CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

David Cooperrider is the Founder and Chairman of BAWB and is the Fairmount Minerals Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management. Since 1991, David has served on the faculty of the Department of Organizational Behavior at Weatherhead, with a secondary appointment in International Health, the Division of General Medical Sciences, Case School of Medicine. David’s research interests include the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry (AI), organization development and change, advances in “business as an agent of world benefit,” positive organizational scholarship, and qualitative theory-building methods. He is best known for the AI methodology that he co-developed.  David’s founding theory in this area is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change, helping companies around the world discover the power of strength-based approaches to planning and multi-stakeholder cooperation. His work is especially vital because of its ability to enable positive change in systems of very large and complex scales, for example with the US Navy, Hewlett-Packard, Parker Hannifin, Mckinsey, the United Nations, and Verizon. To contact David, please e-mail.

Ron Fry is the Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior at Weatherhead and serves as the Faculty Advisor for BAWB and the Chief Editor of the BAWB Innovation Bank. His research interests include organizational change and development, functioning of the executive, group dynamics and team effectiveness, whole systems change processes, management and leadership development, and applications of Appreciative Inquiry to foster human cooperation. Ron was one of the co-creators of Appreciative Inquiry at Case and heads the Institute for Advances in Appreciative Inquiry. He also directs the Case Masters in Positive Organization Development and Change Program. To contact Ron, please e-mail.

Ante Glavas is the Executive Director of BAWB. He is also an organizational consultant who has lived in five countries and worked with close to 100 companies around the world. His work has always focused on using business as a force for world benefit. He led a team that built CBA, the first private graduate business school in Croatia and became its first CEO. Ante also established Horizon, a leadership institute in Croatia which has worked with the leadership development of thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations in southeast Europe and has since become the largest consulting and education company in the region. He has also worked as a senior manager in Diageo - a Fortune 500 company, and started an organic foods company which he owned and presided over. Ante serves on the boards of various non-profit organizations such as AIESEC. He has received numerous awards for his work contributing to society such as the medal of honor from the President of Croatia for his work contributing to the development of Croatia. Ante has recently completed his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University and will be doing post-doctoral work at the Univeristy of Notre Dame.

Chris Laszlo is the Associate Director for Corporate Strategy and Design at BAWB, author of Sustainable Value, and a partner and co-founder of  Sustainable Value Partners, a strategy consulting firm working with senior leaders in some of the world's largest companies to transform societal opportunities and risks into sources of competitive advantage.  He has led over 100 executive seminars and spoken widely on "Sustainability for Business Advantage" inside companies and at leading business schools including Case's Weatherhead, Darden, Kenan-Flager, and the European business school INSEAD in the Advanced Management Seminar and CEDEP Executive Education program. For nearly ten years, he was an executive at Lafarge S.A., a world leader in building materials, holding positions as head of strategy, general manager of a manufacturing subsidiary, and vice president of business development. Prior to that he spent five years with Deloitte & Touche, where he consulted on strategy to global industry leaders. Educated at Swarthmore College, Columbia University, and the University of Paris, Chris earned a Ph.D. in Economics and Management Science. To contact Chris, please e-mail.

Nadya Zhexembayeva is the Associate Director for International Networks. Nadya’s research, teaching, and practice centers around organizational design for sustainable value creation, whole-system approaches to managing multi-stakeholder issues, and sustainability within context of emerging economies. She currently lectures at Case Western Reserve University in the US and IEDC Bled School of Management in Slovenia. In her five years with BAWB, Nadya has enjoyed a wide array of projects, ranging from strategic planning for BAWB and the World Inquiry to co-directing on-line conference production and facilitation for the BAWB global community. She received a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, and a B.A. in Management and a B.A. in Psychology from Hartwick College. A native of Almaty, Kazakhstan, Nadya and her family enjoy living on multiple continents, and sharing their lives with multiple homes. To contact Nadya, please e-mail.

Ilma Barros is President of Infinity International Ltd., is an ELIAS Fellow (Emerging Leaders for Innovation across Systems), and coordinates BAWB Brazil. She has worked with David Cooperrider for the past 11 years to convene several AI summits; their partnership brought Appreciative Inquiry to Brazil for the first time. She facilitated the Global Forum Latin America, is a senior consultant for the Federation of Industries of the State of Parana, and is responsible for the strategic planning of the Federation and its industrial segments, such as the Employers Union. She was responsible for the methodology and content used at the Future 10 Parana Forum, and, among other projects for the Brazilian President's office, such as the coordination of the methodology used for the evaluation of the Council for Economic and Social Development (CDES), Ilma managed the Brazil round table for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). She is also a consultant for the World Bank and for the past three years has delivered the Appreciative Inquiry Certificate Program in Brazil in partnership with Case Western Reserve University. She received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University and was an Assistant Professor of Business at the State University of New York and L´Moyne College. 

Jacqueline Wong is the founder and Director of Sequoia Consulting and Sustainability Institute in Singapore. She is also an adjunct faculty of the SAIDI School in the Philippines, and the Center for Creative Leadership headquartered in Greensboro.  She is actively involved in the co-founding of BAWB’s Asia Chapter and her interest is in building bridges for the exchange of knowledge, ideas and capacities for sustainable enterprises to and from Asia.  She believes that Asia’s development in the coming decades would offer a rich ground for learning about sustainable development and stakeholder engagement.  She is currently completing her the Masters of Science for Positive Organization Development with the Case Western Reserve University, and holds a B.B.A. (Hons) with the National University of Singapore. Her primary work is in organization development (OD), with particular focus on Appreciative Inquiry, scenario planning, organizational learning, leadership development, coaching, and emotional/social intelligence.  To date, her clients span from public, social and private enterprises and she is involved in multiple national level strategic planning initiatives as a process facilitator and consultant.  She serves as an ad-hoc advisor to the not-for-profit student network, AIESEC International to help them bring greater professionalism and process-capacities to their sustainability projects, and she also contributes actively in regional sustainability and OD communities as a speaker and resource person. To date, the countries she has facilitated in includes China, Hong Kong, India, the United States, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.  To contact Jacqui, please email jacq@sequoia.com.sg.

Erin Christmas is the Program Manager at BAWB. She manages the World Inquiry and Innovation Bank, BAWB’s collection of stories on businesses as agents of world benefit. She also sits on the World Inquiry editorial board and Case’s Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence ethics alliance working group. Additionally Erin manages logistics and coordinates support for all of BAWB’s events. Erin earned her Bachelors of Science in Management with a concentration in finance at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, and is currently earning her MBA at Weatherhead. Her interests include social entrepreneurship, poverty eradication, and business as a force for peace building. To contact Erin, please email.

Emily Drew is the Communications Manager for BAWB and sits on the World Inquiry editorial board.  She has worked for the Taipei Times in Taiwan, Simon & Schuster in New York, and The Cover Story in Amsterdam.  As a freelance journalist in Europe, she published feature stories in major magazines in 14 countries and continues to write features on business innovation, social entrepreneurship, climate change's effects on business, and business as an agent of peacebuilding.  Emily earned her MA in Business and Finance Journalism thanks to an Erasmus Mundus grant from the European Union, which gave her the opportunity to study at the University of Aarhus, the Danish School of Journalism, the University of Amsterdam, and City University, London.  She received her BA in English Literature from Davidson College, North Carolina. To contact Emily, please email.

Jeanne du Plessis is the Forum Manager for the 2009 Global Forum.  Her areas of experience are project management, relationship management, and communications, and she has lived and worked in four continents in as many years.  Her most recent experience is as a travel journalist in Malaysia, where she published online guides on the islands and is also producing a coffee table book on the same.  Before this, Jeanne was based in the Netherlands as the Global Networks Manager in the global office of AIESEC, an international NGO.  Her responsibilities included capitalizing on the organization's international network, establishing a network of board chairpersons to improve global governance of AIESEC, and managing several projects such as the annual International Congress, which brings together delegates and guests from over 100 countries.  She has served as the president of the national chapter of AIESEC in South Africa, her native country.  She holds a bachelor in commerce from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a higher certificate in journalism from the Tshwane University of Technology.  Jeanne enjoys traveling, learning new languages, reading anything she can get her hands on, and being curious about the world in general.  To contacet Jeanne please email.

Garima Sharma is a doctoral student in the Department of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University.  Combining her passion for writing with her interest in sustainability she sits on BAWB's editorial board and writes for the center's World Inquiry and newsletter.  Garima earned her Bachelors in Engineering and MBA in India.  Before coming to Weatherhead to pursue her PhD she worked in the Organizational Development department of an IT consulting company in India. She is interested in human values, learning flexibility, organizational citizenship behavior and sustainability.  Through hands-on experience in different projects at BAWB she hopes to focus her research and future work around sustainability.

Unni Nair is the Manager of the US Secretariat of the United Nations Global Compact.  He has published on subjects including Globalization and Outsourcing and co-produced a non-profit documentary on the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami of 2004.  After years in management consulting and launching a successful technology startup, his focus now is using his experience and strengths in business towards furthering his passions for sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Unni received his BA in International Management at Loyola University Chicago and is completing his MBA at the Weatherhead School of Management. To contact Unni, please email.

Dipti Dhawan is a first-year MBA student at Weatherhead and works part-time at BAWB.  She is interested in Organizational Behavior and Sustainability and hopes to work on projects that lift up the poor through business. She intents to work for an NGO after earning her MBA and has audited Weatherhead's Microfinance course, which solidified her interests.  Dipti has also worked with the Asha School for the Blind in India.  Aerobics is her daily stress buster and she enjoys reading and cooking.

Avanti Golikeri works part-time at BAWB and is a second-year undergraduate at Case Western Reserve. She is completing a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with a minor in Mathematics and plans to attend medical school, then work in developing countries serving communities with otherwise scarce medical resources. Avanti has worked to raise funds for rural schools in India through the organization Asha for Education. She also enjoys Indian dancing and being a member of the Case Crew Team.

Janet Roberts was the Communications Manager at BAWB from 2006-2007 and has continued to serve as co-editor of the BAWB newsletter on a freelance basis since 2007.  She currently works as a Communication Specialist at Progressive Insurance and continues to pursue creative writing in her free time. She is finishing her second novel and a collection of short stories.

Maviese Fisher is an Independent Program Manager serving as a business knowledge member of BAWB's World Inquiry editorial board. She has extensive experience in strategic resource and budget planning, project risk and cost analysis, team moral, personnel management, progress assessments and workflow analysis. She has managed national and international engagements with responsibilities in creating and delivering on implementation programs and processes across the United States in the Financial, Health, Pharmaceutical, Legal, Manufacturing, Distribution, Automotive, Advertising, Education and Government industries. She has worked as a Systems Engineer for IBM, Director for local government, and as a Senior Program Manager for HP's international programs. Maviese holds an International MBA and a BA in Tele-Communications from Baldwin Wallace and a BS in Physics from John Carroll University. She is a certified Project Manager and has served on the Project Management Institute Board Nominating Committee. She is published as a contributor in the 2006 edition of “The Standard for Program Management, PMI Global Standard” and has developed and taught project management, educational, application, and technical training courses for several industries. To contact Maviese, please email.

Renuka Hodigere is a doctoral candidate in the department of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University and sits on BAWB's World Inquiry editorial board. Her research interests are organizational culture, diversity, and justice. A skeptic, she is involved in the World Inquiry project, reading stories of innovation and sustainability in an effort to become a believer. She has worked as a human resource professional with multinational corporations and small business.

Sarah E. O'Keeffe is an MBA candidate at the Weatherhead School of Management and is a member of BAWB's World Inquiry editoral board.  She works in the Office of Graduate Education at the Case School of Medicine as the administrator of a federally funded research education program that provides underrepresented minority college graduates the opportunity to prepare for a graduate career in biomedical research.  Sarah has lived in Italy, the UK, and Japan, and holds bachelor degrees in English and Aeronautical Studies from Kent State University.

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