My starting point is:

I just love the approach of cause-driven businesses and how they are designed to serve society’s most pressing needs. My ambition now is to gain practical working knowledge and experience in this area.

Let me shortly introduce myself and my motivation to join and support the social business movement.

My name is Ruediger Knust and I graduated in 2007 in business administration and economics with majors in "International Management" and "Organization".

During my studies I have been working at the Caritas, supporting elderly people in a daycare retirement home to finance my studies. The hands on experiences in the social sector lead me to the question how structures of the economy could be used to address social needs.

Looking for like minded people I joined the international student organization AIESEC in 2005. It has been the first time I got in contact with concepts like "Social Entrepreneurship" and was fascinated by them. At a conference called "Imagine" different leaders of social change came together and I was asking myself: How can I make best use of my skill set to make an positive impact in the world?

After my graduation I worked in the for-profit industry in different positions. Though I am positive towards them I felt something is missing. Having an extensive understanding of the economy and business related topics, my ambition is to make use of it in a positive way and work on developing a constructive impact on society.

I can offer:

1) My professional background

- I gained insight into management and strategy of a product line and learned in a small consultancy how to quickly adapt to new opportunities and challenges. Additionally I gained international working experience during an internship in Antwerp at a Financial Shared Service Center.

2) Strong relevant academic knowledge

- In the last couple of months I intensively screened the academic landscape of social business and related concepts. I identified three aspects which I consider especially worth mentioning.

• What factors are prerequisites for the success of social business models?
• How can the social impact of social businesses and social entrepreneurs successfully be scaled?
• How can the concept of social impact be measured in a professional way?

I summarized them in a German research paper "Thesenpapier - Social Entrepreneurship & Social Business" which can be found under the following link. The main focus of the paper is the concept of "Social Entrepreneurship".

http://tinyurl.com/7qt5ct4

I need:

An opportunity to apply my skills in the social business movement :).