Alex Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its President and CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years. A Cornell University graduate, Counts’ commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he witnessed innovative poverty solutions being developed by Grameen Bank. He trained under Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, and co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Since its modest beginnings, sparked by a $6,000 seed grant provided by Prof. Yunus (who was a founding board member and continues as director emeritus), Grameen Foundation has grown to a leading international humanitarian organization with an annual budget of approximately $25 million.
Counts has propelled Grameen Foundation’s philosophy through his writings, including Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World. Counts has also been published in The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Miami Herald, The Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere. In 2007 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Horace Mann School.
Counts is a board member, and the immediate past Chair, of Fonkoze USA and co-chairs the Fonkoze Family Coordinating Committee – two governance bodies related to the largest microfinance institution in Haiti. He is also immediate past Chair of Project Enterprise, a New York City microlender, and board member emeritus. He sits on the Advisory Council of the Center for Financial Inclusion, and the Steering Committee of the Seal of Excellence for Poverty Outreach and Transformation.
Before leading Grameen Foundation, Counts served as the legislative director of RESULTS and as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh. He speaks fluent Bengali and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Emily, and their cat, Seymour.
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David Edelstein is Senior Vice President of Grameen Foundation's Solutions and Regions. As a leader of Grameen Foundation's work in technology, he guides programs that create innovative and sustainable approaches to employing technology for the benefit of the world's poor. This includes efforts to develop services that can be accessed on widely available mobile phones, in domains such as health and agriculture, to improve lives and livelihoods. It also encompasses efforts to enable the poor to manage their finances using mobile phones.
As Vice President and Chief Talent and Knowledge Officer at Grameen Foundation, Shannon is responsible for ensuring that talent and knowledge management, as well as performance measurement and planning efforts, are aligned with the organization's mission, vision and strategy. She also provides strategic direction and oversight for 
Camilla Nestor joined Grameen Foundation in August 2005 and previously served as Growth Guarantees Manager and Director of the Capital Markets. She has 15 years of experience in microfinance and commercial banking. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she worked in Citigroup’s Structured Corporate Finance Department where she executed credit-enhanced debt financings for emerging markets firms in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining Citi, she spent five years on the ground in Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and Africa working with microfinance institutions and rural banks on start-up, new product development, and capital raising. Camilla holds an MBA and a masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Colorado College. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs and serves on the boards of Grameen Capital India and Microlumbia.
Chandni Ohri is CEO of Grameen Foundation India (GFI), which was established in August 2010 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Grameen Foundation. Building on Grameen Foundation’s existing work to provide access to microfinance and information for the poor in India, GFI works to increase the scale and scope of poverty-alleviation efforts there, recognizing the central role a country the size of India would play in such efforts.
Alberto Solano joined Grameen Foundation in October 2009 and provides leadership and management oversight for our portfolio and activities across the Americas. He also serves as our senior representative in the region. He has more than 10 years experience in microfinance, principally in Latin America, and most recently was the Latin America Program Director for Global Partnerships.
Julia Soyars joined Grameen Foundation in March 2005 and started the Grameen Foundation legal department. After working five years in energy and government contracting law and litigation at Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in Washington, Julia joined the legal department at The American National Red Cross, where she spent eleven years handling domestic and international transactions. Julia is a founding member of the Microfinance Council of Counsels and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Julia holds a JD Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University.
As Vice President of Organization Effectiveness at Grameen Foundation, Norm Tonina is driving strategic alignment, organizational effectiveness, and human resource re-engineering initiatives. He also serves as a member of Grameen Foundation’s five-person Executive Committee. He also consults with organizations on strengthening strategy and organizational alignment, and increasing leadership effectiveness to improve business performance.
Joshua Tripp is Grameen Foundation’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He provides leadership for fund development, marketing, finance/accounting, operations, and IT -- working to ensure that the organization's internal operations and external communications effectively support Grameen's programmatic work. Joshua joined Grameen in 2007 after spending seven years at Community Wealth Ventures (CWV), most recently as a Vice President. In his time at CWV, Joshua worked with dozens of innovative nonprofit organizations, helping them to assess, plan and launch for-profit business ventures to increase their sustainability. He became an expert in financial planning and capitalization of “social enterprises,” and was a presenter at several industry conferences and seminars. Before joining CWV, Joshua was a Project Manager for GS Telecom, a start-up satellite telecommunications company in Ghana. Before serving at GS Telecom, Joshua worked in the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank, where he worked on a variety of public equity financings, private placements, and merger and acquisition transactions in the technology industry. Joshua has a BA in Economics from Williams College and an MBA from the George Washington University School of Business.