– Laina Greene
…
“As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Laina Greene of Angels of Impact.
Laina Greene is chief executive officer and founder of Angels of Impact. She is also a senior adjunct lecturer at the National University of Singapore, School of Business. Ms. Greene worked in the telecom, clean tech, and impact investing space for more than 30 years and she has worked, lived, and traveled in more than 52 countries worldwide. Ms. Greene considers herself a Global Citizen.
Previously, Laina Greene has worked at the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva and INTELSAT in Washington, DC. Ms. Greene became one of the early female techpreneurs in Singapore, where she started an e-learning company in 1997. In 2000, she founded Silicon Valley-based consultancy GETIT Inc, focusing on greening the IT and telecom industry.
During her international work and travels, Laina Greene became passionate about the potential for technology to change lives for the better. She quickly realized that technology access in rural and poor regions was also tied to energy access and the ability to pay, so she worked on innovative business and financing models to enable remote and poor communities to access technology.
At Angels of Impact, Ms. Greene focuses her efforts on supporting women and indigenous led community-based enterprises that support UNSDG #1 — No Poverty, #5 — Gender Equity, and #12 — Responsible Production and Consumption.
The intersectionality of gender and race is one of her passions, and ensuring new forms of integrated financing and support is her current focus. She serves on the Board of the Patricia Locke Foundation (an indigenous-led foundation), on the Investors Task Force of the JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Collaborative, on the International Steering Committee of the Global Telecommunications Women Network, spearheads the Restorative Investing Task Force at the American Sustainable Business Network, Advises the Food Funded Network, serves on the Inclusive Capital Collective Investment Committee, Cartier Womens Initiative Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Jury member, among her other volunteering commitments,
Laina Greene has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for organizations of all sizes in commercial, start-up, non-profit, and investment funds. Previously, Ms. Greene served as Senior Advisor to Ashoka, Advisor to Unltd Indonesia, Associate Director of the Asia Center for Social Entrepreneurship & Philanthropy at the NUS Business School, and Advisor to the Plus Acumen chapter in Singapore.
She is also the co-author of the book “Sustainable Impact: How women are key to ending poverty” (2017) and two recent reports written for Angels of Impact, funded by Oxfam and Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
An alumna of the National University of Singapore, the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, and Harvard Law. Laina also graduated from the AeA Institute Executive Program held at Stanford University and the Executive Program at Singularity University. She is a certified intercultural trainer from the Intercultural Communications Institute and lives between Silicon Valley and Singapore.“
by Yitzi Weiner
Published December, 6, 2022, Authority Magazine
