Board of Directors & Officers
Teresa H. Clarke
Biography
Board Chair & President
Teresa Clarke is Chair and CEO of Africa.com LLC, a media holding company with an extensive array of platforms that reach a global audience interested in African business content and community. Previously, she was the first African-American woman selected as Managing Director in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs & Co., where she led corporate finance and merger & acquisition transactions for corporate clients in the industrials and real estate sectors. Teresa is a member of the board of directors, and serves on the audit committee of American Tower (NYSE:AMT), the leading global provider of wireless communications infrastructure. She is also a member of the board of directors, and serves on the audit committee of Arthur J. Gallagher (NYSE:AJG), the global insurance brokerage with operations in 56 countries. She is the former board chair, and executive chair, of Australian fintech, Change Financial (ASX:CCA). She served on the board of Cim Finance (SEM:CIM), a financial services company, and on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. She serves on the Leadership Council of Women Corporate Directors (NY Chapter), is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the advisory boards of the Rhodes Scholarship for West Africa, Human Rights Watch, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Teresa earned an A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Liesl Gerntholtz
Biography
Liesl Gerntholtz is a South African human rights lawyer who spent the early part of her career working for the South African Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Gender Equality in post-apartheid South Africa. She was the head of the HIV Litigation Unit of the AIDS Law Project and the Director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre. In those capacities, she led high impact, strategic litigation to advance the human rights of people living with HIV and women affected by violence. She has lived in the US since 2008, but remains committed to her South African roots, serving on the boards of several South African human rights organisations.
Between 2008 and 2020, Liesl worked for Human Rights Watch in different capacities. She was the executive director of the Women’s Rights Division for nearly ten years, overseeing research and advocacy that responded to the most critical women’s rights issues in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the US. She was also the Interim Deputy Executive Director for Programme, responsible for overall vision, strategy and leadership of 200 global staff working across sixteen divisions on a diverse set of human rights issues, and she also helmed the Africa Division for a year, leading the search for a new director. Most recently, she was the Chief Programme Officer for The Little Market where she led work to support opportunities for women from under-served communities to access dignified work. Liesl holds a BA (LLB) from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Joel M. Motley
Biography
Board Treasurer
Joel Motley is an independent director of Invesco Mutual Funds and an independent director of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Joel is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Chairman Emeritus of the board of Human Rights Watch. Joel also serves on the boards of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Historic Hudson Valley and the Greenwall Foundation. Joel began his career in investment banking at Lazard Freres & Co. in 1985, and he was a founder of Carmona Motley Inc. in 1992. Prior to investment banking, he served as an aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, serving as chief of the Senator’s staff in New York City and surrounding counties. Joel joined the Senate staff after five years of a corporate law practice which he began at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett upon graduation from Harvard Law School in 1978. He graduated from Harvard College (magna cum laude) in 1974.
Deval Patrick
Biography
Mr. Patrick is Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of practice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Senior Advisor to Bain Capital and co-chair of American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, a progressive political action committee. He is the founder and, from April 2015 to December 2019, was Managing Partner of Bain Capital Double Impact, a growth equity fund that invests in commercial businesses for both competitive financial returns and positive social impact. From January 2007 to January 2015, he served as Governor of Massachusetts. He has been a senior executive in two Fortune 50 companies, a partner in two Boston law firms, and by appointment of President Bill Clinton, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the United States Justice Department. He is a Rockefeller Fellow, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and the author of two books. Mr. Patrick earned his AB cum laude from Harvard College and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Ranjitha Ramchuran
Biography
In 2018, Ranjitha retired from Deloitte US as an accomplished audit partner with global experience. Ranjitha became a chartered accountant in South Africa, where she grew up. She joined Deloitte in South Africa, 30 years ago, immediately after university, and continued her career with Deloitte where Ranjitha dove deeper into the accounting and auditing profession in the United States and globally, including Asia and South America. Ranjitha led audits and transaction-related activity of eminent Deloitte clients, having developed strong technical expertise in US Securities and Exchange Commission financial reporting and audit quality based on her experience with national and international office technical groups within Deloitte. One of her leadership roles included being the office managing partner of the Deloitte US-India Delhi practice when it opened. Ranjitha is a Certified Public Accountant (Florida) and a Chartered Accountant (South Africa). She holds a postgraduate Diploma in Accountancy and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban.
Robert A. Robertson
Biography
Robert A. Robertson is a financial services partner in Dechert LLP’s Los Angeles office. With more than 30 years of legal experience, he represents clients in the areas of investment management, corporate and securities law, regulatory investigations and SEC defense. He regularly counsels investment advisers, mutual funds, closed-end funds, boards of directors, insurance companies and institutional investors. Mr. Robertson served as an attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1990 through 1997, where his most recent position was counselor to Commissioner Isaac C. Hunt, Jr. He is a frequent lecturer and has written a treatise on fund governance and numerous articles on securities law topics. Mr. Robertson is also a Lecturer-in-Law at the USC Gould School of Law, where he teaches securities regulation, and mergers & acquisitions. Prior to joining Dechert, Mr. Robertson was in private practice in New York City. He also served as an attorney with the Office of the Counsel to the President at The White House during the George H.W. Bush Administration. Mr. Robertson received his BA from Claremont McKenna College, MBA from Loyola Marymount University, and his JD from UCLA School of Law.
Paul F. Roye
Biography
Vice President & Secretary
Paul F. Roye is former Senior Vice President of The Capital Group Companies. He joined the firm in May 2005. Previously, he was director of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. During his tenure, he received the Chairman's Award of Excellence, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an SEC staff member. Prior to becoming Director, he was a member of the law firm Dechert, where he was a partner in the firm’s financial services, investment management, and corporate securities practice group. He serves on the Investor Issues Committee of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Board of Directors of the Association of Securities and Exchange Commission Alumni. He also serves on the Executive Council of the Federal Bar Association. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School.
Witney Schneidman
Biography
Witney Schneidman has nearly 40 years of experience working across Sub-Saharan Africa and is the current coordinator for Prosper Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Drawing on his experience in the State Department, the World Bank, think tanks and his own consulting practice, Dr. Schneidman, a non-lawyer, has advised energy, technology, consumer and health companies, among others, on projects in more than 30 African countries. He has also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, and on the Africa advisory committees in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and at the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Dr. Schneidman provides strategic advice on the varied political, economic, social and regulatory issues that are critical to companies’ success in Africa. This includes issues related to Corporate Social Responsibility, compliance, market entry and risk mitigation. He played a leading role in the passage and recent reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act and was a delegate to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit co-hosted by President Obama during his visit to Kenya. Dr. Schneidman chairs Covington’s Africa Practice Group and is a senior member of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group, the International Strategy Group and the International Trade and Finance Group.
Chris Stone
Biography
Chris Stone, Professor of Practice of Public Integrity at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. He is an expert in institutional strategy and public-sector reform globally, with a special focus on systems of justice. From 2012 -2017, Chris served as president of the Open Society Foundation helping to strengthen civil society as a force for political pluralism in more than one hundred countries worldwide. Prior to joining OSF, he was the Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he led both the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Chris began his legal career in 1982 as a public defender in Washington, D.C., and later helped found both the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and the New York State Capital Defender Office. From 1994 through 2004, he served as president of the Vera Institute of Justice, an incubator of innovation for the justice sector, expanding the Institute’s work with government reformers in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Russia, Nigeria, India, China, Chile, and Brazil. He is the recipient of an honorary OBE for his contributions to criminal justice reform in the United Kingdom.
David B. Wilkins
Biography
Professor Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession and the Center for Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Fellow of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. Professor Wilkins has written over 80 articles on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals and the popular press and is the co-author (along with his Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of one of the leading casebooks in the field. His current scholarly projects include Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (where he directs over 50 researchers studying the impact of globalization on the market for legal services in rapidly developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe); After the JD (a ten-year nationwide longitudinal study of lawyers’ careers); The Harvard Law School Career Study (examining, among other things, differences in the experiences of male and female graduates and the careers of lawyers who do not practice law); and The New Social Engineers (charting the historical development and current experiences of black lawyers in corporate law practice). Professor Wilkins teaches several courses on lawyers including The Legal Profession, Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century, and Challenges of a General Counsel. In 2007, he co-founded Harvard Law School’s Executive Education Program, where he teaches in several courses including Leadership in Law Firms and Leadership in Corporate Counsel. Professor Wilkins has given over 40 endowed lectures at universities around the world and is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and law firm and corporate retreats. His recent academic honors include the 2012 Honorary Doctorate in Law from Stockholm University in Sweden, the 2012 Distinguished Visiting Mentor Award from Australia National University, the 2012 Genest Fellowship from Osgoode Hall Law School, the 2010 American Bar Foundation Scholar of the Year Award, the 2009 J. Clay Smith Award from Howard University School of Law, and the 2008 Order of the Coif Distinguished Visitor Fellowship. In 2012, Professor Wilkins was elected as a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.