Practitioners in Attendance
Appearing in alphabetical order.
Kate Antonacci (ND ‘07)
Project Manager for Panera Cares™ Community Cafes at Panera Bread
Antonacci spearheaded the Panera Bread Foundation’s innovative charitable venture, Panera Cares™, a nonprofit, donation-based community café concept that offers a dignified dining experience while raising the level of awareness of food insecurity in America.
Jimmy Bettcher (ND ‘07)
Strategic Analyst and Project Manager at Cummins-Corporate Responsibility
As a strategic analyst and project manager in Corporate Responsibility at Cummins Inc., Bettcher is responsible for managing the company’s social impact and international development initiatives in emerging markets, especially focused on Africa.
Vanessa Carter
Director of Campus Microfinance Alliance
Carter is the director of Campus Microfinance Alliance, which has the mission to empower emerging social entrepreneurs to build strong businesses and communities through innovative microfinance. CMA helps university students start and grow campus microfinance institutions.
Alex Dang
Business Development Officer, Opportunity Fund and Program Adviser for Global Brigades
Dang leads the Empower Partners initiative to incubate social enterprises for Global Brigades, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes student volunteers and professionals to empower communities in developing countries with programs that improve quality of life while respecting local culture.
Dennis (DJ) DiDonna (ND ‘05)
COO of Entrepreneurial Finance Lab - Boston
DiDonna is COO and a co-founding partner of EFL, an organization that works in partnership with the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab Research Initiative at Harvard’s Center for International Development and is a leader in applying psychometric principles to screening entrepreneurs.
Trey Dunham
Director of Marketing at SustainU Clothing and Board Member of Nuru International
Dunham is the marketing director for SustainU Clothing, a Morgantown, W.Va.-based apparel-manufacturing company predicated on social, economic and environmental sustainability; as well as a board member for Nuru International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty.
Cristina Fernandez (BBA ‘08)
Co-Founder of HANDS Organization
A current HANDS board member, Fernandez created the nonprofit along with other former Notre Dame students in order to connect current students with volunteer opportunities in underdeveloped countries.
Jay L. Finch
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Socstock
Previously an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Finch founded Socstock (short for Social Stock) as a Web-based platform that enables small businesses to receive funding through their communities and loyal customer base.
Patrick Fisher (ND ‘01)
CEO and Founder of Creation Investments
Experienced in impact investing and microfinance, Fisher founded Creation Investments as an alternative investment management company committed to fighting global poverty through direct, for-profit investments in businesses that promote economic development.
George “Bucky” Glickley
Co-Founder of The New Development Solutions Group
Glickley, an entrepreneur in the area of rural small business development, co-founded The New Development Solutions Group, which includes Community Enterprise Solutions, Social Entrepreneur Corps and NDS Consulting. The mission of these ventures is to design and implement innovative responses to long-standing development challenges.
Brady Gott (ND MBA ’14)
Managing Director at CleanSlate Chicago
A social entrepreneur with experience in the private sector as a small business owner, Gott currently oversees business operations for CleanSlate Chicago, a nonprofit that provides recycling and other services to improve Chicago neighborhoods.
Thomas Gray
Co-Founder of RecycleForce
Gray is co-founder of RecycleForce, a social enterprise offering comprehensive and innovative recycling services while providing life-changing workforce training to formerly incarcerated individuals.
Amy Jobst
Assistant Director of Reading for Life
Chicago-native Amy Jobst is a volunteer with Reading for Life, a narrative-based intervention that uses novels to facilitate virtuous character development in first-time offending juveniles.
William P. Jordan (ND ’85)
Co-Founder of Let’s Share the Sun Foundation
Jordan, the founder of Jordan Energy & Food Enterprises, co-founded Let’s Share the Sun Foundation to facilitate the use of solar energy in order to enhance the quality of life of communities with limited electricity throughout the world.
Gregg Keesling
President of RecycleForce
A founder of alternative-staffing company Keys to Work, Keesling currently leads RecycleForce, a social enterprise offering comprehensive and innovative recycling services while providing life-changing workforce training to formerly incarcerated individuals.
Stephen Keppel (BBA ‘03)
Executive Director of Economic Growth for Haiti
Keppel is the co-founder of EGI, a center for entrepreneurship and business development in Haiti that provides the managers and entrepreneurs needed to develop sustainable economic growth and meaningful employment. As executive director, he currently oversees organizational development and activities.
Deb Kierstead
CFO and Director of Administration of The NetWork for Better Futures
The NetWork for Better Futures reduces the economic and social costs of high-risk adults, primarily African American men, with histories of imprisonment, substance abuse, mental illness, chronic unemployment and homelessness.
Kyama Kitavi
Senior Loan Officer of Accion Chicago
Kenya-native Kitavi joined Accion Chicago in January 2010 and was promoted to senior loan officer in 2011. Accion Chicago is an alternative lending organization that has made more than 1,100 loans and disbursed $9 million into the local economy, supporting small business owners and stabilizing neighborhoods.
Rick Klau
Chairman and President of Hajoca Corporation
Klau joined Hajoca as president in 1996 and became chairman in 2009. Privately owned Hajoca Corp. is a leading North American distributor of plumbing, heating and industrial supplies that currently has 550 locations in the U.S. and Canada.
Ted Levinson
Lending Director of RSF Social Finance
Levinson manages RSF Social Finance’s $75 million Social Investment Fund, which provides senior, secured financing to nonprofits and businesses with a social mission that focus on sustainable food and agriculture, ecological stewardship and education and the arts.
Brendan Maher (ND ’94)
Founder of FISH Inc.
A pro bono consultant to New Jersey-based socially driven organizations, Maher founded the Fellow Irish Social Hub (FISH) as an independent, nonprofit organization that invites Notre Dame students, faculty, alumni and local community members to help develop socially innovative ideas into for-purpose enterprises.
Greg McGrath
Executive Director of EOS International
In 2008, McGrath co-founded EOS International to create access to low-cost technologies that generate income and improve health and living conditions in the developing world. Establishing operations in Nicaragua, EOS has installed 450-plus technology projects that have impacted more than 35,000 lives. EOS won the Notre Dame Business Plan Competition for social ventures in 2011.
Dan Morrison (ND ‘95)
CEO and Founder of Citizen Effect
Morrison, who has experience in marketing and brand strategy, founded Citizen Effect as a movement of private individuals dedicated to community building through the sponsorship of high-impact projects. To date, the organization has completed projects in more than 20 countries, including the United States, in areas such as clean energy, education, food security, health, water and sanitation.
Michaela Murray-Nolan (ND ’02)
Executive Director of Kids Corp
Serving as executive director since 2002, Murray-Nolan has responsibility for fundraising, program services and staff at Kids Corp, a nonprofit that provides a broad slate of support services and supplies – ranging from summer schools and medical exams, to clothing, books and hot meals – for more than 4,800 Newark kids in 70-plus schools, churches and community centers.
Chelina Odbert
Co-founder and Principal of Kounkuey Design Initiative
Since 2006, Odbert has worked with community members in impoverished communities in Nairobi, India, Brazil, Honduras and the United States. She co-founded Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), an organization that transforms slums and disadvantaged neighborhoods by collaborating with residents to create low-cost, high-impact built environments (Productive Public Spaces) that improve their daily lives.
Miguel Brito Ramirez
Co-Founder and President of Community Solutions
Ramirez is the co-founder of several Guatemalan social ventures, including "Soluciones Comunitarias" (Community Solutions), winner of the Ashoka Foundation and Artimesa "Leveraging Business For Social Change" award for its unique structure and impact. Other ventures include a community library and resource center, and tourism company Ixil Turism, which has generated more than $1 million USD in gross local revenues since its inception in 2003.
Timothy Rann (ND BBA ’07)
Creative Impact/ Joma Bakery Café (Vietnam)/ Hagar Social Enterprise Group/ Hagar International
A runner-up in the 2008 Notre Dame Business Plan Competition with Responsible Nomad, Rann provides consulting services for a variety of social businesses and social investment funds, and serves as a board member of Hagar Social Enterprise Group, an international Christian organization dedicated to the protection, recovery and community integration of survivors of human rights abuse.
John Rush
President and CEO of CleanTurn International LLC
A social entrepreneur with a distinct focus on leveraging core business principles for social good, Rush currently leads Columbus, Ohio-based CleanTurn International, a provider of comprehensive property services and general labor for the private and public sectors.
Alesha Seroczynski (ND ‘95)
Reading for Life
Seroczynski, a research associate and program director in the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame, conceptualized and developed Reading for Life, a narrative-based intervention that uses novels to facilitate virtuous character development in first-time offending juveniles.
Vaughn Spethmann
Operations Advisor of Zambikes
A developer of world transportation solutions for almost five years, Spethman co-founded Zambikes, a social business that manufactures, assembles and distributes high-quality bicycles, bicycle ambulances and cargo bicycle trailers to the underprivileged in Zambia, in an effort to address economic and social needs. Spethman also has worked on agricultural projects, construction and energy in developing countries.
Mary Claire Sullivan (BBA ’08, MBA ’12)
Vice President of Business Development for Jordan Energy
Sullivan’s participation in the MicroVenturing Program at Notre Dame led her to Guatemala and Nicaragua following her undergraduate graduation, where she worked with Community Enterprise Solutions to create sustainable impact within rural communities through CE Solution’s MicroVenturing Program. After receiving her MBA, she accepted a position with Jordan Energy, a developer of solar energy solutions.
Katie Teitgen (BBA ’10)
Director of Operations for Hannah & Friends
Teitgen is the director of operations for Hannah & Friends Neighborhood, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in South Bend, Ind., that provides residential and recreational services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
Steve Thomas (ND ‘78)
President and CEO of The NetWork for Better Futures
Thomas, a social entrepreneur with 35 years of experience, developed The NetWork for Better Futures – an organization that reduces the economic and social costs of high-risk adults, primarily African American men, with histories of imprisonment, substance abuse, mental illness, chronic unemployment and homelessness.
Greg Van Kirk
Co-Founder of The New Development Solutions Group
Ashoka Lemelson Fellow Van Kirk recently was recognized as Schwab Foundation "Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2012 (Latin America)" at the World Economic Forum. He has served as an economic development consultant for USAID, Soros Foundation, Church World Service and many others, as well as worked with universities including Columbia, NYU, Indiana University, Arizona State, and Miami University, where he co-founded the Center for MicroConsignment. Van Kirk also collaborated with Notre Dame on the Gigot Center’s MicroVenturing Certificate Program. The New Development Solutions Group – which includes Community Enterprise Solutions, Social Entrepreneur Corps and NDS Consulting – designs and implements social innovation responses to long-standing development challenges.
Sr. Martha Walsh
Administrative Director of Seton Enablement Fund
The Seton Enablement Fund is named after Saint Elizabeth Seton, the first American-born saint and foundress of the Sisters of Charity. Today, more than 400 Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati continue their work of education, social service, pastoral ministry and health care in 18 states and one foreign country.
Katie Weiss (ND ’03)
Co-Founder and CEO of insideGOOD
insideGOOD provides expert-designed surveys and tools that save nonprofits time and money. With more than 10 years of experience in change management, process and application design, as well as with nonprofit organizations, Weiss has managed insideGood’s 18-month-long pilot, including application discovery, design, prototype implementation and beta launch.
Kyle Weiss
Co-Founder and CTO of insideGOOD
As chief technology officer, Weiss manages the agile process development team, and all-things-hardware. Outside of insideGOOD, he is a product manager for a national company’s core application, leading the vision and development path for the software product.
Chris Yura (ND ‘03)
Founder and CEO of SustainU Clothing
Yura founded Morgantown, W.Va. based-apparel company SustainU Clothing with the mission to change the way clothes are made – by improving the environment, reinvigorating America’s manufacturing sector, and educating the world about how clothing can positively impact people’s lives.
Luke Zeller (BBA ‘09)
President of DistinXion
A semifinalist in the 2009 Notre Dame Business Plan Competition, DistinXion seeks to make character building an intentional effort through optimizing the impact that coaches have on the values of young athletes.