Advice from a CEO on Social Entrepreneurship

CEO Sally Osberg Discusses Her Experience as a Social Entrepreneur

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What does a successful social entrepreneur have to say about her business model and the process of creating a profitable business? In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Sally Osberg, president and CEO of Skoll Foundation, addresses  the necessary factors to achieve the desired result of a successful business. She argues that a blend of time and perspective are just as important as the economics of the business.

Osberg starts off by defining a social entrepreneur as a person who indirectly tries to change and provide a social benefit. The first step in the journey of social entrepreneurship is “understanding the world...There is an equilibrium that leads to the disadvantage, marginalization, or even suffering and oppression of some very significant segment of society. And that’s the motivation for the social entrepreneur to see whether she or he can actually affect the transition to an entirely new equilibrium so that people no longer are marginalized or suffer.” Osberg provides an example of an ongoing effort to provide transportation to community health workers in third world countries. She points out that this organization saw the need for motorcycles and this was derived from a deep understanding of changing the status quo.

She also discusses the ideal model for a social entrepreneurship which takes time to evolve into, and must be adaptive to market feedback.  In response to a question about the scale of impact, she says “Economics matter...It’s much more about how those resources are leveraged to affect change.” She believes that entrepreneurs often try to create an impact far beyond the scale of their organization. This actually limits their scale of impact and, therefore, need to reevaluate their mission for the organization. I would agree with Osberg that perspective of the world is important in honing in on the social causes one is passionate about.


Future Questions: Based on social entrepreneurship book recommended to me from Mr. Chokshi about a successful social entrepreneur (Muhammad Yunus).