Jurgen Wahl
Entrepreneur Renewable Energy (Austria)

Starting his career Júrgen spent almost one year as a civil servant in an integrated forestry management project in Bhutan, Asia. For more than 5 years he served in the cabinet of the Austrian Minister of the Environment as a permanent advisor for sustainability issues, energy politics, climate change and environmental economics. In 2002 he changed to the international project development business and was Head of International project development and financing with Verbundplan GmbH (now Póyry Energy). He co-developed the first Austrian Joint Implementation project in Bulgaria and CDM projects in India and Bhutan in 2006 he founded his own consulting business. Júrgen holds a MSc of the University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna, Austria and an MBA from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, USA.

Nikolaus Hutter
Social Venture Capital (Austria)

Nikolaus is a Director with Organica Water, Inc., a cleantech company in the wastewater space. He has close to 15 years experience in venture capital investing, fundraising and strategy consulting. Prior to Organica, Nikolaus was an Investment Director and Sector Partner for Cleantech at CEE Private Equity firm 3TS Capital Partners. Prior to 3TS, Nikolaus was a partner with technology firm Gamma Capital Partners, where he built the Cleantech practice. Previously, he worked for the Austrian VC firm IES and as a Strategy Consultant for The COBA Group, London (now PwC). He also lectures on Social Entrepreneurship at WU Vienna and supports social ventures in Austria, Central Europe, and Africa. He received a master’s degree in International Business from Wirtschaftsuniversitât in Vienna and IECS Strasburg, as well as a master’s in Political Economy from the London School of Economics.

Patrice Molinari
Private Equity (Middle-East)

Patrice has 13 years experience in consulting and private equity. Over the past 4 years, he initiated and launched three Private Equity Funds for a total commitment of USD570M and executed privatizations, mezzanine, growth capital transactions across the Middle-East, the USA and Asia. Patrice is a sector generalist with a focus on Clean Technologies, Telecom, Technology, Infrastructure, Transportation. He also handled the restructuring of several corporate entities in Kuwait and launched greenfield regional businesses including KGL Logistics in Kuwait and Gulf Aviation in Dubai. Prior to that, Patrice worked as a development advisor to governments in Europe, consulting on national strategic planning and the management of large scale infrastructure projects. Patrice started his career as an engineer at Alcatel. He is a CFA charterholder, holds a MSc (Aeronautical Engineering and Computer Science) from the French Civil Aviation Academy, and an MBA (Finance) from the Wharton Business School (USA).

Pekham Basu
Development Sector (India)

In the course of her career, Pekam has worked with victims of domestic violence and abandoned children, social entrepreneurs and funding agencies. Pekham is now working as a Senior Manager (Corporate Social Responsibility) in a Non Banking Financial Company in Mumbai. Prior to that she has worked as a consultant providing advisory services to NGOs on areas like organizational development and conducting due diligence for donors to find suitable NGOs to invest in India. She has also worked with Ashoka Innovators for the Public, initially as Regional Representative (Western India) responsible for the search and selection of social entrepreneurs to the Ashoka Fellowship and then, as Manager, International Development, with their office in London. Pekham has also worked with the Special Cell for Women and Children on extending legal help to victims of domestic violence and sensitizing the police to domestic violence and how to deal with victims. Pekham holds a Masters degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is fluent in a number of Indian languages.

Leila Karnik
Online Networks (India)

Leila has over ten years of experience in both social ventures and high-growth startups.  Most recently, Leila led the concept & launch of ennovent’s online Global Network bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and experts to create impact at the Base of the economic Pyramid. Leila is also the co-founder of the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), a non-profit that supports new & future entrepreneurs reaching out to over 400,000 young people in India. At NEN, Leila launched the first web portal for high-growth entrepreneurship resources in India, and the TATA NEN Hottest Startups, the first-ever community award for startups. With a focus on resource building and communication, she worked in Washington DC and Mumbai with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. She joined the Wadhwani Foundation’s founding team in 2002 and later took a sabbatical to work on a feature film project. Leila holds a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, Washington DC.