Dana Mosora retired from her corporate career in 2017 to start the ASASE Foundation in Accra, Ghana, with Hilda Addah, who is also profiled for 2020 Women Breaking the Mold. The organization helps entrepreneur women in underserved communities start social enterprises for recycling plastic packing and divert it from urban and ocean littering.
Industry professionals and mentors assisted the foundation creation, and her Dow Inc. colleagues encouraged her "to pursue the idea by providing the seed money from the Dow Impact Fund." Mosora's first plastics industry job was with Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics in Europe.
After less than three years, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, the not-for-profit organization of more than 30 companies dedicated to reducing plastic pollution, joined as a partner.
"All this made me humble yet confident that I can valorize my 35-plus years of professional experience into making my small contribution to making the world a better place," co-founder and Managing Director Mosora said in her Women Breaking the Mold survey.
Mosora graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in Romania with a chemical engineering degree and Colorado State University with an MBA in marketing. She is also the founder of Dana Mosora Consulting, which is dedicated to driving a circular economy for plastic packaging. She invests the profits of the consulting firm into the ASASE Foundation.
"It takes the whole village to change the way people behave, and the public and private sectors have to engage in creating the solution to the plastic waste management in a country like Ghana, in a place like Accra. At the ASASE Foundation, we are determined to play our role to create and demonstrate a solution to the problem, but we can't change the status quo alone; we need to foster collaboration and attract the resources to be invested in efficient solutions and to do it fast," Mosora said. "Building collaboration and delivering speed in action is what we see as [a] challenge."
Mosora was nominated by Lianne Mason, head of project communications for the Alliance to End Plastic Waste.
Find more profiles of Women Breaking the Mold here.
Q: What is the best advice you have ever received?
Mosora: Many years back when I left my home country to take the first international job in New York City, I did not know how I am going to make it. The new job in such a different place looked scary to me. My mentor told me: You go in a very different place and you will get exposed to many different things. What you have to do is to always keep your focus and stick to who you are and all will be fine. I still use that advice!
Q: What emerging technology or market most interests you?
Mosora: Recycling. There is so much to invent, innovate and develop.
Q: Who is your mentor or someone you look up to?
Mosora: I had many mentors in my career and life. Today I get inspired by young people who show us a new way to look at our responsibilities and how to make choices. My two children teach me about life things I thought I know but they seem to know it better these days.
Q: What is your personal "mold" that you are breaking?
Mosora: My job was always to break the mold. I always continuously invented my job and my role. When things go well, I get very uncomfortable and look for what is ready to change, improve, reinvent because I do not believe in stability. Things evolve and we need to evolve our business model and modus operandi to make sure we always make a positive impact on people and on our environment.
Q: What job do you really want to have in the future?
Mosora: Writer! I want to write the book about my journey.