What People Are Saying…

Colleagues

“I had the privilege of working under the leadership of Cari at Maersk Drilling. She is a highly encouraging and supportive leader. She genuinely cares about personal and professional growth and brings out the best from each team member. She successfully showcased our innovation department’s digital solutions to the executive leadership team and across the organization which fueled further digital growth in the company. Cari always passes on the credit to the team. A true leader!.”

- Sriram Vedhamoorthy, Software Engineer, Maersk Drilling

“It has been over five years since I worked with Cari at the UN, but her impact is still being felt. Among many other achievements, she introduced design thinking to the organisation. She empowered those with whom she interacted and inspired a generation of changemakers within the institution.”

- George Hodge, Technology Advisor, United Nations Human Rights

“Cari has been sharing her deep insights of the innovation process with the Center's aspiring social entrepreneurs and coached them through the stages of early stage venture and impact design. Cari consistently produces high quality work. Her commitment to continuous learning is refreshing. Her ability to communicate clearly about complex processes is a real plus.”

– Bernadette Clavier, Director, Center for Social Innovation, Stanford Business School

“An energetic force for good, Cari Keller is exceptionally talented operating as both a strategic leader and ground-up organizer. She brings thoughtfulness and insight to her work, and in her relationships with faculty and colleagues and a diverse group of students. She is an excellent facilitator, integrating knowledge from several disciplines and inspiring others toward excellence. A thought leader in social innovation, she has quickly become a valuable member of the university's extended team of experts.”

– Elizabeth Benefield, Program Director, Social Innovation Fellowship, NCSU Institute for Nonprofits

“Cari is an amazing mentor, thought partner, and creative relationship builder. I've worked with Cari now both when she was UNDP, and now in her roles at Stanford. She has helped put together extremely creative and innovative collaborations between the UN and Stanford in the social innovation space. She is one of the those rare individuals that leave you filled with more exciting ideas and collaborations after almost every encounter. Just a great motivator and leader of inventive people. Highly recommended for leadership roles in imaginative teams.”

- Bradley Busetto, United Nations Resident Representative

“Working with Cari has been a pleasure and an inspiration! She is passionate about innovation and design thinking, constantly expanding the frontiers of her own expertise and endeavoring to take forward with her the organization as a whole. You can count on Cari to deliver high quality products with tight timelines and in record speed. Make no mistake, Cari is smart, a consummate professional and networker, and also fun colleague to work with. In essence, she’s a gem!”

- Nancee Levin, Head of Leadership Development, United Nations Development Programme

“Cari was a wonderful colleague during her time at the Center. I found her to be strategic, collaborative, thoughtful and a true design-thinking expert. I'd highly recommend Cari!”

– Loretta Gallegos, Associate Director, Center for Social Innovation, Stanford Business School

“Cari Keller was (and still is!) an extraordinary mentor to me. She directly managed my scope of work and day-to-day activities while we worked at Duke, and she was a tireless advocate for me. Cari routinely checked in with me to make sure that I was developing as a young professional and that my daily tasks were not only a value add to the organization, but also to my career goals. She is an extremely compassionate, clear, and accountable leader. She is a working manager who isn't afraid to roll up her sleeves - no task was too big or small for her. I would be thrilled to reunite with such a strong, intelligent female role model in the workplace in the future.”

– Simone Pitre, Associate, Innovations in Healthcare, Duke University

Students

“Cari is an excellent resource for aspiring social entrepreneurs and was extremely helpful in connecting me with resources and helping me think about the design of my venture. I will miss her at Stanford but feel grateful for the impact she has had on the student entrepreneurs while she was here.”

- Ashley Edwards, Founder & CEO, Mindright, Forbes 30 Under 30

“After chatting with Cari for the first time about my dreams and aspirations, I came out of the meeting with wings. I was ready to fly! Cari is an expert at asking the right thought provoking questions, an excellent thought partner and a very loyal supporter of your ambitions. Cari is one of the greatest listeners I have met in my life! She hardly misses anything you say. I will definitely recommend her.”

– Michael Adesanya, MBA Candidate, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Cari is a wonderful thought partner who is able to help thing through problems in the social impact space. As a first year MBA, Cari helped me think through ways and programs for approaching the social impact space and figuring out how to focus on causes I care about. Really great to get her feedback and enthusiasm every meeting.”

- Devon Youngblood, MBA Candidate, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Cari is a gifted listener, mentor, connector, and idea generator! From my first meeting with Cari, she insightfully probed the words I was saying and dug down to the core of what mattered to me. Once we got to this level, Cari identified specific people to speak with, organizations to study further, and blogs/idea sources to read. She also opened up her network to me, connecting me with senior-level thought leaders and industry experts who gave me new avenues to pursue. Cari's presence at the GSB has greatly enriched my MBA experience, and I'm excited to recommend her to continue supporting social change!”

- Mike Yakima, JD/MBA Candidate, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“I met Cari when she was the Acting Associate Director at the Center for Social Innovation. From the very first moment, she was listening and probing and helped me better structure and communicate our business model. She provided me with very useful frameworks for the challenges we had such as measuring impact. Cari was and is really supportive in my venture design work and has been keen in getting me connected to relevant resources and programming. She is much more than an adviser. She is someone who cares about you as an entrepreneur and who is always thinking about how to support you better.”

- Felix Gonzalez Herranz, MBA Candidate, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Cari helped me get quickly connected to the people and resources that I was interested in at Stanford. I've found this to be one of the most difficult aspects of starting your MBA, and she helped me navigate the Stanford scene. In our initial 1:1 she worked to understand my interests and then followed our meeting up with a tailored list of resources and a warm introduction to a start-up team working in my area of interest. Over the course of my first two quarters, she reached out several more times with information on events or companies that weren't on my radar, and she also helped me get funding for a solar conference in Mexico. Cari is a great thought partner for aspiring social entrepreneurs.”

- Ben Sowers, MBA Candidate, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Clients

"Cari worked with us at District C during its formative months as a nonprofit startup. We needed someone who could (i) help us refine our program and (ii) grow our network of local supporters. She got us to the next level on both fronts. Her design thinking experience from her time at Stanford gave us new perspectives on how to help students solve hard problems, and her ability to scan the community landscape and identify mission- and philosophy-aligned advocates has helped us build a growing movement around our work. Just the right energy and perspective at just the right time.”

- Dan Gonzalez, Founder, District C

“Cari coaches and drives business change with integrity and expertise. Human centered design comes so naturally to her and she shapes a great innovation culture by becoming part of your team even with time zone challenges! She is authentic and inspires others to learn, develop and produce great end results. It was a great pleasure working with Cari!”

- Catharine Skinner, Senior Innovation Manager, EON