Simon Mainwaring Quotes

One of the main lessons I have learned during my five years as Secretary-General is that broad partnerships are the key to solving broad challenges. When governments, the United Nations, businesses, philanthropies and civil society work hand-in-hand, we can achieve great things.

One of the main lessons I have learned the last five years as Secretary-General is that the United Nations cannot function properly without the support of the business community and civil society. We need to have tripartite support - the governments, the business communities and the civil society.

Businesses need to proactively create models that make a difference in society and let everyone else use them, talk about them, emulate them - and build on them.

Business can be a source of progressive change.

I have set up several businesses as social businesses, and I am a great believer that the power of business should be used for good.

We believe strongly that all meaningful change comes from entrepreneurs.

By harnessing our teammates' unique skills and passion for giving, our professional networks and partnerships, and our financial resources, we will inspire the dreamers and doers of tomorrow and drive positive, lasting change in our communities across the globe.

Philanthropic funding can play a vital role in testing and stimulating innovation that, when proven, can be implemented at scale by business or government.

I am convinced that only by applying the values of an entrepreneur to philanthropy will you ever be able to meet the needs of the greatest number of people.

We gravitated to the idea of social entrepreneurs when it was a fairly nascent thing. We began to build the organization, focused on investing in and celebrating social entrepreneurs. Not long after that, we realized there was another opportunity to help bring them together and tell their stories.

While many federal agencies are engaged with international partners on science and technology projects, there is a need to coordinate these projects across our government network and to identify opportunities for additional beneficial collaborations.

I've always known I've wanted to build companies that have a social impact.

Make sure that the people at the top are working together and there aren't divisions of labor. Don't have people working in silos; have them working across the team.

I think there are ways that perhaps organic partnerships can occur in local geographies with groups that are extremely focused on their communities. That's really how Techstars began, as a grassroots movement in Boulder, Colo., that happened to catch fire and expand around the world.

Social enterprise is an effective solution for social problems.

Social entrepreneurship is like a butterfly, sucking honey from a flower, but the flower won't die. They're helping the flower to make pollination.

We always wanted to create a business that makes a difference in the world.

Silicon Valley needs partners. You can't do edited manufacturing just in the Valley. Why not have the DNA of manufacturing but combine it with the digital world?

We want to engage in ever closer synergy with Latin American and Caribbean partners.

No one person can change the world, but one and one and one add up.

I think, what I would communicate to people, if you are really keen in helping the world, you could spend so much quality time in terms of coaching, learning, providing great energy to the social entrepreneurs.

It is not business, it is not government - it is the social sector that may yet save the society.

The creative capacity of the private sector should be harnessed to develop new and more effective ways to deliver humanitarian solutions.

If private-sector capital can be harnessed for social good, the potential to scale humanitarian solutions is vast.

Government has learned a lot from the business world - and I hope that some companies will recognise they can learn from each other, too.