After graduating from the MBA programme at INSEAD in July 2007, Cynthia Schweer co-founded Starfish Greathearts Foundation USA, the US branch of an international development charity aiming to bring life, hope and opportunity to orphaned and vulnerable children in southern Africa.
Starfish Greathearts Foundation USA focuses on helping children who are orphaned by AIDS in southern Africa. Currently, the charity is supporting over 34,000 children in more than 100 communities in all provinces in South Africa, providing services such as home visits, counselling, access to education and social grants.
|
Cynthia Schweer MBA '07J
with children Starfish is helping
|
In her role as CEO (USA), Cynthia is responsible for developing the nonprofit's presence in the United States, including marketing and communications, grant solicitation, fundraising and impact measurement.
She is also currently in the process of developing an innovative portal to allow donors to actively invest in Starfish 'social funds', directly connecting donors to the projects that Starfish supports.
Coming to INSEAD, Cynthia was awarded the Alumni Fund Women's Scholarship, which was established to encourage the education and professional growth of talented young women who want to make a difference in the world.
During her year at INSEAD, Cynthia took the opportunity of studying across continents by going to our Asia campus in Singapore and taking the INSEAD-Wharton MBA exchange programme, in which students can elect to spend one period at Wharton's Pennsylvania campus, one of the benefits of the INSEAD-Wharton Alliance.
We asked Cynthia to tell us about her year at INSEAD, the INSEAD-Wharton MBA exchange programme and her role as CEO at Starfish USA and their activities. Read on. |
|
|
