Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

From the time he was in elementary schools, Bill Drayton was a changemaker. His parents and the principal of the school conspired to allow Bill bloom in his early entrepreneurial efforts. Bill went on the attend Harvard, Oxford and Yale. He worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and for the Environmental Protection Agency. Eventually Bill and a few friends took a tour of India by Volkswagen Microbus. This trip changed Bill’s life. In 1980 Bill founded Ashoka and the following year elected the first Ashoka Fellows in India. Bill told me, “There was no word for social entrepreneur. We had to make it up.” Since that time, Ashoka has selected over 3,500 changemakers to be Fellows. Ashoka uses five criteria: An idea that changes the pattern Creativity Entrepreneurial quality Ethical fiber Social impact. Over time, Ashoka has evolved from focusing on individual fellows to a network of fellows to the idea of “Everyone a changemaker.” In this interview, Bill argues that, because the world is in a consta