Fred
Wood, Ph.D.
 Dr. Fred Wood is an internationally recognized expert on early childhood and youth development. His primary focus is on the role of private initiative in meeting the needs of marginal communities, non-governmental development alternatives in the developing world; and the relationship of early childhood development programs to the process of community development in low-income countries.
For twelve years, Dr. Wood served as Director of Education for Save the Children, with a main focus on early childhood development, community-initiated primary schools, and non-formal education. Prior to his work at Save the Children, he was Deputy Executive Director and Director of Programmes at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, The Hague, Netherlands where he created low-cost culturally appropriate early childhood development programs in 38 countries worldwide. He has also served as Education Research Officer, Commonwealth Secretariat, London; and Education Officer, Government of Uganda. Dr. Wood has managed numerous technical and policy missions, including identification, design, and implementation. His clients have included prominent development agencies such as the World Bank, UNICEF and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Dr. Wood received his Ph.D. from the University of London, where he completed his thesis “Education and Training of Out of School Youth in Twelve African Countries”. Later revised and published as “Informal Education in Africa” (Mouton). He has a Master’s in Philosophy, an Academic Diploma in Education and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, from the University of London, as well as a Master’s in History from Aberdeen University, where he obtained First Class Honors, the Forbes Gold Medal and the Caithness Prize.
Since moving to the United States in 1990, he was been a Fellow
at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Director of Education for
Save the Children and at various times consultant for UNICEF
in Albania, Jordan and Turkey. His primary professional
concern derives from his time as Program Director and Deputy
Executive Director at the Bernard van Leer Foundation in the
Netherlands. The Van Leer Foundation is a pioneer example
of how the social development field can be strengthened by
association with the business sector and can in turn, through
the insight it provides into operating context, strengthen
the efficiency of the business sector itself.
James Van Alstine
 James Van Alstine researches the interaction of activism,
regulation and corporate environmental and social behavior
in the extractive industries. He is a Fellow and doctoral
candidate at the London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE). His PhD focuses on how and why companies are
changing their corporate environmental behavior in the South
African petrochemical industry. Mr. Van Alstine is particularly
interested in how actors at multiple scales wield innovative
forms of power to transform both institutional structures
and organizational behavior to maximize local sustainable
development benefits.
In addition to teaching at LSE, Mr. Van Alstine directs a
research project for best practices in community engagement.
This grant-funded project will study BCS’s Community-Company
Assessment (CCA) in five countries, conduct analysis and publish
reports. The project is carried out by the LSE’s Centre
for Environmental Policy and Governance in collaboration with
Business-Community Synergies.
As consultant to UN Secretariats, Mr. Van Alstine also writes
on multilateral environmental negotiations for the International
Institute for Sustainable Development’s Earth Negotiations
Bulletin. In addition he has consulted on a variety of projects,
including: the assessment of nontraditional policy instruments
for the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive
for the UK Environment Agency; a study for Insight Investment,
a socially responsible investment firm, on corporate social
responsibility within the British extractive industries; and
opportunities for Clean Development Mechanism investments
for CO2e.com, a London environmental brokerage. Mr. Van Alstine
has a Master's in Environmental Assessment and Evaluation
from LSE and a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Northwestern
University.
Mara Gasana
 Mara Gasana is responsible for communication with consultants
and clients, administrative functioning of the BCS office,
and research assistance.
In addition to her studies and work with BCS, she has interned
at the International Rescue Committee Silver Spring, Maryland
resettlement office. Being a refugee herself, she relates
to the refugee resettlement process. She is an undergraduate
student in Human Services at Montgomery College.
Mara Gasana was born in Rwanda and later moved to Mozambique
were she lived before coming to the U.S. She speaks fluent
English and Portuguese.
Rose Dakin
 Rose Dakin, a native of San Francisco, works on reports and
research for Business-Community Synergies. She completed a
concentration in South Asia Studies and in International Energy
and Environmental Studies at the School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) in 2005. During the summer intersession, Rose
worked in New Delhi at the United Nations Asia-Pacific Center
for Technology Transfer researching climate change abatement
in developing South Asian countries. After graduating from
SAIS she interned with BCS to research fiscal transparency
in Mali’s extractive industry, which launched a close
relationship even throughout a year in Lucknow, India where
she studied Urdu on a language fellowship.
Prior to joining BCS, Rose served as an analyst at Energetics
Inc., a firm that specializes in energy and environmental
analysis for the U.S. Department of Energy. Rose graduated
from Cornell University in December 1999 with a B.S. in Natural
Resources.
Rose is interested in the tension between multinational enterprise,
community enterprise, and environmental resilience. At Business-Community
Synergies, she works on economic and community analysis reports
with an extractive industries focus.
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Dr. Rani Parker is a development economist with a Ph.D. specializing in corporate-community investment from George Washington University School of Business and Public Management. She is a leading authority on corporate-community engagement, and is internationally known for her work in community-based gender and social analysis. Her twenty years' experience and in-depth research on corporate-community relationships spans the public, private business, and civil society sectors. 