Consultants

Vipul Arora

Vipul Arora is founder of Solaron Sustainability Services. Solaron offers Sustainability audits and assessments across 12+ Emerging markets including India, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Africa, UAE and Eastern Europe with the help of a 75+ analysts based on the ground in these EM’s. “Best in Context”™ is a proprietary framework developed by Solaron, to analyze and identify companies that would be future leaders in their respective markets.

An Engineer and MBA by training, Vipul has worked in several Industries ranging from IT & IT Enabled Services, Food, Agriculture, Banking, Financial Services, Non-Profit and Logistics in India, US, UK, Mexico and Brazil over the last 12 years. He has strived to incorporate Sustainability in different contexts since 1997. This was at a time when Sustainability was less known, especially in the Indian and other Emerging markets.

From 2004 through 2006, as an Emerging Market Fellow of the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University he conceptualized ‘e-Mandi’, an agricultural spot exchange for Indian farmers to help double their incomes and reduce wastage of food in Indian supply chains. He helped set up this exchange later by working with MCX (www.mcxindia.com). This exchange is now live in the form of National Spot Exchange Limited in India and serves customers in one third of Indian states.

He later helped Reuters Market Light (RML) as Vice President, Strategy in the roll out. RML shares market prices with farmers on their Cell phones in local language. A Social Entrepreneur at heart, he left Reuters in 2007, to set up Solaron.

Fernando Casado Cañeque

Fernando Casado Cañeque is a Ph.D. economist and journalist specialized in projects related to economic and sustainable development. He has worked as strategic advisor to a variety of international organizations (such as UNDP, UNIDO, UNDSD, UNEP, OECD, IADB and the World Bank) and has been the general coordinator of UNDP’s Millennium Development Goals initiative in Spain. He has also worked as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New York.

He is author of several books on CSR and development (such as CSR at the mirror; Public-Private partnerships for Development; Public-Private Concertation for Development in Latin America; or The role of CSR of Spanish Companies in Latin America, among others), as well as of a range of articles on development economics, globalization and sustainability. In addition, he is also director of several social documentaries on development issues and social injustices.

Fernando holds a Ph.D. from the Central University of Barcelona in Economics and Social Sciences; a Master´s from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University specialized in Economic Development and Journalism; and a postgraduate degree in Environmental Management from the University of Barcelona’s Institute for Public Economics.

Currently, he is the founder and Director of the Centro de Alianzas para el Desarrollo (www.globalcad.org) and the Academic Director of the Laboratory for the Base of the Pyramid in Spain. He is a professionally accredited partnership broker (Partnership Brokers Accreditation Scheme) and a certified Master Trainer of the IFC-SME Toolkit of the World Bank.

Yasuhiro Karakawa

With a strong focus on sustainable brand creation to address social, economic, and environmental issues in the world, Yasuhiro connects Japanese organizations with great purpose, technology, and people to ESW to develop and implement sustainable enterprise strategies between Japan and emerging markets such as India.

In his 12-year professional career, he has led various projects to create and strengthen the corporate and product brands by holistic and practical solutions through field surveys, strategy, communication & promotion, and internal alignment. His client portfolio includes international brands such as Starbucks, Heineken, Tata Chemical, and Abbott, as well as small-sized and medium-sized clients, and start-up technology companies, B2B companies, and non-profit organizations.

Yasuhiro started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Tokyo as a consultant which was followed by his focus on branding and marketing at Interbrand Japan, a brand consultancy, and EdgeBridge, his own company. For the last five and half years, he worked as a strategic planning director at Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon Tokyo, an international advertising agency, including one year as a marketing manager at his client.

He received a BA degree in Sociology from Keio University in Japan, a diploma from the International Business Program at University of California Berkeley, and is completing his MBA degree at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management.

Andrea Shpak

Andréa Shpak is the President of Global Social Impact (GSI), an indendent, non-profit organization focused on the promotion of social and sustainable enterprise in Brazil. Previously, she spearheaded an initiative at the William Davidson Institute (WDI) to expand its activites into Brazil. In this role, Andrea lead the WDI Social Enterprise activities in the country and developed relationships with corporate, governmental and NGO organizations to support WDI’s growth in the region.

Prior to joining WDI Andrea worked for more than 10 years in leading global organizations doing business in Brazil (Credit Lyonnais, IBM and Microsoft) as an IT professional and later as a manager responsible for building relationships across a diverse set of industries. Andrea also volunteers her time with the American Red Cross in Michigan and was a recipient of their volunteer of the year award in 2006 for her key role in rolling out a new ERP system and her exhaustive work in generating local resources to support Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

Andrea holds a BS degree in Information Technology from Mackenzie University in São Paulo, Brazil, along with a BA degree in Design and Communication from the Panamerican de Artes, also in São Paulo. She also received her MBA degree from Eastern Michigan University in Ann Arbor, MI.

Susan Svoboda

Susan Svoboda is President of the Realia Group, which she founded in 1995. She develops and delivers executive education and strategic change programs focused on integrating sustainability into business strategy. Susan is the co-developer (with Stuart Hart) of the Sustainable Value Lab, a business and environment strategy simulation exercise, which has been run for approximately 5,000 people on 4 continents.

She has led lab sessions and workshops for managers and executives from companies such as General Electric, Philips, Office Depot, Agilent Technologies, & Daimler Chrysler Services and at universities such as Stockholm School of Economics, University of Michigan, Cornell, Bainbridge Graduate Institute and for NGOs such as USBCSD, WWF and SustainAbility.

She was also an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, in the Science, Technology and International Affairs department for nine years. Susan served as the Managing Director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program at the University of Michigan (now the Erb Institute) from 1992-1995.

She holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BBA from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Xiaojian You

Xiaojian You is Senior Manager at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise of the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. He is managing international activities and has played a key role in Green Leap activities in China. He facilitated the establishment of a new Tsinghua Center for Green Leap Research and built a private-public partnership for Green Leap activities in China.

Xiaojian is Co-founder and Chairman of China Social Innovation Foundation which promotes new, enterprise-based strategies to address the daunting social and environmental challenges facing China and the world. He also co-founded a US-China university alliance – China Entrepreneur Network aligning its mission to serve a sustainable future through social innovation. He also launched the China Entrepreneur Forum and was a co-organizer of its inaugural event held at the University of Michigan in 2009 and 2010.

Xiaojian is an Advisory Member of the US-China Economic Development Council of the government of Wayne County, Michigan, the 13thlargest county in the US. He helps promote international collaboration between Michigan and China to commercialize innovative technologies and facilitate global investment.

Previously, Xiaojian led several complex industrial projects and was a Certified Quality Engineer with expertise in operations and manufacturing. He also has extensive work experience in China in industries from transportation to financial consulting. He published several articles in sustainable agriculture and economic development, and participated in academic research related to these fields. He graduated with bachelor’s degree from Beijing Institute of Technology, and has master degrees in both Manufacturing Engineering and Agricultural Economics. He also received the MBA degree from the University of Michigan.