pioneers

Justin DeKoszmovszky manages SC Johnson's Base of the Pyramid (BoP) initiatives in Africa and supports various company initiatives on social progress, public health and environmental stewardship. While a graduate student at Cornell University in 2005, DeKoszmovszky was part of the original BoP Protocol pilot team that tested the protocol's applicability as a business development and innovation catalyst.

Duncan is the Senior Research Associate of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Management at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. His research focuses on the generation and implementation of strategies for multinational corporations (MNC’s) to sustainably serve very low income communities.

Robert S. Katz is a Research Analyst with the Development Through Enterprise project at the World Resources Institute. Rob researches, conducts training, and writes about "base of the pyramid" business approaches to poverty.

He is the co-founder and Managing Editor of www.NextBillion.net, a web site and blog about enterprise and development. As a principal analyst of household survey data for The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid (March, 2007), he studied BOP market structure and spending patterns extensively.

Patrick Donohue is the founder of BRINQ and a field director for the BoP Protocol, part of a nascent group of business professionals working at the grassroots intersection of innovation, poverty, and business. Patrick's efforts to innovate business models that “partner with poverty” has taken him deep into low-income communities in India, Kenya, and Brazil, and he has worked side-by-side with BoP communities and companies to co-create new businesses.

Erik Simanis is Senior Research Associate at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at CornellUniversity’s Johnson School of Management and a Ph.D. Candidate in Management. Erik co-founded with Professor Stuart Hart the Base of the Pyramid Learning Laboratory in 2000, a consortium of multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and multilaterals that explore market-based approaches to serving the four billion people at the base of the income pyramid.

Ted London is a leading expert on the role and impact of market-based strategies on poverty alleviation. He 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 (BoP) Initiative, a program that champions innovative ways of thinking about more inclusive forms of capitalism.

Allen Hammond is Vice President for Innovation and Special Projects at the World Resources Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan policy research institute located in Washington, D.C. He is also Director of the Development Through Enterprise project and leads Base of the Pyramid initiatives institute-wide. He consults on private sector strategies for BOP markets with foundations, development agencies, and a number of major corporations. He is principal author of The Next 4 Billion, a landmark study of BOP markets.

Stuart Hart is one of the world's top authorities on the implications of sustainable development and environmentalism for business strategy. He is the S.C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and the founder of Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell and the Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab.

C.K. Prahalad is a world-renowned speaker, educator and consultant whose insights on business strategy are sought by leading companies around the globe. He is the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and is a consultant and board member for numerous leading global corporations. Professor Prahalad’s research is focused on corporate strategy and the value added by top management of large, diversified multinational corporations.