Marie Lisa Dacanay, PhD is the founding President of the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) and is a thought leader in social entrepreneurship education, research as well as policy and program development in the region. In 2019, she was awarded as Outstanding Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum in recognition of her “visionary, pragmatic and courageous contributions to significantly improve the state of the world”.

Dr. Dacanay is a teacher, coach and mentor of social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship supporters and advocates. She has led the development and delivery of social entrepreneurship masteral and executive courses as  ssociate Professor at the Asian Institute of Management and as part time faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University. She became Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Management-Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (AIM-ACE) from 2001-2008. In AIM-ACE, she became Program Director and Guru of the Master in Entrepreneurship for Social and Development Entrepreneurs (MESODEV), where she mentored 4 batches of social entrepreneur-students. From 2008-2019, she was a part time faculty of the Graduate School of Business (AGSB) and the School of Government of the Ateneo de Manila University. She was co-Guru of the first batch of the Master in Entrepreneurship major in Social Enterprise Development Program at the AGSB in 2015-2017.

Dr. Dacanay has been a pioneer in undertaking research on the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in the Philippines and other developing countries in Asia since 2000. She has authored several books, book chapters and articles on social entrepreneurship published internationally. She was the partner for the Philippines of the EMES European Research Network-led International Comparative Social Enterprise Models Research Project covering 55 countries. She led the policy research and stakeholders’ consultations that resulted to the crafting, lobby and filing of a Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship Bill in both houses of Philippine Congress starting in 2012. She led a multi-country action research on Poverty Reduction and Women’s Economic Leadership: Roles, Potentials and Challenges of Social Enterprises in Developing Countries in Asia that resulted to defining an agenda for the social enterprise sector to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals. She also led a multi-country action research followed by a policy research that resulted to the development of a set of Benchmarks and Guidelines for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains.

Dr. Dacanay has over 30 years of experience in development management and consulting, social entrepreneurship and international development cooperation in Asia. She started her career in development management in 1988 with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). She rose from the ranks and became Vice President for Field Operations from 1997-1999. She served as Special Assistant for Countryside Development to the Secretary of the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform and was Project Manager of the Asian Development Bank-funded Agrarian Reform Communities Project from 1998-2000.

Dr. Dacanay holds a PhD (Organizational and Management Studies) from the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, a Master in Development Management (with Distinction) from the Asian Institute of Management and a Bachelor of Science (Statistics) from the University of the Philippines.