Eric Hensel is a founding member and the Expansion CEO of the Sustainable Square team. He is responsible for the development of the unique model for the Sustainable Square Think Tank as social entrepreneurship. His efforts are still aligned with his core passion, youth programs and youth empowerment but combined with a holistic, connective and analytical approach to sustainability.
Eric seeks new methodologies to justify extensive focus on CSR and is a skeptic of standards and methods such as ISO and GRI in their raw, imported form. He always wants to see initiatives localized. He aims to make CSR and sustainability locally focused and managed with an emphasis on real added-value. He puts extra emphasis on volunteering as a powerful vehicle as it brings people out of their comfort zone and into lives otherwise overlooked. His preference is to work on research and reports inspired by real activities and tangible, local realities.
In 2007 he was given the chance to launch and stabilize the highly successful Takatof social volunteering program of the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy based in Abu Dhabi. He was also involved in AIESEC Middle East and North Africa during a time of high regional expansion between 2004 and 2007 including management positions with AIESEC Bahrain, Oman, Tunisia, and UAE. Eric has facilitated, chaired, trained, and participated in conferences and projects in the USA, GCC, North Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Europe.