William Drayton
Chair & Chief Executive Officer
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

As the founder and CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Bill Drayton is a true social entrepreneur. During his time as a student at Harvard, Balliol College in Oxford University and Yale Law School, he launched a number of organizations, including Yale Legislative Services and Harvard’s Ashoka Table, an interdisciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School and began his career at McKinsey and Company in New York. From 1977 to 1981, Mr. Drayton served as Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he launched emissions trading (the basis of the Kyoto Protocol) and other reforms. In 1981, while working part-time at McKinsey and Company, he founded both Ashoka and Save EPA, the predecessor to Environmental Safety. With the support that he received when elected a MacArthur Fellow in 1984, he was able to devote himself fully to Ashoka. In addition to his current role as Chairman and CEO of Ashoka, Mr. Drayton is the chair of Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working!

Mr. Drayton has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. In 1996, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his leadership in public service.  In 1999, Common Cause awarded him its Public Service Achievement Award.  In 2005, he received the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award and was selected as one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. In 2006, he was recognized as being one of Harvard University’s 100 “Most Influential Alumni.” In 2007, he received the Duke University Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship’s (CASE) Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship Award, the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s 2007 Honorary Fellow Award, and the Goi Peace Foundation’s Peace Award. In 2009, he was named Honorary Fellow at Oxford’s Balliol College and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yale University. And in 2010, he received an Honorary Doctorate from NYU, as well as the Essl Social Prize, for his work creating and building the field of social entrepreneurship. 
 

Valeria Budinich
Social Entrepreneur

Valeria Budinich is a social entrepreneur who has worked for 25 years in the creation and expansion of new businesses with social impact in 22 countries worldwide. At Ashoka, Valeria founded in 2003 the Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) Initiative, a global initiative enabling large commercial alliances between social entrepreneurs and private companies to deliver products and services to small producers and low-income families through the articulation of Hybrid Value Chains (HVC™). Ashoka's FEC work is focused on housing, healthcare, and agriculture. As the Chief Entrepreneur of the Ashoka Housing for All program, Valeria launched the initiative 3 years ago and has been responsible for expanding it to Brazil, Colombia, Egypt and India. Prior to Ashoka, Valeria was the Chief Operating Officer at Appropriate Technology International, a founding Vice-President for Latin America at Endeavor, and a VP for New Initiatives at BDA, a California-based consulting firm specializing in business process redesign and technology innovations for private sector clients worldwide. She was brought up in Chile and trained as an industrial engineer.  

Aleem Walji
Practice Manager, World Bank Institute’s Innovation Team

Aleem Walji is the Practice Manager of World Bank Institute’s Innovation Team. He oversees the Development Marketplace program which provides social entrepreneurs access to early stage, mezzanine, and growth financing for the delivery of public goods.

He also oversees ICT for Development projects focused on Open Government, Transparency and Accountability. As part of his role, Aleem leads efforts related to Innovation@Work including the Bank's competition management platform (or Innovation Radar) designed to surface solutions to complex development problems from within and outside the World Bank. 

Prior to joining WBI, Aleem served as a Head of Global Development Initiatives at Google.org, with a focus on eastern Africa. He led efforts related to increasing transparency and accountability in government and supporting the growth of small and medium-size enterprises in Africa. Aleem was also the first CEO of the Aga Khan Foundation in Syria. His particular interests lie in rural economic development, entrepreneurship, and public-private partnerships. He completed his bachelor's degree in Near Eastern Studies and Anthropology from Emory University and his master's degree in International Development and Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 

Jan Piercy
Executive Vice President, ShoreBank Corporation

Jan Piercy is executive vice president of ShoreBank Corporation with responsibility for ShoreBank’s international companies and programs. ShoreBank is the first and largest community development financial institution in the United States. ShoreBank International, a consulting affiliate, works with small- and micro-lending institutions throughout the developing world. ShoreCap International, an investment company, takes minority equity stakes in locally-owned small- and micro-lending institutions in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, while ShoreCap Exchange provides capacity building services to development finance institutions and runs a Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN) for peer learning among financial institutions targeting smaller borrowers and under-served markets.

Ms. Piercy served for seven years as U.S. executive director of the World Bank during the Clinton administration, for which she received the U.S. Treasury Medal of Honor in 2001. She chaired the World Bank board Personnel Committee and the Committee on Development Effectiveness, and served on the Audit Committee. As an advisor to ShoreBank between 2002 and 2005, she was the lead member of the team that raised $28.8 million in capital to establish ShoreCap International. Ms. Piercy is on the advisory councils of the Acumen Fund and the Global Philanthropy Forum and the board of Vital Voices. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
 

Toshiya Masuoka
Director, Inclusive Business Model Group

Toshiya Masuoka is the Founder and Director of IFC’s Inclusive Business Models Group. Prior to founding the Group, “Toshi” was Director of IFC’s Corporate Advice Department (now Sustainable Business Advisory), which houses IFC experts on corporate advisory services. The department focuses on providing support to small and medium size enterprises in partnership with corporates, extending IFC’s reach to the “Base of the Pyramid”, and advancing good corporate governance practices in the developing countries. Toshi joined the World Bank Group in August 1989, and after completing his assignment in the World Bank in 1990, joined IFC as an Investment Officer. He held various positions in investment departments including South Asia, Infrastructure and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and held the position of Manager in the LAC Department from July 2002 to January 2004. Between January 2004 and September 2008, Toshi led the Operational Strategy Department and was a key player in framing IFC’s corporate strategy and growth, overseeing the implementation of various strategic initiatives, and coordinating on World Bank Group level strategic issues. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Toshi held various positions at the Fuji Bank, Limited. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School.