The Team

Pooja Warier

Pooja is the co-founder & Director of UnLtd India & Journeys for Change. UnLtd India finds, funds and support supports start up social entrepreneurs in India. Journeys for Change inspires leaders and social entrepreneurs to create more impact through learning from some of world’s most exciting changemakers. Previously, Pooja has worked with a range of organisations and initiatives like the World Social Forum & M.V. Foundation. She has a MA in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.
 

Richard Alderson

Richard is the co-founder and Director of Journeys for Change. He is also the co-founder & Director of UnLtd India and has been working with social entrepreneurs for the last six years. Previously, he worked as a management & technology consultant with IBM, where he was based in London, Amsterdam and Dubai. He has also been a teacher and journalist in Japan, an environmental researcher in Tanzania and a monk's assistant in India. Richard holds a degree in Management Science from Warwick University and has completed further studies in social entrepreneurship at INSEAD.
 

Alex Baine

Alex is the India Coordinator for Journeys for Change. In this role, he organises the project visits, logistics, and overall rhythm of the journeys. Alex also works with UnLtd India, where he is part of the team running the Hub, a collaborative workspace which supports start up social entrepreneurs in Mumbai. Previously, Alex worked in research, fundraising, communications and events management at a number of NGOs in the UK. In 2006 he worked at a tribal rights organisation in Tamil Nadu, India, where he provided support in the areas of fundraising, communications and documentation. Alex holds a degree in International Studies from Leeds University.
 

Ben Losman

Ben is Journey for Change’s communications specialist. He is exploring marketing and media strategies that plant stories of changemaking in every segment of society. In 2008, Ben joined Ashoka’s Youth Venture India team to lead a partnership with Seeds of Peace, an organization dedicated to empowering young people from South Asia and the Middle East to overcome conflict through dialogue and coexistence. He began with Youth Venture as a global marketing intern in Washington, DC in 2007. Originally from the Washington, DC metropolitan area, Ben graduated from the University of Maryland with degrees in marketing, international business, and Spanish.
 

Rohini Jog

Rohini works on marketing with Journey for Change. Previously, Rohini has worked with several social ventures like Maya Organic and not-for-profits like Inter Aide and iVolunteer. Rohini has an M.B.A. with a marketing specialisation and a strong business development background due to her corporate experience as head of Business Development with Kidstuff, the promotional arm of Mudra Communications.

Our Advisory Group

Biplab Das

Biplab is a Director of Credit Suisse at its head office in Zurich, where he focuses on development and worldwide distribution of sustainable investment products – MIVs, BOP Investments, etc. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1982, he has worked at major financial centres – including New York, Zurich, Basel, Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Channel Islands – in a multitude of strategic functions in commercial and investment banking, besides private banking. Biplab is also a member of the Advisory Board of BJS, a microfinance institution based in the Indian state of West Bengal. Biplab holds a Bachelor’s, as well as a Master’s Degree (MBA) from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business (NYU/Stern), and a Bachelor’s in Natural Sciences (B.Sc.) from the University of Calcutta’s St. Paul’s College.
 

Julie Dent, CBE

Julie Dent was Chief Executive of South West London Strategic Health Authority until 1 July 2006. She was awarded the CBE in 2005, after the London bombings, for services to the NHS. She left the NHS in March 2007 after 22 years to take up a new portfolio career. Her roles now include: being Chair of the London Probation Board; acting as a consultant to the Social Enterprise Coalition and the NHS Institute of Improvement and Innovation / Academy of Medical Royal Colleges; a coach to Chief Executives in the NHS and the Third Sector; the Chair of Secure Healthcare, a social enterprise providing health care for offenders, and The Hub World, a workspace for young social entrepreneurs which is worldwide; a trustee of Elemental, which promotes mental wellbeing; and a Visiting Professor and a member of the Advisory Board for the Management School at Royal Holloway, University of London.
 

Prof. Bruce Kogut

Bruce Kogut is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Professor of Leadership and Ethics and director of the Sanford C. Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He received his PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management and holds an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm School of Economics. Previously, he was on the faculties of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and INSEAD. Professor Kogut serves on the board of 3i Infotech (Mumbai) and has served on the boards of several nonprofit and research institutes in Europe and Russia. He also was the founder of the social entrepreneurship program at INSEAD and will codirect the Ariane de Rothschild Fellows Program, which aims to develop a network of social entrepreneurs with an interest in fostering a culture of mutual respect and dialogue among Jewish and Muslim communities.
 

Michael Norton, OBE

Michael Norton has changed the face of social innovation in Great Britain. Over the past thirty years, Michael has created several highly successful socially progressive programmes, which affect thousands of lives all over Great Britain. He founded the Directory of Social Change (DSC), the UK’s leading agency providing information, training and support to voluntary organizations, which he ran from 1975 to 1994. In 1998, he was awarded the OBE for services to the voluntary sector.
 

John Rafferty

John has been the Chief Executive of various Scottish and UK-wide charities for the last 25 years. In the last ten, he has led organisations which distribute the funds from the National Lottery to support charitable activity. He has chaired or served on the Board of a wide range of charities and trusts and statutory bodies.