Kahane Joins Impressive Roster of 15 International Leaders Named
2022 Social Innovators of the Year
Cambridge, MA, January 18, 2022 – Reos Partners is pleased to announce that director Adam Kahane is a 2022 recipient of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship award to mission-driven leaders in social innovation.
Coronavirus, climate change, spiraling inequality and fractured societies—a perfect storm of global crises that has dominated the past few years. In 2022, governments, businesses and civil society face unprecedented social and economic challenges, from tackling gender and racial inequalities to achieving sustainable and equitable growth. While public trust in governments, institutions and corporations has been eroded, demand for good governance and responsible leadership is soaring.
In 2022, Schwab Foundation’s Board of Directors honors 15 visionaries they identify as putting purpose and equality above profit and self-interest to address complex challenges by empowering society’s most vulnerable groups and ecosystems.
“This year’s Schwab Foundation Awardees demonstrate that through values-based approaches centering on inclusivity, collaboration, relationships of trust and long-term sustainability, we have proven ways of changing institutions and mindsets, and disrupting traditional ways of working that hold systemic barriers in place,” said François Bonnici, Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
Kahane’s honor from the Schwab Foundation is in the “Social Innovation Thought Leader” category — one that recognizes experts and champions shaping the evolution of social innovation.
“In order to be able to make real progress on our daunting global challenges, we need more and better collaboration across differences,” says Kahane. “I am delighted to be partnering with the Schwab Foundation’s community of social innovators, to continue developing a better theory and practice of collaboration.”
Kahane is director of Reos Partners, an international social enterprise that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. A global leader helping diverse teams of leaders work together, across their differences, Kahane has facilitated breakthrough projects in more than fifty countries on climate change, racial equity, democratic governance, Indigenous rights, health, food, energy, water, education, justice, and security.
For a full list of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship 2022 awardees, please visit schwabfound.org.
Schwab Foundation’s unique community of social innovators dates back more than two decades. In 1998, Professor Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde created a foundation to support a new model for social change, combining often overlooked values of mission, compassion and dedication with the best business principles on the planet to serve the most disadvantaged people on earth and build a better society. Today, the Foundation has a thriving community of 400 global social entrepreneurs that have impacted the lives of 722 million people in 190 countries. They offer access to healthcare, education, housing, finance, digital skills and advocacy networks resulting in job creation, economic opportunity, improved health and stability. To help the social enterprise sector increase its reach in response to COVID, the Foundation established the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs early 2020, representing 90+ members and an estimated 100,000 entrepreneurs as the largest collaborative in the sector. The 2022 Schwab Foundation Awards are hosted in a long-term partnership with the Motsepe Foundation, founded on the philosophy of ‘ubuntu’, the African concept of giving and caring for your neighbour and other members of your community.
Adam Kahane is a Director of Reos Partners, an international social enterprise that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. Adam is a leading organizer, designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to address such challenges. He has worked in more than fifty countries, in every part of the world, with executives and politicians, generals and guerrillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. Adam is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities, about which Nelson Mandela said: “This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.” He is also the author of Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change, Transformative Scenario Planning: Working Together to Change the Future; Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust; and Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together. During the early 1990s, Adam was head of Social, Political, Economic and Technological Scenarios for Royal Dutch Shell in London. He has held strategy and research positions with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), the Institute for Energy Economics (Tokyo), and the Universities of Oxford, Toronto, British Columbia, California, and the Western Cape. Adam has a B.Sc. in Physics (First Class Honours) from McGill University (Montreal), an M.A. in Energy and Resource Economics from the University of California (Berkeley), and an M.A. in Applied Behavioural Science from Bastyr University (Seattle). He has also studied negotiation at Harvard Law School and cello performance at Institut Marguerite-Bourgeoys. Adam and his wife Dorothy live in Montreal and Cape Town.
Notes to editors
Watch the Schwab Foundation Social Innovators of the Year 2022 Launch:
For more information on the award categories and nominations for the 2023 award, please visit www.schwabfound.org
Visit the Schwab Foundation website at http://www.schwabfound.org
Follow the Schwab Foundation on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/schwabfound
Follow the Schwab Foundation on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-foundation-for-social-entrepreneurship
Visit the Schwab Foundation Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/schwabfound
Visit the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs: https://www.weforum.org/covid-alliance-for-social-entrepreneurs