Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a dynamic nonprofit, Washington D.C.-based organization that has grown to a global network of 46 microfinance partners in 25 countries. Counts became Grameen Foundation's first Executive Director in 1997, after ten years of working in microfinance and poverty reduction, primarily in Bangladesh.
Today, under Counts' leadership, Grameen Foundation impacts an estimated 20 million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Arab World.* Grameen Foundation's annual budget has grown in each year of its existence, from $100,000 in 1997 to over $13 million in 2006, and its breakthrough impact has been chronicled in the Economist and elsewhere.
Counts was a Fulbright scholar who spent time in Bangladesh, where he witnessed dire poverty as well as the innovative solutions that had been developed and applied on a wide scale by the Grameen Bank and other members of the Grameen family of companies. He trained under and worked closely with Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank, and the 2006 Nobel Laureate.
In addition to working with Grameen Bank in 1988-89 and 1992-1994, he served for three years as the legislative director of RESULTS, an international grassroots citizen's lobbying group working to create the political will to end hunger that has played a leading role in advocating for increased funding and better targeting of resources to support global health, education and microfinance initiatives. He also served as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh for two years.
Alex Counts is a Cornell University graduate, with a degree in economics.
Mark Milstein is a Lecturer at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and Director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. He teaches and conducts research on strategy, decision-making, technology management and innovation.
Milstein is also the Business Research Director for the Sustainable Enterprise Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a non profit, non partisan think tank located in Washington, D.C. His responsibilities at WRI include leadership on a number of projects and initiatives in the United States, Latin America, and China that are related to strategy and innovation in the private sector.
Mark Milstein earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and Japanese from the University of Michigan. He later earned both an M.B.A. in general management and an M.S. in natural resource policy from the University of Michigan's dual-degree Corporate Environmental Management Program. Milstein received his PhD in strategic management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Levindo Coelho Santos is a partner with Jardim Botâaico Partners in Brazil. He is responsible for the Novarum Fund and has over 20 years of work experience, particularly as an advisor in merger and acquisition processes.
Santos worked as Executive Director of Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Group, in Brazil and in the United States (1996-2002); as a Director in Lloyds Bank's Corporate Finance area in Brazil (1995-1996) and worked at Banco Pactual investment bank (1993-1994) and Arthur Andersen (1986-1991).
Levindo Coelho Santos holds a BA in Business Administration from FUMEC/MG in Brazil and an MBA from Northern Arizona University.
Luciana Aguiar is a former partner with Data Popular, a market research firm established in 2000 in Sao Paulo, Brazil with the mission to build unparalleled knowledge on low-and medium-income consumers. Currently, Aguiar is a senior partner of Plano CDE a new consulting and research company aiming at understanding business models focused on BOP markets (www.planocde.com.br) and has been in charge of introducing cutting edge ethnography methodology into market research in Brazil.
Aguiar worked as a Program Officer for UNESCO sponsored programs for low-income population in Brazil coordinated by The Comunidade Solidaria Initiative and Sebrae (1998-2003), as a Curator for art exhibits and educational programs at museums including Museu Virtual A Casa, Museu da Casa Brasileira, and Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo (1998-2003), and as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) (1993-97).
Luciana Aguiar holds a BA in Social Sciences from UnB in Brazil a MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Social and Visual Anthropology , both from Cornell University. She is the author of Spinning Lives (1996, University Press of America), a book based on her doctoral research.
Luciana Aguiar holds a BA in Social Sciences from UnB in Brazil a MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Social and Visual Anthropology , both from Cornell University. She is the author of Spinning Lives (1996, University Press of America), a book based on her doctoral research.
Kevin Warner is the Senior Director of the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute. Focused on transforming economies in the Emerging Markets theater, the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute will provide business skill education to small and medium business via a blended learning model; using technology to connect the in-person learning environment with a community of business support. Warner leads the global team responsible to implement this iniative.
Warner joined Cisco in July 1996, and began to focus his team on the Cisco Networking Academy Program. Launched by Cisco in October 1997, the program is located in more than 10,000 organizations worldwide, in 152 countries.
Prior to joining Cisco, Warner held a number of positions at Apple Computer during an eight-year period. Most recently, he was Program Manager, Education Marketing, Customer Programs where he developed and implemented demand generation campaigns for Apple's individual education customers through the Educator Advantage (K-12), Apple Campus Direct (College), and Campus Computer Reseller (College) channels.
Warner holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Davis with an emphasis in management and public policy.
Gautam Chandra joined Washington Gas in 2002. In his current role as Vice President, Mr. Chandra is responsible for directing corporate-wide initiatives to improve the operating and financial performance of the company. In addition, he also oversees the company's non-utility operations and facilities and fleet operations.
Prior to joining Washington Gas, Chandra was founder and CEO of an energy company until its sale to another large energy company in 2001.
Gautam Chandra holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and a Masters in Business Administration from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.
Rodney P. Hunt is majority owner and co-founder of RS Information Systems, Inc., a mission-oriented business focused on information technology, systems engineering, telecommunications, and scientific services and solutions.
Since co-founding RSIS in 1992, Hunt has led the company through a period of uninterrupted growth, with annual revenues in excess of $330 million. Its professional staff, now numbering over 1,500, supports 100 prime contracts with civilian and defense agencies of the federal government.
Hunt has 20 years of experience in systems engineering, information management and business development, including three years as marketing director of another small and disadvantaged information technology firm. He also was a senior associate for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he led the Technical and Engineering Systems Group in support of government and commercial clients.
In 2006, Hunt received the Northern Virginia Urban League Diversity Award for his commitment to diversity in the RSIS workforce and among the company's vendors and small business partners; and Virginia Business magazine named him one of 20 Virginians who transformed their industry in the past two decades. Last year, U.S. Small Business Administration named him Small Business Champion of the Year for his efforts in helping small businesses -- largely those owned by women and minorities -- crack the highly competitive federal contracting business.
Rodney Hunt holds a dual bachelor of science degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering (ORIE) from Cornell and George Washington Universities.
Lynn Book is an innovative educator, internationally recognized performance artist, entrepreneur and creativity specialist who relocated from New York City to Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the fall of 2005 to accept a unique position as Faculty Fellow in Creativity at Wake Forest University.
For over twenty years Book has inspired students, professionals, businesses and institutions in a broad range of settings to create new models of innovation for individuals, workplaces and cultural domains. She has contributed to the development of groundbreaking programs that foster innovations in performance and new media in Chicago: The School of the Art Institute (1985-95), in New York City: The Sidney Kahn Kitchen Summer Institute (2000-05) and in Austria at the Transart Institute, Europe's first low-residency MFA program for new media, where she continues as an associate since it's inception in 2005.
Her 20 year teaching career in higher education has included institutions such as Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, Barnard College and Columbia College in Chicago, among others.
Her performance career has included citations, fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, the New York Foundation for the Arts and MacArthur Foundation funding for the production of a radio drama based upon her original one-woman theater show, Gorgeous Fever.
Lynn Book holds a BFA in sculpture from Memphis College of Art and an MFA in performance art and media studies from School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Larry Rakers is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager for Fidelity Investments, the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans and a leading online brokerage firm. He manages Fidelity Balanced Fund, Fidelity Advisor Balanced Fund and VIP: Balanced Portfolio.
Rakers joined Fidelity as an equity research analyst in 1993, and followed the restaurant, precious metals and coal industries. Rakers managed Fidelity Select Gold Portfolio from 1995 to 1997 and managed Fidelity Select Precious Metals and Minerals Portfolio and Fidelity Select Paper and Forest Products Portfolio from 1996 to 1997. He managed Fidelity Select Energy Portfolio, Fidelity Select Natural Resources Portfolio and Fidelity Advisor Natural Resources Fund, and served as sector leader of Fidelity's natural resources equity research group from 1997 to 1999. Rakers managed Fidelity Select Computers Portfolio and Fidelity Advisor Technology Portfolio from January 2000 and Fidelity Select Technology Portfolio from February 2000 until June 2001. He was also technology sector leader from January 2000 to June 2001. Rakers also managed Fidelity Convertible Securities Fund from June 2001 until February 2002, when he assumed management responsibility for Fidelity Balanced Fund. He began managing Fidelity Advisor Balanced Fund and VIP: Balanced Portfolio in June 2005.
Before joining Fidelity, Rakers was a project engineer for Loral Corporation in Lexington, Massachusetts, from 1986 to 1993.
Rakers received bachelor of science and master of science degrees in metallurgical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1985 and 1987 respectively. He also received an MBA from Northeastern University in 1993.