Water: Tenacious, Collaborative Responses to a Global Crisis
Speakers
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Eleanor Allen is the CEO of Water For People, a global nonprofit working in Africa, Latin America, and Asia to help develop sustainable water and sanitation services for millions of people. Eleanor is a social entrepreneur recognized by the Schwab Foundation, a TEDx speaker, a Water Environment Federation Fellow, and an influential Women of Water. She serves on the board of Parametrix and the University of Colorado. Eleanor is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a distinguished alumna of the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to Water For People, Eleanor worked as an engineering consultant for Arcadis and Jacobs.
Her passions include mentoring/recruitment/retention for STEM careers, JEDI (justice/equity/diversity/inclusion) and building high-performing multi-cultural teams. She has lived and worked all over the world and speaks several languages. Eleanor’s home is in Denver. She enjoys ultra-cycling, hiking, and exploring Colorado and beyond with her husband, two boys, and two dogs.
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Gary White is an observer, an innovator, and a problem-solver. As a passionate, problem-solver he has created solutions that have empowered millions of people in need with access to safe water and sanitation.
Gary is the CEO and co-founder of Water.org and WaterEquity. He brings 30 years of experience in sustainable innovation in water and sanitation.
As a nonprofit organization Water.org focuses on financing, harnesses philanthropy to correct market failures, empowering people in the developing world to gain access to safe water and sanitation. Water.org is the resulting organization of the July 2009 merger between WaterPartners, co-founded by Gary in 1990, and H2O Africa, co-founded by actor Matt Damon. He developed Water.org’s WaterCredit Initiative, creating new financing options for families living in poverty to meet their water and sanitation needs. He also developed WaterEquity, an asset manager that raises and invests capital in water and sanitation enterprises serving the water and sanitation needs of people living in poverty.
Gary is a leading advisor in the water and sanitation space, counseling organizations such as the Skoll Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, PepsiCo Foundation, IKEA Foundation, Caterpillar Foundation, and the Clinton Global Initiative on responses to the global water crisis. He is also a founding board member of the Millennium Water Alliance and Water Advocates. Named to TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, Gary has been awarded the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship, named to the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water, and selected as Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur and a Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneur.
Gary’s educational credentials include three degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Missouri University of Science & Technology.
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Managing Director and Co-Founder, Circle of Blue
J. Carl Ganter is founder and director of Circle of Blue, the center for frontline reporting, research, and analysis on water resource issues and their relationship to food and energy in a changing climate. Ganter is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and photojournalist whose work has appeared in most major magazines, newspapers, and television and radio networks. He earned his MSJ in investigative and magazine reporting at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism after graduating with honors from the University’s American Studies Program. He is past vice chairman and current member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water Security, and is recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award.
Circle of Blue takes an "orbital perspective" — trendsetting and spotting strategic connections between silo'd and disparate events and ideas. We are front-line reporters, knowledge workers and wayfinders who inform policy makers and the public with timely, relevant information that leads to better decision-making in the 21st century. From global surveys to sweeping front-line reports, Circle of Blue is advancing new models that inform how governments, NGOs, corporations and individuals collaborate in the new millennium.
"From the dawn of the Internet, I've been at the forefront of digital news, from reporting and consulting to large-scale projects. With an early start (ninth grade writing obituaries for the local newspaper!), my work in one form or another has appeared in most major magazines, newspapers, and major television and radio networks. I've had humbling opportunities to directly impact lives and policy, from the front lines of AIDS in Southeast Asia for Time Magazine to the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted father (and revelation of the real murderer) in Illinois. I've also advised some of the nation’s largest news outlets, helping merge traditional and interactive newsrooms.
Since reporting water as an “axis issue” while covering the World Summit on Sustainable Development for MSNBC.com, I've become one of the few journalists consistently at the heart of the global freshwater crisis."
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Neil has been Chief Executive of Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) since spring 2014. He has over two decade’s experience of successfully leading and growing social enterprises and innovative partnerships, in both Europe and North America. He previously led various organizations delivering services to base of the pyramid consumers, taking each through complex change processes to promote significantly enhanced institutional capacity and performance. He has worked with various corporates to develop their social investment initiatives.
Neil established and headed up a research institute in Washington DC which worked with the US Congress to enhance the effectiveness and impact of US policy in the Andean Region. He has published on stakeholder engagement and sustainable business development in emerging markets, with the Cranfield University and the US Institute for Peace. He holds an MBA with distinction from Sir John Cass Business School, an MA from the University of Cambridge and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. He holds the Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting from Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).
