The Founders’ Challenge: To Scale And Keep The Vision Alive | SWF2014
Speakers
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Chairman, National Skill Development Agency & National Skill Development Corporation
S. RAMADORAI
Mr. Ramadorai has been in public service since February 2011 and is currently the Chairman of National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister. The NSDA is an autonomous body which coordinates and harmonizes the skill development efforts of the Government and the private sector to achieve the skilling targets of the nation. He is also Chairman of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a Public Private Partnership arm of the Government of India for creating large, for-profit vocational institutions. In February 2011, the Government had appointed him as the Adviser to the Prime Minister in the National Council on Skill Development, in the rank of a Cabinet Minister. This Council was subsumed into the NSDA in June 2013.
He recently retired as the Vice - Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, a company he was associated with, for 42 years. He took charge as CEO in 1996 when the company’s revenues were at $ 155 million and since then led the company through some of its most exciting phases, including its going public in 2004. In October 2009, he completed his tenure as CEO, leaving a $ 6 billion global IT services company to his successor to lead. He was then appointed Vice Chairman of TCS. Today, the company’s revenues stand at US $ 13.4 billion for the year ended March 31, 2014.
Mr. Ramadorai is Chairman of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE Limited) and AirAsia (India) Pvt Ltd. He continues to be an Independent Director on the Boards of Hindustan Unilever Limited, Asian Paints Limited and Piramal Enterprises Limited.
Given his keen passion to work for the social sector and community initiatives, he also serves as the Chairman on the Council of Management at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) and the Chairman of the Governing Board at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). He is also the President of the Society for Rehabilitation of Crippled Children (SRCC) – which is building a super speciality children’s hospital in Mumbai.
In recognition of Ramadorai’s commitment and contributions to the IT industry, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian honour) in January 2006. In April 2009, he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the growth of Indo-British economic relations.
His academic credentials include a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Delhi University (India), a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India) and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California – UCLA (USA). In 1993, Ramadorai attended the Sloan School of Management’s highly acclaimed Senior Executive Development Program.
Ramadorai is a well recognized global leader and technocrat who has actively participated in the Indian IT journey from its inception in 1960’s to a mature industry today. Ramadorai has captured this exciting journey in a wonderfully personalized book titled 'The TCS Story...and beyond' which was published in 2011 and remained on top of the charts for several months.
Among his many interests, Ramadorai is also passionate about photography and Indian classical music.
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Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations in 60 countries across every region of the world that are working to develop collective leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Prior to launching Teach For All in 2007, Wendy founded and led Teach For America. She led the development of Teach For All to be responsive to the initiative of social entrepreneurs around the world who were determined to adapt this approach in their own countries. Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University as well as honorary doctorate degrees from 15 universities. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Wise Prize for Education and the Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award.
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Director (2009-2016), Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Dr. Pamela Hartigan was Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School at the University of Oxford from 2009 until her passing in 2016. She was also founding partner of Volans Ventures, an organization focused on building innovative scalable solutions to challenges affecting our future.
Prior to starting Volans, Dr. Hartigan spent eight years as the Founding Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, where she was also a member of the Managing Board.
Of Ecuadorian origin, Dr. Hartigan first came to the United States at 17 years of age to study at Georgetown University; she went on to complete a PhD in human developmental psychology at the Catholic University of America. Throughout her career, she held varied leadership positions in multilateral organizations and educational institutions, as well as in entrepreneurial ventures. She was responsible for conceptualizing and creating new organizations, departments, and programs across a variety of institutions and platforms.
Dr. Hartigan was a frequent lecturer on entrepreneurship and innovation at graduate business schools in the USA, Europe, and Asia, and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School and at the University of Technology Sydney. She co-authored a book with John Elkington, founder of SustainAbility (UK), entitled The Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets to Change the World, which was published by Harvard Business Press in 2008.
She was a trustee of social investment organizations, publicly listed companies, and social impact focused organizations around the world.
Dr. Pamela Hartigan died on August 12, 2016, at her home in France.
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President, Echoing Green
Cheryl L. Dorsey is the president of Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that supports emerging social entrepreneurs and invests deeply in their ideas and leadership. A social entrepreneur herself, Cheryl received an Echoing Green Fellowship in 1992 to launch The Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit in Boston. Cheryl has served in two presidential administrations and currently serves on several boards including The Bridgespan Group and Skoll Foundation. She has received numerous awards, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award, and the Manual C. Carballo Memorial Prize. Cheryl has been named one of "America's Best Leaders" by US News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and one of The Nonprofit Times' "Power and Influence Top 50." She has a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her master's in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
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As a professional, I have worked in marketing, public relations, sports management and fundraising. I co-founded Riders for Health, together with my husband, Barry Coleman, in 1996. The organisation is now 26 years old and operating nationally in four countries, working with ministries of health and other health focussed entities. The programmes in Africa have been African led from the outset and my work and focus now is to give resource support for the African leadership and to seek, with them, ways to have their authentic voices heard about their valuable health systems operations at the established global health level.
Together with two social entrepreneurs, Mel Young and Chris Underhill, we have founded the Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurship.
