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Event Information

Date:
Thursday, December 3, 2009

Time:
10:00–18:00

Location:
Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
Piazza di Sant'Apollinare, 49
00186 Rome, Italy

Click here to register

Free Enterprise, Poverty, and the Financial Crisis

In 2008, the developed world was engulfed in a recession second only to the Great Depression in severity. Amidst the meltdown, the developing nations were largely forgotten. Having made large strides towards prosperity through free enterprise and integration into the global economy, they became the forgotten people. How has the financial crisis affected developing nations and their journey out of poverty? How will proposed reforms to the global economy affect them?

On Thursday, December 3, 2009, the Acton Institute is sponsoring a day-long conference in Rome to consider these and other questions. Hosted at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, renowned scholars, policy experts, and entrepreneurs will address the financial crisis’ impact upon poverty in developing nations and what the future holds for them. This conference is the first in the seven-part series Poverty, Entrepreneurship, and Integral Development.

Speakers Include:

• Juan José Daboub, World Bank
• Eric Kacou, OTF Group, Inc
• Dr. Samuel Gregg, the Acton Institute
• Professor Harold James, Princeton University
• Professor Carroll Ríos de Rodríguez, Universidad Francisco Marroquín
• Mr. Andreas Widmer, S.E.VEN Fund

Speaker Biographies

Juan José Daboub, Ph.D., joined the World Bank in June 2006 as the managing director responsible for the Bank’s operations in 74 countries (in Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, and the Middle East and North Africa). In addition, Dr. Daboub oversees other administrative vice-presidencies and functions, including the information systems group (ISG) and the department of institutional integrity (INT). Prior to joining the Bank Group, Dr. Daboub served concurrently as El Salvador’s minister of finance and chief of staff to the president. He led family-owned businesses for nearly a decade before joining the Board of CEL, El Salvador’s electric utility, and he presided over El Salvador’s electric distribution companies. Subsequently, he was named president of ANTEL, the state-owned telecommunications company, which he re-structured and privatized through a competitive process. He served in three different governments over twelve years, and then returned to the private sector. In 2004, he joined former President Flores of El Salvador in forming the America Libre Institute, where he worked in several projects implementing proven public policies that had been successfully deployed throughout Latin America. Dr. Daboub holds a BS, MS, and PhD in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University.

Samuel Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute, an Adjunct Professor at the Pontifical Lateran University, and a consultant for Oxford Analytica Ltd. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 2004. In 2008, he was elected a member of the Philadelphia Society, and a member of the Royal Economic Society. Dr. Gregg has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, ethics in finance, and natural law theory. He has an MA in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in moral philosophy from the University of Oxford, which he attended as a Commonwealth Scholar and worked under the supervision of Professor John Finnis. He is the author of several books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (2001), On Ordered Liberty (2003), and his prize-winning The Commercial Society (2007), as well as monographs such as Ethics and Economics: The Quarrel and the Dialogue (1999), Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2001), A Theory of Corruption (2004), and Banking, Justice, and the Common Good (2005). Several of these works have been translated into a variety of languages. Dr. Gregg also publishes in journals such as the Journal of Markets & Morality, Law and Investment Management, Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, Economic Affairs, Evidence, Oxford Analytica, and Policy. He is a regular writer of opinion-pieces which appear in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal Europe, the Washington Times, the Australian Financial Review, and Business Review Weekly. His op-eds are also widely published in newspapers throughout Europe and Latin America. Dr. Gregg is also an editorial consultant for the Italian journal, La Societa, as well as American correspondent for the German newspaper Die Tagespost. In 2007, Dr. Gregg’s book The Commercial Society was awarded a Templeton Enterprise Award. These awards are given annually to the best books and articles published in the previous year on the culture of enterprise. The awards are designed to encourage young scholars to explore and illuminate the process by which economics and culture are related throughout the world.

Eric Kacou is a managing director at the OTF Group, Inc. Leader of the Africa and Country Competitiveness practices, Mr. Kacou also oversees the strategy and marketing of the firm. Born and raised in Cote d’Ivoire, he is an expert in post-conflict economic reconstruction, competitiveness and enterprise solutions to poverty. Mr. Kacou has advised leaders of over a dozen African and Caribbean nations, corporations and development institutions. Specifically, Mr. Kacou leads the Rwanda National Innovation and Competitiveness (RNIC) program, an initiative by His Excellency President Paul Kagame to upgrade the competitiveness of Rwanda’s economy. This program, which is the first of its kind in Africa, is credited with helping Rwanda revitalize its economy. In addition, Mr. Kacou oversees the Pioneers of Prosperity Africa award program. This is an annual, multi-million dollar, initiative between the Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN), OTF Group and selected institutions to recognize dynamic companies in emerging markets that can be an inspiration for future business leaders. Prior to joining the OTF Group, Mr. Kacou worked as a strategy consultant with Monitor Company in Toronto and Paris advising senior Fortune 500 executives mostly in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and manufacturing. A frequent speaker, Mr. Kacou contributed to In the River They Swim, an original book of essays, published by Templeton Press in April 2009. Mr. Kacou earned his MBA at the Wharton School of Business, and a B.A. in Finance at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal, Canada.

Harold James who holds a joint appointment as Professor of International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School, studies economic and financial history and modern German history. He was educated at Cambridge University (Ph.D. in 1982) and was a Fellow of Peterhouse for eight years before coming to Princeton University in 1986. His books include a study of the interwar depression in Germany, The German Slump (1986); an analysis of the changing character of national identity in Germany, A German Identity 1770-1990 (1989) (both books are also available in German); and International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods (1996). He was also coauthor of a history of Deutsche Bank (1995), which won the Financial Times Global Business Book Award in 1996, and he wrote The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War Against the Jews (2001). His most recent works are The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression (2001), which is also available in Chinese, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, and Europe Reborn: A History 1914-2000 (2003); The Roman Predicament: How the Rules of International Order Create the Politics of Empire (2006) and Family Capitalism: Wendels, Haniels and Falcks (2006; also available in German, Italian and Chinese). In 2004 he was awarded the Helmut Schmidt Prize for Economic History, and in 2005 the Ludwig Erhard Prize for writing about economics. He is also Marie Curie Visiting Professor at the European University Institute. Professor James is currently working on a book on the history of the corporation in modern Europe, a study of the 1929 crash, and a study of the history of European monetary integration.

Carroll Ríos de Rodríguez is a trustee of Francisco Marroquín University, where she is also a professor. She received a B.A. in government and economics from Dartmouth College (1987) and a Masters in Latin American studies from Georgetown University (1989). Prior to becoming a trustee at Francisco Marroquín University, Prof. Rios de Rodriguez served as dean of the Political Science and International Relations Institute (EPRI) and founded the Public Choice Center at the university, running it for seven years. In 1995, she was invited to become the first female member of the board of directors of the Center for Economic and Social Research (CEES), a think tank founded in 1959; she still serves on this board, as well as others. Prof. Rios de Rodriguez has published a weekly column in Siglo Veintiuno, a Guatemalan newspaper, for over eleven years. She has also been published by many Guatemalan journals and magazines, the Wall Street Journal, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation's Perfiles Liberales, and Cato Institutes Regulation Magazine. Her areas of interest include public choice, Latin American development theory, decentralization, water rights, and population studies.

Andreas Widmer is the co-founder of the SEVEN Fund, a non-profit run by entrepreneurs whose goal is to dramatically increase the rate of innovation and diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. Mr. Widmer is a seasoned business executive with experience in high-tech and, more recently, international business strategy consulting and economic development. He was an executive in residence at Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. Prior to that, he helped lead OTF Group (formerly part of the Monitor Group), Eprise Corporation, Dragon Systems and FTP Software. Mr. Widmer has worked extensively in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin Americas, and has brought more than 100 leading-edge technology products to market. During his career, Mr. Widmer has participated in the early stage of four startup companies with cumulative exits valued at more than $730 million. His current projects include advising high-technology and medical device startup companies on strategy, venture capital and angel fund-raising efforts. Mr. Widmer is an author who recently contributed two chapters to the book In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. He regularly writes on issues of entrepreneurship, economic development and spirituality. He has authored articles and been featured in various business and general interest media including the Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Sky TV, Kigali Times, FastCompany, and Catholic Digest. Mr. Widmer served as a Pontifical Swiss Guard from 1986-1988, protecting Pope John Paul II. He holds two business degrees from Switzerland, and two degrees from the US, a B.S in International Business from Merrimack College and an MA in Ministry from St. John’s Seminary in Boston. He speaks English, German, Italian and French, and serves on a number of international and local charitable boards. In his spare time, Mr. Widmer loves to spend time with his family and enjoys fly-fishing, skiing, and reading.