Konstanze Frischen

Konstanze is an executive team member at Ashoka, the world's first and largest organization for social entrepreneurs.

In her current position, she is responsible for global social business collaborations. Konstanze joined Ashoka in 2003 as the founder and managing director of Ashoka Germany; and later became Europe's only leadership team member. She first heard about Ashoka while working as a journalist and researching a story on social change. She quickly became fascinated by Ashoka's concept and its Social Entrepreneurs and thus, decided against merely writing about social entrepreneurs and joined Ashoka instead. Konstanze was born in Germany but spent formative years in Costa Rica and the United Kingdom.

She studied politics and social anthropology at the University of Heidelberg, the School of Asian and African Studies, and the London School of Economics, and worked on questions of identity, politics, and development in Israel and in Indian shanty towns.

She worked as a journalist for CNN International in London, Canal Siete in San José, and Die Zeit in Hamburg. She also worked for three years as a business correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, focusing on economic and social change issues