The Skoll Centre Associate Fellowship supports Oxford students who demonstrate outstanding commitment to applying entrepreneurial approaches to create sustainable social and environmental value.
These students participate in a series of individualised tutorials throughout the year, based around a tailored personal development plan for leadership in social innovation. They help build the growing network of social entrepreneurs at Oxford University and beyond.
Sebastian Arce
Costa Rica
Sebastián started his career helping the owners of small manufacturing companies in Costa Rica to turn around their struggling businesses. He later worked as a consultant serving various clients across Latin America and the United States. Sebastián is a Skoll Centre Associate Fellow candidate and, during his time at Saϊd, he expects to build a robust business plan to start the transformation of the coffee industry in Costa Rica, beginning with his family´s farm. After SBS, Sebastián wants to start and grow his idea with the intention of eventually duplicating the model by developing joint ventures with other farmers and therefore creating a larger impact on society.
Joe Brilliant
United States
Joe is an accomplished new media innovator, online marketer, community organizer and writer. Prior to SBS Joe consulted for Participant Media's online social activism platform (TakePart.com), launched San Francisco's leading non-profit digital arts and new media center (Gray Area Foundation for the Arts) and was the Online Marketing Manager at Al Gore's Emmy-award winning Current TV. At SBS Joe is exploring the intersection of media, technology and social innovation and Co-Chairs the Media & Advertising OBN. After school, Joe plans to stay in the UK and help develop the emerging new media industry in East London with an eye towards starting a new media social venture of his own.
Stephanie Getson
United States
Stephanie, an international conflict and development specialist with a Masters in Foreign Service, has worked for the UN, governments, and NGOs in Latin America, Asia and Africa. At Saïd, Stephanie participates as a mentor for the Oxford Volunteer Consultants. After school, she hopes to fund and launch Sahara Botanicals, a social enterprise that creates jobs for refugees in Chad by exporting all-natural body care products.
Mele-Ane Havea
Australia/ Tonga
Mele-Ane, previously a Corporate Lawyer by day and an aspiring social entrepreneur by night, is at Saϊd in order to find a place where the two worlds can meet. She has experience in Australia and the United Arab Emirates working on corporate advisory and mergers & acquisition transactions, in the Netherlands in human rights law, and in rural and urban Australia in community law. At Saϊd she has been involved in Emerge and the SE OBN and is soaking up all she can of the knowledge and experience at Oxford, the Skoll Centre and her wonderful colleagues. In the future, she hopes to translate these skills to have a social impact in both Australia and in Tonga, South Pacific.
Erica Mackey
United States
Erica has spent the past six years developing the organization Support for International Change, a social enterprise in Tanzania with a dual-mission to limit the impact of HIV/AIDS in underserved communities and develop future leaders in global health. At Saïd, she co-chairs the Social Entrepreneurship Oxford Business Network and is a Peer Supporter for her classmates. Erica’s long-term goal is to make fundamental improvements in the developing world by harnessing the diverse strengths of government, for-profit enterprise, and civil society.
Allen Manser
Canada
Prior to attending the Saïd Business School, Allen was based in West Africa working as a Regional Malaria Coordinator for the Clinton Foundation. Allen's other experiences include co-founding the Internet communications technology company Cloudtel, and working on projects for energy utilities and technology clients as a management consultant at Accenture. Allen is actively involved at the Saïd Business School as the President of the MBA Student Advisory Board and as a Portfolio Manager for the SBS Venture Fund. In the future Allen intends to design, build, and scale sustainably profitable new ventures that combine market mechanisms, transformational technology, and bottom-up entrepreneurship to address some of the world’s greatest challenges.
Chris McCormick
United States
Chris, a former IT consultant and project manager, came to Saϊd to get off the consulting treadmill and move the hobby section of his resume to the career section. His poetry collective, VerseWorks, has worked with slam poets from across the United States. His web site The Athenaeum provides crowd-sourced learning as the "Wikipedia of art history". At Saϊd, Chris has involved with both the SE and Social Finance OBNs, as well as the Emerge conference. After Saϊd, he hopes to combine technology and communication with social impact.
Elizabeth Ritchey
United States
Beth spent 6 years in Asset Management with Deutsche Bank before she made the decision to move into social finance - beginning with a post at Women’s World Banking and most recently working on the ground in Mongolia as a Kiva Fellow. At Saïd Beth has taken on a leadership role as a Co-Chair of the SFOBN and is working to increase understanding and awareness of social finance in her fellow classmates. Beth’s long term goal is to create a fund or social investment bank in the United States aimed at engaging a wide audience, beyond high net worth clients.
Graham Smith
Canada
Graham, a one time management consultant, has spent the last several working to develop and improve the sustainability of healthcare services for countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia on behalf of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Having spent time living across North America, Europe and Africa, he now finds himself at Oxford, actively engaged in rowing and the Student Advisory Board, as well as various OBNs. After Said, Graham hopes to continue working towards systems-level changes that marry the interests of both the public and private sectors.
Praniya Oulapathorn
Thailand
Pranaiya, a young assistant fund manager at ING Funds (Thailand), led her family business, the leading industrial supplier, through the brink of economic crisis and successfully positioned it for future growth. At Saϊd, Pranaiya has been actively involved in the SE-OBN and Social Finance OBN. Pranaiya aspires to pursue career in social finance and consultancy for social impact, bridging the opportunities between the financial markets and livelihood improvement.