Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board

Founder and CEO of Foros, a premier strategic and M&A advisory firm in New York City. Formerly in senior leadership positions at Deutsche Bank and Goldman, Sachs & Co. Former Chairman, Former Board of Trustees of Robert College, a leading high school in Istanbul, Turkey. B.A. Princeton University; J.D. Harvard Law School.

Managing Partner, Semai Ventures and Senior Advisor, Three Cairns Group. Formerly Senior Vice President for Public-Private Partnerships at MasterCard. B.A., West Texas A&M University; MALD, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Managing Partner, Portunus Capital Advisors, LLC. Senior financial services professional with 30+ years of experience in investment banking, private equity, fintech investing and public accounting. Board member, StoneCastle Partners, LLC. B.A., Dartmouth College; BSBA, Boston University.

Founder, Brown & Peisch, PLLC. Former co-chair, Health Care group at Covington & Burling. Former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor. Alumna and Former Trustee, Hotchkiss School, top US boarding school. B.A Harvard College; J.D. Harvard Law School.

Co-Founder and Executive Director

Entrepreneur, businesswoman, lawyer, author. Senior Advisor at Foros, an independent strategic and M&A advisory boutique firm she helped found in 2009. Practiced at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, and Williams & Connolly in Washington, DC. Author, “Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia”. Chair of the Board, Emily’s List. B.A. Williams College; J.D. Harvard Law School.

Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University. American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellowship, U.S. National Science Foundation. Co-founder, Joint US-Africa Materials Institute. Fellow, African Academy of Science. Associate Fellow, Ethiopian Academy of Science. B.S. and Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, MIT.

Chief Technology Officer, Duracell, a Berkshire Hathaway Company. Previously held a variety of research and development positions at Proctor & Gamble. Played a leading role supporting the growth of the Proctor & Gamble businesses in Sub Saharan Africa. B. Eng., University of Surrey, UK; Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Cambridge, UK.

Senior Learning Consultant, Alumni Affairs & Development, Harvard University. Founder, Dynamic Fundraising Training, LLC, an educational resource for non-profits nationwide. Formerly practiced law at Widett, Slater & Goldman, Boston, MA. B.A. Williams College; J.D. Boston University School of Law.

Host and Executive Producer of Amharic-language talk show, The Helen Show on EBS TV (Ethiopian Broadcasting Services) with over 30 million viewership in Ethiopia and around the world. Senior Vice President of Sales, Meet Virtuals. Formerly sales executive at tourism, destination sales, and marketing firms.

CFO and advisor with three spouse-owned ventures. Formerly co-founder and CEO, People’s Genetics. Formerly consultant, Monitor Company and Managing Director, Parthenon Group, leading management strategy consultancies. B.A., Williams College; MBA, Dartmouth Tuck School.

Internist, Kaiser Permanente physician practicing hospitalist medicine at Providence Health Care (PHC), Spokane, WA. M.D. from Addis Ababa University Medical Faculty in Ethiopia; internal medicine residency program, Howard University Hospital. MBA, Northeastern University Boston.

Founder and principal, Herald Advisors, education consulting firm. Former Deputy Director, Open Society Foundations’ Education Support Program. Former Senior Advisor to the Minister of Education in Liberia. Former Lecturer, Teachers College, Columbia University. B.A. Spelman College; Ph.D. Teachers College, Columbia University.

Former Headmaster, Cate School, Carpinteria, California. Teaching and administration experience at schools in Massachusetts, Texas and California. Vice Chair of the Board for The Association of Boarding Schools; Trustee, Westminster School, top US boarding school. B.A Williams College; M.A. Brown University.