Our Global Network: Building bridges across emerging markets.

The first decade of New Ventures focused on building the foundations of our presence in six emerging economies. Equipped with this valuable on-the-ground perspective, we are now building vibrant global connections, a platform whereby New Ventures Local Centers and Enterprises learn from each other and seize opportunities for collaboration.

We envision a Global Network focused on the following activities:

• Best practices sharing: Local Centers learn from each other’s successes and failures with regards to enterprise acceleration. We do this through staff exchanges and annual Country Director meetings.

• Entrepreneur peer to peer networks: We facilitate interaction among our New Ventures Enterprises on both a local and global level to encourage learning and potential business partnerships.

• Communication and collaboration: We encourage constant communication among the different Local Centers and Global Network through our internal communications platform. We also identify collaborative opportunities between different Local Centers and facilitate the implementation of such initiatives.

Example: Staff Exchange in Washington DC

In February of 2010, staff from our Local Centers in China, Colombia and Mexico came together with the New Ventures Global staff for a two-week Staff Exchange in WRI’s Washington DC offices. During this time, the staff shared perspectives on what has worked in promoting Environmental Enterprise in their own countries.

Several ideas came up during the exchange, among them a Global Investor Forum where enterprises from our six countries could pitch their business plans to international investors. This event took place in April 2011 in New York City and highlighted the strength of the New Ventures Global Network.

For inquiries on our Global Network activities, please contact our Global Network Officer Aram Kang.