Michiel de Haan

Michiel de Haan has been active in venture capital since 1980 when he founded Atlas Venture, a European-American venture capital firm that has been involved in more than 300 venture backed companies. Currently he is General Partner of Aescap Venture. Aescap invests in emerging life science and cleantech companies in Europe that have the potential to become world leaders in their field. Michiel is founding member and past chairman of the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA) and co-founder of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA).

Kim Kiszelnik

Kim is a program manager at DOEN Foundation, helping to shape the New Economy programme. DOEN focuses on the initiatives of start-up sustainable entrepreneurs and of organisations that create change within economic structures. Previously, Kim built a microfinance programme which focused on raising awareness of Microfinance and matching the skills of ING staff to Microfinance institutions in developing countries.  In 2008 Kim moved from ING to DOEN Foundation, where she started working as a programme manager focused on financial sector development, mainly in Africa.

Jo Hill

Jo Hill is the Director of Ventures at UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs. At UnLtd, she has developed and implemented strategic programs to scale up social ventures, identifying ambitious social entrepreneurs and providing tailored support and finance to help them grow. She developed the successful Big Venture Challenge match-funding program to plug the gap in high risk, early stage capital by attracting new investors into the sector. Prior to UnLtd, Jo worked on a diversity of social change projects, managing national and international programs at Save the Children, the new economics foundation, One World International and Enterprise UK. Jo has also set up her own business called Open Gym which is a network of outdoor local fitness groups and was the winner of the Open Ventures Challenge 2009

Wim van der Beek

Wim is founder and managing partner of Goodwell Investments, an impact investment firm focused on access to finance and sustainable development. Goodwell channels capital to scalable business solutions, currently mainly in financial services (microfinance) and increasingly in other impact sectors that combine demonstrable social and environmental impact with commercial financial returns.  Goodwell’s portfolio companies have provided over $ 1.2 billion in small loans to more than 6 million families.

Ross Baird

Ross is Executive Director of Village Capital, an organization that uses peer-groups of entrepreneurs to build and invest in high-impact opportunities worldwide. Ross developed the Village Capital concept in 2009, and has led the development of thirteen programs worldwide in nine locations.  Before launching Village Capital, he worked with First Light Ventures, a seed fund focused on impact investments.  Prior to First Light, Ross worked on the development of four education-related start-up ventures.

Willem en Drees

Drees Peter van den Bosch grew up on a farm, graduated cum laude in agro economy (the mathematics of agriculture), and went to work for Unilever.  Willem Treep studied development economics in Wageningen with the wish to use his talent to make the world better – and then became fascinated by commercial and marketing concepts as a tool for positive change. He worked in developing countries on local distribution systems of major brands, and then in 2006 he joined Unilever.  A fateful meeting, which 3 years later became the company ‘Willem&Drees.’  Both men realize there were ways to use distribution systems to improve the world.  They applied their shared talent to studying local food systems and discovered “there really is something wrong.”  And so created a solution in a new business model.

Frederik Claasen

Frederik Claasen is a sustainable business development advisor and financial engineer. Following a 14-year career as Senior Vice President in structured finance and corporate social responsibility with ABN AMRO Bank, in 2007 he set up the social ventureMicro Water Facility to help small and medium-sized enterprises launch viable, up-scalable technologies to improve access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries. He is also Director of the Ecological Management Foundation, and Commercial Director of Aidenvironment, a sustainability consulting firm and a hothouse for innovational concepts.

Stephen Rockman

Stephen founded Merism Capital in 2010 to provide seed funding for early stage social businesses. Merism is in the vanguard of UK impact investment supporting entrepreneurs with financial and intellectual capital.Previously he was an advisor to an angel investor in early stage web and mobile companies and discovered social enterprise’s challenges and opportunities whilst mentoring entrepreneurs for NESTA and UnLtd.Stephen is a guest lecturer on social investment at Goldsmiths College and chairs their Advisory Group for the new MA in Social Entrepreneurship; he holds a number of non-exec roles in early stage companies.

Suzanne Biegel

Suzanne is Catalyst At Large and serves on the Advisory Board of ClearlySo in the UK and Investors’ Circle in the US (where she was most recently CEO), and on the Board of Directors of Confluence Philanthropy and of Growth Philanthropy Network. Suzanne has more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, angel investor, board member and philanthropist, and has played leadership roles in a variety of companies and projects. She also serves on the investment committee of the Patient Capital Collaborative, a collaborative angel investment fund. Ask her about The Women Effect, one of her current hot projects. Suzanne is based in London.

Marcello Palazzi

Marcello Palazzi, BSc, MSc, MBA, together with Dr Paul Kloppenborg, founded Progressio Foundation in 1989 and have since worked on 200 civic economy and enterprise projects in 33 countries, involving or reaching 20,000 decision-makers in business, government, the UN, the EU, the World Bank and other supra-national bodies, philanthropy, academia, civil society and faith.  Marcello is also an active board member of Tällberg Foundation in Sweden, Alterra Foundation in Basel, the European Environment Foundation in Freiburg and other public-good organizations.

Frans Schepers

Frans is the Managing Director of Rewilding Europe and is specialized in developing conservation strategies, protected area management and financing, ecosystem restoration and rewilding projects, species conservation and establishing ecological networks.   As an international programme manager, he travelled to many countries worldwide and worked extensively on a large variety of conservation programmes, in particular in Africa, Europe and Eurasia.
In 2010, he published a book about his international conservation experiences.

Neil Birnie

Neil is the Chief Executive of Conservation Capital, who are the business and finance partners of the Rewilding Europe initiative.  Conservation Capital focuses exclusively on linking private sector business and investment finance with global biodiversity conservation and in the last 5 years has raised and structured over 200 million Euros of private investment finance for conservation-based businesses across a diverse range of industry sectors.  Neil is an environmental lawyer who has worked in large commercial law firm  and was previously a legal assistant to the Chairman of the European Parliament Environment Committee in Brussels.

Filippo Addarii

Filippo Addarii is Executive Director of Euclid Network (the European network of third sector leaders) and Director of the International Leadership Development at ACEVO (the British association of chief executives of voluntary organisations). He has developed networks to empower civil society across Europe, Asia, Africa, US and Middle East.  He’s a non-ex board member of the Gum Arabic Foundation, Nethical (leader in R&D for homecare and medical assistance) and advisory board member of ASPEL (Association for Professional & Executive Learning.) He has recently organised Naples 2.0, a social innovation competition tackling real on-the-ground challenges by connecting international social innovators and local stakeholders. 

After a European education in Politics and Economics (Sciences Po Paris, F.U. Berlin, HEC Paris), Nicolas Hazard worked as an advisor at the office of Romano Prodi (L’Unione), former President of the European Commission and President of the Italian Council. He subsequently created a Business Start-up in International trading. In Parallel he co-founded an association, developing scholarships for Kenyan children.

He is now Vice-President of Groupe SOS, a leading social enterprise ( 9 000 employees, $650 M turnover) and the CEO of Le Comptoir de l’Innovation, an Investment and Consulting company for all businesses involved in developing innovative economic models to increase their social impact throughout the world.

Anat Bar-Gera

Anat is Co–founder of several telecommunications companies with numerous successful exits. Notably, she was the Co- founder and CEO of surfEU, a pan European ISP, formed as a joint venture with Media Markt, Europe’s largest electronic retailer. Anat holds an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, and an LL.B. from the Law School of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She is married to Dov, has 3 children and lives in Zurich. Anat is also a Member of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Council of INSEAD, a Member of UNICEF Swiss National Committee and a Board Member of the Swiss Technion Society. In 2011, she was a guest speaker at the TEDx Bay Area event, presenting on the Magical Effect of the Internet on Africa.

Cornelius Pietzner

Is the Chief Executive Office of Alterra Impact Finance GmbH, a social impact investment firm in Zurich, focussing on sustainable european companies. He is also President of the Alterra Foundation, a Swiss charitable foundation, which supports transformation initiatives related to a more human-centered economy.  He has had leading roles for 25 years in social impact enterprises, financial management, philanthropy and investments. He served as Chief Financial Officer on the Executive Board at the Goetheanum, General Anthroposophical Society, Switzerland with affiliates in 90 countries and approximately 8,000 related institutions in various sectors. Pietzner serves as Trustee/Advisory Board on a number of charitable foundations in the USA and Europe and is a Board member of Mind and Life International, Switzerland and Integrative Care Science Center, Sweden.  He was the Director of Camphill (life – sharing) Communities in North America. He received his degree in Political Science from Williams College, Mass. and was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Marlon van Dijk

Marlon van Dijk (1983) studied Business Economics in Amsterdam and started her career atScholten&Franssen – consultancy for social enterprises – where Peter Scholten trained her to become a self-employed SROI (Social Return on Investment) consultant. Combining business value with social impact is her vision. Marlon van Dijk started her own company M-resultancy- aiming for impacts at age of 25 with the ambition to confront and help organizations to solve complex social issues by developing a business mind that is able to create social change. Since January 2012 she is the managing director of social e-valuator™ an international software & knowledge business for impact management (founded in 2008 by Peter Scholten, d.o.b. and Noaber foundation). The software is aligned with the principles of The International SROI Network - Accounting for Value.

Ard Hordijk

Ard Hordijk is a sustainablility professional with 15 years of experience in business, biodiversity and ecosystems and sustainable supply chains. He currently works at CHE Synnervate where he focuses on building Meshworks;structured collaborations between different organizations and initiatives aimed at creating coherence and breakthroughs towards more sustainable societies. His educational background is in econometrics and worked at the Nyenrode Business University, Dutch based consultancy Twynstra Gudde and Environmental Resources Management. At the University he lead several research projects on biodiversity and finance, including the organisation of two international working conferences on the opportunities for investing in biodiversity and ecosystems in 2009 and 2011.

Clara Barby

At Bridges Ventures, Clara takes the lead on the firm’s impact strategy—throughout the investment cycle and across all fund types. In addition to growing impact through its own funds, Clara works on Bridges’ efforts to promote the growth of the wider impact investment sector. Before joining Bridges, Clara worked for Acumen Fund, on the capital markets team in New York and the investment team in India, later joining the management team of an Acumen portfolio company, AyurVAID Hospitals. Clara holds a BA (Hons) from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Eric Buckens

Eric Buckens is Head of Products & Solutions for ABN AMRO Private Wealth Management. He has more than 22 years of experience in international finance in a number of roles and in an international context, in particular in Europe and Asia. An economist by education, he is a seasoned investment professional and business manager. He has been with ABN AMRO for twenty years in various roles in economic research, asset management and private banking.Besides his professional career he has been involved in economic development issues for many years as a scholar on an academic level, as a volunteer and advisor in a Dutch political party and in private initiatives. He currently is a board member of Oikocredit Netherlands. He holds two master degrees in Economics and in Political Science, specialized in developing countries economics and politics. In his current role in ABN AMRO he is strongly involved in the efforts to shape the bank’s approach in SRI and Social Impact Investing.

Dirk Elsen

Joined Triodos Investment Management as Director Emerging Markets in January 2012. Most recently, from 2002 to 2011, he served as Chief Executive of SNV, an international development organisation implementing advisory, advocacy and knowledge brokering work in 36 countries across four continents. Prior to his leadership at SNV, Dirk Elsen worked at Shell, the World Bank and ABN AMRO, working as a corporate and operational lawyer on projects in Africa and Asia, structuring trade finance business and serving in various senior relationship management roles.

Taco Lens

Taco Lens joined the microfinance investment team at Triodos Bank in September 2011. As an investment officer, he is responsible for the microfinance portfolio in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Taco has broad experience in retail & private banking, investment management, business development and emerging markets. Via a two-year stay in Romania for a retail banking organisation with a strong focus on lending he gained on-the ground banking experience. His last assignment was with ABN AMRO where he identified and selected investment proposals in especially the area of impact investing. Taco has a master degree in Law & Economics from Utrecht University.