Elizabeth Funk
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer
Elizabeth Funk is actively engaged in designing innovative programs that address world poverty with commercial projects and funds. She is the founder and CEO of the Dignity Fund, which provides small loans to the world’s poor allowing them to start businesses and build their own way out of poverty. Until recently she served as Chairman of the Board of Unitus, the leading microfinance acclerator. Her other board involvements include Root Capital, Deutsche Bank’s Global Microfinance Consortium Fund, FINCA’s Microfinance Fund, the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network, Glide Community Development Corporation (San Francisco), and Imperial Parking (Hong Kong). She was the founding Chairman of MicroPlace, a service that allows retail investors to invest in Microfinance, until it was sold to EBay in 2006.
Elizabeth was one of the earliest employees of Yahoo! During her tenure at Yahoo she was responsible for the strategy and development of a wide variety of new products including Yahoo! Travel, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Greetings, Yahoo! Finance, and Yahoo! Auctions. She managed the team responsible for business development on many of Yahoo’s most important services including Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo’s core Search. Most significantly, Elizabeth was the founder of Yahoo! Shopping, managing the initial design and creation of what later came to account for over 2/3 of the company’s revenues.
Prior to Business School, Elizabeth spent four years at Microsoft Corporation where she served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word and as one of the early members of the Microsoft Office team.
Elizabeth is an active member of the Young President’s Organization (“YPO”). She currently serves on YPO’s International Board of Directors and was a founder of Social Enterprise Networks, an initiative within YPO that brings together members worldwide on projects that “make a difference” in the world. She is an active member of the American Friends of the Louvre and the Prince of Wales Foundation.
Elizabeth holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Economics with Honors from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated in 1996 as a Baker Scholar. She is a frequent speaker about Microfinance, to audiences such as at the US Department of State, the Forbes CEO Conference, and the Clinton Global Initiative. She was recently named the “Female Entrepreneur of the Year” by TiE. She has been profiled in publications including Forbes, the San Jose Mercury News, and Business Week. In 2010 she was named “Businesswoman of the Year” by Veuve Clicquot. Elizabeth has two children and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
B. Maya Chorengel
Consulting Advisor and Former Managing Director
Maya Chorengel is a co-Founder and Managing Director of Elevar Equity, a leading global growth investor that provides equity capital to microfinance institutions and other companies focused on the underserved four billion at the base of the economic pyramid. Prior to co-founding Elevar, she was the initial Managing Director of the Dignity Fund, a private investment fund that provides local currency debt financing to high-growth microfinance institutions in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Maya grew up in Asia, has long been active in international investing and is passionate about commercially viable, market based solutions to development challenges.
Before beginning her work in impact investing in 2005, Maya was at Warburg Pincus, working in the private equity firm’s New York, Hong Kong and Menlo Park offices. She invested in a variety of companies spanning venture and growth capital to leveraged buyouts to post-Asian-crisis balance sheet restructurings in the US, South Korea, Hong Kong, India, China and the Philippines. She also previously worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley (Hong Kong and Singapore) and James D. Wolfensohn, Incorporated (New York).
Maya is a Director of Caja Rural Los Andes, GlobokasNet, the International Association of Microfinance Investors, Dignity Fund and Wokai. She has served as Director or observer on several boards, including Comat Technologies, North Pole Ltd., Eagle Family Foods, printChannel, GT Nexus and RFM, Philippines. Maya graduated with Honors in Social Studies from Harvard University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Victor MacFarlane
Managing Principal, MacFarlane Partners (www.macfarlanepartners.com)
Mr. MacFarlane is founder and managing principal of MacFarlane Partners, the leading minority-owned real estate investment management and development firm in the U. S. Mr. MacFarlane has 26 years of real estate experience, and has worked extensively in property development, acquisitions, asset management and portfolio management on behalf of some of the largest pension plans and institutional investors in the U.S. After establishing his firm in 1987, he sold the investment management business of MacFarlane Partners to GE Capital in 1996 and then served for three years as CEO of the renamed firm, GE Capital Investment Advisors. In April 1999, he resigned from GE Capital and restarted MacFarlane Partners as an entrepreneurial firm focusing on urban properties and other high-yielding real estate investments. Mr. MacFarlane began his real estate career with Aetna Life & Casualty Company. Mr. MacFarlane sits on the boards of directors of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Stanford Hospital & Clinics. He serves on the policy advisory board of the Fisher Center for Real Estate at the University of California, Berkeley, and is an outsider director of Developers Diversified Realty Corporation. He is a member and former trustee of the Urban Land Institute and a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers, the Pension Real Estate Association, the Chief Executives Organization and the World Presidents Organization. Mr. MacFarlane holds an undergraduate degree from the University of New Mexico, an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mike Murray
Chairman, Unitus (www.unitus.com)
Mr. Murray is co-founder and chairman of Unitus. He is also president of Crystal Springs Foundation, an organization that provides catalytic capital and management support to projects that create permanent improvements in people’s lives. CSF has made a multi-million dollar commitment to Unitus. Mr. Murray spent 20 years in the computer industry, most notably at Apple Computer, Incorporated and Microsoft Corporation, where he served as corporate vice president for Human Resources and Administration. Mr. Murray holds an engineering degree and an M.B.A., both from Stanford University.
William S. Price III
Founding Partner, Texas Pacific Group.
Mr. Price is one of the founding partners of the Texas Pacific Group, a leading global private investment firm with over $20 billion of capital under management. Prior to forming TPG in 1992, Mr. Price was Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development for G.E. Capital, responsible for acquiring new business units and determining the business and acquisition strategies for existing businesses. From 1985 to 1991 Mr. Price was employed by the management consulting firm of Bain & Company, attaining officer status and acting as co-head of the Financial Services Practice. Prior to 1985, Mr. Price was an associate specializing in corporate securities transactions with the legal firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Mr. Price serves on the Board of Directors of Bally International AG, British Vita, Cranium, DoveBid, Inc., Grohe AG, and IRMC Holdings, Inc. He also serves on the boards of four non-profit organizations: COPIA, The California Mentor Foundation, The Gladstone Institute and Just Give. Mr. Price is a member of the California Bar and received his undergraduate degree with honors from Stanford University and his law degree with honors from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
Stuart Sundlun
Managing Director, Global Emerging Markets (www.gemny.com)
Since 1996, Mr. Sundlun has been a Managing Director of Global Emerging Markets, a private investment group specializing in control investments in private companies and minority investments in public companies in the US and internationally. Additionally, since 1994, Mr. Sundlun has structured transactions and investments in Russia. From 2001, he has also served as an advisor to Triago S.A., a placement agent for private equity funds headquartered in Paris, France. Mr. Sundlun serves on the board of South Oil Corporation, which operates in Russia, and the advisory board of MusicLoads, Inc. and Recipco Inc. Previously he was an associate in the investment banking division of Lehman Brothers and a Mexican Liaison Officer at Chase Manhattan Bank. Mr. Sundlun received a B.A. in international relations with honors from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. After graduating from Harvard, Mr. Sundlun was a Rotary Fellow at La Universidad Pontifica Catolica in Lima, Peru.
Dignity Fund I Advisory Board
Alex Counts
President and CEO, Grameen Foundation USA (www.gfusa.org)
Mr. Counts established Grameen Foundation USA in 1997 at the request of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. GF-USA acts as a catalyst, channeling human, financial and technological resources in the United States to support the growth of the poverty-focused microfinance movement. Mr. Counts was named President and CEO of GF-USA in 1998. Mr. Counts first encountered the devastation of world poverty in 1988 as a Fulbright Scholar with Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In 1989, he returned to the United States and became the legislative director of RESULTS until 1992. He then returned to Bangladesh and to Grameen Bank and then became a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh in 1995 and 1996. Mr. Count’s articles on poverty and microcredit have appeared in the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Miami Herald, International Herald Tribune and elsewhere. He is the author of Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus’ Micro-Lending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago.
Christopher A. Crane
President and CEO, Opportunity International-U.S.A. (www.opportunity.org)
Mr. Crane has been President and CEO of Opportunity International-U.S since 2002. Opportunity provides loans to poor entrepreneurs to work their way out of poverty and made 1 million loans totaling US $240 million in 27 countries in 2004. Previously, Mr. Crane acquired COMPS Info Systems, Inc in 1992. COMPS took in four venture capital rounds, acquired 13 other companies, and went public in 1999. Mr. Crane sold the company in 2000. Prior to acquiring COMPS, Mr. Crane was a Group President at a public company which imported apparel from developing countries. Earlier, he served as a Vice President at an electronic database publisher and as a Partner in a venture capital firm. Mr. Crane won the 1999 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the category of Software/Internet.
Gil Crawford
General Manager, MicroVest Capital Management (www.microvestfund.com)
Mr. Crawford has over 20 years experience with microfinance institutions and capital markets, and has worked extensively in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Prior to joining MicroVest Capital Management, Mr. Crawford worked for the Latin American Financial Markets Division at the International Finance Corporation, focusing on investments in microfinance institutions. Prior to joining IFC, Mr. Crawford created and ran Seed Capital Development Fund, a US based non-profit firm involved in creating financial instruments and attracting funds to capitalize microfinance institutions, primarily in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Specific projects included Latin American Challenge Investment Fund (LA-CIF), a US$ 20 million loan fund for microfinance institutions in Latin America, and DEVCAP, a “shared return mutual fund” whose total assets reached over US$ 27 million dollars. Mr. Crawford has also been a member of Profund’s Investment Committee and alternate member to the Board of Directors for many years. Prior to creating SCDF, Mr. Crawford was the Assistant Project Director for Africa Venture Capital Project, a $7.1 million USAID contract designed to create risk capital firms in Africa. Mr. Crawford received his bank training at Chase Manhattan Bank in the mid-80’s after working in Africa for the Red Cross and State Department.
Sam Daley-Harris
President and Founder, RESULTS Educational Fund (www.results.org)
RESULTS Educational Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to mass educational strategies to generate the will to end world hunger. REF organized the 1997 Microcredit Summit (www.microcreditsummit.org) and launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by 2005. Mr. Daley-Harris is Director of the Campaign. Mr. Daley-Harris is also Founder and President of RESULTS, an international citizens’ lobby dedicated to creating the political will to end hunger and poverty. Mr. Daley-Harris is author of Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break Between People and Government, editor of Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families, and author of each year’s State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report. Mr. Daley-Harris is a member of the board of RESULTS, REF and Stand for Children. He has received The Temple Award for Creative Altruism from the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the Caring Award from the Caring Institute, the Warner Woodworth Humanitarian Service Award from the Marriott School at Brigham Young University and the Elliott Black Award from the American Ethical Union.
Diandra Douglas
Chairperson, Wildwolf
Ms. Douglas is Chairperson of Wildwolf, a company that produces feature films and documentaries, and has produced internationally acclaimed films for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Channel 13, Turner Broadcasting and HBO. She is also the author of books and articles on arts, architecture and the environment. Ms. Douglas is a member of the Chancellor’s Council and the Lancaster Society, and has been a trustee of the University of California at Santa Barbara Foundation since 1991. She is a trustee of the American Red Cross of Greater New York; she received its Special Achievement Award in 1991 and its Humanitarian Award in 1985. She also received a special recognition Award from the Partnership for the Homeless in 1990. Ms. Douglas also sits on the boards of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival; and MUSE Film and Television.
Elizabeth Littlefield
CEO, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (www.cgap.org)
Ms. Littlefield is CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, a multi-donor microfinance organization dedicated to building financial systems for the poor operating from World Bank offices in Washington, D.C. and Paris. CGAP’s clients are financial institutions, NGOs, donor agencies, governments and other industry actors. CGAP’s 28 development agency members mandated CGAP to develop and set industry standards and guidelines, provide technical strategic and policy advice, develop technical manuals and services, and deliver training and research. CGAP also has a small grant facility that funds these activities and provides capital for innovations. Prior to joining CGAP in 1999, Ms. Littlefield was the Managing Director in charge of J.P. Morgan’s Emerging Markets Capital Markets financing business in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa. Her responsibilities included arranging public bond issues, private placements, securitized and derivative structures and related advisory work, such as credit ratings. In this capacity, she was responsible for most of the first-time public ratings and bond offerings of emerging market sovereign borrowers in the 1990s as well as the subsequent corporate and bank issues. Prior to this position, Ms. Littlefield held positions as Vice President and Head Debt Trader for Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, and as a Directeur in JP Morgan’s Paris Office in Corporate Finance, among others. In parallel to her career in investment banking, Ms. Littlefield also spent a year and a half in 1989-1990 on secondment to several microfinance institutions in West and Central Africa and in Pakistan. She has served on the executive board of several organizations including Women’s World Banking, Profund and Africa International Financial Holding. Ms. Littlefield has also been a founder of several of not-for-profit organizations including an organization that linked European food banks and homeless shelters and the Emerging Market Charity in the UK.
Maria Otero
President and CEO, ACCION International (www.accion.org)
Ms. Otero was named President & CEO of ACCION International in 2000. Ms. Otero first joined ACCION in 1986 as director of its microlending program in Honduras, where she lived for three years. Ms. Otero is a leading voice on sustainable microfinance, and has published extensively on the subject, including as co-editor of The New World of Microfinance, published by Kumarian Press. Ms. Otero chairs the board of ACCION Investments, a US$20 million investment company for microfinance. She also serves on the boards of directors of three regulated microfinance institutions in Latin America: Mibanco in Peru, BancoSol in Bolivia and Compartamos in Mexico. Ms. Otero also serves as the chair of the MicroFinance Network, a global association of 30 leading microfinance institutions, and is coordinator of the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds, which convenes 18 equity investment funds dedicated to microfinance. Ms. Otero serves on several other boards, including that of the Calvert Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace. She chaired the board of Bread for the World from 1992-1997. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Ms. Otero to serve as chair of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Foundation, a position she held until January 2000. Since 1997, Ms. Otero has been an adjunct professor at the John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2000, she received Hispanic Magazine’s “Latina Excellence Award,” and was also featured in Latina magazine.
Bob Pattillo
Chairman, Rockdale Foundation (www.rockdalefdn.org) and Chairman, Gray Ghost Fund.
Mr. Pattillo leads Gray Ghost Fund, a $50 million social investment portfolio focused in the field of microfinance. Gray Ghost’s role is as a “partner” to the enterprises the fund invests in and those who work within them, helping to emphasize the enterprise as a living, breathing professional community. Mr. Pattillo’s role is also to invite others to coinvest in these enterprises, to find the personal fulfillment that comes with investing for both financial and social return. Mr. Pattillo also chairs The Rockdale Foundation, a charitable foundation established in 1995 focused on education and microfinance, a “business-like, market oriented, and self sustaining” response to poverty, with a commitment to the Middle East/North Africa as a place where the needs are great and the resources are relatively thin. Rockdale is the founding partner of the Arab microfinance network, SANABEL.
John Porter
Founder, Telos Group
Mr. Porter is the founder of the Telos Group, the parent of Telos Corporation which specializes in encryption and security for wide area networks and enterprise integration with web enabled processes. Prior to Telos, Mr. Porter co founded VeriFone Inc., manufacturer of credit card verification equipment. Mr. Porter has served on the Advisory Council, Graduate School of Business, Stanford, serves on the Advisory Board of the Said Business School, Oxford, and is Chairman, i-Spire PLC., a venture capital firm in London.
Steven C. Rockefeller, Jr.
President, Educational Adventures (www.educationaladventures.com)
Mr. Rockefeller is the President of Educational Adventures, which creates family friendly entertainment to empower children to make better safety related decisions. Prior to this Mr. Rockefeller served as a Managing Director for Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. He was a key participant in the creation of the Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund, a unique partnership between the bank and its clients to support microfinance programs worldwide. Within his particular focus on microfinance, besides being on the GF-USA board, Mr. Rockefeller also serves on the Board of Directors of the Soros Economic Development Fund and the Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund. He also serves on the Board of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, is a member of The Rockefeller University Council and the YMCA-YWCA Camping Services Council.
Bobby Sager
Partner, Gordon Brothers Group and Founder, Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Roadshow (www.teamsager.org)
Mr. Sager is a partner in the Gordon Brothers Group, which provides customized global advisory, acquisition, disposition and capital solutions to companies at times of growth or restructuring. In 2000, Mr. Sager founded the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Roadshow which works in Rwanda, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa, Pakistan, Palestine, Bhutan, and other developing countries providing teacher training, leadership training, microenterprise and peace and reconciliation efforts. The Sager Foundation has created several innovative microenterprise initiatives that impact reconciliation and women empowerment. Mr. Sager is the founding Chairman of the YPO Peace Action Network and is a founding board member of the YPO Foundation. He was the first recipient of YPO’s Global Humanitarian Award in 2002. Mr. Sager is also Honorary Consul General for the Kingdom of Nepal.
Frank Sixt
Group Finance Director, Hutchison Whampoa Limited (www.hutchison-whampoa.com)
Mr. Sixt was appointed Group Finance Director for Hutchison Whampoa Limited in 1998. He is also Chairman of Tom Group Limited/Tom Online Inc. and Executive Director of Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited. Mr. Sixt is also a Director of Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited, Partner Communications Company Ltd., Hutchison Global Communications Holdings Limited and Husky Energy Limited. Mr. Sixt was formerly a senior partner of the law firm, Stikeman Elliott in Canada, specializing in taxation and corporate law. He is a member of the Bar and of the Law Societies of the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, Canada.