Business as a Catalyst for Poverty Alleviation
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Session Description
Ambitious commitments have been made by governments and businesses to eliminate global poverty. Will new leadership at some of the world’s largest foreign aid institutions change global poverty alleviation efforts and how private sector leaders thinking about their own role? We’ll explore what a modern aid agenda might mean for social entrepreneurs, funders, and small businesses working on the ground in the developing world, and more generally, what’s working to reduce poverty sustainably.
Time & Location
Time:
10:00 AM - 11:15 AM, Thursday, April 6, 2017
BST
Location:
Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre
Speakers
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Moderator
Freelance Journalist, Individual
Ray Suarez is a host of the radio and podcast series WorldAffairs, heard on KQED San Francisco and public radio stations around the country, and a Washington reporter for Euronews. He recently completed an appointment as the McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. Suarez hosted Inside Story, a daily news program on Al Jazeera America, until the network ceased operation in 2016.
Suarez joined American public television’s nightly newscast, The PBS NewsHour in 1999 and was a senior correspondent until 2013. During his years at the NewsHour he was assigned to cover global health. His reporting from Africa, Asia, and Latin America won many awards. He hosted NPR’s Talk of the Nation from 1993-1999. In more than 40 years in the news business, he has worked as a reporter in London and Rome, as a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, and for the NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
Suarez is the author of three books: Latino Americans: The 500 Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation (Penguin, 2013), The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999, reporting on the causes of the destitution found in American cities after the Second World War, andThe Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America, examining how organized religion and politics intersect in America. His next work, on immigration, political, demographic, and cultural change, will appear in 2023.
He is a contributor to the Oxford Companion to American Politics (June 2012), and many other books, including How I Learned English, Brooklyn: A State of Mind, Saving America's Treasures, and About Men. He’s been published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Britain's Independent, Harvard University's Nieman Reports, and the Chicago Tribune.
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Speaker
Global Vice President Women's Economic Empowerment, Coca-Cola Company
As The Coca-Cola Company's Global Vice President for Women's Economic Empowerment, Charlotte is leading the development and implementation of the Company's global strategy in this important area. This includes the ambitious 5by20 initiative to enable the economic empowerment of 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2020.
During her tenure at Coca-Cola, Charlotte has had a series of leading roles in Marketing, Public Affairs & Communications, and General Management. She brings significant worldwide experience to her role having risen through national and international roles in Europe, North America and the Pacific.
Charlotte is a member of the International Leadership Team for Business in the Community, a Fellow of: The Marketing Society, The Institute of Grocery Distribution and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts; a member of the Marketing Group of Great Britain and Women in Advertising and Communications in London. She is listed among Marketing Week’s “Vision 100”, Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business 1000” and “League of Extraordinary Women” and Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World”. Charlotte is a founder member of the Women's Leadership Council of The Coca-Cola Company.
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Speaker
Founder, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
Wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, leading lawyer and committed campaigner for women’s rights, Cherie set up the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women in 2008 to help women build small and growing businesses in developing and emerging markets so that they can contribute to their economies and have a stronger voice in their societies.
As well as fighting for human rights in her professional career, Cherie is an active campaigner on equality and human rights issues. In addition to founding her own charity, Cherie remains closely involved with charities with a special emphasis on women and children.
Cherie was an Ambassador for London 2012, supporting the bid to host the Olympics in the UK and was awarded a CBE in the 2013 New Year's Honours List for services to women's issues and to charity in the UK and Overseas.
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Speaker
President and CEO, U.S. African Development Foundation
C.D. Glin is President & CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation, a U.S. government
agency dedicated to supporting African-led, African-driven development solutions. The USADF
approach prioritizes African investments and customized local technical assistance to African
grassroots communities and enterprises. Prior to joining USADF, Glin was the Associate
Director for Africa for the Rockefeller Foundation. From 2008-2010, Glin previously served as
a presidential appointee in the Obama Administration as the first Director of Intergovernmental
Affairs and Global Partnerships for the U.S. Peace Corps, and played a key role in Peace Corps’
50th anniversary. Glin worked for the State Department, USAID and the World Bank while
based in Ghana and Nigeria.
Glin also served as a volunteer in the first Peace Corps South Africa group during the
Presidency of Nelson Mandela. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Howard University; a
Master’s in Business Management from Tulane University and Postgraduate Diploma in Strategy
and Innovation from Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Glin is life member of the Council on
Foreign Relations and in 2011, he was designated by the White House as a “Champion of
Change” for his commitment and contributions to international service and civic participation.
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Speaker
Bart Houlahan co-founded B Lab in 2006. B Lab is a non-profit organization with offices in 33 countries, driving economic systems change to build a more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy. Its mission is to serve a movement of people using business as a force for good by shining a light on leaders through a corporate certification (6000+ Certified B Corporations in 70+ countries), and then providing easy pathways for others to follow. B Lab encourages all companies to manage their social and environmental impact using the B Impact Assessment (250,000+ companies engaged). The organization also advances policy initiatives to upend shareholder primacy and advance stakeholder governance (Benefit Corporation legislation passed in 43 states and 10 countries). Prior to B Lab, Bart was President of AND 1, a $250 MM basketball footwear and apparel company. Bart is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a recipient of the 2014 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
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Speaker
Founder & CEO, Acumen
Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen. Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies and leaders with character, competence and moral leadership. Acumen invests pioneering philanthropic capital in sustainable businesses addressing the toughest problems of poverty. Under Jacqueline’s leadership, Acumen has invested $128 million in 128 companies providing critical goods and services to more than 260 million low-income people across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States. Acumen also has launched KawiSafi, an impact fund focused on off-grid solar in East Africa and is in the process of building several other for-profit facilities.
Acumen also cultivates a new kind of leader through its Fellows Programs and +Acumen, its online school for social change. To date, the organization has built a corps of 500+ Fellows. More than 450,000 individuals from 192 countries have taken +Acumen’s online courses. Acumen is now reimagining a global university designed to integrate the transformational depth of its fellowships with the scale of +Acumen to equip thousands of young changemakers with the tools and ecosystem to lead in today’s world.
Jacqueline sits on the board of the Aspen Institute. Her best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater chronicles her quest to understand poverty and bring dignity to the poor. In 2017, Forbes listed Jacqueline as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.
