Board of Directors

Mitchell Wade, Founder, Institute3
StartingBloc Chair
Mitchell Wade helps innovators turn insights into change. He was lucky enough to work with public policy analysts at RAND, executives at Schwab, technologists at Accenture--plus architects, priests, and rowing coaches. Then Mitchell struck gold, teaming up with seven social entrepreneurs working in the poorest villages of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They helped 60,000 people escape extreme poverty, quadrupled per-dollar impact, and launched their organizations toward sustainability.

Most importantly, the team created a simple; proven method that enables sustainable growth. It scales, spreads organically, and boosts large organizations’ impact without wrenching change. The model also adapts to the “top of the pyramid”--for donors, skilled volunteers, and overtaxed staff.

Mitchell’s goal now is to share the method much more broadly--and to collaborate with
innovative social entrepreneurs to enact widespread change. So he’s writing a third book. (The
first two, both co-authored with B-school professor John Beck, went beyond business as usual.

Mitchell's latest project is creating Institute3, a thinktank for practitioners obsessed with
sustainable growth.

Mary Galeti, Vice-Chair, Tecovas Foundation
StartingBloc Vice Chair
Mary currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Tecovas Foundation. Mary's experiences in the interactions between philanthropy and social entrepreneurship space have driven her to become a leader in the emerging generation of philanthropists. She also serves on the board of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and the City Club of Cleveland Endowment Foundation. In 2010, Mary was a participant in the Next Generation Leaders summit at the White House. She graduated with a BA in Political Science and History from Kent State University lives with her husband in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cheryl Yaffe Kiser, Managing Director, The Lewis Initiative, Babson College
In her role as Managing Director of The Lewis Initiative, Cheryl will focus on a critical aspect of its growth strategy for the College promoting broad support for Babson's work in integrating people, planet, and profit issues into its curriculum and co-curricula activities. Prior to joining Babson, as Managing Director of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, Cheryl was a leading voice in the U.S. on the role of business in society. Cheryl, who earned a graduate degree in community organization and social policy and planning from Boston College, has always been at the intersection of public policy, private enterprise and community. She sits on the board of directors for The New England Conference for Health Prevention, the Erna Yaffe Foundation for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and on the advisory board for the Positive Deviance Initiative (PDI) at Tufts University.

Vikas Singhal, Managing Director, CIBL Management
Vikas manages a structured finance business called CIBL Management, LLC, and works with a number of technology start-ups both as an advisor as well as an angel investor. Vikas has previously held positions at UBS Investment Bank in the Structured Products & Strategic Solutions Group working to develop novel solutions for a variety of the bank's clients. He has previously worked with Ashoka as a pro bono consultant to their Social Financial Services Group. Vikas received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science from Duke University with a Minor in Economics, and an MBA from Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

J.Todd Smith, CEO, Oxen Innovation
Todd Smith is CEO of Oxen Innovation, a social innovation holding company that includes a media consultancy and a sustainable farm-to-table service that connects consumers with local farms. Todd also leads branding and content strategy firm The Longitude (an Oxen holding). The Longitude team has won several awards for its work including a BloombergBusinessweek honor as "America's Top Social Entrepreneurs 2010". Prior to Oxen and The Longitude, Todd co-founded Gratio Capital, an investment firm that launched the Gratio Values Fund, a top Wall Street Journal-ranked socially-focused mutual fund. He has worked with numerous organizations to craft high impact social innovation brand and market strategies by mining both blackspace (defined) and whitespace (potential but unplanned) market opportunities.

Whitney Smith, Associate at Alliance Bernstein Global Wealth Management, Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Strength
StartingBloc Treasurer
Whitney works with a team to manage approximately $2.1 billion of private funds, with global placement using research based investment strategies. Whitney also acts as Executive Director of Sustainable Strength a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization focused on sustainable economic and infrastructural development in urban areas, with current projects in Newark, NJ and Brooklyn, NY. Whitney received his Bachelors of Arts degree in Sociology with a focus on Markets Management and the Economy from Dartmouth College, and holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a focus in Urban Sociology, also from Dartmouth College. Whitney has completed additional work at Oxford University and Columbia Business School and he is a London 2008 StartingBloc Fellow.

Sophie Waskow (BOS '07), Project Facilitator at the Office of Sustainability at The George Washington University
Fellow Advisory Committee Chair
Sophie Waskow (BOS '07) is currently a project facilitator in the Office of Sustainability at The George Washington University. Sophie previously worked at SustainAbility, a corporate social responsibility consulting firm. She helped to found the Washington DC Regional Board of StartingBloc and has served as chair and co-chair for five years. Sophie is actively involved in the Women's Launch Pad mentorship program at Brown and helps to advise student projects at Brown's Social Innovation Initiative. Sophie graduated with honors from Brown University with an A.B. in English Literature and is pursuing an MPA with a focus in sustainability management at GW.