About Compass

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Gilad Babchuk is the co-Founder and co-CEO of Compass. 

Gilad is a serial social entrepreneur with 28 years of global experience in establishing, developing, and running organizations. He was a founder or a co-founder of over 15 social initiatives, social ventures, alternative schools, and nonprofit programs in entrepreneurship and progressive education.
 

Gilad serves as a consultant to international companies on the future of work and progressive education and does business development consulting for a multinational biotech company. He has also served as a director of a Credit Union (2017-2020). 

In 2013, Gilad founded and led Groundswell, an alternative business school and social entrepreneurship venture in Vancouver, Canada. Groundswell helps launch sustainable social ventures, using a holistic educational approach to “incubate the person, not just their business idea”.

Before moving to Canada in 2011, Gilad was the CEO of the Institute for Democratic Education in Israel. He designed, founded, and led an award-winning teacher training program at Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology & Arts. He founded and led a national school principal’s training program with the Ministry of Education, and has served as a strategic consultant for several mayors. He was named one of the 50 most influential people in the field of education in Israel (Ha’aretz, 2009).

Gilad is an acclaimed international speaker, having presented in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Medellin, San Jose, Doha, Athens, and throughout Israel. He has personally mentored over 1,000 people from all walks of life. He holds an MA from Tel Aviv University with a focus on political and civic leadership.

Gilad currently lives in Vancouver BC, Canada with his wife and five kids, where he makes the best hummus in North America and enjoys astronomical grocery bills. 

Marc Macaluso is the co-Founder and co-CEO of Compass.

Marc is a polymath, entrepreneur, consultant, and creative talent with over 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s most prestigious companies in multiple sectors. 

Marc co-founded a tech company at 25-years old, InfoLabs, based on complex adaptive systems, which was later sold to IBM. He later became the head of product and creative director at Bain Capital backed, DataSynapse. That company was acquired by Tibco, where Marc designed Tibco’s enterprise mobile product, SilverMobile. 

In advertising and marketing, Marc launched the first Creative Technology division at the digital arm of BBDO New York. There, Marc led large cross-disciplinary teams and launched synchronized global campaigns for Fortune 50 brands.

In higher education, Marc has helped public and private universities reshape their strategies, branding, and program offerings for the 21st Century. In this work, Marc has helped universities envision the future, then reengineer their education models.

Marc is also a sought after writer and filmmaker, represented by William Morris Endeavor. Marc’s first script landed on the Blacklist, the coveted list of Hollywood’s best scripts of the year. That film is currently being produced by the producer of Saving Private Ryan.

Marc is a mentor to entrepreneurs, advisor to startups, and a workshop instructor at Parson’s School of Design in New York. Marc has also been invited to the Warsaw Security Forum as a media member, and moderated panels on various subjects.

Marc is mostly self-taught, but has studied literature at Hofstra University, film at Yale University, and writing at The New School’s celebrated Riggio Writing & Democracy Honors Program.

Marc is a New Yorker living in Los Angeles, has lived in six countries and four continents, and considers the world his home.

Yao Zhang, founder and CEO of RoboTerra Inc., has been working in the education and technology field for more than a decade. RoboTerra, widely regarded as global leader in AI & Robotics Education by empowering 1000+ institutions in more than 40 countries, a “Star Company” at the 2014 World Learning Technology Summit and a “Top 30 Innovations Company in 2015 SVIEF”, provides a cloud-based learning solution connecting educational robots built by students and respective course modules, which allows students a rewarding and fun learning experience.

A Columbia University alumna, Yao was recognized for her great entrepreneurship, contribution and leadership in robotics and AI education, as a “Top 25 Women in Robotics in 2015” by RoboHub, and most recently honored as a 2016 Young Global Leader by Davos World Economic Forum, an Innovation Ambassador by the United Nations (UNCTAD), a Global Future Council AI & Robotics Committee member and one of “7 Women in AI & Robotics” by major tech media such as Yahoo Finance, CNBC, Forbes and others.

Stavros N. Yiannouka is the CEO of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a global think tank of the Qatar Foundation. WISE is dedicated to enabling the future of education through innovation. Its activities encompass research, capacity-building programs, and advocacy. WISE flagship initiatives include an annual series of research publications, a biennial global summit dubbbed the ‘Davos of education’, the WISE edTech Accelerator, the WISE Innovation Awards, and the WISE Words podcast.

Prior to joining WISE in August 2012, Stavros was the Executive Vice-Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) at the National University of Singapore. He joined the LKY School in June 2005 to spearhead the implementation of an ambitious growth strategy, which he had helped develop as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Today, the LKY School is widely recognized as the leading global policy school in Asia. Together with Kishore Mahbubani et al. Stavros is the co-author of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy: Building a Global Policy School in Asia, World Scientific (2012)

Before joining the LKY School, Stavros spent five years with McKinsey & Company from 2000-2005 serving private and public sector clients in Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Canada, predominantly in finance, healthcare and education. Prior to joining McKinsey, Stavros practiced corporate law in the City of London from 1995-1998 with the firms Gouldens and Mayer, Brown & Platt. Stavros holds an MBA (with Distinction) from the London Business School and an LLB (with Honours) from the University of Bristol. He is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA); a Member of the Board of Trustees of Nazarbayev University in Astana Kazakhstan; and a non-executive Director of Blue Diagonal Capital Limited.