data. Avinash is a mechanical engineering graduate from BITS Pilani Goa. In 2019, he was one of 25 people selected worldwide for the Dalai Lama Fellowship Program.

Fola’s enthusiasm for energy equity motivated her co-founding of ElectricFish Energy, a distributed energy company with a mission to drive equity. ElectricFish uses their patented technology to provide electricity grid resilience to the most vulnerable locations, with a network of energy storage packs capable of supplying extreme-fast electric vehicle charging. Fola is also a Ph.D. researcher in Energy Science and Engineering at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Her work is focused on the deep decarbonization of large-scale energy systems, exploring low-carbon transition pathway alternatives for oil-dependent countries, particularly developing economies like her home country of Nigeria.

Nitya is a Central Team Coordinator and Managing Trustee at India’s largest women’s organisation, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Bharat, where she brings a focus on entrepreneurship as a way to achieve economic empowerment. In her time at SEWA, she has setup up a ‘Women’s Enterprise Support System’ (WESS) to incubate, accelerate and invest in collective businesses setup by urban/rural poor women across India. Nitya has previously worked as a part of the setup team of Paytm Payment’s Bank, a fintech unicorn in India, and in the fintech practice at PwC, Mumbai. 

Shruti is the founder of Chipko, which provides carbon finance for smallholder farmers in India. Previously she also founded Kaze Living, a sustainable foods venture involved in hydroponic farming and ecommerce activities. Her farm to-fork marketplace has created a scalable platform for farmers and food producers to build their own brands, sell directly to customers, and achieve greater financial stability. In three years, her work has empowered 1,500+ farmers and built a community of 6,000+ conscious customers. Prior to this, Shruti worked at an international consulting firm for F&B clients on procurement and supply chain projects. She holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, University of Delhi.

Asha Scaria is a statistician by training and a social entrepreneur by practice. For nearly a decade, she has been dedicated to empowering rural women and promoting sustainable fashion. Despite lacking prior experience in the fashion industry, Asha founded Swara - Voice of Women, an ethical fashion brand creating income opportunities for women in rural India. Before launching Swara, Asha served as a Gandhi fellow, working to enhance learning conditions for students in government schools in tribal Rajasthan. She is committed to advancing women's financial empowerment and fostering sustainability and ethics within the fashion industry.

Ashraf's passion lies in effecting social change through design and technology. During his electrical engineering studies, he focused on human-machine interfaces and explored alternative interaction methods. Working in a Tokyo prosthetics lab, he was inspired to address Sudan's needs. In 2018, he founded Nayla, a startup dedicated to empowering Sudanese amputees with affordable, functional prosthetics. Recognizing the broader developmental challenges, Ashraf shifted Nayla's focus from merely engineering solutions to holistic development approaches. Through rigorous research, centering on people and considering social, economic, psychological, and political aspects, Nayla aimed for deeper impact. Additionally, Ashraf contributed to his father's venture, Green Desert Charcoal, which converts agricultural waste into household products in Dubai. Notably, he also pursued a professional basketball career in the Sudanese Basketball League, showcasing his diverse talents and commitments beyond entrepreneurship. 

Claire is the Co-founder of M-Shule, a personalized learning platform employing AI and SMS to enhance education accessibility for low-income communities. Before launching M-Shule in 2017, Claire spent four years in education and social business across India and the US, including work with Bridge International Academies. Passionate about transformative education, she focuses on making learning tools impactful and affordable. Claire holds a Bachelor's degree in psychology and French and invests in women from emerging markets. Currently, she serves as an investor at Founders Factory in London.

Taku is the Co-founder and Executive Director of emerginationafrica.org, a social enterprise with a vision to see an 'Africa where all young people are equipped to create economic opportunities for themselves and others'.  

While studying at Morehouse College, he realised that the theoretical methods of teaching business in Zimbabwean government high schools failed to equip learners with entrepreneurial skills to create sustainable economic opportunities in a volatile economy. This prompted him to establish Emergination Africa (EA), which trains teachers to mentor budding entrepreneurs. EA operates across 125 high schools, impacting over 15,000 students annually. EA empowers students to develop product prototypes and ventures, offering them opportunities to secure seed capital. 

Taku is working to expand the organisation's model to reach more government schools and countries with the goal of becoming the largest early talent identifier and feeder of young African business leaders. 

Dawn Musil is an associate at McKinsey & Company where she uses her data analysis, entrepreneurship, and innovation skills to help clients tackle complex challenges with a focus in AgTech. She's an ecologist and beekeeper with a passion for leveraging technology and innovation to address agricultural challenges. Her journey began at 14, tending bees for her family's orchard, sparking a lifelong commitment to pollinator conservation. As the founder of Bee the Change, she empowered low-income women through beekeeping, later co-founding Hivelend to revolutionize pollination markets. Dawn's expertise extends to data analysis and entrepreneurship, honed through her founder roles, including building Rabobank. Armed with a certificate in tropical forest restoration from Yale, she champions regenerative food systems. Dawn's initiatives, like Project ACORN, showcase her dedication to sustainable agriculture, making her a leading voice in AgTech innovation.

Jack Replinger is a teacher and educational entrepreneur based in Memphis, USA. His educational technology platform positivephysics.org, is designed to make learning accessible to students of any educational background. Early in his teaching career, he realized that traditional methods of teaching were not well suited for students who often struggled with complex problem-solving skills. He built and launched his tech innovation using an approach designed to make learning accessible to students of a wide range of educational backgrounds. He bootstrapped his venture to reach 30,000 active monthly users. He is currently working to expand his methodology to other subjects. In 2015, Jack was named a Tennessee Charter School Teacher of the Year. He received the 2018 Teach For America-Memphis Alumni Leader of the Year Award, and he was a 2020 Teach For America National Social Innovation Award Finalist. 

Libby is dedicated to restoring economic agency and dignity to marginalized communities. With experience in Mae La Oon refugee camp and as an Account Manager with the Clinton Global Initiative, she focuses on forging public-private partnerships. She has also worked with Skoll Awardee, Proximity Designs, in Yangon, leading a team in designing ag-tech products to uplift Myanmar's smallholder farmers. Libby fosters connections between Asia and New Zealand, serving as Vice-President of the New Zealand Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and as an Asia New Zealand Foundation Young Leader. Currently, as founder of RockPool Collective, she's scaling up efforts to build vibrant communities where all generations thrive, connecting senior Kiwis with families for casual support through RockPool's platform.

Shiemaa Ahmed is dedicated to driving change in her community through social entrepreneurship and NGO work. She co-founded SudaCraft to promote Sudanese traditional crafts, sparking her interest in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Passionate about social entrepreneurship's role in development, she focuses on strengthening social startups. Shiemaa has worked with ICRC in conflict areas and consulted for GIZ and UNDP on social entrepreneurship projects. With a background in Electrical Engineering and Development Planning, she champions economic and social development through impactful ventures. An AMENDS and Mandela Washington Fellow, she's a champion debater and co-founder of Sudan Debates. Currently, she's a Newton Scholar at the Newton Ventures Program, driving private investment into UK innovative businesses at Innovate UK and fostering youth entrepreneurship in Sudan.

Anjali Sarker is a social innovation expert and development practitioner with seven years’ experience in leading projects that serve the underprivileged population in Bangladesh, with a special focus on women’s economic empowerment through financial inclusion. Her journey in the development sector started at age 20 when she co-founded a social enterprise to provide affordable and eco-friendly sanitation solution in rural areas. She then joined Ashoka to launch its operations in Bangladesh. Later she joined BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world, in its social innovation lab. Anjali is a Senior Atlantic Fellow at the London School of Economics, a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum, and a New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute. She was invited to TEDx events to speak about social innovation and entrepreneurship, ad Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Courier magazine recognised her as one of the Top 99 leaders under the age of 33.

Dr. Diana Esther Wangari is a podcast host and contributing writer with Nation Media Group in Kenya. Prior to this, she was the CEO and co-founder of Checkups Medical Centre in Kenya. Checkups Medical Centres utilizes in-house developed technology, iSikCure; to provide access to rapid diagnostics, consultation and last mile drug distribution through its delivery services both in urban and rural areas. Under her leadership, Checkups grew rapidly with projected revenue of over 1 Million Dollars by its first anniversary. Having established partnerships with insurance and pharmaceutical companies including Sanofi, Novartis and Roche. For her work Dr. Diana has been recognized as Forbes30 under 30 Africa 2019, David Astor Journalism Award Finalist, with her organization receiving accolades at the UNDP Social Good Summit (Geneva), United Nations General Assembly (NewYork), VivaTech (Paris) and GetIntheRing (The Hague).

Joaquí­n is a passionate social entrepreneur and impact leader with expertise in small and productive scale biogas systems, water and sanitation, & climate resilient food production. He is interested in rural development, climate change, waste up-cycling, & renewable energy. He is focused on circular economy, WASH and sustainability. Joaquí­n has spent the past 10 years in Latin America working to promote the use of biogas technology as a mean to treat organic waste but producing positive social and environmental surplus in the process. He founded Viogaz, a social company that designed, manufactured, serviced and financed biogas systems to small livestock farmers in Costa Rica and the region. He is now collaborating with the German Agency for International Cooperation GIZ, on a WASH Regional project in the Wider Caribbean.

Rangan has spent over a decade developing partnerships for social change and is currently a research and development manager in the University of New South Wales Business School. For the 16 years prior, Rangan was founder & CEO of One Education, a One Laptop per Child offshoot. Rangan found innovative ways to evolve the operations from one dependent on donations and grants to a self-sustaining social enterprise capable of delivering thousands of low cost, low power, rugged computers for learning. Under Rangan’s leadership, One Education has developed strategic partnerships with the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, Microsoft, the Australian Federal Government and Land Councils to provide new and engaging learning opportunities for children most in need.

Tsechu Dolma spent the first half of her life as a stateless Tibetan refugee in Nepal. At eleven, Tsechu fled the civil war in Nepal and sought political asylum in Queens, New York. She went on to receive a Bachelors in Environmental Science and Master’s in Public Administration degree from Columbia University. Leveraging her education and experience, Tsechu returned to the refugee camps she left behind to make deep investments in small-scale, practical solutions to developmental challenges. She founded Mountain Resiliency Project, a social enterprise dedicated to building resilient refugee communities through women's agribusiness. With 15,000 farmers, its proven track record has been recognized by the Asia Society Young Leaders, Forbes 30 under 30 in social entrepreneurship and Brower Youth Award. 

Alexander has dedicated his career to generating economic opportunities for smallholder farmers and artisans in the rural Andes of Peru since 2012. As founder of Kai Pacha Foods, he launched the first Peruvian dairy free milk alternative made with rare native quinoa varieties to preserve quinoa diversity while providing fair prices for impoverished indigenous farmers. Alexander is also on the board of Tarwi Corp, a growing start-up that is developing improved processing technology to commercialise Andean tarwi beans, an emerging superfood that contains nearly 50% protein by weight as well as high levels of omegas associated with reduced diabetes and other benefits. Prior to launching Kai Pacha Foods, Alexander supported Bioversity International’s work in quinoa diversity conservation. In his spare time, he enjoys participating in Andean musical and dance traditions, trekking through the mountains, and appreciating Peru’s fabulous and biodiversity-rich cuisine.

Daniela is a 3x impact entrepreneur and an impact investing professional with 17 years of experience across India, Kenya and the UK. Having cofounded a rural healthcare company for eye health in 2013, a marketing technology start-up, and an edtech company in Bangalore in 2014 which was recognized at the Global Social Venture Competition by University of California, Berkeley, Daniela is highly experienced at building business models for impact and profitability. Daniela is currently the Venture Architect at Unmarkets, a joint venture studio based in London where she leads the new venture development in a co-design approach with founders of established enterprises in Kenya and India. Before Unmarkets, she managed angel funds for Acumen, designed VC-backable businesses at Antler Kenya and SME financing solutions in East & West Africa and sourced deals for Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. In 2018 she received the Skoll Scholarship to complete the MBA at University of Oxford. In India, for 7 years (2011 – 2018), Daniela was at the forefront of impact entrepreneurship: she, prototyped, marketed, and scaled impact businesses across several sectors: healthcare, textile manufacturing, waste management and education.  

Julie’s personal mission is to create opportunities for women to thrive, not simply survive. The social and economic inequality she experienced during two years serving in Peace Corps Rwanda and a year with AmeriCorps in Denver inspired her to focus her energy on women’s empowerment. She co-founded The Women’s Bakery (TWB), a social enterprise which builds bakeries and provides vocational training and employment to women in East Africa. With over 50 women employed and five bakeries in Rwanda, TWB continues to expand. Julie has come to believe that business is one of the best tools for development, social impact, and sustainable change. She has lived across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and the US. In her free-time she enjoys travelling, reading, and anything outdoors!

Dr Mohsin Ali Mustafa is a medical graduate of the Aga Khan University. After medical school he decided to pursue public health for the scale of impact this field allows. Following an initial stint in a public health institution which delivered emergency medical services to a city of 20 million he ventured out to create systemic change. Entrepreneurship seemed like the most logical path for this. He co-founded FiveHealth through which the team delivers primary care services to school children via clinics in schools. This pioneering work enabled a partnership with the Harvard School of Public Health. Currently, Mohsin is building a health-tech platform called DocLink that connects doctors to their patients. In addition to his MBA from Oxford, Mohsin is a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. The outdoors, his family and entrepreneurship are what excite him the most in life.

Aaron has spent more than a decade advising government and business leaders at the intersection of technology, national security, and global markets. He currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Investment Security, where he acts as the Department’s senior advisor on foreign investment risk analysis and mitigation through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). In this role he has led more than two dozen interagency reviews of transactions worth more than $25 billion and represented the United States in international engagements with partner nations. He previously served in several leadership roles for a U.S. Congressman, founded the American University of Iraq - Sulaimani's Entrepreneurship Initiative and served as a nonprofit executive Aaron holds master’s degrees in business and public administration from the University of Oxford and Harvard Kennedy School, and an AB with honors from Brown University.

Kevin is an American entrepreneur operating at the intersection of food, agriculture, and the environment. For over 8 years, Kevin grew his family’s food hub start-up, Fair Shares: an aggregator of local food that works with more than 90 local farmers and food producers to distribute sustainably produced food to families in Saint Louis, Missouri. In addition to his work at Fair Shares, Kevin created a tortilla company, La Tortilla Buena, that used locally grown organic corn to produce tortillas. He served a three-year term on the USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Administrative Council (SARE), representing agribusiness for the Midwestern United States. He also spent three years on the Slow Food Saint Louis board, one as president, and now contributes to the Saint Louis Food Policy Coalition steering committee, advocating for food access initiatives. 

Nikhil Dugal is an advocate of Systems Thinking. His current role as a consultant with Reos Partners includes designing and facilitating whole system teams to help create transformative change. Before his MBA, he co-founded Aadhan Infrastructure, a social enterprise in India. They recycled old shipping containers and other environmentally friendly materials into eco-friendly buildings, emphasising a culture of sustainability. Prior to Aadhan, he worked at IFMR-LEAD as a Policy Associate, where he was responsible for outreach to development sector stakeholders and handling policy research projects in the field of financial inclusion. Nikhil has a B.A. in Economics from New York University. He has published research on macroeconomics, microfinance and impact evaluation. He enjoys traveling, reading non-fiction, and thinking about ways to make the global economy more sustainable. 

Sandra's latest venture, MakingSense, bridges commercial success with sustainability in the maritime industry through trust and collaboration. Armed with an MBA, Sandra is dedicated to leveraging capital markets to drive sustainable business practices, particularly targeting companies neglecting their social and environmental impacts. Before her MBA, Sandra founded Claro, pioneering the plain-language movement in Portugal. Her advocacy reached global platforms, including TEDx, where her talk "The Right to Understand" ignited nationwide discourse and governmental initiatives. Previously, Sandra worked as a solution-focused psychotherapist for the British NHS and Lisbon’s Santa Casa da Misericórdia. With a degree in Psychology from the University of Lisbon, Sandra's journey epitomizes a commitment to social impact, spanning from mental health care to driving sustainability in business.

Currently working at KOKO Networks as Head of Strategy for KOKO Labs in Nairobi, Kenya, Ahmed is developing and coordinating the management of KOKO’s research and development strategies, bringing greater clarity and rigour to processes for identifying, exploring, and assessing the value of potentially life-transforming innovations. Ahmed is a social entrepreneur with more than 9 years of experience in launching technology based business ventures across the domains of health, education, online commerce, and B2B financing in Bangladesh. He is the Co-founder of Jeeon, Founder at Merlin's Beard and @rastaR Obosta. In addition to being a Skoll Scholar, Ahmed is also an Unreasonable Global Fellow.

Alex is co-Founder and CEO of Tandem, a social business with a mission to ensure transport is no longer a barrier to jobs, healthcare, education or social connections. Prior to his year in Oxford, Alex led the growth of the UK education charity Future First from a London-based organisation with 14 partner schools to one working with 10% of all secondary schools across the country. Before Future First, Alex spent several years teaching Maths and Politics in London schools, including as Head of Department and Head of Year. After completing his MBA, Alex served as Director of Operations at the UK's leading children's mental health charity, Place2Be. He has also served as a trustee of Teach First, is a school governor at a secondary academy in Newham and sits on the board of the social enterprise the Skills Builder Partnership. 

Ashley’s career has focused on designing clean water and energy technologies to improve the lives of Africa’s marginalised communities. She spent seven years working in East and Southern Africa designing, manufacturing and selling products for bottom-of-the-pyramid customers. During this time she has developed and sold over 200,000 products, providing clean water and energy to over 2 million people in 7 different countries. Ashley began her career in Ethiopia, working with International Development Enterprises (iDE) designing irrigation systems, and establishing micro-enterprises for their manufacture and sale. Building on this project, Ashley moved to Kenya to work on safe drinking water systems, and was part of the founding management team of Evidence Action, an NGO focused on scaling evidence-based interventions. Ashley led Evidence Action’s Engineering team and designed a chlorine dispenser for treatment of drinking water in rural areas. Most recently, Ashley managed the development of two new solar home systems for M-KOPA solar.

John is the founder of Better-Livelihoods Uganda, a community-based organisation working in rural areas of Uganda to improve the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people through: supporting sustainable businesses, increasing food security, promoting environmental conservation, and improving the quality of water, sanitation and hygiene. John was also the Executive Director of the Uganda Small Scale Industries Association, a business association of over 4,000 micro and small businesses. John previously worked with the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. John is a mentor for the African Entrepreneurship Award, a judge for the ICCO Agri-business Challenge, the Chairperson Panel of Judges for the Late Prof. James Mulwana Awards for Entrepreneurship and Judge for the Pakasa Youth Awards. He is also a member of the Rotary Club of Kampala and was awarded a Paul Harris Medal by the President of Rotary International for his contribution to ending polio in Uganda. 

Macarena has been dedicated to economic opportunity and prosperity for Mexico’s deprived communities since 2011. She joined the founding team of Guadalajara’s social enterprise, Prospera. As Prospera’s COO, she trained 8,000 poor women to become successful micro-entrepreneurs, whilst increasing women’s incomes eight times. Under her leadership, Prospera became listed as an Endeavor entrepreneur, Ashoka, Unreasonable, and GSBI Fellows. Also in 2013, Prospera was recognised as the best social enterprise in Mexico by the Swiss bank UBS. In 2016, while she was studying her MBA at Saïd Business School, she co-founded Language Amigo, an online platform that uses video calls to connect “Language Learners”, who want to practice conversational Spanish, with native speaking “Amigos”, who wish to gain flexible income opportunities. Since September 2018, in addition to Language Amigo, Macarena is Director of Innovation, Intelligence and Technology at AKRON.

Deborah has devoted over a decade to advancing gender equality. She commenced her journey as a facilitator at Men Stopping Violence, progressing to manage high-risk cases of domestic violence survivors and conducting some of the UK’s inaugural statutory Domestic Homicide Reviews. In 2013, she represented the UK civil society at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 57), catalyzing her vision for 'Made Equal'—a non-profit initiative fostering collaboration between young women and men to combat gender inequality. Passionate about addressing issues confronting young African women, Deborah collaborates with Africa-centric organizations, government agencies, and serves as a member of the Nigerian Leadership Initiative. Recognized as one of 100 RSA UK Diaspora Changemakers for her dedication to Africa, she serves as a trustee and advisor for various charities, including Restored. Since 2010, Deborah volunteers with HM Prison Chaplaincy, supporting female inmates on their faith journey.

Maria Springer helps start-up entrepreneurs raise capital. To date, she has helped raise millions of dollars in debt, grants, and equity via impact funds, crowdfunding platforms, foundations, angel investors, and venture capital funds. Beyond her financial expertise, she's the Writer and Executive Producer of EUROTRUMP, a documentary uncovering the global influence of far-right figure Geert Wilders. Premiering at DOCNYC, EUROTRUMP was acquired by Hulu and VICE. Maria's career spans Africa, co-founding LivelyHoods, employing youth for clean-energy distribution in Kenya, and serving as Senior Investment Associate at Ignite before operations ceased due to the Ebola crisis. Maria’s work has been featured in Forbes, VICE, PBS, the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The Observer, Fast Company, and The Guardian, and she is recognized as a Skoll Scholar, Unchartered Fellow, Global Social Benefit Incubator Fellow, Cordes Fellow, StartingBloc Fellow, and D-Prize Fellow.

Nikhil currently serves as Chief Business Officer at Ohm Mobility, an EV financing platform utilizing technology to streamline access to institutional capital for EV borrowers. Previously, he was Head of Alliances - APAC at Onfido, employing Machine Learning and AI for remote verification in 150+ countries, promoting trust and financial inclusion globally. Before Onfido, Nikhil founded Home Safe, a Delhi-based start-up offering safe chauffeur services as an alternative to drunk driving, preventing over 1,000 potential incidents monthly. He fosters partnerships between public and private sectors for sustainable change, spearheading initiatives like 'Respect the Road' with Gurgaon Police and designing the 'Traffic Tau' mascot. His innovative approach earned Home Safe recognition from Ashoka's 'Safer Roads, Safer India Challenge' in 2014. Nikhil's career exemplifies his commitment to leveraging technology and partnerships for societal impact. 

Pip Wheaton is a climate change practitioner and systems thinker. She helps Ashoka build a global strategy for Planet & Climate, and also works with Wellington City Council to achieve their target of reducing the city's emissions by 57% by 2030. Australian by birth, IPip has spent the majority of her career in South Africa and the UK. While in South Africa, she founded enke: Make Your Mark, a youth development organisation that has impacted tens of thousands of young people across the country. For this work, she was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2014. 

Ritesh, an Indian entrepreneur, has founded numerous ventures, experiencing both successes and setbacks. Post-MBA, he served as co-founder and CEO of ClearGlass, dedicated to transparency in pension fees to enhance retirement savings. Securing $4M in venture funding from Lakestar, Outward VC, and industry angels, ClearGlass gained prominence under his leadership. Currently, Ritesh is spearheading a new startup in Stealth Mode, leveraging his entrepreneurial acumen to drive innovation in undisclosed realms.

Songqiao Yao is an explorer and educator committed to solving our ecological challenges through reconnecting youth to nature and inspiring them to take actions, in China and globally. She can be found leading expeditions to the Antarctica, telling stories over a campfire, or playing with kids in nature.

Before setting up Wildbound, Songqiao Yao was trained in critical social theory, geography and management, she helped build two healthy food brands, was a Chinese youth delegate to UN Climate summit, wrote reports that affected water policy in China, facilitated policy dialogues and philanthropic partnerships between China and US, China and EU. She is also working on a book inspired by her different environmentalist experiences.

Sumit is a social impact advisor, committed to driving action on diverse socio-economic issues. He traversed various roles in his career from running his own social enterprise and working with the UN to consulting in the development sector. Currently, as Global Director at Lorinet foundation, Sumit leads the foundation’s vision to support sustainable initiatives on early childhood education and youth employment for vulnerable communities in Mongolia and SE Asia. Previously, as part of Leadership at Sattva Consulting, Sumit worked with global foundations, corporate, govt., multilaterals, and social-purpose organisations in designing and scaling their social impact initiatives. Sumit has also been a successful entrepreneur, co-founding APART Education to improve employability skills of Indian youth and providing livelihoods to thousands of young graduates. When Sumit is not working, he is out climbing mountains, paragliding, or preparing for his next long-distance run.

José founded s.e.e.d in 2009, which then became seed by EY in 2018 and now leads iitos, a multidisciplinary alternative service firm focused on the venture-capital, impact investing, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. He is known to be an ecosystem builder in the region for his work in impact investing and venture capital since the beginning of his professional career. In addition to his MBA from Oxford as a Skoll Scholar, José holds a law degree from the University of Costa Rica. 

Nikhil Nair is founder and CEO of Ohm Mobility, a Bangalore/India based startup that's building a FinTech platform focused on transportation and clean mobility for emerging markets. Previously he was International Expansion and Sales Director M-KOPA Solar (Kenya), a leading solar Pay-As-You-Go company started by the founding team at M-PESA. Since 2014, he has held different positions at M-KOPA and has been instrumental in setting up sales and distribution in different countries. Prior to M-KOPA, Nikhil worked at SELCO Solar (Bangalore), a social enterprise delivering off-grid solar solutions to rural homes in India. At SELCO, he managed expansion into new geographies and led institutional sales for the company. His other experience includes working for a $5 billion clean energy investment fund in Silicon Valley, and a solar manufacturing company based in the Middle East. As well as holding an MBA at Oxford, Nikhil also holds a bachelors in Business from Christ University (Bangalore). After living and working in 7 countries, Nikhil is now based out of Bangalore.

Nora Petty started her career in global public health bringing together NGOs, Ministries of Health, and private sector actors in Cambodia and sub-Saharan Africa to help eliminate the burden of malaria. In order to reach underserved populations, she designed and led innovative public-private partnerships (PPPs) to reduce prices and increase the availability of malaria diagnostic tests and medicines in private sector outlets. Through these programmes, millions of people have been able to afford high-quality, life-saving treatments. Since completing her MBA, Nora has joined Medtronic, an American medical device company, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In her current role, Nora leads Medtronic’s minimally invasive therapies group (MITG), for sub-Saharan Africa. She is leveraging her previous experience working on PPPs to spearhead initiatives that will improve surgical training and access to surgical and critical care infrastructure. 

Patrick Beattie has spent over 15 years developing new and innovative technologies to create change in biotechnology, pharmaceutical research and development, and healthcare delivery. With dual Chemical Engineering and MBA degrees, he combines business expertise and technical knowledge to build and lead teams; manage diverse stakeholder networks at both large and small organizations; and drive operational efficiency to realize tangible results. Previously CEO and a co-founder of Redbird, Patrick is now Senior Program Officer (Venture Programs) at VentureWell. 

Austin is a former corporate banker who altered course to work in East Africa with microfinance, SME accelerators, and renewable energy. Austin's work has largely focused on the financial strategy, management, and analysis for companies with strong social impact in the region. 

Before his MBA at Oxford, Austin founded and managed Inkomoko, a Rwanda-based business accelerator that provides consulting, financing, legal, and capacity-building services to SMEs across the country. Prior to Inkomoko, Austin spent seven years working in finance including within the M&A, corporate finance and microfinance industries.

Chris is currently completing a Mid-Career Masters in Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School as a John Monash Scholar.

He is the Co-Founder of Clean Slate Clinic - a national GP-led telehealth service that supports Australians to undergo a medicated alcohol detox from home. He is also the Founder and former CEO of Hello Sunday Morning - a for-purpose organisation that supports one of the largest online communities in the world focused on alcohol behaviour change.

Kjerstin believes an economy that works for everyone is within reach. For the past 3.5 years, she has been building Arising Ventures - a modern Hold Co of tech companies focused on turnarounds, recapitalizations, and special situations. Their speciality is buying venture backed startups that have hit hard times -- whether that be a broken cap table, tapped out investors, underwater common stock, cofounder disputes, legal challenges, and more. They bring the operational discipline to turn to them into cashflowing, growing businesses and either hold forever or position them for exit. 

In 2014, Kjerstin was a Skoll Scholar at Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she completed her MBA. Prior to Oxford, she spent 9 years as the Founder and Executive Director of FORGE, a strategic-impact nonprofit that provides education, skills training, and entrepreneurial resources to more than 70,000 refugees in war-torn Africa. Her awards include the Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship, the Do Something Award for public service, and the Stanford Haas Public Service Fellowship. Kjerstin has also been named a “Top 40 Leader Under 40” by the New Leaders Council, a “Person You Should Know” by CNN, and a “Top 10 College Woman” by Glamour Magazine.

After building and selling two businesses, Mark is currently building Mountain Lion Capital, a multi-stage consumer-tech investment company. 

Before his MBA at Oxford, Mark was the CEO of Finance for Good, the first built-for-purpose social impact bond intermediary in Canada. In this role, Mark worked with social sector organisations, governments, and investors to develop the social finance ecosystem in Canada. Prior to founding Finance for Good, Mark was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and also worked for Off.Grid:Electric, the world’s first scalable electrical services company, where he helped the organisation expand into new developing markets. Mark has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Alberta, where he was a Peter Lougheed Scholarship recipient.

Nicolás Argüello is an international development practitioner from Nicaragua. He has worked in a variety of areas ranging from microfinance and education policy to mobile technologies for development (ICT4D) and social venture capital. Prior to Oxford, Nicolás worked with several consultancy organizations such as FINCA (Managua), DAI (Mexico City), Acumen Fund (Nairobi), The Earth Institute, Millennium Villages Project/UNDP (Sauri, Kenya), NYC Department of Education, West African Rice Company, and Microfinance Transparency. Nicolás is the Co-Founder and Director of Mentores Solidarios, an education-focused non-profit in Nicaragua. After completing his MBA, Nicolás joined the American Nicaraguan Foundation (ANF) as General Manager. With over $100 million in yearly program expenses, ANF is Nicaragua’s largest relief and development organization. Its mission is to build sustainable livelihoods for Nicaragua’s poor across the areas of health, agriculture, education, housing, water, sanitation, and humanitarian assistance. Nicolás holds a dual BA in Theology and Economics from the University of Notre Dame, an MPA in Development Practice from Columbia University, and an MBA from Oxford University, where he attended on the Skoll Scholarship.

Since completing his Oxford MBA, Mark served as an Entrepreneurship Fellow at Saïd Business School, redesigning the core MBA entrepreneurship course, managing the student-run Oxford Seed Fund and making impact investments on behalf of the Skoll Centre. He then joined social enterprise accelerator UnLtd USA as a Venture Partner, designing and delivering funding and support to 15 Austin-based social entrepreneurs. In the fall of 2016, Mark co-founded the consulting firm Assemble and also began a PhD as a Harrington Fellow at the University of Texas, studying the formation of politics teams and networks. Prior to his studies and work at Saïd Business School, Mark was an Investment Associate at First Light Ventures, a seed fund affiliated with Gray Ghost Ventures that invested more than two million dollars in twenty-six for-profit enterprises around the world. While there, Mark helped spin outs the First Light Accelerator, a joint venture with the Shell Foundation; and Village Capital, an impact accelerator program. 

Originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, Mark graduated from Vanderbilt University with degrees in International Political Economy and Religious Studies. After graduating, Mark founded and led the expansion into Ecuador of Manna Project International, a volunteer-driven, a community development nonprofit. Mark also led fundraising efforts at an HIV and AIDS hospice in Botswana and served as a social worker for the families of abused and neglected children in Louisiana.

Michael has devoted his career to business solutions for good - first as an engineer at Sherwood Design Engineers designing and developing green infrastructure projects around the world, then as an entrepreneur cofounding Odyssey Sensors a low-cost agriculture sensor company, Terra Recovery which focused on turning landfills from liabilities to assets, and most critically Carbon Analytics which is working to embed environmental externality data into economic systems with the goal of solving sustainability forever.

Michael and his team have won numerous competitions, raised over half a million dollars for the three companies, and garnered media attention from the Financial Times, Science Magazine and the BBC. Michael now lives in London where his companies are based.

Shubham is the Co-Founder at Little Jumbo Tales and a Entrepreneurial Mindset Educator. He holds an MBA from the Saïd Business School, at the University of Oxford where he specialized in Social Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking and Systems Impact. He has designed and delivered Entrepreneurship Mindset training programs at ChangeSchool, Oxford Summer Courses, Campfire London, Cowork Hub London, Oxford Independent Business Owners Association and others. 

Prior to that, he started an entreprenurial venture called iGBL, a game-based business skills learning platform, which won the Skoll Venture Award and the UKTI (now called Department for International Trade, UK) Sirius Award. The iGBL platform was used by several leading universities and corporates to teach business skills to students and professionals across the world.

Tara helps build entrepreneurial ecosystems all over the world. From delivering fund-raising strategies to agricultural cooperatives in Angola to helping Arabian Gulf governments launch startup investment funds, she has dedicated most of her adult life to catalysing entrepreneurship, especially to growing enterprises in emerging markets and under-served communities in the U.S. Tara started her own company which trained over 2000 entrepreneurs across Africa and Latin America. Tara shifted her focus to impact investment and is now Director of Chemonics International, doing both strategy consulting and impact investing in Africa and the Middle East.

Prior to studying at Oxford, Andy spent six years working with social enterprises and on social projects in Northern Ghana with child’s rights organisation, AfriKids. After the MBA, Andy committed to return to AfriKids in order to use the skills he had learned at Oxford to benefit the organisation. Following two additional years at the NGO, he used his newfound consultancy experience and networks built during the MBA to become the Deputy CEO of a new social enterprise, 8 Degrees North (8DN). 8DN worked to create a scalable business model for sustainable palm oil that offers rural African smallholder farmers a transformative link to the global value chain as well as attractive investor returns. 8DN was sold to the third largest organic palm company globally, Natural Habitats, in 2015. Andy set up a new company within the Natural Habitats group, Organic Animal Nutrition (OAN), and led it as its COO, creating global markets for farmers in Ecuador and Sierra Leone. In January 2022, Andy joined Silvan Ingredient Ecosystem at their Managing Partner. 

When Daniela became a Skoll Scholar, in 2011, she had just finished working in Asia for a decade. In Cambodia, she founded and grew a hybrid social venture: a non-profit youth leadership organisation, PEPY; a for-profit development education travel company, PEPY Tours and an advocacy organisation, Learning Service. In 2018, Learning Service, a book she co-authored, was published by Red Press. After her MBA, Daniela worked at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and was also part of the Clore Social Leadership Program. Through support from Clore, she wrote a report called Tackling Heropreneurship and designed a tool called the Impact Gaps Canvas, which helps people understand and map the systems around the challenges they are working to address. As the Deputy Director at the Skoll Centre, Daniela helped turn that Canvas into a global competition, Map the System, now offered at more than 40 university and partners organizations around the world. At the Skoll Centre she also designed and directed the Leading for Impact Programme, a personal development program for students interested in social impact careers, co-founded the LAUNCH Social Impact Careers Conference and was on the MBA teaching team. Currently, Daniela is based in Boulder, Colorado. She has been a Lecturer at Watson Institute and Yale School of Management, and is on the teaching team for a scaling impact course at Chicago Booth. She continues to work as an educator and consultant to a range of social impact organisations.

David is Chief Data and Performance Officer and Head of International Expansion for M-KOPA Solar. Following Oxford, David joined fellow Skollar Jesse Moore in the launch of M-KOPA Solar. M-KOPA is the leading African pay-as-you-go solar system provider which utilizes mobile payments and machine-to-machine technology to make electricity and other assets affordable to off-grid customers. At M-KOPA Solar, David has been responsible for many positions including product management, the platform, market research, new product development, and Managing Director of Tanzania and Uganda.

Before Oxford, David worked for Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWBC) for eight years where he acted as a Founding Contributor and the Senior Director of Africa Programmes. In addition, he co-founded both Ethical Ocean, an online ethical shopping company, and RUBR, a company focusing on fairly traded ice hockey pucks, and also worked as a corporate strategy consultant. 

Sydney Schaef, Ed.D., M.B.A., is an educator, designer, and entrepreneur dedicated to modernizing learning systems so that they serve as drivers of equity and opportunity for disadvantaged youth. Sydney is the founder of Kujali International, a 501c3 nonprofit with a mission to design, study, and promote learning innovations that shatter opportunity barriers for disadvantaged youth and help radically improve access to meaningful, future-ready learning.

Sydney is also the founder of CBL Partners, a leadership and design consultancy specializing in developing and supporting competency-based learning models in K-12 education and workforce learning systems. Sydney holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oxford, a Master of Education from the University of California Los Angeles, and a B.A. from the University of Florida.

Anima is an entrepreneur with a background in social science and human-centred design. Her work has been recognised in the fields of national politics, social entrepreneurship, and most recently, consumer mobile technology. Originally from Washington DC, Anima completed her MBA at Oxford in 2011 as a Skoll Scholar. After Oxford, Anima moved to San Francisco and soon founded Connect a mission-based consumer tech company building tools for real-world social relationships (as opposed to social media). Over the next four years, she led the design and development of three social-location products, including a map-based social CRM that won Best Overall at the 2014 LAUNCH Festival (following winners Mint.com and Yammer). Continuing the theme of tech facilitating real-world connection, Anima led Social Impact experiences at Airbnb. She is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University. 

Nigel co-founded the largest driving school in the US, Coastline (coastlineacademy.com), with the mission to eradicate car crashes. One of the top 10 fastest growing education companies, Coastline is transforming driving education through a technology-focused approach, and applying scalable operations in a highly fragmented industry. The Skoll Scholarship and the Skolll Scholat community helped Nigel to think bigger about applying business as a tool for impact.

For the past 5 years Sean has run Ascent Alpha Partners - a collaborative consulting firm specializing in corporate venturing, strategy, spinouts, restructuring and turnarounds for companies and funds based in Canada and the US. Sean previously co-founded Grand Basin Group, a boutique consulting firm focused on Canadian First Nation economic development (acq. Castlemain Group); Purpose Capital, an impact investment and advisory firm (acq. Rally Assets); Verdant Technologies, a cleantech company that developed clean plastics and process technologies (acq. Polynova Composites), and EqualFooting.com a marketplace for industrial supplies and equipment created to put SME "blue collar" manufacturers on equal footing with large corporations in purchasing, supplyand logistics. Early in his career Sean worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in New York, and as a private equity investor with Emerging Markets Partnership focused on critical infrastructure in East Asia and Africa. In addition to obtaining his MBA from Oxford as a Skoll Scholar, Sean graduated with distinction in economics from Cornell University as a Cornell Tradition Fellow. Sean's passions are family, culture and nature. He enjoys food, fashion, music, traveling, camping, yoga, meditation, history, languages, antiques and woodworking. He lives in Toronto with his wife Ariana, who works as an urban planner with TAS Impact and their two sons Hugo (4) and Harlan (2)

Tamsin is a social entrepreneur and venture catalyst who has been involved in the design and expansion of a string of high-social impact initiatives in Africa, the UK and Australia. She is a regular commentator on the power of networks, social innovation and gender diversity. As co-founder of The Boardroom Africa, Tamsin has developed the leading solution to bring more exceptional female talent into the boardroom through the creation of most extensive network of board-ready women on the continent. In addition to her social enterprise, she is regularly consulted by corporate leaders, investors and policymakers with a focus on turning transformative ideas into reality. Tamsin’s career started as a political and policy advisor to the Premier of South Australia and her pathway hence has been driven by a personal commitment to make a difference. This led her to head the jobs and business legacy initiatives in support of the London 2012 Olympic Games and subsequently the expansion team for mothers2mothers Africa which is a leading organisation that helps women living with HIV to reduce transmission to their babies. These experiences inspired her to work with the inaugural Director of The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town to help build this renowned academic hub during its inception.

Xavier is a serial entrepreneur, founding Better World Books and Indaba Systems after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. Better World Books was a founding B Corporation and has raised over $20 Million for literacy and donated over 20 million books. Xavier founded Off Grid Electric, Africa’s fastest growing solar leasing company. The company was founded on a vision to make solar affordable and accessible to the 1.3 billion people who live without electricity. Off Grid Electric has won the Zayed Future Energy Prize, the Ashden Award, and has raised over $100 Million in private-public capital to solve one of the world’s biggest problems.

After a 15 year career building startup and impact ecosystems, Grace is now the Co-founder & CEO at Unravel Carbon, an AI-powered decarbonization platform that helps companies measure, reduce, and report their carbon emissions. Grace led a VC fund as a Kauffman Fellow and recieved her MBA from Oxford and a Masters in Organisational Change from INSEAD.

Based in Kenya, Jordyan is the co-founder and COO of EcoSafi, the Better Cooking Company.  EcoSafi is a venture backed, sustainable cooking company powered by biomass pellet fuel, which saves money, lives and trees through gasification cooking while producing the highest quality carbon offsets in the clean cooking space. Jordyan's professional focus is creating profitable solutions to clean energy and financial access challenges. Privately, she supports reproductive health services for women and girls. Educated in Mandarin Chinese and Economics at Georgetown University, she furthered her studies with an MBA from Oxford thanks to a scholarship from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Her varied career includes roles in investment banking at JP Morgan Chase, project finance at InfraCo Africa, and financial inclusion initiatives at Kiva and 4G Capital. This diverse experience laid the groundwork for launching EcoSafi in the climate tech sector.

Lara graduated from Stanford University with a degree in international public health. She went on to become a travel writer, which landed her in Africa. In Kenya, she co-founded a non-profit organization called Hope Runs, which provides educational and extra-curricular programming in orphanages. Lara left Oxford to return to medical school. She is now completing her Emergency Medicine Residency at Mass General Hospital, and is continuing to research women’s healthcare access in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

When Louis worked with Engineers Without Borders Canada in Ghana, he wondered how aid organizations and emerging market governments can use tech to meet the needs of people who aren’t being reached? The answer was in co-founding Viamo in 2013, using the ubiquitousness of mobile phones to create new feedback loops at scale, and empower millions of people with new access to vital information. As COO, Louis leads the company’s implementation, product, marketing, and business development teams. He has since helped grow the company to 33 countries and reached over 30 million people with hundreds of diverse services.

Louis began at Engineers Without Borders Canada where he was part of their first overseas-based staff and grew their international programs to more than 200 Africa-based employees and volunteers. He worked for a silicon-valley pre-IPO software company as their Director of Specific Projects reporting to the CEO. There, he led the corporate development team, the growth of the corporate foundation and became the founding director of their R&D labs division.

Louis has an MBA from the University of Oxford as a Skoll Scholar.

A Business in Vancouver Top 40 Under 40 Award Recipient, Shawn spent several years building social innovation incubator Global Agents for Change (GAFC). GAFC worked on global poverty through initiatives including crowdfunding scholarships in low income countries, impact investment and venture support in East Africa, and a cycle touring and youth leadership enterprise that saw participants cycle more than 500,000km in 18 countries. Currently, Shawn is the Co-Founder and Director of RADIUS, a leading social innovation hub based at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser Universityin Vancouver, Canada. Built around mutually reinforcing Education Training and Social Innovation Lab portfolios, RADIUS works to build the capacity, networks and solutions needed to build a more sustainable, inclusive, dynamic and resilient economy. Partnering with dozens of government, private sector and community organizations, they have worked with hundreds of students, innovators and systems influencers across areas including inner-city economic development, refugee livelihoods, chronic disease prevention, Indigenous entrepreneurship and the future of work. Shawn is also is a co-founder of IMPAQTO, an incubator and co-working space with multiple locations around Quito, helping accelerate Ecuador’s impact entrepreneurship community.

Aaron is excited about the interplay between our inner lives and the broader world. Aaron Pereira is currently Project Lead for The Wellbeing Project. The Wellbeing Project is focused on catalysing a culture of inner wellbeing for all changemakers. The Wellbeing Project is co-created with Ashoka, Georgetown University, Impact Hub, Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, and Synergos. Aaron also worked with the Guggenheim on an urban labs project, co-founded a pilot social enterprise to address housing issues in Mumbai slums, and explored neighbourhood life through a project in Paris. Aaron was co-founder of CanadaHelps and Vartana. In addition Aaron co-founded a multimedia business in the early days of the internet. Aaron is an Ashoka Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. 

Anna co-founded the award-winning charity, PhotoVoice and ran the organisation from 1999-2008, before coming to Oxford. PhotoVoice works in partnership with other organisations to empower marginalised and disenfranchised communities around the world through providing workshops in digital media and advocacy skills. After graduating in 2009, Anna has worked as an associate and strategic consultant for UK-based social enterprises and charities. She has worked across Participle’s portfolio of startups and scaling social enterprises working to tackle the UK’s most pressing social issues, and has provided consultancy for national charity, Relate. Currently, Anna is working on the early development of a social business looking to establish new models of finance for the rehabilitation and development of neglected heritage and socially significant buildings. She is also just beginning a new role as Director of a small NGO supporting grassroots organisations in India.

Faisal is an entrepreneur and investor based in Mayfair, UK. His investment focus has a recurring theme in property, property services, and property related technology. Faisal is the Founder/CEO of Spire Ventures, a property focused private equity boutique, and Founder/Chairman of Pi Labs, Europe’s first PropTech focused venture capital fund. Faisal’s investment portfolio includes 20+ companies, spanning a diverse range of ventures including 90 North, a real estate investment management business with over £1bn assets under management, emoov, one of the UK’s leading online estate agents, Hubble, an office space marketplace, and PropTech fund Pi Labs. Faisal is a recipient of several noteworthy industry and academic awards, including the Estates Gazette Power List, the 40 under 40 award by Property Week, and Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Shell Livewire. 

Prior to attending Saïd Business School, Jessica Lax co-founded and directed the Otesha Project, an organisation that trains cycling theatre troupes to spread the message of conscious consumption to young people. The organisation reached more than 100,000 Canadians through its award-winning theatre performances, and expanded to both the UK and Australia. Since her MBA, Jessica has focused on supporting changemakers. She has led a collaborative of organisations in her home city of Ottawa to develop an ecosystem of support for social enterprises, and started an online school for changemakers, School For Change. She now works as a nature-inspired leadership coach who supports changemakers at a career crossroads to amplify their inner voice, and in 2020 she founded the Ember Circle to help folks collectively wrestle with the essential questions of our lives (and our species) as they discern the path that feels most true. 

Christie’s work prior to the MBA was focused on fostering an independent, vibrant, and diverse media sector. She started her career at a venture capital firm and spent six years managing sales and marketing for Women Make Movies, the world’s leading distributor of films by and about women. Since the MBA, she co-founded Louder (acquired by Change.org), a crowd-promotion platform for ideas that matter. Previously Director, she is now the Senior Advisor of New Media Ventures, the first national network of angel investors supporting media and tech startups that disrupts politics and catalyzes progressive change in the US. At New Media Ventures, she has overseen the investment into a portfolio of more than 60 non-profits and for profits, including Upworthy, CrowdTangle and Vote.org.

Claire Díaz-Ortiz is a venture capital investor & bestselling author who was an early employee at Twitter. Wired magazine called her "The Woman Who Got the Pope on Twitter" and Claire was once named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. Claire is the author of 9 books translated into 12 languages, including One Minute Mentoring (with her mentor, legendary management guru Ken Blanchard), Social Media Success for Every Brand, and Twitter for Good. She is on the 2023 Thinkers 50 Radar List of emerging management thinkers. Claire is currently a venture capital scout for Kleiner Perkins focused on Latin America and is the Startup Committee Chair at VC3, a decentralized web3 fund + DAO of 150 professional venture capitalists from the Kauffman Fellows program, where she is a fellow. Claire is also an advisor to Antler, a global early stage accelerator with $700AUM across 23 global locations. 
 

After graduating from Saïd Business School, Dhruv set up Mirakle Couriers, a full-service courier company offering delivery and tracking services to clients in Mumbai, staffed entirely by deaf employees. He got his innovative company up and running with a combination of his own savings and angel capital. Performing all delivery and back office functions, his team communicate with each other and their clients through the use of SMS text messages, sign language and rigorous job training. In addition, Mirakle Couriers provides life skills instruction for its employees including personal financial management. Mirakle Couriers is recognised as a role model employer for hiring deaf adults/people with disabilities and is also the recipient of the National Award from the President of India, Helen Keller Award, Echoing Green Fellowship, and the India-Africa Fellowship. 

Since completing her Oxford MBA in 2008, Lindsay has consulted with numerous US-based and international social enterprises, supporting clients in new business development, strategic planning, organizational change, resource development, evaluation, group facilitation and more. Current and past clients span the venture philanthropy, peacekeeping, education, food service, apparel, prison reform and job creation sectors. Lindsay has worked extensively with REDF, a Bay Area-based foundation addressing workforce development for people facing barriers to work, to develop web based resources and tools for nonprofits interested in using social enterprise to create jobs. She serves as the Board Vice Chair of Gorge Owned, a nonprofit organization in Hood River, OR promoting sustainable community development that enhances community, economy and environment.

Mike Quinn is a co-founder and CEO of Boost, with a mission to power growth for the 100 million underserved entrepreneurs in Africa's informal economy who are creating sustainable jobs and income for the future. Prior to Boost, Mike was a co-founder and CEO of Zoona, one of Africa's earliest fintechs. During his 10-year tenure, Zoona processed $2.5 billion of transactions, generated $26 million in income for 3,000 micro-entrepreneurs across Zambia and Malawi, and raised $35 million in investment. In 2015, Zoona was recognized by the Nike Foundation and Unreasonable Institute as part of the Girl Effect Accelerator for helping girls out of poverty. For his leadership, Mike was awarded the Accion 2017 Edward W. Claugus Award for Leadership and Innovation in Financial Inclusion along with one of the Schwab Foundation's 2018 Social Entrepreneurs of the Year.

Rob is a project developer & project finance professional with 15 years experience leading design, building, financing, and management of projects in “frontier” markets. His focus is expanding the production of sustainable aquaculture and related areas of the blue economy, by leveraging his experience developing businesses to drive sustainable, scalable, and value-generating change in our relationship with the sea. A founding partner in NewSeas, Rob develops and invests in sustainable aquaculture production and related areas of the industry's value chain. NewSeas’s business model is about linking high potential projects with international best-practice expertise for projects that pair profitability with a best-practice environmental and community footprint. NewSeas is currently developing production businesses in Asia and North Africa.

David is currently the Supply Manager in UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional office. David oversees the coordination of supply needs for the region’s 20 countries which include an emergency supply for Syria and Yemen. Prior to his MBA and Skoll Scholarship at Oxford, David was also a researcher in the field of Tropical Medicine. He completed his PhD in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he was a Welcome Trust prize student. He later worked at the Wellcome Trust research laboratories in Kenya and Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. After his MBA, David worked at the Northampton NHS trust UK before joining UNICEF in 2010 where he managed a team of experts procuring and delivering access to affordable Essential Medicines to UNICEF global programs from UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen Denmark. Among David’s key accomplishments at UNICEF Supply Division is in making available and expanding access to life saving medicines for mothers and children, especially the child friendly dispersible amoxicillin tablets to treat childhood pneumonia and co-packaged oral rehydration salts and Zinc to treat childhood diarrhea at a community level in low-income countries. 

Emma is the CEO and Founder of Tiny Totos Kenya, which she founded in 2013. Tiny Totos Kenya helps women running informal daycares upgrade care services, to provide better care to children and working others while earning more income for themselves. Prior to this, Emma was the first Director of the Low Carbon Enterprise Fund, an impact fund supporting entrepreneurs in the developing world whose products and services provide cost savings and low carbon alternatives to lower income consumers. Thenm in January 2012, Emma and her family moved to Nairobi, Kenya where she set up an advisory firm focusing on impact investment clients. As well as continuing to support the Low Carbon Enterprise Fund as their Africa Lead and Development Director, she worked for clients including the Calvert Foundation, SEED UNEP-UNDP, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor Enterprises (a Skoll Foundation awardee), the Aga Khan Foundation for Culture and Development and the Kenyan Banking Association, supporting the industry in its effort to adopt cross-sector standards in sustainable finance. 

Eugénie Fitzgerald’s career has comprised of dynamic leadership roles designing and implementing new strategic initiatives. Prior to completing the MBA, she was focused on building the financial security of low-income individuals in the US. She spent eight years within two social enterprises, leading programmes through periods of change and growth and fostering partnerships between nonprofits, government, the City College system and the business community. Since completing the Oxford MBA, Eugénie has enjoyed a series of exciting roles at the nexus of social change and business. Ranging from designing a city-wide implementation plan to shift to a paperless payday, to leading the first initiative that designs and implements solutions to LGBT poverty, to becoming the President of the for-profit side of an innovative leadership enterprise, her leadership roles have had the common thread of being entrepreneurial, challenging and generative.

Jesse co-founded M-KOPA Solar in Kenya, in 2010. M-KOPA combines GSM technology with solar power systems to provide affordable energy to low-income households on a pay-as-you-go basis. He has overseen the company’s growth from scratch to a business with over 400 employees and 100,000 customers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Based on this growth, M-KOPA was selected by Bloomberg as the top “New Energy Pioneer” worldwide for 2014 and winner of the Zayed Future Energy Prize 2015, and has also secured its fourth round of investment funding through a $12.45 million equity and debt deal, led by LGT Venture Philanthropy. Prior to coming to Oxford, Jesse worked as the Director of Private Sector Development for CARE, the international development organisation. In this role, Jesse travelled extensively in developing markets and forged his belief that leapfrogging technologies could be harnessed to benefit low-income consumers while also creating significant financial returns.

Ntongi McFadyen has 15 years of professional experience building the financial resilience of some of the most vulnerable communities around the globe. In pursuit of delivering entrepreneurial solutions that improve social and economic well-being, she has assumed leadership, management, and advisory roles, and earned an MBA from Oxford University. She has bridged the fields of international development and social enterprise through her work in microfinance, entrepreneurship, employment, disaster risk, and health insurance. After completing an MBA, she ran an independent consultancy to advise and manage projects in the areas of financial inclusion, SME development, and social entrepreneurship for private investors and global development organizations. 
She then returned to Save the Children to lead the overall strategic direction and growth of the agency’s financial services and employment/entrepreneurship practice. Following a parenting sabbatical, Ntongi then joined Build Change to continue to work to reduce poverty and deliver coherent solutions for economic opportunity and risk management.

Jessica Shortall is currently building a diverse, bipartisan coalition of U.S.-based organizations that support harm reduction approaches in state and federal public policy and public health across drug use, tobacco, and sexual health. Perviously, she founded and led Texas Competes, a statewide coalition of more than 1,400 businesses promoting the economic case for fair treatment for LGBTQ people in the state of Texas and speaking against nearly 150 pieces of discriminatory legislation over the course of almost a decade. Jessica later launched America Competes, a national coalition based on the same model, and gave a 2017 SXSW keynote on building bridges and the rights of transgender people. From 2009-2014, she was the first Director of Social Innovation for TOMS Shoes, leading global social impact tied to the brand's shoe and eyewear lines. 

Before coming to Oxford, Juan Jose created FIS Microcredito, a microfinance institution in Argentina operating in both rural and urban settings, and a Social Investment Fund called FIS Fondo de Inversion Social. Juan Jose led FIS growth to become one of the major players in the Argentinian microfinance market, growing both organically and through the acquisition of a microfinance company. He gave oversight and supervision of a leading solar energy access programme in the region through microcredit in rural areas and, in 2008, struck a partnership with GrupoACP (the owner of Mibanco, Peru). In 2013, he partnered with Swiss NGO, the Alimentaris Foundation to lead a rural development programme for energy, water, and communication access in rural areas in the region. After a successful project co-funded by Alimentaris and World Bank aiming to test new technologies for energy access, Juan Jose was invited to lead PERMER, a USD200M World Bank funded National Government Project to guarantee access to renewable energy to all families, public services and energy for water and productive uses in Argentina. Juan Jose sadly passed away in 2019. 

Sitaramachandra is a Senior Agribusiness Specialist with Food and Agriculture Global Practice at the World Bank, East Asia and Pacific Region. Based out of Beijing Office his portfolio includes Agriculture, Rural Livelihoods, Agribusiness and Food Safety Projects in China, Mongolia and Thailand. His areas of specialisation include community driven development, financial inclusion, agribusiness development, food and nutrition security, WASH innovations and social entrepreneurship. In his earlier stints with the Bank at their Delhi and Jakarta Offices, Sitaramachandra managed several agriculture and rural livelihoods projects besides leading global efforts for integrating WASH initiatives in broader anti-poverty and multi-sector programs with a focus on India, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Sitaramachandra was formerly young professional at National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in India. 

Susana has twenty years of experience in global health from various perspectives: research/academia, public policy, field and entrepreneurial and has worked in the UK, Portugal, The Gambia, Switzerland, USA, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Mozambique, Angola. Susana has acted as a consultant with the United Nations (UNDP, UNAIDS, Department of Peacekeeping Operations) and Ministries of Health for a decade on the development of national health, monitoring and evaluation, and emergency/humanitarian strategies, plans and training for a decade. She spent eight years at the University of Oxford where she studied, taught, and conducted research. During this time Susana was also involved in other activities; she was part of the Founding Committee of Oxford Entrepreneurs and acted as Secretary, Oxford University Strategic Studies Group. Later, Susana was also the Programme Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at the School of Management, University College London and scientific advisor for the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. She acts as an expert on health innovation and technology for the EU and as Advisor for Governments. She now serves on multiple boards and advisory committees. 

Henry has over 25 years of professional and academic experience in asset management, capital markets, sustainable and impact investing, social entrepreneurship and political and economic development. He is interested in bridging capital to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and mobilize private sector actors to support investments and policies in climate change mitigation and adaptation in emerging markets. 

Alongside his role as Deputy Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer for Green Climate Fund, he is also a Global Future Council Member on Climate and Nature Philanthropy for the World Economic Forum. 

Since leaving Oxford, Jesse has worked in business, research and civil society on delivering the energy transition. In the early 2000s he helped establish the Global Risks program at the World Economic Forum, where his focus was on climate and energy security risks. He then served as climate policy advisor for the Swedish power company Vattenfall, and later led the energy and policy foresight work at the Swedish national research institute RISE. He then served as Global Lead for the Energy Transition at WWF International before moving to the Global Maritime Forum. At the GMF he leads the organisation's work with First Movers towards Zero-Emission shipping, and has pioneered the global shipping industry's development of Green Shipping Corridors.

Keely Stevenson is an entrepreneur and an investor. She is CEO and Co-founder of Weal Life, a digital health company focused on leveraging mobile technology to make it easier for people to care for each other during times of health crisis, aging or chronic illness. She has served as a board member, mentor and advisor to start-ups and established companies in healthcare, biotech, energy, education and finance around the globe. Previously, she’s built global initiatives, including in her role as CEO of Bamboo Finance USA. She also built the world’s first online community for social entrepreneurs, Social Edge. 

Alongside his role in CIS, Richard is also a founding board member of Global Educators, a consortium of international education programs sending +3,000 students abroad to 26 countries annually. The consortium aims to support the development, programming improvement and commercial viability of international education organizations through investment and leadership. Prior to this, Richard also founded the intern and volunteer abroad social enterprise ProWorld. After establishing more than 10 bases in 8 countries, Richard sold ProWorld in 2010 to focus on new challenges. In 2012, Richard founded World Internships with a vision of broadening the existing internship opportunities available to students to include more global locations as well as professional social enterprise and NGO placements.

Sujeet is an Indian politician of the Biju Janata Dal Party and a Member of Parliament (MP), representing Odisha in the Rajya Sabha. He is also a Lawyer and trained Arbitrator, practising in the Supreme Court of India. Sujeet's journey has been marked by a commitment to leadership and service. Immediately after completing his Oxford MBA, he joined the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva as a Global Leadership Fellow (GLF). Sujeet then continued his educational journey at Harvard University's Kennedy School (HKS), where he pursued a mid-career Master's in Public Administration (MPA). Sujeet currently also mentors and advises the Kalinga Kusum Foundation, a social enterprise dedicated to creating and accelerating livelihood and entrepreneurial opportunities for youth in rural and semi-urban Odisha. 

Tara is currently the president of the Goldhirsh Foundation, a $65 million dollar foundation that supports social innovation in Los Angeles. Under Tara’s leadership, the Goldhirsh Foundation has spearheaded the LA2050 initiative which creates a shared vision for the future of Los Angeles and hosts the My LA2050 Grants Challenge, a $1 million crowd-sourced program in which more than 70,000 Angelenos vote online annually on hundreds of proposals aimed at improving LA. Prior to the Goldhirsh Foundation, Tara served as the founding COO of GOOD. Tara serves on the board of Southern California Grantmakers, the executive council of Innovate Los Angeles (InLA), and as an advisory board member of Opportunity Fund Southern CA and 826LA. Tara is also a Senior Fellow at USC’s Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab.