Helmut Anheier (Ph.D. Yale University, 1986) is Director of the Center for Civil Society at UCLA’s School of Public Affairs, where he is also a Professor of Social Welfare. From 1998 to 2002 he was the founding director of Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics, and a member of LSE's Department of Social Policy, where he now holds the honorary title of Centennial Professor. Prior to this he was a Senior Research Associate and Project Co-director at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies, and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. Before embarking on an academic career, Dr. Anheier served as Social Affairs Officer with the United Nations. He has also held research appointments at Yale University, the University of Cologne, and the Science Center in Berlin. His research interests include civil society, nonprofit organization, philanthropic foundations, NGOs, globalization and civil society, comparative social and cultural policy, research methodology, social movements and networks.

Mark Kramer is Founder and Managing Director of FSG Social Impact Advisors, where he oversees FSG's consulting practice and action initiatives. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the CSR Initiative of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business in Government at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Mark is a founder and served as initial Board Chair from 2000 to 2004 of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a nonprofit research organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mr. Kramer has spoken and published extensively on topics in philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility, including strategy, evaluation, leadership, social entrepreneurship, community foundations, venture philanthropy, cross-sector collaboration, and social investment. He is co-author, with Professor Michael E. Porter, of three influential Harvard Business Review articles entitled "Philanthropy's New Agenda: Creating Value" (1999), "The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy" (2002), and "Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility" (2006). In the Stanford Social Innovation Review he has published with John Kania "Game Changing CSR" (2006) and with Professor Ron Heifetz "Leading Boldly" (2005). He is also a regular contributor to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Prior to founding FSG, Mark served for twelve years as President of Kramer Capital Management, a venture capital firm, and before that as an Associate at the law firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston. He has a B.A. from Brandeis University, an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Lester Salamon is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. He previously served as Director of the Center for Governance and Management Research at The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. and as Deputy Associate Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President. Before that, he taught at Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and, during the American civil rights struggle of the mid-1960s, at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi.

Dr. Salamon received his B.A. degree in Economics and Policy Studies from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. He is married, has two sons, and serves on the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy, on the Boards of the Maryland Association of NPOs and the Chesapeake Community Foundation, and on the Editorial Boards of Voluntas, Administration and Society, Society, Public Administration Review, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

Alex Nicholls is the first lecturer in social entrepreneurship appointed at the University of Oxford and was the first staff member of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. His work in social entrepreneurship falls across three domains: curriculum building; research; network creation.

Nicholls has held lectureships at a wide variety of academic institutions including: University of Toronto, Canada; Leeds Metropolitan University; University of Surrey; Aston Business School. He has been a Fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science and Member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching. Nicholls also sat on the regional social enterprise expert group for the South East of England and is a non Executive Director of a major Fair Trade company.

Resources:

• Video of this session
• Skoll Foundation's YouTube channel