The Center for Social Sector Leadership develops cutting-edge thinking on social change by bringing in new ideas and voices through residencies at Berkeley-Haas School of Business for imaginative thinkers. Over the last decade, the Center has hosted innovative thinkers in fresh, just-developing fields: the voices of those subjected to gender violence as a tool of war (focused on India and Kashmir), the power of networks to create social change, artists as social entrepreneurs, multisector leadership and social impact, and democracy entrepreneurship.
Social Impact Fellows
Jill Vialet
2021-2022 Visiting Scholar
Jill Vialet is a serial social entrepreneur. She is the founder of Playworks, the co-founder of Substantial, and the co-founder of Oakland’s Museum of Children’s Art. Vialet was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2004, named by Forbes as one of 30 social entrepreneurs on its ‘Impact 30’ list in 2011, and received a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in 2013. Jill joins CSSL as a Fellow in 2021 to develop entrepreneurial ways to strengthen democracy by pairing new democracy entrepreneurs with experienced social entrepreneurs, to accelerate democracy entrepreneurship.
Doug Leeds
2017-2018 Social Impact Fellow
Doug was a Social Impact Fellow at CSSL developing ways to incorporate multi-sector leadership and social impact into the curriculum and advance our thinking about executive leadership and social purpose. Doug is now a member of Berkeley Haas’ Professional Faculty, teaching Leadership by Persuasion and co-teaching Creativity and Leadership. Doug is also CEO of EAT Club, the country’s leading B2B food delivery service, and recently led the company’s sale to Compass Group, PLC (LSE:CPG). He has held many executive positions at multiple companies prior to EAT Club.
Jane Wei-Skillern
2015 To Date: Haas Senior Fellow
Jane is a recognized expert on the topic of collaboration in social enterprises, and she brought her network leadership research into her general social entrepreneurship courses and publications. During her time as a fellow, she narrowed her focus specifically to network leadership, developing research, articles, and cases on the topic. Jane convened groups of dozens of successful network leaders from around the world to share and develop best practices, thus advancing knowledge from the practice of network leadership to inform the theory of same. Jane Wei-Skillern has served as a Haas Senior Fellow since 2015, developing her focus on the practice of network leadership in social enterprises.
Visiting Scholars
Laura Callanan
2013-2014 Visiting Scholar
Laura Callanan is the founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab, a national collaboration connecting artists, impact investors and social entrepreneurs to create more opportunities for artists to deliver social impact at scale. As Scholar in Residence at UC-Berkeley/Haas School of Business Laura authored three business school case studies featuring artist social entrepreneurs. She was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship and invited as a Visiting Scholar to the American Academy in Rome to continue this work. As a visiting fellow, Laura edited the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s 2015 Community Development Investment Review on the topic of creative placemaking. She was previously a consultant with McKinsey & Company, a Senior Adviser at the United Nations Development Programme, Executive Director of The Prospect Hill Foundation, and Associate Director at The Rockefeller Foundation. Laura Callanan served as a Visiting Scholar at CSSL in 2013-2014, studying the new field of arts as social entreprenership.