2004 Skoll World Forum
Interview: Olivier Kayser - Ashoka
Olivier Kayser: My name is Olivier Kayser. I'm one of the vice presidents at Ashoka.
Social Edge: How did you get involved with Ashoka? What is it about you that is interested in social entrepreneurship?
OK: Actually, about a year ago I decided to join Ashoka from a career at McKinsey, where I spent over 18 years and where I was a director, and decided to dedicate the second half of my career to the social sector and Ashoka seemed to be the right place for me.
SE: What are you finding out in terms of what social entrepreneurs need? How would you describe what social entrepreneurs need and have you identified any of that when people are talking at the forum at all?
OK: I think social entrepreneurship is still a very new field where the needs are very wide and very diverse. I am not sure where the needs are greatest. Where I think I'm very interested in trying to contribute is developing the models that could make non-profit organizations more viable and more competitive on the capital market, on the service and product market and also on the employment market.
SE: What have you gotten out of the forum out of the last few days? What are the highlights for you?
OK: I think the highlights were probably the overall descriptions of the field which were made by a number of different people. I think what I really liked about this forum is that there were a number of people who have been thinkers in this field for years who obviously have not communicated very much with each other and they were, each of them, presenting their overall visions and these visions were complimentary, sometimes contradictory, and that was very refreshing to see that much passion.
I'm afraid that the following forums are going to be probably more productive in the sense that there will be less discussion spent on semantics and a bit more about more in-depth discussions of certain areas of social entrepreneurship. But this one was very unique because it was the first.









