Advisory Council

---

• James Torrey (Chair)
• Thomas Bishop
• Deborah Burand
• Christopher Duda
• Charles L. Harper Jr. D. Phil.
• Jonathan Greenblatt
• Chris Kaine
• Carl Muñana
• Kate Richard
• Chris Rupp
• Sonal Shah
• Malon Wilkus

---

James Torrey (Chair)

James Torrey joins us from The Torrey Funds, a fund of funds group investing with hedge fund managers worldwide. Having started in 1990, The Torrey Funds now manage more than $1.2 bn for wealthy individuals, endowments and foundations, both in the U.S. and abroad.  For more than 15 years, Mr. Torrey has been a leader in hedge fund investing in both U.S. and non-U.S. markets. The Torrey Funds have some of the most successful and longest running records in the industry. The firm’s success stems from its basic investment philosophy: finding newer hedge fund managers who, because of their smaller size, have the flexibility and passion to generate substantial gains.  Previously, Mr. Torrey held executive positions at Kidder, Peabody & Co., The First Boston Corporation, PaineWebber Incorporated, and Alex. Brown & Sons. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and remains active in civic and community affairs.  Mr. Torrey is on the board of the Milano Graduate School for Public Policy at the New School University and sits on MicroVest’s Board of Directors.

Back to Top

Thomas Bishop

Thomas Bishop joined the Public Finance Department of Kirkpatrick Pettis, now operating as D.A. Davidson & Co., in 1991 and has over twenty-five years experience in Colorado local government debt management.  He has been engaged to structure, market, and refund debt to finance capital improvements.  This experience has provided a broad range of knowledge to draw upon for financial advice and underwriting services so often required of local governments seeking cash and debt management services.  During his career, Mr. Bishop has created financing techniques that are still accepted throughout the region as standards in public finance.

Today his focus is on the creation, structuring and marketing of property tax based bonds for new communities in the metro Denver growth areas through Title 32 Metropolitan Districts.  He is often called upon to negotiate the restructure of debt agreements between bondholders and issuers.  In the last ten years, Mr. Bishop has served as investment banker on over 200 Colorado Special District financings totaling $2 billion. 

Mr. Bishop holds a Masters of Science Degree in Health Finance from the University of Colorado and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Goshen College.  He has served on the Goshen College Board of Overseers and has served as past president of the alumni board of Goshen College and the governing board of the First Mennonite Church.  Mr. Bishop was appointed by the Governor and remains an active member of the Colorado Municipal Bond Supervision Advisory Board representing the bond dealer community.  In addition, he has been a board member and President of the Colorado Municipal Bond Dealers Association and is Past President of the Denver Southeast Rotary Club.

Back to Top

Deborah Burand

Deborah Burand works as an independent microfinance consultant from Washington DC.  Previously, she headed the Program Department, Technology Center and Capital Markets Group of the Grameen Foundation. Prior to entering the microfinance industry in 2001, Ms. Burand spent 15 years working in the fields of international law, finance, and bank regulation in the public and private sectors. She has held senior positions at the US Federal Reserve Board and the US Treasury Department. She also has worked as an international corporate attorney at the global law firm of Shearman & Sterling. Ms. Burand holds graduate degrees from Georgetown University combining degrees in law and international relations (JD/MSFS). Ms. Burand is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former International Affairs Fellow of the Council.

Ms. Burand holds several other leadership positions in the microfinance industry. She is a co-founder and President of Women Advancing Microfinance (WAM) International, an organization dedicated to supporting women in the microfinance industry; Chairman of the Board of Microfinance Opportunities, a microenterprise resource center that promotes client-led microfinance in the areas of financial education, microinsurance, and client assessment; and member of the Investment Committee of the Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium ($75 million investment fund managed by DeutscheBank).

Back to Top

Christopher Duda

Christopher Duda is a Vice President with Goldman, Sachs & Co., working in the Private Wealth Management Group.  Christopher received his MBA from the Yale School of Management in 2001. Prior to graduate school, he was employed with ICG Communications as Vice President of Political Affairs. Previously, Christopher served as Finance Director of the New York State Democratic Committee and as a regional Finance Director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the Clinton/Gore 1996 Presidential Campaign. Christopher also worked in the White House Office of Health Care Reform Policy. Christopher graduated from the University of Maryland where he received both a B.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Government & Politics in 1994. Additionally, Christopher serves as a National judge for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Program, and is involved with several non-profits including SEED Capital Development Fund.

Back to Top

Charles L. Harper Jr. D. Phil.

Charles L. Harper Jr. D. Phil. is senior VP of the John Templeton Foundation.  His primary responsibilities are in the areas of strategic planning, program design and development, vision casting, philanthropic networks development, and talent scouting.  He is the founding Chairman of Geneva Global, Inc, and innovative new philanthropic organization making grants worldwide within the developing world.  Initially trained in engineering at Princeton (B.S.E ’80), he obtained his D.Phil. in planetary science from the University of Oxford for a thesis on the nature of time in cosmology (’88).  He also holds the Diploma in Theology from Oxford (’88) and a Certificate of Special Studies in Management and Administration from Harvard (’97).  In his science career, he was National Research Council Fellow at the NASA Johnson Space Center (1988-91) and a research scientist in the Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and at the Harvard College Observatory (1991-95).  He has developed a number of scientific symposia and related research volumes of which he is co-editor.

Back to Top

Jonathan Greenblatt

Jonathan Greenblatt is the co-founder of Ethos Water, a former Vice President of Starbucks Coffee Company, and teaches social entrepreneurship at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA.  A former staffer in the Clinton White House, Greenblatt currently serves as a special advisor to the United Nations Foundation where he has assisted with the creation and launch of the Global Water Challenge, a coalition of Fortune 500 businesses, foundations and NGOs developing a global action plan to alleviate the world water crisis.  He also is a senior advisor to the XPRIZE Foundation.

Before founding Ethos Water, Greenblatt was an executive at REALTOR.com.  He joined the company in 1999 during its startup phase and left the company 4 years later as VP and GM of its primary consumer products group, a $30 million operating unit.

Prior to REALTOR.com, Greenblatt spent more than 5 years in the Clinton Administration where he served in the White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce.  As a government official, Greenblatt developed international economic policy with a focus on emerging markets in Asia and Latin America.  Before joining the administration, Greenblatt worked in Little Rock, AK on Gov. Bill Clinton’s first successful presidential campaign in 1992. 

Greenblatt serves on the boards of the African Leadership Foundation and RESTORE Products.  He is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and has been named a Next Generation Follow by the American Assembly.  Greenblatt serves on the Advisory Board of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.  Greenblatt holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and earned a BA with Honors from Tufts University.

Back to Top

Chris Kaine

Chris Kaine is a Senior Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Willis Group Holdings, a global insurance brokerage and risk management consulting firm. Mr. Kaine has more than 20 years of financial and risk management experience. Prior to Willis, Chris served as a CFO and, prior to that Treasurer, at several companies. He began his career out of business school as an investment banker on the West Coast.

Chris holds an MBA in Finance and Management from UCLA and a BA from U.C. Berkeley.  He is a licensed insurance broker. He is President of the Central Texas Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth.  Mr Kaine serves on the board of directors of the Austin Children's Museum and heads upon the Finance Committee of the board. He is also on the Audit Committee of the Seton Family of Hospitals.  

Back to Top

Carl Muñana

Carl Muñana is an international investment banker whose current focus is in the area of innovative social investment strategies. Much of his career was spent as a Managing Director at JP Morgan & Co. where his responsibilities included running the Mexican business, being Senior Commitments Officer for global investment banking and heading the Latin America risk portfolio. Before departing Morgan in 1999 he designed an innovative social investment strategy as part of the firm’s objective to create a role in this arena. 

In recent years he has led a number of development finance initiatives in the emerging markets including private development funds, mortgage finance systems and microfinance. From his current base in Madrid, Spain he serves on several international corporate and not-for-profit boards. These include being President of Ashoka-Spain and a founding board member of Voxiva Inc.

He holds a BA degree from the University of Notre Dame (1978) and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (1982). In between those degrees he joined the Peace Corps and performed community development work in rural Sierra Leone.

Back to Top

Kate Richard

Kate Richard is a research analyst at Serengeti Asset Management, a New York-based multi-strategy investment fund.   Prior to joining Serengeti, Kate worked at Goldman Sachs in the investment banking division focusing on energy companies in North America.   Previously she had worked in Goldman Sachs' merchant banking division for the Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds in the Paris and Dallas offices. 

Kate earned her BA in History from Harvard, with a special concentration in post-colonial theory and development. During college she interned with Goldman Sachs' investment management division and worked with the UN on reconciliation initiatives in Rwanda.

Back to Top

Chris Rupp

Chris Rupp is co-owner of CarrHomes, a northern Virginia homebuilder. The company acquires and develops residential land and builds single-family homes, town houses and condominiums in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Mr. Rupp began his career in real estate finance with Arthur Andersen & Co. He has held positions as senior vice president with Weaver Bros., Inc., a large residential mortgage banking and real estate development firm, and Walker & Dunlop, a commercial mortgage and real estate firm. That company originates commercial and multifamily mortgage loans and provides real estate advisory services.

Mr. Rupp holds a BA degree form the College of William and Mary.

Back to Top

Sonal Shah

Sonal Shah recently moved to the Google Foundation after acting as the former Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and working with the Executive Office on developing and implementing a corporate citizenship and environmental policy for the firm. She is also co-founder of Indicorps (www.Indicorps.org), a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year fellowships for Americans of Indian origin to work on specific development projects in India

Shah was the Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress. She worked on policy issues such as the impact of HIV/AIDs and malaria on development, new aid financing mechanisms, trade, outsourcing, and post conflict reconstruction issues. Prior to joining the Center, she was the Director of Programs and Operations at the Center for Global Development managing the daily operations and serving as a strategic adviser to the president. She also developed and managed policy and advocacy programs for the Center. Before that she worked for eight years at the Department of Treasury on the Asian financial crisis, World Bank/IMF lending policy, the National Security Council. She was the Director of the office covering sub Saharan Africa, worked in Bosnia and Kosovo after the war, and served as the senior adviser to the Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury during the Asian financial crisis. Most recently, Sonal served as advisor to the new President of Liberia on her economic strategy as she entered office

Sonal received her undergraduate degree in economics from University of Chicago and masters in economics from Duke University.

Back to Top

Malon Wilkus

Malon Wilkus is the founder, Chairman, CEO and President of American Capital Strategies, Ltd. (Nasdaq:ACAS).  American Capital is the only alternative asset management company that is a member of the S&P 500.  With $19 billion in capital resources under management, American Capital is the largest U.S. publicly traded private equity fund and one of the largest publicly traded alternative asset managers.  American Capital, both directly and through its global asset management business, is an investor in management and employee buyouts, private equity buyouts, and early stage and mature private and public companies.  Mr. Wilkus is the Chairman of European Capital (LSE: ECAS), a publicly traded investment company for pan-European equity, mezzanine and senior debt investments with capital resources of approximately €2.8 billion ($4.1 billion).  Mr. Wilkus is the Chairman of American Capital, LLC, the fund management portfolio company of American Capital Strategies, LLC.  He has served on the board of over a dozen middle market companies in various industries.

Back to Top

---