Fall 2010 Speakers
Holmes Hummel is the Senior Policy Advisor for Policy & International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy. Previously, Dr. Hummel worked with Silicon Energy (acquired by Itron), and later joined Google.org to help shape a strategic approach to energy and climate change. In the course of that journey, Holmes earned a PhD at Stanford studying global energy scenarios for climate stabilization and taught Climate Policy Design at UC-Berkeley. After engaging impact investors affiliated through social change philanthropy networks for a decade, Dr. Hummel now draws on those experiences to inform policies that motivate a broad range of investors to successfully drive technology innovation and deployment in a clean energy economy.
Dave is founder & CEO of Equilibrium Capital Group; an investment firm focused on building a portfolio of leading asset management companies, each executing a unique investment strategy in the area of sustainability. From 2000-2007, Dave was a General Partner at OVP Venture Partners focused on early stage tech venture investing. Until 2002, he served on the board of HNC Software and worked on the merger with FICO (NASDAQ:HNCS, now NYSE:FIC). Prior to OVP, Dave founded GeoTrust (acquired by Verisign 2006), founded The Ascent Group; was Vice President Marketing Mentor Graphics; was an associate at McKinsey & Co; and was an early team member in 1978-84 at Solectron.
John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. In 2004, BusinessWeek described him as “a dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades.” His first involvement in the field: raising money for the newly formed World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961, aged 11. Volans, launched in April 2008, aims to find, explore, advise on and build innovative scalable solutions to the great global divides that overshadow the future. His work in this area has been celebrated and supported by awards including the UN Global 500 Roll of Honour, the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award and a 3-year, $1 million Skoll Foundation grant (2007-2009). Founding Partner & Executive Chairman, Volans and Founder & Non-Executive Director,SustainAbility (1987–2008)
Mr. Morton is Vice President for Investment Policy at Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). Prior to joining OPIC, he was Managing Director of the Pew Economic Policy Group at The Pew Charitable Trusts. Previously, Mr. Morton was an investment officer with Global Environment Fund, where he oversaw global investments in sustainable forestry and the natural gas sector and developed the firm’s clean-energy practice. He began his professional career at the World Bank, where he managed investments in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Morton serves on the board of directors and executive committee of the National Security Network, and on the board of directors of the Clean Energy Network. He is a fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Catto environmental leaders program and the U.S.–Japan Leadership Program.
Don Graves is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Small Business, Community Development and Housing Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In this role, Mr. Graves manages a portfolio of policy issues including business and small business finance and development, housing finance, community and economic development, capital access, job creation and issues related to underserved communities. Previously, he served as a partner with Graves, Horton, Askew & Johns, LLC. He is the former Director of Public Policy for the Business Roundtable, and was previously a Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Domestic Finance. Mr. Graves holds degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from Williams College and Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center where he received the Dean’s Award. He served as volunteer Chief Executive Officer of Progress Through Business, a national nonprofit focused on economic development, supporting lower-income employees and sustainability.
Jim Shelton was appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary to run the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the US Department of Education in April of 2009. Immediately prior to joining ED, Jim was a Program Director for Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where, over 5.5 years, he oversaw education programs including Next Generation Models, School Replication, College Access and Scholarships, and numerousState and District partnerships. Jim began his career developing computer systems; and later became a senior consultant to CEOs and other for-profit and non-profit leaders while working for McKinsey & Company. He transitioned into education full-time as a private equity investor, which led him to co-found and lead a company with the mission of opening and running high quality schools in high need communities.
Ben Powell is the Founder and Managing Partner of Agora Partnerships and the Agora Venture Fund. Ben became convinced of the power of small business to transform poor communities in Mexico, where he co-founded Citygolf Puebla, a miniature golf course and bar. He has an MBA from Columbia, an MSFS with distinction from Georgetown, and a BA with high honors from Haverford College. Ben is a Draper Richards Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow, was an Social Venture Network Innovation Award honoree in 2009 and was named one of the top 40 under 40 development leaders in Washington DC.
John May is the managing partner of New Vantage Group, a Vienna, VA firm that innovatively mobilizes private equity into early-stage companies and provides advisory services to both funds and private investors. Mr. May’s experience in private equity capital over the last 20 years ranges from venture capital fund management to angel investing. John is chair-emeritus of the Angel Capital Association (formerly a program of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation), and is a lead instructor for their “Power of Angel Investing” seminars. Mr. May has been at the forefront of the angel investor movement. In 1991, he co-founded the Investors’ Circle, a national non-profit group of 125 family and institutional investors working to grow the social venture capital industry.
Before leaving the private sector to form B Lab with two long-time friends and college mates, Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, Andrew spent 16 years in the private equity business; as a Partner at MSD Real Estate Capital, an affiliate of MSD Capital, the $12 billion investment vehicle for Michael Dell; and before MSD, as Managing Director in Credit Suisse First Boston's Private Equity Department, a founding partner of DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners, and President of its international business. Andrew is dedicated to growing innovative for-profit and non-profit models for social change. He is a Board Member of Echoing Green, an Advisory Board member of Wall St. Without Walls, and a member of the investment committee of the Patient Capital Collaborative.
At B Lab, Beth wrote the business plan for GIIRS and is now overseeing the launch of GIIRS. Beth has worked closely with social entrepreneurs and social enterprise throughout her career. Beth has held roles at Self-Help, a leading community development bank, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a non-profit that supports social entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries, and the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust in Cape Town, South Africa. Beth grew up outside of Boston. Beth earned her bachelor's degree from Duke University and her MBA from Kenan-Flagler. Beth now lives in Carrboro, NC with her husband Steven.
David Kirkpatrick is Managing Director and co-founder of SJF Ventures, a cleantech and positive impact venture capital fund with offices in Durham, NC, New York City, and San Francisco. SJF focuses on high growth, positive impact ventures and was founded in 1999. David helped lead SJF’s capitalization of two funds totaling $45 million. SJF Ventures I and II have invested in 32 portfolio companies with more than $670 million in sales, 128 facilities, and 6,300 employees. David also co-founded SJF Institute, a non-profit corporation, which has assisted 1,800 positive impact enterprises across the US. David was named the national 2005 CDVC Practitioner of the Year by the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance and Recycler of the Year in 1996, the National Recycling Coalition’s award for leadership in the recycling industry.
Alejandro's work focuses on scaling solutions to social, environmental and governance challenges, and worked with social investors to set up collaborative initiatives in Tanzania, Ecuador, India, Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and Indonesia, as well as with institutional donors like the World Bank and the Swiss Government. He has worked over the years with philanthropy funds on catalyzing collaborations for greater impact and recently was guest editor of the Alliance Magazine's June 2010 special issue on 'Rethinking Scale'. From 2004 to 2008 he helped to create the Collaborative Governance program at AccountAbility in London. In 2004 he was awarded the Hobhouse Memorial Prize by the London School of Economics with his MSc in Political Sociology. During this period he worked with the Shell International Future Scenarios team in London. Prior to that he was an Investment Manager with the AVINA Foundation in Latin America, a philanthropic fund with a network of over 4,000 social and business entrepreneurs in the region.
Brigitte Baumann, the Founder and CEO of Go Beyond is a Business Angel and serves on a number of selection committees across Europe. Brigitte is President of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN) in Brussels and serves on the Certification Board of CTI Start-Up, the Swiss agency promoting technology and innovation. As a Director of Diverseo, www.diverseo.com, Brigitte believes that there is a strong link between innovation and the ability to embrace diverse thinking. Diverseo helps companies make diversity a competitive advantage. Brigitte is also a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, having joined in 1998 and co-leads the Business Angel member initiatives. She is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study and lectures at IMD. Brigitte holds Swiss/French/US citizenship and lives with her family in Zurich where she enjoys triathlons.
Morgan Simon is a serial social entrepreneur with particular expertise in impact investment and international development. She is the co-founder and CEO of Toniic, a global network of early-stage social investors. Toniic members share deal flow, due diligence and monitoring on global investments in this action-oriented community. In addition to leading the global expansion of Toniic, she is a Founding Partner of Innovación Investments, which is currently launching Texas's first community development venture capital fund. As the founding executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition, Morgan brought together 100 colleges and universities from across the country, helping to move their $200 billion in endowment dollars towards impact investment.
Fran Seegull is Venture Partner at Funk Ventures, an early stage venture firm, engaging in venture capital investing and enterprise acceleration. The firm invests in clean technology, sustainable living, health & wellness and medical technologies—industries where it seeks to achieve market rates of financial return, as well as social and environmental impact. Previously, Seegull has consulted to a range of purpose-driven companies including National Geographic, NPR West and many family foundations. She also served as VP of business development at Novica United, a venture-backed social enterprise that retails and wholesales home decor products made by artisans in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Seegull has a BS in economics from Columbia and an MBA from Harvard. Seegull serves on the board of Lucky Earth and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. She is Senior Advisor to the Social Financial Innovation group at Ashoka and Senior Fellow at the Society & Business Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business.
Ross Baird has been with First Light Ventures since the firm started making active investments in early 2009. Within First Light, he has developed and managed the Village Capital program—a a model of seed-stage investing that builds local capacity to support entrepreneurs by placing the investment decisions in the hands of entrepreneurs themselves. In his role as investment analyst, he has participated in diligence and investee support. He joined First Light from the Indian School Finance Company in Hyderabad. Before his work in impact investing, he independently founded two organizations that utilized technology to increase and mobilize civic participation. He has an MPhil from the University of Oxford and a BA from the University of Virginia, and is a Marshall Scholar and Truman Scholar.
Ella Delio is the Global Director of New Ventures, the World Resources Institute’s center for environmental entrepreneurship. She oversees the operations and growth of New Ventures in six emerging economies – Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. Ella joined WRI in 2007, when she managed the New Ventures’ South and Southeast Asian operations. She helped build the Green Investor Network in India, which is a group of investors interested in funding environmental enterprises. She also co-authored publications on the market potential of certain environmental and social sectors in India. Prior to joining WRI, Ella led the Springboard program at the Center for Women and Enterprise, a program that helps facilitate investments into high-growth women-led businesses.
John is an active angel investor in the Philadelphia area. In addition to being a member of Investors Circle's new Philadelphia chapter, he is a managing partner for Robin Hood Ventures. Previously, while at automotive leather manufacturer Seton Company, he held various positions doing business acquistion, product pricing, and strategic implementations. Prior to working with Seton, John spent eight years launching new cardiovascular catheter products for B. Braun Medical, Inc. John is a Fighting Blue Hen from the University of Delaware (B.S.M.E.). He obtained his M.B.A. from Drexel University.
As Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of BBMG, Raphael Bemporad is a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that puts values behind every marketing initiative and campaign. An expert in brand strategy, cause marketing and public affairs, Raphael has launched national media campaigns, drafted public policy, created consumer and nonprofit brands on aggressive timelines and budgets, and managed communications for local, state and federal elected officials. Prior to co-founding BBMG, Raphael served as communications director at Do Something, where he oversaw marketing, media relations and cause-related partnerships with Levi Strauss & Co., SEARS, Kenneth Cole and Rolling Stone magazine.
John Fullerton is the Founder and President of Capital Institute, a think tank working to reform and transform finance to serve a sustainable economic system. He is also the principal of Level 3 Capital Advisors, LLC, an investment firm focused on high impact sustainability focused private investments. Previously John was the seed investor and CEO of Alerian Capital Management, an investment firm that invests in midstream energy infrastructure via MLPs. Prior to Alerian, John was a Managing Director of JPMorgan where he worked for over 18 years. He is currently a director of Grasslands, LLC, New Day Farms, Inc., Investors Circle, and New Economics Institute.
Garrett Melby is co-founder and CEO of GoodCompany Ventures. The GCV Social Impact Incubator identifies entrepreneurs with innovative ideas for social impact and helps them implement these ideas with the strategies and resources of venture capitalists. Garrett is active in several social finance initiatives. He is the developer of Private Equity Philanthropy Strips, a financial structure to optimize investors’ Social Rate of ReturnÒ, a founding member and Director of PA REsource Capital, an SBA CDC, and a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of Investors' Circle. Previously, Garrett was a VC with Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., a $12 billion NYSE listed technology incubator. Garrett began his career as an emerging market finance attorney in the New York, London and Washington offices of Skadden Arps. Garrett holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Boston University.
Shaula Massena is an analytical thinker who brings a blend of financial and social experience from her work as a private equity investor and as a foundation grant maker. Shaula has been an IC member and active investor since 2006. She completed the Sustainable MBA program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in 2008. During the program she did market research & financial analysis as a Portfolio Analyst Intern for Good Capital, and research on small business capital for Michael Shuman. Between undergrad
and business school she spent 10 years honing her problem analysis and business management skills at tech companies from megacorp to startup. In addition to her MBA, Shaula has Bachelors and Masters degrees in computer science.
Grace Wang joined National Science Foundation in June 2009. Grace is a Program Director for SBIR/STTR program, focusing on Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials. Prior to joining NSF, she was a Senior Development Scientist at Hitachi, where she has led the team efforts to develop and introduce a few generations of products into the market. Prior to Hitachi, she was an Advisory Development Scientist at IBM, where she has established a nano-tribology research laboratory from scratch. Grace has received many technical and leadership awards from both IBM and Hitachi. Grace holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University.
Jack Horak is a Stockholder in the Hartford office of Reid and Riege where he has worked since 1980. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate Department and is the founder of the firm’s Nonprofit Organizations Practice Group. Jack is listed in The Best Lawyers in America®for Corporate Law and Non-profit/Charities Law. He has published several articles and editorials on various legal and policy issues in Philanthropy Magazine, the Hartford Courantand the Connecticut Law Tribune. He is currently spearheading the effort to adopt a low-profit limited liability company (L3C) statute in Connecticut. Jack earned a B.A., magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1976 and a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1980.
Daniel fundamentally believes that entrepreneurship is the answer to nearly all the issues we face today and has dedicated his life accordingly. By the time he received his BA in philosophy he had already started three companies. Today, Daniel is the Founder and CEO of SWAE Sports (focused on leveraging eco-tourism markets as an international tool for development) and the President of the Unreasonable Institute. The Unreasonable Institute is an international accelerator and seed stage investors in high impact entrepreneurs. Each year, the Institute unites 25 brilliant entrepreneurs from around the world in Boulder, CO for eight weeks and matches them with 60 leading innovators, investors, and thought leaders. The ultimate goal of Unreasonable is to enable the world’s most promising entrepreneurs to launch ventures future generations will remember as having defined progress in our time.
Joel Steiker is the Managing Director and co-founder of Murex Investments I, L.P., an impact venture capital fund that invests in the mid-Atlantic region. Mr. Steiker has more than 20 years experience investing and lending in middle-market and small leveraged transactions in both high-tech and traditional industries. One of Mr. Steiker’s most successful investments was PayQuik, a white-label software product that provides trans-border remittance payments through the Internet. PayQuik was sold to Citibank in 2008, allowing Citi to dramatically reduce remittance fees for low-income customers. Mr. Steiker is a co-Founder of GoodCompany Ventures, a Philadelphia-based incubator that develops scalable enterprises to address large unmet social issues. Mr. Steiker has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BA from Oberlin College.
Allen Bromberger has over 20 years experience representing nonprofit organizations in a wide variety of business matters and legal transactions. His practice focuses on social enterprise corporate philanthropy—“hybrid” legal structures and arrangements that allow the pursuit of economic and social goals simultaneously. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Bromberger served as president of Power of Attorney, a New York City private operating foundation, and as executive director of Lawyers Alliance for New York, a public interest law firm for nonprofit and community development organizations. Mr. Bromberger is legal advisor to The New York University Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship, the Secretary/Treasurer of the Fourth Sector Network, and an advisor to Corporate Counsel magazine.
Marc Lesser is CEO of ZBA Associates LLC, a company providing executive coaching, consulting and keynote speaking services to businesses and non-profits. He facilitates retreats for CEO’s, business leaders, and management teams. Marc has been co-leading Company Time retreats for business leaders for the past 10 years. Marc Lesser is a Zen teacher, MBA, former CEO of Brush Dance publishing. He is a developer and instructor of Google’s Search Inside Yourself program and author of Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less, and Z.B.A. Zen of Business Administration, published by New World Library.
Ken is the Managing Director of Merritt & Merritt & Moulton, a law firm focused on the representation of emerging growth companies and individual and institutional investors. He is the founder and President of the Vermont Venture Network and Chair of the Vermont Investor's Forum. He is an active angel investor and, in addition to Investors' Circle, is a member of North Country Angels and Granite State Angels. Ken is also on the Investment Committee of Patient Capital Collaorative.
Dana launched Confluence Philanthropy in August of 2009 after serving as the executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). While at EGA, Dana provided networking services to over 250 grantmaking organizations from across North America and Europe in 15 strategic funding areas. As director, Dana worked with the Rockefeller Family Fund, and led a then 20 year old EGA into an independent 501c3 organization. In addition to her role at Confluence, Dana serves as an Advisor at The Swift Foundation.
Sky is the Founder and Managing Principal of SustainVC and the Patient Capital Collaborative. Over his career, Mr. Lance has been responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of investments. At Windjammer alone, he was directly involved in the making of 24 investments representing approximately $300 million of invested capital which over time have produced a weighted average cash-on-cash internal rate of return in excess of 30%. Mr. Lance has served on various boards of directors, three times as Chairman, and has advised companies on matters such as management compensation, audit practices, mergers and acquisitions, risk management and financing strategies.
Jean-Luc received a B.S. in Math, Computer Science and Industrial Management and a B.A. in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. He also earned his MBA from the Carnegie Mellon University Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now Tepper) in 1998. Jean-Luc started his investment career in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at Draper Triangle and Lycos Ventures in 1999. He is currently working in Calvert's Special Equities Program focused on socially responsible private equity investments. He is the Chapter Chairman for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Washington - Baltimore. His blog can be found at www.j-lp.com/blog.
In 2002, Dr. Joy Anderson, founded Criterion Ventures, a national firm that identifies, examines and solves system social problems by launching social ventures - either for clients or as entrepreneurs. Criterion brings to the work a wealth of connections, the methodology and savvy to navigate complexity, and a commitment to creating social impact. The firm works across discipline and sector - social investing, market formation, education, poverty alleviation, healthcare and more - most often with large nonprofits, foundations and individuals on the front end of ventures. In 2006 Joy, Tim Freundlich and Kevin Jones founded Good Capital LLC, an asset management firm seeking to move capital to good. Prior to Criterion, Joy worked for Growth Design, a national consulting firm focusing on fundraising and strategic planning for large nonprofit systems.
Don Shaffer is President & CEO of RSF Social Finance, a nonprofit financial services organization inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner. Through its lending, giving, and investing services, RSF has made over $200 million in loans and over $90 million in grants since 1984 to social enterprises in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship. Prior to joining RSF, Don served as Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), as well as Interim Executive Director of Investors’ Circle. He remains a Trustee of BALLE, in addition to being on the Boards of Social Venture Network and Comet Skateboards.
Tom formed Balderston Capital, Radnor, PA, 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. . While also handling his investments and projects at Balderston Capital, he served from July, 2006 to June 2009 as President and CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance, (now called Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies), www.macalliance.com, the regional venture community association in the Greater Philadelphia area. Prior to founding Balderston Capital, Tom was President of SGI Capital, the private equity investment unit of Superior Group, a family-owned holding company. Balderston also worked with TDH Group from 1985-1998 where he was a General Partner of its TDH III, L.P. venture fund and Co-founder of its management company.
Bonny Moellenbrock is the Executive Director of SJF Institute and brings extensive entrepreneurial, venture capital, sustainable business, and nonprofit management experience to her role. She provides strategic leadership; plans and manages SJF Institute's technical assistance programs, services and events; and develops the organization’s resources and partnerships. As SJF Ventures Managing Director, she served on the Investment Committee, generated deal flow in the natural consumer products sector, conducted due diligence on prospect companies, and monitored portfolio companies. Moellenbrock is a member of the Developed Markets Standards Advisory Council of B Lab, serves on the Board of Advisors of the Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Kenan Institute, and is a member of the North Carolina Investment Committee of the Natural Capital Investment Fund.
Joseph Steig is a financial and strategy advisor to business and non-profit entrepreneurs. He serves as Director of VentureWell, a new initiative of the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance that helps seed stage ventures emerge from the university environment and secure equity investment. VentureWell focuses on technology ventures that address issues of human health and the environment. Joseph is also CFO of Long River Ventures, a seed and early stage New England-based venture fund.
