Celebrating Women at the Forefront of Social Change

“Women at the Forefront of Social Change: Creating Impact through Entrepreneurship and Investment” was a two-fold celebration hosted at Google’s San Francisco campus. Event attendees celebrated the launch of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale’s (CBEY) publication “Just Good Business: An Investor’s Guide to B Corps”, a collaboration with Patagonia and Caprock. The assemblage also celebrated the launch of WE@Yale, (Women Entrepreneurs and Innovators at Yale) a cross-campus community that supports women and non-binary femme innovators and entrepreneurs. WE@Yale, founded by Jennifer McFadden, MBA ‘08, and Cassandra Walker Harvey, is a joint initiative between the Program on Entrepreneurship and the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY).

The evening began with the keynote address delivered by Nancy Pfund, MPPM ’82, Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, on the significance of impact investing as it relates to the environment and opportunities for female innovators. Following the address, Sara Schley, Co-founder and CEO of Seed Systems and Eileen Fisher B-Corp Lead, moderated an interactive panel experience. The audience participated in small group discussions as they heard from panelists Kikka Hanazawa, Investor and Founder of Fashion Girls for Humanity, Alison May, Former CEO at Patagonia, Board of Directors at King Arthur Flour, and Karla Mora, Founder & Managing Partner at Alante Capital.

“Women at the Forefront of Social Change: Creating Impact through Entrepreneurship and Investment” was sponsored by CBEY, Tsai CITY, WE@Yale, Patagonia, Caprock, and the Yale School of Management Program on Entrepreneurship. Additionally, we would like to share our gratitude to Cliff Emmanuel, MBA ‘15, and Google for their support and generosity in hosting this fantastic experience.