Please Join Us
For a virtual Forum
Wednesday, December 9th, 2020
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Social Entrepreneurship
in Baltimore, Boston and Beyond
Keynote Talk by
Professor Brian Trelstad
Harvard Business School
Followed by a Panel Forum of
Local Entrepreneurs:
Beth Bafford, Ours to Own Baltimore (Initiative by Calvert Impact Capital)
Donald Manekin, Seawall Development Company
Sarah Norman, Sheppard Pratt
Tyrell Dixon, Project Own
R.S.V.P HERE for Zoom Meeting Link and Registration
Biographies:
Brian L. Trelstad
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
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, co-founder 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.