Vincent Mai

Cranemere; Chairman and CEO ​

​Patricia Biermayr-Jenzano, PhD

​Georgetown University; Center for Latin America Studies (CLAS);

Women and Gender Studies (WGST)

Alan Hilburg

Hilburg Associates; President and CEO ​

Our Board of Advisers 

Thabo Cecil Makgoba, PhD

South African Anglican Archbishop of

Cape Town and Southern Africa

​​Dr. Patricia Biermayr-Jenzano is a social scientist and gender specialist who has conducted ethnographic research and gender analysis in relation to the feminization of agriculture. She holds a PhD in Agricultural Extension and Social Anthropology from Cornell University, NY and an Agricultural Engineering degree from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her research and applied work has deep roots in Participatory Action Research, theory and practice while she has been heavily involved on mainstreaming gender in agriculture and conservation-related efforts. Earlier, Dr. Biermayr-Jenzano worked as the Leader of the Participatory Research and Gender Analysis Program at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia. In the USA, she worked at Cornell University, studying how ethnicity, race and gender determine ways in which women and Indigenous Peoples conserve biodiversity and natural resources. She has performed as a Consultant for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Morocco and the Food and Agriculture of the UN (FAO) in Latin America.  Currently, she is a Visiting Adjunct Professor at the Center for Latin America Studies and the Women and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University.
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​Dr Eugenio Diaz Bonilla has more than 30 years of professional experience as an economist, working on development and poverty issues. Resided and worked for extended periods in several LAC countries, and have been part of development missions to African and Asian countries. Extended experience on project preparation and implementation and on more general policy advice to governments. Consultant and staff member with several international organizations: World Bank, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), Organization of American States (OAS), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Senior Advisor to Ministers and public officials in different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean on macroeconomic and trade policies, poverty alleviation and food security programs, and project financing. Diplomatic and negotiating experience as senior diplomat for Argentina in the US, working on agricultural trade issues in bilateral, regional, and multilateral negotiations. Member of the Board of Executive Directors of the IADB for more than eight years, occupying leadership positions (Chairman and Vice Chairman several times of the Budget and Financial Policies Committee, of the Audit Committee and of the Ethics Committee). Academic and policy-oriented publications on poverty, food security, trade and macroeconomic issues in developing countries. Professor in Universities in Latin America and the US, and in training courses for public officials at different international organizations. Member of different tasks forces on trade and development.

​Vincent Mai is a South African businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of Cranemere, a holding company which is the parent of an operating group. The Group focuses on investing in businesses to develop and hold in the long term. Formerly he was the CEO and chairman of AEA Investors, one of the oldest private equity firms in the United States.
Mai is chairman of the board of Sesame Workshop, producers of Sesame Street, the children’s educational television program. He also serves on the boards of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Juilliard School, and is a former trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Mai is also a member of the advisory board of Global Integrity. Additionally, Mai formerly chaired the board of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. In December 2012, Mai was honoured at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights' Ripple of Hope Awards Dinner

Alan is the President and CEO of HilburgAssociates, advising senior leaders make better decisions when facing complex internal and external trust threatening business choices and situations. He is the author of two NY Times best selling books on leadership (selling more than 800,000 copies) and numerous OpEds in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times and other publications.  He was an Academy Award nominee for the first environmental documentary and second IMAX movie ever made.  He created three of the top ten brand campaigns of the 20th century (Wendy’s,”Where’s the Beef? ; GE, Bringing Good Things to Life and the Olympic Torch Run for AT&T).  Alan has been recognized seven times as the top crisis advisor in the world helping more than 200 companies, governments and celebrities successfully navigate brand trust threatening crises including the famous Tylenol crisis.  Most recently, he has been recognized as one of the world’s leading TRUST ARCHITECTS, being a global leader in helping organizations build trust-based high performance teams by integrating their culture with values and trust, especially across multi-generational and multi-cultural leadership teams and workforces.

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Gabriel Brodbar is the Executive Director of the NYU Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship at New York University (www.nyu.edu/reynolds). Among the first cross-university initiatives of its kind, the program works with students from across NYU who seek to realize pattern breaking change of social importance in sustainable and scalable ways. The program also brings significant social entrepreneurial resources to the NYU and NYC communities, including the “Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century” Speaker Series, social venture business plan competitions, and new classes in social entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining NYU, Gabriel served as the Director of Dartington-i New York, a national and international consulting firm providing a wide range of research and practice tools to city and state child welfare and social service systems, with special expertise in performance contracting systems and supportive housing development. He is the former founding Director of the Office of Housing Policy and Development at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, where he developed and implemented a data-based method of policy analysis that led to a fundamental change in New York City’s housing policy for children, families and young adults involved in the child welfare system. Prior to that, Gabriel developed and operated award-winning, drop-out prevention and college preparatory programs for at-risk high school students in Houston and New York City including Upward Bound, AmeriCorps, and Liberty Partnership Programs.
Gabriel is a founding member of the Child Welfare League of America’s National Homelessness Advisory Panel, a member of The Advisory Board of WomanFashFilm, a Teach For America alumnus (‘91), holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from the CUNY Hunter College School of Social Work and a Masters in Business Administration from the Zicklin School of Business at CUNY Baruch College. His published work on the intersections of foster care and homelessness, community- based needs assessment tools and social entrepreneurship can be found in Child Welfare, The Social Service Review, and Beyond Profit. He has been quoted in the New York Times, and teaches the NYU undergraduate class Understanding Social Entrepreneurship. 

Dr. Thabo Cecil Makgoba is the South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Southern Africa. He had served in the past as Bishop of Grahamstown. In 2008 he was awarded the Cross of St Augustine, the second highest international award for outstanding service to the Anglican Communion, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Archbishop Makgoba is the youngest person to serve in this position.
His Grace Dr.  Makgoba is a prolific writer and key player in social, political and economic issues in South Africa.  He is the creator of the New Struggle movement to end the inequality of equality, especially the inequality of opportunity.

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Gabriel Brodbar

New York University, Reynols Program in Social Entrepreneurship

Eugenio Diaz Bonilla, PhD

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); Research Fellow

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