Support and Guidance
Acumen Fund's dedicated board provides critical leadership, advice and support for our work.
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 received a BA in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Andrea Soros Colombel (Chair)
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.
David Heller
David Heller is the Co-Head of the Goldman Sachs Global Securities Division. He currently sits on the firm’s Securities Division Operating Committee, Firmwide Risk Committee, Business Practices Committee, Finance Committee and Compensation Committee. David joined Goldman in 1989 in New York as an equity derivatives trader. He worked for Goldman in Japan from 1993-1998, initially as an equity derivatives trader and eventually as the co-head of Goldman’s Japanese equity business. David transferred to London in 1999 to become the global head of equity derivatives trading and returned to New York in 2002.
Ken Ofori-Atta
Ken Ofori-Atta is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Databank Financial Services Limited, the leading investment banking firm in Ghana. Databank has offices in the Gambia and Liberia and manages EPACK, the most successful pan-African equity mutual fund. Ken Ofori-Atta also serves on the boards of Enterprise Group Limited, Trust Bank of The Gambia, Women’s World Banking Ghana, New York University in Ghana, Central University College, College of Health Sciences at the University of Ghana, Ashesi University, and on the International Advisory Council of Yale University. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and Co-Founder of the Africa Leadership Initiative. Prior to Co-Founding Databank, Ken worked at Morgan Stanley and Salomon Brothers in their corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions groups. He has a BA in Economics from Columbia and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
William E. Mayer
William E. Mayer is the Senior Partner of Park Avenue Equity Partners, a private equity firm. From the fall of 1992 until December 1996, Mr. Mayer was a professor and Dean of the College of Business and Management at the University of Maryland. During his tenure, he organized and led an effort that significantly improved the school’s programs and 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 at The First Boston Corporation (now Credit Suisse), a major investment bank for 23 years, where he held numerous management positions including President and CEO. He is currently a board member of DynaVox, BlackRock Kelso and Lee Enterprises and is a trustee of the Columbia Group of Mutual Funds. Over the past 30 years, he has been a board member of numerous other public and private companies. Mr. Mayer was Chairman of the Aspen Institute from 2000 to 2008 and is currently on its Executive Committee. He is past Chairman of the Board of the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland and is currently on its Executive Committee. He is the U.S. Chairman of the British-North American Committee, a board member of the Acumen Fund and Atlantic Council, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Vietnam Dialogue Group, and Vice Chairman of the Middle East Investment Initiative. Mr. Mayer was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and holds a BS and an MBA from the University of Maryland.
Pat Mitchell
Pat Mitchell is the President & CEO of the Paley Center for Media. Prior to the Paley Center, Ms. Mitchell was President & CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for six years. She was the first woman and first producer and journalist to hold the position. Earlier in her career, Ms. Mitchell worked for three broadcast networks and several cable channels, winning national acclaim both in front of and behind the camera as a reporter, news anchor, talk show host, White House and special correspondent, producer, and executive. In 2011, she was named to Newsweek’s list of 150 Women Who Shake the World. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Green Cross International, and sits on several boards, including AOL, the Sundance Institute, Human Rights Watch, the Mayo Clinic, and the Jordan River Foundation. Ms. Mitchell also acts as an adviser to the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and the V-DAY movement. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia with a master's degree in English literature.
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 is a principal and a member of the board of directors of Fortress Investment Group LLC and Co-Chief Investment Officer of the Fortress Macro Fund and the Drawbridge Global Macro Fund. Mr. Novogratz joined Fortress in 2002 after spending 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz held the positions of President of Goldman Sachs Latin America, and the head of trading and risk management for fixed income, currencies and commodities and proprietary risk in Asia, where he lived from 1992 to 1999. Mr. Novogratz founded and serves as the Chairman of Board for Beat The Streets, a non-profit organization which builds wrestling programs in New York City public schools. Mr. Novogratz also serves on the board of NYU Langone Medical Center, the Princeton Varsity Club, and the Hudson River Trust. Mr. Novogratz received an AB from Princeton University in Economics, and served as a helicopter pilot in the US Army.
GV Prasad
GV Prasad is Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. Previously, he was Managing Director of Cheminor Drugs Ltd, which merged with Dr. Reddy’s in 2001. Prasad leads the core team that drives the growth and performance of Dr. Reddy’s, and is widely credited as the architect of the company’s successful global generics strategy. He is also a champion of sustainability thinking and has spearheaded efforts to reduce Dr. Reddy’s ecological footprint by embracing green technologies and processes. Prasad earned his degree in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and his Masters in Industrial Administration from Purdue University.
Thulasiraj Ravilla
Thulasiraj Ravilla is Executive Director of Aravind Eye Care System, the largest eye care facility in the world. Mr. Ravilla is Executive Director of Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology which focuses on contributing to the prevention and control of global blindness through teaching, training, consultancy, advocacy and research in eye care delivery. He is the Chairman of International Agency for Prevention of Blindness-South East Asia Region (IAPB-SEAR) and the Human Resource Working Group of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). Mr. Thulasiraj holds a BSc in Mathematics from Madras Christian College a MBA in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
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.