Advisors

The GGPN draws advice, strategy and networks from the following Council of Advisors

Andrew Clarke, Luminate Group
Bruce Lowry, Skoll Foundation
Caroline Kronley, Tinker Foundation
Eli Sugarman, Hewlett Foundation
Irene Braam, Bertelsmann Foundation
Jeff Ubois, MacArthur Foundation
Jennifer Kitt, Climate Leadership Initiative
Jon Bellish, One Earth Future Foundation
Jonah Wittkamper, GGPN / NEXUS
Kate Sullivan, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Matt Reeves, Aga Khan Foundation
Nisaa Jetha, Global Governance Philanthropy Network
Meg Caldwell, Packard Foundation
Nathalie Delapalme, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte, Growald Climate Fund

Andrew Clarke, Luminate Group
Andrew serves as Interim Director of Luminate’s Financial Transparency impact area and also leads our work in Manchester, UK. His experience as an advocacy and policy specialist spans both the international development and private sectors. Andrew previously was Advocacy Manager at Publish What You Fund (PWYF), a campaign for aid transparency, where he led engagement with the US, European Union, and World Bank to increase the quantity and quality of public aid information. He also represented PWYF on the steering committee of the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Prior to PWYF, Andrew served as Public Affairs Manager for Ranelagh International, providing strategic planning and advocacy for clients. Andrew also worked at the Overseas Development Institute on an aid harmonisation project mapping most development aid onto the Ugandan budget.

Bruce Lowry, Skoll Foundation
Bruce Lowry oversees policy and global security work at the Skoll Foundation. A former diplomat, Bruce brings a policy lens to questions of scale, a key focus for all Skoll philanthropic activities. His remit includes, among other issues, nuclear proliferation, Middle East conflict, and emerging technology threats, as well as several initiatives in the climate sphere carried forward from the Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF). Bruce originally joined the Skoll Foundation in 2008 as communications director, then helped inaugural president Larry Brilliant launch SGTF in 2010, taking on a policy and advocacy role. Bruce ran the nuclear nonproliferation program and oversaw SGTF’s MidEast conflict work, while also playing a leading role in the launch of the Climate Advocacy Lab, SGTF’s primary climate effort which went independent in 2017. Bruce helped conceptualize and launch two funder collaboratives, Climate Nexus, on climate communication, and N Square, an initiative to bring new players into the nuclear nonproliferation sphere. While SGTF sunset at the end of 2017, Bruce is still on the advisory boards of all three efforts. Bruce also served for a period of time at SGTF’s interim president. Prior to joining Skoll, Bruce spent nearly a decade in the technology sphere with Oracle and Novell, largely in communications roles. He had a 14-year stint as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department, serving overseas in Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and Italy, and in various economic roles in Washington, D.C., working on, among other issues, the G-7 process, Middle East peace, European regional issues, Ukraine, and nuclear safety. Bruce holds a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College and a M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He’s a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and a Founding Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research. Bruce chairs the board of Cazadero Music Camp. A recovering French Horn player, he is now learning the Scottish smallpipes. He also enjoys playing low-key pickup soccer.

Caroline Kronley, Tinker Foundation
Caroline Kronley is the president of the Tinker Foundation, which funds civil society organizations in Latin America in the areas of governance, education, and natural resource management. Previously, she worked as the Managing Director for Strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation, leading development of new programmatic initiatives. Earlier in her career, she was a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners as well as Booz & Company where she served a broad range of clients on strategy and organizational performance. Caroline worked for a number of years in Mexico, where she oversaw strategic planning activities for a microfinance institution. In this role, she designed and led marketing, partnership, training, and program evaluation initiatives. Caroline graduated from Haverford College with a degree in History and a concentration in Latin American studies and holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Eli Sugarman, Hewlett Foundation
Eli Sugarman is Director of the Cyber Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He leads a ten-year, $130 million grant-making effort that aims to build a more robust cybersecurity field and improve policy-making. He also serves on the Executive Board of the CyberPeace Institute and International Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. Previously, he was a consultant and strategist to private sector and nonprofit leaders. From 2009 to 2014, Eli was senior director at an emerging markets advisory firm based in Washington, D.C., where he provided strategic counsel on international policy, regulatory, and business matters to clients globally. He has served as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State, where he focused on international security issues. Eli regularly speaks and writes about cybersecurity, government surveillance, data privacy and internet governance in leading media outlets. A San Diego native and graduate of Middlebury College, he holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.

Irene Braam, Bertelsmann Foundation
Irene Braam joined the Bertelsmann Foundation as executive director for North America in April 2016. She is also the first vice president and board director of the Bertelsmann Foundation Board of Directors. Irene is an experienced lawyer and media expert, and worked for over ten years with the Bertelsmann company. She began as director of government relations of the Brussels Liaison Office in 2005 and became senior vice president of government relations in September 2011. Irene developed, among other things, a European platform for global discussion about the digital transformation of the media world. The series was held in Brussels, Berlin, Madrid and London. Not only did she represent and position Bertelsmann’s interests in the EU, she also promoted Bertelsmann in other cultural and social events in Brussels, such as UFA Film nights, previews of Fremantle Media’s productions, exhibitions and public panel discussions. After studying law at Maastricht University, the Dutch native began her professional career in 1998 in the music industry. Irene was head of international, legal and business affairs at Naïve Records in Paris, in charge of business development for Midbar Tech Ltd. in Tel Aviv, and served as both director of public policy and government affairs, and director of legal and business affairs at the Universal Music Group in London and Brussels. Irene is a native speaker of Dutch, and also speaks English, German, French and some Spanish.

Jeff Ubois, MacArthur Foundation
Jeff Ubois joined the MacArthur Foundation in 2011 to build what became the Discovery grants program, and has since worked in the Foundation’s American Democracy, Philanthropy, and 100&Change programs. Previous to his time at MacArthur, Jeff worked for organizations focused on digital media and innovation, including UC Berkeley’s School of Information Management and Systems, the Internet Archive, the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision, and the Preserving Digital Public Television Project at Thirteen/WNET. In the 1990s, Jeff worked as a journalist covering new technology, and co-founded a Silicon Valley startup, Omniva, which was funded by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Jeff attended New College in Sarasota, Florida for undergraduate studies, and as joint inventor, has five U.S. patents related to information management. Jeff is a frequent public speaker, and has published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Nation, First Monday, the Journal of Digital Information, and other journals, summarized at http://www.ubois.com. He currently serves on the boards of the Kahle/Austin Foundation, which supports access to digital information; Humanity 2050, which explores challenges of complexity and the human future; and QuestionCopyright.org, a Chicago-based organization supporting free culture and expression.

Jennifer Kitt, Climate Leadership Initiative
Jennifer Kitt is the founding president of the Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI) where she leads the organization as it builds a model to harness philanthropists’ interest, passion and generosity to increase philanthropic funding for the most profound challenge of our time. As an advisor to donors and a trusted strategic partner for organizations working to address the climate crisis, she is focused on building a community to bring new donors into the climate space to fund promising, far-reaching solutions. Jennifer brings more than 20 years of experience working with philanthropists, corporations and foundations to fund high-impact causes. She also brings decades of experience in community building, philanthropic collaboration and complex problem solving. Prior to joining CLI, Jennifer was the chief development officer for Stanford University’s Medical Center Development, Stanford’s largest fundraising team with more than 140 staff focused on serving both the School of Medicine and the Stanford Health Care clinical system. At Stanford, Jennifer worked closely with distinguished faculty and University leaders, trustees and members of the Stanford Medicine boards. She helped grow fundraising during her 7+ years there from $150M annually to more than $300M annually for fundamental research, clinical research, and research and clinical buildings, including the new Stanford Hospital. Before Stanford, Jennifer served in senior management roles at UC Berkeley, including leading development programs for Parents, Reunions and Campaign Regions. Prior to working in higher education, she was a Senior Attorney for IBM, where she learned to think strategically, solve complex problems and build partnerships even in tough negotiations. Jennifer earned her doctor of jurisprudence and bachelor of science degrees at Georgetown University. Jennifer serves as a fundraising consultant to several faith organizations in the Episcopal diocese and Jewish congregations and is a board member at Synapse School in Menlo Park. As the mother of two boys, Jennifer is focused every day on the responsibility of our generation at this moment in time to heal planet Earth.

Jon Bellish, One Earth Future Foundation
Jon Bellish is the acting Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Strategy, where he oversees OEF’s program strategy, strategic communication and operations. Over the past 8 years, Jon has served in positions at OEF ranging from intern to Director of Future Labs, leading the team that designs new OEF programs. Jon also serves as the Secretary of the foundation’s Board of Directors. Before joining OEF, Jon worked in advertising and public relations in Jackson, Mississippi. He has a J.D. from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and an M.B.A. from Millsaps College. He is an alumnus of The Hague Academy of International Law, a Fellow at the Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law, and has published widely on the international law of maritime piracy.

Jonah Wittkamper, NEXUS
Jonah Wittkamper is Co-Founder and President of NEXUS and the Global Governance Philanthropy Network as well as Founder of the Healthy Democracy Coalition. NEXUS is a global movement of over 6000 young people from 70 countries dedicated to bridging communities of wealth and impact. The Healthy Democracy Coalition is a US national network of philanthropists and allies dedicated to cross partisan philanthropic learning and collaboration. Both networks involve people from many of world’s most philanthropic families. Previously, Jonah served as the US Director of Search for Common Ground and was part of Distributive Networks Inc., where he helped to build the text messaging technology used by the 2008 Obama campaign. In 2000, Jonah co-founded the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) to strengthen youth participation in global decision-making. As the organization grew it merged with TakingITGlobal to form the largest site on the internet dedicated to empowering young leaders, receiving two million hits per day. Earlier in his career, Jonah led an award winning student computing organization, founded two internet startups, and created a corporate social responsibility initiative in one of the world’s largest corporations. He has served as a Co-Founder, board member, or advisor to a number of organizations including Pioneers of Change, the ManyOne Foundation, the L. A. Jonas Foundation, the Millennial Action Project, the Shift Foundation, WISE (Wealthy Individuals – Social Entrepreneurs), and many others. He is an alumnus of Williams College and Camp Rising Sun.

Kate Sullivan, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Kate Sullivan supports the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation’s programmatic work with external relations and strategic planning. Her prior experience has largely focused on partnerships, strategy and coordination in the fields of peacebuilding, development, global governance and government relations. Before joining the Foundation, Kate held positions at the Global Challenges Foundation, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Global Partnership Alliance, the U.S. Peace Corps and United Technologies Corporation. She holds a Master in Public Administration from the George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan. Kate is a Paul Harris Fellow (Rotary) and a member of the three-time world champion Rönninge Show Chorus.

Matt Reeves, Aga Khan Foundation
Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Matt Reeves is the Aga Khan Foundation’s Global Lead for Civil Society. He has been with the Foundation for over four years. Matt has worked with Pact leading its global capacity development practice and has over 15 years of experience supporting the design, implementation and measurement of civil society strengthening initiatives in over 20 countries. Matt holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from the University of Bristol and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He has taught graduate level courses in designing and managing development projects and multi-stakeholder facilitation.

Meg Caldwell, Packard Foundation
Meg Caldwell joined the Packard Foundation’s Conservation and Science program in April 2015 as Deputy Director, Oceans. She leads the Oceans team where she manages growth in the scale and ambition of our oceans-related grantmaking, provides strategic direction across our subprograms, fosters the increasingly team-oriented approach to this work, and helps to amplify the work of our Foundation and our grantees as a thought leader on ocean conservation issues. Prior to joining the Foundation, Meg directed the Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program at Stanford Law School. While at Stanford, she also served as the Executive Director of the Center for Ocean Solutions (COS). Meg played a critical role in the creation of COS and led the organization in the development of a Pacific Ocean-wide assessment of the major threats to marine and coastal ecosystems, along with the communities that depend on them—the first assessment of its kind. She also served as a Senior Consultant to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. The Commission ultimately adopted a majority of the recommendations for regulatory reform that were developed by COS. Meg served on the California Coastal Commission from 2004-2007 and 2009-2012, including two years as its chairperson, during which time she also served on the board of the California Coastal Conservancy. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1994, Meg was an instructor at San Jose State University; an associate in the environmental law group of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen; and a Policy Analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco. Meg holds a Bachelor’s in Science in business administration (with an emphasis on economic analysis and policy) from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Nathalie Delapalme, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Nathalie Delapalme is Executive Director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. She was previously a French senior civil servant. Her most recent position was Inspecteur General des Finances at the Ministry of Economy and Finance between 2007 and 2010. Prior to this, Nathalie served the French Government as an advisor for Africa and Development in the offices of various Foreign Affairs Ministers, between 1995-1997 and 2002-2007. She also served the French Senate as advisor for the Finance and Budgetary Commission, where she assessed fiscal and public expenditures and policies between 1984-1995 and 1997-2002. She sits on the Board of IFRI (Institut Francais des Relations Internationales). Nathalie is the recipient of a number of awards and honours. She is Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur.

Nisaa Jetha, Global Governance Philanthropy Network

Nisaa Jetha is the CEO of the Global Governance Philanthropy Network (GGPN) an organization that works on international governance and issues of the global commons.  Nisaa is a qualified solicitor with private equity (PE) experience across impact curation, SDG metric build across mid-cap PE portfolios previously ranking as most senior Impact officer across a portfolio that spanned several nations.  She launched an energy governance group in the highest house of UK Parliament (2015) hosted by Under-Secretary of State for International Development & Climate Minister through the membership organisation she founded JCI (p.o.). JCI has global affiliations with the Council of Europe, Economic and Social Chamber of the UN & International Chamber of Commerce. Nisaa was a pioneer and structured the organisation globally around the SDGs (pre-adoption) and later invited alongside 150+ Heads of State to the global adoption of the UN SDGs (2015).  She was instrumental in curating a focus event at COP21 (Paris Climate Accord), a speaker in UK Parliament on increasing female representation & democratic governance. She also worked as a policy analyst and speech writer for Canada’s previous Special Envoy to Sudan inside The Senate of Canada. She holds a BA (hons) from McGill University, an LLB from the University of London with post graduate diplomas in International Law and Human Rights from The University of Nottingham and The University of Law. She was selected to attend the Harvard Initiative for Responsible Investment programme with the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at University of Zurich in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, MIT & The Harvard Kennedy School.

Sanjay “Kabir” Bavikatte, Growald Climate Fund
Sanjay “Kabir” Bavikatte is a Director for the Growald Climate Fund, a venture philanthropy fund working to catalyze the transition to a clean energy future. Prior to GCF, Kabir led the Christensen Fund, a Bay Area-based foundation backing the rights of Indigenous peoples globally. Before that, he was an international environmental lawyer for nearly two decades. He co-founded and led Natural Justice, a firm of environmental lawyers advancing community land rights and biocultural protocols to challenge resource extraction in Africa and Asia. He served as legal counsel to the African Group of Countries for intergovernmental negotiations under the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has advised the governments of South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, India, Bhutan, Micronesia, and Palau on environmental law and policy with a focus on Indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental justice. In addition to peer-reviewed articles on biodiversity and Indigenous peoples’ rights, he authored the book Stewarding the Earth: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights (Oxford University Press), a seminal text on community rights. Kabir is also a trained coach with extensive experience coaching organizations and leaders around values alignment and strategic impact. Kabir earned a bachelor’s in law from the National Law School of India, a master’s in law as a UK Chevening scholar at the University of Warwick, and a doctorate in public law from the University of Cape Town. He was also a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellow at the United Nations University. He lives in Oakland, CA, where he volunteers at the local animal shelter. In his spare time, he alternates between sitting absolutely still and running in the East Bay hills with canine companions.