GAN-Net Stewards

• Verna Allee - Steward
• David Bonbright - Steward
• Andrew Crosby - Steward
• Tobias Eigen - Steward
• Alain Gauthier - Steward
• Minu Hemmati - Steward
• Sanjeev Khagram - Steward
• Alejandro Litovsky - Steward
• Kate Parrot - Steward
• Bettye Pruitt - Steward
• Jim Ritchie-Dunham - Steward
• William (Bill) Snyder - Steward
• Ricardo Wilson-Grau - Steward
• Steve Waddell - Steward

Verna Allee: Principal, Verna Allee and Associates

www.vernaallee.com
Nationality: American

Verna is an internationally recognized thought leader and author in value networks, knowledge management, intangibles and new business models. She consults to many large global companies as well as entrepreneurial start ups, government organizations, NGO's, and cross organizational networks. Verna is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences nationally and abroad and is a Fellow of the World Business Academy. She acts as advisor for special projects in intellectual capital and the knowledge economy with Stanford University, the Brookings Institution and Digital4Sight. In July 2001, she was featured in the cover article of KM Magazine as one of the top six movers and shakers in the knowledge management field and she is also recognized for her work in intangibles and intellectual capital. Verna has an MA and is adjunct faculty member of Alliant International University and holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley and JFK University. She has published numerous journal articles and is author of The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence (1997) and The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks (2002). She is also author of the Verna Allee Toolkit™, featuring web-enabled learning modules and applications for her innovative methods (www.alleetoolkit.com.) Verna can be contacted at vjallee@cs.com.

David Bonbright - Impact Community of Practice

Nationality: American

David is founder and chief executive of Keystone, an initiative to transform the fields of social investing and sustainable development through the introduction of systems for performance management and giving/social investing that realize accountability for learning in social change processes.

Previously David directed the Aga Khan Development Network’s Civil Society Programme. As a grantmaker and manager with Aga Khan Foundation, Ford Foundation, Oak Foundation, and Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, David has sought to evolve and test innovative approaches to strengthening citizen self-organization for sustainable development as an alternative to prevailing bureaucratic, top-down models of social service delivery and social value creation.

While with the Ford Foundation, he was declared persona non grata by the apartheid government in South Africa. In 1990 he returned to South Africa and entrepreneured the development of key building blocks for civil society, including the first nonprofit internet service provider, the national association of NGOs, the national association of grantmakers, and enabling reforms to the regulatory and tax framework for not-for-profit organisations.

Andrew Crosby: Sr. Editor - The Nonprofit Quarterly.

Nationality: American

Andrew Crosby is Senior Editor for The Nonprofit Quarterly, a journal serving the nonprofit / NGO sector by identifying emerging issues and sharing knowledge across subsectors. He is an associate in the GAN-Net project, an international action / research collaborative examining the emerging roles and effectiveness of global public policy networks. He has played a leading role in the development of innovative networking organizations, including the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development in Geneva, Switzerland, established in 1996, and the American Political Network, a publishing and information services company.

Andrew has conducted original issue research for NGOs and corporations and presented on subjects including civil society, intersectoral relations, and international trade. He holds a Masters degree in Public Administration.

Tobias Eigen: Communications Community of Practice

Nationality: German and American

I am the founder and co-executive director of Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering African civil society groups to integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) into their work.

I have been involved in Internet in Africa since 1992, when I set up and developed a regional Fidonet e-mail network for the USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS). Before founding Kabissa in 1999, I worked with a number of international organizations and agencies, including Transparency International, UNESCO-UNEVOC, Volunteers in Technical Assistance, and oneworld.net, developing Web site and e-mail strategies and systems for geographically dispersed organizations.

I hold a BS in German and African studies (1994) from Georgetown University and an MA in Culture, Race and Difference (1997) from the University of Sussex. I live on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington with my wife and two kids.

Alain Gauthier: Generative Change Community of Practice

Nationality: French and American

Alain is an international consultant, facilitator, and educator who focuses on developing new collaborative leadership capabilities within partnerships across the public, private and civil society sectors, and contributing to societal learning. Over the last 40 years, he has served a wide range of clients, from large European and American corporations to a number of not-for-profit organizations and some global foundations. A graduate from H.E.C. (Paris) and a Stanford University M.B.A., Alain is currently Executive Director of Core Leadership Development in Oakland, CA. He has adapted and prefaced in French three of Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline books, and is a co-author of Learning Organizations: Developing Cultures for Tomorrow's Workplace. Alain is an active member of the Society for Organization Learning (SOL) in the US and Europe, and a visiting professor for the International MBA Program at the ENPC in Paris.

Minu Hemmati: Generative Change Community of Practice

Nationality: German and Iranian

A clinical psychologist with a doctorate in organisational and environmental psychology, Minu started her career in academia, but has been working as an independent advisor since 1998, with international agencies, governments, non-government organizations, corporations, women's networks, and research institutions. Minu's interests focus on two main areas: firstly, multi-stakeholder processes where her work includes designing and facilitating dialogue processes and partnerships among stakeholders; social inclusion and conflict resolution; training in dialogic facilitation; research and advocacy on political participation; and corporate stakeholder engagement. Secondly, Minu does research and advocacy on gender and sustainable development issues, with a recent focus on climate change.

Minu has wide experience with international policy making processes on sustainable development issues, having participated in UN and related processes since 1996.

As a psychologist, Minu tends to focus on the contributions that individuals can make to societal change, and the links between individual perspectives and behaviour and group or organizational processes.

Minu has published over 50 articles, reports and book chapters, and two books - about social identity; environmental psychology issues; women / gender issues; multi-stakeholder dialogues and partnerships. Website www.minuhemmati.net

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram

Nationality: American
skhagram@gan-net.net
+1 (206) 525-0315 GMT-8
+1 (415) 420-4668 (Global cell)

Dr. Khagram is a Steward of GAN-Net and a tenured Associate Professor of Public Affairs and International Studies, and Faculty Director of the Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development, and Global Citizenship at the University of Washington. Khagram previously held faculty positions at Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies and Harvard University’s JFK School of Government. From 2003-2005 he was Acting Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and between 1998-2000, he was Senior Policy Advisor at the World Commission on Dams.

Khagram has worked extensively with global action networks, multilateral agencies, governments, corporations, civil society organizations, professional associations and universities all over the world, with extended periods in Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand and the United Kingdom. Professor Khagram holds a B.A. in development studies/engineering, an M.A. in economics (from the Food Research Institute), and a Ph.D. in political science, all from Stanford University. Born and a refugee of Idi Amin’s Uganda, he is of Asian Indian heritage and currently resides with his family in Seattle.

He has published widely including Restructuring World Politics, and Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Recent publications of Khagram include "Future Architectures of Global Governance: A Transnational Perspective/Prospective" that was recently published in Global Governance, and a forthcoming chapter called: "Transnational Transformations: Toward Multi-Stakeholder, Multi-Level Global Governance."

Alejandro Litovsky

Nationality: Argentinian

The common theme in Alejandro's work is the scaling social innovation by creating connections across traditional sectoral boundaries, and brokering new social relationships between people and organizations.

He has worked as a strategy advisor for global partnerships and networks on how to improve the governance relationships within their collaborative systems, applying innovative ideas in his work with clients such as the Global Water Partnership in Stockholm and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. He is also currently working with Volans Ventures in London to improve the way social entrepreneurs work with established companies and governments.

Previously, as a senior advisor to the Collaborative Governance Programme at AccountAbility in London he advised the World Bank Group, Shell Foundation and the Forest Stewardship Council. In 2006 he led a global initiative funded by Ford Foundation, facilitating activities in Russia, Indonesia and Brazil to bring together business, government and civil society in to support 'accountability innovators'; i.e. entrepreneurs leading new initiatives such as a coalition to improve electricity-sector governance in Indonesia, a Russian coalition of NGOs working with oil and gas companies, and an industry-NGO partnership to manage natural resources in Brazil.

In 2007 he was the director for a high-level meeting on energy and development, bringing together former Presidents and Prime Ministers with international energy experts and civil society; to create common understanding and a vision of how to address energy poverty and scale grass-roots innovations with renewable energy in Africa and Asia. His article on this needed connectivity: 'energy poverty and political vision', was virally replicated by policy websites around the world.

From 2000 to 2003 he worked throughout Latin America with the philanthropic foundation AVINA, brokering cooperation initiatives between social entrepreneurs and business leaders and managing a portfolio of social investments. From 2004-2006 he worked extensively on partnerships between philanthropic donors and civil society with Keystone in countries like Philippines, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina, and led workshops at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre and the Civicus World Assembly in Glasgow.

In 2004 he was awarded the Hobhouse Memorial Prize by the London School of Economics (LSE), where he obtained his MSc in Political Sociology and conducted research on the role of power brokers in accelerating the impact of global networks. While finishing his dissertation he worked for Shell International's future scenario team in London.

In 2006 he gained professional accreditation as a partnership broker by the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London, UK. In 1999 he was awarded the Gold Medal by the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, where he obtained his BA in International Relations and researched the political incentives in managing an Argentinean fishery crisis. In parallel he led multi-sector workshops with fishermen, trade unions, companies and government at the epicenter of the conflict and presented recommendations to the Argentinean Parliament.

From 1991 to 1997 he was actively involved in the international organization CISV, promoting cross-cultural understanding among children and held positions at international camps in Tennessee, USA, and Costa Rica. In 1993 he was awarded the 'Conservation of the Environment' Prize By St. Andrews' Scots School in Argentina, for designing and implementing a system for the industrial recycling of the paper waste at his school, bringing together authorities, maintenance staff, students, and external industrial intermediaries.

Alejandro has a passion for music, from a long-standing affair with the piano and an amateur incursion into bossanova guitar, to organizing percussion jam sessions in parks. He performed as a professional hip-hop rapper for four years in the mid 90s and occasionally goes on stage for a live reprise.

Kate Parrot: MIT/Consultant

Nationality: American

I am a doctoral student in Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management. My research focuses on how individual and collective leadership and creativity can engender life-sustaining organizational and societal cultures and structures. I study multi-stakeholder partnerships and networks, with an emphasis on the theories and practices of dialogue and communication, which enable people to think and to act together in highly creative, effective, and meaningful ways. I am also researching leadership and human consciousness development--including cognitive, emotional, moral, and spiritual lines of development. I subscribe to an action research approach, which involves research "participants" instead of "subjects" as active collaborators in building and testing theory and practice in order to bring about positive change in people's lives.

I hold an M.S. degree from MIT in Technology and Policy from the Engineering Systems Division. From 2003 to 2006 I was a staff member for the Generative Dialogue Project, which promotes dialogic practices in support of individual, organizational, and systems transformation. I have also worked at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, in municipal water resources and planning in Colorado, and as an environmental consultant in California.

Bettye Pruitt: Generative Change Community of Practice

Nationality: American

Bettye Pruitt is an associate of the Global Leadership Initiative, and a research member and trustee of the Society for Organizational Learning. She is president of Pruitt & Company, a research and consulting firm dedicated to realizing the practical value of history in organizations and the world. Since 1983, Bettye has worked as a social historian in the field of organizational studies.

A longtime focus of her work has been the development of a technique for project "learning histories" that support team learning and accomplishment in real time, and reflection and communication after the project's conclusion. Most of her current efforts support learning and action in the civic realm, and some of these histories have been published on the Internet.

Jim Ritchie-Dunham: Inter-Gan Community of Practice

www.instituteforstrategicclarity.org
Nationality: American

Jim is president of the Institute for Strategic Clarity, a nonprofit research and education organization, chairman of the consulting organization Strategic Clarity, currently associate of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, a recent visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and co-author of Managing from Clarity: Identifying, Aligning and Leveraging Strategic Resources (Wiley 2001).

Jim's expertise lies in the field of decision sciences and complex systems development. He works in these fields as an educator, researcher, and consultant. He has worked with a variety of government, non-governmental, and government organizations including Royal/Dutch Shell, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), CARE and various agencies of the Mexican and USA governments. Jim works with them to help them gain greater personal clarity about their organization's strategy, in all of its elegant complexity. With this coaching, his clients have a very clear understanding of what the organization is trying to achieve, how to move it in the desired direction over time, and how to communicate that understanding in relevant terms to their team and to the whole organization. In addition to his coaching and consulting, Jim plays an advisory role, sitting on the board of directors currently at the Pine Hill Waldorf School and the Wimberley Art Institute, and previously at the Society for Organizational Learning and Dynamic I-T.

William Snyder: President - Social Capital Group

Nationality: American

William Snyder is the founder of Social Capital Group, a research-consulting group that helps civic leaders organize community-based approaches to social and economic development. He is a co-founder (with Etienne Wenger) of CPsquare, a cross-organizational, cross-sector community of practice, on communities of practice. He has consulted for twenty years on large-scale organizational change efforts in the private and public sectors, and worked at McKinsey & Company on strategic knowledge initiatives for the firm and its clients. His work focuses on community of practice applications in the civic domain - within cities and across cities, at national and international levels.

Bill has published several articles. He holds advanced degrees from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Business Administration (Organization Theory) from the University of Southern California.

Ricardo Wilson-Grau: Impact Community of Practice

Nationality: Dutch and American

Ricardo has worked as a factory worker and door-to-door salesman in the USA, surveyor and community development worker in Colombia, publishing executive in the Caribbean, field director for the American Friends Service Committee in Guatemala, director of the Latin American Programme of experiential Friends World College, journalist and managing director of Inforpress Centroamericana, senior manager with Greenpeace International, and foreign aid advisor with Oxfam Novib. Currently, he is an independent organizational consultant and evaluator devoted to supporting social change organizations, and in particular international networks. He resides in Brazil.

Ricardo's professional interests and achievements are in engaging with managers to design innovative, entrepreneurial solutions to strategic challenges in a variety of non-profit development organisations, for-profit businesses and private international funding agencies. His work experience in over sixty countries enables him to work creatively with multi-national groups of people. His current professional interests and competencies are in the organizational development and sustainability of networks, strategic risk management, evaluation of development organizations, and writing about it all in Spanish and English.

Steve Waddell

Nationality: Canadian
swaddell@gan-net.net
+1 (617) 482-3993 (Office) GMT-5
+1 (617) 388-7658 (Global cell)

Steve led the founding of Global Action Network Net along with GAN-Net Director Ralph Taylor. Steve focuses upon large systems change and global networks. The issues may be as broad as trade, poverty and sustainable development, or as specific as road-building, youth employment, banking and provision of water and sanitation services. Usually the change strategy involves creating business-government-civil society collaborations and networks; these collaborations may be local, national or global.

Two key concepts have arisen from Steve’s work: societal learning and change which is a deep change strategy to address chronic and complex issues, and global action networks which are an emerging form of global governance that addresses issues requiring deep change.

As well as being a Steward of GAN-Net, Steve is Senior Associate at Strategic Clarity and the Institute for Strategic Clarity, an adjunct faculty member at Boston College, and Associate of the Center for Innovation in Management at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Dozens of publications by Steve have been published in English and Spanish, including the book Societal Learning and Change: Innovation with Multi-Stakeholder Strategies (2005). Steve has a Ph.D. in sociology and a Masters in Business Administration.

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