Bio

Jakob Detering is a globally active social entrepreneur, organizational leader, and passionate advocate for social innovation and cross-sector collaboration around the world. Since February 2023, he serves as the Managing Director of the Impact Hub Vienna, the go-to place for social innovation in Austria. Before that, he served as Managing Director of Social Impact Award.

From 2015 to the end of 2021, Jakob has been scaling up Social Impact Award (SIA) to one of the world’s largest communities of young social entrepreneurs supporting almost 10,000 young people annually and fostering more than 1,000 social ventures in more than 25 countries across Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. Leading a diverse team of 100+ SIA team members, developing an international franchise system, and overseeing the global community growth, he developed SIA into a diverse support platform for young social entrepreneurs.

Moreover, Jakob serves as a university lecturer for MBA classes on social entrepreneurship, is a member of the Management Board of the World Summit Awards, and is an Advisor to the first impact investing fund in Austria. He also consults social enterprises around the world on their
challenges around strategy, business modeling, scaling, and team development. Jakob is a frequent speaker at events and conferences with a focus on social entrepreneurship, social innovation, and youth advocacy.

Before he joined Social Impact Award in 2015, Jakob worked in the foundation sector for 4+ years, funding and consulting social enterprises across Europe. He started his social entrepreneurial career as general manager of ‘Somaro’, a Bucharest-based social business that operates social groceries across Romania to reduce food waste and provide Romanians living at the edge of poverty with access to low-priced food.

Jakob holds a Master’s in Public Policy and a Bachelor’s in Business, Economics, and Social Sciences. Since 2013, he also serves as a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum.