PRESENTED BY
Raj Patel | Economic Development Raj is a writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, LSE and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Centre for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy. He has contributed to the Guardian, LA Times, NYTimes.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Mail on Sunday, and the Observer. His first book was Stuffed & Starved. www.rajpatel.or
Louis Savy | Science Fiction and Utopias
Louis has had a varied and creative career in the music, film and online worlds. He became an entrepreneur to follow his passion, science fiction. He established the London Sci Fi Film Festival which has become a model the world over. Louis travels the world helping other film entrepreneurs set up science fiction festivals. He is interested in the human need to tell stories about dystopias and utopias.
Leonora Oppenheim | Sustainable Design/Communication Leonora is director of Elio Studio, a fresh and innovative design consultancy that specialises in the creative communication of environmental issues. Elio Studio works in collaboration with architects, designers and climate scientists on design projects that provoke discussion and debate around sustainability in local communities. Leonora is also now working with architect Anna Maria Orru to develop a design toolkit which brings together current thinking on sustainable design, systems thinking and biomimicry to help designers apply these principles in their own work. Leonora’s design and consultancy projects are complemented by her writing on eco-design and ethical consumerism for TreeHugger.com. As a key member of TreeHugger's editorial team since the early days of its creation she has witnessed the dramatic rise in environmental awareness from the front row.
Lea Simpson | Digital Strategist Lea is a Digital Strategist and Entrepreneur. She works with clients to streamline and improve their business and marketing strategy - with a specific skew towards all things digital and social. She is also a founding partner of Unchained, promoting the best independent shops in London and New York. In her spare time Lea can be found doing hot yoga, eating, drinking and generally putting the world to rights.
Sofia Bustamante | Social Business Sofia is a "soft-systems" facilitator: she works with the human processes in a system. She has 15 years experience of working with the challenges of transformation of individuals, small groups, networks and organisations. Her emphasis is on holistic, participatory and living processes and on methods of collaboration that generate disruptive social innovation. In August 09 Sofia founded London Creative Labs, a social business focusing on systemic and disruptive solutions to societal challenges in London, inspired by her experiences with Grameen and BRAC in Bangladesh. Her short-term aim is to generate an ecosystem of social businesses which enable more people to be included in the economy. Her mission is to enable more people to be involved in social innovation process design so that communities can define and innovate around their own needs themselves, in synch with other communities and with the wider society.
David Vigar | Green Business David Vigar is Climate Change Adviser to the business think-tank Tomorrow’s Company and writes on sustainability issues for a range of organisations. His previous roles include working as Director of Communications or the European Movement and as a Senior Producer on the BBC's Today programme.
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More Speaker Biographies
Alejandro Litovsky | Pathways to Scale
Alejandro is the Director of the Pathways to Scale Program at Volans Ventures in London. His work aims to accelerate the impact of social and environmental pioneers, and combines research with brokering alliances between entrepreneurs and mainstream institutions. He has worked extensively as a strategy advisor to development investors and venture philanthropy funds, including clients such as the World Bank, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, the Shell Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank; and was previously a senior advisor with AccountAbility in the UK. Alejandro holds a MSc in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics where he was awarded the Hobhouse Memorial Prize in 2004. Prior to coming to London, he worked as an investment manager with the AVINA Foundation in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Stephanie Brigden | International Human Rights Stephanie Brigden is the Director of Free Tibet. She graduated in International Human Rights Law and worked in the field of international development for 10 years. During that time she worked in Tibet with Tibetan nomadic communities over a two year period. She has also worked on policy and governance issues for four years as a senior conflict analyst with Christian Aid and CAFOD.
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Gary Kendall | Energy Sector Sustainability Gary is a Director of Energy Sector and Climate Change Program at SustainAbility. His primary expertise is the intersection of climate change and the oil industry, with a particular focus on expediting the decarbonisation of the transport sector. Having worked both in the oil industry and for a global environmental NGO, he brings a dual perspective to the challenges society will face as it begins to dismantle the prevailing hydrocarbon economy. Prior to joining SustainAbility Gary spent two years working in WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)’s global Climate & Energy programme.
Charles Perry | Sustainability Strategy Long track record in sustainability and climate change working to transform organisations, Charles is also Associate Director of Forum for the Future, Board member of 2Degrees and Associate of Al Gore’s The Climate Project. His senior management experience includes being Managing Director of Good Energy, Director of GreenOrder and Director of BP Green Energy. Charles was selected and trained by Al Gore to present “An Inconvenient Truth”, appointed a Judge for the Morgan Stanley Great Britons Awards and Adviser to David Cameron’s Quality of Life Policy Review on Climate Change. His career in sustainability began as PR Manager of BSI, where he launched ISO 14000, moving to Dames & Moore Consulting and then to BP to roll out “beyond petroleum” and develop BP Ultimate “more performance, less pollution”. Charles has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.
Raj Thamotheram | Responsible Investment Raj joined AXA Investment Managers in June 2006 as Director of Responsible Investment (RI) and led the development of new funds including the AWF Human Capital Fund. Raj now works in an advisory/thought-leadership role and co-chairs AXA’s network of RI champions. Prior to AXA, Raj was the senior RI advisor at the Universities Superannuation Scheme, the second largest UK pension fund (2000 – 2006). He played a lead role in the establishment of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change, the Marathon Club, Pharma Futures and the Enhanced Analytics Initiative. He was also involved in the design of the UN Principles of Responsible Investment. He has been nominated twice by Global Proxy Watch as one of the 10 most influential figures in the corporate governance field (2004 & 2008), most recently for his role in the launch of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets. Raj has also worked in the NGO world and was founder-director of Saferworld and the international head of advocacy at ActionAid.
Andy Middleton | Sustainability Innovation Andy Middleton is a social entrepreneur and Founder Director of St Davids - based TYF Group, an education, leadership and adventure business who teach over 10,000 people a year to work, live and play differently. His has worked in a variety of extreme and pristine environments that include the Great Sandy Desert and post-war Angola, and served as a National Park board member and conservation organisation Council Member – a variety of experience with rich learning on the how, what and why of environmental protection and guardianship. Andy’s work with business clients includes micro-SMEs , global corporations and national government in Wales and China has developed a potent understanding of the connection between purpose, goals and getting things done. Andy is developing a sustainability research centre as an extension of TYF’s existing work, and lives in an eco house overlooking the Atlantic where he spends time surfing and leaping off cliffs with his family.
Marc De'ath | Social Entrepreneur Marc De'ath is a creative thinker and social entrepreneur, passionate about ideas, creativity and sustainable living. He is founder of The Creative Coop, co-founder of YumShare.co.uk and publisher of Sustained Magazine.
John Isom | Social Justice John Isom is executive director of the US-based NGO Tibet Justice Center (www.tibetjustice.org) and co-coordinator of Tibet Third Pole (www.tibetthirdpole.org). He is a Ph.D. student in ecological history in the Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has been involved in Tibet research and advocacy, focusing on environment and development, since 1991.
Sonia Klein | Business and Sustainability Sonia is a PwC Senior Consultant focused on Sustainability and Climate Change in the Public Sector. Her key interests include decentralised, local production of renewable energy and electric vehicles. Sonia's other activities include mentoring women business owners, promoting International Trade and various humanitarian causes. Sonia is also a Parliamentary Candidate, mother of two children, Jasmine and Adam, and is completing her PhD thesis in Innovation Theory. Sonia was raised in an East-End migrant family and is driven by a vision of a socially just, cohesive and prosperous society, where each individual is able to reach their full potential, dare to dream for more and contribute to the Nation’s success.
Sophia Tickell | Energy and Pharma Futures Sophia Tickell is an advocate for sustainability with specific expertise on healthcare, climate change and food. Sophia is the co-founder and Director of Pharma Futures, a series of investor-led dialogues on how to achieve a better balance between societal and shareholder returns www.pharmafutures.org and is currently working to expand this venture to encompass other sectors and issues. Sophia plays a number of advisory and governance roles, including Chair of the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) International Advisory Group; External Advisor to GSK’s Board CRC Committee; Trustee of the Green Alliance, Member of the Aviva SRI Advisory Committee, Vodafone’s CR committee and that of the Doughty Centre Advisory Council of the Cranfield School of Management. Sophia's expertise in advocacy and campaigning was developed during her years as a trainer in advocacy techniques in various countries including Nepal, Zambia, and Colombia, and as Oxfam Great Britain's Senior Policy Advisor on the private sector.
Dr Mike Hands | Science and Forestry
Mike refused to believe that there was no better alternative to the destructive slash and burn farming he saw in Honduras. He put in an immense amount of study and hard, meticulous work, initially doing an MSC in Cambridge on the subject. He proceeded to do intensive research both in the laboratory and the field, noting for example that the Inga tree seemed promising. Through two decades of thorough research and field trials, including acceptance trials with the farmers, Mike established Inga alley cropping as a sustainable alternative to slash and burn farming. It differs from other forms of alley cropping in that the tough leaves of the Inga form a permanent mulch in the alleys which imitates the conditions on the floor of the rainforest. (We will also be showing a documentary made about his work.)
Sema Judge | Wind Turbine Technology
and Distribution Sema is a lawyer who embraced her beloved late father’s inspiration, determination and passion to make a difference. Her company JUDGE Energy provides renewable energy solutions to the global market. Presently, her company is working in areas such as China, South America, Africa and the Middle East. JUDGE Energy utilises various technologies to harness a diverse array of natural resources, including wind, solar and water, towards a more sustainable future for our planet. JUDGE Energy has had the honour of being the guest of governments in China, South Korea, various countries in North Africa and the Middle East.
Sema is the founding director of a new entrepreneurial initiative which will bring the message of sustainability to the UK High Street. The launch of this project is set for early January 2010.
Nic Marks | Economics of Wellbeing Nic Marks has led the well-being programme at the New Economics Foundation since 2001. Nic is an expert in the field of well-being research. He has a particular interest in how objective and subjective measures can be used alongside each other to create national and local accounts of well-being. Nic was lead author of NEF’s innovative Happy Planet Index, for which NEF won the ISQOLS Betterment of the Human Condition Award. He was an advisor to the UK Government Office for Science’s Foresight project on ‘mental capital and well-being’. Nic has a degree in Management Studies from Cambridge University, a Master’s degree in Operational Research from Lancaster University and a postgraduate diploma in Change Agent Skills and Strategies from the Human Potential Research Group at the University of Surrey. He is also a qualified psychotherapist and a member of the International Society for Quality of Life Studies – ISQOLS.
Dr Cat Dorey | Sustainable Oceans Cat is a biologist, writer and activist, currently working with Greenpeace. Cat started her career in Australia as a biomedical scientist with a PhD in Immunology, but found allergy research too limiting. She moved to London in 2000, became a science writer and editor, and discovered activism. In 2003, Greenpeace commissioned Cat to write Chemical Legacy: Contamination of the Child, a report on persistent pollutants in the human body. From human health, Cat moved to the health of 70% of our planet – our oceans – and for the past six years has been providing scientific support to Greenpeace’s Sustainable Seafood Project. When she’s not reading about shark-finning or declining fish stocks, Cat is exploring new ways to tell the stories about our amazing planet to foster a deeper understanding and inspire real change. She blames David Attenborough for her fascination with all creatures great and small and Gandhi for her record of “civil disobedience.”
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