Monday evening I attended Net Impact NYC’s Womens Social Entrepreneurship Panel at The Feldenkrais Institute. The panel was moderated by Ann MacDougal, Chief Management Officer (New York) at Acumen Fund and featured:
Elizabeth Scharpf, Chief Instigating Officer at Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)
Katie Orenstein, Founder and Director at The Op-Ed Project
Amini Kajunju, CEO/COO at the and Executive Committee member at Angel Africa
They are the big-wigs at their respective organizations and have each made great strides in addressing social issues, but these three women were also honest, funny, and down-to-earth about life as a woman social entrepreneur. Elizabeth Scharpf spoke about her “tipping point” that guided her down a different path. She had been working at an INGO in Mozambique, and had spoken with some young children about what they wanted to be when the grew up. One child answered: “I want to work for a big international development organization, because I want to be rich.” Hmmm. That wasn’t exactly the motivation for involvement in the social sector that she (or really anyone else for that matter) wanted to hear. What resulted was Elizabeth’s pursuit of an alternative path that led her to start SHE. (more…)