Board of Directors


 

Ken Ansin, Director, Enterprise Bank and Trust Company
Peter Bernard, Managing Director, D.E. Shaw & Company
Katherine Borsecnik, Former President of Brand Management and Senior Vice President, AOL
Hank Cauley, Senior Officer, Pew Environment Group, Pew Charitable Trusts
Daniel Crisafulli, Impact Advisor, Potrero Impact Advisors
Marcela Escobari, Executive Director, Center for International Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Frank Hicks, Senior Advisor for International Investments, Bio-Logical Capital; Root Capital Board Chair
Tom Kaneb, Partner, Miralta Capital
Paul Leander-Engström, Founder and Chairman, The World We Want Foundation
Jeremy Mindich, Founder and Managing Partner, Scopia Capital
Juan P. Morillo, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Jack Taylor, Board Chair, Alliance to End Hunger
Deborah Drake, Program Manager, Investing in Inclusive Finance, ACCION - Director Emerita
Jean Hazell, Research Associate, Harvard Business School - Director Emerita
Jonathan Rosenthal, Principal, Just Works Consulting - Director Emeritus



Board of Directors


Ken Ansin, Director, Enterprise Bank and Trust Company

Mr. Ansin is a serial entrepreneur with experience owning and running businesses in the footwear, portable rest room, commercial banking, and cabinetry industries. A director of Enterprise Bank and Trust Company since 1994, he also chairs the Asset and Liability Committee there. His commitment to the nonprofit sector began in the late 1980s with board experience since at The United Way of North Central Massachusetts, Fitchburg State College, Applewild School and Children's Aid and Family Service. Since 2004, he has shifted his personal strategy from leading for-profit companies to a commitment within the international social sector, with a focus on microcredit. This has led him to dozens of developing countries in Africa and Asia for both research and involvement, with leading organizations including Oxfam, Grameen, Save the Children, Bandhan, BRAC, and Ashoka. He is also on the advisory council of BRAC USA, and as of 2010, he is director of New Resource Bank and President of Ansin Consulting Group. Mr. Ansin holds an M.P.A from the Kennedy School of Government.


Peter Bernard, D.E. Shaw & Company, Managing Director

Peter Bernard is a managing director and the chief risk officer of D.E. Shaw & Co., L.P. Prior to joining the D.E. Shaw group in 2006, Mr. Bernard was the president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer of AlphaSimplex Group, a Cambridge-based investment management firm. From 2000 to 2004, Mr. Bernard was the chief financial officer of Risk Metrics Group, a New York company specializing in risk management software and data. In 1994, Mr. Bernard co-founded New Bond Trading, Inc., an investment management firm specializing in fixed-income arbitrage, and served as president of the company until 2000. Before that, Mr. Bernard held various positions at JP Morgan & Co., where he began his fifteen-year career with the company in 1979. In late 1987 and early 1988, he served under the Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms (the “Brady Commission”), which investigated the causes of the October 1987 stock market crash. Mr. Bernard received a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College in 1979.


Katherine Borsecnik, President of Brand Management and Senior Vice President, AOL (retired)

Ms. Borsecnik is the former president of brand management and senior vice president of AOL, where she oversaw development and design of all online content, including news and information, entertainment services, community, and online transactional products. Ms. Borsecnik’s group was also responsible for the development of online policy in the early years of interactive community. Since 2002, Ms. Borsecnik has leveraged her business management experience on behalf of growing organizations whose missions she supports, particularly in the area of economic rights and development. She has been an active Board and Executive Committee member for Women for Women International, an organization that works with women survivors of war, for four years. She is also a trustee and vice president of the Board of the Georgetown Day School, a Board member of the Telluride Academy, and president of the Ebb Point Foundation, a small family foundation that supports a variety of educational, civil and human rights organizations. Ms. Borsecnik holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, and she lives with her husband and two daughters in Washington, DC, and Telluride Colorado.


Hank Cauley, Senior Officer, Pew Environment Group, Pew Charitable Trusts

Mr. Cauley is a senior officer at the Environment Group of the Pew Charitable Trusts. At Pew. Mr. Cauley manages the Wild Australia program, which seeks to protect land and marine biodiversity and, more broadly, he is developing market-based strategies to conserve global marine resources. Prior to joining Pew, Mr. Cauley was a partner in the U.S. arm of Ecos, a sustainability consulting firm based in Australia. In addition to developing broad corporate sustainability strategies, he mediated disputes between environmental groups and corporations, defined ways in which environmental groups can collaborate with corporations, and assisted NGOs in developing conservation strategies. Mr. Cauley also developed on-the-ground experience through his own company, Innovative Environmental Technologies Inc., and his leadership roles in a variety of NGOs operating in the U.S., Africa, and Asia. These roles included U.S. president of the Forest Stewardship Council, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Biodiversity Conservation Network, and country director for VITA in Somalia. Hank has an M.A. in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.


Daniel Crisafulli, Impact Advisor, Potrero Impact Advisors

Mr. Crisafulli serves as an adviser on impact investing and social entrepreneurship. He recently left the Skoll Foundation, where he was the Director of Investments and led Skoll’s work in impact investing, including direct and fund investments. He also played a key role in creating partnerships to advance the field of social entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Skoll Foundation, Mr. Crisafulli managed the Development Marketplace (DM), the World Bank’s social entrepreneurship and innovation program. He led the expansion of the DM from a $3.5 million to a $10 million annual program by mobilizing 80 percent of the funding from external partners in the private sector and government. The DM was designated a “best practice” in corporate innovation by the Harvard Business Review. In 2000, Mr. Crisafulli cofounded the technology venture capital group at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where he invested in technology companies with social impact. He led investments including a pioneering Indian digital animation company DQ Entertainment, an early Indian semiconductor design company NewPath, and TRG, a leading Pakistan-based technology service company. He also served on the boards of IFC investees in Russia, Mexico, and Vietnam. Mr. Crisafulli began his career with the London-based consultancy L|E|K Partnership, advising on mergers and acquisitions in a range of industries. He earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Kennedy Scholar. He has served in leadership roles in several community organizations in San Francisco and Washington, DC.


Marcela Escobari, Executive Director, Center for International Development, Harvard Kennedy School

Ms. Escobari has over a decade of experience in economic development, including work with industrial strategy, technology policy, and private sector development. Before joining the Center for International Development in 2007, she led the Americas region and served on the Executive Committee of the OTF Group, a strategy consulting firm that advises private and public sector leaders on how to improve export competitiveness. Her work has included advising the president of the Dominican Republic on the country's industrial policy; the government of Colombia on revitalizing its tourism industry; the Jamaican entertainment and tourism industries on increasing their earning potential; and the government of Trinidad and Tobago on diversifying its economy away from oil and gas and into high-tech sectors. She has also led strategy projects for private companies in corporate strategy, product positioning, and market entry, and was responsible for business development, raising over $11 million from donor agencies and foundations for development projects. Ms. Escobari has has led studies on the effectiveness of impact of information and communication technology (ICT) investments in the Caribbean and Africa, and assessed the role business incubation in driving entrepreneurship in 47 developing countries. Along with Harvard and London Business School professors, she co-authored cases on successful business strategies in Latin American companies, and she has published numerous articles and reports on the role of ICT in private sector development. Prior to working at OTF, Ms. Escobari worked with indigenous communities in Bolivia for the World Bank and was a Mergers & Acquisitions investment banker with JP Morgan in New York. Marcela grew up in Bolivia, holds a B.A.from Swarthmore College and a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the Harvard Kennedy School.


Frank Hicks, Senior Advisor for International Investments, Bio-Logical Capital
Root Capital Board Chair


In his role as senior advisor for international investments to Bio-Logical Capital, Mr. Hicks is responsible for investment opportunities and strategic relationships. He also serves as the director of the Forest Trends/Katoomba Group Ecosystem Services Incubator for Africa. Formerly, he was the director of Forest Trends’ Business Development Facility, director of the Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Agriculture Program, and vice president of Organic Commodity Products, an organic chocolate company based in San José, Costa Rica. Prior to that he worked as program manager for TechnoServe's Ghana office; regional representative for the Biodiversity Conservation Network, based in the Philippines; and a program officer with the Ford Foundation based in Nigeria and New York City. Additionally, he is a founding member of SourceTrace Systems, a company that develops software applications for remote microfinance and agricultural supply chain transactions in developing countries. He was formerly a board member of the Nature Conservancy’s EcoEnterprises Fund and a fellow with Ecoagriculture Partners. Mr. Hicks has a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, with a focus on international development, and a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in human biology.


Tom Kaneb, Partner, Miralta Capital

After managing a family business for 21 years, Mr. Kaneb has worked as a partner in Miralta Capital since 1999, focused on venture capital investments in emerging technology in Canada. His education includes a chemical engineering degree from Queens University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University. His focus is on building strong management teams and strong sales growth in young technology companies. Mr. Kaneb and his wife, Gail Kaneb (whose expertise is change management and development of fast growing organizations,) are actively engaged with emerging NGOs that are applying innovative models to unsolved problems in the developing world; they are able to apply the skills they have developed in the venture capital world to help emerging NGOs scale up.


Paul Leander-Engström, Founder and Chairman, The World We Want Foundation

Paul is the founder and chairman of The World We Want, a Stockholm-based philanthropic organization working to advance social and environmental change in developing countries. He also serves on the board of the Swedish investment company Vostok Nafta Investment, and is the chair of True Invest, a private equity firm. In the late 1980s, Paul was an officer in training with the Swedish army and subsequently worked for Sweden's foreign office in Russia. During this time he became familiar with Russian companies as well as fellow Swede Mattias Westman, with whom he formed Russian hedge fund Prosperity Capital in 1993. He holds an M.S. in economics and business from the Stockholm School of Economics and a L.L.M. from Stockholm University.


Jeremy Mindich, Founder and Managing Partner, Scopia Capital

Mr. Mindich is a co-founder and managing partner of Scopia Capital, a hedge fund management company with $1 billion in assets under management in market-neutral, long/short value funds with a fundamental research focus. Before Scopia, Mr. Mindich worked as an analyst/partner at the hedge fund management group Porter Felleman, Inc. (now Porter Orlin, Inc.) where he specialized in evaluating healthcare and emerging technology companies. Mr Mindich worked previously as a freelance journalist and wrote articles on economic and social issues ranging from the first elections in post-Communist Slovakia, to the conditions in Cambodian refugee camps, to the Americorps program in the U.S. for publications including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, SF Weekly and the Village Voice. Since 2007, Mr. Mindich has been active in field building in the Impact Investing space and providing seed funding to various start-up organizations. He is a member of the board of directors of Sarona Frontier General Partner Inc., which oversees a fund dedicated to investing in social venture capital projects. Mr. Mindich is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Harvard Kennedy School.


Juan P. Morillo, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Juan P. Morillo is a partner based in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. His practice focuses on criminal defense and civil litigation for major financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies, large international companies, professional services firms and senior executives. In the criminal context, Mr. Morillo represents clients in federal investigations involving accounting, financial, securities, and tax fraud; bribery; antitrust, environmental and immigration violations; and healthcare fraud and abuse. He also represents clients in congressional, federal agency, and inspector general investigations. In addition, Mr. Morillo represents clients in internal investigations and audits involving alleged bribery, fraud and other corporate misconduct. He advises some of the largest Fortune 500 companies and financial services firms on the development, implementation and testing of their compliance programs. In the civil context, Mr. Morillo represents clients in class actions and other civil litigation involving the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), fraud, tort, breach of contract and other civil claims. Mr. Morillo assists clients in developing and implementing crisis management and public relations strategies. He has served as the spokesperson for clients in high profile matters and has appeared on CNN, Lou Dobbs, Fox, CNBC, Univision, and NPR, and he has been quoted in several publications, including Business Week, The Washington Post, and USA Today. At age 37, Mr. Morillo was recognized by The American Lawyer, the industry's leading publication, as one of the nation’s top 50 litigators under the age of 45.


Jack Taylor, Board Chair, Alliance to End Hunger

Mr. Taylor has more than 25 years of experience in the management, finance, and development of entrepreneurial businesses and nonprofit organizations. He is an investor in or advisor to a number of ventures, specializing in enterprises that offer market-based solutions to environmental and social problems. Mr. Taylor is also an entrepreneur who owned and operated a wood products mill in Vermont and has held marketing and managerial positions in successful manufacturing and software development companies in Connecticut, New York, and Florida. He was a founder and vice president of the Twin Pines Housing Trust, a provider of affordable housing, and served as Treasurer of the Vermont Land Trust. He has also served on the Boards of the Vermont Community Foundation and Chelsea Green Publishing Co. Mr. Taylor is currently the chair of the Board of the Alliance to End Hunger and a former board member of Bread for the World, both leading organizations in the movement to end hunger throughout the world. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.


Deborah Drake, Root Capital Board Director Emerita, Program Manager, Investing in Inclusive Finance,
Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International


Ms. Drake is currently program manager of Investing in Inclusive Finance of the Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International, a program that works to advance the commercial model of microfinance while upholding the interests and needs of poor clients worldwide. Ms. Drake also manages the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF), a membership organization of private entities that make equity investments in microfinance institutions (MFIs) of the developing world. Ms. Drake is the co-editor of The Commercialization of Microfinance: Balancing Business and Development and the co-author of Alchemists for the Poor: NGOs as Financial Institutions. Before joining ACCION International, Ms. Drake was a banking specialist in the Financial Policy and Systems Division of the World Bank and a commercial banker in Washington, DC. Ms Drake also participates on the advisory board of CARS, the assessment and rating system for U.S. community development financial institutions. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and holds an M.B.A from Babson College.


Jean Hazell, Root Capital Board Director Emerita, Research Associate, Harvard Business School

Ms. Hazell’s work at the Harvard Business School focuses on commercial models to improve the health and economic well-being of low income sectors in the developing world. This interest grew from five years helping to strengthen microfinance institutions in Latin America with ACCION International. Since then, Ms. Hazell has led two social ventures, as executive director of the Interra Project, and co-founder and president of Work in Progress. Ms. Hazell has also served as senior vice president of marketing at XACT, and as a financial analyst at Merrill Lynch. Ms. Hazell holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Yale University.


Jonathan Rosenthal, Root Capital Board Director Emeritus, Principal, Just Works Consulting

Mr. Rosenthal has been working hard to make the fair trade coffee and natural and gourmet products industries more just for over 25 years. As an independent consultant, Mr. Rosenthal creates and manages projects that help advance social justice issues in the global fair trade community. He is an advisor to numerous fair trade organizations and is co-founder and former executive director of Equal Exchange, a worker-owned, fair trade coffee company. Jonathan is blessed to have a fabulous wife and two wonderful daughters.