Patrick Struebi

Patrick Struebi is a social entrepreneur, thought leader, and founder of the Fairtrasa Group, a pioneering social enterprise that lifts marginalized small-scale farmers out of poverty. Fairtrasa is one of the largest organic and fairtrade exporters from Latin America with a vertically integrated business structure, impacting over 40,000 direct beneficiaries. He is also the co-founder of Blooom, a cutting-edge AgTech platform with the goal of lifting 1 million farmers out of poverty by 2023.

For his work with Fairtrasa, Mr. Struebi has been selected as an Ashoka fellow and an endeavor entrepreneur, as well as a Yale world fellow. Furthermore, he has been named four times Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation (2014), the abc* Foundation (2012), Univision (2012), and Visionaris (2009).

Mr. Struebi is a Gabelli fellow and a social innovation fellow at Fordham University in New York, where he teaches at the Gabelli School of Business. In 2014, the World Economic Forum named Mr. Struebi a New Champion and he is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He writes a column at HuffPost and gives talks around the world on social innovation and related issues.

Education

• Bachelor’s: Swiss Academy of Cert. Accountants, Zurich, Switzerland

Education and Fellowships

• CPA: Chartered Public Accountant (CPA) of Switzerland
• BAcc: Swiss Academy of Cert. Accountants, Zurich, Switzerland
• Yale World Fellow, Yale University
• Member of the World Economic Forum (as Social Entrepreneur)
• Ashoka Fellow
• Endeavor High-Impact Entrepreneur
• Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur
• Gabelli Fellow

Research interests

• Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• System Change Solutions
• Global Scaling of Social Innovations and Enterprises
• Cross-cultural Collaboration Between Different Sectors (Private, Public, NGO, etc.)

Publications

• Angie Fuessel, Christopher Laszlo, Patrick Struebi, Alessandro Valera, Carey Weiss. Systemic Social Innovation: Co-Creating a Future Where Humans and all Life Thrive, Humanistic Management Journal, June 1, 2019.
• Research Principles for Developing Country Food Value Chains, Science Magazine, June 3, 2011. Huffington Post Blog