HO CHI MINH CITY 24 Sep 2007 : A new organisation dedicated to enrolling businesses in the fight against poverty announced today that it has secured the support of Unilever Indonesia as its first corporate partner.
To be launched at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) in Ho Chi Minh City this week(Sep 28) Robinhood Asa will bring new expertise to matching business CSR with work currently undertaken by NGOs, its CEO, Oren Schlein, a former UN development practitioner and leader in the development sector, said today.
The organization builds on a successful model pioneered in the United States and New Zealand, where social development programs have gained valuable cash and expertise from partnerships with businesses committed to CSR.One example being the worlds first internet share donation site to eneable share holders to donate to NGOs, developed for Goldman Sachs.
With more poor in Asia than anywhere else in the world, he said the organisation wanted to play a role in helping meet Millennium Devolvement Goals and be part of a greater process of innovation in which Asia had already taken a lead in new initiatives such as microfinance.
"The support of Unilever Indonesia at this stage is a very welcome endorsement of the model and a key step in ensuring RobinHood Asia can hit the ground running," he said.
As RobinHood Asia`s first business partner, Unilever Indonesia expect to accelerate their own CSR practice through Unilever`s Peduli Foundation, Josef Bataona from Unilever said" We hope that RobinHood Asia can help us share what we do with both our Indonesian community and wider networks both regional and global.Inspiring others," he said
Mr Schlein has co-founded RobinHood Asia with social entrepreneur Jude Mannion, who has for the last 5 years been CEO of RobinHood New Zealand - www.robinhood.org.nz developing corporate frameworks that take a social stand.She has worked with nearly 20 of the world`s biggest brands, including Coke, IBM, Nicrosoft, Goldman Sachs, Vodafone and UBS.

RobinHood Asia is based in Indonesia.Both Mr.Schlein and Ms.Mannion are speakers at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility.

For furthe information :
OrenSchlein, CEO
+ 8528170-3065
schlein@robinhoodasia.com

Jude Mannion, CEO
+6421434464
www.robinhoodasia.com
mannion@robinhoodasia.com

RobinHood Asia will work alongside business in developing innovations to alleviate poverty.
www.robinhoodasia.com

Felipe B.ALFONSO, (MBA, New York, 1967) is the Vice-Chairman of the Asian Institute of Management( AIM) Board of Trustees and the Executive Director of the AIM-Ramon V.del Rosario SR.Center for Corporate Responsibility, corporations and non-profit organisations.He specializes in human behavior in organization for managers, general management, organisational development and corporate social responsibility.He served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Asian Institute of Management and concurrently the President of the AIM Scientific Research Foundation(1991 - 99); as Associate Dean for Research(1982 - 88); and Associate Dean of the Center for Development Management(1988-90).He has over thirty years of collective experience in conducting management development programs for private and public entities in Southeast Asia. Jude Mannion In her role as founder and CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation New Zealand, Jude has worked both in New Zealand and across Asia-Pacific consulting to over 40 multinationals, designing and facilitating their own CSR project development and implementation.Prior to Robin Hood, Jude held a variety of international positions for American Globals running regional businesses.At this conference she will be launching Robin Hood Asia with business partner Oren Schlein.Robin Hood Asia will perform the role of innovation guide for business developing bottom of the pyramid strategies. Seren Mandrup Petersen. Working for the UN Global Compact Office Soren Mandrup Petersen is Head of Participant Relations & Partnerships.For the past five years he was with the UNDP Nordic office in Copenhagen responsible for the business outreach and business partnership activities of UNDP in Nordic countries.Before joining UNDP he was manager in Pricewater house Coopers working with CSR and supply chain issues.Soren Mandrup Petersen is also a former Associate Professor in Political Science, and he has worked for a number of years for the Social Protection sector of the World Bank as well as for the European Commission as an administrator of the European Social Fund and for the Danish Ministry.