ARLINGTON, Virginia – November 11, 2005 – Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization that pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, has announced a new, innovative shift in its leadership structure by naming Diana Wells and Anamaria Schindler as Co-Presidents of Ashoka. Their selection represents a further evolution of Ashoka as a unique institution built for and led by social entrepreneurs.

Sushmita Ghosh, who is completing a five-year term as President, will continue as a member of Ashoka’s Leadership Team. Key leadership responsibilities will be shared by Ghosh, who will split her time between Ashoka’s Arlington headquarters and her native India, Wells, based out of the Arlington office, and Schindler, who is currently based and will remain in Latin America working from Brazil.

On announcing this transitional move, Bill Drayton, founder and CEO commented “Anamaria, Diana, and Sushmita are all quintessentially Ashoka. Brilliant entrepreneurs, each has created multiple programs that now are part of Ashoka’s institutional core. Each sees, believes in, and has made a long-term commitment to the trust Ashoka has to serve our era’s most hopeful historical force, the emergence of social entrepreneurship and the empowerment of everyone to be a changemaker.”

Anamaria Schindler joined Ashoka ten years ago and created the model to build strategic bridges between the business and social sectors . In 1996, Schindler launched and has since helped spread the Center for Social Entrepreneurship (CSE), a pioneer joint venture between Ashoka and McKinsey & Company in Brazil. It is a cornerstone of the 21 Ashoka programs seeking to reunite the citizen and business halves of the world’s work.

Diana Wells joined Ashoka in the 1980s after graduating from Brown University. During those first years, her entrepreneurial drive led to the creation of Fellowship Support Services, which links Ashoka social entrepreneurs in a collective network through a wide array of information and community resources. After a leave to do her Ph.D. in anthropology, she returned -- and has provided strong leadership to one of the core capacities of Ashoka—searching for and selecting Ashoka Fellows; the leading social entrepreneurs around the globe.

Ashoka addresses social problems through investing in social entrepreneurs, a uniquely effective approach that fosters and creates opportunities for wide-scale global collaboration and replication of innovation by building systems and institutions that facilitate high-impact social solutions. Over the past 25 years, Ashoka has invested in more than 1,600 Ashoka Fellows in 60 countries. These practical visionaries possess qualities traditionally associated with leading business entrepreneurs – vision, innovation, determination and long-term commitment – but are dedicated to systemic social change in their fields

“Each Fellow’s impact is magnified through the impact of Ashoka’s global community.” said Ghosh “This same idea is echoed in the creation of a collaborative leadership model that is much more than the sum of its parts.”