Blog

GSBI Alumni Identify Key Trends in Distribution and Energy Access

Marie Haller and Neal Harrison - May 21, 2019

On April 18, two Miller Center alumni – Emma Colenbrander, head of the Global Distributor’s Collective (GDC) at Practical Action UK and Lesley Marincola, CEO of Angaza – joined us to share key trends in the last mile distribution (LMD) and energy sectors.

Emma at GDC gave an overview of the challenges and trends at the ecosystem level that they’ve learned from working with hundreds of distributors. These trends include the surprising data that shows the importance of distributors increasing product diversity in their offerings versus the traditional consensus that specializing in selling one product allows for better efficiency and scale. Lesley at Angaza followed up by presenting more details on the needs of distribution partners and how they use human-centered design to build technology solutions that address them.

This webinar was a part of the focused curriculum Miller Center has developed to support our sector-specific affinity groups that work with entrepreneurs running last mile distribution and energy access businesses.

Marie Haller and Neal Harrison

Marie has been working as an educator for 10 years. After discovering the concept of social enterprise in 2012, she has been focused on learning about and supporting the growth of the ecosystem through running various education programs at Impact Hub San Francisco and more recently with Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Inspired by her Miller Center work with maternal and child health organizations in east Africa, Marie has also recently trained and now practices as a birth doula through the SF General Hospital volunteer doula program.

Neal Harrison has seven years experience working on social innovation, entrepreneurship, impact investment and supply chain management in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Ghana. He has experience in researching and report writing, leading entrepreneurial ventures, and managing international projects in the public, non-profit and social enterprise sectors. He is certified in Project Management Professional (PMP) and hold an MSc in Global Economics and Politics from the London School of Economics. Neal has a passion for economic development and finding sustainable solutions to pressing social challenges. He is particularly interested in entrepreneurship, food systems and environmental issues.

Mercy Leta Rose from Energy 4 Impact