Our leaders represent the best attributes of the private and public sectors. We get things done. And we take risks that get results. Across functions, our global leaders have deep expertise in international education, business and finance. Our board is comprised of CEOs of major companies, leaders of industries, and regional influencers. These people push us, keep our eye on the prize, and help us achieve our bold goals. Their vision empowers us to provide millions of children in low-income communities with the lifelong gift of education.
Leadership & Board
Mark Bedingham
Mark is President and CEO, Singapore Myanmar Investco Ltd, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange focused on investing and in managing businesses in Myanmar. He has held this position since 2015 and is responsible for the Group’s corporate plans, policies and business development as well as the general management of the Group's operations. Mark also serves as Chairman of the Board, Ce La Vi; Advisor and Consultant, Access Myanmar Distribution Co Ltd, Myanmar; Non-Executive Director of the Scotch Malt Whisky (Holdings) Limited; and Advisor and Director of the Board, Crystal Jade Culinary Concepts Holding.
From 1995 to 2014 Mark was Regional Managing Director, Moet Hennessy Asia Pacific. He joined Moet Hennessy following 8 years as President of Jardine Wines and Spirits (Now known as Moet Hennesy Diageo Japan). Mark began his career in 1977 as a member of the "cadre" of Jardine Matheson. Mark graduated with a Master’s degree in Agricultural and Forest Sciences from the School of Biological Sciences of Oxford University.
Isabelle and Antoine Decitre
Antoine is the Co-Founder and Director of Velcan (ALVEL FP), a listed investment holding company, operating as an independent power producer in emerging countries and managing a global portfolio of financial assets. Antoine led the IPO in 2005 and the subsequent fund raising totalling Eur 150 million between 2005 and 2007.
Antoine started his career at Price Waterhouse in 1993. Prior to founding Velcan, he cofounded one of the first technology incubators in Paris and was the co-founder or first investor in 23 IT startups between 1999 and 2002. These were successfully sold to the likes of IBM Corp and Cisco.
Isabelle is the Founder and CEO of ID Capital, a venture capital investment & advisory company headquartered in Singapore. The company focuses on supporting startups which are bringing sustainable technology solutions to address the challenge of the food value chain, like the latent of shortage of sustainable proteins, water- and input-saving technologies for agriculture, or crop biocontrol. Supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board since its inception, the Future Food Asia platform operated by ID Capital has rapidly gained traction across the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to moving to Asia in 2012 Isabelle has worked for 20 years in the luxury industry (for Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Dunhill, Boucheron), in various executive positions and lastly as the CMO for Hennessy (LVMH Group).
Antoine and Isabelle are both trained engineers and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1993. Isabelle holds a degree in Chinese language and civilization.
They live with their three children in Singapore.
Madalina and Olivier Legrand
Madalina Legrand is a Senior Category Manager at RedMart, the grocery channel of Lazada and Singapore's leading online supermarket. Lazada is the flagship e-commerce platform in South East Asia of the Alibaba Group and its mission is accelerating progress through Commerce and Technology.
Madalina specializes in e-commerce buying, merchandising and category management. Prior to joining Lazada, she worked at Zalora Group, the largest fashion e-commerce platform in Asia & See Chic, a start-up based in Singapore, committed to giving consumers in South East Asia access to an unmatched selection of contact lenses, optical glasses & sunglasses.
Before relocating to Singapore in 2012, she traveled & worked as an international model for over 10 years across Europe and Asia.
Madalina comes from Romania and has volunteered and raised funds for organizations such as Because We Care, Ana si Copiii, Save the Children Romania and Children International. She is an avid reader and hopes to pass her love of books to their 3 children and others too.
Olivier Legrand is the Managing Director and Vice President for LinkedIn in the Asia Pacific and China region since January 1, 2016, and continues to lead the company’s Marketing Solutions business. He currently leads more than 2,500 talented professionals across 12 offices in the region to realise LinkedIn’s vision of “creating economic opportunities for every member of the global workforce”.
Olivier brings with him more than a decade of leadership, marketing and business development experience in the region. Prior to joining LinkedIn in February 2012, he was General Manager, Asia at The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. While at Dow Jones, he also served as Director of Marketing in Asia for The Wall Street Journal's Asia franchise, driving marketing and advertising initiatives across both print and online platforms.
Before joining Dow Jones, he founded Creasia Marketing House, a marketing and digital production agency in Hong Kong and served as its Chief Executive Officer. Before relocating to Hong Kong in 2004, Olivier was based in Paris, and served as Marketing Director for Cortal Consors, an online brokerage that is part of BNP Paribas.
Currently, Olivier serves on the board for non-profit organisations, Food Bank and Room to Read in the capacity of a Non-Executive Director. Olivier was elected Chairperson for the Interactive Advertising Bureau Southeast Asia (IAB SE Asia) Singapore Chapter in February 2014 and February 2015, after serving as Vice-Chair in 2013.
Olivier has a Master’s degree from the Paris Graduate School of Management (ESG).
To view Olivier’s detailed profile, click on: sg.linkedin.com/in/olivierxlegrand
Nicholas Nash and Phalgun Raju
Nicholas A. Nash is the Managing Partner and a co-founder of Asia Partners, a leading growth equity technology investment firm in Southeast Asia. Prior to founding Asia Partners, Mr. Nash was the Group President of Sea, Greater Southeast Asia’s leading internet company, from 2014 to 2018.
Mr. Nash joined Sea after more than a decade with General Atlantic (GA), most recently as the co-founder and head of GA’s Southeast Asia business. Three of Mr. Nash’s successful investments while with General Atlantic are now multi-billion dollar NYSE publicly traded companies. Prior to GA, Mr. Nash was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York.
Mr. Nash was a member of the World Economic Forum’s ASEAN Regional Strategy Group from 2017-2018. He was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2013-2018 and is currently a member of the global Kauffman Society for leadership in venture capital, a member of the Young Presidents Organization, a board member for Room to Read in Singapore, and a board member of Endeavor Indonesia.
Mr. Nash holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Chemistry and Physics, magna cum laude. In 1996 he was named a United States Presidential Scholar, one of the nation’s highest academic honors for graduating secondary school students.
Phalgun is the Managing Partner of Morph Ventures, where she invests in early stage startups across India and Southeast Asia. She is a Kauffman Fellow and was named an Asia 21 Young Leader by the Asia Society.
Prior to Morph Ventures, Phalgun was the Vice President and General Manager of various global businesses and Asia regions at InMobi. A leader in the mobile technology industry, Phalgun was named to Business Insider’s 2013 Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising, the only woman in Asia included in this list. Phalgun and her work have been covered and profiled numerous times in the media such as The Wall Street Journal and The Economic Times. She has received numerous industry and leadership awards. Phalgun regularly speaks on entrepreneurship, mobile and venture at events. She was on the Asia Board of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF).
Prior to her work at InMobi, Phalgun held various senior leadership roles at Google, Nokia and McKinsey & Company.
Phalgun holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Helman and Ria Sitohang
Helman Sitohang has been the Chief Executive Officer for Credit Suisse Asia Pacific since 2014. In 2015, he was appointed to the Executive Board of Credit Suisse Group AG and Credit Suisse AG. He is the first Indonesian to sit on the Executive Board of a global bank.
Under his leadership, Credit Suisse has won among the most prestigious house, country and deal awards in Asia Pacific including, most recently Best Investment Bank by Global Capital, Asia's Best Bank for Wealth Management and Asia's Best Bank for Financing in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence, and was ranked as having Asia’s top Equity Sales and Trading house in a poll by Institutional Investor. Credit Suisse was also named House of the Year by AsiaRisk and Best Private Bank by Asian Private Banker in 2016. In 2015, Mr. Sitohang was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award by FinanceAsia. In 2009, Mr. Sitohang was named as an inaugural member of Finance Asia's "Club" of the 50 most influential people in Asia's financial markets.
Mr. Sitohang joined Credit Suisse in 1998 from Bankers Trust, where he worked in the derivatives group. Upon joining Credit Suisse, Mr. Sitohang worked as part of the Indonesian coverage team and rose to become head of the team. He continued to take on additional responsibilities across Southeast Asia, until in 2009 he became the Co-Head of the Investment Banking Department (the corporate advisory business, covering M&A and Capital Markets) for Asia Pacific. In 2012 he was appointed as Head of the Investment Bank in Asia Pacific, responsible for all Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income, Equity and Investment Banking Department activities across the region.
Ria A. Sitohang is the co-founder of Ars86care Foundation, a highly acclaimed charity based in Indonesia, whose vision and mission is to promote and create high quality child friendly living spaces in order to achieve a better quality of life for children and build public awareness on the importance of child friendly living spaces. She is a highly committed and active philanthropist and has been instrumental in driving a strong culture of giving and volunteering for Indonesian causes. In 2017, Room to Read honored Helman and Ria with the Friends of Global Literacy Award, after they launched the Room to Read Accelerator program, which harnessed the skills and resources of foundations, corporations and individuals to support and kick-start a two-year project aimed at setting up school libraries and publishing children's books in Bahasa. The initiative was undertaken in cooperation with five local NGOs and two private sector publishers. As a result, 24 libraries have been established across 3 districts and 15 book titles published. The innovative Accelerator model of enhancing the skillbase of incumbent NGOs has now been rolled out by Room to Read across eight countries to date, benefiting over 1.5 million children, with more than 720,000 books have been distributed to approximately 9,600 project sites. In 2014, Ria Sitohang was named by Tatler Indonesia as one of just seven “Heroes of Philanthropy” for her work in education.
Michael and Lynne Taylor
Michael is a Managing Director for HarbourVest Partners, a global private equity firm. He joined HarbourVest in 1998 after several years with Morgan Stanley's technology investment banking division. Michael is an experienced private equity investor with a focus on partnership investing. In 2014, Michael relocated from Boston to Tokyo to complement HarbourVest's local Asia offices and act as a member of the global leadership team. Michael is the senior partner in Asia and has served on various Firm committees including, Executive, Investment (Asia), Audit and Compensation Committees. Michael served as a Lieutenant Commander with the United States Navy, as a Naval Aviator and still maintains his commercial pilot ratings. He received a BS (with distinction) from the United States Naval Academy in 1986 and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.
Lynne received her BA from Mount Holyoke college in 1989 where she focused on history and language studies. She worked in publishing at Condé Nast publications, including GQ Magazine and book publishing at Random House. Lynne was Director of Communications at a private school in New York City and with the move to Boston, she worked on strategic planning and public relations in the technology sector. Lynne spends her time consulting with several organizations which have included, Year-Up and Women Working for the Oceans, The New England Aquarium. She is passionate about her charity work and spends her time helping charities based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Working with children is very important to Lynne. Lynne and Michael have four boys of their own and live in Singapore.
Justin Teo
Justin Teo is Group Head of Corporate Finance and Strategy at TCIL, a Hong Kong listed corporation operating in eleven countries across Asia, spanning automotive retail and distribution, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, real estate and hospitality. Justin oversees corporate strategy and business planning, mergers and acquisitions, fund raising and strategic partnerships. He is concurrently Managing Director and executive board member of TC Zero, a transportation and logistics joint venture with Japan listed Zero Co Ltd. Justin also served as a Management Committee member of the Motor Image Group. Prior to TCIL, Justin held investment and corporate finance roles at Magnetar Capital, Ardmore Park Capital and UBS in New York, Singapore and Tokyo. Justin was previously involved in microfinance and social enterprise projects in Africa and South East Asia. Justin holds a bachelor degree in economics from Cornell University.
John Wood
John Wood is the Founder of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children.® At age 35, John left his position as Director of Business Development for Microsoft’s Greater China region to found Room to Read. Seventeen years later, with over 30,000 schools and communities served, millions have been impacted by John’s decision to help a headmaster in Nepal fill his school’s library.
John’s award-winning memoir, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World recounts how he used the business acumen gained during his career in technology to develop one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in history. Publisher’s Weekly review described the book as “an infectiously inspiring read,” Amazon selected it as a Top Ten Business Narratives of 2006, and Hudson Booksellers voted it a Top Ten Nonfiction title. Translated into 20 languages, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World was featured in hundreds of outlets including Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Agnes and Tony Zameczkowski
Tony is Vice President, Business Development for Netflix Asia Pacific. He joined in 2016 to co-lead Netflix in Asia and lead the company’s partnership strategy of expanding consumer access to the global streaming service across a rapidly-growing region. Prior to Netflix, Tony has a proven track record working in large organizations such as Google and WarnerMedia where he led teams in strategic partnerships and business development efforts. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as well as a Master’s degree from ESSEC Business School. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of AVIA (Asia Video Industry Association) and XA Network (formerly known as Xoogler Angels).
Agnes has 16-years of experience in the luxury industry, having worked for prestigious international brands. She managed the Asia Pacific Eyewear business for Safilo's luxury brands portfolio (i.e., Celine, Jimmy Choo, Givenchy, Gucci) until June 2018. Since then, she dedicates her time to supporting non-profit organizations and the education of her two daughters. Previously, she held various roles as a Marketing executive at Chaumet, Tag Heuer, and Dior. She has extensive global experience, having worked and studied in Europe (Paris), Asia (Hong Kong, Tokyo), as well as in the US (New York).
Married for 16 years, they are the proud parents of Maya and Anna.
David and Catherine Zemans
David is the managing partner of Milbank's Asia Practice, and a member of the firm's Global Executive Committee. David has been based in Singapore since 1997 and has advised clients from countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, India, China and Australia. David is a member of the Advisory Board of the Singapore Management University School of Law.
David is consistently ranked in the top tier by Chambers Asia Pacific for his expertise in Mergers & Acquisitions, Banking & Finance and Restructuring/Insolvency, receiving the “Outstanding Achievement in the Legal Profession Award” at the most recent annual Chambers AsiaPacific Awards. He is also recognized by Legal 500 and IFLR1000 for Projects & Energy/Project Finance, Banking & Finance, Corporate and M&A, Capital Markets and Restructuring. David was cited in the Leading Lawyers Survey as one of Asia’s leading business lawyers and has been recognized as a leading lawyer in Project Finance, Banking, Capital Markets, Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions by Euromoney in the Banking, Finance and Transactional Expert Guide. He is also listed as one of the World’s Leading Lawyers in IFLR’s Banking, Finance and Transactional Expert Guide. He has also been named as “Banking & Project Finance Lawyer of the Year – Singapore” by Corporate LiveWire’s recent Innovation and Excellence awards. David is also named among the world’s leading energy lawyers by Who’s Who Legal: Energy.
Catherine Poyen Zemans practiced civil and criminal litigation from 1993–97 at McCarthy Tetrault, Toronto before moving to Singapore in 1997 when she joined the Corporate Finance practice group at Shearman and Sterling LLP. Between 1997 and 2001, Catherine represented corporations and investment banks in a variety of debt and equity offerings and asset securitizations in Indonesia, India, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand. Between 2001 and 2008, Catherine worked on an adjunct basis at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore teaching in the Legal Skills Programme. During her tenure, Catherine participated in a comprehensive review and revamping of the program curriculum. Catherine has also served on the Board of the Singapore American School, and the Singapore American School Foundation.
Lauren and James Houghton
Lauren Houghton received her undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from Boston University School of Law. She practiced as a litigator at New York’s Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and Boston’s Hale and Dorr. She served as the Executive Director of Asian Charity Services, providing capacity building services to NGOs. She is currently leading Strategy and Development streams at Equal Justice, a Hong Kong access to justice non-profit, having volunteered with its predecessor, PathFinders’ Access to Justice Program, since the inception of its justice work in 2014.
James Houghton is co-head of Asia Pacific Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) at Goldman Sachs. James relocated to Hong Kong in 2012 and is a director of Goldman Sachs Asia Bank Limited. He serves on the council of the Hong Kong Treasury Markets Association and is a member of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance. James joined Goldman Sachs in 2002 and was named managing director in 2005 and partner in 2008. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he worked for UBS in London and New York. James earned a BSc in Economics from The London School of Economics. James and Lauren have been supporting Room to Read since 2013 and live in Hong Kong.
Carl Huttenlocher and Tamiko M. Lippit
Carl Huttenlocher is managing partner and chief investment officer for Myriad Asset Management. Prior to founding Myriad in 2011, Carl was managing director of Highbridge Capital Management, senior portfolio manager for the Highbridge Asia Opportunities Fund and a member of the Global Investment Committee for Highbridge Capital Corporation. Before joining Highbridge in 2002, Carl was the portfolio manager for Asian Convertibles and Equity Derivatives at Long Term Capital Management. Carl began his career at Citadel Investment Group where he traded European and Latin American Convertible Bonds. He also founded Intelligent Markets—a venture capital-backed financial software company—and served as chief executive officer from 1999 to 2001. Carl earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tamiko M. Lippit received her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in history and literature from Harvard College and her J.D. from Columbia Law School. She has practiced law at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, LLP in New York City and at Venture Law Group in Menlo Park, California, where she advised start-up companies on a broad array of legal issues. She currently lives in Hong Kong with her family.
John and Camilla Lindfors
John Lindfors is the Managing Partner of DST Investment Management, the investment adviser of DST Global. DST was founded by Yuri Milner to back exceptional category-leading internet companies led by visionary founders. Over the last several years, DST has invested more than $5 billion in companies such as Facebook, Alibaba, JD.com, Xiaomi, AirBnB, Spotify, Lending Club, Flipkart, etc. Prior to joining DST in 2010, John was the Partner in charge of the European Technology and Media Investment Banking department for Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 and worked in London and New York during his 17 years at the firm. John earned a M.Sc. (Econ.) from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki in 1993.
Camilla Lindfors received a M.Sc. (Econ.) from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki in 1993 and worked for the leading global paper company UPM Kymmene following her graduation. She received diplomas from the Inchbald School of Design in London in 1998 and the New York School of Interior Design in 1999 after which she launched a successful interior design business taking on projects in different parts of the world.
John and Camilla reside in Hong Kong with their three children.
Amy Powell and John Wood
Amy Powell is the co-founder of Toasst, a subscription wine company headquartered in Hong Kong, as well as the co-founder of the Powered by Purpose conference. Prior to her current roles, Amy ran Communications and Public Relations for the award-winning Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong. Amy is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and also holds a degree from the French Culinary Institute in New York City. In addition to a career spent in marketing, wine and food, Amy has volunteered for Room to Read beginning in 2009 as a founding member of the Los Angeles fundraising chapter. Later she served as co-head of the New York City chapter of Room to Read from 2012 – 2014 before moving to Hong Kong with her husband, Room to Read founder John Wood.
John Wood is the founder of Room to Read. His bio can be found here.
Kimberley Stafford and Ryan Korinke
Ms. Stafford is a managing director and head of PIMCO Asia-Pacific. Based in Hong Kong, she is responsible for setting strategic direction for the region and leading a team of PIMCO professionals to deliver investment solutions and service to Asia-Pacific clients. Ms. Stafford is also a member of the firm's Executive Committee. She joined PIMCO in 2000 and has held several positions, including global head of consultant relations, head of U.S. institutional sales and alternatives marketing teams and global head of human resources and talent management. Prior to these roles, Ms. Stafford was a member of PIMCO's executive office, contributing to firmwide strategic, financial and operational initiatives; head of global sustainability initiatives, overseeing the firm's environmental, social and governance efforts; an account manager in the consultant relations group; and an analyst in PIMCO's trade compliance group. She has 18 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Redlands.
Mr. Korinke is an executive vice president in the Hong Kong office and head of hedge fund and quantitative strategies. In this role, he leads a team of product strategists covering discretionary and systematic absolute return-oriented strategies. He previously served as an account manager with institutional client servicing responsibility and as the product manager for the Total Return and Unconstrained Bond strategies. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2005, Mr. Korinke was with The Concord Group, a real estate investment advisory firm. He has 17 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University.
Dieter Turowski and Laura Howard
Dieter Turowski is co-head of the Asia Pacific investment banking division and member of Asia Pacific Executive Committee of Morgan Stanley since early 2013, based in Hong Kong. Prior to his current role, Dieter was co-head of the global natural resources group within investment banking division, which includes energy, metals & mining, chemicals, cement and forest products. For most of his career, Dieter was in the merger and acquisitions department, including a period as head of European mergers and acquisitions, based in London. Dieter joined Morgan Stanley in 1988 and has worked in Toronto, New York, London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. Dieter graduated from the University of Waterloo with a B.A.Sc. in Systems Design Engineering and has an M.B.A. from Harvard University where he was both a Baker Scholar and a Loeb Fellow. Dieter is a Canadian and British citizen. He and his wife, Laura Howard, live in Hong Kong and have two children.
Laura Howard is a senior advisor within the Asia Pacific investment banking division at Morgan Stanley. Prior to this she was the co-head of the European healthcare group at Morgan Stanley based in London where she worked from 1997 to 2013. Laura also worked in the mergers & acquisitions department at Goldman Sachs in New York from 1990 to 1992 and The MAC Group / Gemini Consulting in both New York and London from 1992 to 1997. Laura received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in economics from Haverford College where she currently serves on the International Council. Laura is also a member of the Board of Chelsea & Westminster Healthcare Trust. Laura lives in Hong Kong with her husband Dieter Turowski and twin boys.
Bassam Aflak and Rita Azar
Bassam and Rita were raised in Sydney by migrant parents who believe in the value of education, faith and giving.
Bassam Aflak is founder and director of Ecove Group, a boutique property development firm, specialising in large-scale, mixed-use developments across various property classes.
Rita Azar went from university to the corporate world to work for a cutting-edge online training company. Since then she became an active presence in her son's school being recruited as the parent advisor for the school’s mental health program, has been part of staff recruitment panels, has mentored students in the area of literacy and volunteers in social justice initiatives.
Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Atlassian, an award-winning enterprise software company. Sydney-based Atlassian currently has over 20,000 customers globally, including industry-leaders such as Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Oracle, Proctor & Gamble, Exxon, BMW and NASA. Mike has received international recognition for his work, and was named “Australian IT Professional of the Year” in 2004 and “Australian Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2006. He was honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2009 and is currently a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders.
Brett and Zahra Godfrey
Brett Godfrey is a non-executive director on the boards of WestJet, Green Cross Australia, Auckland Airport and Tourism Australia. In 2010, Brett stepped down from the position of chief executive officer for Australia's second largest air carrier, Virgin Blue Airlines Group, a position he had held since launching the company in August 2000. Prior to establishing Virgin Blue, Brett worked for 12 years in aviation and finance, which included appointments as chief financial officer of Virgin Express in Brussels and finance positions for London-based Virgin Atlantic. Brett has been awarded the Centenary Medal for his service to Tourism and Aviation, was recognized as the “Australian Chief Executive of the Year” by the Institute Of Customer Service and an “Outstanding Chartered Accountant in Business” by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Zahra Godfrey was raised in Calgary and earned her degree in law from Queen’s University in Ontario. She was admitted to the Bar in 1988 and worked for the Ontario Human Rights Commission before moving to Australia with her husband, Brett. She has worked with a number of charities in addition to raising the couple’s two sons.
Charles and Alison Gorman
Charles and Alison Gorman live in Sydney with their two teenage sons Samuel and Will. Charles Gorman is the head of the Financial Markets Business at Investec Australia, having joined the firm in late 2013. He has spent the last 20 years in various senior Banking roles. Charles was previously Managing Director and Co-Head of FICC Sales at Goldman Sachs Australia, where he had primary responsibility for the Foreign Exchange, Futures and Institutional Rates business. Prior to joining GS in 2003 he was Head of Foreign Exchange Sales for Credit Suisse in Australia. He began his career at the Australian Wheat Board in Melbourne.
Alison Gorman teaches creative writing to primary and secondary students at the Kuringai Arts centre and volunteers at the Sydney story factory. She completed a masters of creative writing at the University of Sydney and her poetry has been published in a number of Australian literary journals. Alison completed her bachelor’s degree in Speech Pathology at La Trobe university in Melbourne and worked in brain injury rehabilitation for 12 years.
Jason Karas and Anna Baillie-Karas
Jason Karas is the co-founder and global leader of Lipman Karas, an international law firm specialising in financial dispute resolution, based in Hong Kong, Australia and London. In more than 25 years working as a lawyer, Jason has led some of the most significant corporate litigation and cross-border fraud investigation projects in the Asia Pacific region and internationally. Jason has also been at the forefront of the development of the international litigation financing industry over the last 20 years. He is a recognised industry speaker including in the areas of litigation finance, multijurisdictional disputes and cross-border investigations. Jason graduated from the University of Adelaide with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and an honours degree in Law. He was appointed one of the first Solicitor Advocates in Hong Kong in 2013. Jason splits his professional time principally between Hong Kong, London and Australia and is a keen amateur tennis player and competitive runner.
Anna Baillie-Karas is the founder and co-host of the “Books On The Go” podcast. Formerly a commercial litigation lawyer, Anna has also worked as a secondary school teacher specialising in economics, law and English. She holds Bachelor’s degrees in Economics, Law and Teaching from the University of Adelaide and a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Cambridge University. Anna currently serves on the Chairman’s Circle Committee for the Adelaide Festival of Arts. She lives with her husband Jason and their children Zoe and George in Adelaide, with part of their time spent in Hong Kong and London.
David Torrible and Donna Yip
David Torrible and Donna Yip are currently living in Sydney, Australia with their four young boys. David relocated to Sydney in 2012 following a 19 year career in Asian investment banking. He has lived in Hong Kong, Indonesia and New York, but always followed Asian Equity markets. He is a retired partner of Goldman Sachs and was responsible for their Asian Equity sales team up until his departure from Hong Kong in 2012. David is a citizen of Canada, the UK, and Hong Kong. He graduated from Queen's university with a BA (Hons) in History in 1993. David is currently a member of the Janchor Partners Management Board.
Donna is Australian and a chartered accountant by background, but has held jobs in marketing, adventure travel and media. She graduated from Sydney University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Economics. She is currently studying to design and build furniture.
Susan Breyer
Susan Z. Breyer is a Woodside, California painter of abstract and impressionist landscapes. In her work, she endeavors to reflect her reverence for the mystery, power and vulnerability of nature. Susan is a graduate of Stanford University and subsequently worked in strategy and marketing for the advertising agencies Benton & Bowles in New York, HBM/Creamer in Boston and Hal Riney in San Francisco. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Susan served as Director of Marketing for First Republic Bank. In moving from the corporate world to art, Susan studied for seven years with Bay Area master painter and former SF Academy of Art teacher, Ning Hou. Susan has worked to increase her community’s awareness of and investment in Room to Read since 2012. She currently serves on the Leadership Council of NARAL Pro-Choice America and in the Leadership Circle of WANDA (Women’s Advancement Network and Development Alliance,) of Silicon Valley.
Erin and Jitendra Ganju
Erin Ganju is currently the Managing Director of Echidna Giving, a private funder that will grant over $500 million over the next 40 years to advancing girls’ education in countries with limited resources. She is a Co-founder, former CEO, and former COO of Room to Read. From the early start-up days, Erin was instrumental in the design and implementation of the organization’s scalable, replicable model for improving the quality of education around the world. In 2009, Erin became Chief Executive Officer of Room to Read. As CEO, Erin oversaw Room to Read’s global operations across 15 countries; a technical assistance unit called Room to Read Accelerator; fundraising teams in North America, Europe, Australia and the Asia Pacific region; and a worldwide staff of more than 1,500 employees. Erin captured her experiences and insights as co-author of Scaling Global change: A Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Surviving the Start-up Phase and Driving Impact. Erin has been selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs for 2014 and in 2012 was one of Fast Company’s Extraordinary Women. Before founding Room to Read, Erin worked at Unilever, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and a couple of technology start-ups. She has spent extensive time working and living in Asia, where she saw firsthand the need to enhance developing countries’ educational systems. Erin holds a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations and economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.
Jitendra (Jeetu) Ganju, Ph.D. is a clinical trials consultant trained in statistics with over 20 years experience in the pharmaceuticals and biotech industry. His prior employment includes tenures as the VP of Biometrics at Global Blood Therapeutics and Hyperion Therapeutics and Senior Director at Gilead Sciences. Therapeutic areas include hematology, diabetes, pulmonology, cardiovascular, inflammation, vaccines. Areas of interest include speeding up Phase 1-3 development, statistics representative at FDA / EMA meetings, collaborations on regulatory documents, clinical development plans with attention to mitigating risk, endpoint selection, competitive analysis. Jeetu has been published in peer-reviewed journals on non-inferiority trials, improving operational efficiency, methods to increase power.
Krista and Matthew Glotzbach
Matthew Glotzbach, CEO of Quizlet, has over 20 years of experience building large-scale, engaging products that solve-real world problems while generating substantial revenue. Matthew joined Quizlet after 12 years at Google, where he was most recently VP Product Management at YouTube. Prior to this, he was on the founding team of Google Apps. Matthew studied mechanical engineering at Cornell.
Krista Glotzbach has 25 years’ experience helping build successful enterprise software companies. She currently leads western region sales for on-demand transit company, Via, preceded by executive roles in sales and marketing at Tamr, Vast.com, and Trilogy. Krista studied Economics and Japanese at Stanford.
Krista and Matthew live in Menlo Park with their two teenage daughters.
Diksha and Divesh Makan
Diksha Makan leads Technology Engineering at ICONIQ Capital. With a mindful approach, Diksha focuses on systems architecture, strategically mapping business process to technical design and data construct. She believes process management, organizational skills and detailed project management are key drivers to success. Prior to ICONIQ, Diksha took a break to raise a family for 9 years and transitioned to reenter the workforce through a mothers community program at Care.com. Diksha also spent 10 years before her break working on ERP systems implementations in the Retail, Manufacturing and Pharmaceutical spaces. She was responsible for project implementations on engagements for Accenture, Deloitte Consulting and Levi’s Strauss. Diksha holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Diksha lives in San Francisco, with her husband Divesh, and 3 daughters. She is passionate about girl’s education and empowerment, and enjoys free time with yoga and meditation.
Divesh Makan is a Founding Partner of ICONIQ Capital, a global multi-family office and Merchant Bank. Prior to ICONIQ, Divesh was at Morgan Stanley for four years, and at Goldman Sachs as a Vice President for eight years. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Divesh was a senior manager at Accenture in the Financial Services area, specializing in the private equity investments. Divesh serves on the Board of SFJAZZ and the Board of Overseers at UCSF. He received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Natal, South Africa. Divesh lives in San Francisco, with his wife and three daughters.
Angel Mehta
Angel Mehta is an early stage investor in technology companies with a particular interest in artificial intelligence, enterprise software, bio-hacking/longevity, and meat-alternative food companies. He also serves as an advisor to entrepreneurs, coaching them on human capital/recruitment, automation, and outsourcing.
Between 1998 and 2018, Angel served as Chief Executive Officer of Sterling-Hoffman Management Consultants, a global executive-search firm with over 300 employees worldwide and offices in 5 countries.
Angel is an active member of several CEO mastermind groups, including Young President’s Organization (YPO), and Tiger 21. His philanthropic interests are focused on girl’s education, human trafficking, fact-based journalism, and animal rights. Mr. Mehta Holds a BA degree from York University in Toronto.
In his spare time, Angel enjoys weight lifting, ice hockey, and learning magic.
He can be reached on Twitter: @angelmehta99
Kim Anstatt Morton
Kim Anstatt Morton worked almost a decade on Wall Street as an equity research analyst at UBS and Hambrecht and Quist in New York City. She later joined Montgomery Securities in San Francisco where she covered emerging growth and big cap biotech companies. Kim is passionate about literacy, education and the arts. She enthusiastically serves on the advisory board of 10x10, a global movement for girls' education through a film and social action campaign (and a partner of Room to Read). She is a member of San Francisco’s Edgewood Arts Advisory Board, has trained as a docent for middle school children with SFMOMA, and is active on their Artist’s Circle Donor Development Committee. Kim has worked with the Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco with abused and neglected children and has tutored a special literacy program for sixth through eighth grade students struggling with reading at Francisco Middle School in San Francisco. Kim received her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, and fine art and graduate painting degrees at the San Francisco Art Institute. Kim travels extensively in the developing world and lives in San Francisco with her husband Ian and son Baker.
Stasia Obremskey
Stasia Obremskey is the strategy director for Contraceptive Technology Development at Rhia Ventures, a social impact investing firm focused on women’s health. She has more than twenty-five years of experience providing financial and strategic planning consulting to organizations in the U.S. and Asia. She began her consulting career as a management consultant with Bain & Company. Previously, she worked in investment banking for Morgan Stanley & Co. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in finance, from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. In addition to her consulting work, she has extensive experience as a member of several non-profit boards where she has held a number of leadership positions.
Jesse Purewal
Jesse Purewal is a father, husband, son, and grandson to some of the most wonderful women and girls on the planet. At work, he is the SVP and GM of the Global High-Tech Sector at Qualtrics, an SAP company whose SaaS platform enables companies to deliver breakthrough employee and customer experiences. Prior to Qualtrics, Jesse was a Partner at Prophet, a brand and marketing strategy consultancy, where he worked with B2B and B2B2C tech clients to grow by developing and linking business strategy, product strategy, and marketing strategy. His professional expertise is in working with cross-functional teams in marketing, product management, engineering and sales to develop growth strategies that drive relevance, loyalty and market value.
Prior to joining Prophet, Jesse ran a business delivering college prep services to high school students and families which sold to Kaplan, Inc. He also worked in corporate strategy and marketing at Starbucks Coffee, where he helped create the company’s loyalty program and develop its whole bean coffee portfolio.
Jesse has an MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a BS in Mathematics and Sociology from Northwestern University. He lives in San Francisco. (And, with respect to the father role above, he is the proud dad of two identical twin girls who are learning and loving to read.)
Mythili Sankaran and Shekar Ayyar
Mythili is the Principal at Stratalens. She previously served as Director of West Coast Operations at U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC). Mythili joined USIBC from the business world of the Silicon Valley. She has a wealth of experience in IT and venture capital. Earlier, she served as Chief Executive Officer of a Telecom/Web startup, Koollage. Prior to this, she was an Executive at the American India Foundation. She has degrees in physics and electrical engineering and an executive management certificate offered jointly by AT&T and the Wharton School of Business.
Shekar Ayyar joined VMware in June 2007 and serves as executive vice president and general manager of VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud business unit, which is designed to help communications service providers as well as enterprises with integrated platforms for 5G, edge, telco cloud and IoT use cases. Ayyar also serves as general manager, Edge/IoT for Dell Technologies. Prior to July 2019, Ayyar led the company’s strategy and corporate development efforts for the past 10 years and also helped incubate the telco Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) focus area. Under his leadership, the company has executed on dozens of acquisitions including significant platform additions such as Nicira, AirWatch, VeloCloud and Heptio, as well as a portfolio of strategic investments in technology startups.
Shekar brings more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in enterprise software, communications and semiconductors. Prior to joining VMware, he held senior executive roles at BindView, Instantis and Lucent, spanning product management, marketing, and business development, and was also a consultant with McKinsey & Co. Ayyar earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and his MBA from the Wharton School, where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar. He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Ayyar serves on the Boards of Puppet and the VMware Foundation.
Dennis Troper
Dennis Troper is the Product Director for Wear OS by Google. He joined Google in early 2003 and has worked on several product areas since then including AdWords, G Suite and Google Fiber. Prior to Google he held positions Oracle, Concur Technologies and Deloitte Consulting. Dennis holds a BA in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Applied Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He lives in Los Altos, California with his wife and five children.
Pierre Towns
Mr Towns is Managing Partner at Human Resource Capital Consultants, Inc., an Organization Development consulting firm, which over almost two decades, has solved human resources business issues for startups, non-profits, government, and Fortune 500 companies. As Managing Partner, Mr. Towns’ responsibilities include: managing the enterprise, business development, client relations, hiring service providers and occasionally designing and delivering, strategic and tactical organization development services.
Formerly, as Chief Talent Officer for Room to Read, Mr. Towns was responsible for all aspects of Human Resources, IT and Legal for this International Non-Governmental Organization. He is a Lecturer at CSUSM and a Mediation Panelist for the American Arbitration Association. He has also taught several business and human resources classes for the Business Schools at USC, Cal State Universities at San former Marcos and Long Beach and guest lectured at the Andersen School of Business, UC Riverside.
Mr. Towns is the SVP, Board Secretary, & Chief Administrative Officer of MedUnite Inc., an IT Services company that provided real-time connectivity between payors and providers in healthcare. He joined MedUnite from DreamWorks SKG, an entertainment company. There he directed DreamWorks' human resources activities corporate-wide, including Live Action Feature film, Animated Feature film, Television Production, DreamWorks Records, and DreamWorks Interactive Divisions.
Prior to working with DreamWorks, Mr. Towns was with ARCO, a publicly held $39 billion integrated oil and gas company. During 19 years at ARCO, he worked domestically and internationally in positions of increasing responsibility. Mr. Towns' ARCO responsibilities included: heading up Human Resources and Administration for ARCO Latin America, which included Central and South America, and the Caribbean; world-wide HR Generalist head for ARCO International Oil & Gas Company; managing a corporate culture change effort for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, operators of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; Corporate Manager of the Organization, Compensation and EEO organization; HR for ARCO British Limited in London; and management of the Insurance Plans Administration Group, which managed all benefits for 90,000 lives. Mr. Towns also worked with Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles and the Monsanto Company in Tennessee and New Jersey.
He has a BA in Administrative Studies and a BS in Economics from the University of California at Riverside. He earned his MBA in General Management and Organization Development from the University of Southern California.
In his spare time, Mr. Towns volunteers with several non-profit organizations. He is on the Board of Just in Time for Foster Youth, Carlsbad-Laguna-Temecula Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. and the CLT Charitable Foundation. Mr. Towns is also an Executive in Resident and University Council member for the President of Cal State University San Marcos.
Mr. Towns lives in Carlsbad, California with his wife Anisa D. Towns.
Hilary Valentine
Hilary is a board member of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health and a member of Part the Cloud whose mission is to fund Alzheimer’s research with the highest probability of slowing, stopping or ultimately curing Alzheimer’s disease. Hilary serves on the Board of Directors of the Valentine Family Foundation and the Canary Foundation. She also serves on the Emeritus Board of Breast Cancer Connections. Her primary focus has been to evangelize the Room to Read mission in front of high net-worth donors in the technology world. The Valentine Family Foundation provided the initial multi-year seed funding for Room to Read's Girls' Education program. Hilary served on the Room to Read Board of Directors from 2003 to 2012 and was Co-Chair of the Board of Directors from 2005 to 2008 and was Chair of the Board of Directors from 2008 to 2010. Hilary graduated with a BS in Psychology from St. Lawrence University.
Frank and Leslie van Veenendaal
Mr. Frank van Veenendaal retired from Salesforce in 2015 after almost 14 years with the company in multiple leadership roles including Vice Chairman, President of Worldwide Sales and Services, President of Worldwide Sales and Chief Sales Officer, President of North American Operations and Global Corporate Sales, President of Worldwide Corporate Sales and Services and Senior Vice President of North America Sales at Salesforce.com. He was instrumental in growing Salesforce from $5M to $5B+. Mr. van Veenendaal has over 30 years of technology sales and executive management experience. Previously Mr. van Veenendaal held various sales and sales management positions for companies such as Actuate, Interleaf, Integrated Solutions, Pyramid, and Harris Corporation. Mr. van Veenendaal also serves on the board of directors of Coupa, NewVoiceMedia and Vlocity. Leslie van Veenendaal was a Certified Travel Consultant for 20 years.
Susan Wojcicki
Susan Wojcicki is CEO of YouTube, the world’s most popular digital video platform used by a billion people across the globe to access information, share video, and shape culture. An early champion of online video who was instrumental in Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube, Susan now oversees YouTube's content and business operations, engineering, and product development. Prior to joining YouTube in February 2014, Susan was Senior Vice President of Advertising & Commerce at Google, where she oversaw the design and engineering of AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick, and Google Analytics. She joined Google in 1999 as the company's first marketing manager and led the initial development of several key consumer products including Google Images and Google Books. In 2002, Susan began working on Google’s advertising products and over the next 12 years she led teams that helped define the vision and direction of Google’s monetization platforms. Before joining Google, Susan worked at Intel, Bain & Company, and a number of start-ups. She graduated with honors from Harvard University, holds a master's in economics from UC Santa Cruz, and an MBA from UCLA.
Gaurav Dalmia
Gaurav Dalmia is the Chairman of Dalmia Group Holdings, a holding company for business and financial assets. It invests in private equity, real estate, public markets, structured debt and fixed income.
He is an early investor in and a Board member of True North (formerly India Value Fund), a leading Indian private equity fund, which manages approximately $3.5billion. He is also the founder and Chairman of Landmark Holdings, a real estate investment firm, which has invested in more than 40 housing projects. He co founded GTI, a long term investment vehicle for India focused investments.
He is a Board member of Brookings India. He was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 2000. Gaurav Dalmia received an MBA with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from Columbia Business School.
Mickey Doshi
Mihir J. (“Mickey”) Doshi is Managing Director and Country CEO of Credit Suisse, India. He joined Credit Suisse in April 2006 and is based in Mumbai. He is a member of the Asia Pacific Management Committee and the Emerging Markets Council.
Mickey has been instrumental in establishing Credit Suisse's India franchise, which today is active across Private Banking, and Investment Banking. He has been deeply involved in strengthening the overall business profile of the Bank in India and in providing its strategic direction. Under his leadership, Credit Suisse has been awarded a banking license by the Reserve Bank of India and established a bank branch in Mumbai in 2011.
Mickey is involved in Credit Suisse's human capital and corporate responsibility initiatives and is a member of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Committee. He also serves on the Board of United Way, Mumbai, Board of JSW Foundation, and the Board of Asia Society. In addition, he is a Trustee of Save The Children India and a member of the UN Women’s Business Sector Advisory Council.
Before joining Credit Suisse, Mickey spent 22 years at Morgan Stanley in various capacities, primarily in New York, Tokyo and Mumbai. His last position was Managing Director and CEO of JM Morgan Stanley Securities Pvt. Ltd. and he is credited with building Morgan Stanley's presence in India.
Mickey holds a Bachelor of Science (Honors) from New York University and a C. P. A. from New York State, which he gained while working with Deloitte Haskins and Sells, New York.
Khozem Merchant
Khozem has more than three decades’ experience in the media and business sectors as a journalist with the Financial Times and management with Pearson. He launched and leads Brunswick’s India practice, specialising in Indian macro and public affairs. Most recently, Khozem served as President, Pearson India and was instrumental in shaping and rolling out Pearson’s education services strategy across the country. Prior to this, he was for two decades a journalist with the Financial Times, including six years as the FT’s Mumbai correspondent, before taking on a management role as director of businesses development.
Ravi C. and Sumati Raheja
An Entrepreneur, and an MBA from the London Business School, Ravi has almost 25 years of experience across real estate, retail and hospitality. He is Group President at K Raheja Corp and plays a key role in guiding the teams of finance, corporate strategy and planning for the retail and hospitality divisions of the company.
Ravi has been involved in growing the business from a family owned business into a professionally managed one. A respected name in the Indian corporate community, Ravi has been a supporter of the green building cause in India as an active contributor to premier forums such as Indian Green Building Council, where he served as the Chairman (Mumbai chapter), the WEF (World Economic Forum) and FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry).
Ravi plays a key role in the group’s philanthropic initiatives through K. Raheja Foundation, Sadhana Education Society and S. L. Raheja Hospital. He actively supports various educational initiatives with a focus on the girl child and empowering marginalized children for a better future through quality education.
Sumati was a student of the Roedean School in Brighton, England and went on to pursue her LLB at King’s College, London.
She currently serves on the board of her family's company and actively manages investments. She is a firm believer in education and also a strong supporter of Emancipaction, an organization which helps rehabilitate child sex workers.
Jitu Virwani
Jitu Virwani is the Chairman & Managing Director of Embassy Group, India’s leading property developer. Over the last three decades, Embassy together with its promoters has developed over 55 million sq ft. of commercial, residential, industrial & warehousing, retail, education and hospitality spaces in India and overseas. Being at the helm of affairs since 1993, Jitu has led Embassy Group through the most challenging and exciting periods in the history of the real estate industry. He has not only spread the company’s operations across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Coimbatore, but also spearheaded its international operations at Serbia in Eastern Europe and completed projects in Malaysia.
Jitu’s Future First Vision and his diversified interest has set trends and given rise to many successful enterprises. With several contributions to social causes, Jitu is committed to improving the standards of education and employment. In 2008, Jitu founded the Stonehill International school which is the only Institution in South India to offer three International Baccalaureate programs, with a faculty and students from over 35 nationalities and world class infrastructure.
Jitu is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and a member of the Equestrian Federation of India. He is a dedicated equestrian and owns and maintains a state of the art International Riding Academy in Bangalore. Embassy International Riding School has produced exemplary riders that have made the Indian equestrian fraternity proud at the Asian Games and other International events across the world.
Ben and Asami Ferguson
Ben is co-head of Asia Pacific Equities Distribution. Ben joined Goldman Sachs in 1998 as a financial analyst in Tokyo. He was named managing director in 2005 and partner in 2008. He earned a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from Pepperdine University in 1998 and graduated from Sophia University's Japanese Language Institute in 1995.
Asami started her career as a model for global brands like Adidas and Uniqlo while attending Senzoku University. She spent 6 years with Miss Universe Japan (MUJ) to recruit, develop and manage finalists in addition to working in public relations and event planning. After leaving MUJ, Asami worked with a number of brands including Red Bull's F1 team in public relations and event planning in Japan. Later she worked with Valentino as a brand consultant. Asami has leveraged her event planning background to work with charities like the Pink Ball/Run for the Cure in Tokyo and Special Olympics Japan. Asami loves sport and is an avid tennis player, wake-boarder, swimmer and snowboarder.
Eric and Ayako Golden
Eric Golden is a Managing Director of Fortress Investment Group Japan focused on real estate private equity in Japan and Asia. Prior to joining Fortress in 2008, Mr. Golden worked at Credit Suisse / Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette for nine years investing in real estate in the US, Japan, and China. Eric graduated from Brown University in 1999 with a B.A. in Mathematical Economics. Ayako Golden owns and runs Beaute Absolue in Tokyo and previously worked at Animal Refugee Kansai. Ayako graduated from Mejiro University. Ayako is also very involved in her children’s school programs and taking care of Eric’s and Ayako’s son and daughter.
Tomoya and Yuri Masanao
Tomoya Masanao is a managing director in the Tokyo office and co-head of Asia-Pacific portfolio management of PIMCO. He co-oversees the portfolio management teams in the region and manages clients’ assets. He is also a core member of the PIMCO's Asia-Pacific Portfolio Committee. His interests in philanthropic activities grew as he traveled in the emerging Asia. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2001 in the Newport Beach office in California, Tomoya was an executive director and senior portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in London. He was also with The Sumitomo Bank in Osaka, Tokyo and London. He holds an MBA from Boston University, and a master's degree and an undergraduate degree, both in engineering, from Osaka University.
Yuri Masanao received an MA in linguistics from University of London (SOAS) and has worked as an interpreter for executives around the world. Inspired by an international social entrepreneur who she helped as an interpreter, Yuri decided to devote herself to humanitarian aid activities which she had been dreaming about since her school days in The International School of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. She is engaged with philanthropic activities of the Italian Royal House of Savoy and is bestowed a Dame from the order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Yuri also holds a BA in comparative culture from Sophia University and was associated with Nomura Securities. She currently lives in Tokyo and Southern California. She plays Jazz piano and performs with her band.
Theo and Susan Seltzer
Theo and Susan Seltzer have called Tokyo home for the last 17 years. Theo is a partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, where his practice focuses on real estate and finance, including the representation of U.S., Japanese, and other global institutional investors in the acquisition, financing and disposition of real estate, including cross-border equity and debt financing, fund formations, distressed loan portfolios, joint ventures and development projects. Theo and Susan have been supporters Room to Read in various capacities from the early days of Room to Read Japan, such as, working with the Morrison & Foerster team in the establishment of Room to Read’s legal entity in Japan, and assisting with fundraising and its annual galas. Theo and Susan have two sons who attend the American School in Japan, where Susan serves on the Parent Teacher Association and Board of Trustees. Theo has a B.A. from Columbia College, and J.D. and LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center. Susan has a B.A. in journalism and has written for various publications in New York.
Fred Towfigh
Fred Towfigh is an Operating Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisors based in Tokyo. Prior to joining SoftBank, Fred served as Chairman of IPGH, a payments infrastructure developer operating in the Philippines, Indonesia and UAE. Fred is a retired Partner and the former President of Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte. He spent 22 years at Goldman Sachs, holding various roles in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Fred headed Asia Pacific Prime Brokerage, Futures, Electronic Trading and Synthetic Products before assuming responsibility for the firm’s overall Equities and FICC franchises in Southeast Asia until his retirement in 2017. Fred earned a BA from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from Georgetown University.
Ahmed El-Maghraby and Malak Alireza
Ahmed is President of AMICO Group, a leading medical device distribution company with operations across the Middle East and North Africa. He graduated from the University of Virginia and completed his MBA with distinction from the London Business School. He sits on the board of MAGRABI retail, the largest regional optical group, as well as the Young President’s Organization’s emirates chapter. He is a proud father of two boys, Adam and Teymour. An avid athlete who has completed the London Marathon and the Ironman 70.3.
Malak received a degree in communication studies from Northeastern University in Boston. She then moved to Milan to do a post graduate degree in brand management at Istituto Marangoni. After her studies she worked as a brand manager in two of the leading fashion retail companies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. She is now living in Dubai with her husband and two young boys, Adam and Teymour.
Mahdi Amjad and Shaima Amjad
Mahdi Amjad is the founder, Executive Chairman and CEO of Omniyat, the Middle East’s most iconic property developer. The visionary entrepreneur launched Omniyat in 2005. Over the course of 14 years he has turned it into a leading privately-held real estate company that has dynamically enhanced the city’s skyline with landmark projects such as The Opus and One Palm. With a combined gross realization of over AED 14 billion in real estate assets, Omniyat continues to undertake investment, development and asset management opportunities to provide sustain value and measurable benefits to its community, clients and stakeholders. Omniyat is known and respected in the industry for its unique projects which can immediately be identified by their outstanding architecture and attention to detail. Mahdi has collaborated with award-winning and globally respected designers and architects including the late Dame Zaha Hadid, Foster & Partners and Super Potato. Mahdi not only runs what has become the Middle East’s most admired property development and management company, but also owns and manages Almasa Holdings, the multi-billion Dirham turnover company that he founded in Dubai at the age of 18. Like Omniyat, Almasa Holdings is a leader in its field. It is today considered the largest and most successful IT infrastructure distributor in the Middle East and North Africa.
Farah Foustok
Farah Foustok is the Chief Executive Officer of Lazard Gulf Ltd. based in Dubai. She began working in the investment field in 1994. Prior to joining Lazard in 2014, she was Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of ING Investment Management Middle East from 2008. Previously, she was the Head of Asset Management at NBD Investment Bank. Farah was a senior fund manager at EFG-Hermes prior to NBD IB, responsible for managing GCC and MENA funds and portfolios. Farah spent five years at Deutsche Bank in London, in Equity Strategy. She has also worked at Morgan Stanley within Equity Sales, followed by three years in commercial real estate advisory in Europe. Farah also has Private Equity exposure through a private venture in Argentina and an internet start-up in the UK. In 2010, Farah was selected to participate on an advisory panel for the Dubai Financial Services Authority. In 2012 Farah was elected as the chairperson of the board for the UAE Financial Services Association. In December 2013, Farah was one of four founding members of the first non-profit female mentoring program in the DIFC, Reach. April 2014 Farah completed her accreditation with Mudara, Institute of Directors, to become the 4th female certified board director in the UAE. In 2015 Farah co-founded and chairs the Steering Committee for the GCC chapter of the 30% club to develop & promote female leadership in the region. Farah was appointed to the Strategy Committee of ADGM in 2015, to help guide the formation of the financial centre. In January 2018, Farah completed a Fintech course with Said Business School, Oxford University. Farah is also a fellow of the Aspen Institute of Finance. Farah holds an MBA from Imperial College London and a BSc Hons in Mathematics from King’s College, London.
Yusuf Alireza and Dina Khreino
Yusuf Alireza is the CEO and Co-CIO, ARP Global Capital Limited. Formerly CEO of Noble Group, Yusuf is also a retired management committee member, partner, and co-president of non-Japan Asia at the Goldman Sachs Group. Yusuf holds a joint bachelor’s and master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Dina Khreino is an award-winning film director and producer. Her work has aired on the Documentary Channel and has had worldwide release on Amazon, AppleTV, and multiple media platforms. Dina has a Double Master’s degree from the Academy of Film and Television in Hong Kong, and SOAS University of London.
Malick Badjie and Nadia Logab
Malick Badjie joined Robeco in July 2017 and is Head of Africa Distribution. Malick is responsible for the overall management, sales and strategic decisions for Robeco in Africa. Malick has over 16 years of experience working in institutional asset management industry and has extensive experience working with official institutional clients in Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific on investment solutions and advice including assisting in developing asset allocation, investment policy and providing guidance on investment strategies. Prior to joining Robeco, Malick held several senior positions for BlackRock, including Head of Africa institutional business, where he was responsible for the strategic development and business management of BlackRock’s institutional business in sub-Saharan Africa. More recently, he was a Partner at Silk Invest, where he was responsible for investment solutions, business and strategy. Malick holds a BSc (Hons) in Political Science and International Business from Tennessee State University and an MBA from The Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
Nadia Logab is a senior business investigator with the Mintz Group. She has over eight years of robust experience working in policy and market research with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Previously, Nadia was a political risk consultant and has also worked for a London-based conflict resolution think-tank where she participated in multiple senior transnational and inter-regional political dialogue processes in Europe, North Africa and the Gulf regions. She is a One Young World Ambassador for Algeria and has an MA in Public Policy from Kings College London.
Amin Magrabi and Salma Rachid
Amin is the CEO of the MAGRABi Group, the Middle East’s leading network of eyecare hospitals and eyewear retail stores, and including the MAGRABi Foundation. Having pursued his studies at Brown University and the London Business School, Amin started his career in 1995 in financial services for a multitude of companies, including JP Morgan New York, before returning to the region to join the MAGRABi business in 2002, and then later becoming CEO of MAGRABi Retail in 2008. Amin is passionate about contributing to society and is driven by wanting to make a real difference. Through leveraging the strength of the MAGRABi brand, with its strong medical heritage, his genuine desire is that the family’s philanthropic activities will shape the future direction of eye care. Amin holds a number of additional Chairman, Director and Executive level positions, as well as being an active member of several public, private, civic and philanthropic organizations.
Salma Rachid is Chairman of a Boutique Fashion Company, co-owner of a family Investment Fund, and a dedicated mother of three. Salma double majored in Social Anthropology and Politics in SOAS University of London, and studied Creative Writing in Harvard University and UCLA.
Currently, Amin and Salma reside in Dubai with their three children, Akef, Ahmed and Ayla.
Samantha Barry
Samantha Barry is the editor-in-chief of Glamour. She oversees content development, production and consumer experiences for Glamour's digital, social, video and print platforms.
She joins Glamour from CNN Worldwide, where she served as executive producer for social and emerging media. Under Barry’s leadership at CNN, the network became the most followed and fanned news organization in the world. She led her team and the organization at large with compelling work for social audiences on an array of platforms including Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Line, Kik and other emerging media. While at CNN, Barry spearheaded CNN’s 2016 Election coverage across social platforms, which received the first ever Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in social media and a Webby Award recognizing the same 2016 campaign work.
Barry joined CNN from BBC World News in London, where she served as a social media producer and journalist, focusing on using social media as a tool for both news gathering and audience building.
Previously, Barry worked as reporter and producer for RTE and Newstalk in Ireland. She spent time in Papua New Guinea with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and has worked as a social media and technology trainer for the U.S. State Department, the United States Institute of Peace and Internews.
Born in Ireland, Barry has worked in more than 25 countries, reporting and training other journalists in broadcasting, technology and social media. Barry graduated from Dublin City University with a Masters in Journalism. She is a 2016 fellow of Columbia University School’s Sulzberger executive program and is a guest lecturer at Yale.
Mary Byron
Mary Byron is retired from Goldman Sachs, most recently as the global head of corporate technology including Finance, Risk, Operations and Human Resources at Goldman Sachs. She served on the Technology Division Executive, Operating and Risk Committees. Prior to this role, Mary was based in Tokyo as CIO for Asia Pacific businesses and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Diversity Committee. She joined Goldman Sachs in 1989 and has held various roles within technology, including managing the firm’s global networks and computing infrastructure. Mary was named managing director in 1999 and partner in 2006. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and the Auburn Theological Seminary. Mary earned her bachelor’s degree from Marquette University in 1986.
Richard and Sabine Chalmers
Richard is a citizen of the US and UK and Sabine is a citizen of the US with German and Indian origin. They have been married for 25 years and have one 18-year-old daughter, Natasha. They have lived in London, Miami, Stamford, Brussels, and New York and believe strongly in the power of education to transform lives, which was their main inspiration for becoming friends of Room to Read.
Richard received a degree in Business Studies from the University of Edinburgh before training to become a lawyer with Berwin Leighton in London. He practiced family and litigation law in England, Florida and Connecticut before dedicating himself wholly to raising Natasha and volunteering for various causes. He has served on parents' associations at Natasha's schools in Brussels and New York, coached rugby at the International School of Brussels for three years, and served as President of the United Nations International School Athletics Association. Richard also chairs the board of the apartment building where the family lives in New York. On a personal level, he enjoys sports, travel and photography.
Sabine was recently appointed General Counsel of BT Group Plc. Prior to this appointment, she served as Chief Legal & Corporate Affairs Officer and Secretary to the Board of Directors of Anheuser-Busch InBev, one of the world’s top five consumer products companies and the leading global brewer. In addition to her more than a decade at Anheuser-Busch InBev, she served in a number of leadership positions, including General Counsel of the Latin American and U.S. Businesses at Diageo plc, the world’s largest producer of spirits. Sabine also worked in private practice at the law firm of Lovell White Durrant and was a lecturer at University College, London. She holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and is qualified to practice in England and New York State. She also serves on the boards of the Royal National Theatre London and Coty, Inc., one of the world's largest consumer beauty companies.
Richard and Sabine are members of both Room to Read’s New York and UK Regional Development Boards.
Sara Eisen and Matthew Levine
Sara Eisen joined CNBC in December 2013 as a correspondent focusing on the global consumer. She is co-anchor of the 10AM ET hour of CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET), broadcast from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. In January 2016, Eisen was named co-anchor of CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange" (M-F, 5AM-6AM ET), which broadcasts from CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Previously, Eisen was co-anchor of "Bloomberg Surveillance" as well as a correspondent for Bloomberg Television, where she covered global macroeconomics, policy and business. During that time, she covered the European debt crisis, the tsunami aftermath and Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan. Prior to Bloomberg Television, she hosted the Bloomberg Radio program, "On the Economy." She is the editor of "Currencies After the Crash: The Uncertain Future of the Global Paper-Based Currency System" published by McGraw-Hill in Jan. 2013. Eisen holds a master's degree in broadcast journalism with a concentration in business reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Matthew Levine is currently a Director, New York at the Brunswick Group. He was most recently at Bloomberg where he was the Head of U.S. Programming for Bloomberg Television. Matt had led numerous coverage initiatives, including Bloomberg's 2016 election night coverage, and acted as executive producer on a variety of special programs and documentaries. Previously, he served as Bloomberg Television's U.S.-based managing editor among other roles.
Before Bloomberg, Levine was senior editor at CNBC in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. During that time, he was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for producing "Investing in America," a town hall with President Barack Obama. He was also acknowledged with a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award for the network's coverage of General Motors' public stock offering.
Levine graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in economics and political science. He holds a master's degree in international relations from the University of Sussex.
Caryn Freiberger
Caryn Freiberger is a Director on Citi's FX Sales Desk within Citi Global Markets. Caryn specializes in FX derivative solutions, developing relationships with the firm's largest institutional clients. In 2013 Caryn launched 'Citi’s e for education' a groundbreaking corporate social responsibility program linked to volumes executed on Citi's electronic trading platform. Over the last 3 years the initiative has donated over $12MM to global education non-profits. Outside of Room to Read, Caryn serves on the NY Junior Board of EMpower. Caryn holds a BA in Economics from Brown University.
Peter T. Grauer
Peter T. Grauer is chairman of Bloomberg L.P., the global financial media company. He has been a member of the Bloomberg board since October 1996 and was named chairman of the board in March 2001, succeeding Michael R. Bloomberg. Peter joined Bloomberg full time in his executive capacities in March 2002. Prior to this, he was a managing director of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette from 1992 to 2000, when the company was acquired by Credit Suisse First Boston, and then managing director and senior partner of Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity until March 2002. Peter serves as lead director of Davita, Inc., as well as on the boards of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Inner City Scholarship Fund in New York City, Rockefeller University and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business.
Sonny Kalsi
Sonny Kalsi is a Founder of GreenOak Real Estate, an independent, partner-owned real estate principal investing and advisory firm. Formed in 2010, GreenOak Real Estate is a highly focused global platform with an experienced and cohesive senior team that possesses a long and successful track record. The firm has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Madrid, Tokyo and Seoul. Sonny was previously the Global Co-Head of Morgan Stanley’s Real Estate Investing business and President of the MSREF funds until early 2009. At its peak, that platform had approximately $100 billion of AUM in 33 countries. Sonny was recently named by PERE as one of the 100 most influential people in private real estate from the past decade. He is a graduate of Georgetown University with a degree in Business Administration and has been a member of the Georgetown’s Board of Regents. He also serves on the board of several organizations including: The Spence School, Teaching Matters, The Starfish Foundation, Room to Read and the Asia Society. Sonny is married and resides in New York City with his wife and two children.
Jaideep Khanna
Jaideep Khanna is the founder of Ananta Family Office managing investments across listed and private markets with a focus on technology, sustainability, and real estate. Prior to Ananta, Jaideep was a partner and co-founder of Artha Capital Management, an emerging market fund based in Connecticut. Jaideep co-founded the firm in May 2002 and served as president, portfolio manager, and director. Prior to Artha, Jaideep was an executive director and managed pools of funds at Morgan Stanley Asset Management in New York and London. Mr. Khanna generously funds and supports several philanthropic organizations around the world that are dedicated to educational initiatives, the environment, and socially responsible causes. He serves on the National Board of Directors for Pratham USA and on the New York Regional Board of Room to Read. He previously served on the International Advisory Board, Center for Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds an MBA from Duke University and received a degree in accounting and economics from Muskingum University.
Art Mbanefo
Art Mbanefo is Head of Financial Resource Management for Barclays International. He is a member of the Barclays International Executive Committee and the Barclays International Risk Committee. During his time with Barclays, Art has held a number of other leadership roles in the Markets business, including Head of Markets in the Americas, Chief Operating Officer, Interim Head of Equities and Credit Products and Head of Structured and Financing Products. He also held the position of Head of Markets for EMEAPAC between July 2016 and June 2017, relocating to London. Art joined Barclays in 2009 from the buy-side where he served as Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer at two alternative investment firms, managing capital allocation and risk across multi-product and multi-entity balance sheets. Previously, Art served in a number of leadership roles at Credit Suisse after starting his banking career as a derivatives trader at JP Morgan. Art is also a member of the Provost’s Board of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, USA.
Marc Seidner
Marc Seidner, CFA, is CIO, nontraditional strategies, a managing director, and head of portfolio management in the New York office of PIMCO. He is also a generalist portfolio manager and a member of the Investment Committee. He rejoined PIMCO in November 2014 after serving as head of fixed income at GMO LLC, and previously he was a PIMCO managing director, generalist portfolio manager, and a member of the Investment Committee until January 2014. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2009, he was a managing director and domestic fixed income portfolio manager at Harvard Management Company. Previously, Marc was director of active core strategies at Standish Mellon Asset Management and a senior portfolio manager at Fidelity Management and Research. He serves on several boards, including the Boston College Board of Regents and the Trustees of Donations to the Protestant Episcopal Church in addition to the Room to Read, New York, Regional Development Board. Marc has 30 years of investment experience and holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Boston College.
Jürgen Bauer
Jürgen is an Entrepreneur who brings with him more than 25 years of management consultant and business leadership experience, largely with multinational life science corporations on business transformation programs. Having spent 13 years as a partner at consulting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM, he co-founded in 2005 and built Lodestone Management Consultants, an international consulting firm in 18 countries. After selling Lodestone to Infosys in 2012, he acted as Managing Partner of Infosys Lodestone and CEO of Infosys Consulting until 2016. Since leaving Infosys Consulting, Jürgen has joined the board of directors of a number of healthcare and IT growth companies. In 2017, he founded and now chairs Tenthpin Management Consultants, a global management consulting firm with deep expertise in the life sciences sector and is a Co-Founder of Turos Capital AG in Zürich. He received a master’s degree in Engineering and Management from the Munich University of Applied Sciences.
Jürgen and his wife Henriette live in Zürich and have 2 teenage daughters. The family are passionate skiers, love sports, traveling and reading.
Iqbal Khan
Iqbal Khan has been an active supporter and vocal ambassador of Room to Read since 2015, helping to promote literacy among some of the world's most vulnerable children.
Mr. Khan joined UBS as co-President Global Wealth Management and member of the Group Executive Board in October 2019. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer International Wealth Management of Credit Suisse (2015 to 2019) and well as Chief Financial Officer Private Banking & Wealth Management (2013 to 2015).
Prior to that he worked for Ernst & Young (EY), Switzerland, which he joined in 2001. At EY he was Managing Partner Assurance and Advisory Services – Financial Services, as well as being a member of the Swiss management committee from 2011 to 2013. He previously held the position of Industry Lead Partner Banking and Capital Markets, Switzerland and EMEA Private Banking (2009 to 2011).
Mr. Khan holds an Advanced Master of International Business Law degree (LLM) from the University of Zurich and is a Certified Financial Analyst, a Swiss Certified Public Accountant as well as a Swiss Certified Trustee.
Iqbal, his wife and their two children live near Zurich. The family is passionate about promoting education for children and fighting inequality. In their spare time they enjoy the outdoors.
Sarah and Aydin Kurt-Elli
Born and raised in the UK, Sarah carried out her medical training in Edinburgh. She went on to work as a General Practitioner in the rural Scottish Borders in addition to her latter role as a GP Appraiser. She served as Chair of the Parent Council at the local primary school for several years. Sarah moved to Switzerland at the beginning of 2014 with her husband and three children. She has a keen interest in music and reading as well as a love of the great outdoors.
Having originally trained as a medical doctor in Edinburgh, Aydin's career took a turn towards technology when he founded his first Internet services business during university. This grew organically until acquisition by European PE fund Bridgepoint which resulted in an accelerated buy and build journey in the UK Internet and Datacentres market. Aydin has experience on a number of startup, midmarket and charitable boards across Europe, Middle East and the US.
When time permits, Aydin is an early music fanatic, an avid skier, and loves flying both Flexwing microlights and fixed wing aero planes. Bookish by nature, supporting Room to Read is a natural fit for his owlish passions.
Maria Vigil and Marco Pagliara
Marco is an Italian national with over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry. He is currently a Member of the Executive Board and Head of Wealth Management Northern & Eastern Europe for Deutsche Bank, based in Switzerland. Previously, he spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as General Manager for Goldman Sachs AG in Switzerland. He holds a degree in Economics from Bocconi University and an MBA from Columbia University.
Maria is of dual American and Nicaraguan nationalities. She holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Columbia University. She has extensive experience in the consulting and learning and development sectors.
Along with their three children, they have lived in Zürich for over eight years and are eager to share their passion and commitment to children’s literacy with Room to Read. They feel especially fortunate to have been able to visit Room to Read’s work in Cambodia.
Laura and Robert Schmoll
Laura and Rob are Swiss and US nationals who have lived in the Geneva area for thirty-five years. Rob worked for Citigroup for twenty-eight years, splitting his time between Zurich and Geneva. Before leaving in 2018, Rob was Citi’s Head of Institutional Markets and Securities Services for Switzerland. Laura brings a valuable track record of involvement in various fundraising events in the Geneva area. Both are graduates of Bowdoin College, with Laura holding a BS degree in Economics and Rob holding a dual BS degree in Economics and French Literature. They have three sons living in the US and UK. The family are avid outdoor sports enthusiasts.
Tina Wüstemann
Tina advises Swiss and foreign private clients, family offices and executives regarding complex estate, succession and wealth planning matters as well as concerning the administration of international estates. She further represents private clients in contentious estate and trust disputes, advises charitable foundations and is active as board member of several charities. She publishes frequently and lectures regularly in Switzerland and abroad.
Tina graduated at the University in Zurich (1990 lic. iur.) and New York (1998 LL.M.). She is admitted to the Zurich Bar since 1994 and passed the New York Bar Exam in 1998. Since 2004 she is partner at Bär & Karrer and heads the private client team.
Tina is married with two children and lives in Zurich. Her family is very sportive, loves traveling and enjoys spending time with the wider family and friends.
Richard and Sabine Chalmers
Richard is a citizen of the US and UK and Sabine is a citizen of the US with German and Indian origin. They have been married for 25 years and have one 18-year-old daughter, Natasha. They have lived in London, Miami, Stamford, Brussels, and New York and believe strongly in the power of education to transform lives, which was their main inspiration for becoming friends of Room to Read.
Richard received a degree in Business Studies from the University of Edinburgh before training to become a lawyer with Berwin Leighton in London. He practiced family and litigation law in England, Florida and Connecticut before dedicating himself wholly to raising Natasha and volunteering for various causes. He has served on parents' associations at Natasha's schools in Brussels and New York, coached rugby at the International School of Brussels for three years, and served as President of the United Nations International School Athletics Association. Richard also chairs the board of the apartment building where the family lives in New York. On a personal level, he enjoys sports, travel and photography.
Sabine was recently appointed General Counsel of BT Group Plc. Prior to this appointment, she served as Chief Legal & Corporate Affairs Officer and Secretary to the Board of Directors of Anheuser-Busch InBev, one of the world’s top five consumer products companies and the leading global brewer. In addition to her more than a decade at Anheuser-Busch InBev, she served in a number of leadership positions, including General Counsel of the Latin American and U.S. Businesses at Diageo plc, the world’s largest producer of spirits. Sabine also worked in private practice at the law firm of Lovell White Durrant and was a lecturer at University College, London. She holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and is qualified to practice in England and New York State. She also serves on the boards of the Royal National Theatre London and Coty, Inc., one of the world's largest consumer beauty companies.
Richard and Sabine are members of both Room to Read’s New York and UK Regional Development Boards.
Craig and Raquel Dawson
Craig and Raquel are both Americans from Southern California. They have been married for over 20 years and have 3 teenage children. Their family has lived abroad for over 10 years including Munich and London. Craig and Raquel are both UC graduates. Craig received his undergraduate degree from University of California, San Diego while Raquel received hers from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). They both also have an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Craig is a managing director at PIMCO in their London office. He is head of PIMCO Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Craig has been at PIMCO for over 20 years. He is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Craig’s previous roles at PIMCO include head of Strategic Business Management, head of PIMCO’s business in in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy as well as head of Product Management in Europe. Craig has over 25 years of investment experience.
Prior to business school, Raquel worked at Wilshire Associates, an investment consulting firm. After getting her MBA, Raquel focused on strategy consulting, particularly in the financial services industry. Eventually, Raquel became a stay-home mother. She has focused her time on managing her family and raising her children. She is also an active member at her children’s parent associations including Annual Fund Committee, Gala Committee, and charity fundraisers.
Marisa Drew
Marisa Drew is the Chief Sustainability Officer for Credit Suisse and the Global Head of the Sustainability Strategy, Advisory & Finance Group. She is responsible for setting the sustainable strategy and ambition for the bank and for creating and facilitating sustainable investments on behalf of Credit Suisse's wealth management, institutional and corporate clients. Ms Drew chairs the Sustainability Leaders Committee and serves on the ESG Steering Committee, the Climate Risk Strategy Steering Committee and the UK Reputational Risk Committee of the bank.
Ms Drew has been with Credit Suisse for 18 years and in the investment banking industry for over 30 years. Prior to her current role, she established the Impact Advisory and Finance department in 2017 which she ran until mid 2020. From 2013 to 2017, she was the Co-Head of Investment Banking and Capital Markets for EMEA and before this, she was the Global Co-Head of the Global Markets Solutions Group, encompassing Equity Capital Markets, Debt Capital Markets, Leveraged Finance and Equity and Debt Structured Derivatives Products. Before joining Credit Suisse, Ms Drew worked for Merrill Lynch for eleven years and prior to receiving her MBA, she worked in private equity and for the investment bank, Kidder Peabody.
Ms Drew serves on the advisory boards of numerous leadership, sustainability, humanitarian, environmental and civil society organizations. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy and is a Trustee of the Credit Suisse Foundation. She is also a member of the FCA’s Markets Practitioner Panel and of several High Level Working Groups (HLGs) sponsored by the World Economic Forum and the UN, including acting as co-chair of the HLG for Humanitarian Aid and the Oceans Panel. Ms Drew's external activities also include EMEA Advisory Board roles for The Wharton School and UK charity, Room-to-Read.
Ms Drew has been recognized by the BBC as one of the Most Powerful Women in Britain and by Fortune Magazine as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in International Business. Ms Drew has also been recognized by Financial News in its "Most Influential Women in Finance" list from 2007 through 2018.
Ms Drew received a BA in Finance and Marketing with distinction from the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce in 1986 and an MBA with distinction from the Wharton School in 1992.
Jerry del Missier
Jerry del Missier is former COO of Barclays Bank Plc and former Co-Chief Executive of Corporate and Investment Banking. Before joining Barclays in 1997, Jerry was the Senior Managing Director of Derivative Products at Bankers Trust, responsible for European Business. Jerry is a former Chairman of the Board of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and has served on the Boards of the Global Financial Markets Association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and the Markets Management Group of the International Institute of Finance. He served on the Board of Trustees of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and is currently on the Advisory Board of the Queen's School of Business. Jerry received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and an MBA from Queen’s University, Ontario.
Elio and Maria Leoni Sceti
Elio is Italian and Maria is American, and they have been married for 30 years, moved internationally 7 times and have 4 children - aged 18 to 29 – each born in a different country. They are firm believers in the power of education and are friends of Room to Read from its early days.
Elio has over 30 years of experience in the consumer goods and media sectors. He is co-founder, Chairman and chief crafter of The Craftory, the first investment house for mission-driven challenger brands in Consumer Goods.
Elio is also Chairman of LSG Holdings and an independent non-executive director of beverage and brewing multinational Anheuser-Busch InBev, of food leader Kraft Heinz and of cocoa global leader Barry Callebaut. Prior to this, Elio was CEO of Iglo Birdseye until June 2015, when he oversaw its sale to Nomad Foods. He spent his earlier career as CEO of EMI Music from 2008 to 2010 and he held senior leadership roles, firstly at Procter & Gamble and then at Reckitt Benckiser, where he served as CMO, global head of Innovation and then head of the European operations.
Elio is also a Trustee and a Counsellor of One Young World. He holds a degree in Economics from LUISS in Rome, where he also passed the Dottore Commercialista post-graduate bar exam.
Maria is the Founder and Creative Director of Sonia Petroff, a luxury costume jewellery & accessory brand. Maria received her BA with Hons in Economics from Wake Forest University and her Master in International Management from Thunderbird AGSIM, having studied along the way in Vienna, Oxford and Paris. She is a patron of the RPO and speaks 4 languages. Her first job was in Rome at Saatchi and Saatchi, enabling her to learn skills that would soon prove essential for her own brand journey. While living in Paris, Maria founded Global Access, a language school for corporate management, based on the then avant-garde method of phone conversation learning. In the following years, Maria focused on her family’s growth and progress, until she was recently entrusted with Sonia Petroff’s collection.
Art Mbanefo
Art Mbanefo is Head of Financial Resource Management for Barclays International. He is a member of the Barclays International Executive Committee and the Barclays International Risk Committee. During his time with Barclays, Art has held a number of other leadership roles in the Markets business, including Head of Markets in the Americas, Chief Operating Officer, Interim Head of Equities and Credit Products and Head of Structured and Financing Products. He also held the position of Head of Markets for EMEAPAC between July 2016 and June 2017, relocating to London. Art joined Barclays in 2009 from the buy-side where he served as Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer at two alternative investment firms, managing capital allocation and risk across multi-product and multi-entity balance sheets. Previously, Art served in a number of leadership roles at Credit Suisse after starting his banking career as a derivatives trader at JP Morgan. Art is also a member of the Provost’s Board of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, USA.
Björn Nilsson
Björn Nilsson is a private investor. Björn was previously a senior partner at Triton, a European investment firm, since the firm’s inception. Over the 20 years at Triton, Björn held various roles within both private equity and credit investing and he was part of the investment committee of the firm. Prior to Triton, Björn was at Chase Manhattan Bank, both in New York and London, working mainly with leverage finance and high yield origination.
Björn is currently the vice chairman of Rederi AB Gotland, a Swedish based maritime transportation company.
Björn is also the chairman of Human Rights Watch’s Stockholm Committee and a trustee of the Young Nilsson Foundation.
Björn was born and grew up in Sweden, went to high school and the Naval Academy in Stockholm, and then moved to New York. He holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University in New York. He currently lives in London with his wife Sandra and children Aliya, David and Alice.
John Ridding
John Ridding is the CEO of the Financial Times Group. He was appointed to the role in 2006, having been with the company for 20 years in both editorial and executive positions. Previously, John served as editor and publisher of the Financial Times Asia and chairman of Pearson in Asia. He led the launch of the Asia edition of the Financial Times in 2003 and led the development of the paper’s Chinese-language website. In his Pearson role, John established a series of collaborative ventures between group companies, including a series of business publications, and launched a series of financial journalism training courses. He joined the Financial Times in 1987 and earned a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, with first class honors, from Oxford University.
Erica Wax and Andrew Balls
Erica Wax has a wide range of experience in politics, the private sector and non-profit organizations. She worked in international development and trade policy in Washington DC, as a Director at Fontheim International, an international trade consulting firm. She was a vice president in the Global Markets and Investment Banking group at Merrill Lynch in New York and London. She has worked on numerous political campaigns over the last 20 years. Erica was the co-founder of a New York-based non-profit organization called Girls Career Workshop, which targets at-risk high school girls. Erica has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Politics from University of California, Santa Cruz.
Andrew Balls is chief investment officer for global fixed income at PIMCO. He is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee and Executive Committee and manages a range of global portfolios. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2006, Andrew spent eight years at the Financial Times as an economics correspondent and columnist in London, New York and Washington, DC. He holds a bachelor's degree from Oxford, a master's degree from Harvard, and was a lecturer in economics at Keble College, Oxford.
Randy Work
Randy Work is a managing director of Kitano Capital LLC, a privately-owned financial management company. He also sits on the board of several start-up companies. Previously, Randy worked for 12 years with Lone Star Funds, a global private equity investment fund, helping to establish and manage the fund's investment activities in Japan. Randy earned his bachelor’s degree in international economics and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of California, Los Angeles.
James Arnett, Capco
James Arnett is a Partner in the UK office, with a focus on complex business and technology transformations. He specializes in mobilizing and leading large change and regulatory remediation programs, and also leads a major global client account. James is a lateral thinker, dynamic and entrepreneurial program director with an extensive track record of business transformation (particularly back office) and change delivery across capital markets and banking. James is passionate about the development of BPO, ITO and utility style models and the benefits they can deliver to organizations. Prior to joining Capco, James worked for technology consultancies IBM and EDS, where he managed large scale transformation, bank migration, core banking replacement and delivering optimization through offshore delivery centers in Asia and Africa. James also worked at Capita, where he ran four large BPO deals, and previously designed and delivered internet banking start-ups.
Alex Belous, Education Portfolio Manager, The Cisco Foundation
Alex began his career as a first grade teacher. He then served as the Internet Technology Manager for the Arizona Department of Education. Joining Cisco in 1998, Alex served as one of the founders of the Cisco Network Academy. After 6 years he became the Educational Specialist within the Cisco Corporate Affairs group. Presently as the Cisco Foundation and Cisco Public Benefit Investments Education Portfolio Manager, he is responsible for grants with Cisco NGO partners that have helped millions of students and teachers. He also serves as co-chair of the STEM taskforce. Alex holds a BA Early Childhood Education and two Masters in Elementary Education/Reading Instruction and Counseling Psychology.
Chandra Elango, Head of IT, Go to Market Tech at Atlassian
Chandra has held various management and technical roles at Atlassian, VMware, Cisco, and Gallup. He is a hands-on leader with a passion towards building great teams. Chandra is presently the Head of IT, Go to Market at Atlassian. In this role, he heads a global team of product managers and engineers responsible for Commerce, Sales and Marketing Tech and Customer Support Tech.
Previously as Vice President, IT at VMware in the Business Applications group, Chandra was instrumental in delivering several large enterprise programs. He has led Enterprise Architecture, SaaS Subscription Billing, Engineering, Go to Market, Emerging technologies, Development, QA and Application Support organizations. Chandra led VMware IT’s mobile and DevOps transformation initiatives. During his tenure at VMware, Chandra relocated to India to set up VMware IT in Bangalore from scratch and grew it into a key global delivery center.
Prior to joining VMware, Chandra was a hands-on Engineer at Cisco responsible for Platform and Integration Architecture. He moved into a Project Management role to deliver Engineering Change Management and Compliance portfolio of applications. Prior to Cisco, he was a Software Engineer at Gallup.
He holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Washington, Seattle and an MBA from San Jose State University, San Jose.
Dustin Frazier, Independent Consultant
Dustin Frazier is an IT consultant focused on helping small- and medium-sized nonprofit organizations create usable, affordable, and sustainable information systems to maximize their long-term growth and impact. He has been heavily involved in Room to Read’s efforts for more than 10 years, as a volunteer, webmaster, chapter leader, donor, and staff member. From 2007 to 2010, Dustin served as the organization’s first IT Director and helped build a team of professionals tasked with modernizing and managing Room to Read’s global IT infrastructure. Dustin has also consulted for Global Citizen Year, Philanthropix, and other Bay Area nonprofit organizations.
Daniel Freeman, Chief Commercial Officer, Netlify
Daniel has an extensive career as a GoToMarket Executive and Advisor for leading enterprise software and infrastructure companies. Currently, he is the Chief Commercial Officer of Netlify, an upstart internet infrastructure company funded by Andreesen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. In the past, he has held Product, Marketing and Sales leadership roles at leading companies, Atlassian, Cloudflare, Sumo Logic and Symantec. As an advisor, he has helped a wide range of companies including BrowserStack, Podium and Upguard. To start his career, Daniel held various Product Management roles for both Cobalt Networks and Brightmail. He holds a BA from Claremont Mckenna College (CMC) and a Masters in International Business from ESCP-EAP in Paris.
Matthew Glotzbach, CEO, Quizlet
Matthew is the CEO of Quizlet, a global education technology company whose mission is to harness the world’s knowledge to allow anyone to unlock their learning potential. He has over 20 years of experience in consumer and enterprise technology, product strategy, product management, marketing and sales. Prior to joining Quizlet, Matthew was the vice president of product management at YouTube, responsible for YouTube's Subscription and Music business and a member of the YouTube executive leadership team. He formerly lead the global Creator product and technology direction and served as the Managing Director of YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa where he was responsible for the strategy, development and management of YouTube’s business and product direction. In 2007 he launched Google Apps, Google's cloud computing suite for business. Matthew holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University.
Maggie Johnson, VP, Education and University Programs, Google
Maggie Johnson is Vice President of Education and University Programs for Google. She manages all technical training, content development, and information management programs for Google engineers and operations staff, as well as Google’s K12 educational programs in STEM and computer science. She also manages the University Relations area, building research partnerships with faculty and labs globally; and Google's strategic initiatives in online teaching and learning. Prior to Google, Maggie was teaching faculty and Director of Educational Affairs in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University.
Andrea Leszek, EVP & COO, Technology, Salesforce.com
Andrea leads engineering operations and services for the Technology organization, focusing on the success of Salesforce’s customers and the enablement of the engineering teams. Her team includes engineering functions responsible for site reliability, service management, release management, customer success engineering, and technology communications and documentation. Andrea’s team also runs internal engineering enablement such as innovation programs, engineering training, employee recognition, diversity, technology marketing, and agile coaching. She is a founding member of Salesforce’s Women in Technology network, and is passionate about increasing diversity in tech. She holds a B.S. and M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Frank Lucido, VP of Information Technology, Making Waves Foundation
Frank is VP of Information Technology for Making Waves Foundation, A non-profit committed to advance educational opportunities for college-bound, career-minded, historically underrepresented, and underserved youth. This includes responsibility for internal and externally facing technologies related to programs and operations as well as the multiple real estate development, construction, and property management project currently in progress to expand Making Waves impact and reach. Frank was formerly the Director of IT at Room to Read, his leadership drove the back end business transformation and migration to the cloud that allows Room to Read to scale operations and innovate in a constantly changing world. With over 20 years of experience, with roles in the private sector ranging from software developer to CIO, he brings a broad but intimate understanding of and passion for Room to Read’s mission, vision, and goals. Frank holds a B.A. in English Literature from the Dominican University.
Ambarish Malpani, VP of Engineering, Edmodo
Ambarish Malpani has over 20 years in software development and management. He was the CTO and VP Engineering at Cenzic, Inc. and co-founded ValiCert in 1996, which he helped take public in July 2000. Ambarish also has a wide range of experience in the software engineering and development area - from creating standards in IETF, to creating the first Windows version of Apache. Ambarsh has a M.S. in Computer Science from U.C.S.B. and a B.Tech in Computer Science from I.I.T. Bombay
Vibhu Mittal, CEO, Edmodo
Vibhu serves as the current CEO of Edmodo, a K-12 education resource network for teachers, students and parents. He came to Edmodo through the acquisition of Root-1, a mobile educational platform startup. Prior to Root-1, he worked in research at Google where he worked on a variety of products including Google Scholar and Google Translate. He was also responsible for helping set up the Google engineering offices in India. He has also worked at Xerox PARC, CMU/LTI, Pitt/LRDC, USC/ISI, Ohio State University and TIFR, Bombay.
Archana Ramamoorthy, Chief Technology Officer, North America, Workday
Archana Ramamoorthy is the Chief Technology Officer, North America, at Workday. Since joining Workday in 2013, she’s led strategy, design, and development for the company's portfolio of cybersecurity products, while also helping define the technology innovation path for Workday's key customers. In her current role, Archana focuses on helping customers and prospects get the most value out of Workday through industry engagements and driving digital transformation strategy with customers, and by being the liaison between prospects, product, and technology teams. She leads key initiatives to further Workday's technology mission, including defining the company's adoption of emerging standards and practices. Prior to joining Workday, Archana held product and engineering roles building hardware and software products for companies like AT&T, Triangle Biosystems, and Deutsche Bank Global Technology. Archana is an active member of the Bay Area CIO Leadership Association, Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), and Women in Identity, and a founding member of Neythri. Archana received a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from SRM University in India.
Brett Robson, IT Workplace Engineering Manager, Atlassian
Brett Robson is the IT Workplace Engineering manager at Atlassian where he is responsible for office infrastructure and services. Brett has over fifteen years experiencing working across corporate and not-for-profit organizations, with a focus on IT infrastructure, service delivery and strategy. Prior to his time at Atlassian Brett spent time as the CIO for Relationships Australia as well as over ten years at Cochlear Ltd, holding senior positions in infrastructure management and architecture.
Sai Sundar, Senior Vice President, Wells Fargo
Sai Sundar is a Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo, leading and mobilizing large scale enterprise transformation initiatives. Prior to that Sai, managed multiple product groups, digital transformation efforts, centered on delivering delightful customer experiences while building, managing and scaling enterprise solutions. Sai has expertise in strategy, change management, product management and software development methodologies.
Sai has a B.S (Visvesvaraya University, India) & M.S Engineering (University of Mississippi). In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, running, cooking, spending time with his wife and 2 children.
Tim Wood, Senior Program Manager, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Tim specializes in applying information technology to address the problems of poverty and health in developing countries. After 12 years at Microsoft working on software development, Tim joined the Grameen Foundation’s Technology Center in 2002 where he pioneered replication of the Grameen Village Phone program, launching sustainable initiatives in Uganda and Rwanda and co-authoring the Village Phone Replication Manual. Tim went on to implement mobile money pilot programs for microfinance institutions in the Philippines and Kenya and spent four years as the Director of Mobile Health Innovation at Grameen Foundation, creating the MOTECH platform to deliver multiple mobile-service initiatives at scale in India and Africa. Tim joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2013 and is working across a wide range of information technology initiatives.