The 13th Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility (AFCSR)
The Speakers
Dr José Ramos-Horta
Nobel Peace Laureate
President of Timor-Leste, 2007-2012
UN Envoy to Guinea-Bissau, 2013-2014
Before serving his country as President, Dr. José Ramos-Horta was known internationally as a peacemaker. In exile from his country for the better part of three decades, he had been the international voice of the Timorese people.
From 1975 to 1999 Timor-Leste, (formerly known as East Timor), a small island and former Portuguese colony at the bottom of the Indonesian archipelago, was invaded and occupied by Indonesia. Over the course of the 24 year invasion, one third of the Timorese population perished.
In exile for the entire occupation, José Ramos-Horta worked to build a human rights network to defend the rights of the Timorese — walking the halls of the UN, addressing the security council, and working tirelessly to ensure his people were not forgotten while they suffered.
In 1996, José Ramos-Horta and Timorese Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.”
In 1999 the United Nations sponsored a referendum, allowing the Timorese people to vote between independence, and remaining a part of Indonesia. The country voted overwhelmingly for independence.
José Ramos-Horta returned from exile on December 1, 1999. Throngs of Timorese crowded the airport and streets to greet him and celebrate his arrival home. Assuming the post of Senior Minister in the new government, he quickly began work to help build a new democratic government in his country, becoming one of the chief architects of the new country’s government.
In 2006, the island of Timor-Leste, still getting on its feet as a young democracy, exploded in new violence, when a group of more than 500 split from the army. Amid burning buildings and gangs rampaging in the streets, the Prime Minister was forced to step down.
José Ramos-Horta, at the time Timor-Leste’s Foreign Minister and Senior Minister, was asked to step into the vacant Prime Minister post. At the time the LA Times called him the young democracy’s “last hope”.
The hope was well placed.
Steadily, once Ramos-Horta took office, peace began to return to Timor-Leste. The camps of the internally displaced emptied as people returned to their neighborhoods and began rebuilding.
In May 2007 Ramos-Horta was elected President of Timor-Leste. Assuming the helm of one of the poorest nations in Asia, and a country devastated by conflict, his promise was to serve as the “President of the Poor”. He promised to remain dedicated to eradicating poverty in his country through improved public health and education, and by providing an environment where business can thrive.
In 2008 President Ramos-Horta survived an assassination attempt by members of the renegade military group. While the country prayed for his survival, the remaining members of the renegade group surrendered and turned in their arms.
On the President’s return to office, the country entered a new phase, a phase of putting conflict behind them, and building a new country.
In the years since, working with fellow Timorese hero Xanana Gusmao, and with an unfaltering love for and faith in the Timorese people, Ramos-Horta has seen many of his dreams for the Timorese people start to come to fruition, both in the city and countryside.
While serving as President and the international voice of the young government, he personally created peace initiatives ranging from a world class mountain bike “race for peace” to opening his office for youth from neighboring areas to come and peacefully resolve conflicts. His anti-poverty initiatives, including building homes for the neediest, lifted tens of thousands out of extreme poverty. His leadership and expertise have walked Timor-Leste toward a new era of peace, reconciliation and economic growth.
Today Timor-Leste is enjoying a well earned peace. With double digit growth for three years, the Timorese economy is today one of the strongest in Asia. Unemployment has plummeted, while the country is on track for 100% literacy by 2015. Youth have even been seen, working under Ramos-Horta’s “Dili City of Peace” program, rebuilding homes they torched in 2006.
José Ramos-Horta’s work in taking his country from devastating conflict to peace and economic growth in just over a decade serves as a model for community-building and democracy in the twenty first century.
Now free to move back onto the international stage, in 2012 he accepted an appointment from the UN Secretary General as Special Representative of the Secretary General to the African nation of Guinea Bissau.
William Eggers
Author of “The Solution Revolution: How Business, Government and Social Enterprise are Teaming Up to Solve Society’s Biggest Problems”
William Eggers is a leading authority on government reform. He is responsible for research and thought leadership for Deloitte’s Public Sector industry practice.
He is the author of eight books, including his newest, co-authored with Paul Macmillan, The Solution Revolution: How Business, Government, and Social Enterprises are Teaming up to Solve Society’s Biggest Problems (Harvard Business Press, September 2013). The book, which The Wall Street Journal calls “pulsating with new ideas about civic and business and philanthropic engagement,” was named to ten best books of the year lists.
His other books include the Washington Post best seller If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government (Harvard Business Press, 2009), Governing by Network (Brookings Institution Press, 2004), and The Public Innovator’s Playbook (Deloitte Research 2009). He coined the term Government 2.0 in a book of the same name.
His books have won numerous awards including the best books on policy, leadership and public services from The Guardian, 2014 Axiom award for best book on business theory, Louis Brownlow Award for best book on public management, the Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award for best book promoting an understanding of the free economy, and the Roe Award for leadership and innovation in public policy research.
A former manager of the Texas Performance Review and appointee to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) Advisory Board, Eggers has advised governments around the world. He gives close to 100 speeches a year and his commentary has appeared in dozens of major media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian and the Chicago Tribune.
Hon. Leonardo “Sandy” M. Javier, Jr.
Mayor
Municipality of Javier, Leyte
The Hon. Leonardo “Sandy” M. Javier is the Mayor of the Municipality of Javier, Leyte, in the Philippines. He is also the National President of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), an organization that provides Philippine municipalities, through its mayors, with relevant and adaptive best practices, linkages with pertinent international and local organizations, capacity development and research and advocacy services.
Mayor Javier is an entrepreneur at heart. Prior to being elected Mayor, he founded and run a number of successful ventures, including Andok’s Litson Corporation, SMJ Holdings Corporation, Javier & Javier Holdings Corporation, Corleon Corporation, Royal Maverick Ranch Corporation and a number of other entities in real estate, construction, pharmaceuticals, trading and others.
Mayor Javier is also an avid sports enthusiast. In 1996, he was appointed as Chairman of Metropolitan Association of Race Horse Owners, a role he continues hold today. He was the association’s President in 1996-1998. He is a Champion horsebreeder, notably Triple Crown Champion winning the Horse of the Year 2011 Magna Carta. His interest also spans basketball as the Team Owner of Andoks’ Knights in the 2000 Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) season, and the Team Owner of Pharmaquick in the Philippine Basketball League (PBL). He is Principal Sponsor to Jethro Dionisio, the World Speed Shooting Champion and the World Shoot Off Champion, and Principal Sponsor to Valerie Levanza, the World Speed Shooting Ladies Champion.
Mayor Javier is an alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Management. He has seven children.
Lahpai Seng Raw
Founder, Metta Development Foundation
Myanmar
Lahpai Seng Raw studied psychology at Yangon University. As a student, she personally experienced the military’s abusive rule when she was detained on the suspicion that she had communications with her brother who was in the Kachin insurgency. In 1987 she began to involve herself in relief work for internally displaced peoples in the Myanmar-China border. Moving to Bangkok in 1990, she then worked as development officer-in-charge in ROKA, the Kachin Independence Organization’s humanitarian wing. In 1997, with the help of faith-based groups and non-government organizations (NGOs), Seng Raw took the bold step of establishing, in military-ruled Burma, the NGO called Metta Development Foundation. Metta addressed the problems of population displacement and emergency relief in the country’s conflict zones.
In 2008 when tropical cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar—the worst natural disaster in the country’s recorded history—Metta‘s leadership, reach, and effectiveness was confirmed as it took the lead in a massive rehabilitation, reconstruction, and development effort that covered large sections of the country and benefited hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims.
Under Seng Raw’s leadership, Metta has grown to be the largest NGO in Myanmar, with a staff of six hundred branches outside Yangon, and three research and training centers. Its various programs have reached over six hundred thousand people in 2,352 communities.
Seng Raw has shown both amazing courage and a unique ability to work with both government and rebels. She fully appreciates that in addressing conflict and instability, it is essential to build a foundation of stable, self-reliant communities.
After serving as Metta’s executive director for thirteen years, she has deliberately relinquished the position to empower a new generation of leaders. But she remains active in Myanmar’s NGO community, and in peace and development efforts.
Veronica Colondam
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
YCAB Indonesia
Veronica Colondam has championed the field of social entrepreneurship in Indonesia with the establishment of YCAB Foundation (Save the Nation’s Children Foundation) in 1999 and its affiliates companies in early 2000.
Together with its affiliates, the YCAB social enterprise has impacted more than 2 million people and created thousands of job and opportunities to underprivileged youth. By 2018, YCAB aims to impact ten million people and raise US$100mn in an Impact Investment Fund for its conditional micro-finance program where education is the precondition to loan.
YCAB received UN-ECOSOC Special Consultative Status and ISO9001 in 2008. It continues to evolve into a global social enterprise with operations in five other countries: Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda and Mongolia.
Veronica has authored several books on youth development and risk behavior. In 2001, she became the youngest recipient of the UN-Vienna Civil Society Award. She is also a member of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, a Fellow of Asia Society’s 21 Young Leaders and a Fellow of Global Social Innovator Park. In 2007, Veronica was recognized by Globe Asia business magazine as one of the Most Powerful Women in Indonesia. ChannelNewsAsia identified her as a “changemaker” in 2009 and Asian of the Year in 2010. In 2011, she emerged as the winner of Ernst & Young’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year award and in 2012 won the Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur Award. Her leadership brought YCAB to the rank of 74 in 100 in the Global Journal’s Top World NGOs in 2013.
Veronica holds a degree in mass communications with honours in Public Relations. She received her Masters in Social Science from Imperial College, London and the London of Hygiene and Tropical Disease. She is an alumnus of the Global Leadership Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School (2009); Leadership Lab at MIT; Social Entrepreneurship at INSEAD and Impact Investment, SAID Business School, Oxford.
Veronica lives in Jakarta with her husband and their three teens.
Vivian Claire Liew
Founding Director
PhilanthropyWorks
Vivian Claire Liew founded PhilanthropyWorks in early 2008 to serve Asia’s poor and neglected by advising philanthropists and governments on strategy and implementation. She brings to bear her world-class hybrid experience across the public, private and non-profit spheres, in addressing critical gaps in Asia’s developmental sphere.
Vivian is recognised as a thought leader and expert practitioner in Asian philanthropy, and has been featured on CNBC and Singapore’s Business Times among others. Select speaking engagements include the Asean 100 Leadership Forum, the Asian Family Business Forum, the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference, TEDx, as well as exclusive key client events of the world’s leading wealth management firms and business schools. PhilanthropyWorks was also sought by The Wharton School as a founding partner in its PennSEM Program in social entrepreneurship.
Vivian’s service in board directorship has encompassed both the local and the international, including the Securities Investor Association (Singapore) and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Brussels. In the latter, she was the first Asian elected. She is recognised as a regional leader by the Asean 100 Leadership Forum, Asia Society etc. At home, she was honoured by Singapore’s leading publications’ as one of the 50 most inspiring women and 40 under 40. Vivian also serves as judge and board director to select social enterprises.
Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Huntsman Program with 2 honours degrees (Wharton & College) in 3 years, Vivian was chosen to launch The World Bank’s Junior Associate Program as their first professional hire direct from undergraduate school. Serving in the Public Sector Anchor in their Washington DC headquarters, she was promoted after four months. She then worked in Corporate Finance at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, and served as the business manager to the UBS Singapore Country Head and concurrently the wealth management head, before founding PW.
Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Director
Institute of Security and International Studies
THAILAND
Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS) and Associate Professor of International Political Economy at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
He has authored a host of articles, books and book chapters on Thailand’s politics, political economy, foreign policy, and media as well as ASEAN and East Asian security and economic cooperation. He is frequently quoted and his op-eds have regularly appeared in international and local media, including a column in The Bangkok Post.
Dr Thitinan has worked for The BBC World Service, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and Independent Economic Analysis (IDEA) as well as consulting projects related to Thailand’s macro-economy and politics.
He received his BA from the University of California at Santa Barbara, MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and PhD from the London School of Economics where his work on the political economy of the 1997 Thai economic crisis was awarded the United Kingdom’s Lord Bryce Prize for Best Dissertation in Comparative and
International Politics, currently the only Asian recipient of this award.
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