Board of Directors

During a 33 year career with Citigroup, Bob managed many of Citibank's business, country and regional activities while posted in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Caribbean followed by Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, India and again in Saudi Arabia.
 
Since 2000 he has continued to use the business and cultural awareness skills that arise from having lived in or traveled to over 100 countries.  He advised a de-novo venture capital fund in Dubai.  He helped set up a new Islamic bank in Bahrain.  He joined the board of the leading investment bank in the Middle East, Cairo based EFG-Hermes where he serves on the Bank's audit committee.  EFG specializes in brokerage and research, private equity, corporate finance and asset management across the Arab world.
 
He is currently Vice-Chair of the Global Advisory Council at his alma mater, the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  He also serves on the board of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, an organization dedicated to childhood welfare throughout Asia, and Give To Colombia, an organization working to improve the lives of the poor in Colombia.  He remains active in Rotary and supports its social development work in various countries.  Bob's other interests include international current affairs, tennis, hiking, rafting and extensive travel.
 
He graduated from Wake Forest University in 1966 with a degree in Economics, from Thunderbird in 1967 with a graduate degree in International Business, and from Harvard's Executive Program for Management Development in 1985.

Robert G. Ottenhoff is the President of GuideStar, which operates the largest database of financial information on nonprofit organizations and foundations. From 2000-2002, he started high tech companies for Linsang Partners and operated his own international management consulting practice. He has more than 25 years of experience in broadcast management and strategic leadership. From 1991 to 1999, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). While at PBS, Mr. Ottenhoff was Chairman of the Board of PBS Enterprises and President of NABA, an organization representing broadcasters and other telecommunication companies in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Ms. Davis is a thought leader in international development and civil society innovation and co-author with David Bornstein of Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know published by Oxford University Press in 2010.  She is the founding President & CEO of BRAC USA, a grantmaking affiliate of BRAC, an international development organization started in Bangladesh in 1972 and now working in Haiti and 9 countries across Africa and Asia. She is currently on the governing boards of BRAC and BRAC International and serves as chair for BRAC Sierra Leone and Liberia microfinance companies. In addition she was a founding board member and Chair of the Grameen Foundation and is a current board member.  Since its inception, Ms. Davis has served as a 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. She serves on Ashoka’s international board committee that selects Ashoka Fellows. 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 microfinance experience including 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 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, Dalai Lama Scholars and Fellows Program, Dalai Lama Center Connecting for Change, Global Fairness Initiative and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities.

Vikram Gandhi is Head of the Global Financial Institutions Group (FIG) at Credit Suisse. In addition to significant client responsibilities, Mr. Gandhi is responsible for the coordination and integration of CSFB’s financial institutions capabilities across a wide range of advisory and financing products, including derivatives and structure products.
Before joining CSFB, Mr. Gandhi spent 16 years at Morgan Stanley where he held various positions including the Co-Head of the Financial Institutions Practice; Head of Institutional Strategy and Business Development; Chief Operating Officer for the Firm’s E-Commerce Steering Committee; and President, Morgan Stanley India.

Mr. Gandhi has a wealth of experience in being involved in various financial institutions high-profile M&A transactions and financings across the globe; such as Bank of America’s acquisition of Fleet, the sale of National Processing Company to Bank of America, merger of Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank, the sale of First Fidelity to First Union, and Bank of Boston’s acquisition to Bay Bank.

Mr. Gandhi received his B. Com from the University of Bombay and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he was designated a Baker Scholar. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Susan McCaw is President of COM Investments, a private investment firm. From 2005–2007, Mrs. McCaw served as the US Ambassador to the Republic of Austria.  Before serving as Ambassador, Mrs. McCaw was President of COM Investments. Formerly, Mrs. McCaw was a Principal at Robertson Stephens & Company, a San Francisco-based investment bank.  Mrs. McCaw also worked as an Associate in Robertson Stephens Venture Capital Group.  Mrs. McCaw started her career as a Business Analyst for McKinsey & Company in New York and Hong Kong.
 
Mrs. McCaw is a member of Stanford University’s Board of Trustees and served as Co-Chair of Stanford’s $1 billion Campaign for Undergraduate Education.  She is also a board member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Grameen Foundation. Mrs. McCaw is currently a member of the American Austrian Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of American Ambassadors. Mrs. McCaw is also the Director of the Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation focusing on education and international economic development projects. 
 
Mrs. McCaw earned a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
 
Mrs. McCaw was born and raised in Orange County, California.  She is married to Craig McCaw and has three children.  They reside in Santa Barbara, CA.

Recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Professor Muhammad Yunus is internationally recognized for his work in poverty alleviation and the empowerment of poor women. Professor Yunus has successfully melded capitalism with social responsibility to create the Grameen Bank, a microcredit institution committed to providing small amounts of working capital to the poor for self-employment. From its origins as an action-research project in 1976, Grameen Bank has grown to provide collateral-free loans to 7.5 million clients in more than 82,072 villages in Bangladesh and 97% of whom are women. Over the last two decades, Grameen Bank has loaned out over 6.5 billion dollars to the poorest of the poor, while maintaining a repayment rate consistently above 98%. The innovative approach to poverty alleviation pioneered by Professor Yunus in a small village in Bangladesh has inspired a global microcredit movement reaching out to millions of poor women from rural South Africa to inner city Chicago. His autobiography, "Banker to the Poor: Microlending and the Battle Against World Poverty," has been translated in French, Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Gujarati, Chinese, German, Turkish and Arabic.

Si was CFO for the Grameen Foundation before joining the board in April 2009 bringing over 25 years of management and financial experience to the organization.  He has spent his career in a variety of global financial leadership roles with Ernst & Young, PepsiCo, Nestle and Cisco Systems.  In addition to his passion for Microfinance he has worked for many years using his Spanish language and finance skills to help low income families with their taxes and financial planning.  He also works with environmental issues as a board member of Save the Bay in San Francisco.  Si, a CPA, and a native Californian graduated from California State University, Northridge. He and his wife, Cathy Pendo, have three children.

Ms. Armstrong serves as the Chief Financial Officer of International Relief & Development (IRD), having joined IRD in 2009. Founded in 1998, IRD has more than 40 international offices and an annual operating budget of $680 million, primarily funded by government grants. Her primary responsibilities include managing IRD’s financial and audit programming.

Before her service at IRD, Ms. Armstrong worked for more than 30 years in executive positions with many non-profit institutions, including Pathfinder International, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Pacific/Asian American Mental Health Research Center, Metropolitan Planning Council, American Cultural Center of Baghdad, and American Bar Association. In addition, Ms. Armstrong spent several years as Chief Financial Officer for the Metropolitan Planning Council, Friends of the Parks, Corporation for Open Lands, Open Lands Project, Upper Illinois Valley Association and Wetlands Research Institute.

Ms. Armstrong earned a Master’s degree in Accountancy from DePaul University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago. She is also a Certified Public Accountant. Ms. Armstrong has a strong affinity for microfinance and the Grameen family of companies. While serving as CFO of Pathfinder International, the organization received a grant from GrameenPhone to expand health programming in rural areas. She lives in Arlington, VA, with her husband James (a Mesopotamian archaeologist) and their two daughters.