Shawn Cole is a professor in the Finance Unit and has taught in a variety of MBA courses, including the core first-year Finance courses and second-year elective courses on Business at the Base of the Pyramid and impact investing. He also teaches in various executive education courses and in the PhD development sequence in the department of Economics. Much of his research examines corporate and household finance in emerging markets, with a focus on insurance, credit, and savings. He has also done extensive work on financial education in the US and emerging markets.
Amelia Angella is Director of the Social Enterprise Initiative. Prior to joining HBS, Amelia was the Executive Director of Community Action Partners, a pro-bono business consulting organization of Harvard Business School and Kennedy School alumni working with Boston-area nonprofits and social enterprises. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and prior work experience at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and John Hancock’s Bond and Corporate Finance group.
Margot Dushin joined the Social Enterprise Initiative in 1996. Margot plays a principal role in the Social Enterprise Initiative's MBA Program activities, working with prospective and current students interested in social enterprise, leading social enterprise field-based and career efforts, and helping practitioners interact with students in a variety of ways in order to meet their organizations' goals. Before joining Social Enterprise, she worked in the School's Marketing and Communications Office on publishing and technology projects. She holds an Ed.M from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in communications and English literature from Syracuse University.
Sarah Appleby manages an array of Social Enterprise Executive Education programs which are designed to provide practitioners with opportunities to enhance their management, governance, and entrepreneurial capabilities and to achieve high performance in their organizations. Prior to this role, Sarah was a research associate with the Social Enterprise Initiative with a focus on social enterprise scaling and impact investing. She has worked as a project manager at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and a program coordinator for the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and the Jewish Multiracial Network. She holds an MBA in Nonprofit Management from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a B.A. in education from Hampshire College.
Yuri Dafonseca joined the Social Enterprise Initiative in January 2022. As a coordinator he plays a key role in supporting MBA program activities, along with Executive Education, Alumni programming, and SEI communications. He comes to SEI from his role as a Senior Program Coordinator in HBS Executive Education, and brings a background in development from Harvard Law School, Harvard Alumni Affairs and Development, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Yuri holds a Master of Liberal Arts in International Relations from Harvard Extension School, and a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Cortney Robinson Jones is a Special Projects Associate at the Social Enterprise Initiative at Harvard Business School. In her role, Cortney manages the development and execution of a pilot project focused on developing social enterprises that serve Black communities. Cortney has a background in program design and delivery and a passion for supporting leaders in social impact as they solve some of the world’s toughest problems. Prior to joining the team at the Social Enterprise Initiative, Cortney worked at the Rustandy center for Social Sector Innovation at the Chicago Booth School of Business and then in Community Relations at the Chicago Bulls. In both roles she launched programs to help leaders in social impact maximize their work’s effectiveness and growth both domestically and abroad. Cortney attended Spelman College for her undergraduate education in Psychology and Spanish and Pepperdine University where she received a Master’s in Clinical Psychology.