Get Newsletter

Home

About Us

Board of Directors

Marko Ahtisaari is SVP of Design at Nokia and formerly CEO and co-founder of Dopplr, the social atlas for smart travelers around the world, which was acquired by Nokia in 2009. Previously, Ahtisaari was Director of Design Strategy at Nokia and Head of Brand and Design at Blyk, the free mobile service for young people, funded by advertising. In the nineties Marko was a lecturer, Fellow of the Faculty of Philosophy at Columbia University and played music professionally in New York. He serves on the Board of Directors of Artek, F-Secure, and Newsmill.

Patricia Caesar (Treasurer) is President of the Caesar Consulting Group, a strategy consulting firm that provides business planning, organizational, leadership and resource development, and executive search services to nonprofit organizations, foundations and individual philanthropists. Her clients represent a broad range of issues and interests, including human rights, social enterprise, social media, public policy, healthcare and education. She currently serves as a board member at Facing History & Ourselves National Foundation and the CUE Art Foundation. She was also a founding board member of God’s Love We Deliver and the Faith Center for Community Development.

Julia Cohen is the Alliance Partnership Manager for the Progressive Book Club. She develops and executes grassroots outreach campaigns for a wide range of clients in the entertainment and non-profit industries. She has over 20 years experience in United Nations, government, nonprofit and public health management; civic engagement, advocacy, marketing, fundraising and technology development. Cohen's diverse experience includes serving as Deputy Director for Campus Progress at the Center for American Progress and directing major initiatives for the National Democratic Institute, YouthNOISE, Youth Vote, Rock the Vote, Planned Parenthood and the State Department, among others. At Voxiva, she led efforts to develop global health, political and civic engagement technology applications and directed projects for AIDS relief and Tsunami recovery.

Mallika Dutt is the founder and executive director of Breakthrough: building human rights culture, an innovative, international human rights organization using the power of popular culture, media, and community education to transform public attitudes and advance equality, justice, and dignity. Ms. Dutt has served as Program Officer for Human Rights at the Ford Foundation's New Delhi Office and as the Associate Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She is a founder of SAKHI for South Asian Women and currently serves on the board of directors of WITNESS, the Open Society Institute US Programs Board, Games for Change Advisory Board, and the Rights Working Group Steering Committee

Peter Gabriel (Chair), the co-founder of WITNESS, is an activist and musician. His involvement in benefit concerts for Amnesty International and the anti-apartheid movement have greatly assisted human rights efforts worldwide.

John Hass (President) is a Partner at PEAK6 Investments, LP, a leading proprietary trading and market making firm. In his role at PEAK6, John oversees Finance and Accounting, Legal and Mergers and Acquisitions for the Firm. Previously, John served as the Chief Executive Officer of OptionsHouse, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PEAK6. Prior to joining PEAK6, John was a Partner Managing Director at Goldman, Sachs & Co. John joined Goldman Sachs in 1988 and worked in its Investment Banking Division at various times, helping to lead its Chicago office and Financial Institutions Group. During his career John worked in the New York, Chicago and Sydney, Australia offices of Goldman Sachs.

John is a member of the Board of Directors of Platinum Underwriters Holdings, Inc., a publicly traded Bermuda-based reinsurance company. He serves on the board of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, a Chicago-based ensemble theatre company, where he is on the Executive Committee. In addition, John is a trustee of the Museum of Contemporary Photography and Link Unlimited, a non-profit organization focused on providing mentoring and college prep opportunities for African-American students.

Michael J. Hirschhorn is the Director of the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG). From 2003-08, Michael was Executive Director of the Coro New York Leadership Center and from 1995-2001 served as Executive Director of the Literacy Assistance Center in New York City. From 2001-03, Michael worked as a non-profit strategy consultant, primarily in the fields of education, human rights, and leadership development. Earlier, he was an Assistant to the Chancellor of the NYC Public Schools and a Visiting Non-Profit Executive at Yale's School of Management. Michael serves as President of the trustees of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation, and also serves on the boards of Witness, Breakthrough, American Jewish World Service and several other rights-related organizations. Michael received his BA from Yale University in 1981 and his MBA & MSW from Columbia University in 1989.

Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons. He is a co-founder and board member of Digital Garage. He is on the board of Culture Convenience Club Co., Ltd. and Tucows Inc. He is the Chairman of Six Apart Japan, the weblog software company. He is on board of a number of non-profit organizations, including The Mozilla Foundation, WITNESS and Global Voices. He has created numerous Internet companies, including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate and other Internet companies. He has served and continues to serve on various Japanese central as well as local government committees and boards, advising the government on IT, privacy and computer security related issues. He is currently researching "The Sharing Economy" as a Doctor of Business Administration candidate at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. He maintains a weblog where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community. He is the Guild Custodian of the World of Warcraft guild, We Know. Ito was listed by Time Magazine as a member of the "Cyber-Elite" in 1997. He was also listed as one of the 50 "Stars of Asia" by BusinessWeek and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in 2000. Ito was selected by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow", chosen by Newsweek as a member of the "Leaders of the Pack" in 2005, and listed by Vanity Fair as a member of "The Next Establishment" in 2007. He was also named by Businessweek as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web in 2008.

Joshua Mailman is the founder of organizations that have brought together some of the world’s most socially innovative companies: Social Venture Network, Business for Social Responsibility, and Social Venture Network/Europe. He is President of the Joshua Mailman Foundation and Managing Director of Serious Change LP, a pool of capital dedicated to adding strategic capital to early stage companies. He is a Trustee of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, U.K., and the Mailman Foundation; an advisor to RSF Social Finance; and an advisory board member of One World Projects and an Emeritus Board member of Human Rights Watch. He is also a Board member of the Fund for Global Human Rights, the Sierra Madre Alliance, Afropop World-Wide, the Blacksmith Institute, and International Funders of Indigenous Peoples.

Izhar Patkin was born in Israel, 1955. He is a visual artist known for working in narrative form. His work not only tells stories but deals with reinventing the structure and technique of visual narrative itself. The results are paintings and sculptures in diverse and innovative media, making imaginative use of materials and highly complex visual metaphors. Patkin’s work is included in many permanent collections, including those of The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York: and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; among others. He currently lives and works in New York City.

Andrew Puddephatt is a Director of Global Partners & Associates (GPA). He has worked to promote human rights for twenty years and has specific expertise in program development and evaluation with a focus on transparency, the role of media in society, and implementing human rights.

He has led human rights organizations in the not-for-profit sector for more than fifteen years. He was Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, a pioneering organization working on freedom of expression from 1999 to 2004; Director of Charter88, the UK's leading constitutional reform organization, between 1995 and 1999; and General Secretary of Liberty, the principal domestic human rights organization in the UK, between 1989 and 1995. Mr. Puddephatt has played a leading role in securing a Bill of Rights for the UK and in January 2003 was awarded an OBE for services to human rights.

He is an expert representative of the Council of Europe, the EU and the Commonwealth Expert working groups on freedom of information and freedom of expression. Mr. Puddephatt holds several Board positions in the non-profit and public sector: he is Vice-Chair of Danish-based International Media Support, a NGO that provides emergency support to journalists in conflict areas; a trustee of the Sigrid Rausing Trust; chair of the UK organization Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse; chair of the Audit Committee for the UK's Parliamentary Ombudsman; and he is on the board of the European Council for Foreign Relations.

Amy Robbins serves as the Executive Director of The Nduna Foundation, her family foundation, which focuses efforts and investments on improving the lives of children everywhere. In particular, the Foundation focuses on improving nutrition and food security, supporting those who work diligently to treat and eliminate pediatric HIV/AIDS in developing countries, on conservation and wildlife restoration efforts in the US and in Africa, and encouraging and empowering others to believe that improving this wonderful world is not only possible, but also that it is our privilege and responsibility to be able to do so. The Foundation provides advice and counsel, humanitarian aid and direct investment with select, chosen partners in its efforts.

Ms. Robbins, a dedicated philanthropist, businesswoman, and mother of four young sons, recently received Unicef’s Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award for her support and transformative leadership in countries such as Niger, Ethiopia, Sudan, including Darfur, and Somalia. Ms. Robbins has not only provided humanitarian aid, but has also co-invested with in-country business partners for local production of life-saving nutritional supplements. Additionally, Ms. Robbins co-founded the Mercury Fund for Emergency Response to provide Unicef with a readily accessible pool of dedicated resources in the critical early stages of humanitarian crises and emergencies.

Ms. Robbins was a Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Glenview Capital Management, an $8 billion New York-based, multi-strategy hedge fund until 2004. Prior to forming Glenview, Ms. Robbins spent 8 years with First Chicago/Bank One in Corporate Banking in their Chicago, New York and Hong Kong offices.

Ms. Robbins serves on the Boards of Directors for the USFund for Unicef, The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Millenium Promise, KIPP Academy Charter Schools, The Allen-Stevenson School, and Teach for All. Ms. Robbins is actively involved with The Elders, the Robin Hood Foundation, The Acumen Fund, International Medical Corps, The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Human Rights Watch, among others.

Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International, is an activist and social entrepreneur. A survivor of war herself, Ms. Salbi grew up in Iraq, and was sent to America for an arranged but ultimately abusive marriage in an attempt to save her from Saddam Hussein’s grasp. Stranded in America by the Gulf War, she escaped the marriage and started her life over. She co-founded the organization in 1993, at the age of 23, as a response to the trauma endured by women survivors of the Balkan wars. Women for Women International is dedicated to providing women who live in regions of conflict with the tools and resources they need to become self-sufficient, active citizens who can promote peace and stability. Women for Women International’s programs have helped 52,000 women and 140,000, and distributed more than $79 million in direct aid, micro credit loans, and other program services.

Ms. Salbi has been honored by former President Bill Clinton for her work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, named Time Magazine’s “Innovator of the Month” and received Forbes’ Trailblazer Award, amongst other awards. Ms. Salbi is the author of “Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam,” an account of life within Iraq’s elite society and the hold that Hussein had over her family.