Panels
Breakout Session 1
Sustainable Business Strategies
Driving Change in the US K-12 Education: Ensuring Quality Teachers For All Classrooms
Private Equity Investment in GS Telecom of Nigeria: A Case Study
Breakout Session 2
The Frontlines of Social Enterpreneurship
Transitions in Capitol Market Financing for Microfinance Institutions
Limited Resources, Unlimited Potential: The Next Generation of Renewable Technologies
Breakout Session 3
Earned Quality: Nonprofit Organizations and Earned Income Initiatives
Transforming Global Health
Private Equity in Emerging Markets: Looking Beyond the Internal Rate of Return
Plenary Session
Cultivating Effective
NGO-Business Partnerships
Breakout Session 1- 9:15 AM to 10:30 AM, The Riverside Church
Sustainable Business Strategies
Green has been “mainstream” in the business world for several years. It seems that every company now has a VP of Sustainability and a corporate report detailing environmental good deeds done. This panel will engage leading strategy consultants, established companies carrying out environmental initiatives and companies that were founded with environmental principles integrated into their core purpose to take a critical look at what they are really doing in terms of reporting and sustainability. Emphasis will be placed on the following topics: decision-making processes regarding trade-offs where the environment suffers, measures organizations take to conceptualize and implement environmentally-responsible projects, strategic advantages derived from these programs and the corporate social responsibility reporting process itself.
Moderator: Peter Knight, President, Context America
Panelists: Michael Dwork '07, Founder and CEO, Ver Terra, Daniel Mahler, Partner, A.T. Kearney, David Walker, Director of Manufacturing and Logistics, PepsiCo International
Driving Change in U.S. K-12 Education: Ensuring Quality Teachers for All Classrooms
This panel discusses ways to lead and implement change in U.S. K-12 education, with a focus on improving teacher quality. Research shows that the quality of a student’s classroom teacher is the most important factor in that student’s level of achievement and that “human capital” is an important aspect of education reform. For these reasons, many diverse and innovative business models have been created to recruit, train and retain high quality teachers. This panel discusses how different organizations are tackling this important reform utilizing lessons learned from the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
Moderator: Laura Smith, Executive Director for Human Resources, NYC Department of Education
Panelists: Karolyn Belcher, Vice President of Human Capital, The New Teacher Project, Tracy Breslin, Director of School Leadership Development, New York City Department of Education,
Lindsay Kruse '06, Director of Leadership Development, Uncommon Schools
Private Equity Investment in GS Telecom of Nigeria: A Case Study
GST Case Summary
This panel examines the special considerations taken into account by a private equity firm considering an investment in an emerging market. It views these issues specifically through the lens of Capital Alliance Private Equity's consideration of the purchase of GS Telecom, a telecommunications firm in Nigeria, in 2004. Tom Barry of Zephyr Management was a director of Capital Alliance and one of the key players in advising on the potential acquisition of GS Telecom. The case study is designed to be an open dialogue, and we invite the audience to ask questions not only on the financial considerations and impacts, but also on implications for social and economic development.
Moderator: Laura B. Resnikoff '76, Private Equity Program Director, Columbia Business School
Panelist: Thomas C. Barry, CEO and Founder, Zephyr Management, L.P.
Breakout Session 2- 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM, The Riverside Church
The Frontlines of Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship has evolved into a truly global force, shaping our world in multiple ways: through affordable clean energy, organic food and revolutionary new models in education and by leveraging technology to empower emerging economies, among others. Who are the actual stewards of this movement? Who are these anonymous entrepreneurs? In this panel, we learn that it is the Greenpeace activist climbing onto government officials’ roofs to install solar panels, threatening to add to his already lengthy rap sheet. It is the father who is fed up with the lack of healthy treats for his one-year-old toddler. It is the education maverick who has challenged the entire standardized testing industry and looks to do the same to critics of distance learning. It is the ex-consultant who walks into an Internet café in Cambodia and sees rows upon rows of potential stymied by an unfortunate lack of opportunity. This panel explores their motivations, missteps and milestones. This is social entrepreneurship now.
Moderator: Martin Smith, Founder, StartingBloc and JustMeans
Panelists: Jeremy Hockenstein, Founder and CEO, Digital Data Divide,
John Katzman, Founder and CEO, The Princeton Review and 2tor.com, Danny Kennedy, Founder and President, Sungevity, Rob Wunder, Co-Founder, Yummy Earth
Transitions in Capital Market Financing for Microfinance Institutions
Co-sponsored by Microlumbia Fund
The rapid development of the microfinance industry over the past several years has created an equally strong need for capital to fuel the sector's growth. With retained earnings, local sources and philanthropic funds insufficient to meet this soaring demand, capital market financing has become an increasingly crucial ingredient to support this expansion. In this session, we ask our panelists to provide a snapshot of recent trends in financing, potential effects on the social impact of MFIs and whether investor behavior has been altered.
Moderator: Jonathan Bays, Consultant, McKinsey & Company
Panelists: Henry Gonzalez, Vice President of Microfinance Institutions Group, Morgan Stanley, Jonathan J. Morduch, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, New York University, Jean-Philippe de Schrevel, Co-founder and Executive Director, BlueOrchard Finance; Founder and CEO, BlueOrchard Capital, Andrea M. Esposito, Managing Director, Standard & Poor’s
Limited Resources, Unlimited Potential: The Next Generation of Renewable Technologies
Co-sponsored by The Columbia Business School Energy Club
By focusing on breakthrough technologies that are revolutionizing the ways in which the world generates energy, this panel endeavors to help the audience better understand the advances and applications of “clean technologies” from an investment and industry angle. A diverse group of panelists will discuss their strategic visions, long-term objectives and the challenges of deploying these innovative technologies. The following topics will be addressed: new technology trends, economics of renewable energy options, environmental and social implications, alternative energy market demand and renewable energy investment and financing.
Moderator: Geoffrey Heal, Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Columbia Business School
Panelists: Chris Hunter '07, Vice President of Carbon Finance, Climate Change Capital, Rahul Iyer, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, Primafuel, Christopher Huntington, Vice President of Business Development, SkyFuel Inc., Susan Nickey, Chief Financial Officer, ACCIONA Energy NA
Breakout Session 3 - 2:45 PM to 4:00 PM, The Riverside Church
Earned Quality: Nonprofit Organizations and Earned Income Initiatives
Ten years ago, the idea of a nonprofit organization earning a significant portion of its own operating income would have seemed impossible. Outside of the traditional model of nonprofit cash flow – the gift shop – these organizations have relied on government funding and philanthropic donations for the bulk of their financing. This panel will explore the topic of earned income for nonprofit organizations via “social purpose businesses,” which are defined as “business activities started by nonprofit organizations that apply market-based solutions for the purpose of furthering the mission, generating income and addressing social needs.” Topics explored will include: ethical concerns surrounding possible conflicts with organization mission statements, the effects of these cash infusions on private donations and the reallocation of human resources within social purpose businesses.
Moderator: Matthew Bishop, Chief Business Writer/American Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief, The Economist
Panelists: Charles King, President and CEO, Housing Works, Inc., Sharon Oster, Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and Director of the Program of Social Enterprise, Yale School of Management, George T. McDonald, The Doe Fund,
Transforming Global Health
Co-sponsored by The Columbia Business School Healthcare Industry Association
This panel will discuss the impact domestic players can have on social global health ventures and the transformation of the global health landscape in the coming years. While global health is mainly concerned with public health challenges in developing countries, it affects public health in the U.S. and provides a significant opportunity for domestic innovations in healthcare to improve global health outcomes. Given the epidemiologic concerns threatening many developing countries (HIV/AIDS, MDR TB, malaria, etc), which account for countless lives lost, global health will be an increasingly important arena and continues to demonstrate a fundamental market failure within the healthcare space. The panel will explore ways for nonprofits, for-profits and public-private partnerships to transform global health in a financially sustainable way.
Moderator: Laura S.L. Herman, Director, FSG Social Impact Advisors
Panelists: Seth Berkley, President, CEO and Founder, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Yasmin Halima, Senior Consultant and Vice-President, AIDS Treatment Activist
Coalition, Paul H. Keckley, Executive Director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, Krista Thompson, Global Health Vice President and General Manager, Becton, Dickinson & Company
Private Equity in Emerging Markets: Looking Beyond the Internal Rate of Return
Private equity investment in emerging markets has seen tremendous recent growth—$59 billion was raised last year, a 78% increase over 2006. These statistics highlight the attractiveness of this asset class: the potential for above-market, counter-cyclical or sometimes uncorrelated returns. However, the true economic and social impact of private equity is still debatable and lacks critical research and analysis. This panel seeks to explore the lessons learned from recent experiences including: the private equity industry’s impact on development, the expected role of private sector limited partners versus the role of investors from the development community and the critical issues of ethics and corporate governance.
Moderator: Paul E. Tierney, Jr., General Partner, Aperture Venture Partners, LLC
Panelists: Thomas R. Gibian, Founding Partner, CEO and Managing Partner, Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), Teresa C. Barger, Co-Founder and CEO/CIO, Cartica Capital LLC, Cynthia Hostetler, Vice President Investment Funds, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Brian Trelstad, Chief Investment Officer, Acumen Fund
Plenary
Cultivating Effective NGO-Business Partnerships
Over the past decade, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and corporations have collaborated to achieve both commercial and social/environmental objectives. These partnerships have evolved from the basic provision of resources and funding to direct influences on each other’s internal business practices, and ultimately to joint work such as the reform of government policies. A premier example of an effective NGO-business partnership is that of Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance, a joint initiative between one of the largest banana producers in the world and a nonprofit environmental group formed to improve the environmental and social performance of banana operations in Latin America. However, NGO-business partnerships are not considered best practices to all, as many NGOs see their primary responsibility as holding all parties accountable by playing “watchdog” for their particular industry.
Alan M. Webber, the Founder of Fast Company, will lead an engaging discussion with Kyle Cahill, Director of Corporate Engagement, Environmental Defense Fund, Allison Clements, Corporate Counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council and Gordon Peterson, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility for The Timberland Company that will explore the motivations, risks and measurements of success in building effective, cross-sector partnerships.
To read more by the panelists and speakers, visit the Social Enterprise Conference Booklist.
The Social Enterprise Conference 2008 is presented by the Columbia Business School's Social Enterprise Club and the International Development Club with the support of the Social Enterprise Program, Energy Club, Microlumbia Fund, Healthcare Industry Association and Green Business Club, and our generous sponsors. |
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