Paul Jansen
Adjunct Professor, Haas School of Business and Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company
With 25 years experience as a consultant and thought-leader in the social sector, Paul brings tremendous value to our students and programs. Paul willingly rolls up his sleeves and works with students to structure the hard questions, connects students with valuable resources, and brings key leaders to class to enrich student learning with live cases and real life examples. Paul teaches Nonprofit Boards: Governance and Leadership and Social Sector Solutions at the Haas School of Business.
Paul co-founded and led McKinsey & Company’s Global Social Sector Practice serving leading nonprofits and foundations on issues of strategy and organization. He took up his nonprofit work after 17 years of service to for-profit companies on issues including corporate and product strategy, operations improvement, sales and marketing, organization effectiveness, acquisitions and alliances. He co-authored a widely publicized article in the Harvard Business Review with former Senator Bill Bradley in 2003, entitled The Non-Profit Sector’s $100 Billion Opportunity. He is the author of many articles and reports challenging sector beliefs about performance, including a co-authored report entitled, The Dynamic Board: Lessons from High-Performing Nonprofits. He currently serves on the boards of Care USA and San Francisco Zoo. Paul earned a chemical engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA at Harvard Business School.
“To serve our community, Destiny Arts Center relies on the various strengths of public, private and non-profit resources to deliver our mission and broaden our impact. One of the resources we’ve found to be most valuable is the Berkeley Board Fellows Program. We find that the fellows bring a fresh perspective, tremendous energy and a willingness to serve important roles on the board.”
– David Riemer, Vice President of the Board.
Destiny Arts Center has been a long-time partner of the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership at Haas. David Riemer is a guest lecturer and mentor at the Berkeley-Haas Business School where he serves as Executive-in-Residence. David has served as board mentor to Berkeley Board Fellows for the last five years and recently joined the board of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Following his career as an ad agency President, David brought his strategic and marketing leadership to two start-ups and an internet titan, Yahoo! He now works with entrepreneurs, artists and students to focus their ideas. He created Box Out Industries to work with organizations and Spiral Staircase to collaborate with artists.
Destiny Arts Center (DAC) is a youth development organization for Oakland-area children and teens ages 3-18 dedicated to ending isolation, prejudice and violence in the lives of young people. DESTINY, which stands for “De-Escalation Skills Training Inspiring Nonviolence in Youth” provides after school programs including martial arts, modern dance, theater and youth leadership training. By using movement to express emotion and incorporating performance into a violence prevention program, DAC encourages self-awareness and aids conflict resolution.
This year Board Fellows Josh Harrington, MBA 12 and Christina Gleason, MBA 13 developed a business plan for DAC’s board of directors to help prepare the organization for its next phase of growth – to move into a facility all their own, and for the first time, offer programs during the day as well as after school. “Destiny’s ability to successfully make a smooth transition to a new facility is critical to our future success. We are grateful for the valuable business skills and strategic expertise of our Board Fellows.” says Riemer.
I serve as Board President of Centerforce, a nonprofit supporting families and communities impacted by incarceration—a board I first joined as a Berkeley Board Fellow in 2007. As a graduate student at the Goldman School of Public Policy, I was interested in pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector. I wanted real-world experience in organizational leadership, and the Board Fellows Program was ideal. The process of being matched to a nonprofit was straightforward, and I was provided with tons of support throughout the year.
I was placed with an organization called Centerforce, a nonprofit in San Rafael (a stone’s throw from San Quentin State Prison) focused on supporting communities impacted by incarceration. Centerforce programs promote successful re-entry, particularly by encouraging strong, healthy familial relationships. Like many nonprofit organizations, the Great Recession has forced Centerforce to become lean and efficient. Together with a leadership transition early in my tenure on the board, the first-hand experience of these challenges has been invaluable.
My Board Fellows experience:
I was fortunate to work with some seasoned nonprofit executives and board members at Centerforce and learned enough about nonprofit finance, programming, and board development during my first 24 months as a Board Fellow to enable me to move into the role of President in 2010 (I made an initial two-year commitment, which is not a requirement of the program). The Board Fellows experience has directly enhanced my ability to contribute to PCV as a program director. It also introduced me to the Bay Area and some of its most intractable problems and underserved communities very soon after relocating to California for school. I felt more connected to Berkeley and the region as a result.
What advice would you give to students?
I consider the Board Fellows Program a central part of my education. My involvement with Centerforce quickly became a top priority at Cal when I realized that the experience would be truly valuable and memorable – but also somewhat terrifying, given all of my other school-related obligations. I would advise students considering becoming a Board Fellow to embrace the gravity of the responsibility and to throw yourself into it… and to expect the unexpected!
Ben’s Bio:
Ben is the Director of InSight – the thought leadership and advisory practice in high-impact investing at Pacific Community Ventures (PCV). InSight provides policy research and non-financial performance evaluation to prominent investment and philanthropic institutions including the California Public Employees Retirement System and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has consulted to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, REDF, SF Works, and ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability. Ben has authored numerous studies and articles on impact investing, including Impact at Scale: Policy Innovation for Institutional Investment with Social and Environmental Benefit and the recent Huffington Post blog, The Really Truly Transformative Potential of Impact Investing. He sits on the governing strategy and adoption committee of the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards.
Paul Jansen
impactmba 