About Dr Ernesto Sirolli

Italian-born, Dr Ernesto Sirolli received a Laurea di Dottore in Political Science from Rome University in 1976 and a Ph.D in Philosophy  from Murdoch University , Western Australia in 2004.   He has worked in Europe,  Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Mongolia, and the U.S.A. in the field of local economic development.

In 1985, he pioneered in Esperance, a small rural community in Western Australia, a unique economic development approach based on harnessing the passion, determination, intelligence, and resourcefulness of the local people.

The striking results of “The Esperance Experience” have prompted more than 300 communities and businesses around the world to adopt responsive, person-centered approaches to local economic development known as Enterprise Facilitation®

Enterprise Facilitation has been documented in Dr Sirolli’s book: “Ripples from the Zambezi – Passion, Entrepreneurship and the Rebirth of the Local Economy.”  Adopted as a textbook in academic courses of business, and community development, the book has helped to introduce Enterprise Facilitation to a new generation of economic development practitioners and civic leaders and social enterprises interested in growing their communities from within, one passionate person at the time.

His new book  released July 2012  – “How to Start a Business and Ignite Your life  – a simple guide to combining business wisdom with passion “ – responds to entrepreneurs.

Dr Ernesto Sirolli founded the Sirolli Institute in 1996, an international social enterprise that teaches community leaders how to establish and maintain Enterprise Facilitation projects in their community using  the core philosophy Trinity of Management®.

Dr Sirolli is a noted authority in the field of sustainable economic development, mining and community revitalization, and is in demand as a speaker worldwide.

Over 25 years Enterprise Facilitation has demonstrated that the provision of caring, competent, dedicated coaching and support to entrepreneurs is as important as the development of physical infrastructures to the development of a stable and successful economy.This is because true economic development walks on two legs. The first leg is the creation of infrastructure for development and the second leg is building the capacity of entrepreneurs to colonize and better utilize infrastructures.

If it is true that without roads, communication, transportation, energy, land, etc. it is difficult for any community to survive and for local enterprise to take place, but it is also true that, no matter how sophisticated the local infrastructures may be, without people using them to their potential, and communities are engaged, they are useless.  Enterprise Facilitation offers a compassionate, cost effective, complementary strategy to infrastructure development

The future  of any community lies in capturing the passion, the imagination and the resources of its people “  Dr Ernesto Sirolli.