Perla was the founder and former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the leading journal on nonprofit management and philanthropy. While at the Review, she also launched the successful www.ssireview.org Web site and blog. Prior to her work at SSIR, Ni co-founded and was editor in chief of Grassroots.com, a nonprofit advocacy Web site named by Forbes as “Best of the Web.” A frequent speaker on nonprofits and philanthropy, Ni continues to blog at www.ssireview.org. She has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She’s on the advisory board of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and on the board of Goodwill Industries. She can be reached at perlani(at)greatnonprofits.org.

Pawan is one of the Co-Founders of Intellecap. Pawan has been involved in building and scaling early-stage ventures: first as a venture capital investor in his early career with GVFL and McKenna Capital and, since then, as an entrepreneur with Parsec Interact, Intellecap, and now IntelleVentures. He serves on the boards of a number of Indo-US enterprises and continues to advise a number of companies in Asia and the US. He is also actively involved with the Give Foundation (www.GiveIndia.org), the largest online non-profit exchange connecting donors with projects in India, serving on its US board.

Pawan has a Bachelors Degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Throughout his career, Oliver has focused on sustainable development, science, business and finance. He has strong connections to the for-profit and non-profit sustainable investment market in the US, EU, South-Africa and Japan. He is a partner at LGT Venture Philanthropy (www.lgt.com). He was Head of Research for Forma Futura, an independent asset management company focusing on contributing to a sustainable quality of life (www.formafutura.com).

Before setting-up VPG [VantagePoint Global], Oliver served as Manager Research Services and Senior Sustainability Analyst at SAM Research for the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). He was responsible for investment research, product-development and client-services for SAM Research’s global client base including Corporate Sustainability Benchmarking for the world’s largest listed companies. Prior to that Oliver worked for one of Europe’s largest Asset Managers F&C (formerly known as ISIS) specializing on all aspects of Socially Responsible Investment.

Oliver holds a MSc from Imperial College, University of London and a Dipl. Biol degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany. Oliver speaks fluent English, German and conversational French and Afrikaans.

Miriam Stone is Vice President of Business Development at VisionSpring, a social enterprise that empowers women in the developing world to launch businesses selling affordable eyeglasses to those in need. Prior to joining VisionSpring in 2006, she worked as a consultant to a variety of international social enterprise organizations, including Solidaridad’s Latin America program, Tilonia.com, the US fair trade distributor for the Barefoot College in India, and One World Projects/EDImports, a distributor of fair trade artisan products from around the world. Previously, she worked in the editorial department at Penguin Group (USA). A journalist and author, she published her first book as an undergraduate at Columbia University and was a 2008 Fellow in the Emerging Leaders in Public Service program (FELPS) at NYU’s Wagner School for Public Service.

Matthew Bishop is American Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief for The Economist. Philanthrocapitalism, his 2008 book (with Michael Green) on the business of philanthropy was described as “terrific” by the New York Times, and called “the definitive guide to a new generation of philanthropists who understand innovation and risk-taking and who will play a crucial part in solving the biggest problems facing the world,” by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Economics A to Z”, the official Economist layperson’s guide to economics, was published in 2009. He is now writing a book about the current economic crisis, and what must be done to improve how capitalism works. He was previously The Economist’s London-based Business Editor. Matthew is the author of several Economist special survey supplements, including “The Business of Giving”, which looks at the industrial revolution taking place in philanthropy; “Kings of Capitalism”, an influential analysis of the private-equity industry; and “Capitalism and its Troubles”, an examination of the impact of problems such as the collapse of Enron in 2002 which highlighted many of the flaws in the system that led to the current crisis. Before joining The Economist, Matthew was on the faculty of London Business School, where he co-authored three books for Oxford University Press. He has served as a member of the Sykes Commission on the investment system in the 21st Century. He was also on the Advisors Group of the United Nations International Year of Microcredit 2005. He has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He is a graduate of Oxford University.