Sean Geobey
Sean is the Associate Professor in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Waterloo’s School of Environment Enterprise and Development (SEED – https://uwaterloo.ca/school-environment-enterprise-development/) and one of Canada’s leading researchers in social finance and social innovation, having led the Legacy Leadership Lab ((https://uwaterloo.ca/legacy-leadership-lab/legacy-leadership-lab-cultivating-social-acquisition) team which coined the term ‘social acquisition’. He brings applied expertise in social innovation theory, sustainable finance, planning, governance, and decision-theory to his research and teaching as someone who has spent over two decades advising social entrepreneurs and as a social entrepreneur himself.
At the university of Waterloo he serves as Director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI – https://uwaterloo.ca/complexity-innovation/) and Co-Director of the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR – https://uwaterloo.ca/waterloo-institute-for-social-innovation-and-resilience/) his teaching includes cutting edge work in social entrepreneurship and social innovation, with a pedagogical approach that uses problem-based, community-engaged learning. His work uses complex adaptive systems theory and community-based research to explore governance and design issues in collective action, often using large-scale co-design processes such as social innovation labs.
Much of this work has been in the social finance sector, including the Legacy Leadership Lab and supporting systems mapping and a principles focused evaluation of the Canadian Social Finance Fund’s Investment Readiness Program (https://uwaterloo.ca/waterloo-institute-for-social-innovation-and-resilience/projects/investment-readiness-program-20). He has been a Fellow at the Filene Research Institute and is currently Social Capital Partners Fellow at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.