Fazle Hasan Abed
Founder and Chairperson, BRAC

Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, was educated in Dhaka and Glasgow Universities, before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in London. He returned home in the late 1960s to work as an executive with Shell Oil. Abed gave up his corporate career to join Bangladesh’s liberation movement and thereafter started BRAC in 1972.

Lincoln C. Chen, M.D.
Chair
Lincoln Chen is the President of the China Medical Board of New York. Earlier in his career, Lincoln was the Director of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, Executive Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Takemi Professor of International Health and Chair of the Department of Population and International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Lincoln has also been a member of CARE's Board since 1991 and served as Chair from 2001-2007. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lincoln served as representative of the Ford Foundation in India and also in Bangladesh where he also served as scientific director of the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh. He serves on the advisory board of the UN Fund for International Partnerships, Commission on Human Security, and the Helsinki Process Track III on human security.

Susan M. Davis
President and CEO, BRAC USA

Ms. Davis is a thought leader in international development and civil society innovation.  She is a founder and current President & CEO of BRAC USA, a newly created organization to support BRAC’s global expansion to Africa and other countries in Asia.  In addition she was a founding board member and Chair of the Grameen Foundation and current board member.  She serves on Ashoka’s international board committee that selects Ashoka Fellows. She is also Senior Advisor to New York University’s Reynolds Program on Social Entrepreneurship.  Previously she led Ashoka’s Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship, co-founded the University Network for Social Entrepreneurship and oversaw Ashoka’s expansion to the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.    In addition she served as a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the International Labor Organization.  Prior to that, she led the global advocacy group, Women's Environment & Development Organization.  She has extensive micro-credit experience from her years with the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh and from her work with Women's World Banking.   She also served as a funder and volunteer representative to start Ashoka Bangladesh.  Earlier she was the Assistant Director of the export trading company of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.  She serves on numerous other boards including Project Enterprise, Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund, and African Women’s Development Fund USA.  She is on Mary Robinson’s Advisory Council of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  She was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities.

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Ronald Grzywinski
Treasurer

Ronald Grzywinski is the chairman and co-founder of ShoreBank Corporation of Chicago. ShoreBank, currently with total assets of $2.2 billion, was established in 1973 as America’s first community development and environmental banking corporation, and provides financing to small businesses and residents in disinvested urban and rural communities. Ron has been an advisor to local communities, both nationally and internationally, to assist with their local development banking efforts. This includes work with the Southern Development Bancorporation, in Arkansas, Grameen Bank and BRAC in Bangladesh, and the Aga Khan Foundation in Pakistan. In early 2007, Ron, along with ShoreBank co-founder Mary Houghton, was named as a member of the Ashoka Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2005, he was selected as the 2005 recipient of the Independent Sector’s John W. Gardner Leadership Award.   

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Kamal Ahmad
Secretary

Kamal Ahmad serves as the President and CEO of the Asian University for Women Support Foundation. Immediately prior to joining the Asian University for Women Support Foundation, he was on the staff of the General Counsel of the Asian Development Bank based in Manila, Philippines. Kamal has also worked with the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation and UNICEF. In 1998 he helped launch the World Bank/UNESCO Task Force on Higher Education and Society and co-directed it with Professor David Bloom of Harvard University. The Paul G. Hoffman Awards Fund, created to honor the first Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, gave him a UN Gold Peace Medal and Citation Scroll for his “outstanding contribution to national and international development.” In 2002, the World Economic Forum based in Davos, Switzerland elected him as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow.” Over the years Mr. Ahmad’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and other major publications.

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Richard A. Cash, MD, MPH
Assistant Secretary and Treasurer

Richard Cash is a senior lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and has been a faculty member at HSPH in the Department of Population and International Health for 27 years. Richard is credited with saving millions of lives by being a co-developer and promoting the use of oral rehydration therapy to treat cholera and other diarrheal diseases, was a joint recipient of the 2006 Prince Mahidol Award for "exemplary contributions in the field of public health." Richard has focused his work on infectious disease problems in the developing world and on ethical issues in international health research.  

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Adrienne Germain
Board Member

Adrienne Germain, President of the International Women's Health Coalition, has worked for almost 35 years to promote women's opportunities, health, and rights in developing countries. She is a visionary who helped revolutionize the way the world views population policy by making the health and rights of women central.  Earlier in her career, as the Ford Foundation’s youngest—and first woman—country representative, Adrienne lived in Bangladesh for four years and directed the Foundation's programs in agriculture, rural employment, international economics, women's rights, arts and culture, and reproductive health.  In the mid-1980s, Adrienne joined and revitalized the International Women's Health Coalition, turning it into a leading international advocate for women's sexual health and rights.  As part of a consortium of donors, advisers, and agencies, she worked with the Bangladesh government and civil society organizations to design the first national health and population policy based on ICPD principles.  Adrienne was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Bard College for her longtime "service to the well being of women throughout the world." and was named a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Greater New York in October 2005.

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Raymond C. Offenheiser
Board Member

Ray Offenheiser is the president of Oxfam America. Since Mr. Offenheiser joined Boston-based Oxfam America in 1995, the organization has grown more than fourfold in size and has positioned itself as an expert on international development and global trade. Mr. Offenheiser, who has worked his entire career in the non-profit sector, is a recognized leader on issues such as poverty alleviation, human rights, foreign assistance, and international development. Before joining Oxfam America, he served for five years as the Ford Foundation Representative in Bangladesh and, prior to that, in the Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America. He has also directed programs for the Inter-American Foundation in both Brazil and Colombia and worked for Save the Children Federation in Mexico. Mr. Offenheiser holds a Masters Degree in Development Sociology from Cornell University and earned his Bachelors Degree from the University of Notre Dame. He speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.

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Chuck Slaughter
Board Member

Chuck is the Founder of TravelSmith Outfitters, a direct marketer of travel clothing and gear. Chuck started TravelSmith in 1991 and built it into the #1 brand in travel wear with over two million customers and $100 million in sales. Chuck sold TravelSmith several years ago and created the Charles Slaughter and Molly West Fund. In the late 1980’s Chuck served as a Program Officer for Trickle Up, which supports micro-enterprise development in a dozen countries. Chuck’s latest social venture, Living Goods, is applying the Avon model to the challenge of improving access to low-cost, high-impact health products in Africa on a fully sustainable basis.  Chuck was a recipient of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the year award.  He currently serves on the boards of Spiegel, Environmental Traveling Companions, Living Goods and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.  He is a member of the Initiative for Global Development and Technoserve and an advisor to Global Giving.  Chuck earned both a BA and a Master’s in Management from Yale.

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Sajeda Amin
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Sajeda Amin is a senior associate in the Policy Research Division where she has worked since 1995. She is interested in a range of issues related to gender, work, poverty, and family in the developing world. She is currently involved in studies in Bangladesh, Egypt, and Vietnam on young people’s livelihood strategies with a focus on socially and economically vulnerable populations. This is part of a larger program on transitions to adulthood. Amin combines quantitative and qualitative techniques in her research. Prior to coming to the Population Council, Amin was a research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in Dhaka. She received a Ph.D. in demography and sociology from Princeton University in 1988. Amin is affiliated with the Population Council's Poverty, Gender, and Youth program.

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Peter Buffett
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Peter Buffett is a well established musician, composer and producer as well as Co-Chairman of the NoVo Foundation. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett began his career in San Francisco writing music for commercials. After recording four albums for Narada Records, Peter signed with Epic and then Hollywood Records resulting in four additional releases. His Emmy award winning CD entitled, Ojibwe was released on his own label, BisonHead. Highlights of his film and television work include the Fire Dance scene in the Oscar winning film Dances With Wolves and the entire score for 500 Nations the 8 hour miniseries for CBS produced by Kevin Costner. Buffett’s theatrical production, Spirit – The Seventh Fire, was located on the National Mall for the Smithsonian’s opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. Spirit – The Seventh Fire combines Imax scale film and imagery, all native dancers and a live band to tell the story of one man’s journey towards reconnection through his heritage and the land we live on. As Co-Chairman of the NoVo Foundation, Buffett helps guide the strategic plan that he and his wife Jennifer will then implement with a small dedicated staff over the coming years.

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Jennifer Buffett
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Jennifer Buffett shares her work as President of the NoVo Foundation with her husband composer and philanthropist, Peter Buffett. She has worked in philanthropy since 1997 granting mainly to arts, social service, human rights and environmental projects. Jennifer and her husband based themselves in Wisconsin, where she grew up, before moving to New York in 2005. For a multi-million dollar touring show called, “Spirit-The Seventh Fire” created by Peter Buffett, Jennifer secured sponsorships, funding and partners, organized events, media and related programming in five U.S. cities. Jennifer has a passionate interest in the natural world, supporting girls and women around the globe, gender equality and peace.

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Martha Chen
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy, is coordinator of the global research policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are gender and poverty alleviation with a focus on issues of employment and livelihoods. Before joining Harvard University in 1987, she lived for 15 years in Bangladesh where she worked with BRAC, one of the world's largest NGOs, and in India where she served as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh. She is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Progress of the World's Women 2005: Women, Work, and Poverty; Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture; and Perpetual Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India. Chen received a PhD in South Asia regional studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Rod Dubitsky
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Rod Dubitsky is a Managing Director and Head of Asset Backed Securities Research at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in April 2000, Rod and his group has authored numerous special reports on mortgage and non-mortgage ABS topics including articles on student loans, credit cards, autos, Australian Mortgages, second liens, home equity triggers, interest only and piggy back mortgages. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Rod worked at Moody’s for 3 years focusing primarily on subprime mortgage transactions. Prior to joining Moody’s, Rod worked on the buy side for five years with responsibilities that included agency and non-agency MBS, CMOs, interest-rate and mortgage derivatives (including one of the first non-agency CMO swaps), servicing hedging (including buying super-POs and created internal servicing swap to provide transfer pricing hedge) and corporate bonds (bought putable corporates as cheap way to buy convexity). Rod holds an MBA from Duke University.

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Lynn Freedman
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Lynn P. Freedman is the director of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability (AMDD) Program and of the Law and Policy Project, both in the Mailman School’s Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University in 1990, she worked as a practicing attorney in New York City. Professor Freedman has been a leading figure in the field of health and human rights, working extensively with women’s groups and human rights NGOs internationally. She has published widely on issues of health and human rights, with a particular focus on gender and women’s health. She is currently serving as a senior adviser to the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Child Health and Maternal Health and is the lead author of the Task Force’s Final Report “Who’s Got the Power: Transforming Health Systems for Women and Children.”

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Rachel Payne
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Rachel Payne is a senior program officer on the Global Development team at Google. She currently manages the grant and investment portfolio for the East Africa SME initiative, which is focused on increasing investment in small- and medium-sized enterprises and building a supporting ecosystem for SMEs in Africa. Rachel was a co-founder and former board director of inDplay, a media company providing cross-platform distribution for independent and professionally-produced content and has worked with a number of high-tech firms and start-up companies in Silicon Valley, including eBay, IDG, Razorfish and Hotwire. Her international work experience includes microfinance field work in Latin America and Africa. Rachel has worked on projects with ACCION International/Compartamos, Grameen Technology Center (Village Phone Uganda), HP/USAID, local micro-enterprise development. She is an advisor to the Branson School of Entrepreneurship and served on the board of Occupational Knowledge International. Rachel has an MBA from Stanford University with certificates in Public Management and Global Management and she has a BA with distinction from Smith College.

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Imran Riffat
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Imran Riffat, CFO & Finance Director, joined Synergos in 2005. Prior to joining Synergos Mr. Riffat completed twenty-five years with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. where, from 1995-2003, he worked for the Investment Bank covering international client management activities for the Europe, Africa and Middle East Group. His banking career includes two overseas assignments: from 1990-95 as the Bank's Country Manager in Egypt and, from 1985-90, as the Vice President in charge of relations with financial institutions in Turkey. Earlier positions with the Bank included responsibility for business development in South Asia with particular emphasis on the client base in Iran, Pakistan and India. In April 2003, through a grant obtained from The Starr Foundation, Mr. Riffat successfully implemented a 28-day camp in Kabul, run by the Jaipur-based Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti of India, to fit 850 amputees in Afghanistan with artificial limbs. Mr. Riffat completed his undergraduate education at the University of Punjab in Lahore (Pakistan), and later obtained his MBA from Pace University in New York.

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Jennefer Sebstad
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Jennefer Sebstad is a Nairobi-based independent consultant working with non-governmental groups on enterprise development and women's programs. Her academic training includes undergraduate studies in geography at the University of Michigan and graduate work in urban and regional planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work experience includes assignments with the Ford Foundation, the US Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the International Centre for Research on Women (Washington, DC), and the Self Employed Women's Association (Ahmedabad, India).

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Stephen Smith
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Stephen C. Smith is a professor of economics at The George Washington University. He has conducted research in India, China, Taiwan, Ecuador, Slovenia, Italy, Egypt, Germany, Bangladesh, Peru, Tanzania and Uganda. He also served as an organizer of the International Development Studies Program (IDS), then as its first director between 1992 and 1996. He also taught development economics at the Foreign Service Institute. Mr. Smith received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and has been a Fulbright Research Scholar and a Jean Monnet Research Fellow.

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Amartya Sen
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is an Indian citizen. Amartya Sen’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and include Development as Freedom (1999) among many others. His research has ranged over a number of fields in economics, philosophy, and decision theory, including social choice theory, welfare economics, theory of measurement, development economics, public health, gender studies, moral and political philosophy, and the economics of peace and war. Among the awards he has received are the “Bharat Ratna” (the highest honour awarded by the President of India); the Senator Giovanni Agnelli International Prize in Ethics; the Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Award; the Edinburgh Medal; the Brazilian Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Grã-Cruz); the Presidency of the Italian Republic Medal; the Eisenhower Medal; Honorary Companion of Honour (U.K.); The George C. Marshall Award, and the Nobel Prize in Economics.

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Diana Taylor
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

Diana Taylor joined Wolfensohn & Co., an investment banking firm, as a Managing Director in April, 2007.  She has more than 20 years of experience serving in both the public and private sectors.  She started her career as an investment banker, working for Smith Barney, then Lehman Brothers, then Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.  She then held various positions in the State government, including Chief Financial Officer of the Long Island Power Authority, and Deputy Secretary to the Governor for Housing and Finance.  From 2003 to 2007 she held the position of Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York, a post to which she was nominated by Governor George Pataki and confirmed by the State Senate.  Ms. Taylor serves on the Board of Directors of Sotheby’s  and Brookfield Properties.  In addition, she serves on several not for profit boards, including Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, the New York Women’s Foundation, the International Women’s Health Coalition, and ACCION International, and she chairs a commission for the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation concentrating on financially underserved communities.  Ms. Taylor is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Elaine Wolfensohn
BRAC USA Advisory Council Member

For over forty years, Elaine Wolfensohn has been involved in the fields of education and arts education while raising her family.  Her work in Australia and the United States has included teaching in private schools, creating teen tutoring programs in inner city schools, and training adult volunteers to tutor high school students.  Mrs. Wolfensohn was educated at Wellesley College, where she received her B.A.  She went on to receive her M.A. in French Literature from Columbia and her M.Ed. in counseling psychology from Teachers College.  Mrs. Wolfensohn’s commitment to education also extends into her community advisory work.  For years she chaired the Program Committee of the National Board of Young Audiences.  Currently, she is President of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic.  In addition, she serves on the board of the Davidson Graduate School of Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Math for America, as well as the advisory committees of the Park City Mathematics Oversight Board at the Institute of Advanced Study, and Teachers College at Columbia University.  During her husband's presidency of the World Bank, Mrs. Wolfensohn worked closely with the Bank on issues of education, early child development and gender equity.

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Santhosh Ramdoss
Program Manager, BRAC USA

Santhosh grew up in Gandhigram, a rural town in Southern India. He graduated with an MBA from Bharathidasan Institute of Management, one of the top business schools in India. He also recently graduated with a Master's in Public Administration from the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. At NYU, he received the Jo Ivey Boufford Award for Innovation in recognition of his efforts in identifying cross-sectoral solutions for social change and also the Howard G Newman Award for exemplary work done by a team on a consulting project. He was also a Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship at NYU. Prior to coming to NYU, Santhosh was a Senior Analyst at AC Nielsen BASES, one of the world’s leading marketing consulting firms. He compliments his experience in the private sector with his non-profit experience, having worked with many small non-profits in India. Santhosh also previously co-founded two social ventures, both of which have won multiple awards internationally.

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Michelle Chaplin
Program Manager, BRAC USA

Michelle is Vice Chair of the Board of the United Nations Association Young Professionals for International Cooperation’s Southern New York Division and is on the Board of The Microfinance Insider, the forthcoming journal from the Financial Access Initiative. Prior to her position as Vice Chair, Michelle was Co-director of the Humanitarian Affairs Committee and has previously worked in development and marketing at Allen & Overy LLP, a global law firm, and FilmAid International, a non-profit that uses the power of film to educate and inspire refugees. Michelle received her MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU, where she reimains an active member of the Social Enterprise Association, the Financial Access Initiative, NYUMicrofinance and Stern Women in Business. She graduated from NYU in May 2004 with honors with a BFA in Cinema Studies and International Relations, for which she wrote her senior thesis on the effect of U.S. foreign aid on economic growth in developing countries.

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