Gena Rotstein

TEDxCalgary speaker Gena Rotstein brings a relentless entrepreneurial spirit matched with the vision and wisdom to help build a new type of social enterprise organization focused on supporting and educating private philanthropists. Once you meet her, it's easy to see why Gena was one of Avenue Magazine's 2009 "Top 40 Under 40" award recipients.

As Founder and President of Dexterity Consulting, one of Canada's first philantrhopic brokerages, Gena is an accomplished and experienced leader in her own right. She has worked with the non-profit sector in both the U.S. and Canada, and has been at the forefront of trying to find new ways to engage a growing number of private philanthropists who might otherwise fly under the radar screen of bigger institutional and community foundations, but who are a source of new energy and vision for the sector. In many cases, the investors whom Gena works with represent a more agile future for philanthropic giving, able to bring valuable funding and other support to organizations that are exploring important new territory within the broader charitable sector and society.

Gena also is a graduate of Leadership Calgary, and helps to display many of the program's most valuable elements: combining the impulse to do good with the necessity to think deeply about how we can try to address root causes, not just symptoms. She also is representative of a new energy in the entrepreneurial sector, having been selected last year as one of two young entrepreneurs to be part of Canada's delegation to the Young Entrepreneur (YE) G8 summit in Stresa, Italy.

We have asked Gena to share her insights on the future of philanthropy, and her ideas on how to make critical improvements in her particular area of expertise.

Gena Rotstein at TEDxCalgary 2010