The SVT Team

Executive Management

Sara Olsen is the founder of Social Venture Technology Group, and has led the firm to become a world leader specializing in the development of frameworks for measuring the value of intangibles, and communicating this value in terms practical for entrepreneurs, managers and investors. Most recently Sara worked with the Environmental Investment Advisor to CalPERS, Environmental Capital Group, to design and pilot the Environmental Performance Reporting System used in its $1Bn environmental technology private equity portfolio; and has teamed with HIP Investor to develop and launch the Human Impact + Profit (HIP) Framework for investors, publicly-listed corporations and other institutions.

Sara views strategic impact analysis to be an emerging management discipline and works to promote its awareness and spread its adoption. She co-wrote Social Return on Investment: a Guide to SROI Analysis (Lenthe Publishers, 2006), “Social Return on Investment: A Standard” (California Management Review, May 2004), and “The Double Bottom Line Methods Catalog” (The Rockefeller Foundation, February 2004).

Sara is a co-founding steering committee member of Xigi.net (pronounced “ziggy”), a community-driven network and map of the emerging capital market that funds good, and is an advisor to Calvert Foundation’s Social Enterprise Fund, ChangingthePresent.org, Mobile Media and Aflatoun: Child Savings International. In 1999, Sara co-founded the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) and has conducted workshops on SROI analysis for the GSVC each year since.

Sara holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, an MASW from the University of Chicago and a BA from Dartmouth College. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Brett Galimidi (partner) brings to SVT Group an expertise in using information technology and market-based approaches for solving environmental and social problems.

In his prior work, he founded a consultative group within an internet marketing firm that designed emerging media and new technology strategies. While leading this group's work with a broad range of clients from start-ups to Fortune 500 firms, he brought together numerous (and often disparate) groups of experts and stakeholders and devised innovative metrics for measuring technology projects that had little or no precedent.

Brett combines his corporate experience with three years in the non-profit sector, where he focused on solving issues of environmental sustainability. At the Resource Renewal Institute in San Francisco, Brett worked on market-based solutions to environmental resource management and protection. More recently at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy he worked on a variety of projects with regard to business and the environment, primarily leading research efforts for a book on environmental protection in the information age.

Brett has conducted research in South Africa and in the US on the use of information and communication technology to address the complex relationships between social, political, economic and environmental issues. He holds a Master's Degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a BS in Anthropology from UCLA.

He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife, Caitlin, and spends his free time enjoying the outdoors, live music and anything that makes him laugh.

Associates and Staff

Amie Vaccaro (Program Manager) brings a background in consulting, marketing and business development to SVT. Previously as an Associate Consultant with Bain & Company, Amie worked with Fortune 500 and nonprofit clients on critical business issues in the healthcare, retail, and utilities spaces. She focused on growth strategy, cost reduction and organizational performance improvement.

While at Bain she also founded and led a Green Team for the 300-employee San Francisco office, nearly 10% of the company, which achieved significant strides in reducing the company’s carbon footprint. As part of this work, she oversaw more than half a dozen initiatives which included implementation of office-wide sustainable purchasing; assessment of the carbon offset provider landscape with an eye toward firm-wide carbon neutrality; and significant improvements to existing recycling efforts: these efforts resulted in enhanced office environmental awareness and engagement, significant reductions in landfill waste, green vendor support, and improved office quality of life.

Amie also brings social entrepreneurial experience from her work in market research and business development with a start-up green media company, Green Zebra, where she refined the venture’s sustainable savings guides, built and managed relationships with over 30 participating local businesses, created relationships with over 15 potential sponsors, and was instrumental in the development of seven important corporate, government and small business sponsor relationships.

Amie received a B.S. with high honors from Brown University. She is fluent in Spanish and loves to learn and travel. She writes for several green blogs, including her own, ecofrenzy.wordpress.com, about green business, enviro-savvy entrepreneurs, eco-innovation, other sustainable news and commentary. .

Strategic Partners and Collaborators

Social Enterprise Associates, founded by Drew Tulchin, is a consulting firm offering business acumen, managerial experience, financing opportunities, and practical research to business and community efforts seeking social good. We foster 'triple bottom line' solutions supporting entrepreneurs, their organizations, and the industries in which they operate.

HIP Investor helps companies, investors, and entrepreneurs realize both Human Impact + Profit simultaneously. HIP's founder, R. Paul Herman, is a prior McKinsey strategist, entrepreneur, grantmaker and fundraiser. SVT Group and HIP Investor partnered on the analysis of HIP Practices and HIP Revenues for Fast Company magazine. More can be found at www.HIPinvestor.com.

The DevDesign Compact aims to utilize expertise in sustainability to establish alignment among businesses, donors, implementing organizations and target communities in order to design and achieve development and investment objectives that are environmentally restorative, socially inclusive, culturally diverse and economically viable. To learn more, go to www.devdesigncompact.com.

Xigi.net is mapping the fast-growing but still emerging capital market that includes fair trade, microfinance, social enterprise, independent media and clean technology. Xigi.net is the creative commons where people who want to be involved or learn more about investing for good come together to house their collective market intelligence and thinking.

Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC Partnernship) is a coalition of organizations working to increase awareness of sustainable tourism and develop a standardized set of criteria for sustainable tourism practices. This partnership was founded by the Rainforest Alliance, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Foundation and the the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

Volunteers, interns and other helpful friends

Ilya Berger joined SVT Group in March 2009 seeking to bring in his experience in and enthusiasm about social and environmental policy consulting as well as market research, business mapping and strategy development. Ilya has worked in both consulting and academic research sectors in projects that involved investment risk management, cost/benefit analysis and optimization of resources and initiatives. He uses quantitative metrics, finance and numerical methods to arrive at the most rigorous possible analysis. In conjunction, he resorts to the aid of empirical software and programming languages such as Mathematica, Stata, Visual Basic and Excel.

Ilya cherishes his diverse background that includes childhood in Russia, attendance at the University of California in Los Angeles and graduate school in the University of Chicago. In addition he has lived in Spain and Germany, traveled extensively and speaks three languages fluently. Currently he resides in the Bay Area and enjoys his time in San Francisco, his favorite city.

Katherine Cheng began her social change career at Do Something, a national organization that empowers young people to use online tools to create change “offline.” She oversaw the transformation of the organization’s showcase youth social entrepreneur award program, the BR!CK Awards (now called “The Do Something Awards”), from an annual fundraising dinner into a primetime award show with an accompanying online voting platform sponsored by Yahoo. Under her management, the BR!CK Awards became the first and only televised award show about making the world better. Katherine has worked with the many kinds of people that populate the social-change space and passionately supports the diverse initiatives that exist, both in and out of the non-profit sector. In particular, she loves exploring cool and innovative ways to leverage communication platforms to create change. She is a graduate of Haverford College with a degree in Religion and Ethics and likes to spend her free time outside and with friends. She hopes to own a dog one day..

Johanna Hoopes joined SVT Group while pursuing an International MBA with a concentration in strategic marketing and sustainability. Previously, Johanna worked as a Senior Program Associate at the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in Washington, D.C., managing international education programs throughout Latin America with public and private partners. Ms. Hoopes gained her B.A. at Boston University in Economics and International Relations with minors in Spanish and Anthropology. She was a Startingbloc Fellow, and winner of the 2006 Social Innovation Competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Johanna’s areas of interest are economic development, entrepreneurship, and socially responsible investment. While completing her undergraduate work, consulted in Madrid, Spain and Ayacucho, Peru to micro-finance firms and companies strategically improving their social and environmental impact. She has presented papers at conferences in Costa Rica and South Africa. Johanna enjoys traveling, snowboarding, reading, and the Red Sox.

Jillian McCoy previously worked as a Research Analyst at Russell Reynolds Associates, a global Executive Search firm. There she supported the firm’s Media, Entertainment and Convergence practice, providing market research and candidate development for various start-ups and well established media and consumer companies. While attending college, she interned at ChildTrends Inc, a not for profit research center, and various other non profits in both Washington DC and San Francisco. In addition to her work with SVT, Jillian currently works with HIP Investor providing investment research of S&P 500 companies. Jillian received her B.A. in Sociology and Art History from the University of Maryland, College Park. A California native, she currently resides in San Francisco.

Julia Tran works on business development and marketing initiatives at SVT. She comes to SVT from a background in base of the pyramid (BOP) enterprise development and low-income market analysis. As a Research Analyst at World Resources Institute, an environmental and economic development think tank in Washington DC, she conducted research and authored publications on appropriate business models and opportunities in emerging markets, with a focus on the health sector. Julia earned a BA in English Literature with high honors from UC Berkeley in 2005. She is an avid traveler and is fluent in Vietnamese and Spanish.

Lea Oliver brings management and marketing experience to SVT. In 2010, she will obtain her M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management, with a focus in business strategy and nonprofit management. During her first year at Anderson, she served as Executive Vice President of Net Impact, created a strategic plan for International Medical Corps, and worked in the Major Gifts department of Amnesty International. She also began her thesis project, which analyzes expansion strategies of microfinance institutions across Africa. Prior to graduate school, Lea worked at Deutsch Inc., a nationally recognized advertising agency in New York City. As a Data Strategist, she analyzed and optimized online performance of Fortune 500 and nonprofit clients, including Ortho McNeill, Olympus, IKEA, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Originally from California, Lea graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Santa Barbara with a B.A. in Business-Economics and Spanish. She enjoys playing soccer and looks forward to traveling to her 25th country in the spring.

Erica Reicher joined SVT Group in May of 2009, while pursuing her BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the SVT Group team, Erica interned with companies in San Francisco and Sao Paulo, Brazil that fell within the realm of renewable energy, carbon and finance. Her experience at both places involved widespread research and analysis of potential projects, including trading and acquisition opportunities. Erica has also lived abroad in Cambridge, England, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Caitlin Galimidi

Beth French

Wendy Rogell