All the Difference

How do we advocate for real, systemic change, especially in a divided society? Janos Marton talks us through his journey as a political activist and justice reformer, which touched key political moments in America, such as Hurricane Katrina and the effort to close the Rikers Island prison complex.

Throughout his career, Janos has found ways to build bridges across political divides and unite communities to advocate for a more dignified, freer, and more just civil society.

Janos Marton has spent the last 23 years as an organizer,

In this episode, we chat with Laura Gillespie, class of 1986, about how she ended up returning to the Upper Valley community after graduating from Dartmouth and what a career in nonprofit development has meant for her.

Laura Gillespie '86 has been the Director of Development

Join us for a conversation with Zak Kaufman '08 where we dive into different ways technology is being leveraged for good, especially in terms of how it is enabling better impact measurement and saving social sector organizations time, energy, and resources.

Dr. Zak Kaufman has worked for over 10 years at the

Prior to Vera, Zak oversaw Research and M&E for Grassroot Soccer (an NGO using sport to advance adolescent health). Zak holds a PhD and MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He has been recognized as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, Global Good Fund Fellow, and Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellow.

Dr. John Lawrence, Dartmouth College class of ’76 and Geisel School of Medicine class of ’80 has been a practicing pediatric surgeon for over 20 years and owing in part to a longstanding interest in global health, has also completed ten surgical missions with Doctors without Borders since 2009 serving as a surgeon in the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia. He has served as president and vice president of the board for Doctors without Borders USA.

In this conversation, we chat about his motivation for pursuing a career in medicine and his perspective on the current publich health issues we're facing - which are not so different than the issues he witnessed as a young physician 20+ years ago.

In this episode with Marc Sépama, class of 2017, Marc tells me about why supporting global health initiatives became his calling and how he's currently going about pursuing that work.

Marc currently oversees a portfolio of global health organizations at Emerson Collective, a philanthropic investing organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. Before landing at the Emerson Collective, Marc worked at Helen Keller International, where he collaborated with Ministries of Health in West Africa to implement national health programs.

Sue AnderBois '05 has built a career centered on climate change policy, clean energy expansion, and supporting local food systems. She is currently the Director of Climate and Government Relations for The Nature Conservancy (RI Chapter), and also sits on TNC's North America Policy and Government Relations Cabinet. In her "spare" time Sue is also a member of the Providence City Council where she chairs the Council's Special Committee on the Environment and Resiliency, is a member of the Finance Committee, the Special Commission on Taxation and Revenue, and is a Parks Commissioner. She majored in Environmental Studies while at Dartmouth and also earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

The renewable energy transition is here but it looks a lot different in each state across the U.S. Sean Garren '07 touches on what trends he's observing as Chief Program Officer for Vote Solar, a non-profit advocacy group working across the United States to use solar as a tool for climate progress and energy, environmental, and economic justice.

Sean also dives into how he crafted a career at the intersection of sustainability and politics.

Prior to Vote Solar, Sean was the Legislative Director at Fair Share, an economic justice non-profit, where he was lead lobbyist and set policy strategy for the organization. Previously, he ran the federal clean energy program as Clean Energy Advocate at Environment America, a national network of state-based, grassroots environmental groups.

Warren Valdmanis '95 makes the case for a better version of finance that prioritizes workers in the assessment of organizational value. In our conversation, Warren defines a "good job", explains why there seem to be so few of them these days, and what investors can do to create more of them.

Warren is a Partner at Two Sigma Impact, a private equity firm focused on creating value at companies by investing in people and creating "good jobs". He is also the author of Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism, a book about how socially oriented investors are working to build a more just and sustainable version of capitalism.

Prior to Two Sigma Impact, Warren was on the founding team of Bain Capital Double Impact, Bain Capital's first dedicated social impact investment fund.

He graduated from Dartmouth cum laude and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Alex Bernadotte '92 walks us through how many efforts to bridge the college education gap miss the mark on supporting first generation and low income students during the undergraduate experience and beyond. Drawing on her own experience as a first generation college student, she emphasizes the importance of reducing the college drop out rate, both for society and for the lives of individual students.

Alex is the founder and CEO of Beyond 12, a technology-enabled nonprofit that integrates personalized coaching with mobile technology to increase the number of traditionally underserved students who graduate from college and translate their degrees into meaningful employment and choice-filled lives.

She has more than 18 years of executive management and strategic development experience in the nonprofit and private sectors including serving as executive director of The Princeton Review's Silicon Valley office; executive director of Foundation for a College Education; co-founder and vice president of marketing at educational travel company Explorica; director of operations at EF Education; and operations manager at the World Health Organization.

Alex received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and earned a master's degree with a concentration in policy and organizational leadership from Stanford.

She is an Ashoka Fellow, a recipient of the 2011 NewSchools Venture Fund Entrepreneur of the Year award, a Jefferson Award for Public Service winner, a Dartmouth College Social Justice Award and Stanford University Alumni Excellence in Education Award honoree, and a Fellow of the 22nd class of the Pahara – Aspen Education Fellowship. In addition, Beyond 12 was named one of the world's ten most innovative education companies by Fast Company, and the organization’s MyCoach mobile app won a Xammy Award for best social impact app from Xamarin, a Microsoft-owned mobile development platform.