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NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Contributor.

Rob Katz

After co-founding NextBillion.net and spending 8-plus years working at the intersection of business and international development, Rob Katz is currently pursuing a MBA at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

 

Prior to Stanford, Rob was Acumen Fund’s Knowledge Manager, leading Acumen’s efforts to understand where markets work –and where they don’t – in terms of solving the problems of poverty. Most recently, he co-authored From Blueprint to Scale: The Case for Philanthropy in Impact Investing(Monitor Group and Acumen Fund, 2012.) In addition to writing reports, he was responsible for applied research and writing efforts across the firm; he also oversaw Acumen’s knowledge management systems.Rob joined Acumen Fund in 2008, managing online communications as well as knowledge before shifting full time into applied research work.

 

Before Acumen Fund, Rob worked with the Markets and Enterprise Program of the World Resources Institute, where he began his career researching, writing and speaking about “base of the pyramid” business approaches to poverty alleviation. At WRI, he co-founded www.NextBillion.net, a web site and blog about enterprise and development, and co-authored The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid (IFC and WRI, 2007).

 

Here at NextBillion, Rob is both a member of our Advisory Board and a contributor to the blog.

 

Rob earned his B.A. in Political Economy from Georgetown University.

 

Follow Rob on Twitter @robertkatz.

 

Articles by Rob Katz

  • Saturday
    February 25
    2006

    Rob Katz

    Ms. Smith Goes to the BOP – To Design

    Interested in design for the base of the pyramid? MIT?s Amy Smith is your kind of person. Ethan reminded me about Dr. Smith?s work designing ?really simple things needed by an enormous number of people? with his blog post from the TED Global conference in California.I was lucky...

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  • Thursday
    February 23
    2006

    Rob Katz

    Who Said It? A New Manifesto for Sustainable Business

    Let?s play a game of name-that-quote. I?ll reproduce a quote below, and you guess who said it. Ready? No cheating...Business does good by doing businessDid anyone guess Milton Friedman? Heck, how about Adam Smith? Maybe Martin Feldstein? Wrong. Here?s another excerpt from the...

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  • Friday
    February 17
    2006

    Rob Katz

    Greening the Base of the Pyramid? SustainAbility Weighs In.

    What does green look like at the base of the economic pyramid? SustainAbility?s John Elkington and Mark Lee take that question on in a recent article, Fatigue of Nations, published by Grist. Elkington and Lee write in the engaging, tongue-in-cheek style embraced by Grist, and the result is...

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  • Friday
    February 17
    2006

    Rob Katz

    EarthTrends Announces Environmental Essay Competition

    Here at NextBillion, we know the importance of good data to good research, which is why we have nothing but the deepest respect for our WRI cousins working on EarthTrends: The Environmental Information Portal. Now, they?ve gone and upped the ante ? literally. EarthTrends has opened up an...

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  • Monday
    February 6
    2006

    Rob Katz

    Will Open Source MFI Software Set the Industry Standard?

    David at Microcapital reminds us of the Remote Transaction System, developed by Hewlett-Packard in conjunction with partner MFIs to widen the reach of financial services into rural areas. WRI was closely associated with the RTS project, at one time holding the intellectual capital in trust...

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  • Wednesday
    February 1
    2006

    Rob Katz

    Immune to Criticism? Hawken and Elkington on the BOP

    John?s discovery of Value and subsequent post prompted me to probe a bit deeper into the site. First of all, it?s nice to see a business magazine that has the phrase ?Tomorrow?s Markets? in the sub-title. Nicer still is that Value provides content of...well, value. Take for...

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  • Tuesday
    January 31
    2006

    Rob Katz

    BOP Job Announcements II ? Acumen Fund and GFUSA

    Following up on my job announcements post the other day, I hear through Zoo Station and New Ventures that there are some other promising opportunities opening up in the BOP realm. Acumen Fund is looking for 10 post-graduate fellows to learn about and help manage their portfolio?s wide range...

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  • Friday
    January 27
    2006

    Rob Katz

    BOP Job Announcements ? Solae and GFUSA Are Hiring

    DuPont?s food division, Solae, is working with the BOP Protocol team at Cornell University to set up a pilot project in Hyderabad, India. The project is looking to hire four dedicated, paid interns. An excerpt of the description, which can be found at Zoo Station, mentions that n terms...

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