STRATEGY AND ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
Andrew Vanderput comes from a diverse background in public policy, non-profits focused on international poverty, marketing, and consulting. He has long held a passion for promoting entrepreneurial solutions to poverty so PovertyCure is a natural fit. Prior to joining PovertyCure, Andrew worked for a video email marketing company where he consulted with clients to help them develop their email marketing strategies. Before that, Andrew worked for many years for a nonprofit by building up their training strategy and delivery. Andrew also spent time in Washington, D.C. where he was trained extensively in a management philosophy and worked to support a public policy outfit. He and his wife live in Grand Rapids, Michigan with their two young children.
OUR BOARD OF ADVISORS
Chairman of the PovertyCure Advisory Board; Director of Poverty, Inc.; Research Fellow Acton Institute, Michael Matheson Miller is Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute. With some ten years of international experience, Miller has lived and traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He lectures internationally on such themes as moral philosophy, economic development, and social theory, and entrepreneurship. He is a frequent guest on radio and has been published in the Washington Times, The Detroit News, The LA Daily News, and Real Clear Politics. He is the Director and Host of the PovertyCure DVD Series and has appeared in various video curricula including Doing the Right Thing, Effective Stewardship, and the Birth of Freedom.
Much of his current work at the Acton Institute involves leading PovertyCure, promoting entrepreneurial solutions to poverty in the developing world. Before coming to Acton, he spent three years at Ave Maria College of the Americas in Nicaragua where he taught philosophy and political science and was the chair of the philosophy and theology department.
Miller received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. from Nagoya University’s Graduate School of International Development (Japan), an M.A. in philosophy from Franciscan University, and an M.B.A. in International Management from Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Business. He serves on the President’s Advisory Council of Aquinas College in Nashville, the board of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project, and the board of trustees for Angelico Press.
Eva Muraya is CEO of Brand Strategy and Design Limited a regional integrated marketing communications consultancy firm that offers various services including brand audit and management, internal brand engagement and advertising, and public relations. She holds over twenty years of diverse brand strategy development skill and experience She was recently nominated by Women Inspiration and Enterprise Africa (WIE) as one of Africa’s Top 60 Most Influential Women. In 2008, she was a co-recipient of the inaugural Goldman Sachs Fortune Global Leadership Award. She was an award nominee at the Pan African Invent and Innovate Conference in Accra – Ghana in 2005, sponsored by the International Finance Corporation. Regionally, Color Creations Ltd was the only woman led top 10 finalist business out of 451 SME companies drawn from East and Central Africa in the 2007 Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Business Award held in Rwanda and presided over by President Paul Kagame. Eva was selected in 2006 by the US State Department to represent Kenya in a premier U.S. government-sponsored program dubbed the Fortune/State Department International Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. She serves on the Vital Voices African Board of Advisers. She also serves as the Chair of Zawadi Africa Educational Program, the Kenya Association of Women Business Owners (KAWBO), and the Board of the Nairobi Women’s Hospital and is a Board of Advisor for USIU’s Chandaria School of Business. Eva is a fellow of the fourth class of the Africa Leadership Initiative-East Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Dr. Juan José Daboub, Ph.D. is the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Adaptation Institute. He teaches at Princeton University and is a member of several Boards of Directors. As Managing Director of the World Bank, from 2006 to 2010, Dr. Daboub oversaw operations in 110 countries in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia and Latin America. He was also responsible for the oversight of the Human Development and Sustainable Development Networks, the Information Systems Group, the World Bank Institute, the Department of Institutional Integrity and the Arab World Initiative.
Prior to the World Bank, Dr. Daboub joined with El Salvador’s President Francisco Flores to develop the non-profit organization America Libre Institute. As leader of that organization, Dr. Daboub implemented proven public policies to promote liberty, stability and growth throughout Latin America.
From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Daboub served concurrently as El Salvador’s Minister of Finance and as Chief of Staff to President Flores. In these high profile dual roles, Dr. Daboub helped to navigate his native country through several regional economic challenges including securing and sustaining El Salvador’s investment grade rating, “dollarizing” the economy, and completing a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. During this period, he also oversaw the emergency reconstruction of El Salvador after two major earthquakes in 2001.
Dr. Daboub’s leadership began in the private sector, where he led his family-owned businesses for nearly a decade before joining the Board of CEL, El Salvador’s electric utility, and presiding over El Salvador’s electric distribution companies. Subsequently, he was named President of ANTEL, the state-owned telecommunications company, which he re-structured and privatized through a competitive and transparent process that also de-monopolized that strategic sector.
Dr. Daboub holds a Bachelors of Science, a Masters of Science and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University.
Dr. Peter Heslam directs Transforming Business, a multidisciplinary research and development project at the University of Cambridge that analyzes and catalyzes enterprise solutions to poverty. He is particularly interested in the moral and spiritual dimensions of business and has a research focus on the convergence of Christianity and entrepreneurship in developing countries.
Ram Gidoomal CBE came to Britain from East Africa as a refugee in 1967. He is an entrepreneur and former United Kingdom Group chief executive of the Inklas Group, a multinational business with seven thousand employees. He is chairman of Winning Communications Partnership, South Asian Concern, Citylife (Industrial and Provident Society) Ltd., a board member of the International Justice Mission, an external member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the UK Equalities and Human Rights Commission, a council member of the United Kingdom Evangelical Alliance, and chairman of the steering group of the South Asian Forum of the UKEA.
Gidoomal was founding chairman of the Christmas Cracker charity, which has given thousands of young people direct entrepreneurial experience and has raised over £5 million for projects in developing countries. He was the leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance and ran as their candidate for London Mayor and Assembly in 2000 and 2004 gaining just under 100,000 votes in each election.
He is a motivational public speaker, frequent media commentator, and the author of several books including The UK Maharajahs and The British and How to Deal with Them: Doing Business with Britain’s Ethnic Communities. He is a governor of King’s College School in Wimbledon; he serves as chairman of the Lausanne Resource Mobilization Working Group and is deputy chairman of the Lausanne International Board of Directors.
John Arthur Nunes joined Lutheran World Relief (LWR), a $35 million global organization, as president and CEO in 2007. Nunes leads staff in 17 countries in working to end poverty, injustice and human suffering worldwide. Prior to joining LWR, John served on the faculty of Concordia University Chicago as a professor of theology, and as pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Chicago. He has also served as a management consultant, and as an urban parish pastor and community organizer in Dallas and Detroit. He is also a frequent keynote presenter.
Nunes holds a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia College, Ann Arbor, Mich.; a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada; and a Master of Theology from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He also received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University, Ann Arbor and is currently a PhD candidate at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Nunes is the author of Voices from the City: Issues and Images of Urban Preaching and, with his wife Monique, the children’s book Little Things Make Big Differences: A Story about Malaria. He has written for Concordia Journal, Hartford Seminary’s Conversations in Religion and Theology and www.Beliefnet.com.
Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Nunes grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and has lived in the U.S. since 1981. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with Monique, who is an administrator for Baltimore Lutheran School, and John, Jr., the youngest of their five children. Lutheran World Relief is a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), individuals and parish groups in international relief, development, advocacy and social responsibility.
Eric Kacou is co-founder and CEO of Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESP), a firm providing entrepreneurs and leaders with the right mix of insight and capital needed to generate prosperity.
Kacou’s first book Entrepreneurial Solutions for Prosperity in BOP markets has been published by Wharton School Publishing/Pearson in 2011. The book has been covered by global media such as the Financial Times and CNBC. In 2010, Kacou was honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. He was also selected as an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Associate by the African Leadership Initiative.
Prior to starting ESP, Kacou served as Managing Director of On the Frontier (OTF) Group, a competitiveness consultancy focused on emerging markets. An expert in post-conflict economic reconstruction, he led the Rwanda National Innovation and Competitiveness (RNIC) Program, an initiative sponsored by President Paul Kagame. The RNIC is credited with helping revitalize Rwanda’s economy and fuelling the growth of entrepreneurship and exports. Eric also co-founded the Academy of Leadership in Competitiveness and Prosperity (ALCP), a Rwanda-based program for young leaders with more than two hundred and fifty graduates.
Andreas Widmer is Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at The Catholic University of America and President of The Carpenter’s Fund. He was previously the co-founder of SEVEN Fund, a philanthropic organization run by entrepreneurs who invested in original research, books, and films to further enterprise solutions to poverty. He is the author of The Pope & The CEO: Pope John Paul II’s Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, a book exploring leadership lessons that Widmer learned serving as a Swiss Guard protecting Pope John Paul II and refined during his career as a successful business executive. He is a frequent speaker around the world on issues related to business ethics, entrepreneurship, business leadership, productivity, and the challenges of executive management.
Andreas works closely with top entrepreneurs, investors, and faith leaders around the world to foster enterprise solutions to poverty and promote virtuous business practices. He has developed entrepreneurial initiatives at the intersection of business and faith such as the Catholic Mental Models Project, a research effort through his social science research firm GSPEL LLC.
Andreas is the Chairman of the board of advisors of WQOM, Bostons’ Catholic Radio station, a Research Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Acton Institute and an advisor to the Zermatt Summit, an annual business leadership event that strives to humanize globalization. He also serves as an advisor to Transforming Business, a research and development project at the University of Cambridge. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Templeton Foundation, Global Adaptation Institute, Spring Hill Equity Partners, Karisimbi Business Partners, and Catholics Come Home. He is on the board of directors at the New Paradigm Research Fund, Virtual Research Associates and the World Youth Alliance.
Magatte Wade was born in Senegal, educated in France, and started her entrepreneurial career in the U.S. Her first company, Adina World Beverages, based on indigenous Senegalese beverage recipes, became one of the most widely distributed U.S. brands started by an African entrepreneur.
Her second company, Tiossan, offers skin care products based on indigenous Senegalese recipes online and at high-end boutiques.
Magatte was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum at Davos and is frequent speaker at business conferences and college campuses, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Wharton and Babson.
Magatte writes for The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and Barron’s. She has been featured on BBC, CNN, FoxBusiness and The New York Times, amongst others.
She is a mentor for the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development.
Dato Kim Tan, Ph.D. is the Chairman of SpringHill Management Ltd, a venture capital fund management company specializing in life sciences and social venture capital investing. He is a director of a number of listed and private biotech, pharmaceutical and investment companies in the UK, USA, India, Malaysia and South Africa. He is an advisor to a number of government agencies in Asia on biotechnology and a board member of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Life Science Forum. He is a co-founder of the Transformational Business Network (UK), the charity with social transformational businesses in developing countries and the sponsor of the Kuzuko Game Reserve (South Africa). He is a former director of Saracens Rugby Club and the co-author of Fighting Poverty through Enterprise. He has a PhD in biochemistry and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK). He was conferred the title ‘Dato’ by the Penang State Government in 2006.
Dr. Dion Forster is a consultant and chaplain to the Power Group of Companies as well as the Global Day of Prayer and Unashamedly Ethical movements. Dion serves as a Christian minister in the corporate sector. He holds a doctorate in theology and science and teaches at various South African universities. Dion Forster and Graham Power are the authors of Transform Your Work Life: Turn Your Ordinary Day into an Extraordinary Calling (Struik Christian Books, 2010).
Lord Brian Griffiths taught at the London School of Economics from 1965 to 1976. He was appointed professor of Banking and International Finance at the City University in 1976 and was dean of the City University Business School from 1982 to 1985. Lord Griffiths was a director of the Bank of England from 1983 to 1985.Lord Griffiths served at No. 10 Downing Street as head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit from 1985 to 1990. As special advisor to Margaret Thatcher, he was responsible for domestic policy-making and was a chief architect of the government’s privatization and deregulation programmes.
Since then, Lord Griffiths has been an international advisor to Goldman Sachs International concerned with strategic issues relating to private equity and United Kingdom and Asian operations, business development activities worldwide. He is chairman of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Audit, Business Practice and Compliance Committee. He is a non-executive director of Times Newspaper Holdings Ltd. and Herman Miller Inc., and has served on the boards of ServiceMaster, English, Welsh and Scottish Railway, Land Securities Trillium and Westminster Health Care.
He has also been chairman of the School Examination and Assessment Council and the Centre for Policy Studies. He has been a member of various Select Committees in the House of Lords including the Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Lord Griffiths is a trustee of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Fund and chairman of Christian Responsibility in Public Affairs. He has written and lectured extensively on economic issues and the relationship of the Christian faith to politics and business, and has published various books on monetary policy and Christian ethics. Born in Fforestfach, Swansea in 1941, Lord Griffiths was educated at DynevorGrammar School and the London School of Economics.
Mr. Michael Fairbanks is a Co-Founder of SEVEN. Mr. Fairbanks founded the OTF Group and serves as its Chairman Emeritus. He serves as a Member of the Board of Directors at Silver Creek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He was a U.S. Peace Corps teacher in Kenya. A long-time angel investor, he is a founding shareholder in Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, which has drugs undergoing FDA trials to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases. His most recent projects include advising the President of the Inter-American Development Bank on its Opportunities for the Majority Initiative; working for the President of Rwanda to improve the competitiveness of that nation’s tourism, coffee and agro-industry sectors; and advising the Minister of Finance of Afghanistan on private-sector reforms. Mr. Fairbanks conceived and oversees the Global Pioneers of Prosperity Program, in cooperation with OTF, Legatum, the Multilateral Investment Fund, and the Templeton Foundation, which finds and recognizes role model businesses in the world’s poorest nations.
Prof. Carroll Rios de Rodríguez teaches Public Choice theory and development economics and is a trustee at Francisco Marroquín University. She is co-founder and president of Instituto Fe y Libertad (IFYL), and serves on the board of directors of the Economics and Social Research Center (CEES), the Family, Development and Population Association (FADEP), and Friends of Nature Network (RANA). Carroll became a member of the Mont Pelerin Society in 2010 and of the Philadelphia Society in 2014. Rodríguez writes a weekly column for Contra Poder magazine, and her articles have appeared in Perfiles Liberales, Regulation Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Acton Institute published her essay “Financial Crisis, Populism, and the Path to Prosperity in Latin America”. She has contributed chapters to two books: Una vida santa dedicada a la libertad: Ensayos en honor de Joe Keckeissen, and Theologian and Philosopher of Liberty, Essays of Evaluation and Criticism in honor of Michael Novak. She obtained a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.
Mr. Calvin Edwards is founder & CEO of Calvin Edwards & Company. Founded in 2001; this venture builds on Mr. Edwards’ 20+ prior years of executive leadership experience in the nonprofit world and financial services sector. From 1996 to 2000 he was a part of the senior management team, and a principal, at Ronald Blue & Co. (RB&Co.), an investment advisory firm. Mr. Edwards worked closely with Ron Blue on the growth and strategic direction of the company. It was here that Edwards recognized that affluent donors could benefit from wise professional counsel regarding strategic giving.
Previously, Mr. Edwards was the chief operating officer for Peter Lowe International (PLI) in Tampa, Florida, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting time-proven values that help make great people and communities. PLI convened business mega-seminars (10,000+ attendees per event) featuring prominent, high-profile celebrities from government, business, sports, religion, science, and the media. Prior to PLI, Mr. Edwards was executive vice president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries (WTB) in Atlanta with responsibility to manage its four revenue centers, international outreach, and business operations. He joined WTB in 1985 and led an expanding publishing division for more than five years before assuming leadership of the entire company’s operations in 1991. Earlier, Mr. Edwards was president of Good News Unlimited, a rapidly growing interdenominational ministry in Auburn, California. There he developed a nationally syndicated radio program, published a magazine, and convened frequent weekend conferences.
Mr. Edwards previously taught in parochial schools for some years as well as lectured in freshman calculus and algebra while in graduate school. Mr. Edwards has served on the board of 17 nonprofit organizations and helped to found seven. He has written and lectured extensively on nonprofit management, effective philanthropy, and a wide range of related technical topics. As an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, he taught a course on Principles of Effective Philanthropy, and lectured on nonprofit program evaluation at Georgia State University and national conferences. He earned a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in literature and religion from Pacific Union College, and a diploma in education from Avondale College. He also earned a master of divinity from Andrews University where he graduated summa cum laude, and a master of business administration from Georgia State University, which he completed with a 4.0 GPA.
Articles authored by Mr. Edwards have been published in a variety of magazines, and he has often been quoted in the Wall Street Journal. He was the general editor for the Family Walk series of books and senior editor for the Youthwalk Devotional Bible (finalist for a Gold Medallion award). In 2001 Andrews University Press published his Seeker After Light, the biography of theologian Albion Fox Ballenger, which was co-authored with Professor Gary Land. He has contributed to the publication of 30+ books. Mr. Edwards came to the U.S. from Australia in 1979 and is a naturalized American. He is married with two adult children, and enjoys reading, snow skiing, and running 10K road races.
Contact Us | 98 E. Fulton Street | Grand Rapids, MI 49503 | (317) 643-1679 | info@povertycure.org
