The 5th Annual Oxford Business and Poverty Conference will feature a diverse range of speakers addressing the Paradoxes of Prosperity and the role of innovation in development.
Hosted at the historic Sheldonian Theatre, the conference will feature keynotes by:
Lant Pritchett, a development economist, worked with the World Bank from 1988 to 2007, living in Indonesia and India for much of that time. Overlapping for part of the time, he taught at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2000 to 2018. He has published over a hundred books, journal articles, working papers with over fifty different co-authors and has over 38,000 citations on development topics from education to economic growth to state capability to labour mobility. He is currently affiliated with Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
Efosa Ojomo is the Global Prosperity Lead and Senior Researcher at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. He recently co-authored The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty with Clayton Christensen and Karen Dillon. Prior to his current role, he was a researcher under Professor Christensen at Harvard Business School where he graduated with an MBA. He also co-founded Poverty Stops Here, a nonprofit organization that provides Nigerian communicates with access to wells, small business microloans, and primary education.
John Hoffmire is Chair of the Center on Business and Poverty, Senior Fellow at Peking University’s HSBC Business School, Chair of Cadence Innova Ltd, Chair of Oxford Pharmaceuticals, Research Associate at the Centre for Mutual and Employee-owned Business at the University of Oxford, Chair of the Personal Finance Employee Education Fund, and Publisher of ProgressDaily.com.
Ananth Pai is Executive Director Bharath Beedi Works Pvt. Ltd. and Director Bharath Auto Cars Pvt. He received his B.B.M from Sri. Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College of Management, Mangalore. He is a Trustee Shri Bhuvanendra College, Karkala; and Vice President, Chinmaya Education Institution, Mangalore.
Laurel Steinfield is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Bentley College in Massachusetts. She has a PhD from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. Laurel’s research focuses on women in developing countries and how corporate programmes can assist in helping individuals and families.
Grace Cheng is Greater China’s Country Manager for Russell Reynolds Associates. As a member of the firm’s CEO/Board Practice and Financial Services Sector, Grace focuses on senior-level assignments. She has conducted CEO assignments, board searches, succession planning and executive assessment projects for international companies, some of which are headquartered in mainland China and Hong Kong. She also serves on the firm’s Executive Committee. Grace has a DPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford.
Madhusudan Jagadish: 2016 Graduate MBA, Said Business School, University of Oxford
Tentative Schedule:
2:15-2:20 Welcome
2:20-2:50 Efosa Ojomo, co-author of The Prosperity Paradox, sets the stage for the need for innovation in development
2:50-3:20 John Hoffmire, Ananth Pai and Mudhusudan Jagadish explain how the Prosperity Paradox can be used in India as a model to create good jobs for poor women
3:20-3:40 Break
3:40-4:10 Laurel Steinfeld speaks to issues of gender, development and business – addressing paradoxes related to prosperity
4:10-4:40 Grace Cheng, speaks about the history of China’s use of disruptive innovations to develop its economy
4:40-5:15 Break
5:15-6 Lant Pritchett talks on Pushing Past Poverty: Paths to Prosperity
6:30-8 Dinner at the Rhodes House – Purchase tickets after signing up for the conference: www.eventbrite.com/e/dinner-for-5th-annual-business-and-poverty-conference-oxford-tickets-58859187414
Sponsors of the conference include Russell Reynolds, the Employee Ownership Foundation, the Ananth Pai Foundation and others. We are grateful to our sponsors.
