Rafael Alcaraz is the Director of Advanced Analytics in the Business Insights group at The Hershey Company. Currently he leads the Global company's ROI accountability efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the marketing and sales spending budgets- Media and Trade. He also leads the Global Pricing and Retail Forecast Applications and serves as an internal analytical consultant across research, category management, marketing, finance, and sales divisions. In addition, he is an active member of the marketing and statistical community representing the company’s best interests in associations such as the Advertising Research Foundation, American Marketing Association, and Marketing Science Institute.

Dr. Alcaraz studied economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon in his native Mexico and in conjunction with Arizona State University earned his B.S. in 1995. He then pursued his graduate education at the University of Cincinnati where he obtained an M.S., in 1998 and a Ph.D., in 2000 with specialties in Econometrics, Industrial Organization, and International Trade. He has worked as a consultant and on the client side (in the USA and Mexico) for over sixteen years across multiple industries ranging from Academics, Government, Financial, Banking, Pharmaceuticals, Retail, and CPG.

He has a thorough understanding of consumer and business environment, capable of identifying/developing marketing practices and concepts, and ensuring competitive edge of analytical applications grounded in great business understanding. Over the years he has worked on providing strategic and tactical solutions to marketing problems such as integral marketing mix, ROI performance and understanding consumer’s choice and brand equity. One of his most recent successful achievements has been the development of an actionable analytical construct that enables the quantitative/qualitative evaluation of total media (traditional and emergent) in conjunction with trade investments.

Dr. Greg Allgood is Director, Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW), at Procter & Gamble and Senior Fellow in Sustainability. He leads P&G’s efforts to provide safe drinking water in the developing world using PUR Purifier of Water. He has a Ph.D. in Toxicology from North Carolina State University and a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, where he did research in the water area. Dr Allgood is chair of the advocacy and communications working group of WHO’s International Network to Promote Household Water Treatment and Safe.  He serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Health Working Group of the Clinton Global Initiative.  The CSDW program has won numerous awards including the Ron Brown US Presidential Award for Corporate Citizenship and the United Nations Association Global Leadership Award.  Dr. Allgood is a frequent lecturer on public/private partnerships, sustainability, and safe drinking water.

Charles Best leads DonorsChoose.org, a website where every public school teacher can be a change-maker, and any citizen can be a philanthropist.  At DonorsChoose.org, public school teachers post classroom project requests, and donors can pick the projects they want to support.  Every donor then gets photographs and thank-you letters from the classroom he or she chose to help. 
 
Charles founded DonorsChoose.org at Wings Academy, a public high school in the Bronx where he taught social studies for five years. He came to the idea during a conversation in the teachers’ lunch room, and his students volunteered to help start the organization.  To date, 101,000 public school teachers have used DonorsChoose.org to secure over $35 million of books, art supplies, field trips, technology, and other resources that their students need to learn. Through the web site, “citizen philanthropists” have helped more than 2 million students from low-income families.

Recognition of DonorsChoose.org includes the Nonprofit Innovation Award given by Stanford Business School and Amazon.com, a Global Technology Laureate from the TECH Museum of Innovation and Microsoft, the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award, selection by Ashoka, and election by the TechCrunch community as the website “most likely to make the world a better place.” National media such as Oprah Winfrey and The New York Times have profiled DonorsChoose as “the future of philanthropy.”

Charles graduated from St. Paul’s School with the scholar-athlete award in 1994, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1998.  He then spent a year studying wood sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Guadalajara, Mexico; helping to train Tzotzil Indians as teachers in Chiapas, Mexico and teaching Spanish literacy at a farm/orphanage in the Nicaraguan highlands.

I&I, a newly created internal analytics strategy consulting group, is inculcating science driven decision making into an organization that has achieved great success on the backbone of its sales force. Murli has been brought in to build the I&I team, translate its broadly defined mission into specific contributions by asking and answering questions in unchartered territory. I&I is an internal analytics consulting group roughly thirty member strong, that proactively and reactively identifies opportunities to drive strategy by data driven insight.

I&I plays a pivotal role in influencing the direction of Product & Pricing Strategy, Distribution Strategy, Marketing & Consumer Research, Customer Experience, and Claims.

Prior to joining Farmers in September 2006, Murli was Vice President of Financial Analysis & Strategic Planning at Answer Financial, Inc., the largest P&C insurance agency in the country. At Answer, Murli was charged with evaluating and driving value creation on the basis of deep understanding of economics for the marketing and product functions.

Before Answer, Mr. Buluswar served as a Product Manager at Progressive Insurance. In addition, his work experience includes roles with The Monitor Group, a global strategy consulting firm as well as Capital One, a leading consumer financial services organization.

Mr. Buluswar holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Bluffton University, a MS in Economics & Statistics from Auburn University, and a MBA from The University of Chicago.

Richard Canny was appointed CEO of Think in October, 2008. He joined Think as President and COO in August 2008.

His deep automotive experience includes 25 years with Ford Motor Company, including key leadership roles as President – Ford South America and Director of Global Strategic Planning.

An Australian, Canny began his career with Ford in 1983 in the manufacturing operations of Ford Australia in Melbourne. After rising through the ranks of Ford Australia, he held marketing assignments in Ford’s World Headquarters in Michigan, USA and was then promoted to Managing Director of Ford Malaysia, a joint venture with Asian trading company Sime Darby.

Canny was President of Ford Argentina during the regional economic crisis of 2001 and 2002 and went on to become President of Ford South America, a multi-billion dollar revenue business with more than 10,000 employees, and 7 manufacturing facilities in three countries.

Prior to leaving Ford, Canny was in charge of Strategic Planning globally for Ford. He brings hands-on automotive experience from all the world’s major automotive regions to Think and has managed each functional area during his career.

Richard Canny was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1961 and holds a Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Bob Foulon is an experienced marketing insight professional who has led multi-national and integrated insight teams in driving successful business results, including Windows 95, the most successful product launch in Microsoft’s history. Bob has category GTM (go-to-market) marketing experience in consumer goods, PC software technology and Internet online services and has worked in both client and agency marketing leadership roles. After a 17 year career at Microsoft as Director of Research and Insights, Bob recently founded iCalibre LLC, a global consultancy designed to building action oriented listening systems for commercial, public and non profit organizations. Bob is a graduate of University of Oregon, Netherlands Institute of Business and the University of Washington.  Learn more about bob and iCalibre at www.icalibre.net

Paul Freedman began his film career as an editorial assistant for television commercials. As an editor and director, his list of commercial credits spans a decade. Paul has also cut entertaining title sequences for feature films such as “Space Jam” and “Father’s Day.”

His first documentary gig came as an editor on a film about minor league baseball. In 1994, Paul teamed with fellow director Greg DeHart on the historical military doc, “The Tears of Peleliu”. He also directed and edited “Human Products”, a tongue-in-cheek film, about a plumber and an electrician who make a brief and unlikely splash on the London art scene. Paul edited the disturbing doc, “Pol Pot’s Secret Prison,” a History Channel piece about the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison. That piece won the International Documentary Association’s (IDA) top honor for “Best Documentary in a Continuing Series” and was also nominatedfor two Emmys. Paul also cut Randy Vasquez’s doc, “Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story,” the riveting account of a Salvadoran torture survivor. “Testimony” won Best Picture at the 2002 New York Latino Film Festival.

In 2003, Paul wrote, directed, and edited the narrative short, “Such’s Life” -- an unnerving day-in-the-life of a suicidal man who finds himself at the center of a murder investigation. “Such’s Life” won a Silver Award at Houston’s WorldFest.

Bill Brummel Productions sent Paul to Rwanda in 2004 to produce, direct and edit a History Channel documentary about the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. “Rwanda—Do Scars Ever Fade?” would go on to earn a Peabody Award, two Emmy nominations, and the IDA’s prestigious ABC News/VideoSource Award for best use of news and archival footage.

In 2005, Paul was granted exclusive access behind the lines in the Darfur region of Sudan. The resultant film, “Sand and Sorrow”, which he produced and directed, explores the international community’s legacy of failure in responding to genocides past and present, with Darfur as the backdrop. HBO first broadcast the film in December ‘08. The film, featuring Barack Obama, Samantha Power, Nicholas Kristof, and John Prendergast, is narrated by George Clooney.

Currently, Paul is busy creating mini-films profiling America’s Army Real Heroes, men and women who have received medals for valor in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. His next documentary effort is “Rape of the Congo”, a film about the Forgotten War in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Paul holds a B.F.A. from San Francisco State University. He is married, and the devoted father of two.

Patricia Funderburk Ware is President and Chief Executive Officer of Shiloh International Productions, Inc. a company providing marketing and technical assistance services in the areas of media/entertainment, health advocacy, and community and entrepreneurial development. Her diverse career background and personal experiences equip her with a wealth of experiences and contacts internationally in each of the targeted areas.

Mrs. Ware served as a political appointee in two U.S. Presidential Administrations; President and CEO of an international cultural foundation; a stage and film actress; and an arts, health and community economic development administrator. She has directed local, state and federal government agencies; and founded and directed local, state and national non-profit organizations selected as national models.

Mrs. Ware testifies before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures on critical policy issues; facilitates training, provides consultation and appears as a speaker and has partnerships with communities, agencies and individuals throughout the U.S. and internationally,
She has been appointed as a director or in an advisory capacity with government agencies, community-based and professional organizations; and has been interviewed on a number of media outlets. She publishes articles; and is featured in national and international educational videos.

She is the recipient of numerous professional and service awards including The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest community service award; the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Honoree Award, and the Twentieth Year Outstanding Alumni Award from her undergraduate alma mater, Hampton University.
Mrs. Ware and her husband Dr. Bradley Ware, a Family Practice physician, regularly speak as a team about HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy prevention and family related issues. Their daughter, Eboni, is an  executives in the music recording industry.
Mrs. Ware specializes in connecting her enormous array of contacts to people, agencies and corporations with products and/or services needed by those in her network.

Dr. Mary Galinski is a Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Global Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where she has been establishing an International Center for Malaria Research, Education and Development (ICMRED). Her career started at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY, prior to earning her PhD in 1987 in Molecular Parasitology from New York University’s Sackler Institute for Biomedical Sciences, and joining the faculty of NYU Medical Center.  Since 1998, Dr. Galinski has been directing interdisciplinary malaria research programs at the Emory Vaccine Center, developing international research collaborations, and supporting entrepreneurial teaching efforts led by Emory’s Economic Development Initiative. In 1992 Dr. Galinski founded the Malaria Foundation International (MFI, www.malaria.org), a nonprofit organization with the mission to facilitate the development and implementation of solutions to the health, economic and social problems caused by malaria; a disease that continues to kill about a million people each year. Throughout her career, Dr. Galinski has been dedicated to engaging students, teachers, researchers, business and political leaders in international partnerships to support expanded research, interdisciplinary collaborations, education, training and business endeavors towards solving global health problems. Recently, her advocacy focus has been on building a dynamic, global SLAM network (Student Leaders Against Malaria), and helping to launch Millions Against Malaria – Global Flight 2010 and beyond, all with the overriding goal to End Malaria. The End Malaria - Blue Ribbon, launched by the MFI in 2006, has become a tool to garner support for this cause.

Patty Goldman is Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at the March of Dimes. Her responsibilities include all areas of marketing the organization and building and marketing e-business projects. She focuses on exploring how technology can better enable the Foundation to streamline processes, more effectively deliver health messages, and market to a broader audience. She has spent the last 6 years enabling new ways to both fundraise online and raise awareness of the organization through traditional and online media. Prior to her tenure at the March of Dimes, Goldman was Co-Founder and President of e4media, a Web development company that specialized in content management and e-commerce deployment. She was also the head of production for FoxNews.com, where she helped to create and manage a site that provided up-to-the-minute news to millions of customers. She also has worked in the entertainment business, for both Disney and Warner Brothers. She holds a BA with Honors in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, and a master's degree in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California.

Scott D. Hillstrom, J.D., is founder and Chairman of The HealthStore Foundation. Mr. Hillstrom is a U.S. based entrepreneur and business/legal advisor. Prior to co-founding The HealthStore Foundation® in 1997, Mr. Hillstrom served for 10 years as the volunteer President of Steiger International, a youth evangelism ministry spun out of Youth With a Mission. After practicing business law as Managing Partner of Hillstrom & Bale, Ltd., in the 1980s, he became co-founder and Managing Director of Rehab One, Inc., a multi-state network of hospital-based medical clinics in the 1990s. Since then, he has advised and invested in computer networking, software, entertainment, intellectual property and other businesses in the U.S., Europe and New Zealand. Presently, Mr. Hillstrom is Managing Director of Premier Mounts, based in Anaheim, California, and is also President of ZQX Advisors, an intellectual property advisory firm.

Sylvester’s directive as the head of SIFE International is to lead SIFE’s activities in over 40 countries especially focusing on governance, organizational capacity, program management, financial sustainability and country management resulting in measurable positive impact and growth in program operations. He also shares the responsibility of establishing and driving the overall organization’s strategic plan as a key member of the Executive Management Team and the Strategic Planning Committee. 

Ted London is a leading expert on the intersection of business strategy and poverty alleviation.  Over the past two decades, his work has taken him to over 70 countries across the globe. In addition to research activities, Professor London has also served as a management advisor and educator for a wide variety of organizations exploring the role and impact of market-based strategies on the base of the pyramid.

Professor London is a Senior Research Fellow at the William Davidson Institute (WDI) and on the faculty at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. At WDI, he directs the Base of the Pyramid Initiative, a program that champions innovative ways of thinking about more inclusive forms of capitalism. Professor London’s research centers on designing enterprise strategies and poverty alleviation approaches for low-income markets, assessing poverty reduction outcomes of business ventures, and developing capabilities for cross-sector collaborations. He has published numerous articles, reports, book chapters, and teaching cases and notes that focus on creating new knowledge with important actionable implications.

Prior to coming to the University of Michigan, Professor London was on the faculty at the
University of North Carolina, where he also received his Ph.D. Before that, he held senior
management positions in the private, non-profit, and development sectors in three continents. In addition to his Ph.D., he has an MBA from the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University.

Trevor has advised a number of the world's leading philanthropists, including Bono, Bill Gates, President Bill Clinton, and Sir Richard Branson, and has been involved in the creation and implementation of many of the world's most respected philanthropic initiatives. He has extensive experience in addressing global and domestic problems including disease, poverty, education, child welfare, refugees, emergency relief and the environment. Trevor served on the national steering committee for Cleantech and Green Business Leaders for Obama, a constituency group of President-Elect Obama's campaign.

Trevor helped create Bono's Debt, AIDS, Trade Africa (DATA) organization, and continues to serve on its policy board. He served as Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GBC), which was created with investments from Bill Gates, George Soros and Ted Turner and represented more than 220 multinational companies with philanthropic interests related to the AIDS pandemic.

Prior to his work with the GBC, Trevor served as the Director of Public Affairs and Director of Special Projects for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest foundation. Trevor also served in the White House during the Clinton administration. Trevor is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the advisory boards of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Genocide Intervention Network and Global Action for Children.

He is also a senior advisor to global communications company APCO Worldwide, was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and served as a Visiting Practitioner at the Georgetown University Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership.

Lisa Nitze is Vice President for the Global Engagement Team at Ashoka, facilitating connections between social and business entrepreneurs around the world. She spent more than a dozen years as a consultant, often developing public-private partnerships. As Executive Director of the New Jersey Governor’s Commission on the Preservation and Use of Ellis Island, she developed a restoration and reuse plan for the island. Ms. Nitze also created Prosperity New Jersey, a statewide economic development initiative. As Executive Director of the World Trade Center Baltimore and World Trade Center Institute in Maryland, she attracted foreign investments to the state. She worked as a teacher in Lebanon during its civil war and wrote for a business magazine while living in Thailand. Ms. Nitze is on the board of directors of the American University of Cairo. She has received a specialist grant from the U.S. State Department to speak on public/private partnerships throughout India and a grant from Inter-American Development Bank to conduct a workshop for its Latin American managers on partnering with ‘socially inclusive’ businesses. She is a member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards Selection Committee and speaks regularly on why supporting social entrepreneurship is good business for business. She holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Harvard University.

Chris Norwood is the founder and Executive Director of Health People: Community Preventive Health Institute, New York’s largest peer educator-based AIDS and chronic disease prevention and education community organization.

Founded in 1990 specifically to train women affected by AIDS to become leaders and educators to fight the epidemic, Health People expanded to train men as AIDS peer educators and to use its powerful model of peer leadership and intensive community education to fight asthma, diabetes and smoking.  Evaluation shows the impact of its approach---from increased condom use among women who take a six-session health and AIDS prevention course to an average 30% reduction in blood sugar for people with diabetes trained as peer educators.

Health People’s unique mentoring program, started at the desperate request of mothers with AIDS, trains older teens with sick, missing---or deceased---parents to be mentors for younger children in the same difficult situation.

Ms. Norwood, a graduate of Wellesley College,  is the recipient of many awards including recognition for ‘Outstanding Contributions” to peer education from the New York State Department of Health.

In 2005, she was selected for a groundbreaking Nobel Peace Prize nomination, which honored 1,000 women from around the world for their local work.

Chris  Norwood is the author of multiple books and studies, including Advice for Life (Pantheon, 1987), the first American book on women and AIDS.  In 1989, at the V International AIDS Conference, she presented the first projections of American AIDS orphans and has steadily fought for these children who still, in the United States, receive no federal funding or targeted support services.

The Mission

"The mission of Health People: Community Preventive Institute, a peer-based organization, is to empower and train residents of communities overwhelmed by chronic disease to become leaders and educators in effectively preventing ill health, hospitalization and unnecessary death."

Health People is located at 552 Southern Boulevard in the South Bronx.  For more information please see www.healtpeople.org or call 718-585-8585 ex. 237.

Creative business thinker, branding leader and innovative strategist. Shari identifies new markets, tells powerful brand stories and takes ideas from concept to visualization and implementation. She founded PLANET SUR to create breakthrough experiences, brands, products and platforms for the Hispanic and Latin American markets that engage communities and ignite people, companies and causes to drive social and economic change. In addition to a vast network of key partners across Latin America, Europe and the US, her core team includes experts in research, data analytics, CRM, digital and database/direct marketing, media, integrated brand communications, advertising and design that harness the power of web 2.0, digital and social media to create or leverage platforms that help companies gain deep consumer insights, develop breakthrough ideas and activate programs that drive brand and business growth through content that engages, culture that connects and causes that inspire. Clients/programs include brand activation for various LVMH brands targeting upscale Hispanics and ideation and new product development for the Hispanic and multicultural markets for Pepsi and Kodak.

Previously, Shari was partner and MD of RSSR, where she led this premier consulting and executive search firm in the design, brand, innovation and digital/interactive space. Responsible for general management, operations, marketing and business development, she served as lead client officer on large scale organization development and talent management consulting, and executive search engagements for HP, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft and Microsoft and led 25+ brand design and product innovation related engagements for Procter & Gamble in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Prior to RSSR, she launched Britain’s most innovative branding agency, Wolff Olins (an Omnicom company), in the US and opened its New York office. As a member of the management team, Shari led new business, oversaw marketing, PR and consumer research, developed brand strategies and communications programs, and led account teams for E*TRADE, MasterCard, the Museum of Modern Art, Shutterfly.com and US Steel. Within the first year, she and her colleagues were quoted regularly in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, AdAge, AdWeek and BrandWeek. Before Wolff Olins, she was a VP at Siegel + Gale (an Omnicom branding and communications agency), where her clients included Citibank, J.P. Morgan, Individual Investor Group, Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems.  In addition to the Advisory Board of the CMO Council’s Pause to Support a Cause initiative, Shari serves on the board of Soaringwords, the global charity that empowers communities to embrace ill children and families, and inspire them to “Never give up!”. An EFFIE awards judge for years, she has served on the Board of the Financial Communications Society and has been co-chair of their Portfolio Awards, producing this 500+ person show honoring excellence in financial advertising.

Starting with an idea and a captive software engineer, Myrlia developed what is now the world’s top celebrity charity news site. Her creative, artistic and fearless approach to inspiring philanthropy have attracted a dedicated and talented team, and helped her to build relationships with hundreds of non-profits and members of the celebrity community. She now hopes to apply her tireless drive to helping Pause to Support a Cause grow and succeed.

Myrlia has previously served as Secretary and CFO of two small software engineering businesses, and spent 3 years on the board of an educational 501(c)3 organization in California.

An avid volunteer, her other charitable activities have included giving time to help illiterate women through local literacy programs, and teaching dance classes in exchange for donations to children’s homes.

Co-founder, President, Salinger Group, Inc., Gloucester, MA - consultant to developing nation companies desiring to do business with American companies. Co-founder, President, The Greeley Foundation, Concord, MA -  with four major programs:- 1. Peaceful Resolution of Conflict, 2. Better Relations with Russia, 3. Women - The Unheard Voices, 4. Global Environmental Decision Making.
Always I am a Mother, grandmother and community organizer.
Formerly I was a teacher, elected official, district director for a Congressional office, founder of CCHRC (a human rights organization).
Education - BS in Education with honors - Wheelock College, Boston, MA

Steven Schiller has recently joined The Hershey Company. Key areas of global focus for his new role include advertising/media, promotions, packaging and brand identity, ethnic marketing, internet and emerging technologies and licensing/partnerships.

Prior to joining Hershey, Schiller was SVP, Chief Marketing Officer for The Steak 'n Shake Company – a 500 store restaurant chain based in the mid-west. Before his time in retail Schiller spent many years with Colgate-Palmolive and then The Coca-Cola Company with responsibility for such iconic brands as Coca-Cola classic, Diet Coke, Palmolive Soap and Dynamo detergent. He has leadership experience on four continents having had postings in South Africa, Austria, Singapore, Thailand, and several locations in the US.

Schiller holds a B.A. in Psychology from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. from New York University Stern School of Business. He is married and has two daughters and a son who are triplets.