Meet Our Scouts, Pt. 3
Natalia Perez
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Antigua, Guatemala
Village Capital Partner: ByoEarth
Natalia is in the process of conducting a year-long thesis project that explores social entrepreneurial models to sustainably manage organic waste in marginalized communities using case studies in Guatemala and Kenya. She is an adult re-entry student, currently in her senior year at Arizona State University (ASU) looking forward to graduating with a dual major (Global Studies and Psychology) in December 2013. She is also proud to be a bilingual/bicultural student, born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and raised in the Washington, DC area. Prior to returning to academia, Natalia gained skills in business management working with various small businesses and non-profit organizations in Arizona, California, Venezuela, and Costa Rica. The most interesting position she held was as the business manager of a sustainable living center in Costa Rica where they held educational programs for local school children, as well as interns and visitors from all around the world. Unique talents? She has an innate natural ability to gather women. She has organized and facilitated women’s empowerment groups for many years in her local community and, for her, doing this comes with much ease. She hopes to apply this talent to working with women within the realm of social entrepreneurship. She is excited about the FMS program because she knows the program attracts a diverse group of passionate people and she is confident she will learn as much from her fellow scouts as from the course and fieldwork.
Carmen Paraison
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Haiti
Village Capital Partner: Yunus Social Business
Carmen is a first generation Haitian graduate student studying International Trade, Investment and Development at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is passionate about agriculture and micro-finance, both of which have the potential to pull out those in poverty in low-income countries. Carmen received a Bachelor’s degree in French and she taught English in the south of France after graduation. After obtaining her master’s degree, she looks forward to taking the hands-on experience gained through Frontier Market Scouts and applying it to support the enterprising poor in Haiti.
Joony Moon
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Ahmedabad, India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Joony is a former management consultant at Deloitte looking to change fields and begin to reposition himself for a future career in nonprofit management. At Deloitte he was primarily involved in working in federal healthcare, serving in a number of different capacities, ranging from being the team’s “data guru” to convening and running stakeholder meetings. It was a great experience being able to have a hand in implementing Obamacare, but ultimately he decided that it wasn’t where he saw himself for the long term. Joony graduated from Harvard University in 2010 with a degree in Economics and Evolutionary Biology. Originally from the DC area, he is now living back in my hometown of Fairfax, VA after his brief stay in Boston. He finds his balance in life to be healthy and enjoy being able to share experiences with and help others. Even if you don’t scratch his back, he’ll likely scratch yours — that’s just how he rolls!
Serenity Siya Mlay
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: San Francisco, USA
Village Capital Partner: William James Foundation
Serenity was born and raised in the East Bay of SF, a product of parents who emigrated from Tanzania in the 1960’s. Her parents believed that no child should be left idle and therefore was put into every activity ever created for children; from karate, gymnastics, baton twirling, sewing classes, ice skating, fencing, dance, theater, modeling to even participating in pageants. By trade Serenity is a dancer / choreographer and has studied dance and performed in a few companies in the bay area. While studying for her undergraduate degree, she established SeDaCo, a dance company in 2003 and presented her work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and many others. She then graduated from SFSU with B.A. in dance and a a minor in International Relations. Serenity’s interest and deeply rooted passion for economic development began to bubble over and in the summer of 2010 she traveled to Bangladesh to intern with Grameen Trust, a sister organization of Grameen Bank, a microfinance organization ,and met Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Muhammad Yunus. Serenity is a recent M.B.A. graduate from Mills College, has worked with Social Capital Markets and serves as Program Director at Shinda Foundation and teaches dance in her spare time. Serenity has recently returned from a 2 month trip in Tanzania in 2012 to visit family, friends to also see how much progress has been made since the last time she visited Tanzania 20 years ago and where she can best use utilize herself in accelerating access to the BOP.
Anupriya Kohli
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Delhi, India
Village Capital Partner: Pearson Affordable Learning Fund
Anupriya Kohli was born and raised in New Delhi, India, went to high school in Mumbai and then moved to New York City to attend Columbia University. She graduated magna cum laude with double majors in Economics and Psychology. She works as an operations strategy consultant at Booz&Company and in the past has worked on Western Union’s mobile app and online operations as an intern on the global emerging channels operations team, on theatrical promotions management for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and the Avengers as a promotions intern with Marvel Entertainment and direct marketing at RMGConnect/JWT. She is passionate about new technology and psychology in everyday life.
Timothy Francis
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Village Capital Partner: Kinara Indonesia
Tim studied economics as an undergrad where he gained an interest in economic development. Then, a side job in the hospitality industry led to an invite to spend a month down in the Dominican Republic living with a family in a small city. The experience was eye-opening and led him to veer away from the corporate finance field he began working in to explore a field now called impact investing while he achieved an MBA to enhance his skill set. Tim wants to take his education and enthusiasm to helping develop SMEs in the emerging world to create the positive social externalities to the local people.
Duncan Forbes
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: The Netherlands
Village Capital Partner: The Hub Amsterdam
Duncan’s passion is leading others to achieve positive social change. As a sociology major at Colorado College, he led two separate international projects; one to study fair trade and organic coffee farming in Oaxaca, Mexico and the other to implement a small-scale biogas project in rural, Southern Vietnam. After college, Duncan taught sexual health education for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs, CO, to youth across eastern and southern Colorado and he was promoted three times in nine months, eventually becoming the Manager of the Education Department for the region, a position he held for over two years. In this leadership role, Duncan expanded the scope of their work to include 26 new collaborating schools and community organizations, tripled their annual revenue, and solidified partnerships with numerous conservative, religious organizations during a period of extreme political volatility. He recently finished a three-year term on the Board of Directors of a small child-abuse prevention organization, where he facilitated a strategic plan that led to new partnerships and fundraising initiatives resulting in a 33% increase in annual revenue. These experiences allowed him to understand the leadership necessary to run a social organization, hone his facilitation skills, and develop his fundraising expertise.
Mary Catherine Fixel
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Ahmedabad, India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Mary Catherine is the eldest daughter born into a family of self-taught business owners. Very early on, she developed an entrepreneurial understanding of creating change; she is comfortable getting in on the ground floor and spending an awful lot of time there. Mary Catherine caught the travel bug – and an interest in partnerships between social entrepreneurs and big business – in 2004 after an internship in Mexico City. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2009 with a background in international business and went on to get an MPA and certification in Sustainable Development from University of Texas Austin /ESCP-Europe. Since joining PwC in 2010, her focus has been divided between the Banking Capital Markets and Sustainable Business Solutions consulting practices. This exposure has provided working visibility into the dynamic relationship between corporations and society and the role of heavyweights – stock exchanges, venture capital, industry, and accounting and consulting firms – in consideration of the multiple dimensions of value creation, including the environmental, social and economic. She’s worked with some of the world’s largest companies in trying to embed social and environmental principles and innovation into their businesses and investment strategies. Mary Catherine wants to be in a position to make the transformative connections between innovative entrepreneurs and the capital markets.
Indie Service Officer
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Village Capital Partner: Growth Africa
Prior to becoming a Frontier Market Scout, the anonymous blogger Indie Service Officer, was a planner at the NYC Office of Emergency Management’s Human Services Unit where he coordinated with nonprofit organizations to develop emergency plans to meet the needs of New Yorkers affected by disasters. Previously he worked at the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). He has had internships at the United Nations, New York City Police Department, the National Defense University, and Foreign Affairs Magazine. He has an International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from Fordham University, a MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BA from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Yassine El Mansouri
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Singapore
Village Capital Partner: VilCap Singapore
Yassine El Mansouri is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree with a major in International Affairs and a double minor in Social Entrepreneurship & Business at Northeastern University. He recently worked with an early-staged microfinance institution in Pajarillos, Honduras. Prior to that, he gained experience in public relations through his work with the Ogilvy & Mather office in Sydney but is currently dedicating his focus towards social innovation and impact investing. Before joining IIX, Yassine completed the Frontier Market Scouts training program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Karthik Devarajan
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Bangalore, India
Village Capital Partner: Unitus Seed Fund
Karthik is a 3rd year MD/MBA candidate at Tufts University and Brandeis University Heller School of Social Policy and Management. During his time in Boston, he has worked with various organizations and hospital departments to help improve patient outcomes at lower costs. Karthik is currently researching healthcare payment reform and operations management, and he hopes to apply these skills to alleviating health systems and delivery in developing countries. He is particularly interested in studying micro-finance and innovative health protection packages to prevent defaults secondary to ‘health-shocks’. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, he studied Neuroscience and Music (classical guitar) while serving on the executive board of a science-tutoring program. Karthik has been fortunate to travel extensively through various work, volunteer, and family trips, visiting 24 countries in 6 continents. Most recently, he served as an EMT-IV and health education consultant to Daniel Alcides Carrion Hospital in Huancayo, Peru, where he lived for 3 months. In his free time he likes to cook, write music, and watch bad movies, particularly those of the Nicholas Cage caliber.
Dallas Denny
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Boston, MA and Maine
Village Capital Partner: Pelletco
Dallas is a rising senior at Harvard College, and was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. In college, he is concentrating in Economics with no particular focus. Dallas had the great fortune to study abroad in Venice, Italy this previous summer, where he studied Keynes and Italian immigration policy as well as traveled throughout Europe. On campus, he works at an after school program for middle-schoolers, coaches and plays defense for the club lacrosse team, prepares food for a local pub, plans events for his social organization, as well as makes and sells awesome beef jerky (weird hobby continued from high school).
Elizabeth Cerchia
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Shanghai, China
Village Capital Partner: Transist
Elizabeth is a civil engineering student from New York with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. Most of her time is spent working with Engineers Without Borders; a nonprofit group that partners with communities to address their most pressing infrastructure problems. She leads a project assisting a community in rural Uganda with the design and implementation of a village-wide, financially-sustainable drinking water system. Her studies have taken her to South Africa to study social entrepreneurship and work with micro-entrepreneurs, and to Nicaragua to study the role of cooperatives in poverty alleviation for coffee farmers. She is passionate about the intersection of civil engineering and social enterprise – the development of simple, durable, and effective products to help the poor increase their incomes; especially in the fields of water and agriculture. Her favorite things to do are travel, cook, and learn new languages.
Caitlin Candee
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: Delhi, India
Village Capital Partner: First Light Accelerator
Born and raised in California, Caitlin decided the weather was too mild and moved to Boston to attend Northeastern University. She is finishing her fourth year, majoring in Civil Engineering with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. Caitlin has gotten very excited about impact investing through her involvement with Northeastern’s Social Enterprise Institute, studying with them in South Africa and Nicaragua. She has also been lucky to get very involved with Engineers Without Borders, traveling to Uganda to expand a village’s access to water.
Anu Keshavan
Summer-Fall, 2013
Location: San Francisco, CA (Virtual Scout)
Village Capital Partner: William James Foundation
Prof. Yunus once said – “My belief is that poverty is not caused by poor people. Poverty is caused by the system. Poverty is caused by the policies that we pursue.” Does Anu want to be a part of that system? No. Instead, she wants to join hands with very many well intentioned people across the world in the quest for many ideas, to eventually live in that world where no one has to live under 1$ per day. Anu is a Ph.D fellow at International School of Management, Paris. Her research interests are in the field of social innovation and social businesses. Once a year, Anu sets aside her work and other activities for six to ten weeks and head for a backpacking trip to explore, discover and be challenged and inspired. Independent travel in five continents includes journey through Africa in a truck, a Trans-Siberian train journey from Russia to China, la Ruta Maya on road, living with indigenous people of Peru, jungle treks in El Salvador, crossing the border from Guatemala to Belize by foot, scrambling down the mines in Bolivia, the Sahara on a camel, dodging undercover police in Myanmar and high altitude climb and trek expeditions in the Himalayas. She is grateful for the heart touching experiences that transform her.
Emily Lantz
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat , India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Emily has nearly 5 years of professional experience as a Deloitte human capital consultant solving complex business problems for global, Fortune 100 companies with an eye towards people and organizational effectiveness. During a mission trip to South Africa in 2010, Emily’s wheels started turning about charity, aid, and enterprise. This led her on a 6 month sabbatical with a Kenyan non-profit where she helped equip the missing middle with business and leadership training, mentoring, and access to affordable capital, enabling SMEs to become job creators rather than job seekers. In many ways, these experiences changed Emily’s life and trajectory, fueling her desire to help solve the problem of poverty in developing countries through smart, sustainable business models that transform the lives of families and communities.
Emily is from Atlanta, Georgia, where she is a proud Georgia Tech grad.
Parita Patel
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Parita has seven years of full-time professional experience working on program development, effective grantmaking, strategic nonprofit planning, and organization and financial management for several community-focused organizations in New York and Boston. Directly prior to the Frontier Market Scouts program, in an effort to further her knowledge on the social change strategies being employed by the corporate sector, she joined the corporate social engagement team of a philanthropic consulting firm and developed recommendations and implemented social impact programs adopted by corporate giving and community involvement departments of leading Fortune 100 companies. She is thrilled to be able to combine her professional experience with her academic interests and join the multi-sector team formed by Sanghata Global to advise on the development of a 125 square mile area, which includes the Jim Corbett Tiger Sanctuary, in Nainital, a popular hill station in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Parita is looking forward to working alongside private investors and community stakeholders to ensure environmental, social, and legal safeguards are in place during the planning and implementation phase of this ecotourism project. Parita completed coursework in urban sociology of Eastern Europe and the politics of EU enlargement at Corvinus University of Budapest, and holds a BA in Public Policy and Social Change, focusing on comparative and international policy, with minors in business and law from Bentley University.
Jennifer Clessas
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Jennifer Clessas is a recent graduate from Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), completing a Master’s degree in Public Administration and beginning her work as a development practitioner. While at MIIS she participated in the Development Project Management Institute and Frontier Market Scouts trainings. She has a background in International Economics and worked as an administrator at an International school in San Diego before changing careers. She was the student body treasurer at MIIS and president and coach of the MIIS women’s soccer team. Jennifer has studied, lived and worked in parts of Europe and South America, most recently completing an FMS placement in Bogotá, Colombia. She enjoys cooking, reading and spending time with her adorable cat named Gus.
Eleanor Horowitz
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Bangalore, India
Village Capital Partner: Unitus Seed Fund
Eleanor is passionate about scientific innovation, technology, and finding scalable solutions to social and environmental challenges worldwide. Previously, Eleanor worked at Mission Markets, a financial marketplace for sustainable investing, where she developed business strategy for environmental credit markets and helped manage the investment pipeline for social enterprises raising capital. Now she is looking forward to working in a new market learning how local startups in India are serving bottom of the pyramid customers for her placement with Unitus Seed Fund, a seed stage venture fund investing in education, livelihoods and basic necessities for low-income families.
Eleanor is a California native, who grew up in New York, studied abroad in New Zealand, has worked in Ghana, speaks French and loves adventures. She graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College with a joint major in Chemistry and Environmental Studies and a minor in Global Health.
Sarah Feldmann
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Village Capital Partner: Invested Development
Sarah is 23 years old and from Denver, Colorado. She recently graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics modified with Engineering, with a concentration in Developing Economics and Finance. At Dartmouth, Sarah was a member of the Varsity Women’s Soccer team for two years, where she learned of an amazing organization called GrassrootSoccer (“GRS”), a global non-profit that uses soccer as a means of engaging youth and providing them with the knowledge and life-skills to live HIV free. Sarah had the opportunity to complete two separate internships with GRS in Khayelitsha and Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where she developed a passion for social entrepreneurship and international development. Since graduating college, she has been working for an investment consulting firm in Boston, which provides consulting and investment oversight services to a wide array of foundation, institutional, sovereign and private family clients. This experience has shown her the power and importance of investing and has given her valuable knowledge of investing in a wide range of asset classes and markets. Sarah has grown committed to pursuing a career in impact investing because she believes that finding creative ways of engaging private markets to solve social problems historically addressed through philanthropy will ultimately deliver more powerful, sustainable solutions. Sarah hopes to use the Frontier Market Scouts program to launch a career in the impact investing space.
Ray Zeng
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: London, England
Village Capital Partner: Sanghata Global
Ray is a young professional greatly passionate in international development, having volunteered at a maternal clinic and an internal displaced persons camp in Kenya, planned and staged an exhibition on US-China relations at the grass root level, and provided environmental business solutions to government agencies. Originally hailing from southwestern China—Yunnan province, she is thrilled to engage in the impact investing space to come up with creative inspirations for public-private-partnerships opportunities in international development. Ray graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell College, with double majors in Economics and Psychology, and an Art History minor. With her “double vision,” she hopes to capture the splendor, passion and hope of her journey.
Asaía Palacios
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Colombia
Village Capital Partner: The Hub- Bogota
Asaía grew up in two worlds – on one side, Ecatepec, State of Mexico and on the other, San Antonio, Texas. Both places tell a story. In Ecatepec, organized crime and poverty exist around you while in San Antonio, and in Texas for that matter, first encounters with Mexican immigrants revealing their respective struggles and hardships in the US are all too familiar. Turning negatives into positives, these experiences have shaped Asaía to want to connect with those who are looking to better their lives or the lives of those around them. For this reason, she believes economic and social well-being via a market-based approach (sustainable, innovative enterprises solving a social problem and employing or serving struggling individuals wishing to better themselves) can unlock growth and prosperity. So after graduating from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Government, then teaching English in Prague, Czech Republic, Asaía shifted gears towards strengthening the social enterprise and impact investing effort in Mexico — first, helping the search-and-selection Ashoka Mexico team in identifying social entrepreneurs in Mexico, then evaluating innovative business models with social impact for seed capital investment and mentorship, and finally, as a liaison for a US startup in Mexico City wishing to provide financing to microentrepreneurs through their crowdfunding and money-management SMS platform. As a Frontier Market Scout, Asaía wishes to continue on this journey, only this time in Bogotá, Colombia where she will be collaborating alongside Hub Bogotá in their efforts to develop a social enterprise acceleration program. Her goal? To one day work for a strategy consulting firm that utilizes design thinking tools to help companies, organizations, and ventures innovate, remain competitive and, most importantly, bring impact into the area of social change as it relates to their business.
Rizki Penna
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Indonesia
Village Capital Partner: Satoe Indonesia and Village Capital
Rizki is a social entrepreneur focused on developing small-medium businesses in rural areas in Indonesia, who believes in the power of social innovation to tackle problems within the bottom of the pyramid consumers. He has more than 5 years of experience in the social entrepreneurship space in Indonesia, including co-founding and managing Satoe Indonesia, a student initiative turned into a non-profit foundation, which he guided from startup to an established business development and training centre. The foundation also act as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project consultant, which to date has several clients including Carrefour Indonesia and HSBC Indonesia. In addition to serving on Satoe Indonesia’s Advisory Board, Rizki is a member of Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), building a cross-sector network bringing together organizations and individuals from finance, business and the social sector, and a former member of National Coordinating Team of Creative Entrepreneurship Development at The Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs of The Republic of Indonesia, which responsible at taking an inventory list of problems in implementing creative new ventures and provide its solutions through policy recommendations to the minister.
Rizki holds a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship from Hult International Business School London, United Kingdom and a bachelor’s degree in management from Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia. He also holds a professional certificate in impact investing and social enterprise management from Monterey Institute of International Studies, California and a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) certificate in sustainability reporting process.
Bonita Yip
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: India
Village Capital Partner: SABRAS
I’m trying to prove that “any business woman with a heart” can work in Fortune 500 Company to make a positive, social impact. I’m a recent full-time MBA graduate from the Simmons School of Management (an all women’s MBA program in Boston, MA), with a focus in sustainability/socially responsible business. Previously, I spent more than five years in the audit/finance industry. After leading key audits related to the U.S. recession from 2008 through 2010, it gave me the inspiration to make a career change. Also, growing up in the Greater Boston area, I had volunteered at many non-profits that dealt with hunger, homelessness, as well as empowering young adults and women. With this transition, it seems as if my professional and personal life experiences has finally come full circle in order to launch a new career path for social impact.
As a Frontier Market Scout, I intend to gain further subject matter expertise in food sourcing as well as supply chain with my field placement in India. Also, I’ve been very fortunate to be well-traveled and have lived abroad in Beijing, China, so India will help me gain more insight about key global emerging markets. Besides the valuable work experience in India, it will also be an opportunity for me to achieve an important personal milestone, checking off my “number one bucket list item,” which is to reach the base camp of the Himalayas! To me, this represents that if I put my mind and heart into a goal that may seem completely overwhelming to others, I can and will accomplish it! Wish me luck!
Crystal Lo
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: The Netherlands
Village Capital Partner: VilCap: Netherlands
Crystal Gloria Lo is a young professional who aspires to utilize business skills for a social benefit. She thrives on creating positive impact and believes that there is a large potential to use the best practices of the for-profit world to achieve this. Crystal has worked in various capacities in Hong Kong and China in the property arm of an international conglomerate and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Global Business and Marketing from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a Master of Science in Real Estate from The University of Hong Kong.
Mei Wa Poon
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Hong Kong/China
Village Capital Partner: One Earth Designs
Mei Wa Poon has been working in the financial services industry at a leading global bank for over three years in New York. Outside of work, Mei has served as the Treasurer for UNA-SNY Young Professionals since June 2012, and as the Director of Events and Community Outreach with ALPFA for two years. She has been engaged in Microfinance and Impact Investing space since Women’s World Banking Capital Markets Conference in 2011. Mei was born and raised in Hong Kong and speaks both native Cantonese and fluent Mandarin. She relocated to Florida for high school, consequently obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Accounting at the University of Florida.
Myles Lutheran
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: Kenya
Village Capital Partner: Eco Fuels, Ltd.
Myles is a suma cum laude graduate of Northeastern University where he completed his bachelors degree in Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise. His entrepreneurial aptitude has led him to play key roles in helping multiple start-ups get off the ground in a number of different industries including online marketing, apparel manufacturing, real estate development, and mobile/enterprise software development. In his time away from work Myles travels to developing countries learn from social enterprises operating on the ground. His ambition to learn how high impact organizations operate has taken him to counties such as Haiti, Bangladesh, South Africa, and the Philippines.
Kevin Lehr
Winter-Spring, 2013
Location: India
Village Capital Partner: Kinara
Growing up, his mother and grandparents operated a small family business in Maryland. From what started out as a single kiosk selling jewelry and crafts made by Kevin’s grandmother, his family was able to grow the business into a profitable venture. With this understanding of the power of small businesses as a driving economic force, Kevin pursued a BBA in Finance from the College of William & Mary where he also studied International business in Spain. He went on to receive a Master in Accounting from William & Mary and then spent 4 months living in New Delhi, India working with a local healthcare firm, the Max India Group, to organize health/immunization camps for underprivileged families around the Delhi area. This is where Kevin saw his interests in international development, business & economics crystalize into a passion for improving livelihoods and making real positive change. After returning from India, he worked at a global accounting/consulting firm, BDO, where he worked on a variety of projects with financial institutions, manufacturing firms, and government organizations. Kevin is now looking to refocus his career on international development by taking the business skills he has learned along with his international experiences and applying them as a Frontier Market Scout with Kinara Capital. Kevin also has a passion for travel, surfing, hiking, & guitar.