Board of Directors
Professor Muhammad Yunus, Co-Chair
Grameen Bank Founder
Nobel Laureate
Professor Yunus, the “father of microfinance,” founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh on the premise that the poor are creditworthy. In 2006, Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Professor Yunus is only one of six people in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. Professor Yunus published his work on microfinance and social business in his books Banker to the Poor, Creating a World Without Poverty, and Building Social Business. Professor Yunus serves on the Board of Grameen Research, which provides research, training and support in the field of microfinance, as well as Sing for Hope, an organization dedicated to transforming underserved communities through arts outreach programs.
John F. Megrue Jr., Co-Chair
Co-Chair, Grameen America
John Megrue is currently a Partner at Brighton Health Partners, an organization building transformative healthcare businesses as well as being Vice Chairman and Partner at Radical Ventures, the leading venture capital firm focusing exclusively on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Previously John was Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates for 5 years, a global macro investment management firm, and for many years was the Chairman and CEO of Apax Partners U.S, an independent global private equity advisory firm managing over $46 billion in private equity funds. From 1992 to 2005, he was a Partner at Saunders, Karp and Megrue, a mid‐market buyout private equity firm.
John currently serves on the Board of Bridgewater Associates, Little Leaf Farms, Global Citizen and is a Board member of Grameen America, the largest microfinance non‐profit in the U.S. that provides loans, savings programs, credit establishment and other financial services to women entrepreneurs living below the poverty line in the United States. John is also Vice Chairman of UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy's Office for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals. In addition, John is on the Board of Bridges Ventures, a U.S. social impact investment fund. He previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Cornell University.
Andrea Jung
Grameen America
President and CEO
Andrea Jung is the President and CEO of Grameen America. She is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Avon Products, Inc., where she served as CEO from 1999 to 2012, and as Chairman from 2001 through 2012. Throughout her career, Ms. Jung ranked consistently among the top leaders on lists including Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business," Forbes’ "Most Powerful Women in the World," and the Financial Times' "Top Women in World Business." Ms. Jung is a graduate of Princeton University. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., Unilever, Rockefeller Capital Management and Wayfair Inc. She previously served on the boards of General Electric and Daimler AG.
Maria C. Alonso
Senior South Florida Executive and Civic Leader
Maria Alonso is a senior executive and community leader with a rich history of civic involvement in South Florida. She currently serves as CEO and Regional Dean of Northeastern University’s Miami Campus where she provides the strategic direction and vision for the programs, services and overall operations for the campus. She works closely with the University’s academic leadership to identify and develop meaningful opportunities that respond to the needs of the community and address workforce gaps in the region’s evolving economy.
Alonso serves as an Independent Board Director of U.S. Century Bank (NASDAQ: USCB), one of Florida’s largest community banks.
Bob Annibale
University of London, SOAS
Senior Fellow
Bob Annibale is a Senior Fellow at the University of London, SOAS, focusing on social and inclusive finance, social entrepreneurship, and financial and racial justice. He worked in senior business and corporate positions at Citi in Athens, Bahrain, London, Nairobi, and New York.
He is widely recognized as the founder and Global Director of Citi Inclusive Finance (2005-2020) and his additional leadership of Citi Community Development, which is focused on financial inclusion, immigrant integration, affordable housing, and racial justice in the US. Since inception, Inclusive Finance has mobilized over $3.8bn in financing across 36 countries, developing new products with partner institutions and clients that are focused on serving the financial needs of underserved and low income communities, particularly women, working across Citi's businesses and geographies.
Nandita Bakhshi
Special Advisor, BMO Financial Group
Nandita Bakhshi is the Special Advisor at BMO Financial Group. Nandita also serves on the Board of Directors of Bank of the West, and BNP Paribas USA, and is a member of Bank of the West’s Executive Management Committee.
Nandita joined Bank of the West in June 2016 and oversees a team of more than 10,000 employees across the bank’s five business lines: Corporate and Commercial Banking, Personal Finance, Retail Banking, Small and Medium Enterprise Banking, and Wealth Management.
Ben Farkas
Hellman & Friedman
Partner
Ben Farkas is a partner with Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm with offices in New York, San Francisco, and London. With a focus on technology and tech-enabled services, Ben is currently Lead Director of Ultimate Software, was formerly a Director of OpenLink Financial, Getty Images and Sheridan Healthcare, and was active in the firm’s investment in SnapAV. Prior to H&F, Ben was employed by Bain Capital primarily in London, and Bain & Company in Boston. Ben received a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Economics, from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Lori Dickerson Fouché
The Kraft Heinz Company
Director
Lori Dickerson Fouché is currently a director of The Kraft Heinz Company, Hippo Enterprises Inc., Gusto, Inc., and the Princeton University Board of Trustees. Lori has spent most of her career working in financial services. Most recently Lori served as Chief Executive Officer of TIAA Financial Solutions. At TIAA she was responsible for retirement, banking, insurance, and wealth management, as well as enterprise marketing. Lori joined TIAA after a series of leadership roles at Prudential Financial. As Group Head, Individual Solutions for Prudential she was responsible for leading all retail businesses and products, including individual annuities, life insurance, and wealth management. Lori was also President, Prudential Annuities, and Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Group Insurance.
Michael D. Granoff
Pomona Capital, L.P.
Founder & CEO
Mr. Granoff is founder and CEO of Pomona Capital. He previously served on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, and the 1992 Department of Treasury Presidential Transition Team. He is Chairman of the Boards of the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund, and Albanian American Development Foundation, and received the Order of Mother Teresa Medal from the Albanian President. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and World Economic Forum, and has lectured at Harvard Business School and Wharton School of Business. He received his JD from Georgetown University and BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jennifer R. Jackson
Walmart Inc.
Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Development and Innovation
Jennifer R. Jackson currently serves as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Development and Innovation at Walmart. In this role, Jennifer is responsible for the development of the company’s enterprise strategy, its M&A efforts and Store Nº8, Walmart’s incubation arm. Prior to joining Walmart, Jennifer had a nine-year career at Capital One where she held a variety of leadership positions, most recently as President of Capital One Canada responsible for the company’s overall strategic direction and operations in the country. With nearly two decades of strategy and operations experience, Jennifer has also held leadership positions at Xerox and McKinsey & Company, where she gained extensive experience in both domestic and international markets leading turnarounds and growth strategies. Jennifer is a graduate of Yale University and earned a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Vidar Jorgensen
Chairman
The Healthcare Innovation Congress (thinc360)
Mr. Jorgensen was the principal proponent and organizer of Grameen America and Grameen PrimaCare and currently serves as the President of Grameen Research. He is also the majority owner of three industry based conference and research companies, which in turn own and manage over 200 conferences and several membership-based research groups. Mr. Jorgensen’s companies include Cambridge Healthtech Institute, Corporate Research Group, and The World Health Care Congress that was launched in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Whole Planet Foundation. Mr. Jorgensen holds a B.A. in Political Science from Harvard University.
Mahmoud Mamdani
Morgan Stanley
Former Vice Chairman & Managing Director
Mr. Mamdani is the former Vice Chairman in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. He led the Emerging Market Private Investments initiative and the Global Emerging Markets Private Equity Fund. He has over 23 years experience across a range of transactions, including acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, privatizations, and hostile defenses. Mr. Mamdani is on Morgan Stanley’s Microfinance Advisory Board, is a Board member of Arab Bankers Associations of North America, and a participant in U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University with a BA in Economics and MBA from Stanford University. He was raised in Kenya and Tanzania.
Karen Pritzker
Seedlings Foundation
President
Ms. Pritzker is President of the Seedlings Foundation, which supports programs that nourish the physical and mental health of children and families, as well as institutions that foster an educated and engaged citizenship. She serves on the board of Grameen PrimaCare, a non-profit organization that provides affordable primary care and a health promotion program to immigrant women. Ms. Pritzker is a Principal of the Pritzker/Vlock Family Office.
Tasmina Rahman
Grameen Trust
Managing Director
Tasmina Rahman, a practitioner of microfinance and social business joined Grameen Trust (GT) as its Managing Director on January 1, 2023. Since 1994, she has been working with Grameen Trust which has helped implementation of more than 154 Grameen Replication Programs in 43 countries and provided equity support to more than 41,000 new entrepreneurs by April 30, 2023. She has the opportunity to work with Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus at different levels of Grameen Trust.
Ms. Rahman has a wide range of experience on GT’s worldwide replication programs following Grameen Bank Approach (GBA). She has participated in different workshops and training programs on various issues on Microcredit and Social Business in different countries as well as monitoring and evaluation visits to the microcredit projects run, and/or managed by GT worldwide. She serves as a member of a number of Boards in different microfinance organizations and Social Business entities in Bangladesh, China, France, Italy, and Yemen.
Adriana P. Torres
Oracle Corporation
Senior Vice President, Global Head of Customer Support
Adriana Torres is a transformational leader and a global operation visionary, with more than 30 years of experience in large and global businesses in the technology, financial and manufacturing sectors. She combines her strong people skills, operations foundation, turnaround and integration expertise, and community engagement with a track record of achieving a first-class customer experience, service excellence, scale gains and productivity outcomes. Adriana has managed P&L units up to $1.0B and has led up to 15,000 employee organizations. She is recognized for her skills and ability to turn around challenging operational environments, to drive business and process improvements and ROI initiatives.
Director Emeritus
Ray Dalio
Bridgewater Associates, L.P.
Founder, Chairman, &
Co-Chief Investment Officer
Mr. Dalio is the founder, CEO, and CIO of Bridgewater Associates and has over 35 years of experience in the financial field. Mr. Dalio was Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick, a Wall Street brokerage house, in 1973. In 1974, he joined Shearson, Haydon Stone where he was in charge of the Institutional Futures department. In 1975, Mr. Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates and grew the company to manage over $75 billion in assets. He received a BA from C.W. Post College University and a MBA from Harvard University.