CPI Speaker Biographies

2012 Corporate Philanthropy Speakers

Caroline Barlerin

Caroline Barlerin has spent her career bridging the worlds of profit and purpose. She is currently the Director of Global Community Engagement with HP's Office of Sustainability and Social Innovation. In this role, she has the unique opportunity to engage HP's 350,000 employees in service around the world. Prior to this role, Caroline did business development for a social enterprise software start up. Earlier in her career she designed a rice thresher for small acre farmers in Burma, was the Executive Director of Level Playing Field Institute, and worked as a brand strategist at Landor Associates. Caroline has been involved with engaging business professionals in service for the past 10 years as a board member and the Founding Architect of Taproot Foundation. While she loves to travel, she is also happy hanging out at the farmer's markets in San Francisco. Caroline received her BA from Vassar College and graduated from Stanford University Business School as a Sloan Fellow.

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Anna Cunningham

Anna Cunningham's career in community service began by volunteering. Her service at a Seattle-based AIDS service organization's development department turned into a paid position that included volunteer management, fundraising and special event coordination. At Starbucks since 2001, she creates and delivers community programs to engage partners and customers and positively impact communities and Starbucks business. In her time at Starbucks she has evolved the company's approach to service, including the development and leadership of 2011 and 2012's Global Month of Service. She also created the Starbucks Foundation's Vote.Give.Grow. program which invited customers to direct $4 million in funding to organizations across the United States.

Anna has bachelors degrees in Zoology and Norwegian from the University of Washington and enjoys attempting to keep up with her husband and their five year-old daughter during their adventures in Seattle.

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Penelope Douglas

Penelope Douglas became President of the Board of Mission HUB LLC in early 2011.

Prior to joining Mission Hub as President of the Board, Penelope Douglas co-founded and served as CEO of Pacific Community Ventures for the first 12 years of the organization's life. PCV, a non-profit whose mission is to invest human, intellectual, and financial capital in small businesses for the benefit of economically underserved communities, has helped to create more than 5,000 jobs for lower-income workers at 250 small businesses throughout California. Penelope was additionally a partner in Pacific Community Ventures LLC, with $60 million of committed capital.
 
For nearly three decades, Penelope has applied her strategic acumen and dedication to social change for organizations such as: Morrison & Foerster, Odwalla, Ernst & Young, New Mexico Community Capital, Wells Fargo, San Francisco's Larkin Street Youth Center, Friends of the Urban Forest Juma Ventures, and more. She's been featured by media outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, and California magazine, which includes recognition of her as a pioneer of "compassionate capitalism," and she is a Robert A. McNeeley Trailblazer Award winner.
 
In addition to being a leader of social change, Penelope is an athlete who has competed in ultra marathons and Ironman distance triathlons, and an artist whose paintings and drawings have been exhibited publicly. Penelope is a native Californian and a graduate of Smith College.

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Maureen Flynn

Maureen Flynn is a Senior Director in the Corporate Social Engagement division of Changing Our World. She has extensive experience establishing and implementing effective partnerships between corporations and nonprofits and specializes in strategic planning, signature program development, grantmaking and employee engagement.  Maureen's client experience represents an array of sectors and industries, and includes organizations such as Altria Client Services, Arizona Public Service, BNY Mellon, Communities in Schools, ConAgra Foods, and MillerCoors.
 
Prior to joining Changing Our World, Maureen served as the Associate Specialist of Corporate Social Responsibility for Canon U.S.A. Inc. In this role Maureen was responsible for managing Canon's nonprofit partnerships with organizations including the Yellowstone Park Foundation and the National Environmental Education Foundation. Maureen also helped plan the Canon Envirothon, one of North America's largest environmental education competitions. In addition, she was responsible for overseeing Canon's community relations initiatives, employee volunteer activities, and in-kind giving program, and helped to implement Canon's first cause marketing campaign, partnering with the American Cancer Society.
 
Before joining Canon, Maureen worked for Toshiba America Foundation where she made funding recommendations and managed grant projects that support mathematics and science education in K-12 classrooms nationwide. Maureen also served on the Social Contributions Committee convening six Toshiba America Group companies and serving as a liaison to Toshiba's headquarters in Japan.
 
Maureen earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications from the State University of New York at Oswego. She currently serves as a member of the Oswego Alumni Association's Board of Directors and most recently was named a member of the Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Leadership Council, where she focuses on fundraising strategies directed toward recent graduates.

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Grant Garrison

Grant Garrison is Director of Strategy and Innovation at GOOD/Corps, drawing upon experience in community organizing, the nonprofit sector, movement-building and social innovation. Grant helps companies, foundations, and non-profits drive participation around their brands by articulating powerful values and enabling awareness, sharing, and action in support of those values among employees, consumers, and key stakeholders. Grant has led GOOD/Corps's involvement in the Pepsi Refresh Project and the Starbucks Community Card: Vote.Give.Grow. program, and contributed to engagements with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Aquafina, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Shell, The Nature Conservancy, Westfield, The Earth Institute, Google and General Electric. Prior to joining GOOD/ Corps, Grant managed consulting engagements with diverse philanthropies and nonprofits, and served as a Program Officer for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

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Nelson Gonzalez

Nelson has created innovation strategies to maximize corporate and social impact in 22 countries, on five continents.  At Booz Allen & Hamilton, Burberry, the BBC, the Presidency of Colombia, Columbia University, Oxford University, the British Royal Household, World Vision and dozens of foundations in the U.S., the EU, and Africa he has worked on innovation, strategy, governance, organizational strategy/design, R&D methods, technology, and cross-sector collaboration.  His efforts have aligned institutional resources to deliver breakthrough solutions to complex social and corporate challenges. 

Nelson is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer for PiersonLabs, a global social impact firm creating solutions that personalize the predictive power of big data for learning, governance, and social entrepreneurship.  Currently in stealth development in four continents and several sectors, Pierson Labs' business intelligence solutions democratize access to big data for consumers, corporations, and governments.  Creating value from very large and diverse sources of data, the platforms solve decision-making challenges amid complexity through synthetic analytic tools, rich data visualization, and predictive decision support engines using algorithms that combine advanced artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

Previously, he was Chief Strategy Officer at the Stupski Foundation-a social innovation fund in San Francisco-where he has led work on strategy, program design, partnerships, and international outreach to fulfill the foundation's mission to improve life options for children living in poverty though an technology-enabled R&D effort to transform current antiquated public education systems.   To develop the program, he managed a research team investigating the underpinning of learning innovation in cognitive neuroscience, pedagogy, education leadership, complex systems dynamics, and design thinking.  That strategy is now being implemented through an unprecedented six-state Innovation Lab Network focused on scaling learning environments through user-centered R&D

Nelson has also been an advisor to the Colombian Presidency on the development of its national innovation strategy and infrastructure, with a focus on social innovation for education and poverty aleviation.  He also chairs the Advisory Board for the CEO of Burberry on innovation and supply chain sustainability.  He is a Board member of Growth Sector, one of the leading U.S. workforce development organizations, which develops pathways to high wage, high growth jobs for the disadvantaged and dislocated.  He serves on the Research Advisory Board of the New York Public Schools iZone, an unprecedented city-wide effort to personalize learning.  He was a Board Member and Committee Chair of Grantmakers for Education, where he led a national effort to build innovation culture and capacity among the country's leading social investors.

Previously he was the Managing Director of Advent Strategy Group, a global innovation and strategy consulting firm, where he led dozens of engagements with leading global corporate, international development, education, and technology institutions, including the BBC, Burberry, the largest foundation in Africa, and the leading philanthropic investors in U.S. innovation for education.  He also served as Director of the Royal Institution World Science Assembly, where he led a global initiative on pandemic preparedness that engaged global pharmaceutical firms, the United Nations, WHO several national ministries of health, and major science and foreign policy journals on issues of innovation in vaccine development, disease surveillance, public health infrastructure and emergency preparedness.  He also managed the campaign of former Afghan Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, for UN Secretary General.  At the beginning of his career, he led research efforts in theology and ethics at the office of the Chaplain to H.M. The Queen, Elizabeth II.

Nelson did his doctoral work at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and studied at Oxford University and Amherst College, where he graduated with high honors.  He has been a Fellow at Columbia University, New York University, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.  A native Colombian, he is fluent in Spanish and French.  He currently lives in San Francisco.

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Dermot Hikisch

Dermot Hikisch is the Head of Community Development-B Lab. He leads B Lab's community development of Certified B Corporations, supports Benefit Corp policy development, and the expansion of GIIRS Ratings and Analytics.
 
He is the former Head of Research for UK-based ENDS Carbon and Wind Power Intelligence.  His work included producing intelligence reports, developing climate-risk indices for FTSE, and rating Europe's largest brands on carbon performance.  He has produced reports on water insecurity, true cost accounting, and consulted for SMEs, Fortune 500 companies, the UNPRI, and major municipalities.  He previously led the research team for Climate Counts, and was a sustainability ambassador with Procter & Gamble. 

In previous careers he launched Red Bull Energy Drink into Canada and fought forest fires for many years, he really likes trees.  He has a MSc. in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from Sweden, and resides in San Francisco.

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Peter Karoff

Peter Karoff is the founder of The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 that serves as an ally to donors who aspire to effective philanthropy, and promotes philanthropy through research, and education. TPI's goal is to help donors invest in their own values, communities and societies for maximum impact. In its two decades plus of work, TPI has managed in excess of a billion dollars of philanthropic investment in a wide range of social issues on behalf of individuals, private foundations, community foundations, and corporations. On January of 2012 TPI merged with the Boston Foundation and continues its portfolio of work nationally, and globally.   

Peter was President of TPI from 1989 to 2002.  Prior to founding TPI, Peter was in the insurance and real estate businesses for 25 years.  He  has served on the boards of more than 30 nonprofit organizations and foundations including: Blackside Productions--producer of the PBS history of the Civil Rights movement--Eyes on the Prize, WGBH Educational Foundation, Roxbury Development Corporation, Fund for Urban Negro Development, Massachusetts Business Roundtable, Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, New England Foundation for the Arts, New Repertory Theatre, Business Executives for National Security (BENS), The Synergos Institute, and the National Leadership Council of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Current board affiliations, in addition to Chair of the TPI National Advisory Board, are: Management Sciences for Health, and Big Picture Learning, the GHR Foundation, the Robina Foundation, and Thrive (a Santa Barbara County education and collaborative initiative). Peter is Senior Advisor to the Santa Barbara Foundation.

In recent years, Peter's research, writing and speaking has been focused on the moral and ethical dimensions of philanthropy and social action. He is the author of The World We Want - New Dimensions in Philanthropy and Social Change, (AltaMira Press - 2007) as well as editor of Just Money - A Critique of Contemporary American Philanthropy, (TPI Editions - 2004). Peter was formerly Senior Fellow in the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, and currently teaches in the Global and International Studies Program at the University of California Santa Barbara.

A graduate of Brandeis University and Columbia University, he received an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Lesley University in 2002. He was made a Fellow of the McDowell Colony in 1989 and in 2006 became a Purpose Prize Fellow. 

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Deidra Lind

Deidre Lind is executive director of the Mattel Children's Foundation and Mattel Philanthropy Programs. In this position, she is responsible for leading Mattel's philanthropic presence nationally and internationally and building Mattel's reputation as a responsible corporate citizen. In addition, Deidre directs Global corporate charitable programs, volunteer activities, and grantmaking. Prior to joining Mattel, Deidre served as Kaiser Permanente's California Division Associate Director for Government and Community Relations and worked on social policy for the Chief of Staff to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Community Partners, a nonprofit incubator and leader in community-based strategy and management. A native of Los Angeles, Deidre received her B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and both a Master of Social Work and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California.

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Julia Love

Julia Love is Adobe's Senior Program Manager, CSR with responsibility for driving key community involvement and Corporate Social Responsibility programs globally. Julia is a community involvement professional with over 15 years of experience working at the nexus of the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors. Prior to Adobe, she served as the Associate Director of The Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. In her almost ten years with The Volunteer Center, Julia developed a reputation as an expert in corporate community involvement, nonprofit board development, volunteer engagement and management, event management and in building cross-sector collaborations. Julia earned her bachelor's degree at the University of California at Berkeley and received her Masters of Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.

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Patrice Martin

Patrice Martin is the Co-Lead and Creative Director of IDEO.org. Before founding IDEO.org, Patrice was a design director at IDEO. Her work has focused on addressing large-scale social change in the private, public, and social sectors, and her expertise is in connecting people's needs with compelling design solutions, whatever the sector. Since coming to IDEO in 2004, Patrice has led projects and project teams in healthcare, financial services, hospitality, and education, with clients including Nike, Mayo Clinic, The American Red Cross, Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Marriott International. Before joining IDEO, Patrice was a senior designer with SonicRim, a design strategy consultancy. Patrice holds a BFA in industrial design from the University of Michigan.

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Liz Maw

Liz Maw joined Net Impact in 2004. During her tenure, Net Impact has more than tripled in size, formed partnerships with over 50 global corporations, grown its chapter network to more than 280, and launched new initiatives for campus greening, curriculum change, workplace sustainability, and undergraduate chapters.

Liz's professional experience includes strategic consulting to nonprofits with the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit strategy consulting firm, as well as fundraising and direct marketing for nonprofit organizations in New York City and Washington, D.C. She holds a BA with honors from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was a co-leader of the Net Impact chapter and a recipient of the Joanne Martin Award for Public and Nonprofit Management. As a volunteer, she co-launched Net Impact's first professional city chapter in 2002 in San Francisco.

In 2010, Liz was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, and in 2011 was named was named one of the 100 most influential people in business ethics by Ethisphere. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two young sons.

Follow @lizmaw for Liz's updates on Net Impact and more.

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Kim Meredith

As the inaugural Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS), Kim Meredith has been responsible for strong financial performance and organizational growth. Kim joined in July 2009 and one year later she led the team to acquire the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR). Kim brings dynamic and innovative leadership as a savvy non-profit leader to implement the mission of PACS and SSIR. 

Kim engages scholars, practitioners and leaders in inter-disciplinary research to explore ideas for social change. She serves a unique role by bridging research-to-practice towards informing philanthropy, nonprofit practice, policy and social innovation.

Prior to joining the PACS organization, Kim served as the Chief Development Officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York City.  Before joining PPFA, Kim served for nine years as the Chief Operating Officer at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate in San Francisco. Kim launched her business career in corporate America at AT&T for 10 years.

Kim currently serves on the Board of Directors of the George Lucas Education Foundation and the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund known as SV2.  Kim graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Economics.

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Lauren Moore

Lauren Moore joined eBay as President of eBay Foundation in May, 2009.  In 2012, Lauren stepped into the role of Head of Global Social Innovation for eBay Inc.  Social Innovation includes eBay Foundation, eBay green, and eBay cause-related initiatives.

Lauren has served on a number of nonprofit boards of directors, community commissions, and advisory panels.  She currently serves on the Corporate Committee of the Council on Foundations.  She also served as President of Philanthropy Northwest, was a founding member of ACCP (Association for Corporate Contributions Professionals), and served on the Contributions Council I of the Conference Board.
Before joining eBay Foundation, Lauren served for eight years as director of giving for Starbucks Coffee Company, and was the Executive Director of the Starbucks Foundation. In her role, she was responsible for Starbucks philanthropic and community initiatives worldwide.  Prior to her work at Starbucks, Lauren held leadership roles in several nonprofit organizations.  Lauren graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, and now lives in Palo Alto, California with her husband and two daughters.

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Jeff Rangel

Jeff Rangel leverages his diverse background to positively impact fiscal, environmental and social outcomes. As Senior Manager Corporate Affairs at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. he collaborates across the enterprise to define and execute the Company's Corporate Responsibility initiatives - including philanthropic, community affairs and government affairs strategies. He leads Brocade's Corporate Responsibility Council comprised of cross-functional experts responsible for broader supply chain, legal, environmental sustainability, compliance, operations and employee engagement programs.

Prior to Brocade, as Global Community Affairs Manager, Jeff led volunteer and giving programs at Applied Materials. As Director of Community Programs at Entrepreneurs Foundation he consulted with executives to integrate CSR into their enterprises. As Sr. Director at Wyse Technology, Jeff developed and delivered programs in Corporate Affairs, Organizational Change and Human Resources Management.
 
Jeff earned a BS in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from the University of San Francisco and is attending the Presidio Graduate School to obtain his MBA with a focus in Sustainability.

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James Slezak

James Slezak is a partner at New York-based social change agency Purpose, heading up the firm's sustainability practice. Prior to Purpose, James led major projects on sustainability, technology and economic development for McKinsey & Company, including developing green stimulus proposals for the Australian Prime Minister and former US Vice President Al Gore, developing strategy for the ONE Campaign against global poverty in Washington DC, and leading the Russian national carbon efficiency project in Moscow. He took part in the landmark 1997 Kyoto climate change conference, as well as the 2009 UN climate talks in Copenhagen. During the 2004 US presidential elections, James directed online strategy for a campaign opposing Bush administration foreign policy that raised millions of dollars in small online donations.

An Australian native, James's background is in the natural sciences. He attended the University of Sydney and holds a PhD in Physics (experimental) from Cornell University, where he discovered a new relationship between the geometry and quantum mechanics of high temperature superconductors. He also worked on development economics and game theory before realizing he'd rather spend more time outside of labs. He is  currently an affiliate at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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Lalitha Vaidyanathan

Lalitha Vaidyanathan is a Managing Director with FSG, a nonprofit think tank and consulting firm that pioneered the idea of Creating Shared Value. . In her five years with the firm, she has led many of the firm's shared value engagements with corporates such as the Godrej Group in India, Medtronic, and Mattel.  Lalitha is currently also leading the firm's efforts to establish a presence in India. She is co-author of influential thought pieces for the firm including "Creating Shared Value in India" and "Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement and Social Impact". Lalitha started her consulting career with McKinsey & Co. and subsequently founded and ran a venture-backed startup in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lalitha holds a Bachelors in Engineering from Cambridge University and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

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Carrie Varoquiers

Carrie Varoquiers is the President of the McKesson Foundation and Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at McKesson Corporation. In these roles, Carrie leads the company’s philanthropic grantmaking, employee community involvement programs, environmental sustainability efforts and corporate citizenship reporting. Carrie developed the McKesson Foundation’s Mobilizing for Health® grant initiative, which encourages the use of mobile technologies in chronic care, and most recently developed Giving Comfort, the Foundation’s new program focused on providing comfort kits to patients undergoing chemotherapy. Prior to joining McKesson, Carrie served as the Founder and President of Cause Partners, a cause marketing consulting firm based in San Francisco and served as the Cause Marketing Program Director at Levi Strauss & Co., where she was responsible for cause marketing programs for all of the Levi’s brands.

Carrie received her BA from U.C. Berkeley, MBA from Golden Gate University, and MPH from Johns Hopkins University. Carrie serves on the boards of Family House, the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals and Northern California Grantmakers.

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Kim Young

Kimberly H. Young is as director of corporate services at the Council on Foundations.  In collaboration with the Corporate Committee she is responsible for development and delivery of integrated services, products and programming for corporate foundation and giving program members.  Over the past year, Kimberly managed the corporate philanthropy 2012 initiative along with Chris Pinney project lead and Elizabeth Sullivan, managing director at the Council. 
Prior to joining the Council, Kimberly was community relations manager for Capital One for the Mid-Atlantic Region (DC, MD and Northern VA) where she expanded their philanthropy and associate engagement programs to new markets and served as a leader on nonprofit, civic and community organization boards.  Prior to Capital One she worked in Government Relations at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  A native of Washington, DC, Kimberly holds a Master of Divinity from Evangel Theological Seminary, Harrisonburg, VA and a Bachelor of Business Administration and Human Resource Management from Strayer University, Washington, DC.  She is an ordained minister, a certified executive leadership & life-skills coach and independent consultant.  She and her husband serve the community through several faith-based and nonprofit affiliations throughout the Washington, DC region.

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