Synergos Cultivate the Soul: Stories of Purpose-Driven Philanthropy

Camille Massey is President and CEO of Synergos, a global organization that has pioneered the use of bridging leadership, which builds trust and collaboration to solve complex problems. She joined the organization in this role in November 2023.

Camille combines decades of experience working on complex development challenges together with deep recognition of the values of inclusion, of listening, and of supporting people and institutions that are most proximate to those challenges.

Previously, she was Founding Executive Director of the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice. She also previously served as Vice President for Global Strategy and Programs at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and has served in senior positions at Human Rights First and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, working in 23 countries with a concentration in Africa and Asia.

Camille founded Cue Global, a consulting business that designed and implemented strategic policy, legal, advocacy, communications, and resource mobilization plans for global organizations, was appointed a Human Rights Fellow at The Carter Center in Atlanta, and worked with musician Peter Gabriel to help establish WITNESS, an international human rights organization supporting local groups in the use of video.

As a long-time board member of Breakthrough, she works on projects worldwide to stop violence against women and girls. She also serves on the board of Outright International and the advisory boards of Global Witness, the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University and House of SpeakEasy, a literary nonprofit organization.

Camille Massey earned her J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and a B.S. from Syracuse University's Newhouse School where she currently sits on the Advisory Board. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Bar Association, and the New York City Bar Association.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teresa Corção was the Chef and Owner of the restaurant O Navegador from 1981 to 2020. The restaurant closed during the Covid 19 pandemic.

In 2001, she joined the International Slow Food Movement as co-leader in Rio de Janeiro, becoming interested in the socio-environmental influence linked to the world of food.

In 2002, she created the Cassava Project, researching the importance of this root for Brazil, promoting Tapioca Workshops in public schools until 2012, innovating food education with a concept she created: “gastronomic identity”.

In 2007, she founded the Maniva Institute and the Ecochefs group, Civil Social Organization of Public Interest – OSCIP, a pioneer in working with gastronomy as an instrument for socio-environmental transformation: “valuing traditional foods and reestablishing lost ties between small and medium-sized farmers, their products and consumers”

She is the creator and screenwriter of documentaries: O Professor da Farinha (2004), Seu Bené Via Para a Itália (2006) (screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008), The Food Path (2015), Terra Preta, Aço Prata (2016), in addition to the TV series Bagunça na Cozinha shown on Canal Futura (2010).

She was chosen as Chef Ambassador of Brazilian Cuisine at SENAC, and she was a speaker at TEDX CAMPOS in 2012 and at TED GLOBAL-SOUTH during the Rio Olympics in 2015.

Teresa was a finalist for the Basque Culinary World Prize, which is considered the Nobel Prize for Gastronomy in 2016, for her work as an activist chef and researcher of healthy and sustainable Brazilian cuisine.

Other highlights:

Co-creator in 2019 and manager of the Projeto Gosto da Amazônia – whose objective is to open the Rio de Janeiro market for wild arapaima from Amazon management.

Consultant in the training of the 12th Military Region in Amazonas for training in cooking regional Amazonian products.

Co-creator of the Alimenta Manaus campaign during the pandemic that enabled the connection between family farmers and food insecure populations in the city of Manaus, promoting the acquisition of organic and culturally related products to the beneficiaries.

Co-manager of the Arroz Anã project in Porto Marinho, in the State of Rio. Curator of the Project at SENAC for the production of the book Very Prazer, Arroz Anã and lectures and show classes at events to promote the culture of this product.

Winner, by Instituto Maniva, of the Jabuti Award in 2020, the most important in Brazilian literature, in the Creative Economy category for the book Ecochefs, Parceiros do Agricultor – Editora SENAC, in the Creative Economy category.

Curator and consultant and Executive Chef at Bistrô SESC Convento do Carmo in 2023, 2024.

Teresa is a Fellow of the international organizations Ashoka and Synergos. She also participates in international Forums linked to the sustainability of Food Systems, such as Conscious Food Systems Alliance – CoFSA and Catalysts 2030 Brasil.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alexa Firmenich is an investor, consultant and facilitator focused on climate and biodiversity. She is the founder of Naia Trust, an animist investment vehicle that supports early stage nature-based solutions, scientific research and new economic models. She is also senior advisor at the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, and was co-director of its initiative SEED that is developing the world's most holistic measure of biodiversity with the goal to steer financial and political decision-makers to crystallise the value of nature into the global economy. Parallel to this work Alexa is trained as a group facilitator in leadership development and ecological pedagogy, designing multi-day learning journeys through her role at Leaders' Quest.  She is also an author, podcast host of Lifeworlds, a founding board member of Terra Habitus, a Mexican environmental fund that operates large-landscape conservation and watershed restoration, and a wilderness guide. 

https://www.alexafirmenich.com/

https://www.naiatrust.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Through A Growing Culture, Loren has worked to shift cultural narratives around food and farmers to center justice. The organization’s work has grown from over a decade of Loren’s work building relationships of deep trust with peasant- and Indigenous-led movements around the world — movements that are seeding radical hope for a just and dignified future for all. A Growing Culture brings together grassroots groups, farmers, advocates, and allies, through the belief that stories have the power to change our unjust systems, and that lasting change requires all of us.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chavalit Frederick Tsao is the fourth-generation steward of TPC (Tsao Pao Chee), a family business with more than 120 years of history. Chavalit believes business reform is needed, and quantum leadership is the way. He is committed to this journey and is reforming his family business, TPC, with a renewed mission “To Serve Well-being of Life and Create Wealth at the Same Time.” He founded OCTAVE, a business model with an ecosystem for an integrated life journey towards well-being. He is Chairman of the Council of Wisdom for the Family Business Network (FBN) International to champion the impact community of the network.

Chavalit has authored 'Dawn of An Era Of Well-being', 'Quantum Leadership' and 'One Choice, One World'. In his latest book, 'One Choice, One World', he shares the role of Quantum Leaders in shifting the consciousness in business and their impact in stewarding the new humanity. These books are part of his anthology of 40 books published under Octave.eaaAAA

https://chavalittsao.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global community working at the intersection of technology, volunteerism and a gift culture. As a designer of large-scale social movements that are rooted in small acts of service and powered by micro moments of inner transformation, his work has uniquely catalyzed "many to many" networks of community builders grounded in their localities and rooted in practices of cultivating deeper connection -- with oneself, each other and our systems. Today, ServiceSpace reaches millions every month, is powered by thousands of volunteers, and blossoms into ever-expanding local and virtual service projects that aim to ignite a "whole great than the sum of its parts". Nipun was honored as an "unsung hero of compassion" by the Dalai Lama, not long before former U.S. President Obama appointed him to a council for addressing poverty and inequality in the US. Yet the core of what strikes anyone who meets him is the way his life is an attempt to bring smiles in the world and silence in his heart: "I want to live simply, love purely, and give fearlessly. That's me."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rohini Nilekani is the Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit education platform. She is also the Founder and Former Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she set up in 2001 for sustainable water and sanitation, which funds initiatives across India. From 2004 to 2014, she was Founder-Chairperson and chief funder of Pratham Books, a non-profit children’s publisher that reached millions of children during her tenure. She sits on the Board of Trustees of ATREE, an environmental think tank. In the past, she has served on the Audit Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Eminent Persons Advisory Group of the Competition Commission of India.

A former journalist, she has written for many leading publications such as Times of India, India Today, Mint, etc. Penguin Books India published her first book, a medical thriller called Stillborn, and her second non-fiction book, “Uncommon Ground”, based on her eponymous TV show. She has written several books for young children, published by Pratham Books, including the famous “Annual Haircut Day”. In 2022, she published an anthology of her writing titled “Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar”, outlining her philosophy of restoring the balance between the state and markets by positioning society as the foundational sector.

In 2017, she was inducted as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been a member of the Board of Science Gallery Bengaluru, the Advisory Board of the Well Being Project since 2019, and the Dakshin Foundation since 2021. Rohini was voted the Best Grassroots Philanthropist by the Forbes India Leadership Award in 2022. 

Rohini Nilekani is a committed philanthropist and has been named ‘the most generous woman in India’ for the third consecutive time in 2022 by the Hurun India Philanthropy Report. In 2017, she signed the Giving Pledge with her husband Nandan Nilekani, which commits half their wealth to philanthropic causes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building trust and taking collective action are essential when tackling complex issues—and it is in this spirit that we bring you this episode from our partner System Catalysts, co-hosted by GPC member Jeffrey Walker and English Sall.  

System Catalysts shares stories of change makers who put their egos aside to improve the systems that run the world. In this episode, Ellen Agler, former CEO of the END Fund and Tsitsi Masiyiwa, Co-Founder & Chair of Higherlife Foundation & Delta Philanthropies tell us how involving and supporting donors, board members and community-based organizations can have an exponential impact. 

Listen to more of their episodes here. 

System Catalysts is produced by Hueman Group Media.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to learn how Cristiane is working at a systems level to strengthen the philanthropic sector in Brazil as she builds strong partnerships with grantees based on trust and deep listening.

Cristiane has a Law Degree from Mackenzie University, a Masters in Banking Law from IBMEC-SP, with specializations in Private Bank from IBMEC-SP and Corporate Law from Getúlio Vargas Foundation, she also completed the Impact Investing Program at the CSP - University of Zurich. She has practiced Law for the São Paulo Stock Exchange, at BBA Creditanstalt Bank and at the Consenso Family Office, and has worked as Wealth Planning and Legal Superintendent at the Private Bank, Capital Markets and Corporate departments of Itaú Unibanco Bank. Furthermore, she was a partner at the banking department of Law Firm Veirano Advogados, has been the COO of Pedro Alberto Fischer Single Family Office, and founded BEJA Institute in 2021.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts.

A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.