White Paper on Toolification for Next Generation of Business Development Support

Benita Rose

Benita Rose has been supporting SEED since 2016 as a Project Assistant, working mainly on the development of the SEED Replicator-Workbooks and other communications-related tasks for the SEED Replicator. She is currently pursuing her Masters degree in Development Management at Ruhr-University Bochum and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

Carolin Ehrensperger

Carolin Ehrensperger has supported SEED since 2014 and is involved with the coordination and implementation of the SEED Awards and the SEED Capacity Building. In her position as Research Analyst at SEED's Hosting Partner adelphi research Carolin focuses on social and environmental entrepreneurship and inclusive business.

Before joining adelphi research, Carolin has gained experience in a variety of organisations, such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), CUTS International Geneva, the Munich Re Foundation, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and the German Federal Foreign Office, and specifically  concentrated on the areas of sustainable development and on the role of the private sector.

Carolin studied economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany, and the Universitetet i Oslo, Norway. She also holds a Masters in International Affairs focusing on sustainable development from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

Mirko Zürker

Mirko Zuerker works with SEED since 2009. He continuously enhanced SEED's enterprise support and ecosystem building programmes and helped to position SEED as the leading schemes in the field of eco-inclusive enterprise development. He helped connect SEED with donors, investors, foundations, and intermediaries, making SEED a key player in the space.

He co-developed multiple enterprise support and ecosystem building programmes building best-in-class enterprise support mechanisms supporting enterprises at the different stages of development. He co-designed the finance labs and the green recovery ecosystem builder programme triggering the development of innovative finance instruments and high-quality enterprise support programmes. He is author of multiple flagship reports demonstrating the positive contribution of eco-inclusive SMEs to global agendas. In co-developing about 100 tools and a dozen enterprise support toolkits he coined the term toolification.

Prior to that, Mirko worked as a journalist and conducted policy analysis in his work at the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government of Germany and at the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in the People's Republic of China. He studied political science, economics, and Chinese studies in Munich, Shanghai, and Madrid and completed a post-graduate program, focusing on adult education and business ethics at the Munich School of Philosophy.

Rainer Agster

Rainer Agster has supported SEED since 2006. He serves as Director of Operations at SEED and oversees all operations within SEED's Hosting Partner adelphi research, providing input to the strategic development of SEED. Rainer joined adelphi in 2002 as a Senior Project Manager and is now adelphi's Director of Private Sector Cooperation. His focus is on social and environmental entrepreneurship, energy efficiency, green finance and adaptation to climate change.

Rainer has experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of sustainable development projects for national and international clients (EuropeAID, DG Energy and Transport, DG Education and Culture, UNFCCC, UNEP as well as Austrian, Chinese, German and Indian ministries, GIZ and KfW). Rainer graduated from the University of Applied Science Bremen in an International Study Programme for Environmental Engineering and has a Masters degree in Business Administration with a focus on sustainability management from the University of Leuphana in Lueneburg. He also studied one year at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. 

Sandra Seyfried