Terms Of Reference Podcast

Kathleen Cronan is Executive Director of Earthlinks, a Denver, Colorado non-profit organization that provides a paid-work program offering low-income and homeless people an opportunity to learn skills and create eco-friendly products, which are sold to support the program. She has extensive experience working with Denver’s nonprofit community, both as a volunteer and in various leadership roles, and in addition, has practiced law for more than 30 years in the Denver area.

Nida'a Nasser is Youth Leadership Project Coordinator at Baladna—the Association of Arab Youth, and research assistant at Mada al-Carmel - Arab Center for Applied Social Research. She was awarded a degree in Social Work from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2008, and an M.A. in Research of Conflicts and Struggles at the College of Social Sciences. Nida'a has worked as a project coordinator in a number of civil society organizations, including the Society of Public Advocacy in Jerusalem, the Project against Early Marriage in Kufr Manda, The Menara Society to Support Friends with Disabilities in the Arab Community, and the el-Hawakeer Association for Agricultural and Community Development.

Development consultant Jason Wares splits his time between the non-profit and for-profit worlds as Managing Director of North Carolina’s Community Nutrition Partnership, devoted to increasing access to fresh, local, affordable food, and Managing Director of Safe Water, a company that provides sanitation and disinfection solutions in a wide range of industries. Wares has development experience on five continents as a strategic and financial management consultant for organizations including the Fair Labor Association, Global Education Partnership, CHF International and RTI International.

Francine Pickup is Strategic Planning Advisor, Asia-Pacific, for the UNDP. She has 15 years of experience in humanitarian and development organizations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. In her current role, she developed the regional priorities in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-17, and leads the planning, monitoring, reporting and communication of results and performance achieved by the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific bureau. She worked as Head of the Research and Analysis Unit of OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory, and at the outset of her career, worked in a number of roles for NGOs. She obtained her Ph.D. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics in 2002.

Mansoor Abbasi is the Executive Director and co-founder of The Intercivil Society - a not-for-profit company that works to reduce poverty, protect the environment and improve community relationships. The Intercivil Society creates opportunities to help people improve their own situations, whether economic, social or environmental. Mansoor is experienced in training, group facilitation and dispute resolution – both community and workplace – with specific expertise in facilitating “difficult” conversations. He also works as a community projects advisor and as a consultant designing, delivering and project managing peace-building programs in conflict areas (where the focus is on strengthening civil society through developing intercultural community leadership, conflict management skills, capacity development and improving intercultural and interfaith dialogue and cooperation).  Mansoor has worked with a range of partners and clients, including the European Parliament, West Yorkshire Police, UN Alliance of Civili

Ian Philp is the Director of The Clean Energy Institute, a Canadian public-private partnership that aims connect high potential energy technologies with international market opportunities and to establish a flagship position in the global clean energy economy. Previously, Ian worked with a boutique investment bank focused on energy efficiency investments, and as an international trade lawyer defending Canada’s renewable FIT program. Ian was also a UN legal and constitutional advisor to the Iraqi Government from 2005-2007. He is an Atlantic Council Emerging Leaders in Environment & Energy Policy (ELEEP) Fellow, and was a 2011- 2012 Action Canada Fellow.

  Richard Catherall is Executive Director of Cyprus-based Katarsis Ventures, which works primarily in transition states and post-conflict zones to help make social change happen by enabling big money to connect with big, undiscovered ideas. Catherall also has a U.K. focus, through Radical Capital, which aims to shape the UK social investment market. Catherall says, "I am investing and actively involved in nurturing the conditions for innovation, supporting leadership through enterprise and encouraging investment in the social economy. The social economy is growing in the space between how the market provides, where the state intervenes and the increasing expectations and aspirations of people. In this space social entrepreneurs seek to solve problems, realize opportunities, shape and create markets through their products and services."

Charles McJilton is the CEO and founder of Second Harvest Japan, and came to Japan for the first time in 1984 with the U.S. military. He returned in 1991 to conduct research at Sophia University as part of his undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota.  During that time he lived in San'ya, a low-income area that many Japanese would not recognize as a part of Tokyo, or Japan, and in an effort to better understand the challenges facing the area’s residents, many of whom live below the poverty line, McJilton lived in a “cardboard” shelter alongside the Sumida River from January 1997 to April 1998.  In 2000, he became co-chair of a coalition of groups working together to share resources among food distribution programs, and two years later, he incorporated Second Harvest, the first food bank in Japan. Second Harvest Japan collects food that would otherwise go to waste from food manufacturers, farmers, and individuals, and distributes it to people in need such as children in orphanages, low-income house

BeCause Global Consulting CEO Nadine Hack has advised leaders of Fortune 500 companies, heads of state, and other organizations globally on clarifying and achieving their goals. She has served as a non-executive director on for- and not-for-profit boards, including as chair, vice chair and committee chair for governance and nominating. She was the first woman to serve as Executive-in-Residence at IMD Business School and continues to work in executive education programs providing guidance to senior executives in many capacities.  She distilled decades of her work with clients on engagement leadership and its framework Strategic Relational Engagement (SRE™) into teachable lessons on improving stakeholder engagement within organizations and among sectors to increase productivity, profitability and sustainability. Hack has advanced degrees from Harvard and The New School and has received numerous awards including International Outstanding Achievement, Woman of the Year, and Inspiration Award for lifetime achievem

Tibor Vörös has over 15 years of experience both in academic and corporate environments. He has worked in various management areas (knowledge management, decision making, business intelligence, information systems) as practitioner, but he also researched these topics and evaluated corresponding frameworks from the theory point of view. Vörös holds an MSc in Maths, Physics and Information Technology and is a Senior Lecturer at Central European University Business School. His research work ranges from social media to cultural and strategic issues for corporations. More recently Mr Vörös spent considerable time on various business simulations and created unique storyboards to help students experience real life problems in classroom situations. Current research work concentrates on the relationship of culture and technology. CEEMAN has selected Mr Voros as the winner of the Innovation in Course Design category for the CEEMAN Champions’ Award 2010.

  Sue Miller is Director of Programming and Training for Peace Corps Georgia, and oversees the development and delivery of training programs for Peace Corps volunteers in Georgia, as well as bearing responsibility for programmatic direction, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, site development, and strategic partnerships for the three Peace Corps projects in Georgia: English Education, Organizational Development, and Peace Corps Response. Prior to assuming her current position, she worked for over 10 years for development organizations in Latin America, Africa, Russia, Georgia, and East Timor on community and international development programs.

Phil Bright is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community – a technical assistance organization covering the island nations of the South Pacific. Phil’s work focuses on supporting census activities and includes capacity building, planning, implementing and analyzing census data. Prior to joining SPC he was a Research Assistant at Curtin University of Technology.

Sigrid Gruener is a program manager at the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation who focuses on peace building, security and development. Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked as a practitioner, trainer and researcher in the field of development, peace building and conflict transformation for International Solutions Group, Relief International, and Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution. Sigrid earned a master's in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

  In 2005, American writer and editor Ken Budd's father collapsed and died after a heart attack. After that shock, with his 40th birthday looming, Ken had a few questions about his own life that suddenly seemed more urgently in need of answers. Over the next couple of years, he traveled the world, volunteering with a wide range of organizations, and wrote a book that covers his adventures as a ‘voluntourist' in six countries, travels he made with and without his wife Julie, in pursuit of the answer to the question, “What am I doing that matters?”

Fresh out of university, Tim Ludford volunteered in Nigeria with poverty-focused British development organization VSO. On his return, he got a job selling mobile phones, but his volunteering experience had made him realize development was a career, and that it was possible to get paid for helping people. He put out a few feelers, and landed a job in London with JICA, Japan's overseas aid development organization. Ludford works now as an independent humanitarian aid and development consultant, has operated extensively in Iraq, and as a program evaluator for organizations including UNICEF and Plan International.

  Michael Klein is the Director of the Washington. D.C.-based International Solutions Group, a humanitarian aid and development-focused management consulting firm that specializes in program performance, private sector development, capacity building and information technology development.

Barbara Pierce Bush is the daughter of former President George W. Bush and co-founder in 2009 of Global Health Corps, which provides opportunities for young professionals from diverse backgrounds to work on the front lines of the fight for global health equity. Global Health Corps pairs its fellows with organizations that require new thinking and innovative solutions, and works right now in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia.

During a 35-year-long career, oilman Rod MacAlister has mostly worked in Africa, managing businesses, but also keeping an eye on and supporting the communities in which he was working.  He served as president of the U.S. African Development Fund for several years, and with primatologist Jane Goodall, built an orphanage and sanctuary for chimpanzees in the Congo that is the largest in Africa.  Other projects he has spearheaded include building toilets for rural schools in Gabon, and establishing a medical clinic in the Congo.  Rod now works in Gabon, running a small, independent company that produces 10 percent of the country’s oil. In the spring of 2013 he spoke with Terms of Reference host Stephen Ladek.

Claire Hajaj is an independent political analyst and writer who over the course of her career has produced recommendations for G20 responses to the Arab Spring, the UN’s first integrated strategy for Iraq, and advised the UN on a five-year plan for development and peace consolidation in Kosovo. She has also worked as a journalist, and a public affairs consultant.