SPRING FORUM
Sunday, March 29, 2020 from 11:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Social Entrepreneurship
in Baltimore, Boston and Beyond
Keynote Talk by Professor Brian Trelstad
Followed by Panel Forum
Please join us for lunch and learning about social entrepreneurship on
Sunday March 29, 2020 at 11:30 a.m. at the
The Johns Hopkins Club
3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD
We are delighted to announce that Harvard Business School Faculty
member, Professor Brian L. Trelstad, will be our keynote speaker.
Brian’s topic will be Social Entrepreneurship in Baltimore, Boston and
Beyond: Strategies for Developing, Funding and Implementing
Solutions to Social, Cultural and Environmental Issues.
Professor Trelstad’s talk will include examples of successful social
entrepreneurship in Baltimore (e.g., Jim Rouse’s Enterprise Community Partners), in Boston
(Last Mile Health) and beyond. Following his talk, Prof. Trelstad will moderate a panel
comprised of local social entrepreneurs, including some with Harvard connections.
Panelists are as follows:
Beth Bafford, Ours to Own Baltimore (Initiative by Calvert Impact Capital)
Donald Manekin, Seawall Development Company
Sarah Norman, Sheppard Pratt
Tyrell Dixon, Project Own
Please see below for bios of the keynote speaker and panelists.
The Luncheon is open to all Harvard-Radcliffe alumni/alumnae and their guests.
Luncheon price is $50 per person plus transactional fees. The tickets to the luncheon are nonrefundable
as we have to pay for your attendance in advance.
Please register using the link below.
https://hrclubofmaryland.ticketspice.com/spring-forum-2020
The payment must be made by March 20, 2020, so we can let the John Hopkins Club how many
people will be attending.
For further information, please e-mail the Harvard Club of Maryland at
harvardclubofmd@gmail.com
The Johns Hopkins Club is located on the grounds of The Johns Hopkins University Homewood
Campus at 3400 North Charles Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The Club’s parking lot,
conveniently located adjacent to the Club, is available at no charge to Club members and their
guests when they are visiting the Club.
Bios
Brian L. Trelstad
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Brian Trelstad is a partner and board member in the New York offices of Bridges Fund
Management, a global impact investment firm based in London and New York. Brian has over
15 years of impact investing experience, having served until 2012 as the Chief Investment
Officer of Acumen, where he oversaw investments into companies that were delivering health,
water, energy, and agriculture services to the economic base of the pyramid in South Asia and
Sub-Saharan Africa. As CIO, he was a member of Acumen’s management team and helped build
out the network of country operations that worked closely with the entrepreneurs.
Brian was also a co-founding board member of the Aspen Network of Development
Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and was one of the principal architects of the Impact Reporting and
Investment Standards (IRIS). Prior to Acumen Fund, Brian worked as a consultant at McKinsey
& Company, was a lead environmental staff person at the Corporation for National Service, and
has been involved in a range of non-profit and for-profit startups. Brian serves on the board of
VisionSpring, Guidestar, and New Jersey Future and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen
Institute.
Beth Bafford
Vice President of Syndications and Strategy, Calvert Impact Capital
Beth leads Calvert Impact Capital's new business development efforts, including our services to
accelerate capital flows into communities through loan structuring and syndications. She also
oversees the organization's strategy, communications, and impact measurement functions.
Prior to joining Calvert Impact Capital, Beth was a consultant in McKinsey & Company's D.C.
office where she focused on U.S. Health Reform strategy. She has also worked as a Special
Assistant at the White House Office of Management and Budget during the drafting and passage
of the Affordable Care Act, as a Regional Field Director for the 2008 Obama for America
campaign, and as a Senior Associate at UBS Financial Services.
Beth received both her BA in Public Policy and MBA in Social Entrepreneurship at Duke’s
Fuqua School of Business. She helped launch Duke’s CASE Initiative on Impact Investing
(CASE i3), for which she currently serves on the Advisory Board. She also serves on the Board
of Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Investment Committee for the Aaron and Lillie Straus
Foundation, and the Advisory Board of Higher Ground Labs. She lives in Washington, DC with
her husband and son.
Donald Manekin
Co-Founder, Seawall Development Company
For more than four decades, Donald Manekin has worked on community-focused real estate
development, civic leadership and philanthropic missions in the Baltimore-Washington
region. In 2006, after a six-year hiatus from real estate development, he returned to co-found
Seawall Development Company with his son Thibault.
Seawall Development Company’s projects are focused on redeveloping functionally
obsolescent, generally long vacant historical buildings into mixed use projects that provide
great affordable housing for teachers and cost effective, efficient and collaborative office
space for non-profit organizations. They have completed two projects in Baltimore, Miller’s
Court ( www.millerscourt.com ) and Union Mill ( www.theunionmill.com ) and a recently
completed project in Philadelphia Oxford Mills ( www.theoxfordmills.com ) replicating the
Baltimore model.
Donald Manekin learned the real estate business from his father, Harold Manekin, cofounder
of the Manekin Corporation, whose company he joined in 1975. By 1979, Donald
had developed the skills to open a satellite office for the company in fast-growing Howard
County. This branch eventually employed 30 and developed 2.5 million square feet of
space used for offices, industry, flex and build to suit.
At Donald’s direction as partner and senior vice president of Manekin, the company
developed a team-oriented approach to real estate management. Each team was fully
responsible for the entire real estate process from development and construction through
leasing and on-going management.
Donald brought the same emphasis on long-term goals to his professional, civic and
philanthropic work. As regional president of the National Association of Industrial and
Office Properties and a member of its national board, he traveled to speak on the
importance of a long-term orientation for those in the development business. He also
shared his expertise while teaching graduate students at Johns Hopkins University, M.I.T
and Loyola University-Maryland. He served on a number of boards, including United Way of
central Maryland, Leadership Howard County, Columbia Foundation, Teach for
America and Open Society Institute-Baltimore.
Upon retiring from Manekin in 2000, he served as chief operating officer of the Baltimore
City Schools for two years and managed an $850 million budget, streamlined its financial
systems and oversaw its blueprint for high school reform.
Sarah Norman
Chief of Community Development, Sheppard Pratt Health System
Sarah Norman is Chief of Community Development at Sheppard Pratt Health System, working
to expand housing and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Previously,
she led a national initiative to connect health, housing and community development at
NeighborWorks America. She's also served as a Director and Senior Advisor in the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, as Bureau Chief and Senior Advisor in the Baltimore
City Health Department, and as Senior Advisor to a U.S. Member of Congress. With two degrees
from Harvard, she's a former President of the Harvard Club of Maryland. She lives in Baltimore
City with her husband and five-year old son.
Tyrell Dixon
Co-Founder and CEO, Project Own
As the Co-founder and CEO of Project Own, Tyrell is proud to invest his passion for affordable
homeownership into building strong, diverse communities in his native city. Prior to joining
Project Own, Tyrell served at the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community
Development, working in the Housing Commissioners Office as well as in the Office of Policy
and Partnerships. In addition to his leadership of Project Own, Tyrell works as a developer at
SAA|EVI, a leader in affordable real estate development and investment. Tyrell began his career
in public service as an educator, teaching middle school math in an underserved school district in
Lawrence, MA. He also worked as an instructional designer for New Classrooms, an education
nonprofit in New York City. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Tyrell holds a Masters of
Education from Boston University, and a B.A. from Harvard University.