Kristine Pearson is the Chief Executive of Lifeline Energy, a pioneering social enterprise that designs, manufactures and distributes solar-powered and wind-up media players and radios for classrooms and community listening groups.
Kristine has led Lifeline Energy strategically and operationally in the US and South Africa since 1999. Previously, she was an executive with a large South African banking group. Kristine is a fellow of the Schwab Foundation of the World Economic Forum, serves on the Women’s Leadership Board of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and was named a Hero of the Environment by Time magazine. She is the recipient of the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award 2005 .
All her life she has had instances where she gets uninspiring answers but her persistence is visible in her quest for a unique product in the Media world.
Kristine can be regarded as a social innovation rock-star keen to her innovation, Pearson’s approach is unique to her point of view. Radios, she says, are a key gateway to information that women in particular have limited access to. And the products she designs are specifically created for group listening, so that children can learn if school is not an option, and also so that women can get critical health information.
“Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and be persistent. There have been many times in my adult life when someone else has said “It can’t be done”, “It won’t work”, “You can’t do that”. If I feel strongly about something, I am relentless in finding a way, sometimes an unconventional way, to make it happen. You have to have tenacity. The social enterprise sector is tough. Rejection is far more prevalent than success, and being tenacious is fundamental.”
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