About Us

FOUNDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & BOARD MEMBER

AZADEH ARDAKANI

Azadeh is an American-born Iranian and Canadian immigrant.  She studied Broadcast Journalism at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and Liberal Arts and Nonprofit Management at the New School.  Azadeh has extensive global experience and started her career working for an Arts and Entertainment Television show on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation in Vancouver. In 2005, Azadeh moved to New York City from Vancouver, where she worked as a television consultant and later a luxury account manager for clients, such as Trump and Tishman Speyer.  In 2008, Azadeh was instrumental in the launch of a high profile environmental campaign on climate change.  Her experiences in New York have taught her invaluable lessons about ethics and accountability in the private sector.  She holds a Bachelors of Science in Liberal Arts from New School University and a Masters of Science in Corporate Social Responsibility from Nottingham University Business School.  Azadeh has worked pro-bono on B4C since 2009.

Email:  azadeh@beckoningforchange.org.

BOARD

STEPHEN DUNCOMBE

Stephen has over two decades of experience as both a teacher and an organizer. With a PhD in Sociology from CUNY Graduate Center, he has taught in the City and State University’s of New York and is currently a professor of Media and Politics at New York University. While at SUNY he received the prestigious Chancellor’s Award for Teaching. An activist his entire adult life, he co-founded the multi-issue community activist group in the mid 1990s, the Lower East Side Collective, which won an award for “Creative Activism” from the Abbie Hoffman foundation. He was also a lead organizer in the international direct action group Reclaim the Streets. He is the author and editor of five books, including the Cultural Resistance Reader and Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, and writes for a wide range of scholarly and popular publications, including The Nation, The New York Times and Playboy. In 2009 he was a Research Associate at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York City where he helped organize The College of Tactical Culture and he is presently co-founder and director of the new Center for Artistic Activism. Duncombe is currently working on a book on the art of propaganda during the New Deal and an open-access, open-source, web-based edition of Thomas More’s Utopia.

WAYNE VISSER

Wayne Visser is Founder and Director of the think-tank CSR International and the author of twelve books, including The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business (2011), The World Guide to CSR (2010) and The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility (2010).  In addition, Wayne is Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Visiting Professor of Sustainability at Magna Carta College, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of CSR at La Trobe Graduate School of Management, Australia.  Before getting his PhD in Corporate Social Responsibility (Nottingham University, UK), Wayne was Director of Sustainability Services for KPMG and Strategy Analyst for Cap Gemini in South Africa. His other qualifications include an MSc in Human Ecology (Edinburgh University, UK) and a Bachelor of Business Science with Honours in Marketing (Cape Town University, South Africa).  In 2011, Wayne was listed in the Top 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders (ranking by ABC Carbon), and the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Europe & the Middle East 2011 (ranking by Centre for Sustainability & Excellence and Trust Across America). He was also winner of the Outstanding Author Contribution Award at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2011 and recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award of The Warwick MBA 2010/11.  Wayne’s work has taken him to more than 50 countries in the last 20 years. In 2010 alone, Wayne completed a 20 country ‘CSR Quest’ World Tour, to share best practices in corporate sustainability and responsibility.  Wayne lives in London, UK, and enjoys art, writing poetry, spending time outdoors and travelling in his home continent of Africa. A full biography and much of his writing and art is on www.waynevisser.com

ROD TALAIFAR

Rod received a B.A in 2001 and an LL.B in 2007, both from the University of British Columbia. He joined the firm as a summer student in 2006 and was called to the British Columbia Bar in 2008.  Rod’s practice focuses on securities, corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, mining and corporate/commercial law. Rod has assisted clients in connection with mergers & acquisitions, various mining ventures, debt and equity financings, internal investigations and public company disclosure and compliance.  Prior to entering the field of law, Rod co-founded a locally based company, recognized as one of the fastest growing businesses in Canada, that provided strategic marketing and financial communications services to public companies in the mineral exploration, mining, and energy sectors. Rod also previously interned as an equity analyst with a major U.S. based investment firm.

ELEANOR CICERCHI

Eleanor was the development director for The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York; and associate vice president for development at the Save the Children Federation.  Other positions include vice president for development and external affairs in the Americas for ORBIS International, a blindness-prevention agency working in the developing world; chief development officer for AmfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research; and vice president of institutional advancement for Marymount College Tarrytown. She also served as a campaign director for Brakeley, John Price Jones Inc. and in that capacity directed the Foundation Center’s first capital campaign.  Eleanor has been an adjunct faculty member in the nonprofit management graduate program of The New School since 1994 and a faculty member for The Fund Raising School of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University since 1990.  Eleanor is the immediate past chair of the of the Development and Membership Standing Professional Committee of the American Association of Museums and secretary of ActionAID-USA, which works to eradicate poverty and injustice in the developing world using a human rights approach. She is also a board member of GlassRoots, a Newark-based organization that teaches glassmaking, business and life skills to at-risk youth, and a founding board member of Beckoning for Change, an organization that supports artists committed to social justice.

(On Leave 2010-2011)