SEWF22 Speakers

Douglas Abdiel

Doug is a Major in the US Marine Corps Reserves (since 2003), an Executive at Google Australia (since 2014) and Chairman of Purpose and Growth. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and an MA from the Australian National University in International Relations. His work at Google has been in partnerships, strategy, operations and deals. His deployments in the Marine Corps took him to places like Haiti and Afghanistan where he developed a passion to try to aid refugees through employment.

Rasha Abu Safieh

Rasha is the Co-founder of STARlab, a research unit within the University of Otago and Co-Chair of the Catalyst2030 New Zealand Chapter. She is an Edmund Hillary Fellow with a mission to create a better world for the next generation from Aotearoa, New Zealand and Time Magazine’s Next Generation Leader 2018. Rasha Co-founded GGateway, the first IT impact-sourcing social enterprise in Palestine, a successful business supported by the World Bank to be regional outsourcing hup that continues to create hundreds of jobs for youth through IT outsourcing and remote work, helping transform their lives under the most complex economic, political and social conditions.

Deputy Mayor Krista Adams

Krista Adams was elected as Councillor for the ward of Wishart in 2008. Since 2010, Krista has been appointed to a variety of senior management roles. Initially taking on the role of Chair of Council, she has been a Civic Cabinet Chair for Lifestyle, Finance, Public and Active Transport & Economic Development. Electoral boundary changes in 2016 mean Krista now represents the Holland Park Ward and with recent portfolio changes, Krista was appointed the Civic Cabinet Chair for Economic Development and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Committee.

Emeline Afeaki-Mafile’o

Emeline founded Affirming Works in 2001, designing her models beginning 20 years ago with the Pacific model of collective mentoring to provide life skills to young people in Auckland. AW has mentored tens of thousands of children, youth and their families. Her work in Affirming Works led her to the establishment of Fofola Consultancy Ltd, which has contributed to public policy development in New Zealand and the Pacific.

In 2006, Emeline was named a Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader and won the Westpac Woman of Influence award in 2014. She is also a recipient of the Queen’s Order of Merit award in NZ in 2015.

Dylan Alcott AO

Dylan Alcott is the Australian of the Year 2022 and one of the country’s most successful and well recognised Paralympians. In 2021 he became the only male in any form of tennis to win the ‘Golden Slam’, winning the Australian, French, Wimbledon and US Open Championships, together with his gold medal from the Tokyo Paralympic Games. In 2017, he launched the Dylan Alcott Foundation, a foundation created to help young Australians with a disability achieve their goals in the workplace, on the sporting field or at university. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2022 for distinguished service to Paralympic sport, particularly to tennis and as a role model for people with disability, and to the community through a range of organisations.

Matt Allen

Matt has been involved in non-profits and social enterprises for the past 15 years, working in a range of roles including business development, management, advisory, research and consulting. He is currently working as a Research Associate at Monash University, a Senior Research Assistant at the Yunus Centre Griffith University, and as a consultant with the Social Impact Hub. His work to date has focussed on grassroots economic development, systems change, popular education and circular economy social enterprise. His current work with Monash University involves a partnership with government agencies, social enterprises and non-profits to explore the contributions of reuse to the circular economy and to develop policies and programs that support the growth of waste-focussed social enterprises. Matt holds an MBA (Social Impact) from UNSW, and is a Churchill Fellow (2019).

Tom Allen

Tom Allen is the Founder and CEO of Impact Boom, a leading intermediary and global social impact media agency helping entrepreneurs and innovators unleash their greatest potential to create a better world. With an audience from 200+ countries, Impact Boom’s core focus is on developing the social enterprise ecosystem, providing capacity-building, growing awareness (500+ global leaders are featured on the blog and podcast), and taking a whole system approach to sector development. Impact Boom has worked intensively with over 155 social enterprises. Tom led the successful Australian bid for SEWF, he sits on a number of boards and his work has been recognised with two Australian Good Design Awards.

Desmond Alugnao

Desmond Alugnoa is the Co-Founder of the Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) and the Africa Program Coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). He is also the youth advisor to the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and a youth leader with many years of experience in climate work.

Lucille Anak Awen Jon

Lucille anak Awen Jon is an entrepreneur, jewellery designer, an indigenous woman and cultural craft activist. A passion for preserving Bidayuh-Jagoi heritage arts and crafts has made Lucille who she is today.
In 2014, she launched her brand Pangieh Ranee, which means “the queen of the necklace”, and in 2017 co-founded Pungu Borneo, which focuses on creative collaboration and bringing back traditional Bidayuh crafts to daily usage. She was honoured as a Sarawakian Young Master by the World Craft Council APAC in 2019 and has since received awards for outstanding contribution to Sarawak cultural heritage

Tara Anderson

Tara specialises in strategy, business development, marketing and cross-sector collaboration in the for-purpose sector at Director and Board level. Her experience spans small and large charities and social enterprises in Australia, the UK and Europe.

Alongside her role as Executive Director Strategy and Growth at Social Traders, she is a Co-Founder and Director at The Dragonfly Collective (consultancy supporting for-purpose organisations to build sustainable and impactful business models) and a Director at Social Enterprise Australia.

Tara has an MBA from Bayes Business School in the UK, a Masters in Social Innovation from Danube University in Austria, and a degree in Media and Communications from Melbourne University.

Prince Edem Kelly Anyomitse

Prince Edem Kelly Anyomitse is a Sustainability Entrepreneurship Expert and a youth-oriented business skills development proponent. He has facilitated the promotion of sustainable entrepreneurial and/or employability skills among young people in his capacity as manager for a number of youth development initiatives. He is an Action Group member for the Global Youth Economic Opportunities (GYEO) Summit on Inclusive Workplaces while also recently taking up the role of In-Country Network Coordinator for the Denis Goldberg Scholarship Programme.
Aside from mentoring a number of young social entrepreneurs in Ghana, he recently implemented a British Council-funded project that equipped dozens of young people in Ghana & South Africa to lead the creation of alternative revenue-generating models for traditional NGOs through the development & incorporation of relevant social enterprise models into their operations.

Angelina Asenso-Addo

Angelina Asenso-Addo is an experienced human capital management professional with over 12 years experience in sustainable business administration, process improvement and business strategy for start-ups. She has worked in various roles across several business sectors transforming traditional administrative functions of projects and organisations into people centered departments capable of driving engagement, productivity and business value.

Angelina is currently an in-house Business Mentor for student-led businesses in Ashesi University and leads Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Programmes with the Ashesi Entrepreneurship Center. Her role is critical in ensuring that there is synergy in all undergraduate curricular and non-curricular programmes that have an entrepreneurship bearing. She also provides mentoring for entrepreneurial minded students to enhance their access to funding and strategic partnership opportunities. Her passion is to see youth-led ventures, emboldened through training and mentoring, rise to participate in Africa’s quest for economic growth through ethical entrepreneurship.

Martin Avila

Martin is a champion of social enterprise and passionate about its ability to help strengthen our communities and tackle inequality. He is CEO of the CEIS Group, the UK largest and oldest social enterprise support organisation. He was previously the Director at the Kinning Park Complex (KPC), a multi-use community venue in Glasgow with a track record of innovative partnership working and of supporting others to develop new programmes of activity. Under his leadership, the KPC conducted a flagship buyout of their centre, delivered a multi-million-pound renovation project and launched one of Scotland’s first Local Place Plans.
Martin won a scholarship to Strathclyde Business School’s MBA programme through their Visionary Leadership Scholarship and has previously been part of leadership cohorts through the British Council and the Social Enterprise Academy. He is a Community Land Scotland Board member and was previously a Board member of SURF (Scotland’s Regeneration Forum), Treasurer of the Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations and Chair of the Loesje International Foundation.

Shelene Bailey

Shelene is passionate about youth entrepreneurial education. Having studied entrepreneurship at university, she has experience in both participating in accelerator programs developing her own social enterprise, and supporting founders as a facilitator and coordinator. Being heavily involved with the University of the Sunshine Coast, Shelene was a Student Experience Mentor and spent her degree assisting and engaging with other students. Now as the Chief of Staff at social enterprise Young Change Agents, Shelene not only facilitates social entrepreneurship workshops for young people, but also plays a key role in the company’s strategy, operations and program development, contributing to YCA’s growing impact in youth entrepreneurial education.

Paul Barbaro

Paul Barbaro is an experienced executive who has held executive management roles within Global, ASX Listed and Private Equity companies in Australia and Asia. Paul has managed complex integrations, organically grown businesses and led companies through multiple economic cycles. He is best known for his leadership and his ability to motivate workforces, innovative solutions to Human Capital issues facing clients, and successfully integrating acquisitions to produce high achieving teams that have delivered on shareholder expectations. He has extensive experience within the Accounting and Finance, I.T., Sales and Marketing, Not for Profit and Health sectors and sits on advisory boards offering further advice on delivering innovative solutions.

Katy Barfield

Katy Barfield is a renowned speaker, award-winning entrepreneur and food waste veteran. Before starting Yume, Katy was the founding CEO of one of Australia’s largest food rescue organisations, SecondBite. As the Founder & CEO of Yume, Katy leads a team of passionate food waste fighters to put an end to commercial food waste through innovative technology, which has prevented 3.8 million kilograms of food from going to waste to date.

Seán Barnes

Dr Seán Barnes is a thought leader and procurement practitioner who has led the development of social procurement in Aotearoa NZ through his roles with the Ākina Foundation, and work with private and public sector organisations and the NZ Government. He is driven by changing procurement for good and was recognised as 2021 Procurement Professional of the Year by the Procurement Excellence Forum. Seán is excited about SEWF in his second home town of Brisbane and gathering again to celebrate social enterprise and impact.

Rowan Barnett

Rowan Barnett leads Google.org in Europe, Middle East and Africa. As a data-driven, human-focused philanthropy powered by Google, he oversees Google’s philanthropic funding, product donations and employee giving and volunteering in the region, supporting innovative nonprofits using technology to tackle complex global challenges and create more opportunity for everyone. In his previous roles at Google, he also led Google.org’s philanthropy across Asia Pacific, as well as Google for Startups efforts to enable access to the tech ecosystem for diverse and underrepresented entrepreneurs and social innovators.

Prior to Google he was a Senior Director at Twitter responsible for user growth across many European and Emerging Markets, spent 8 years in journalism and social innovation at Axel Springer, as well as failing to be a successful entrepreneur.

Rowan serves on a number of advisory boards, including the nonprofit startup leadership network H2.co and as a trustee of the Trialogue Educational Trust and Club of Three. He is also a Fellow of the Bertelsmann German Israeli Young Leaders initiative. He holds an MA in History from Oriel College, Oxford. With roots in eight countries, including dual English and German citizenship, he lives with his wife and three children in Berlin.

Kate Barrelle

Dr Kate Barrelle is Chief Impact Officer and co-founder of STREAT, a Melbourne-based, food-system, work integration social enterprise. As a forensic and clinical psychologist, Kate has almost 30 years’ experience working in community, government, private sector, research, and social enterprise. Her PhD involved interviews with former extremists. Kate is passionate about behaviour change at an individual, collective and system level, especially providing opportunities for at-risk youth. Kate is also the handler of ‘Magic’ – the Therapy Dog at STREAT. If she could have a superpower, it would be flying! She has a lot of injuries as a kid testing this out.

Hamzah Bin Hamizan

Hamzah began his journey into the startup and social entrepreneurship arena in 2017. He has always been passionate about helping and fostering the community. Before relocating to TEGAS Digital Village in 2021, he established The Founders Club in 2018, a community-driven organisation emphasising on community-building. He has been actively supporting SEWF since 2021 through his present organisation and the Malaysia Community Hub collective.

Aside from his commitment to TEGAS Digital Village, Hamzah works with a YC-funded startup as a product manager, and in his spare time, he learns and does research on data science.

Zoë Black

Zoë Black is a highly regarded social entrepreneur who has a business mind and social heart! Zoë is Co-Founder & CEO of Happy Paws Happy Hearts which flips animal therapy around to benefit both socially isolated or excluded Australians and rescue animals simultaneously. Zoë is also the first ever Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Queensland.

Limbi Blessing Tata

Limbi Blessing Tata is a self-motivated and goal oriented social change maker. With over 10 years’ experience in grass root level environmental conservation she has good management, communication, problem solving and design skills. Trained as a botanist/conservationist, she has become a climate activist, non-timber forest & agricultural products value chain expert, ‘forestpreneur’, trainer and youth mentor. She has an excellent track record in project implementation, extensive background in resource mobilisation and management. Limbi Blessing Tata is a kanthari, Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum and One Million Leaders Africa Fellow. She is also an Obama Africa Leader and the winner of the 2013 Television Trust for the Environment competition in the Biodiversity International Award for Agricultural and Forest Biodiversity category.

Jennifer Briscoe-Hough

Jenny is the driving force behind Tender Funerals. She has decades of experience in community development and believes in a strength-based approach. Jenny has a reputation for innovation and developing projects which support and empower communities to create a culture of help rather than harm. Tender Funerals is the result of a community believing that funerals should be affordable, meaningful and ultimately as much as possible healing. Tender Funerals Australia was called into being by the many communities that reached out to have a Tender Funerals in their area and Jenny is proud to be a part of the team that is answering their call.

Dr Catherine Brown OAM

Dr Catherine Brown OAM has been CEO of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation since 2011. The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation work strategically on the big issues facing Greater Melbourne including affordable housing, climate change, economic inclusion, COVID/disaster response and collective giving. They support social enterprises working on these issues and are also impact investors. They fund innovation and capacity building. Catherine is a Board member of Impact Investing Australia (and previously on the Social Impact Investing Taskforce for PMC) and Chair of the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network. Catherine has worked as a lawyer, executive or advisor to many charitable and philanthropic organisations and first worked as an advisor to social enterprises at the MS Society and then at Wesley Mission. Catherine’s PhD is titled ‘Unlocking the innovation potential of philanthropic foundations’. Supporting social enterprise development is part of this story.

Linda Brown

Linda Brown is a distinguished leader within education. With a firm belief that education is a fundamental human right, she always challenges the status quo to ensure all students have access to education that fits their needs and prioritises employability.

In 2014, Linda helped found Torrens University Australia. In Australia, it is the only private for-profit university, the fastest growing university and only university to be a Certified B Corporation. Linda was named the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 Australia in recognition of her entrepreneurial approach and focus on a connected global movement of industry, learners and changemakers.

Sarah Brown AM

Sarah Brown AM is the Chief Executive Officer of Purple House, working with its Indigenous Directors since the organisation’s inception two decades ago. Sarah was recognised with an Order of Australia in 2020 “for significant service to community health, to remote area nursing, and to the Indigenous community”. In 2017 she was Hesta Australia’s Nurse of the Year and in 2018 made the AFR BOSS magazine’s ‘True Leaders’ list. Sarah has spent three decades as a fearless innovator and advocate for high-quality, community-led healthcare for Indigenous Australians. She holds a Master of Nursing, Graduate Diploma in Aboriginal Education and Graduate Diploma in Health Service Management. Prior to Purple House, Sarah was a university lecturer, a remote area nurse in communities from Tasmania to the Kimberley, and an Aboriginal health service manager.

Riannah Burns

Riannah believes finance has a crucial role to play in dismantling the structures and systems that enable persistent disadvantage. Her work at White Box Finance centres around helping Australian social enterprises access tailored, affordable finance to grow their impact ($18m+ to date). Outside of work, she loves hiking, camping, and snowboarding; and is even learning to surf!

Cameron Campbell

At the age of 13, Cameron was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease; an incurable Bowel Condition. A lack of basic Toilet Hygiene products in public made leaving the house extremely difficult for him. This heightened his awareness of the ‘silent sufferers’ of other bowel conditions such as IBD, IBS, Ulcerative Colitis and Bowel Cancer, who live with a hidden disability. This is why Cameron launched STAT SALUS; to provide free Toilet Hygiene products to those with Bowel/Bladder conditions who are unable to access them readily. Cameron’s targeted support helps liberate these individuals, increase their ability to socialise and reduce the social stigma regrettably directed towards them and their illnesses. Cameron attended Strathclyde Business School where he graduated in International Business Management with Finance and Entrepreneurship. He has studied and worked Internationally in places such as China, USA, Spain, UAE and Australia.

Guillermo Casasnovas

Guillermo Casasnovas is Assistant Professor at Esade’s department of Society, Politics, and Sustainability, and he is affiliated with the Esade Center for Social Impact and the Institute for Social Innovation. His research looks at the formation of markets at the intersection of ‘business and society’ from an economic sociology perspective, especially in the contexts of social entrepreneurship and impact investing.
Guillermo studied his PhD at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and he was an Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Before his academic career, he worked in the Corporate Finance industry at Deloitte, running the Momentum Project social acceleration program at Esade, and as lecturer and consultant at the Central American University (UCA) in Nicaragua.

Troy Casey

Troy is a proud Aboriginal man from Kamilaroi country and passionate about harnessing economic opportunities to create positive social change for First Nations Australians. He combines his extensive community engagement experience spanning the government, not-for-profit and higher education sectors, with his curatorial practice, working collaboratively with communities to ensure First Nations voices are embedded across projects within visual arts, fashion, placemaking, and urban design.

Nathan Chan

Nathan Chan is a 12th grade student of law, international relations, and history studying in Shanghai, China. A published author and researcher of wisdom tales and history, he is multilingual and aspires to create a meaningful impact on social justice. He is the founder of Mission Fortitude, a social enterprise that empowers youth globally to develop their own blueprints and action plans to tackle injustices. Nathan has spoken at the United Nations, been nominated for the World Humanitarian Forum Youth Council, and received the Pramerica Community Service Gold Ambassador Award for his work.

Oliver Chang

Oliver is Co-Founder and Chief Operations & Impact Officer at Impact Hub Taipei. He was also honoured to be one of the inaugural Obama Foundation Leaders: Asia-Pacific in 2019. He was formerly Co-Host at Impact Hub APAC and member of Impact Hub Global brand committee. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Education and minor in English.

His passion is to explore new ways of collaboration and sharing for co-creating a better world. And he’s passionate about how intermediates and social entrepreneurship can support entrepreneurs, enterprises and communities, building desirable benefits and outcomes, as well as amplifying impact.

Ronnie Cheung

Ronnie is the founder of House of Empathy, a social enterprise designed to eradicate ethnic minority poverty.

Elizabeth Chick-Blount

Elizabeth Chick-Blount is the Executive Director at Buy Social Canada. Buy Social Canada advocate for and support the implementation of social procurement across Canada. This includes working with all levels of government, institutions and corporations to support their social procurement journey and offering a Canada-wide social enterprise certification. Elizabeth studied Law at the University of Cambridge, and is a Social Innovation Alumni. Elizabeth has previously worked with social enterprises and consulted for the public sector in the UK and Canada. As Executive Director at Buy Social Canada, Elizabeth coordinates and connects Buy Social Canada’s work with the public and private sectors to design and implement Social Procurement and Community Benefit Agreement policies and practices and to support organizations across the country to buy and sell with impact.

Lorraine Corcoran

Lorraine is a recognised expert in Irish social enterprise, with extensive strategy, policy, and implementation skills. She is a Director of Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland, chairs the committee advising the Minister for Finance on the Credit Union Sector and is a Director of Microfinance Ireland. As Principal of Afanite, she leads a business which bridges the gap between social, commercial and public sectors.
A graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a B.A. Mod in Economics and Geography (1992) and Masters in Literature (1994). She also holds a Masters in International Relations focussed on social enterprise from Dublin City University (2012).

Karla Córdoba-Brenes

Karla is passionate about open and impactful innovation, new types of money, exponential technologies and new organisational models, including Collaborative Business and Social Currencies on Blockchain. She has a Master’s in Community Development and co-authored New Money for Sustainability. She is also a Co-Founder of Satisfied Vagabonds and Cambiatus while also being a part of Singularity University and Shuttleworth Foundation Alumni.

Brady Cronin

Brady grew up on Gunai Kurnai Country, in the rural town of Maffra. As an Advanced Science graduate from Monash University, he has a wide breadth of experience in science communication, ecological research, leadership and entrepreneurship education.
Working with organisations such as Agriculture Victoria, Vanuatu Health and Youthrive Victoria, Brady has a diverse perspective on social entrepreneurship and its potential in various sectors.
Brady currently works for NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service where he works closely with scientists and Traditional Owners on environmental research projects. Brady is also proud to be an ACRE Board Director which aligns with his passion to activate rural youth to be leaders and to empower action towards regenerative communities.

Mick Cronin

Mick is currently the Executive Manager of YMCA Victoria Youth Services focusing on his two passions: youth justice and social enterprise. Both the YMCA Bridge Project and its social enterprise YMCA ReBuild are part of YMCA Victoria Youth Services. Mick is strong advocate for social change through social enterprise and spends the majority of his time developing and implementing innovative programs, services and initiatives that lead to the creation of meaningful and supportive career pathways for young people in the justice system. He is the co-producer and co-host of “Time to ReBuild” podcast which shares stories of incarceration to positive transformation and everything in-between. In 2020, he was awarded a Westpac Social Change fellowship in recognition for his contribution to reducing recidivism through innovative and positive impact initiatives.

Maeve Curtin

Maeve leads on SEWF’s policy and research work including the social procurement portfolio, which features the recently launched SEWF Verification Programme and SEWF’s Social Procurement Community of Practice. In addition to her work with SEWF, she is pursuing a PhD in social policy studying policy co-production and co-creation by examining the collaborative development of social enterprise strategies globally.

Andy Daly

Andy Daly leads on corporate partnerships at Social Enterprise UK (SEUK). He has a particular interest in how procurement can deliver a more strategic corporate responsibility by driving growth and impact at business-to-business (B2B) social enterprises.

His role at SEUK includes developing and delivering the Buy Social Corporate Challenge – the world’s most significant commitment to social procurement – supporting a growing group of high-profile businesses to bring social enterprises into their supply chains.

Andy has previously worked at several leading UK social enterprises and intermediaries, such as HCT Group, UnLtd and School for Social Entrepreneurs. Andy is also a fluent Spanish speaker, having worked for some years in Spain.

Mark Daniels

Mark is a leading figure in the social enterprise sector in Australia. He has led, advocated and supported social enterprises for over 20 years.In 2021 Mark joined White Box Enterprises as Chief Operating Officer. He plays a key role in driving their strategy to create 5,000 jobs by 2030. White Box is a sector leader in incubating, supporting and advocating for jobs-focused social enterprises, working closely with government, investors, philanthropists and social enterprises to create jobs for overlooked and underserved Australians.Prior to White Box, Mark was a co-founder of Social Traders and an Executive Director for 13 years, where he led the development of its social enterprise marketplace which has become a must-access service for corporate and government clients seeking to build social enterprises into their supply chains.

Mike Davis

Mike is the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Communications at Infoxchange. Infoxchange is a not for profit social enterprise that develops technology solutions to enable social justice outcomes. Mike has eight years experience in the for purpose sector in various executive roles including Head of Strategy and Social Impact and specialises in developing cross-sectoral collective impact partnerships that create win-win-win outcomes. Previously, Mike founded award-winning social enterprise and B Corp Purposeful, which was a social impact consultancy, turned podcast production company.

Outside Infoxchange, Mike is the Chief Podcaster at Humans of Purpose, Australia’s premier podcast featuring weekly conversations with purpose-driven leaders. He has recorded over 250 conversations since 2017 and reached over 200,000 listeners locally and globally.

Tom Dawkins

Tom Dawkins is Co-Founder and CEO of StartSomeGood, a social enterprise which helps people design, launch and grow social impact projects, and co-founder of LendForGood, a new crowd-lending platform for impact businesses.

Tom was previously the founder of youth non-profit Vibewire, the first Digital Communications Director for Ashoka in Washington DC, co-founder of the Australian Changemakers Festival and a founder Director of the Social Enterprise Council of NSW and the ACT (SECNA). He is currently a Director of the Centre for Social Impact.

Brett de Hoedt

Co-emcee Brett de Hoedt specialises in the nonprofit world and has basked in the limelight at many social enterprise sector events. He’s also consulted on media and marketing for 1000+ nonprofit organisations via his agency Hootville Communications. The former journalist and radio broadcaster humbly promises to keep the energy high and the program on schedule.

Lucretia de Jong

Lucretia de Jong is the CEO and Founder of Social Outcome Solutions (SOS) , a social enterprise that specialises in social procurement and environmental advisory. Their aim is to eliminate all barriers to market and simplify the social landscape, optimising community and industry outcomes alike, through the delivery of their FREE SOS Social Procurement (transactional) platform.

SOS brings collaborative, commercially viable and innovative, social impact solutions to support sustainable growth across all target sectors. SOS also understands the impacts, needs and complexities to innovate and deliver industry or construction focussed solutions, in alignment with local, national and international policies and frameworks.

Their team specialises in government Infrastructure compliance, social procurement resourcing, implementation, capability building, reporting and auditing, within the all industry sectors. This allows the integration of social licence, and value capture creation and enables SOS to provide free capability building to deliver a sustainable and equitable return on investment for all stakeholders.

Audrey Deemal

Audrey Deemal is a proud First Nations woman from Hopevale east coast Cape York. She has extensive knowledge and experience in the health sector both in Government and Community. She moved back to her community to work with Cape York Partnership in delivering social responsibility programs that was designed to open up opportunities, bring back community pride, community integrity and self-worth through capability build. Audrey has been with Cape York Partnership for 11 years and now sit as an Executive Leader within the organisation and working on designing and developing social enterprise programs. She believes that everyone has their right and with rights comes responsibility, as this is what she was taught by her parents, grandparents and elders.

Daniela Deuber

Daniela is a passionate scout, catalyzer, facilitator and bridge-builder committed to building a more sustainable and just world. As Managing Director of the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany (SEND), she promotes social entrepreneurship as an approach urgently needed for the transformation of the (German) economy and society.
Before that, she facilitated the international and cross-sectoral collaboration of leaders and promoted different tools for social innovation and impact with the BMW Foundation. For this, she led the global social innovation work of the BMW Foundation including social entrepreneurship, social intrapreneurship, venture philanthropy and impact investing.

Azima Dhanjee

Azima Dhanjee is a Child of Deaf Adult (CODA), Co-founder and CEO of ConnectHear, Board Member of the Social Enterprise World Forum C.I.C and a member of the National Youth Council (an initiative by the Prime Minister of Pakistan). She is a Diana Award winner and has been invited as a speaker on various platforms. She is an alumna of the Institute of Business Administration (Class of 2020), with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

Azima is raised by Deaf parents and Pakistani Sign Language (PSL) is her mother tongue. Growing up, she was always concerned by how simple communication was a challenge for the Deaf due to the language barrier. The lack of awareness and accessibility led her to start ConnectHear at the age of 19 with her high school friends. ConnectHear is a social enterprise that strives for sign language accessibility and Deaf inclusion by using technology.

Dianne Dredge

Dianne Dredge is Director of The Tourism CoLab, an Australian-based online tourism education agency and change-making agency. She is also co-founder of Designing Tourism an experimental regenerative tourism living lab on Flinders Island, Tasmania. Dianne is an ex-professor and has provided advice on collaborative economies, digitalisation, and tourism policy to the OECD and the European Commission. She is a creative systems thinker, and her expertise includes planning, policy analysis, organisational design, place activation, design thinking, community engagement, and education.

Sharon Ede

Sharon Ede is the Senior Adviser, Transformation and Innovation, at Green Industries SA, the South Australian government’s lead agency for circular economy. She has 30 years of grassroots and government experience in sustainability-related roles. These range from research and policy to communication and behaviour change, as a writer, speaker and activist. She volunteered for five years in the ecological city movement in the 1990s, and has expertise in Ecological Footprint, sustainability communication, and post-growth, regenerative economics. In her government role, she has advocated for establishing a community based ‘makerspace’, the mapping of community sharing initiatives, and funding for a ‘circular social enterprise’ incubator which supports those with ideas at the nexus of circular economy and purpose-first business. She is an award-winning author, with her self-published book described by one reader as ‘like reading a Masters of Environment course in a novel.’

Adam Elman

As Head of Sustainability for Google Europe, Middle East and Africa, Adam works at the meeting point of physical, digital and natural worlds. He coordinates with Google’s real world and digital infrastructure teams – from real estate and supply chains, to data centres and products – to ensure the company is capitalising on opportunities to strategically advance sustainability.
He draws on over 15 years of experience driving sustainability at organisations including Amazon and Marks & Spencer. A Chartered Environmentalist, Adam works as a catalyst for change, building partnerships, and identifying the practical transformations and decisions required for sustainability business in the 21st century.

Seb Elsworth

Seb is the founding CEO of Access and has led the organisation since its inception in 2015, working in close partnership with a range of organisations, to increase access to finance for community-based charities and social enterprise across England. Seb is widely recognised as a collaborative leader and a strong advocate for enterprise development and social investment in the UK.

Prior to joining Access, Seb held roles as Deputy Chief Executive at the Social Investment Business and Director of Strategy at ACEVO. Seb also serves as a member of the Council of the University of Leeds.

Seb was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022 for services to Social Investment.

Chris Ennis

Chris Ennis is a Director at CERES in Melbourne where he runs an organic grocery delivery service – Fair Food and a sustainable timber and carpentry business – Fair Wood. At each step along his social enterprise journey, Chris Ennis believes he’s made almost every business mistake conceivable. From market gardens to mushrooms, microgreens farms to food swaps, organic groceries to sustainable timber; Ennis passionately believes the road to social enterprise success is paved with experiment and failure. Despite his many screw-ups the enterprises he’s founded have employed hundreds of people and generated over $80 million in sales.

Cinnamon Evans

Cinnamon Evans is the CEO of CERES, a social enterprise, urban farming and environmental education hub based across four locations on Wurundjeri Country, Melbourne. CERES helps people understand our lives within the context of the human and ecological systems that sustain us and to find meaning and purpose in service of others and the Earth. Cinnamon has qualifications in education and environmental science, collaborative management and group facilitation. She is particularly passionate about the role of social enterprise in delivering environmental and social change. Through Cinnamon’s leadership, CERES has become a large and diverse trade-based organisation while retaining its collaborative community spirit.

Audette Exel AO

Audette Exel AO is the Founder of the Adara Group and Chief Executive Officer of Adara’s two corporate advice businesses, Adara Advisors and Adara Partners. The Adara businesses were established to help fund Adara’s health and education work with women and children in extreme poverty in some of the world’s remotest places.

Audette is a lawyer by profession specialising in international finance. She was formerly Managing Director of one of Bermuda’s three banks, and Chair of the Bermuda Stock Exchange. She is one of the youngest women in the world to have run a publicly-traded bank. Audette is a Non-Executive Director of Westpac, Australia’s oldest company and first bank. Audette is the recipient of numerous awards including the World Class New Zealander Award, Australia’s Leading Philanthropist by Philanthropy Australia and the YPO Global Impact Legacy Award.

Honourable Di Farmer MP

The Honourable Di Farmer MP is the Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development and serves as Member for Bulimba on Brisbane’s Southside. She has also held the position of Minister for Child Safety, Youth and Women, and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence. Prior to becoming a Minister in the Palaszczuk Labor Government, she was Deputy Speaker of the Queensland Parliament. After starting her working life as a speech pathologist, Di pursued a career in both the public and private sectors, where she held a range of senior management positions. The issues Di addresses in her portfolio are very close to her heart and she is thrilled that she can travel around Queensland engaging with small businesses and social enterprises so Government can best tailor its support to their needs. Di is passionate about support for small businesses and social enterprises being front and centre of the Queensland Government’s plans for economic recovery.

Simon Fenech

Simon’s white-picket fence lifestyle was destroyed when he suffered a workplace injury in 2008. That injury led to a life-changing decision. Unable to find relief with prescription medications and physical therapy, he resorted to methamphetamine (ICE) to ease his chronic pain. The following years saw him fall into chronic drug addiction and a life of crime to feed his habit until he was sentenced to 12 months in prison in 2016. After release, he struggled to find somewhere decent to live or a job. As soon as employers saw he had a criminal record they closed the door on him. His life changed again, this time for the better when he was hired by Fruit2Work, a Melbourne based social enterprise that offers employment opportunities and peer mentoring to people with a criminal record. He was able to start rebuilding his life and grow from one of F2Ws first delivery drivers to its General Manager.

Izzy Fenwick

After the passing of her father, the late Sir Rob Fenwick, one of New Zealand’s leading environmentalists and businessmen, Izzy dedicated herself to continuing his mission – to protect and restore Aotearoa for future generations. Izzy founded FENWICK – an agency that connects next generation advisors with leading organisations – after seeing the impact of weaving generational diversity and innovative perspectives in driving the drastic sustainability changes we need.
Experienced in human centred design, and previously the Sustainability Design Principal, at DNA Design, Izzy is also an Emerging Director of The Aotearoa Circle and a fellow of the NEXT Foundation.

Kylie Flament

With a background in HR, strategy and for purpose management, Kylie spent half a decade in the role of General Manager at not-for-profit social enterprise Green Connect – one she describes as having to be a human Swiss Army Knife, using every business and community development skill in her toolkit. Green Connect employs young people and former refugees to do environmental work including reducing waste and growing fair food. Last year Green Connect employed 106 young people and former refugees, kept 164 tonnes of waste out of landfill and grew and distributed more than 52,000 kg of fair food from their award-winning farm.

Daniel Flynn

An inspiring storyteller, Daniel Flynn is the Co-founder and Managing Director of one of Australia’s most successful start-ups, Thankyou. At 19 years old, compelled by a vision to change the world we live in, he co-founded the social enterprise Thankyou, now globally recognised for its innovation, disruption, and impact. Daniel’s journey as a founder is one of grit and unconventionality, pioneering Thankyou to redefine ‘business as usual’, and change the world we live in forever. To date, Thankyou has given over $17 million to impactful change-makers in the fight against global poverty.

Rowan Foley

Rowan comes from the Wondunna Clan of the Badtjala people Traditional Owners of K’gari (Fraser Island). He worked in national parks for over 20 years becoming the Park Manager of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. In 2010, he established the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation with the support of senior Traditional Owners and the community. He has since spoken at International conferences such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Paris Agreement.

Chris Gale

Chris Gale leads eBay’s Social Impact work focusing on the role of e-commerce in driving positive social change and empowering economic opportunity across disadvantaged and marginalised communities.
Prior to joining eBay in 2020, Chris spent 7 years on issues surrounding education and skills development in Ghana, India and South Africa. He then transitioned into working more closely on how business can drive social impact, spending time at Marks & Spencer and Ben & Jerry’s where he led their social mission strategy in Europe, focusing on refugee and asylum rights.

Samantha Garbutt

Informed by over 12 years of experience as a professional in operations, and driven by a personal desire to make a difference, Samantha applies her expertise to lead and support a growing team of 80+ neuro-diverse data analysts across Australia.
As General Manager of Operations for ASA, Samantha champions diversity and inclusion in a team that delivers outstanding results for client businesses. ASA’s work and results are living proof that businesses and the wider community directly benefit from employment that genuinely embraces diversity and inclusion.

Liandra Gaykamangu

Liandra is the Founder and Creative Director of the fashion label Liandra Swim, a premium designer swimwear label that fuses sun, surf and culture. Liandra Swim is also an eco-conscious label and works to share positive stories about Indigenous Australia, through our signature prints.
She is also the co-CEO and a board director of Enterprise Learning Projects (ELP), a 100% Aboriginal controlled not-for-profit organisation. Through her work with ELP, she directly oversees an Incubation and Mentorship programme for Indigenous entrepreneurs in remote communities across the north of Australia.  She currently sits as a director on the First Australian Capital board and the Enterprise Learning Projects board and a committee member of the Australia AfterPay Fashion Week First Nations Stakeholder Group. As a Yolngu woman from North-East Arnhem Land, Liandra has a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing remote entrepreneurs.

Rona Glynn-McDonald

Rona is a Kaytetye woman who grew up in Mparntwe on Arrernte Country. With ties to storytelling, economics and narrative change, Rona works with First Nations organisations to shape future systems that centre on First Nations people, knowledge and solutions. Rona is the founding CEO of Common Ground and co-founder of First Nations Futures. Rona works as an advisor to companies and organisations across the not-for-profit, retail, sport and philanthropy sectors. Through her work across social change and philanthropy, she is shaping futures grounded in reciprocity and economic justice.

Matthew Goldsworthy

Matthew Goldsworthy is an award-winning 22-year-old social entrepreneur and creative from Aotearoa New Zealand. As CEO & Founder of Youth Arts New Zealand (YANZ) and winner of the 2020 AIMES Service to the Community Award, Matthew is a champion of youth leadership, purpose-driven business models, and the role of creativity in wellbeing. Matthew has volunteered with many organisations including TEDxAuckland and Play It Strange, and is currently a Board Trustee of Volunteering NZ and a Youth Advisor to the Social Enterprise World Forum. He is also a passionate musician and composer, having performed with New Zealand music icons Jamie McDell, Avalanche City (Dave Baxter) and Jason Kerrison (Opshop), as well as performing for Mick Fleetwood and Bob Geldof as part of their visit to Aotearoa in 2019.

Cissy Gore-Birch

Ms Cissy Gore-Birch is a Jaru/Kija woman with connections to Balanggarra, Nyikina and Bunuba country. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Natural Resource Management and has worked in the Aboriginal land management and community development sectors for the past twenty years. With a strong leadership background in the Kimberley, North Australia & Australia, Ms Gore Birch’s is currently the Director/Owner of Kimberley Cultural Connections Pty Ltd, Co- Chair of the Indigenous Carbon Industry Network, Board Director of Kimberley Land Council and Chairperson of the Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation. She was formerly appointed as Chairperson/Director of NAILSMA, Councillor at Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley, Committee Member of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee as well as Chair of Indigenous Reference Committee (NESP) amongst others. Ms Gore-Birch has been and continues to advocate for the social, cultural, environmental and economic advancement and well-being of Aboriginal people through a fair and equitable process.

Rebecca Gorman

Rebecca is an ecological farmer using the principles of Holistic Management to improve the biodiversity and well-being of her family’s farm in southern NSW. She is a former award-winning journalist working as a foreign Correspondent and across a range of ABC Radio and TV programs. In her philanthropic work, she seeks to help improve the way we manage our land, grow our food and share it.

Rebecca Green

For 15 years, Rebecca worked in driving businesses (and the humans in them) to consider their impact on the community and environment they operate in. At Social Traders, she heads the Social Procurement Services team, delivering all services to their certified social enterprises and business/government members. This means she gets to use her behaviour change and systems change skills to help their members drive positive change in their businesses by making buying from certified social enterprises the norm, which just makes great business sense.

Eloise Hall

Eloise Hall is the Managing Director and co-founder of TABOO Period Products, a social enterprise that sells pads and tampons in Australia, with all profits dedicated to eradicating period poverty. Eloise is currently completing a Bachelor of Business and International relations, and is passionate about making structural changes to bridge inequality in our communities.

Eloise has been recognised as the youngest of InDaily’s 40 Under 40 recipients in 2020, a recipient of the Advertisers, Woman of the Year Rising Star award in 2021, and a 2019 Women in Innovation Finalist.

Alex Hannant

Alex is a Professor of Practice and Co-Director of The Yunus Centre at Griffith University. The Centre leads the University’s work in the field of impact-led innovation. Alex also serves as Co-Chair of B Lab Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, and on the Board of Social Enterprise Australia.

Previously, Alex has served as the CEO of the Ākina Foundation (NZ), Director of Programmes at Leadership for Environment and Development (UK), and Head of Partnerships at the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (UK).

Gerry Higgins

Gerry is the founder and Managing Director of SEWF where he works to develop a global impact economy. Gerry has a BA in Education and a MSc in Business Studies and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Social Enterprise UK in 2017. Gerry is Irish but has lived in Scotland for over three decades and leads the SEWF team to strengthen and grow the social enterprise movement through convening, influencing and capacity building.

Leading SEWF has come about after decades, working in, establishing and supporting social enterprises in the UK and Ireland and this brings an understanding of the challenges of sustainability and leadership in values-led businesses

Tricia Hiley

Dr Tricia Hiley is from Mallacoota in far-east Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. Her focus is ‘future-proofing’ her community. As Coordinator of Mallacoota’s Sustainable Energy Group, Tricia is assisting her community in becoming energy-resilient. She recently led Mallacoota’s first community-owned solar installation at the local water treatment plant. She is a founding partner of The Mallacoota Wilderness Collective Inc, formed post-bushfires to facilitate a self-determined, sustainable future for the Mallacoota community through the catalysts of enterprise, education, co-working and community collaboration. She also hosts a weekly program “From Little Things…” on community radio station 3MGB Wilderness Radio.

Franziska Hirschelmann

Franziska Hirschelmann is the CEO of jobs4refugees. She studied international law and development in Melbourne and Berlin. She has previously led the Resettlement Research Team at the Parliament of Victorias Department of Immigration and piloted the federal program ‘Early Intervention’ which introduces refugees to the German labour market. In her role at jobs4refugees, she has developed a technology-driven refugee support system, helping refugees rebuild their professional careers through ongoing training, mentoring, and wrap-around services. The organisation supports more than 25,000 refugees in the DACH region and works with more than 2,000 employers.

Eugene Ho

Eugene Ho is the Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, East Asia & Pacific, overseeing SAP’s CSR efforts across 18 markets in the Asia Pacific region. He is responsible for grant management and employee volunteerism to support SAP CSR’s focus areas to accelerate social business, build future skills, and collaborate for sustainability. With close to two decades of experience in the Information Technology sector, he was instrumental to SAP receiving the ASEAN Business Award (2021 & 2018) for socio-economic contributions to the region. He co-founded the ASEAN Data Science Explorers programme in 2017, impacting more than 40,000 youths over 6 years.

Peter Holbrook

Peter Holbrook became CEO of Social Enterprise UK in January 2010. Social Enterprise UK is the national trade body for social enterprise and represents a wide range of social enterprises, regional and national support networks and other related organisations. SEUK works to promote social enterprise as a model for changing both business and society.

Peter has established, developed and supported hundreds of diverse social enterprises over his career. He has advised government task forces in the UK and overseas and chaired the Social Enterprise World Forum, the global network of social businesses until 2015. He was appointed a CBE in 2015.

Lesego Holzapfel

Lesego grew up in the village community in the Northwest Province of South Africa after being orphaned as a young girl. She obtained a Master of Science in Social Policy and Development through the London School of Economics and Political Science.

She is the CEO and founder of Bokamoso Impact Investments, a social enterprise empowering poverty-stricken communities by introducing innovative agricultural solutions to eradicate poverty through education and the incubation of local rural entrepreneurs.

Lesego is a 2019 Tutu Fellow and is recognized as one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans. She was selected as Standard Bank Top Woman of the Year & received the Trail Blazer Presidential Award.

Cheree Hunter

Cheree is a values-driven and innovative executive leader focused on developing more equitable, inclusive and resilient communities. She has spent the past 15 years working across the public, private and social sectors; mobilising social innovation through social enterprise development, microenterprise, inclusive employment, social procurement and other greenfield initiatives. Cheree currently serves the Banyule community in the role of Manager Inclusion and Creative Communities and is passionately supporting the local government sector to harness its unique role as a facilitator of place-based economic inclusion and development. Cheree is a proud member of the LGBTIQ+ community and a mental health advocate.

Usman Iftikhar

Usman Iftikhar is the co-founder and CEO of Catalysr, an award-winning startup incubator which empowers migrant and refugee entrepreneurs (aka migrapreneurs) to launch their own startups. Since 2016, Catalysr has supported 684 migrapreneurs. He’s also a commercialisation facilitator at the AusIndustry’s Entrepreneurs’ Program, helping early stage startups access upto $1m in grant funding to commercialise.

Usman is a 2020 Stanford GSB alumnus, a 2019 Obama Leader, an EHF Fellow, WEF Global Shaper, 2019 Westpac Social Change Fellow, 2018 AMP Tomorrow Maker, Singularity University’s GSP 2017 Fellow, and a Young Social Pioneer alumnus at FYA. In 2018, Usman was named the Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. In 2019, he was named as one of the top 50 on Kochie’s Business Builders Power list with Google, on Smart Company’s 30 under 30 list, and also won the Western Sydney Leadership Award for Entrepreneurial Achievement. In 2020, Usman was declared a winner in the ‘Entrepreneurship’ category, for the 40 under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australian Leadership Awards.

Mohammad Issa

Dr. Mohammad Issa has been working as a community development specialist since 1997. Dr. Issa used to work for different local and international organisations. He has trained, coached, and mentored thousands of youth and children. In addition, he has represented his country on other global platforms. Over the last four years, Dr. Issa has facilitated virtual and physical workshops as a part of Creativity Lab’s program.
Recently, Dr. Issa was appointed as a representative for the MENA Region in the Steering Committee of Action 4 SDGs.

Huda Jaffer

Huda is a product/service/systems designer with a keen interest in user centric design specifically for sustainability and developmental issues. She has an undergraduate degree in design from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore and a Masters of Science in Engineering and Business (Integrated Design and Management) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Huda has been critical in building the necessary processes of SELCO Foundation, which has led to it being known as a pioneer in the field of building the ecosystem for sustainable energy access for the poor.

Lateesha Jeffrey

Lateesha is a proud Woolwonga and Kukatj woman from the Northern Territory (NT). With a passion for lateral empowerment, Lateesha works alongside organisations to ‘influence meaningful waves of change’. She is an advocate for education – particularly for young women – and the role empowering these young women plays in intergenerational healing and strengthening communities.
Lateesha has an extensive amount of experience working in community with a focus on building models for change that deliver great outcomes. Well known in the NT for her leadership and player history in AFL, both at a local and Territory level, Lateesha continues to contribute to the game through her leadership, with emphasis on imparting her knowledge and instilling transferable skills for players to be successful in life beyond sport.

Fiona Jose

Fiona Jose is a proud Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman. She is the CEO of Cape York Partnership, which drives a reform agenda to improve the lives of Indigenous families in Cape York. Fiona oversees 11 entities and businesses under the Cape York Partnership including the Cape York Institute, two schools anchored in Indigenous culture, Cape York Leaders Program, and Bama Services, a landscape and civil construction company. Since Fiona’s appointment as CEO, social entrepreneurial activities through innovation have accelerated, and although the organisation already has a successful history of developing social enterprise, it is Fiona’s energy that keeps Cape York Partnership thinking forward and making real change through hybrid models of social innovation for indigenous people.

Emma Joyce

A social enterprise and social innovation specialist, Emma has extensive knowledge of the for-purpose business sector and the role government plays in strengthening this sector. Emma is currently the Inclusive Enterprise & Local Jobs Coordinator at Banyule City Council where she is leading a team that is driving inclusive employment opportunities for people experiencing barriers to work and support local social enterprises and other for-purpose businesses to thrive. Emma has previously worked at Social Traders, where she worked with social enterprises, local and state government and Australia’s corporate sector to drive positive social change through social enterprise procurement.

Te Pūoho Kātene

Te Pūoho (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Tama tribes) is steadfast in his pursuit of holistic prosperity for indigenous Māori. As the Executive Director of Te Pūtea Whakatupu Trust, he targets social change within an impact framework founded on ancestral values, investing in education & training, research and leadership development.

Te Pūoho serves as Trustee of his tribe, Ngāti Toa and Ākina Foundation, a leading impact consultancy in New Zealand. He is an independent director with Armillary Private Capital and Māori entities Wakatū Incorporation and Waikato-Tainui. A Stanford graduate, Fulbright Scholar and Obama Foundation Leader, he weaves together global best practices within an indigenous, values-based lens.

Andrew Keast

Andrew is a social entrepreneur, storyteller, campaigner, and advocate for social and environmental change. Andrew is also passionate about all things regenerative and organic, building community connections and well-being. Previously, Co-Chair of the Catalyst2030 Australasian Tourism working group, he’s Director and Co-founder of Wayfairer.coop – a regenerative tourism booking platform. Andrew has also previously held roles as Chief Storyteller at national social enterprise – Refugee Talent (now Gateway2Talent), is a current board member of recently established not for profit, Impact Supply, and helped establish Bhumi Organic Cotton – one of Australia’s leading certified organic textile retailers. Andrew has a business background in human resources, recruitment and technology having been Chief Operations Officer and Sales Director for a number of large and small start-up businesses. He’s also studied Psychology, Philosophy and Music.

Murray Kennedy

Murray is a social entrepreneur who for the past 24 years has been focused on building profitable businesses that do good in the community and also generate the income to allow Pathway’s social services to thrive. From small beginnings in a Christchurch factory, the Pathway organisation now has operations across three continents, and has become known for its groundbreaking prison reintegration work.

Joanne Kennett

Joanne is a social procurement professional, passionate about driving socio economic outcomes through the power of procurement. She recently moved into a role at Transport for New South Wales which provided her with the opportunity to leverage infrastructure investment to enable economic opportunities for diverse individuals, businesses and communities across New South Wales. She is also the current Social Traders Social Procurement Champion of the Year for her work in promoting social enterprises both externally and internally to Westpac.

Amanda Kiessel

Amanda Kiessel is the co-founder of Good Market, a curated community of social enterprises, cooperatives, responsible businesses, voluntary organisations and changemakers working to create a 21st century economy that’s “good for people and good for the planet.” The online platform includes more than 3,000 enterprises from 98 countries. Amanda is originally from the United States but spent the last 20 years in Asia before returning again to the US to continue her global systems change work. Before Good Market, she spent nearly 15 years working with local organisations on agroecology and sustainable food systems, organisational change, and social enterprise development. Amanda is an Ashoka Fellow.

Sasibai Kimis

Sasibai Kimis left a successful career in the finance industry to start the award-winning, Malaysian conscious lifestyle brand and social enterprise, EARTH HEIR®. Earth Heir’s story began with a desire to create thoughtfully designed; contemporary heritage pieces handcrafted by master artisans in Malaysia. Earth Heir is a BCorp, is Fair Trade certified by the World Fair Trade Organisation, and works with disappearing heritage art forms handcrafted by women, refugees and indigenous persons.
Sasibai received a B.S in Economics (Finance and Management) cum laude from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an M.Phil in Environment and Development from Cambridge University. She has spoken widely at universities, conferences (such as TEDx) and corporate forums in Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Indonesia, U.K., United States, Switzerland, Japan and Australia.

Michael Krafft

Originally from the private sector Michael has over 25 years in leadership and senior management roles the not-for-profit sector as well as firsthand experience is establishing profit-for-purpose enterprises to support marginalised people.
Michael Is a passionate advocate of the social enterprise sector and its capacity to achieve great things, turning traditional business practice on its head and improving the economic and social participation of vulnerable groups.
Having recently joined the government sector Michael is excited by the opportunities he sees to explore meaningful and productive relationships, where industry and government intersects with the Social enterprise ecosystem.

Joe Kwon

Joe is a social entrepreneur and the Founder of Convict Fitness and ConFit Pathways. He is a passionate advocate for reducing recidivism in Australia and is renowned for his innovative approach to helping formerly incarcerated individuals to find a sense of belonging in society through mentorship around fitness.

Joe grew up in a marginalised community full of violence and negativity and a life of crime seemed like a natural path. At the age of 21, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for directing a criminal enterprise. During his sentence, he was fortunate enough to meet his first positive mentor who taught him the value of education, business and most importantly self-worth. Today instead of directing a criminal enterprise, he is the founder of a social enterprise, creating fitness communities to break down social stereotypes about people with lived prison experience.

Joe is a 2022 Westpac social fellow, 2022 Snow entrepreneur and features in Men’s Health Fitness as a trainer.

Andrea Lane

Andrea Lane moved from Melbourne to East Gippsland 20 years ago to telecommute as the Fairfax/BRW webmaster. A growing belief in the (neglected) value of artists, love of nature and community converted her from economist to UNeconomist. Her COMMUNIVERSITY became the School of Untourism while FLOAT was her floating art studio on Lake Tyers – which has now become a destination for contemporary artists, and a symbol of regenerative ways. She is also now building an art/science OBSERVATORIUM and a FLOAT AIR (arts residency) network across Far East Gippsland.

Huixi Lee

As a Learning Planet Youth Fellow and Founder of UNITE Workshops, an initiative that aims to bring education and improve the mental wellbeing of refugee children in Malaysia, Huixi is not only passionate about education rights and helping the youth but is also competent in leading a team. She has organised projects and liaised with organisations – leading to collective impact on her local community’s awareness about refugees as well as reaching out to over 600 children in Kuala Lumpur since inception. With over 5 years in a lead ambassador position and having achieved 11A*s in her IGCSEs examinations, Huixi hopes to pursue biotechnology and management in university in hopes of developing her own social enterprise in the future.

Mindy Leow

Mindy has been a champion for business as a force for good in Australia for more than a decade. She is currently Director of Growth and Impact at the not-for-profit B Lab Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. A collaborator, strategist and community builder, she played an instrumental role to grow the B Corp movement in the region. Having developed partnerships with corporates and governments and worked directly with hundreds of companies to measure and improve their impact, Mindy is committed to helping enterprises infuse purpose and reimagine business models to create deep impact, like social enterprises.

Annie Lewin

Annie Lewin is Senior Director of Global Advocacy and Head of Asia Pacific for Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org. She has held senior roles at Google in the US, Europe, and Asia, leading communications and public affairs for Google in Asia before joining Google.org. She has sat on the boards of the Sydney Renewable Power Company (a community energy social venture), Sydney Story Factory (a literacy non-profit), and Southside Young Leaders Academy (a leadership academy for young men in South London). She’s the co-founder of SPACE, a behaviour change app that helps people improve their relationship with technology, and holds a Graduate Certificate in Social Impact from the University of New South Wales.

Michael Lim

Michael Lim is the Executive Director of Sedo Group (Social Value). Michael is also the Founder of Beyond Value, which is a for-purpose consultancy focused on enabling organisations to transform their social impact which is now part of Sedo Group (Social Value). Previously Michael was the Director at YLab, the social enterprise co-design agency of the Foundation for Young Australians. His work primarily focused on creating employment and education models for young people in Melbourne’s west through leveraging infrastructure investment. Michael currently holds a range of professional appointments with the state government including being a member of the Western Metropolitan Partnership, Tarneit Revitalisation Board, Melton Revitalisation Board and Community Member of the Sunshine Transport Precinct. In his spare time, Michael co-hosts a podcast dedicated to supporting young people in Melbourne’s west called Collective West. Previously, Michael was the CEO of Community Health Advancement and Student Engagement (CHASE), which is a for-purpose volunteer organisation dedicated to improving health literacy across Melbourne’s west. Michael was the 2018 Brimbank Young Citizen of the Year and the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Volunteer Champion in the Impact category.

Kaj Lofgren

Kaj (pronounced Kai) is the Strategy Lead at Regen Melbourne, an alliance of 135+ organisations exploring a more regenerative future for the city. Kaj is also the Entrepreneur in Residence at Small Giants Academy where he collaborates on the Academy’s education and storytelling initiatives, including the Impact Safari program and the Mastery of Business and Empathy.

Kaj holds a BEng (Civil), a BA (History) and a Masters of Economic History. In an earlier life he worked with Engineers Without Borders and Engineers Australia.

India Miro Logan-Riley

India Logan-Riley (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine, Rangitāne) was raised in the Heretaunga Plains, a bountiful place circled by mountains and the rising Pacific Ocean. They are currently working as the Climate Justice Organiser at ActionStation, a multi-kaupapa campaigning organisation. India’s pathway into the climate justice movement was through the Māori heritage space and lived experience of climate injustice. India is a co-founder of Te Ara Whatu, an indigenous youth climate justice organisation, bringing expertise from advocating at UN sessions as well as working at the grassroots level and driven by a passion for supporting young people in their aspirations for climate justice and collective liberation. They dream of resilient communities where everyone is safe and joyful.

Angharad Lubbock

Finlay MacLennan

Finlay studied History at the University of Strathclyde before moving to the Isle of Lewis to undertake a postgraduate course in Archaeological Studies at UHI Outer Hebrides. His professional career has seen him work with Horshader Community Development and Tighean Innse Gall and is currently as Development Manager for Community Land Outer Hebrides, a charity supporting representing and celebrating the community land sector in the region. In his spare time, he enjoys running, cycling and open water swimming.

Catriona Maddocks

Catriona Maddocks is a curator, artist and researcher based in Sarawak. Her cross-disciplinary work focuses on collaborative platform building, and developing spaces in which to explore identity, community narratives and cultural heritage within a contemporary context. She is the co-founder of social enterprise Catama, and creative platform Borneo Bengkel, and most recently launched Borneo Boat Lute Revival. She is a recipient of the 2020 Krishen Jit Fund, and holds a Masters in Arts entitled “Craft Developments Strategies for Rural Communities in Sarawak, Malaysia”.

Hélène Malandain

Hélène currently serves as the Chair of SEWF. She is part of Pocketknife, a collective of impact-driven professionals who bring their passion for systemic change to initiatives that build bridges to better futures for the communities of Aotearoa NZ.

Hélène is a strategist, a coach, and a weaver and works with entrepreneurs, community groups, local anchor organisations, charities, corporates and government bodies. Her facilitation process and methodology incorporate strategic thinking, coaching, co-design and action planning. She is committed to supporting communities, places and organisations to thrive – meaning that prosperity and wellbeing are intertwined and nourishing each other.

Shortly after moving to New Zealand, Hélène left her corporate job to join the Ākina Foundation and begin a journey growing social enterprise. She led the team that hosted the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch in 2017 – a 1600-person event that catalysed the social enterprise movement at a very auspicious time.

Chris Martin

Chris Martin is Chief Executive Officer at Social Enterprise Scotland. Chris is an experienced social entrepreneur who launched a number of social enterprises including Engage Youth Project and, more recently, the Callander Hostel. Chris has a background in both formal and informal education and as convener of the Callander Social Enterprise Network was responsible for Callander becoming Scotland’s first Social Enterprise Town. Chris has an interest in impact investment and is Chair of Impact Investment Partnership Scotland who recently launched a £15M Catalyst Fund to support early-stage social enterprises.

Mark McKenzie-McHarg

Mark is Principal at Mach 2 Consulting, a Victorian consultancy which he co-founded in 1993. Since then, he has run the consultancy business out of the small North East Victorian town of Yackandandah. His work is focused on strategic planning and business case preparation in the public, private and community sectors. He has also worked extensively in the establishment of numerous social and community-owned enterprises.
Mark was a foundation shareholder and first chairman of the Yackandandah Community Development Company. Formed in 2002 in response to the closure of the township’s only fuel station, YCDCo. was set up under social enterprise principles with a broad-based community ownership model. Today, nearly 50% of local households are shareholders in YCDCo. Ltd.

Neil Mclean

Neil has been Chief Executive of the Social Enterprise Academy (SEA) since late 2007. SEA has since become the largest Institute of Leadership & Management Centre in Scotland working with over 1000 adults per year. During this time the Academy has shared its model internationally and also introduced an award winning Social Enterprise in Schools programme, which the Scottish Government has commissioned to be available to every school in Scotland by 2025.
Earlier in his career, Neil worked in the private sector where he established a UK-based IT Consultancy firm working with large corporate clients such as American Express, Pfizer and British Aerospace. Neil thereafter completed an MBA at Stirling University before he founded a social enterprise, Quit&Save, to support people quit smoking using peer learning principles.

Margaret McSporran

Margaret (Mags) McSporran has worked in senior roles for HIE since 1995. She has worked closely with stakeholders, key clients and communities to develop and expand their businesses, and managed complex projects which contribute to the growth of Scotland’s economy.
Currently Head of Social Enterprise Development, she is developing policy mechanisms to promote growth of social businesses, and supporting third sector clients with complex and challenging issues in the Highlands and Islands region.
As an experienced businessperson with several years of working at board and executive level, Margaret’s’ motivation and energy comes through success in driving improvements which lead to healthy businesses and strong communities across the Highlands and Islands.

Clair Millar

Clair is an environmental engineer, with 20 years of experience in environmental consulting and a career-long interest in private sector contribution to community. She is currently leading a review and update of GHD’s community programs enterprise wide, and is a member of GHD’s Victorian Social Procurement working group.

Mariam S. Mohammed

Mariam is an entrepreneur, speaker, and facilitator. She is the Senior Community Manager at Super Fierce – a purpose-led business closing the gender wealth gap in Australia by making super, simple.

In 2019, Mariam co-founded MoneyGirl – a social enterprise empowering women to become financially independent. She also teaches budding entrepreneurs at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and several accelerators around the country, how to go from idea to launch. Mariam coaches changemakers on how to leverage a strong personal brand to amplify their impact.

Mariam has been recognised in the Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence list, 40 under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australians, Marie Claire Next 25 List, and 7News Young Achiever Awards. Her work has been featured across Grazia, ABC, The Australian, Women’s Agenda and more.

Jess Moore

Jess is passionate about social justice and climate safety, and people working together to create change. Her work has always been in social innovation, in peak organisations, social enterprise and community development. She is a Director at the Social Enterprise Council of NSW & ACT. She was CEO at Community Resources, one of Australia’s largest jobs focussed social enterprises. Prior to this she led social enterprise Green Connect through startup and scaleup. Jess came into social enterprise from a background in public policy, advocacy and movement building, and has led collaborations that changed government policy and decisions.

Melina Morrison

Melina Morrison is the inaugural CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, the Australian apex for cooperatives, and was a driving force behind the formation of the Council in 2013.

She has since led the movement to many historic achievements including the first national mapping project to show the economic and social impact of Australian cooperatives and the development of ‘Mutual Value Measurement’, a framework to measure the total value creation of cooperatives.

As a result of Melina’s long-term campaign for access capital, the Federal Government passed the first enabling laws for cooperatives and mutuals in 18 years facilitating the issuing of equity without demutualisation.

Belinda Morrissey

Belinda is CEO of the English Family Foundation and believes that now more than ever a thriving social enterprise sector is an important market-based driver of a more just, inclusive and sustainable economy. She is also Chair of Social Enterprise Australia, Chair of ActionAid Australia, is on the Advisory Board bringing the Social Enterprise World Forum to Australia and on the Advisory Board of the Social Impact Hub. She has an extensive leadership background in both corporate and NFP organisations and is passionate about the role of philanthropy to work collaboratively with the social enterprise sector to drive social change.

Nasteho Mukhtar

Nasteho Mukhtar is currently studying Social Work and Psychology at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and is the Program Coordinator at the local non-profit organisation Ethni, where she designs and delivers programs for young women from culturally diverse backgrounds to support them to navigate life’s challenges and drive meaningful change in their communities together. Nasteho has been with Ethni since it was founded in 2018 and has been a pivotal member of their team, co-creating and leading programs such as the mental health group ‘Conversations’ and ‘Our Voices’. ‘Our Stories’ intercultural awareness school workshops. Nasteho is an amateur Muay Thai fighter, passionate poet and nature lover.

Sian Murray

An advocate for adventure, conscious living and creative endeavours. Sian is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Pleasant State, an Australian start-up that’s making home care a form of self-care with their range of ethical, healthy and beautiful just-add-water products. The go-to dreamer of the group, Sian has years of experience in Creative Digital Marketing, Social Media Management & Public Relations. You’ll find Sian in front of the camera spreading the Pleasant State mission far and wide. Sian believes that we exist in a pivotal time in which it’s our responsibility to protect and change the way we interact with the planet.

Nicola Nation

Nicola is passionate about combining business models and positive impact to deliver social and environmental change. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration from Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Nicola has over 15 years experience in public and private sector consulting, including roles at MBIE, Kiwibank and Deloitte. She has held senior procurement roles in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally; most recently at ACC and the World Bank. Having been with Ākina since 2018, Nicola started as CEO in October 2021 and is proud to lead a talented and passionate Ākina team on a journey to create positive change in people’s lives and for our planet.

Georgie Nicholson

Georgie has a love for social enterprise and a fierce passion for tackling period poverty, equality and dignity, which comes out in all she does. Since joining Hey Girls as the Public Sector Partnerships and Contacts Manager, it has become the main provider of Period Products to the Scottish and Welsh Governments. Georgie carefully assists over 50 UK local authorities and higher tier authorities with their procurement contacts as well as hundreds of schools, sports facilities, police and health service providers across the UK and Ireland. She provides bespoke support and guidance for each contract and tender they gain, from pricing and logistic thought to selecting the right products for their user groups and how to dispense products with equality and dignity.

Jonie Nishimura

Jonie Nishimura is a 17-year-old student residing in Tokyo, Japan. Her Japanese American grandmother, who spent some time in the internment camps, embraced the idea of “mottainai,” which relates to conservation. The main global issues she wants to address are climate change and conservation. For all four years of high school, she has participated in TEDxYouth@Tokyo, where she organised events based on global issues. To create a platform for sustainable change, she founded Connected Youth for Climate Conservation (CYCC), an initiative acting to promote education and awareness in environmental conservation as a pathway to collaborate on climate change toward a sustainable world.

Ellen Oetelmans

Ellen Oetelmans is the Program Manager of Amsterdam Impact, a City of Amsterdam initiative to strengthen the impact entrepreneurship ecosystem, create systemic change locally and on an (inter)national level, and thus accelerate the transition to an impact economy. Ellen regularly speaks about ecosystem building and an impact economy at global events such as SEWF and the Global Social Economy Forum. Before co-creating and launching Amsterdam Impact in 2015 with a wide range of ecosystem actors, she was a senior strategic advisor for the City of Amsterdam and a policy advisor for the Dutch House of Representatives. Ellen holds a Master’s in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam.

Ong Hui Yu

Ong Hui Yu is hugely inspired by businesses that stay committed to their social mission even when the going gets tough. She firmly believes that purpose-driven businesses have an important role in ensuring the sustainability of impact and finds great fulfilment in helping them achieve their impact ambitions. At raiSE, she forges partnerships across the public, private and people sectors and identifies opportunities for social enterprises to be supported by other players in the impact investing ecosystem. She graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science and spent some years in the foreign service before joining raiSE.

Hedayat Osyan

Hedayat Osyan (Nick) is dedicated to uplifting, supporting, and training fellow refugees. Since arriving from Afghanistan in 2010, Hedayat studied politics and international relations (Hon. Arts and Design); was a youth advisor to CMRC, MYAN NSW and more; and founded a social enterprise in 2018. CommUnity Construction’s mission of “building homes, building lives,” has seen 75+ successful refugee trainees, 130+ projects, and two trainees who have since founded their own companies.
He has gained numerous accreditations during his career including Young Social Pioneer 2018 (FYA), First Gens Accelerator 2019 (Ygap), Humanitarian Award Winner 2019, TEDx Speaker 2019 (ICC Sydney), Social Traders Certified 2021, 2021 Refugee Entrepreneurship Pitch Winner (Center for Entrepreneurship London) and shortlisted for the 2022 Impact 25 Awards

Alfie Othman

Alfie has had a successful banking career of over twelve years. Alongside his private sector work, Alfie devoted significant time to the public sector and civil society.
Alfie is recognised as a Social Enterprise practitioner within Singapore. He initiated the formation and was the head of the first urban microcredit scheme in Singapore. The MicroCredit Business Scheme was launched in November 2011. He is an advisor to BMT Ventura, an investment venture company that manages a micro-finance co-operative with a membership base of 2.5 million people in Indonesia. In 2014, Alfie set up an industrial catering kitchen which provides jobs to workers from marginalised sectors, such as ex-offenders, single mothers, and persons with disability. In April 2015, Alfie was appointed as the CEO of raiSE, Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise. Alfie is also a Fellow at the Singapore University of Social Science in the area of Financial Inclusion.

Elise Parups

Elise Parups is the inaugural CEO at Queensland Social Enterprise Council Ltd, and the first social enterprise peak body employee in Australia in 2019. After leading teams in business, state and local government and Non Profits passionately serving in the arts and community development sectors, Elise turned her attention to the business for purpose world while working with the Qld state school education system. Elise holds a Bachelor of Arts, Graduate Diploma in Teaching and in Workplace Training and Development, a Diploma of Project Management and a Masters of Business Administration. Elise has devoted her recent work to support the quadruple bottom line; culture, society, environment and economics.

Nick Pearce

Nick is the Co-Founder & CEO of HoMie, a streetwear clothing social enterprise that supports young people affected by homelessness or hardship with the skills, confidence & experiences to be more work-ready & better prepared for their future. In 2017, Nick was awarded the Victorian Young Achievers Award for Leadership, in 2018, the National Retail Association’s Young Retailer of the Year and in 2019, GQ Magazine’s Social Force Award.

Robert Pekin

A born trouble maker both for himself and the ‘business as usual’ system that needs to be re-imagined Robert has spent a lifetime doing things differently and with passion. Robert crowd funded the social enterprise Food Connect in 2005 by raising over $50k selling food boxes in advance long before it was a thing and Facebook was around. Together with his partner Emma-Kate in 2018 they successfully raised over $2 million to purchase the Food Connect Shed from 520 of their customers and close supporters. The Food Connect Shed is now home to over 40 enterprises and is one of the innovative demonstrations of community owned, place based regenerative buildings and leasing structures principally focused on supporting female social entrepreneurship and empowerment around regional food system transition. Robert is the CEO of the Food Connect group of entities and sits on numerous Boards including the Sustainable Table Trust one of the most innovative finance intermediaries in Australia.

Danny Quinn

Danny is a Live/Performance Artist, creating works in immersive events, attractions, and site specific mountings, as well as theatre, film and television productions. Danny studied Broadcasting (BA Hons) at Falmouth College of Arts (UK) before working extensively in TV and film research and production, for major companies including Celador, Pathe, Channel 4 and BBC. Danny leads the research and development of the Community Interest Company, and the artistic direction of the Black Sheep Collective portfolio.

Kate Raworth

Kate Raworth is a self-declared renegade economist from the UK, recognised globally for ‘Doughnut Economics’ – a new approach to economic thinking that focuses on humanity thriving between social and planetary boundaries. Her internationally best-selling book Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist has been translated into over 20 languages and has been widely influential with diverse audiences, from the UN General Assembly and Pope Francis to Extinction Rebellion. Kate teaches at Oxford University and is co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab, which works with change-makers worldwide to turn new economic thinking into transformative practice.

Luz Restrepo

In 2010 at 45, Luz arrived in Australia seeking political asylum. With little English, no Australian connections and very little money, she reinvented herself as a leader and social entrepreneur.

In 2013, Luz established SisterWorks, a non-profit social enterprise supporting the social inclusion of thousands of migrant and refugee women. Her model attracted the attention of UN Women, who are now working with SisterWorks. As CEO, she evolved the organisation from functioning on a zero-income, volunteer basis to one thriving with a staff of 20 and a $1.4M annual turnover by May 2020.

In June 2020, in partnership with Corinne Kemp, they founded Migrant Women in Business Pty Ltd (MWiB). This Australia-wide social enterprise enables the sustainable growth of migrant women’s businesses. MWiB is currently working with more than 90 businesswomen with migrant and refugee backgrounds, offering them commercial opportunities through our Made by Many Hands platform and hands-on micro business expert support through Made by Many Minds.

Rosa Ricucci

Rosa is currently leading the Social Entrepreneurs network and the impact measurement strategy of Ashoka Spain, in order to support systems-changing initiatives and strengthen the Spanish social entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Before joining Ashoka, she led projects related to education, social economy and women’s empowerment. After five years in international cooperation and after having launched her own organization, she decided to take a leap into the consultancy sector, supporting companies, foundations and NGOs in the development of impact initiatives and strategies around Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Rosa holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Bocconi University and a Master’s in Business Research from the University of Barcelona.
In addition to working at Ashoka, she is an associate professor at the Business School of the University of Barcelona, ​​where she lectures about CSR and Business Ethics.

Emma-Kate Rose

Emma-Kate is a mother of four, sister to five, aunty to 24 and the Executive Director at Food Connect Foundation. She’s a past Fellow of the Yunus Centre, Griffith University, and is currently a Special Advisor to Queensland Social Enterprise Council, where she was previously President from 2017-2020.

Food Connect Foundation is a not for profit food systems advocacy organisation, which exists alongside award-winning social enterprises Food Connect & Food Connect Shed which, for the last 18 years have transformed the local food system in Southeast Queensland, using principles of agroecology to engage ethically with family farms and local communities.

Pat Ryan

Pat runs Dismantle, a social enterprise that uses hands-on activities to connect with and mentor young people at-risk of long term unemployment, to enable them to become valued and valuable members of society. He drives Dismantle’s mission by running an organisation that achieves social impact through outcomes-based programs whilst generating revenue through profitable social enterprises.
Currently, the organisation exists with a small range of initiatives, supporting youth participants to progress through outreach and early-intervention programs, then onto structured and paid work through social enterprises BikeDr. and ReNew Property Maintenance.

Connor Sattely

Connor Sattely is the international hub manager for the Social Enterprise Academy, helping to bring its curriculum around the world. By working in partnership with local teams, the Social Enterprise Academy ensures its programmes are relevant, contextualised, and local at heart. Connor’s background is in journalism and entrepreneurship, having started Switzerland-based politics startup GovFaces in 2012 and Uganda-based civic tech startup SEMA in Uganda in 2018. He lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner

Adrian Schrinner became the 17th Lord Mayor of Brisbane in 2019, with many years of experience as Councillor and former Deputy Mayor of Australia’s largest local government. Adrian was born in Brisbane and grew-up on the Southside. Adrian has a clear vision for the future and his simple goal is to ensure the Brisbane of tomorrow is better than the Brisbane of today. By delivering new infrastructure for a growing city and record investment in parkland and greenspace, Adrian is leading his team to transform Brisbane for the better.

Clinton Schultz

Proudly Aboriginal owned and led, Sobah is Australia’s first non-alcoholic craft beer company run by husband-wife team Clinton and Lozen Schultz. Founded by Gamilaroi man and psychologist, Clinton Schultz, Sobah functions from the philosophies of Gamilaraay Lore ‘dhiriya Gamil’. These include acting from a position of respecting people, place and the environment; understanding and working towards fulfilling responsibilities to that we are connected to; and, engaging in positive reciprocity. At Sobah, they therefore share a sense of responsibility to give back, to create opportunities for others, to encourage sustainable and healthy ways of living, and to assist in bringing about positive changes. They are based on beautiful Kombumerri country, a part of the Yugambeh language regions, known as the Gold Coast, Queensland.

Rebecca Scott

Bec has spent her career working in innovation, the first half in science at the CSIRO, and the second half as a social entrepreneur. She’s particularly interested in how we can solve systemic issues using multi-disciplinary practice. She’s the Co-Founder and CEO of STREAT, a Melbourne-based social enterprise that works toward human and planetary health. STREAT works with marginalised young people aged 16-24 years and provides them with a healthy self, job and home. The organisation runs a portfolio of 12 foodservice businesses, including cafes, an artisan bakery, a catering company, and a coffee roastery. STREAT is also collaborating with a collective of over 20 social enterprises on a project called Moving Feast which aims to create a fairer and more regenerative food system for Victoria.

Alexie Seller

Alexie Seller is an internationally-recognised social entrepreneur. She is currently Co-CEO of not-for-profit Enterprise Learning Projects and she is the former CEO and co-founder of the award-winning Pollinate Group. Her unique approach to community development is fuelled by her desire to see a more just and equitable world in her lifetime. Not only is she deeply passionate, but she also brings well-honed skills as an entrepreneur and an appetite for collaboration in order to create long-lasting and highly impactful outcomes.

Amanda Shepherd

Amanda has more than 25 years of experience in the design and advertising industry and has successfully managed numerous large-scale design projects and advertising campaigns. She has an in-depth knowledge of the design industry and throughout her career has been responsible for the development and research of training materials and learning objectives, idea creation and strategy, as well as team management and employment. Amanda is a highly motivated person who has worked as a teacher of graphic design, providing leadership, guiding and mentoring to students and empowering them to achieve their creative and career goals.

Natasha Short

Natasha has over twenty-five years’ experience working in Aboriginal Development and Community Work, almost exclusively within the Kimberley Region. As a descendant of the Jaru people of Halls Creek, East Kimberley, She is passionate about social justice and Aboriginal affairs. In 2018, she established Kimberley Jiyigas (Birds) which is a movement of Kimberley Indigenous women influencing social change. Kimberley Jiyigas is a network of highly accomplished Aboriginal women who work in collaboration to amplify woman’s voices in order to create social change and raise awareness of Australian Aboriginal culture.

Tiarne Shutt

Tiarne is a descendant of the Worimi people and has mixed English/Danish heritage, a member of the Gathang language group, born on Awaba Country, raised on Darkinyung Country and living on Yuggera Country.
Tiarne excels at pushing boundaries, shifting mindsets, and affecting social change through storytelling and relationship building. Tiarne is at her best when she can use story and compassion to facilitate conversations focused on action.

Tiarne is the Associate Director – Business Advisory at First Australians Capital, FAC supports indigenous economic development through wealth creation, and financial and wrap-around support.

Ben Smith

Ben Smith leads the impact investing activities of Australia’s largest philanthropic foundation, the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF). Alongside his role at PRF, Ben is Vice-Chair of the UK’s NatWest Social and Community Capital.
After beginning his career in consultancy, Ben managed UnLtd’s accelerator program, and established and managed UnLtd’s social impact investment department and first impact funds. UnLtd is one of the UK’s largest supporters of early-stage social entrepreneurs.

Ben then moved to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, one of the UK’s largest and most established social impact investors, as Head of Social and Impact Investing.

Ben’s other previous activities in impact investing include Co-Chairing the UK’s Social Impact Investors Group and lecturing on Social Finance at Cranfield University and the University of Westminster.

Chin Ching Soo

Ching has been in sustainability for over 20 years. As Head of Sustainability Governance she is leading a team to develop Westpac’s policies on key climate, human rights and natural capital issues. Previously, she managed corporate and community affairs at Rio Tinto’s Yarwun Alumina Refinery where she was also the Executive Officer of the Rio Tinto Community Fund overseeing economic development and health programs. She has also volunteered on climate projects in China and the South Pacific.

Aimee Spence

Aimee is originally from a tiny, rural town on the West Coast of Scotland. Due to a growing passion for current affairs and the written word, she decided to study journalism at university. After graduating, she quickly realised that she was better suited to a career in the third sector and applied for a communications role at Inspiralba, a social enterprise located in my hometown of Campbeltown.
Currently, she manages the Rural Social Enterprise Hub which is the focal point for research and development activity on rural social enterprise in Scotland, Europe, and further afield.

Marlene Spencer

Marlene has been a Director of Purple House (Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation) for over 10 years and currently holds the position of Treasurer. Before retiring, she was an Aboriginal Health Worker at the Pintupi Homelands Health Service and has served on a number of community boards and committees as well as caring for her children and grandchildren. Marlene is a fierce advocate for remote Aboriginal healthcare and lives in Kintore NT, more than 500km from Alice Springs in the Western Desert.

Primož Šporar

Primož started his career in 1999 in the non-governmental sector as the CEO of Legal Information Center. He was involved in many different initiatives, projects, and activities for a decade. As an NGO and social enterprises representative, he has been a European Economic and Social Committee member in Brussels from 2005 to 2020. In addition, he is a member of several organisations and their boards and bodies. In 2011 he established No Profit – Innovative Services for Society Ltd and in 2012 Fund 05 – Foundation for Social Investment. During the last decade, he was focused on developing the social economy sector, impact investment and social innovation. He has been primarily focused on the impact design processes from 2020. After the foundation reorganisation, he became FUND2740 CEO in 2022.

Victor Steffensen

Victor Steffensen is an Indigenous writer, filmmaker, musician and traditional knowledge practitioner. He is a descendant of the Tagalaka clan from North Queensland. Much of Victor’s work is based on the arts and reviving practical traditional knowledge values, particularly Aboriginal fire management, with Aboriginal and non-indigenous communities. He is a co-founder of the Firesticks Alliance which involves a large community network across Australia. Victor holds an Honorary Doctor of Science through James Cook University.  He is the author of the book, Fire Country and the children’s book, “Looking After Country With Fire.” Through his artistic label Mulong, Victor has published music tracks and videos such as Great Land and Cool Burning.

Juvita Tatan Wan

Juvita Tatan Wan is the producer and co-founder of The Tuyang Initiative, a Sarawak-based community-led arts management company and social enterprise focusing on upskilling Borneo indigenous (Dayak) cultural guardians through industry participation. Bringing her professional experience from an international advertising agency, telecommunications company and major music label into Tuyang, helps her and the team to think locally and act globally.

Juvita is a Kenyah, one of the many smaller Dayak groups in Borneo and she enjoys actively sharing her experience and observations on issues affecting indigenous communities as well as her method of working through international forums and digital discussion spaces. She was featured in talks and panel discussions on platforms like UNDP’s Indigenous Youth Social Entrepreneurship Regional Dialogue (2020), Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (2020 & 2021), Young South East Asian Leaders Initiative Boot Camp, George Town Literary Festival, The Page Is Not Your Colony podcast (2021) and many more.

Litia Taukäve

Litia Taukäve is the Founding Director of Loving Islands (2016), a social enterprise in Fiji within the organic agriculture sector and current Board Member and Co-Chair of the Pacific Organic and Ethical Trade Community (POETcom), the Pacific’s peak body for organic agriculture. As an Australian-Fijian with 12+ years professional work experience in sustainable business and social entrepreneurship her interests and Pacific-based experience lie in environmentally sustainable rural and remote community development. In particular organic agriculture, women’s development, and integrated technologies. She got her Masters of Commerce at the University of Sydney in 2015 and her Bachelors of Communications at Hult University in London in 2010. In 2018, Litia was also listed as one of the ‘30 Under 30 Young Social Entrepreneurs’ in Forbes Asia Magazine for Loving Islands

Luke Terry

Luke established White Box Enterprises in 2019 to systematically address the constraints that he routinely confronted when launching enterprises: access to affordable space, access to capital, and to partnerships that would help bring social enterprise into the mainstream fabric of employment in Australia. With more than 15 years’ experience in the social enterprise and not-for-profit sectors, Luke has founded several large-scale employment-focused social enterprise projects that have created meaningful work pathways for people facing barriers to employment (eg Vanguard Laundry Services, Ability Enterprises Work Restart).  Since 2019, White Box Enterprises has helped to create more than 394 jobs for vulnerable people, attracted over $11.9M in capital, supported 22 social enterprises, and has the backing of 23 corporate and philanthropic organisations.

Laura Thompson

Laura is a proud Gunditjmara woman and co-founder and CEO of Clothing The Gaps, an Aboriginal streetwear brand and social enterprise with a huge social following. They sell merch with a message and led the campaign to ‘Free The Flag’.

Nataly Tormey

Nataly is a nurse and a designer, who transitioned into design because they realised that alongside working ‘within’ the system where they directly supported the health of humans they wanted to work ‘on’ the systems that support it. They supported the development of 250+ enterprises, with over $3 million of economic stimulation and committed over 80,000 hours to direct grassroots social and health impact.

Alongside design, they are currently developing the social franchise model in Australia. After being diagnosed with Melanoma, they are passionate about being able to save human energy through the development of models that can scale and duplicate impact.

Patricia Torres

Patricia Mamanyjun Torres has worked within community development activities for more than 45 years including establishing women’s programs in Arts & Crafts, Cultural education, At-risk-youth programs, cultural knowledge maintenance, language revival of Yawuru and Djugun languages, Elder oral-history programs, emergency relief services including managing an Op-Shop. She has been a voluntary Manager for the Mary Minyarl Centre in Broome, WA for 9 years and has worked with the Maganda Makers Business Network as a mentor for Aboriginal women in Business for more than a year. Pat is a Founder/Director of her Mayi Harvests business which supplies a range of botanicals, herbs and spices to the food and drink industry.

Stephen Torsi

Stephen is a social impact leader with over 20 years’ experience across corporate, not-for-profit and government sectors in the UK and Australia. He is currently a Program Manager for Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Australia’s largest and oldest community foundation. Stephen is average at a lot of things but very good at building trusting and collaborative relationships. He is obsessed with uncovering the root causes of inequality and how complex systems thinking can illuminate the darkest corners of our shared purpose. Stephen is also Chair of youth service YouthNow and serves his community in several voluntary roles.

Alex Toselli

Alex is the Founder/CEO of Albergo Etico in Italy and the Chair of Project Etico Australia and Etico Foundation Albania. He is a wealth banker with 20 years of experience working in Europe and North America. He has worked for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena as financial advisor and head of private banking, Azimut Capital management as Client Director and Fisher Inv. Europe Area manager private banking.

After many years of working across very different situations and environments, he continues to enjoy experiencing new cultures. Thanks to this journey in social enterprises he favours simplicity over complexity in both life and work.

Alexandra van der Ploeg

Alexandra van der Ploeg is Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP globally. Alexandra is responsible for setting the strategic direction of CSR focused on bringing to life SAP’s higher purpose of “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives” through strategic partnerships and programs that deliver sustainable social impact and long-term business value. In this function, she also oversees corporate giving, volunteerism and the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships for which Alexandra has a particular passion.
Alexandra joined SAP in 1999 and started with SAP Switzerland in charge of management development. Moving into the CSR organisation in 2010, Alexandra developed and managed various global CSR programs, such as building an infrastructure for social business in Haiti and the development of a range of pro-bono volunteering program. Alexandra also serves as Co-Chair of the Conference Boards’ European Corporate Citizenship Council and is part of the Leadership Council of the Realised Worth Institute. She holds an MBA from Henley Business School in Great Britain.

Jorien van Lookeren Campagne

Jorien works at Social Enterprise NL, the national network organisation for dutch social enterprises with over 400 members. In her work, she focuses on improving the cooperation between social enterprises and the government on a local, regional, national and international level. In her work, she is always looking for the connection between these two worlds. Worlds who definitely find each other in terms of goals and mission, but at the same time sometimes don’t understand each other since the dynamics can be so different.

At Social Enterprise NL Jorien is mainly focussing on government relations to strengthen the social enterprise sector. In addition, she is interested in the emerging community based movement and supporting the growth of the ‘community based social enterprise’ sector in the Netherlands.

Egon van Wees

Egon is the programme coordinator at Amsterdam Impact, the impact entrepreneurship initiative of the City of Amsterdam. He is Amsterdam’s ecosystem liaison and supports social enterprises and other ecosystem players to find their way within and outside of the city administration. He is a Buy Social ambassador and has co-created various networks focused on particular ecosystem needs like blended capital and internationalisation. He initiated a nationwide social enterprise consumer awareness campaign and is project lead of Boost your Neighbourhood, a programme supporting entrepreneurs from all of Amsterdam’s districts that gives participating entrepreneurs the opportunity to present themselves to the inhabitants of Amsterdam through a voting platform. Before joining Amsterdam Impact Egon was a social affairs policy adviser and developed Amsterdam’s social firms programme. Egon holds an MSc Political Science from the University of Amsterdam.

Flora Vano

Flora Vano is a Ni-Vanuatu woman leading ActionAid’s Country Office in Vanuatu. The focus of the country office is to support local women-led protection, resilience and Climate Change Adaptation and resilience work as well as responding to COVID-19.
Flora joined the organization in 2017 from a management role in the Tourism Sector. She joined to support the team address the impacts of Tropical Cyclone Pam and has continued to date. Flora has played a critical role in setting up the Vanuatu country office as well as starting up programs led by local women providing leadership to the start-up of Women I TokTok Tugeta Forums which is the platform and safe space for diverse inclusive Ni-Vanuatu women to organise and strategise.

Éva Varga

Éva Varga is an independent consultant with expertise in social enterprise development and social finance. She has designed and run social enterprise development and investment readiness programmes and funds managed multi-country ecosystem research projects and designed capacity-building tools for SE’s and CSOs in Central Europe and Latin America.

Éva has been a member of various expert groups and advised various governments, including the European Venture Philanthropy Association, the OECD and the European Commission. She is the author of A Recipe Book for Social Finance (2016 and 2019), a founding member of the Hungarian Coalition for Social Enterprises and vice-president of Euclid Network.

Kim Wallace

Kim has spent more than 20 years working in Scotland’s social enterprise community. Her areas of work include developing and supporting networks; a range of employability projects, policy and development work. Kim has recently joined Social Enterprise Scotland as Director of Membership. Prior to this she worked for Senscot where she played a leading role in developing Social Enterprise Networks (SENs) – 20 place based and 7 thematic – including an active Creative and Cultural SEN connecting circa 1,500 social enterprises across Scotland. Kim has also been involved in the co-production Scotland’s 10-year Social Enterprise Strategy and also in developing a number of Place Based SE Strategies with Local Authorities and Place Based SENs.

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Libby Ward-Christie

Libby is a recognised leader in Australia’s social enterprise sector whose work spans practice, teaching and research. Libby is Director of the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne, a world-leading social economy research and education centre. Libby has worked with and advised scores of social enterprises, her work has informed social enterprise policy and she designed and delivered some of Australia’s most innovative and effective development initiatives for social enterprise. Libby’s core research interests are in social enterprise strategy and governance, social entrepreneurial ecosystems and social finance.

Richard Warner

Richard is passionate about social change which sees those who are disadvantaged achieving a role, a stake & a fair share. He works for Nundah Community Enterprises Cooperative (NCEC), awarded Australia’s best Social Enterprise in 2015 and 2020. He is a Social Worker who’s primary experience has been working alongside people with cognitive and psychological disabilities. He is also a doting father, deaf/cochlear implantee, long-term meditation practitioner & teacher within the Sun Mountain Zen community of Brisbane.

Donna Marie Wate

Dr. Donna Marie Wate is the Founder of Mere Care, a social enterprise offering medical GP services, women’s health education, partnership and promotional activities for women in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

Douglas Westwater

Douglas has run Community Enterprise for 15 years and has always combined his role as chief officer with a portfolio of projects which ensures he is up to date with grass roots issues while being able to contribute a strategic perspective where required. Douglas has developed a range of divisions, from the core development work to establishing Scotland’s first social enterprise branding agency and from various digital initiatives to community regeneration and asset development. Douglas has worked in the enterprising third sector and with social enterprises in Scotland for over 25 years, having worked in England and in Africa before that.

Steve Williams

Steve is a qualified yoga and meditation teacher, national award-winning social entrepreneur, and coach. He is the founder of Mind Flow Grow, a social enterprise that helps changemakers bust through stress, be happier, highly productive at work and deeply present at home via coaching and online programs.
Steve also leads social enterprise and innovation courses and engagement at CQUniversity, Australia. He has led multiple social enterprises for two decades and is a co-founder of the state peak, the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. With this deep experience, Steve developed his process to help changemakers address stress, be happier, productive, and present.

Tori Williamson

With a passion for understanding the systems around us and working collaboratively on community-centred solutions, Tori believes in people and the power of shifting perspectives and objectives to create monumental change. As Director of Education and Consulting at Buy Social Canada, she works across the social procurement ecosystem. She sits on the Stronger Together Solidarity Working Group to help bring inclusion, diversity, equity, and access to the social innovation sector. She works with municipalities, corporations, non-profits and social enterprises to develop social procurement policies, implementation plans, training programs and community engagement.

Sara Wolfe

Sara is Anishinaabe with family roots in Northern Ontario, Canada. She is a Registered Nurse, a Registered Midwife, and holds her master’s in business administration (MBA) from the Rotman School of Management. She is currently the Director of the Indigenous Innovation Initiative at Grand Challenges Canada, one of the largest social impact investors in Canada. Their work is dedicated to supporting innovators and communities to identify and solve their own challenges, drive inclusive growth, and improve all life through Indigenous innovation that is by and for Indigenous peoples. Their inaugural program is to advance Indigenous gender equality through innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Sharon Zivkovic

Sharon is the Co-Chair of Catalyst 2030’s Australia Chapter, Member of the University of South Australia’s Yunus Social Business Centre, and Member of Emerald Publishing’s Impact Advisory Board. Sharon operates two social enterprises. She is the Founder and CEO of Community Capacity Builders which delivers a Program for Systems Social Entrepreneurs, and she is Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Wicked Lab. Wicked Lab delivers a Complex Systems Leadership Program, a Program for Systemic Innovation Labs and licenses its Online Tool for Systemic Change which assists governments, universities and social enterprise networks to address wicked problems by strengthening solution ecosystems.

Edwin Zu-Cudjoe

Edwin Zu-Cudjoe is the Executive Director of Social Enterprise Ghana, the national network of about 700 social enterprises operating in Ghana. Edwin is the Founder of SocialFarm Company Ltd, an agribusiness social enterprise in Ghana. He is a strong advocate for policies that promote social and green businesses and inter-regional trade.
He has 14 years of work experience in trade and investment promotion, training and business development having worked with Voltic, Vodafone, Glo and Ansa Systems Ltd in various senior management positions.
He has a degree from University of Ghana, Legon and an MBA in Global Business and Sustainability-Social Entrepreneurship from Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan. He is also a graduate in Msc Development Finance (SME Finance and FDI) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana.