Antonio is an experienced international development professional whose professional career spans for about 4 decades in senior roles in almost all continents. Antonio has held senior assignments with the United Nations as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Liberia (2014-2016); Director of the United Nations Office and the UNDP Representation Office in Brussels (2006-2014), UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative in Bolivia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Liberia. His previous assignments include roles in Bolivia, Honduras, Ethiopia, Barbados, South East Europe and New York HQs. Prior to his UN career, Antonio worked for 6 years in the foreign office of an Italian Bank. Antonio is an experienced lecturer on international development issues, He has been the Chief Editor of UN human development Magazine “Claves”, Bolivia (2 years) and has authored more than 30 publications and press articles, mainly on international affairs. Since 2014, Antonio has been Senior Advisor and Jury member of the International SDG documentary film festival Millenium.

Antonio holds Masters degree in Political Sciences from Universita’ Orientale, Naples/Italy.

Nik Sekhran is the Chief Conservation Officer at WWF US, based in Washington DC. At WWF he oversees the conservation program, working amongst other things with some of the world’s biggest companies to improve the sustainability of production practices, on measures to improve the sustainability of infrastructure, managing adverse environmental tradeoffs, and on protecting critical ecosystems. Until the end of 2017, he served as the Chief of Profession for sustainable Development at the United Nations Development Programme in New York, where we led a large team supporting country efforts to advance the sustainable development goals. Over a career spanning 28 years, Nik has worked to transform the development pathways of countries to ensure they are both greener and more equitable. He has worked on-the-ground in over 45 countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. He has experience working in the areas of development planning, sustainable livelihoods and environmental management. His work has included the provision of policy advice to governments to ensure the sustainable utilization of natural resources including fish stocks, forest resources and minerals, the conservation of biodiversity and measures to ensure that economic development is managed to optimize sustainable and inclusive growth prospects and to uplift the livelihoods of the poor.

Nik holds degrees in Economics from the Universities of Bath and Cambridge in England. He is a British citizen.

Tiekie Barnard is the Founder and CEO of Shift Impact Africa and the Shared Value Africa Initiative – both pan-African organisations that operate across the African continent. Tiekie is driven by a personal need to close the inequality gap on the continent through influencing the private sector to adopt the Shared Value Business Management concept, which advocates for the private sector to create economic value and value for society. Profit with Purpose.

Tiekie serves as a member of the global Shared Value Initiative (SVI) Steering Committee. The SVI was created by Prof. Michael Porter and Mark Kramer from Harvard Business School. She is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years’ business and consulting experience across Africa. Tiekie belief in the power of collaboration and that we are so much more powerful when we work together, than on our own. She was recently awarded as one of Africa’s Women Leaders.

Nozomi Witherspoon is Executive Director at LEAP Philanthropy Ltd, with determined passion in international development/social impact focused on market-driven poverty reduction. LEAP is a Singapore based impact investment and venture philanthropy organization aiming to alleviate poverty in Southeast Asia by investing into social enterprises. Starting in 2020, LEAP also expanded scope of work to COVID-19 impacted migrant workers in Singapore.

Prior, Senior Portfolio Manager, Southeast Asia at Water.org (San Francisco, USA) and Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank, Africa (Washington D.C, USA). Nozomi led and managed multiple complex multi-million dollar poverty alleviation, microfinance, and other social impact projects in Africa and in Southeast Asia. She has deep experience in project design, implementation, and M&E while managing budget, strategy, client-relations, and team of consultants.

A truly global citizen, Nozomi is a Japanese national currently living in Singapore. Her passion for international development was sparked by exposure to poverty and social injustice while growing up in Iraq and Tanzania.

Executive MBA from INSEAD (Class Representative), and Master’s in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University.

Karen Vardanyan is a development finance executive with more than two decades of experience in managing large and complex portfolios of development resources allocated and delivered in developing countries worldwide. In his UNDP career, Karen has managed more than a billion US dollars of donor financial resources in trust funds and development projects in all continents to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring efficient, compliant and transparent management of resources.

Karen is Co-founder of Crimson Investment Fund and its Board Member responsible for Risk Management. As an angel investor and a member of various investor networks, Karen invests in early stage start-ups with scalable business models and promising growth potential.

Karen’s vision is to leverage the power of entrepreneurship, markets and social enterprises, innovative blended financial instruments for resolving social and environmental challenges and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Karen is an Alumni of Harvard Business School, holds a Diploma in Financial Management from the UK Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He has Specialization in Business and Financial Modelling from the Wharton School, PhD and Masters of Engineering from State Engineering University of Armenia.

Guillaume is a born technopreneur who has been CEO and CTO of multiple startups in Fintech, EdTech, e-commerce, gaming and music.

Across 12 years of experience in tech, Guillaume founded a music platform, launched an ambitious mobile J-RPG game in Korea, co-founded an ecommerce in Singapore and founded Creatella Venture Builder that helped launching 40 innovative tech startups in SEA and Europe, raising over 40M usd across their portfolio. Guillaume also mentored for the Youth Entrepreneurship Symposium, is an Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD, a mentor to the Covid19 INSEAD Competition and mentor to Nana Bianca, an Italian VC.

Guillaume obtained his engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France, followed by a Master in Nuclear Engineering and Quantum Physics from the University of Tohoku in Japan. He went on to obtain his MBA at INSEAD in Singapore with an exchange to Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adela Villanueva is a trilingual professional with 15+ years of experience transforming, accelerating and scaling large organizations, startups, people and businesses around the Globe (EMEA, APAC & NALA markets). She has lived in 9 different cities, moving from Spain to Switzerland via France via Singapore and the United States.
Her mission is to achieve growth & impact through innovation.
Adela is a strong advocate of women empowerment, human rights, animal defense and sustainable development.
She currently plays several roles as Board Member, Advisor, Venture Partner and Innovation Consultant.
She is also the Founder of ALKELIO, an Open Innovation platform where business needs and new technologies from startups meet.

Global investment professional with over 20 years of management and analytical experience in traditional, alternative, and sustainable investments. Recently focused on designing investment strategies in the food and agriculture sector, including a role as an Investment Strategist at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Worked as a fund/hedge fund manager/research analyst for several top-performing financial institutions, including Gabelli Asset Management and DSM Capital.

• Specialist in conducting due diligence; have analyzed and modeled >500 companies worldwide
• Developer of sustainable investment strategies that incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Investment strategist with skills in combining top-down and bottom-up analysis to formulate optimal asset allocation strategies
• Marketer with a keen sense of how to gain institutional buy-in, backed by experience in raising capital from institutional asset owners and sovereign funds globally

MPH from Yale University, MPIA from the University of Pittsburgh, and BA from Wilkes University; CFA charter holder

James Spurway is an Angel Investor, Mentor, Advisor, Speaker, former Commercial Pilot, and Author, who specialises in raising debt and equity capital. He strives to model diversity, equity, and inclusion in the founders with whom he agrees to invest and work. He currently invests in Impact (SDG) focused Startups in the Carbon Removal, Energy, Food & Agriculture, Circular Economy, Transportation, and AgeTech sectors.  James spent the past 30 years living in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, the USA, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, and Australia, his country of birth. In that time, he started 10 of his own businesses, exited from seven, shut down two, and kept one. He has invested in a total of 47 startups since 2011 and had six successful exits. He is currently in discussions with potential co-founders and limited partners about forming his first venture capital fund, to focus on startups that can accelerate the achievement of net zero emissions.

Monika Rogozinska is a C-level life science executive with +20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device sector. She had created and advanced global product development strategies, successfully bringing to market new pharmaceutical products and medical devices. Most recently, Ms. Rogozinska serves as a strategic advisor to startups' founding teams. She provides 'know-how' to strengthen the business plans, product-market fit, and develop methods for scaling business. She also introduces startups to essential ecosystems – customers, partners, and VCs.

Monika Rogozinska is a Harvard Business School alumna. She holds multiple executive certificates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Science degree in Laboratory Medicine from Nicolaus Copernicus University. She is an angel investor and advisory board member for Boston's Peer Health Exchange.

As an entrepreneur, Agile Coach, and speaker, Stacy Kirk has championed quality and process innovation in software development for over 20 years. After graduating from Stanford University’s School of Computer Science, she gained experience as a developer, tester, and leader in diverse industries including entertainment, security, finance, and healthcare. In 2010, Stacy founded QualityWorks Consulting Group, an app development firm focused on enabling companies to build higher quality software, create diverse future-ready teams, and accelerate software delivery. Her company was recognized in 2020 as Inc.’s Best in Business, for its social impact that drives measurable value to clients like AT&T, BB&T, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Fox, and Legacy.com. Stacy leads a 45+ and growing team of brilliant technologists located across the US and Jamaica, representing diverse backgrounds, including over 46% women of color. In 2020, she launched Posture, a SaaS platform that leverages intelligence and automation to assess and guide small and midsize enterprises to affordably develop a cyber-resilient organization prepared for the competitive advantages of compliance.

Sumitra has over 25 years of lived experience in co-initiating, co-managing and co-leading innovation work globally in the creative, education and social impact sector. With her skills from the private sector and start-up social impact environment, Sumitra is now channeling her efforts through her role in Ashoka by mobilising a world that embraces Changemaking. This spans from inspiring young people with Changemaking skillsets to building Changemaking economies which includes private and public sector participation.
She has worked with diverse teams across different sectoral, geographic locations and leadership teams. Her Previous experience has been with Random House UK, Bertelsmann AG, Procter & Gamble and Kraft. This included work in new venture creation, innovative product development, growth programmes (organic and acquisitive), in-depth market research and marketing; in Europe, US and most recently Asia. Her industry expertise has been in media sector, education and consumer goods; across private and public sectors.
Most recently, she co-founded an international award winning independent non-profit citizen sector organisation - Playeum in Singapore to inspire creativity in children. Playeum's vision is to raise children’s voice through play and creativity. Ultimately, building a future of young adults filled with empathy, leadership, collaborative and creative skills.
MBA from INSEAD, M.Eng in Chemical Engineering and M.A. from Cambridge University

Amelie Remond is a part time lecturer for Master degree at ESSEC Business School in Singapore and has founded recently the Merlion-Mekong project, an exchange platform for undergraduates. This project is supported by ESSEC Business School Singapore and Toutes a l'Ecole, NGO in Cambodia. Before she spent a year in 2019/20 in Phnom Penh as HR Director for the NGO Toutes a l'Ecole. She started her career in 1992 in the financial sector in different French organisations before moving to Singapore in 2007 to become Head of Banks for Aberdeen Asset management for 12 years. Amelie is Permanent Residence in Singapore and hold a French passport. She holds a Bachelor degree in Social, Administration and Economics at University of Paris.

Sawa Nakagawa is the Founder & Partner of ThreeArrows Impact Partner, a specialized advisory firm focused on impact investing and social innovation based in Johannesburg. She has over 18 years of professional experience across impact investing, general management, investment banking, and strategy. Originally from Japan, she has worked in Asia, Europe, Africa, U.S. and Latin America.
Previously Sawa served as inaugural Chief Executive Officer of E2 Investments (Pty) Ltd, an impact investment company with a mission to create jobs and attack poverty in South Africa. E2 is an empowerment partner to Allan Gray (Pty) Ltd, South Africa’s largest privately held investment management company.
Prior to E2, Sawa worked for Barclay Africa’s Equity Investments and Special Projects team where she led complex organic and inorganic projects. Before moving to South Africa, she worked at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) in Washington D.C. where she was responsible for investing in private hospitals, clinics, schools and universities, as well as creating blended finance mechanisms in emerging markets in a financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner. Sawa started her finance career at UBS Investment Bank.
Sawa has extensive experience as a board/committee member and adviser. Currently she serves as non-executive director of Spartan SME Finance. She is a member of the Board Investment Committee of the National Empowerment Fund, the Investment Rules Committee of Endeavor South Africa’s Harvest Fund II, and the Investment Advisory Council of the Equality Fund. She serves as adviser to the African Leadership Academy’s Very Young Entrepreneurs’ Fund. As a passionate advocate for solving the funding gap for high impact entrepreneurs, she also chairs the Demand Side Working Group of National Task Force for Impact Investing in South Africa.
Sawa holds an MBA from Columbia Business School (Finance & Social Enterprise) and a Masters in International Affairs (Economic & Political Development) from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She is a CFA Charterholder, and a 2019-2022 delegate of the US-Japan Leadership Program.

Patricia is an investment executive with 20 years of experience in private equity, management consulting and venture capital.
Patricia is a Venture Partner at AC Ventures, an early-stage Indonesia focused VC fund, where she oversees portfolio value creation. She is passionate about closing the funding gap for female founders through her work with Connecting Founders, a capital advisory firm focused on female founders. Patricia has also been involved in impact investing since 2008, with experience in Asia and the U.S.
Patricia graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations and M.A. in International Business from the Fletcher School, Tufts University.

Senior Advisor at United Women Singapore, Co-Founder at Angels of Impact, APAC Director at Zerone Microsystems. 20 years of leadership experience in international development and management consulting across three continents, covering women’s empowerment and gender equality (former Singapore Committee for UN Women), social entrepreneurship, impact investing (Angels of Impact), payments for the bottom of the pyramid (Zerone Microsystems) and financial education (Aidha, INSEAD).

Marie-Laure started her career by conducting research for the public sector (OECD, UN) before
working on various consulting projects for large companies and advising entrepreneurs.
 
Over the past 10 years, she has developed an expertise in education and learning and
development by designing and facilitating courses and programs for thousands of individuals
across Asia-Pacific and Europe.
 
In 2017, she started The Human Factor (THF), an organisation that helps clients embrace new
ways of working that leverage purpose, collaboration, and creativity.  
 
In addition to leading THF, she is an adjunct faculty member at ESSEC Business School,
actively supports Aidha (a charity that helps foreign domestic workers and low-income women in
Singapore), and is a board member of Big Bloom (an organisation that offers programs that
combine leadership development and social innovation).
 
She has been living in Asia for 25 years and is currently based in Singapore.
She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and is a CFA charterholder. She also
holds several coaching and training certifications.

Based in the UK, Guy is an entrepreneur, 2-time co-founder and advisor to Creatella Impact's portfolio of startups. He works closely with founders to support and advise them through their product design and launch, sharing his expertise in product and user experience design, analytics and digital marketing. He participated in various entrepreneurship programs as a mentor and understands the core values of entrepreneurship.

Tom has been working in impact investing and social finance since 2002 and has held leadership roles with several prominent organizations, such as Ashoka, and among others was also the co-founder of Ennovent, a leading social business accelerator in South Asia. He is a long-serving mentor and coach to social entrepreneurs, and volunteers as a guest speaker or to help with social enterprise competitions.
Tom started his career in banking and strategy consulting, and has degrees from Oxford University (BA), the Wharton School (MBA – where he also studied at INSEAD), and the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA). He speaks fluent English, French and German, and insists he hopes to do the same one day with Bahasa Indonesian.