Aaron is excited about the spaces that people live in and how people live together – with a deep orientation towards how both each person is supported, and how communities can do so together through new rituals, music, art and more. He is currently leading the Wellbeing Project, an initiative that’s co-created with Ashoka, Esalen, the Fetzer Institute, the Skoll Foundation and the Synergos Institute. He experimented before that with the Homegrown Cities project, and with the Guggenheim/BMW urban lab in Mumbai.
Aaron finished a 7 year sabbatical in June, 2012 to spend time traveling, to do deep personal exploration, and more. Prior to the sabbatical, Aaron was inspired to co-found CanadaHelps, a charity which engages over 1 million Canadians and raises C$140 million a year for projects across Canada and around the world. CanadaHelps also works directly with 20,000 charities helping them with the development of their internal capacity. He also co-founded Vartana which focused on addressing the need for financing for the social sector.
Vartana was part of a small group that successfully advocated for the government to invest $150 million into social enterprise investment funds, worked with leading banks on their credit models for lending to social enterprise, and put together a deal to launch a proposed new financial institution for the social sector. For his work as a social entrepreneur he was named an Ashoka Fellow, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year. Along with his Oxford MBA, Aaron has completed a degree with a minor in Economics from Queen’s University. He has also completed an executive education program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
Aaron Pereira was born in Goa, and grew up in India, the Middle East, and North America. He now loves making his home in Paris and India.