Sarah-Jayne Ashenhurst is proud to serve as the Social Enterprise Director at Bright Endeavors, a social enterprise of New Moms, where she provides strategic leadership and business management to a growing workforce development social enterprise and home fragrance brand. Informed by a background in the arts and a deep commitment to racial, social, and economic justice, Sarah-Jayne is a community weaver focused on building an economy that works for workers and puts people and planet over profit. Her professional mission is to advocate for and contribute to the proliferation of unconventional business structures like social enterprises, public benefit corps, and worker-owned cooperatives as a mode of fundamentally transforming structural power dynamics and creating a just and sustainable economy. 

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brightendeavors.org (use code SEA20 for 20% off!)

YouTube

Kristen Powers serves as the Executive Director of Benevolence Farm. In her role, she is proud to work alongside formerly incarcerated women by providing and creating opportunities for housing, employment, and community across the rural South. 

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www.benevolencefarm.org

Helping social enterprises manage the headache of fulfillment with HHPLift’s 3PL services (Warehousing and Fulfillment). With over 10 years experience, state-of-the-art technology, and an opportunity to provide job training in the growing logistics field, HHPLift will take the headache off your plate so you can do what you do best - create impact.

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Dena is President & CEO of HHPLift, a Chicago-based non-profit, and a People and Planet First Verified social enterprise. HHPLift's mission is to create quality jobs for the people who need them most, and through their LiftWorks program, has served over 250 individuals from 36 under-resourced communities in Chicago. Her primary focus includes: establishing and strengthening strategic partnerships, educating companies about increasing ways they can source products for their programs in a socially sustainable way, and expanding the impact of its LiftWorks Program, HHPLift’s job creation and career development program.

Isela Flores enjoys working at a social enterprise where the day to day translates directly to meaningful impact. She oversees HHPLift’s Operations. Prior to working at HHPLift, Isela worked at a larger corporation for many years. Her experiences with HHPLift have been rewarding and she enjoys the family-like atmosphere and working for a nonprofit.

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hhplift.com

John McDonald has over twenty-five years of experience as an entrepreneur, most recently as the Managing Entrepreneur of NEXT Studios, Indiana’s first Benefit (B) Corporation Innovation Studio. He was the founder and CEO of ClearObject, the fastest-growing technology company in Indiana for 5 years in a row, which successfully exited to private equity in 2019. Prior to that, John served as CEO of Chicago-based startup CloudOne, and also at IBM, where he led technical sales for their software development tools product line.

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nextstudios.org

LinkedIn

Lauren Edwards is the Executive Director of SEA Change, the Principal/Owner of Next Step Business Consulting, Co-owner of the social enterprise Apex Leadership Co of Central Ohio, and a Lecturer in the City and Regional Planning and Non-Profit Management departments at the Ohio State University. Her passion lies in helping organizations and individuals alleviate poverty through program and business development, vision realization, and facilitated conversation.

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SEAchng.org

nextstepbusinessconsulting.com

In 2014, Jordan stepped away from a corporate job to find a way to change outcomes for people aging out of foster care. That journey lead to co-founding Doing Good Works in 2014. As Doing Good Works has grown over the last 9 years, we built an amazing community of people impacted by foster care that we served through job opportunities, training, resources and mentoring support. This experience has been distilled into Foster Greatness, an app launching nationwide in January. It's more than technology; it's a community and a support network for those taking their first steps into adulthood without a safety net.

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fostergreatness.co

dgwbranded.com

Liv Roskos is a creative, entreprenuer, and events producer with OAD Productions. Her passion is to create artistic environments and experiences where artists feel known, valued, and loved. Her music is birthed out of the everyday human experience. Through an eclectic mix of jazz/soul/pop fusion, Liv shares stories of hope, love, & inspiration.

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instagram.com/oadproductions/

instagram.com/livroskos/

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overflowchicago.com/events

livroskos.com



Driven to serve the often-overlooked people management needs for the social impact sector, Lisa Brown Alexander set out to build a market where one didn’t exist. She founded Nonprofit HR, the leading talent management firm in the country that works exclusively with the nonprofit sector.

Today, fueled by the passion of 100-plus employees and consultants nationwide, her thriving company is helping many of the nation’s most prominent nonprofit organizations get ahead through smart people management strategies. In the process, they’re changing the way an entire sector thinks about talent and culture.

Lisa has inspired Nonprofit HR to become a force that thousands of nonprofit and talent management leaders look to for consulting services, thought partnership, sector-specific hiring, and executive search needs, professional development and information.

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nonprofithr.com

LinkedIn

Ilyssa Manspeizer, Ph.D. is an Anthropologist with over 30 years of experience creating opportunities for people and planet to thrive together. Throughout her time as a conservationist, Ilyssa had a recurring question about how people and conservation could go hand in hand. Landforce, formed in November 2015, has hired more than 140 people to learn environmental stewardship skills, be employed in transitional jobs to steward our land, and enter family-sustaining jobs from a place of dignity and strength. As the founding Executive Director of Landforce, Ilyssa leads an organization where traditional barriers to employment do not exist, and returning citizens, people with substance use disorders, mental health diagnoses, or those trapped in cycles of generational poverty have the opportunity to grow and thrive while ensuring that our environment can do the same.

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landforcepgh.org

LinkedIn

Dan Adam, founder and owner of Adam & Son Auto Repair a Social Impact business with two locations, Founder of the Stranded Motorist Fund a 501(c)3 non-profit, co-founder of the Automotive Impact Network. Dan is a pioneer in the Social Impact arena for the Automotive industry. He is the recipient of the National Institute for Social Impact’s 2022 Social Impact Business of the year, Synchrony Pillars Project Grant 2022 winner, 2023 Vistage Impact Award for the State of Colorado.

Stacey Burns has been a strong advocate for Social Impact Businesses, veterans’ transition programs, as well as healing through the arts. Stacey was one of the creators of the Military Creative Expressions program in conjunction with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. She does ongoing work to increase the understanding and measurement of Social Return on Investment (SROI), a process she has been developing since 2009. Stacey is currently the Chief Operating Officer for Adam & Son Auto Repair and Service. Prior to that, she spent over 20 years in leadership and consulting to help people realize opportunity through Social Impact business models. Stacey has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English as well as a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology and Counselor Education.

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adamandson.com

strandedmotoristfund.org

LinkedIn - Dan Adam

LinkedIn - Stacey Burns