2012 LA Speaker Bios
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House Santa Monica, CA February 16 – 20, 2012
Educator Bios
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 1 :: Off the Bloc Thursday, February 16, 2012 Houston Spencer, Vice President of Strategy, Alcatel-Lucent Born in the US and raised in Canada, Houston left both North America and an academic career to set off for Australia and entry into the high tech industry. He then spent five years with McKinsey & Company, focused on assisting companies grappling with major upheaval: M&A, restructuring, and radical growth. In 2001, Houston joined Alcatel’s Asia Pacific headquarters and in 2003, moved to the company’s global headquarters to take up the role of Director, Global Marketing Team. In his current role, Houston leads the team responsible for Alcatel’s activity with key noncustomer stakeholders, from industry analysts and strategic partners to end-users. He is also responsible for Alcatel’s global marketing planning. Houston ’s industry passions, not surprisingly, focus on change: the unprecedented competitive dynamics driving the communications industry’s transformation, and what players across the value chain can do to carve opportunity from them. He is a published author and photographer, and has served on the editorial boards of several professional journals. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Prof. Scott Sherman, Executive Director, Transformative Action Institute Scott Sherman has worked on nonviolence and social justice projects from the war-torn island of Sri Lanka to the inner city ghettoes of America. He is an expert on the most effective ways that citizens succeed in creating social progress and innovation. Sherman's work on nonviolent social change projects has been praised by such Nobel Peace Prize Laureates as the Dalai Lama and the late Mother Teresa. He is also a nationally recognized speaker on environmental regeneration and transformative action. He has won the outstanding teaching award from the University of California at Berkeley. In 2004, he was nominated for the National Society of Collegiate Scholars' Faculty of the Year award for the entire U.S. Sherman earned his undergraduate and law degrees from U.C. Berkeley, as well as his Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of Michigan. Besides his work as a grassroots community organizer, lecturer, and author, Sherman has worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law Foundation. He is currently an adjunct faculty member in UCLA's School of Public Affairs.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 3 :: Social Entrepreneurship Saturday, February 18, 2012 Shivani Siroya & Bonnie Oliva (NY ’09), InVenture Shivani began developing InVenture in late 2008, with the aim of unlocking the immense potential for micro-businesses to pursue their dreams, create jobs and alleviate poverty within their surrounding communities. She has a wide array of professional experiences in global health, microfinance, and investment banking. Prior to InVenture she worked health costing at UNFPA and Mergers& Acquisitions at Health Net. Additionally, Shivani is a 2011 Unreasonable Fellow and also is currently teaching at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University. Shivani holds a M.P.H in Health Economics and Policy from Columbia University and a B.A. in International Relations from Wesleyan University. Bonnie is passionate about small business growth and has worked with small business owners for the last six years. She is a go-to consultant – having most recently worked with GOOD on The Pepsi Refresh Project. She has also lent her skills to the Empowerment Group, New York City Department of Small Businesses Services and programs for the American Recovery and Reinvestments Act (ARRA). Bonnie holds a BA in International Politics from Wesleyan University and a certificate in Finance and Accounting from Wharton. She is one of InVenture's 2011 Echoing Green Fellows.
Sean Carasso, Co-Founder, Falling Whistles An avid adventurer, Sean has spent much of his life pulling diverse communities together. After starting a number of small companies and grassroots initiatives, he traveled the world with an entrepreneur turned philanthropist, while volunteering alongside Invisible Children and TOMS Shoes. In late 2007, he journeyed into the Democratic Republic of Congo on what was meant to be a short stop. It was there he heard of children too small to carry a gun, who were sent to the front lines of war armed with only a whistle. The Falling Whistles campaign was born in response to a small journal entry he wrote that night. Sean continues to pursue a deeper understanding of our collective liberty and dreams of a free world. These topics are inevitably intertwined in his writing, speaking, and conversations.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 4 :: Cross Sector Partnerships Sunday, February 19, 2012 Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Capital Saad has spent his career innovating. From R&D to entrepreneurship, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, Saad has always sought the bleeding edge of technology and creativity. His pursuit of innovation often takes him to unexpected places. Saad grew up between Pakistan and the Bay Area, and attended an American high school in Karachi where his soccer tournaments and theater performances were often played out in locations including Kathmandu, Delhi, and Islamabad. After moving back to the Bay Area, Saad launched his first Internet Startup while still a student at Stanford. Those early lessons were subsequently put to use at the Walt Disney Company, where Saad helped launch their Internet Strategy across their media properties, and then at IBM alphaWorks, one of the first corporate crowd-sourcing initiatives for IBM research. Saad then spent years building companies, advising entrepreneurs, and investing in Silicon Valley startups at Garage Technology Ventures where he worked closely with early stage entrepreneurs across the Garage portfolio including Pandora, cFares, and TripleHop (ORCL). Saad led Garage’s software and media investments, and spun-out (and subsequently sold) the Garage advisory business. In addition to his activities at CMEA, Saad also co-founded the Film Angels, an angel network for indie film where recent presenters have included Carlos Santana, Steve Wozniak, and many Academy award winning actors, directors and producers. Saad is an advisor to peer-to-peer internet lending platform Lending Club and is a Charter member of TIE.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 5 :: Sustainability Monday, February 20, 2012 Gregory Wendt, VP Sustainable and Responsible Investing, EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. Gregory Wendt, CFP is Vice President of Sustainable and Responsible Investing (SRI) with EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. - a well-established and recognized registered investment advisory firm based in Los Angeles with over $900 Million of client assets under management. Having been in the business since 1991, Greg has earned a reputation as one of California’s leading experts in Sustainable and Responsible Investing. Greg is frequently profiled or quoted as an expert in the media including "Living with Ed" Television Show on Home and Garden Television, Business Ethics magazine, Los Angeles Times, Daily Variety, Financial Planning Magazine and others. Greg also speaks regularly at conferences on the matters of new paradigms in economics, sustainable and responsible investing, new consciousness around wealth and related matters.
Mitchell Wade, Founder, Institute3 Mitchell Wade helps innovators turn insights into change. He was lucky enough to work with public policy analysts at RAND, executives at Schwab, technologists at Accenture--plus architects, priests, and rowing coaches. Then Mitchell struck gold, teaming up with seven social entrepreneurs working in the poorest villages of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They helped 60,000 people escape extreme poverty, quadrupled per-dollar impact, and launched their organizations toward sustainability. Most importantly, the team created a simple; proven method that enables sustainable growth. It scales, spreads organically, and boosts large organizations’ impact without wrenching change. The model also adapts to the “top of the pyramid”--for donors, skilled volunteers, and overtaxed staff. Mitchell’s goal now is to share the method much more broadly--and to collaborate with innovative social entrepreneurs to enact widespread change. So he’s writing a third book. (The first two, both co-authored with B-school professor John Beck, went beyond business as usual. Mitchell's latest project is creating institute3, a thinktank for practitioners obsessed with sustainable growth.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
StartingBloc :: Staff Adriana Pentz, CEO Since becoming CEO in June 2009, Adriana has expanded StartingBloc’s presence across the country and internationally. She has also been instrumental in revising the strategic direction of the organization and building key partnerships necessary to support StartingBloc’s growing community. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Adriana Pentz was the Senior Director of Operations for Vision Education and was responsible for the creation of GreenFab, one of the first after school programs to focus on sustainable technology and engineering. Adriana lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY with her husband and their dog. She holds a degree in English and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, is a Boston 2007 StartingBloc Fellow.
Sarah Bishop, Fellowship Director Sarah manages the entire lifecycle of StartingBloc Fellows, including programs for the current community of 1350 Fellows around the world. She coordinates StartingBloc’s flagship program, the Institute for Social Innovation. Sarah works on recruitment, curriculum design, and programming so that Fellows can get the tools, skills, and resources they need to dramatically increase their impact. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Sarah spent two years coordinating countrywide education programs in El Salvador, Jordan, and Peru. She graduated with a B.A. in International Marketing from American University. Sarah is a proud London 2008 StartingBloc Fellow!
Rithesh Menon, Director of Partnerships Rithesh helps devise organizational strategy and develop key partnerships for StartingBloc. Previously, he worked in a Marketing and Communications role at StartingBloc. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Rithesh worked in Corporate & Investments Tax Advisory at Deloitte LLP and KPMG LLP. He has also been involved with grassroots marketing and fund raising efforts for various organizations in the non-profit sector. When he isn't thinking of more ways in which StartingBloc can change the world, Rithesh enjoys traveling. He graduated from Temple University with a degree in Economics and is a New York 2009 StartingBloc Fellow. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
StartingBloc 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 New York, NY 10016 [email protected] tw :: @startingbloc
Educator Bios
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 1 :: Off the Bloc Thursday, February 16, 2012 Houston Spencer, Vice President of Strategy, Alcatel-Lucent Born in the US and raised in Canada, Houston left both North America and an academic career to set off for Australia and entry into the high tech industry. He then spent five years with McKinsey & Company, focused on assisting companies grappling with major upheaval: M&A, restructuring, and radical growth. In 2001, Houston joined Alcatel’s Asia Pacific headquarters and in 2003, moved to the company’s global headquarters to take up the role of Director, Global Marketing Team. In his current role, Houston leads the team responsible for Alcatel’s activity with key noncustomer stakeholders, from industry analysts and strategic partners to end-users. He is also responsible for Alcatel’s global marketing planning. Houston ’s industry passions, not surprisingly, focus on change: the unprecedented competitive dynamics driving the communications industry’s transformation, and what players across the value chain can do to carve opportunity from them. He is a published author and photographer, and has served on the editorial boards of several professional journals. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Prof. Scott Sherman, Executive Director, Transformative Action Institute Scott Sherman has worked on nonviolence and social justice projects from the war-torn island of Sri Lanka to the inner city ghettoes of America. He is an expert on the most effective ways that citizens succeed in creating social progress and innovation. Sherman's work on nonviolent social change projects has been praised by such Nobel Peace Prize Laureates as the Dalai Lama and the late Mother Teresa. He is also a nationally recognized speaker on environmental regeneration and transformative action. He has won the outstanding teaching award from the University of California at Berkeley. In 2004, he was nominated for the National Society of Collegiate Scholars' Faculty of the Year award for the entire U.S. Sherman earned his undergraduate and law degrees from U.C. Berkeley, as well as his Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of Michigan. Besides his work as a grassroots community organizer, lecturer, and author, Sherman has worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law Foundation. He is currently an adjunct faculty member in UCLA's School of Public Affairs.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 3 :: Social Entrepreneurship Saturday, February 18, 2012 Shivani Siroya & Bonnie Oliva (NY ’09), InVenture Shivani began developing InVenture in late 2008, with the aim of unlocking the immense potential for micro-businesses to pursue their dreams, create jobs and alleviate poverty within their surrounding communities. She has a wide array of professional experiences in global health, microfinance, and investment banking. Prior to InVenture she worked health costing at UNFPA and Mergers& Acquisitions at Health Net. Additionally, Shivani is a 2011 Unreasonable Fellow and also is currently teaching at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University. Shivani holds a M.P.H in Health Economics and Policy from Columbia University and a B.A. in International Relations from Wesleyan University. Bonnie is passionate about small business growth and has worked with small business owners for the last six years. She is a go-to consultant – having most recently worked with GOOD on The Pepsi Refresh Project. She has also lent her skills to the Empowerment Group, New York City Department of Small Businesses Services and programs for the American Recovery and Reinvestments Act (ARRA). Bonnie holds a BA in International Politics from Wesleyan University and a certificate in Finance and Accounting from Wharton. She is one of InVenture's 2011 Echoing Green Fellows.
Sean Carasso, Co-Founder, Falling Whistles An avid adventurer, Sean has spent much of his life pulling diverse communities together. After starting a number of small companies and grassroots initiatives, he traveled the world with an entrepreneur turned philanthropist, while volunteering alongside Invisible Children and TOMS Shoes. In late 2007, he journeyed into the Democratic Republic of Congo on what was meant to be a short stop. It was there he heard of children too small to carry a gun, who were sent to the front lines of war armed with only a whistle. The Falling Whistles campaign was born in response to a small journal entry he wrote that night. Sean continues to pursue a deeper understanding of our collective liberty and dreams of a free world. These topics are inevitably intertwined in his writing, speaking, and conversations.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 4 :: Cross Sector Partnerships Sunday, February 19, 2012 Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Capital Saad has spent his career innovating. From R&D to entrepreneurship, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, Saad has always sought the bleeding edge of technology and creativity. His pursuit of innovation often takes him to unexpected places. Saad grew up between Pakistan and the Bay Area, and attended an American high school in Karachi where his soccer tournaments and theater performances were often played out in locations including Kathmandu, Delhi, and Islamabad. After moving back to the Bay Area, Saad launched his first Internet Startup while still a student at Stanford. Those early lessons were subsequently put to use at the Walt Disney Company, where Saad helped launch their Internet Strategy across their media properties, and then at IBM alphaWorks, one of the first corporate crowd-sourcing initiatives for IBM research. Saad then spent years building companies, advising entrepreneurs, and investing in Silicon Valley startups at Garage Technology Ventures where he worked closely with early stage entrepreneurs across the Garage portfolio including Pandora, cFares, and TripleHop (ORCL). Saad led Garage’s software and media investments, and spun-out (and subsequently sold) the Garage advisory business. In addition to his activities at CMEA, Saad also co-founded the Film Angels, an angel network for indie film where recent presenters have included Carlos Santana, Steve Wozniak, and many Academy award winning actors, directors and producers. Saad is an advisor to peer-to-peer internet lending platform Lending Club and is a Charter member of TIE.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Day 5 :: Sustainability Monday, February 20, 2012 Gregory Wendt, VP Sustainable and Responsible Investing, EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. Gregory Wendt, CFP is Vice President of Sustainable and Responsible Investing (SRI) with EP Wealth Advisors, Inc. - a well-established and recognized registered investment advisory firm based in Los Angeles with over $900 Million of client assets under management. Having been in the business since 1991, Greg has earned a reputation as one of California’s leading experts in Sustainable and Responsible Investing. Greg is frequently profiled or quoted as an expert in the media including "Living with Ed" Television Show on Home and Garden Television, Business Ethics magazine, Los Angeles Times, Daily Variety, Financial Planning Magazine and others. Greg also speaks regularly at conferences on the matters of new paradigms in economics, sustainable and responsible investing, new consciousness around wealth and related matters.
Mitchell Wade, Founder, Institute3 Mitchell Wade helps innovators turn insights into change. He was lucky enough to work with public policy analysts at RAND, executives at Schwab, technologists at Accenture--plus architects, priests, and rowing coaches. Then Mitchell struck gold, teaming up with seven social entrepreneurs working in the poorest villages of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They helped 60,000 people escape extreme poverty, quadrupled per-dollar impact, and launched their organizations toward sustainability. Most importantly, the team created a simple; proven method that enables sustainable growth. It scales, spreads organically, and boosts large organizations’ impact without wrenching change. The model also adapts to the “top of the pyramid”--for donors, skilled volunteers, and overtaxed staff. Mitchell’s goal now is to share the method much more broadly--and to collaborate with innovative social entrepreneurs to enact widespread change. So he’s writing a third book. (The first two, both co-authored with B-school professor John Beck, went beyond business as usual. Mitchell's latest project is creating institute3, a thinktank for practitioners obsessed with sustainable growth.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
The Los Angeles Institute for Social Innovation Annenberg Community Beach House 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
StartingBloc :: Staff Adriana Pentz, CEO Since becoming CEO in June 2009, Adriana has expanded StartingBloc’s presence across the country and internationally. She has also been instrumental in revising the strategic direction of the organization and building key partnerships necessary to support StartingBloc’s growing community. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Adriana Pentz was the Senior Director of Operations for Vision Education and was responsible for the creation of GreenFab, one of the first after school programs to focus on sustainable technology and engineering. Adriana lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY with her husband and their dog. She holds a degree in English and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, is a Boston 2007 StartingBloc Fellow.
Sarah Bishop, Fellowship Director Sarah manages the entire lifecycle of StartingBloc Fellows, including programs for the current community of 1350 Fellows around the world. She coordinates StartingBloc’s flagship program, the Institute for Social Innovation. Sarah works on recruitment, curriculum design, and programming so that Fellows can get the tools, skills, and resources they need to dramatically increase their impact. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Sarah spent two years coordinating countrywide education programs in El Salvador, Jordan, and Peru. She graduated with a B.A. in International Marketing from American University. Sarah is a proud London 2008 StartingBloc Fellow!
Rithesh Menon, Director of Partnerships Rithesh helps devise organizational strategy and develop key partnerships for StartingBloc. Previously, he worked in a Marketing and Communications role at StartingBloc. Prior to joining StartingBloc, Rithesh worked in Corporate & Investments Tax Advisory at Deloitte LLP and KPMG LLP. He has also been involved with grassroots marketing and fund raising efforts for various organizations in the non-profit sector. When he isn't thinking of more ways in which StartingBloc can change the world, Rithesh enjoys traveling. He graduated from Temple University with a degree in Economics and is a New York 2009 StartingBloc Fellow. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ StartingBloc, 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 (7th Floor), New York, NY 10016 | www.startingblo.org | tw :: @startingbloc.org
StartingBloc 349 Fifth Avenue, Suite 709 New York, NY 10016 [email protected] tw :: @startingbloc
