November 2nd, 2024

9:30AM-12:00PM ET

The Virtual Social Intrapreneurship Symposium is a 2-hour 30-minute online event dedicated to showcasing inspiring stories of social intrapreneurs and sharing leading examples of corporate intrapreneurship programs from around the world. Hosted on Zoom, the symposium is the first of its kind that aims to bring together scholars, practitioners, and ecosystem builders to foster connections and collaboration in the field of intrapreneurship.

On Zoom

Event Highlights

David Clark

David Clark from Amcor highlights that resilience and influence, rather than formal authority or resources, are key to driving change, as demonstrated by his success in reframing initiatives to gain buy-in from plant managers.

Miriam Sidibe

Miriam Sidibe from Unilever illustrates how businesses can merge profitability with purpose through large-scale hygiene programs that addressed public health challenges while enhancing brand loyalty.

Marcia Chen

Marcia Chen from the Women Alliance Group highlights the power of storytelling and vulnerability, using personal stories to emotionally connect with executives and demonstrate that a “heart case” can be as impactful as a “business case” in driving change.

Catherine Connors

Catherine Connors, formerly with Disney, underscores the importance of navigating corporate structures strategically to influence storytelling and gender portrayals, emphasizing the alignment of personal values with organizational goals to drive authentic change.

Kevin Thompson

Kevin Thompson from IBM demonstrates how personal passions and experiences, like his Peace Corps background, can inspire impactful initiatives, as seen in his program enabling IBM employees to contribute to international development.

Lingling Jiang

Lingling Jiang, formerly at McKinsey, emphasizes how consistent advocacy and persistence, despite initial resistance, can achieve incremental wins that ultimately drive systemic change in social impact initiatives.

Agenda

9:30 AM - 9:35 AM | Opening Remarks

9:35 AM - 10:30 AM | TED Style Story Telling 

Presenters: David Clark, Myriam Sidibe, Marcia Chen, Catherine Connors, Kevin Thompson, Lingling Jiang

Facilitator: Matthew Lee

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM | Panel I: Intrapreneur Pathway

Panelists: Abigail Epplett, Salma Habachi, Sean O'Keefe, Julie Fu, Bryan Stromer

Moderator: Ante Glavas

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM | Panel II: Ecosystem Building

Panelists: Jolana Amara, Catherine Connors, Emmanuel de Lutzel, Joana Castro e Costa

Moderator: Heiko Spitzeck

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM | Panel III: Reimagining Capitalism

Panelists: David Clark, Mohammed Omar, Lucas Urbano, Milan Samani

Moderator: Mark Kramer

Event Objectives

  • Showcase Inspiring Intrapreneurs Globally

    The symposium will present a curated selection of groundbreaking social intrapreneurship initiatives from around the world. By featuring stories of visionary intrapreneurs who have made a significant impact across various industries and regions, attendees will gain a broad perspective on the diverse ways social challenges are being addressed globally.

  • Share Best Practices of Intrapreneurship Programs

    The symposium will spotlight some of the most successful and innovative intrapreneurship programs from around the globe, highlighting tools, methodologies, and frameworks that drive social impact. The event aims to equip participants with practical insights and strategies to design or enhance intrapreneurship programs within their own organizations.

  • Foster Collaborative Networks

    The symposium emphasizes the importance of strengthening connections between practitioners from diverse sectors and regions. The event seeks to create opportunities for participants to collaborate on innovative solutions to social challenges. This network will serve as a valuable resource for ongoing support and the sharing of practices in social intrapreneurship.

Panels Recap

Intrapreneurship thrives by aligning projects with company values, building internal networks, starting with small wins, securing external partnerships, leveraging influence without direct authority, and using storytelling to connect vision with practical goals.

Intrapreneur Pathway Panel

Creating a supportive ecosystem, gaining senior management buy-in, fostering innovation-friendly corporate cultures, blending business and social impact education, building local and global communities, leveraging storytelling for influence, and integrating social impact into academia are key to empowering intrapreneurs.

Ecosystem Building Panel

Leveraging partnerships, documenting early successes, rethinking incentives, fostering leadership development, bridging theory and practice, and increasing public awareness are essential strategies to amplify intrapreneurship's impact and its role in driving innovation and systemic change.

Reimagining Capitalism Panel

Meet the Panelists

  • David leads Amcor’s global sustainability agenda, working closely with the global packaging company’s innovation, procurement, operations and other functions to integrate more sustainable design and social responsibility in the company and across the value chain.  He is active in Amcor’s global sustainability partnerships including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Alliance to End Plastic Waste.

    David has used social intrapreneurship techniques throughout his career to reduce workplace injuries, improve the sustainability of consumer goods packaging, and reduce waste in the environment.  He now focuses on developing people across Amcor and influencing positive change in collaboration with partners outside of the company. David is chair of the Plastic Recycling Corporation of California and is an Aspen Institute First Movers Fellow. David holds a B.S., Physics, from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

  • Myriam Sidibe is the Chief Mission Officer and Founder of Brands on a Mission, a certified B-Corp aiming to get Brands and Companies to drive impact in health and well-being through their business models. Their current portfolio of clients include Givaudan, Unilever, Nestlé, Upfield, AbInBev, UN Agencies, Godrej etc. She is also the co-founder and Chair of the Kenya National Business Compact on Coronavirus and the woman behind the multi-award winning and UN recognized Global Handwashing Day now celebrated in over 100 countries. From within Unilever, she has created a movement to change the handwashing behaviors of one billion people, the single biggest hygiene behavior change program in the world. In addition, Myriam was a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government of Harvard Kennedy School and is an honorary Professor of the Practice at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is the author of the best-selling Business Ethics book Brands on a Mission: How to Achieve Social Impact and Business Growth through Purpose (Routledge 2020) and her TED talk The Simple Power of Handwashing has been viewed more than 1 million times. She is a contributor to the Entrepreneur and is regularly featured in FT, Forbes, HBR, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Reuters and CNBC. She was selected as one of the 100 most influential Africans in the world for her work on changing global corporate behaviour. She is on the Global positive Beauty Council of Unilever advising on inclusive beauty across brands. Additionally, she is on the board of ABInBev Foundation and works closely with their CEO and leadership on their 1 billion USD smart drinking initiatives, advising on social norms campaigns across hundreds of beer brands. She is also a judge for Global Smart drinking Competition for the best social norms campaigns across AbInBev.

  • Marcia Chen graduated from Imperial College London with a Master’s degree in Strategic Marketing. She has worked at DiDi Chuxing and Google China, serving as a senior marketing consultant and overseas marketing account manager. 

    In 2020, Marcia Chen co-founded China's first cross-enterprise women's development and DEI platform—Women Alliance Group (WAG). The platform has gathered notable global companies like Google, McKinsey, Intel, GE, DiDi, Tencent, Amazon Web Services, Tiffany, Nike, Eaton, Sanofi, Kering Group, and Carrier, covering over 250,000 employees, making it China’s largest cross-enterprise platform for women’s development and DEI. The platform aims to promote the development of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in China.

    Previously, with the mission to support more lives to flourish, she introduced Google’s global DEI project #IamRemarkable to China, building it from the ground up. In three years, the workshops have reached over 5,000 participants from more than 50 companies, training over 100 local instructors. During the promotion of #IamRemarkable, she was inspired to establish the Women’s Alliance to gather more strength to support the growth of professional women in China, officially co-founding WAG in 2020.

    She has traveled to over 50 countries, and has a deep interest in and practices traditional culture, aesthetics, and mindfulness. In the future, she hopes to integrate Eastern and Western philosophies to find a way to empower personal growth and a diverse and inclusive culture in China, leading businesses towards goodness and achieving sustainable human development.

  • Catherine Connors is a feminist and mother who became frustrated with Disney’s traditional “princess rescued by prince” narrative. While working for Babble Media, where she advised young urban parents, she discovered that many shared her concerns. Following Babble’s acquisition by Disney, Catherine found herself in a unique position to influence change from within. She utilized storytelling techniques to help Disney evolve its narrative for young girls. Additionally, her blog, “Her Bad Mother,” was recognized by Time magazine as one of the best blogs of the year.

  • Kevin Thompson is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI.org). In this role, he has responsibility for advancing our internal organization, operations and strategy alongside an external focus on our members, partners and programs. Kevin has a 25 year executive career of diverse experiences ranging from managing a farm in a remote West African village to programs with multinational corporations in industries from big tech to impact media. He is an internationally recognized social intrapreneur and adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

    For 15 years, Kevin worked at IBM on multiple programs and policies related to sustainability, climate, community engagement, supply chain social responsibility and socially responsible investing. He held eight positions of increasing responsibility and scope in strategy, corporate

    citizenship and marketing. While at IBM, Kevin led the design, launch and scaling of IBM's Corporate Service Corps (CSC), which placed 5,000 IBMers from 60+ countries on month-long, onsite assignments in 32 low income countries, working with nonprofits, universities, government agencies, and small business owners. His IBM career concluded as the marketing director responsible for the $5B US Public Sector business.

    Most recently, Kevin served as the General Manager for GOOD Worldwide and Upworthy where he had P&L responsibility, managed the business and services teams and co-led M&A and strategic growth projects. GOOD Worldwide is a leader in social impact, sustainability and engagement at scale. Through his work at GOOD, he served as a co-founder of the GOOD Institute, a new nonprofit organization that merged with Net Impact.

    Mr. Thompson is a First Mover Fellow with the Aspen Institute, a leadership and innovation lab for social intrapreneurs, the subject of a Harvard Business School case study and winner of a FrED Forum innovation award. He has published on topics ranging from cloud computing to next generation leadership. He also co-founded a leadership development consultancy called World Action Teams that designs and delivers immersion experiences in rapidly developing Markets.

    Prior to IBM, he spent two years managing a farm and micro enterprise in rural Ghana, West Africa while a US Peace Corps volunteer and performed as a musician based in Massachusetts. Mr. Thompson holds MBA and MS degrees from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Massachusetts in Natural Systems. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his two boys, Nels and River.

  • Lingling Jiang is the organizer of the Harvard Social Intrapreneurship Symposium and an intrapreneur herself. She was McKinsey China’s first Social Impact Manager, a role she helped create and for which she wrote her own job description. Starting as a management consultant, Lingling integrated sustainability and impact into her client work, including driving sustainability efforts at globally leading consumer and tech companies. Later, she built McKinsey China’s social impact efforts from the ground up, leading initiatives, cross-sector partnerships and pro-bono work in reskilling and upskilling, decarbonization and gender equality. Lingling has also founded the “Intrapreneurship with Purpose” community, supporting young global social intrapreneurs across 11 countries and 19 companies. 

  • Ante Glavas is a Professor at SKEMA Business School. Dr. Glavas earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, and was at UVM’s Grossman School of Business from 2017 to 2024. He has published numerous articles on Corporate Social Responsibility, and was honored to receive the Emerald Citations award for his influential work in this area. A passionate teacher, he received the Professor of the Year award in management while working at the University of Notre Dame. His professional experience includes a senior executive role in a Fortune 500 company, consulting engagements with over 100 organizations, and the founding of three social enterprises. Ante has lived in five, and worked in over 50, countries.

  • Abigail Epplett is a Marketing Operation Specialist at the Experience Design Center of Waters Corporation, a lab equipment and software company. For her ongoing intrepreneurship initiative, she combines her experience in the field of museums and libraries, along with her expertise in digital accessibility, to create consistent and accessible file storage spaces for the Quality Assurance / Quality Control Department. Before the start of the project, employees struggled to find data from user experience studies, which were crucial to designing and selling products. Additionally, employees with visual impairments could not read many documents. The ongoing redesign of file storage spaces allows all employees to find and read information related to their own projects more easily.

  • Salma Habachi holds a Doctorate in Marketing and is a Product Experience Manager at Hempel A/S. Her research focuses on how technology influences user experiences, and she is now applying this expertise to drive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives within organizations, encouraging innovation and intrapreneurship.

    Salma is leading a key initiative aimed at integrating refugees into the workforce and their new communities, built on three core elements: training, hiring, and mentoring. In collaboration with the Painters Programme, a 4-week training course was introduced, combining theoretical knowledge with practical skills, culminating in a certification for coatings applicators. This training helps participants gain a valuable qualification that significantly improves their job prospects. For the hiring aspect, Salma worked closely with the company’s People & Culture (P&C) teams and with the Tent Partnership for Refugees Organization to review and redesign hiring processes, making them more inclusive. In addition, the Painters Programme is now engaging with the company’s customers network to create job opportunities for the graduates, ensuring a smoother transition from training into employment. As for the mentoring component offers ongoing support from experienced professionals within the company and industry, guiding participants throughout the program and even after they enter the workforce. This mentorship helps refugees adapt to their new environments and advance in their careers.

    Beyond her intrapreneurial journey, Salma volunteers as a One Young World Coordinating Ambassador for Southern Europe, engaging changemakers in the community and supporting their initiatives both within and outside their organizations. Through this role, she provides support, mentoring, and access to resources to help these changemakers succeed in their endeavors.

  • Sean hails from New York City where he works for Microsoft AI as a Business Program Manager. He is the co-chair of the Transformation of Organisation Software Sustainability (TOSS) project under the Green Software Foundation where he works with counterparts across multiple companies to build a framework for organizations to leverage for internal change. Passionate about the environment and empowering others through technology, Sean works to prevent tech itself from becoming a barrier to organizational sustainability. His mission to embed sustainability into the software development lifecycle led Sean to joining the IWP (Intrapreneurs with Purpose) Fellowship in 2023 and to pursuing coursework on Corporate Sustainability at Harvard. In his free time, Sean enjoys hiking, acting, and photography.

  • Julie Fu is the Head of DEIB China at Merck KGaA, a leading science and technology company, where she oversees all local DEIB initiatives and supports global DEIB efforts. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Social Psychology and Management Science from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of HRM from the Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business. Leveraging her cross-cultural experiences and academic background, Julie develops and implements DEIB strategies tailored to China while aligning with enterprise priorities. With an intrapreneurial mindset, she excels at coordinating resources and collaborating with various local teams to deliver innovative solutions and foster a sense of belonging in the workplace.

  • Bryan Stromer graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2017 with a degree in Human and Organizational Development. His interest in disability inclusion and accessible marketing began during a semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he studied how companies like IKEA approach inclusivity, sparking a passion that has driven his career ever since.

    Upon returning to the U.S., he worked with major brands such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, leading initiatives to improve how these companies reach and engage people with disabilities. His work has focused on creating marketing strategies that prioritize accessibility, ensuring that every consumer, regardless of ability, can engage meaningfully with these brands.

    Currently, he is pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, where he also serves as the leader of the school’s disabled student group, advocating for inclusive policies and practices across the institution.

    In recognition of his contributions to disability inclusion in marketing and advocacy, he has received several awards, including the Disability NextGen Alum of the Year 2019, the ADCOLOR FUTURE 2019, and a place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.

  • Heiko Spitzeck is a leading academic in corporate sustainability and co-founder of the Center for Impact Intrapreneurship at Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil, a business school ranked under to TOP 10 globally by the Financial Times. He is a member of the Brazilian Global Compact Committee and Board Member of Coca-Cola´s Social Investment Platform Coletivo. Professor Spitzeck worked previously as Lecturer at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield School of Management (UK), a visiting researcher at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) and at Fordham University (USA), a fellow researcher at the Business Ethics Institute of the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). Professor Spitzeck has developed programs in organizations such as BASF, BNDES, Sicredi, Coca Cola, Tecnisa, Queiroz Galvão, BB Mapfre, Zurich, Camargo Corrêa, Siemens, and worked with the boards of AMAGGI, Nestlé, and Michelin on the sustainability of their strategy. He has published books and numerous articles on sustainability.

  • As CEO of the League of Intrapreneurs, Jolana Jamuna Amara is a visionary leader driving the integration of sustainability, social innovation, and intrapreneurship into organizational culture. She leads initiatives that empower intrapreneurs and their organizations to embed sustainability and scale innovative solutions, cultivating a future where businesses are catalysts for social and environmental impact. Under her leadership, the League has focused on high-impact areas such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and climate action, ensuring these priorities are integrated into strategies that deliver measurable outcomes.

    Jolana’s leadership is centered on creating bold, brave spaces that help organizations and individuals navigate the complexities of our times, fostering innovation from the inside out.

    Beyond her role at the League, Jolana facilitates women’s circles and community gatherings, where she fosters transformative personal and collective experiences. Her approach, grounded in empathy and radical innovation, empowers leaders and teams to embrace hope, resilience, and the power of collective action to solve today’s critical challenges.

  • After a classical commercial banking career for more than 20 years in France, Belgium and Germany, Emmanuel de Lutzel became a social intrapreneur within BNP Paribas, initiating in 2006 the international microfinance department and in 2012 the social finance activity.  Starting with an investment budget of 50 M euros, the French bank now has a commitment of 345 M euros in microfinance and more than 2 Bn euros in social businesses. He also initiated in 2004 within BNP Paribas a group of volunteers to support social businesses, involving now several hundreds of volunteers. In 2015, he published a book in French “Transform your company from the inside: the guide of the social intrapreneur” aggregating his own experience and lessons learned from 20 intrapreneurs in French businesses. Following the publication of this book, Emmanuel has given more than 100 conferences about intrapreneurship in France and in the rest of the world. Since its creation in 2015, Emmanuel has been supporting the development of the « Poeple’s Lab », the intrapreneurship incubator of BNP Paribas. Emmanuel retired from the bank in 2020. He is now working as a volunteer for Habitat et Humanisme, a leading French network of social housing. Emmanuel is Franco-German, married, two children. He has been studying Politics in Paris, and Chinese civilisation in Taiwan and Paris.

  • Joana Castro e Costa is the Executive Director of the Nova SBE Leadership for Impact Knowledge Centre in Portugal, where she coordinates the Social Equity Initiative, aimed at transforming the social sector. A fellow of the League of Intrapreneurs and a member of several influential networks, Joana was recognized as a top 5 “Female Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year” in higher education by the Triple E Awards 2023. She is dedicated to fostering intrapreneurship for impact and bridging academia with society through initiatives like the Social Leapfrog Program. A mother of three and a passionate singer, Joana also shares her music online.

  • Mark is a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and visiting lecturer at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. He is also a co-founder and director of Maternal Newborn Health Innovations and a partner in the impact investing fund Congruence Capital. Mark has served as a Director of the World Benchmarking Alliance, on the jury of the CECP’s Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award, on the planning committee for the Clinton Global Initiative, and on the Aspen Philanthropy Group. He is also a member of the Creating Shared Value Advisory Board at Nestle. 

  • Mo is a Principal out of BCG’s Headquarters in Boston, and is a core leader in the Industrial Goods and Transportation practices. He focuses on multiple topics that include digital transformations, people and organization, analytics-driven optimization of operations and pure-play strategy. He has conducted work for clients in the United States, the Middle East and Australia. 

    Mo has drawn on social intrapreneurship techniques throughout his career, using these approaches to drive change across diverse industries and regions. His experience includes facilitating behavioral shifts among blue-collar workers on factory floors by establishing champion networks, which encourage peer-driven engagement and align local efforts with broader organizational goals. Mo has also applied change management principles to support the adoption of digital tools, not through top-down mandates but by nurturing internal advocacy and securing the buy-in of key stakeholders. His work emphasizes scaling innovations that start at the local level, ensuring they can adapt to larger, global contexts while remaining rooted in the specific needs of the workforce and the organization. This approach reflects his focus on long-term, sustainable change, shaped by the social and commercial realities of each project.

    Mo holds bachelor degrees in Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering from NYU Abu Dhabi. He also holds a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from NYU, a Masters degree in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University (Schwarzman Scholar) in China and an MBA from the University of Oxford.

  • Lucas Urbano is a transformative leader in sustainability, with over 15 years dedicated to advancing regenerative agriculture, sustainable sourcing, and inclusive business models worldwide. As head of the Regenerative Agriculture Program at Unilever, Lucas promotes nature-positive solutions that address climate resilience, water stewardship, and biodiversity protection. His work has empowered communities and strengthened supply chains globally, from supporting rural livelihoods in Mexico and Morocco to pioneering inclusive growth initiatives in Brazil and Indonesia.

    An advocate for broad systemic change, Lucas contributes to sustainable investment boards and eco-conscious brands, directing resources toward innovations with lasting environmental and social benefits. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Wageningen University, he explores how corporate frameworks can better integrate sustainability, bringing a blend of academic insight and practical action to the field. Recognized for his commitment to impactful solutions, Lucas is a dynamic force in sustainable business, inspiring change across industries.

  • Milan is the founder and CEO of Unmarkets. Unmarkets partners with well-established, family businesses to build new joint ventures in emerging markets. The JVs are real-economy, industrial-scale businesses with inclusive value chains that improve rural incomes and drive climate & gender outcomes. They are built with a family-business (vs. VC) ethos i.e. positive cashflow & growth through reinvestment of profits. The JVs are funded from Unmarkets’ holding company, which blends concessional donor money (Shell Foundation as anchor) with commercial capital from family offices. JV partners have established operations & decades of experience, thus lowering risk and capital requirements, and increasing the likelihood of scale.

    Prior to Unmarkets, Milan was Managing Partner at TIL Ventures for 10 years. TIL Ventures’ work began in 2013 with The Intrapreneur Lab, the first large-scale intrapreneurial accelerator. From 2013 to 2016, 16 cohorts of The Intrapreneur Lab were run in the UK, US, Singapore and South Africa in collaboration with Said Business School, Cornel and INSEAD. The Lab was used by 20 Fortune 100 companies including Barclays, Disney, BMW and Mastercard – with several notable successes including Barclays Impact Investing and Disney’s Dyslexia programme. By 2016, TIL evolved into an ‘intrapreneur-first’ corporate venture-builder - focussed on profitability and impact. The company established and ran Pearson’s Tomorrow’s Markets Incubator, developed one-off impact ventures with Mars and Blackrock and worked with dozens of intrapreneurial teams at Barclays from 2013 to 2022. 

    Milan’s work has also been published in leading business journals such as Harvard Business Review and news media such as The Telegraph. He guest-lectures at several business schools and lives in London with his wife and two young sons.