Support and Guidance
Acumen Fund's dedicated board provides critical leadership, advice and support for our work.
Margo Alexander (Chair)
Margo Alexander was formerly a senior executive of PaineWebber, where she spent the greater part of her thirty-three year career in the financial services industry. Beginning as a research analyst, she later became Director of Research, then Director of Institutional Equity and, in 1995, CEO of Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management. She was a member of the PaineWebber executive committee until the firm's acquisition by UBS in November 2000. Ms. Alexander is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where she met her husband, Robert Alexander. She has lived in New York since 1970 and has two sons. Ms. Alexander is a member of the advisory boards of Haas School at Berkeley and The New School, serves on the board of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee and is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Angela Blackwell is founder and president of PolicyLink, a national nonprofit, research, communications, capacity building and advocacy organization. Previously, she served as senior vice president for The Rockefeller Foundation, where she directed the Foundation's domestic and cultural divisions and developed The Next Generation Leadership and Building Democracy programs. She also founded the Urban Strategies Council and served as a partner with Public Advocates. She earned a Bachelor's Degree from Howard University, and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She sits on the boards of the Children's Defense Fund, Levi Strauss and Co., the Corporation for Enterprise Development, and the Advisory Board of the Brookings Institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Ms. Blackwell was also one of the founders of the National Community Building Network.
C. Hunter Boll
C. Hunter Boll is a former managing director of Thomas H. Lee Partners, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. He joined the firm in 1986. In 2005, he co-founded Source Audio LLC, a start-up venture focused on providing consumers with next generation accessories for the musical instrument market. Mr. Boll is Chief Operating Officer for Source Audio LLC. From 1984 to 1986, Mr. Boll was with the Boston Consulting Group, a corporate strategy consulting firm. He previously served as an Assistant Vice President, Energy and Mineral Division of Chemical Bank. Mr. Boll is a director of Metrics Companies, Inc., TransWestern Publishing and Source Audio LLC. Mr. Boll received a BA in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Andrea Soros Colombel
Andrea Soros Colombel is the founder and president of Trace Foundation, established in 1993 to promote the cultural continuity and sustainable development of Tibetan communities within China. The foundation implements projects in the fields of education, culture, and rural development. In New York, the foundation has also opened the Latse contemporary Tibetan cultural library. In 2000, Andrea co-founded Tsadra foundation with her husband, Eric Colombel, to support the activities of advanced students of Tibetan Buddhism in the West and preserve rare Tibetan Buddhist resources. Andrea was born in New York in 1965. She received her B.A. from University of Chicago in literature and holds a graduate certificate from the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. She participated in The Philanthropy Workshop at Rockefeller Foundation in 1995.
Stuart Davidson
Stuart Davidson has been involved in investing in early stage companies for the past 12 years. He is a managing director of Labrador Ventures. He also directs the Phalarope Foundation, which focuses on enterprise development, and is a trustee of the Cancer Research Institute. Previously, Mr. Davidson was CEO of Combion, Inc., which was acquired by Incyte Pharmaceuticals (INCY), and president of Alkermes, Inc. (ALKS), a biotechnology company. Mr. Davidson also worked for MCI Communications and for Warner Communications, where he was responsible for the development of a number of information technology business opportunities. Mr. Davidson is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
William E. Mayer
William E. Mayer formed Park Avenue Equity Partners, a private equity fund that invests in middle-market companies. Previously, he was a founding partner of Development Capital. He was a professor and Dean of the College of Business and Management at the University of Maryland, and during his tenure, led an effort that made it one of the top 25 ranked business schools in the country. From 1991 to 1992, he served as a professor and Dean of the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester. Mr. Mayer worked for The First Boston Corporation (now Credit Suisse), a major investment bank, for 23 years, during which he held numerous management positions, including President and Chief Executive Officer. He is a board member of BlackRock Kelso and Lee Enterprises, and is a trustee of the Columbia Group of Mutual Funds. He is Chairman of the Aspen Institute and Chairman of the Board of the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. Mr. Mayer was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. He holds a BS and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
Catherine S. Muther
Catherine Muther is the Founder and President of the Three Guineas Fund, a public grant-making and operating foundation, which focuses on creating economic opportunity for women and girls. The foundation developed the Women’s Technology Cluster, an industry-focused incubator for women entrepreneurs, and founded Social Fusion, a leveraged program for social enterprises. Ms. Muther is also a founder of the Foundation Incubator. Ms. Muther was the senior marketing officer at Cisco Systems and held Vice President of Marketing and officer positions in other Silicon Valley technology companies, including 3Com and Bridge Communications. She has served as a trustee of Mills College, Sarah Lawrence College, Cambridge University, the Foundation Incubator, PolicyLink and the Women’s Sports Foundation. Ms. Muther is a graduate of Stanford Business School, Cambridge University and Sarah Lawrence College.
Robert H. Niehaus
Robert H. Niehaus is the founder of Greenhill Capital Partners and oversees private equity funds totaling $1.8 billion in committed capital. He is Chairman of the Investment Committee of Greenhill Capital Partners and a member of the Management Committee of Greenhill & Co. Prior to joining Greenhill & Co., Mr. Niehaus spent 17 years at Morgan Stanley & Co., where he was Managing Director in the merchant banking department from 1990-1999 and the department's Chief Operating Officer from 1996-1998. Mr. Niehaus is a director of Director of Heartland Payment Systems, EXCO Resources, Knight Energy, FCC Holdings and a number of other portfolio companies. Mr. Niehaus received a B.A. in International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Jacqueline Novogratz
Prior to Acumen Fund, Jacqueline founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. She also founded Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank. Ms. Novogratz is currently on the advisory boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Innovations Journal, published by MIT Press. She is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and a Synergos Institute Senior Fellow. She is a frequent speaker at international conferences, including the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative and TED. Ms. Novogratz has an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia.
Michael E. Novogratz
Michael E. Novogratz has been a principal and a member of the Management Committee of Fortress Investment Group LLC since March 2002. Mr. Novogratz is responsible for the liquid markets business, which includes running the Drawbridge Global Macro Fund. Prior to joining Fortress, Mr. Novogratz spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz held the positions of President of Goldman Sachs Latin America and Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Risk in Asia, where he lived from 1992 to 1999. He serves as Chairman of the Board of the School for Strings and Beat the Streets Wrestling Inc. Mr. Novogratz received a BA from Princeton University and served as a helicopter pilot in the US Army.
Ali J. Siddiqui
Ali J. Siddiqui is a principal of JS Group, one of Pakistan's largest conglomerates. Prior to JS Group, Mr. Siddiqui was a Director with Crosby Capital Partners and was based in Hong Kong. Prior to Crosby, he was an Associate with Techpacific Capital where he was part of a team that managed private equity and venture funds investing in Asia-Pacific. He serves on the boards of a number of fast-growing private sector companies in Pakistan. In addition, he is involved with a number of charitable and sustainable development organizations. He holds a B.A. in economics from Cornell University.
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a University Professor at Columbia University in New York, Chair of Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought, and co-founder and Executive Director of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. In 2001, Dr. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information, and he has pioneered such pivotal concepts as moral hazard and adverse selection. Previously, he served as Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank and as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Clinton Administration. Recognized as a leading economic educator and author around the world, Dr. Stiglitz has written numerous books and has taught at Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, MIT and Yale. He founded The Journal of Economic Perspectives, and his 2001 book Globalization and Its Discontents has sold over one million copies worldwide. Dr. Stiglitz is a graduate of Amherst College and holds a PhD from MIT.