Don De Amicis, Independent, (Chair of MFX Inc. and MFX LLC)
Don De Amicis is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and is on the faculty at the International Law Institute. He is a member of tribunals of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Inter-American Development Bank, a senior advisor with Transnational Strategy Group, LLP and an Expert-Advisor to the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Commerce Department. Don has also served as the Executive Director of the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona Law School, a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and a Senior Lecturer at Leiden University. From 2011 to 2014, he was General Counsel of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Prior to OPIC, he had been a senior partner at Ropes & Gray LLP and has long been active in the American Bar Association and its rule of law initiatives; he served as chair of the Section of International Law and is currently serving on the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative Board. Don is a graduate of Harvard College (B.A.) and received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.
Scott Wu, Partner and Head of Investments, Omidyar Network (Board of MFX LLC)
Scott Wu is a partner at Omidyar Network and leads the firm’s investment, finance, and legal operations. Scott comes to Omidyar Network with a deep dedication to innovation – investing in, working with, and launching young companies and organizations to disrupt their respective sectors. He most recently served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow and senior advisor and entrepreneur-in-residence to the innovation funds of USAID. Scott was a member of the founding team of Upstart.com, a crowdfunding platform, and co-founded several venture capital and investment firms that together manage more than $1 billion. Scott began his career in investment banking where he was responsible for launching and leading a financial technology practice and was involved in more than 60 transactions with an aggregate value of over $25 billion. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his B.A. in government from Dartmouth College.
Alejandro Solis, Investment Officer, Triodos Investment Management BV (Board of MFX LLC)
Alejandro Solis currently works as an Investment Officer for Latin America at Triodos Investment Management, where he is in charge of debt and equity investments in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Honduras. Before joining Triodos, Alejandro worked for two years as an Investment Officer for Symbiotics Group, a Swiss investment company that offers debt financing to microfinance institutions worldwide. Prior to that, he worked as associate for Barclays Bank’s Investment Banking Group in London, U.K. Alejandro started his professional career at Banco de Credito del Peru, the biggest Peruvian bank, where he worked first as Project Finance Analyst and then as Senior Analyst in the Corporate Finance department. Alejandro holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Universidad del Pacifico in Lima, Peru, an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Economics from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and has passed the CFA levels I, II and III exams. He is a native Spanish speaker, fluent in English and conversational in Portuguese.
Doug Young, CIO, MicroVest (Board of MFX LLC)
Mr. Young is MicroVest’s Chief Investment Officer, joining the MicroVest team in 2006. He oversees a team of investment professionals in developing investment pipelines, investment screening, due diligence, transaction management, and is responsible for developing and managing the portfolio of Low Income Financial Institution Investments. Prior to being promoted to Chief Investment Officer in 2014, Mr. Young was the Managing Director, Investments and before that Investment Director, Latin America. He provided senior leadership on due diligence teams and overall portfolio management for Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Young started his financial career in 1996 and has experience in auditing and microfinance. Prior to joining MicroVest, Mr. Young was a senior manager with the Ernst & Young Capital Markets Group in Santiago, Chile, where he managed Chilean cross-border transactions in the energy and banking sectors. Mr. Young also worked for Arthur Andersen in Baltimore auditing publicly-traded healthcare, broadcasting and technology firms. Mr. Young received an MBA from the University of California – Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Mr. Young also studied at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Mr. Young is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting at Loyola College in Maryland where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Leslie Puth, Senior Director, Accion (Board of MFX LLC)
Leslie Puth is a Senior Director at Accion, where she engages with major donors to fund and advance the work of Accion globally. She focuses particularly on securing support for Venture Lab, Accion’s internal fund that invests in and supports seed-stage fintech for inclusion companies. Prior to this, Leslie worked with community-based organizations in New York City for several years. Leslie spent the first eleven years of her career working in foreign exchange trading and sales for Irving Trust, Credit Suisse and Banque Indosuez, where she managed the client sales desk and advised major global companies on hedging strategy. She currently serves on the board of trustees at the Brooklyn Museum and on the board of advisors at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Leslie holds a Master’s degree in development economics from the Fletcher School, an MBA from NYU Stern School, and a BA in economics and French from Wellesley College.
Jessica Vieira, Independent, (Board of MFX Inc.)
Jessica brings 20+ years of Foreign Exchange markets experience to MFX’s board. During her 14 year tenor at Citibank, Ms. Vieira was a Director in the Fixed Income Capital Markets Division where she provided currency and rate risk management advisory services to a wide range of clients including, multinational corporations, banks/broker/dealers/aggregators and hedge funds. She spent over 6 years as the Global Currency Risk Advisor in the Citigroup/SalomonSmith Barney Mergers and Acquisitions team. In her latest role, Jessica had specific responsibility for marketing FX services to Latin American banks. Prior to joining Citigroup, Ms. Vieira managed the currency risk portfolio for Sara Lee Corporation at the corporate offices in Chicago IL and started her career in Internal Audit at Texaco in Harrison NY. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago in Finance and International Business and a Bachelors of Science degree from Miami University(Oxford) in Accountancy.
Andrew Gunther, Independent, (Board of MFX Inc.)
Since July 2011 Andrew Gunther has served as a Managing Director overseeing investments in infrastructure in Latin America for Darby, a global emerging markets private equity firm that is part of Franklin Templeton. Previously he worked for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank. From 2007 until 2010, he was the IFC’s Country Manager for Brazil based in Sao Paulo. In earlier stints he did emerging markets private equity investing for Emerging Markets Partnership (EMP) and Marine Midland Bank (part of the HSBC group). Andrew has an MBA in finance from the Wharton School and a B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese.
Rita Van den Abbeel, Chief Financial Officer, Incofin (Board of MFX LLC)
Rita is in charge of the financial department at Incofin Investment Management, a Belgium-based specialized microfinance fund management company which currently manages five funds. She started at Incofin in 2002 as investment manager for Africa. She worked for 12 years in Africa (Tanzania, Congo) in agricultural and agro-processing projects. From 1998 until 2001, she managed a microcredit fund in Tanzania. She has a master in agronomics, specialized in tropical agriculture, phytotechnics and economics.Rita Van den Abbeel is fluent in English, French, Dutch and Kiswahili.
Vincent Dufresne, CFO, Symbiotics S.A. (Board of MFX LLC)
Prior to co-founding Symbiotics, he co-founded Infobahn SA and Qlik.ch Sàrl. Infobahn is an internet software development company with a solid experience in microfinance, notably with UNCTAD, CGAP/World Bank, the MIX Market and BlueOrchard Finance. He also worked as a banking auditor at Arthur Andersen for three years. Vincent holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of St-Gallen (lic. oec. HSG) and has passed the CFA Level II exam.
John M. Buley, Jr., Independent, (Board of MFX Inc.)
John is Professor of the Practice of Finance at Duke University, Fuqua School of Business. He teaches Project Finance, Energy Finance, Corporate Restructuring and the Seminar in Advanced Social Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining Duke in 2012, John was a Managing Director of J.P.Morgan Social Finance. John was Chairman and Head of the Investment Committee of JPM Mezzanine Capital, a proprietary investment strategy focused on subordinated debt and equity co-investment for mid cap U.S. and European companies and held various roles with JPMorgan Chase’s heritage banks from 1996 until his retirement in 2012 including Head of Corporate Finance Products, including Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Placements, Loan Syndications and Corporate Finance Advisory. John started his career as an attorney in the banking practice of White & Case. John earned a J.D. from Temple University and an LL.M in International Taxation from Villanova University.