EcoE I Board of Directors
Stephen C. Howell, Chair, Board of Directors
Howell joined The Nature Conservancy in 1995 as Controller, and subsequently served as Director of Finance and Accounting, Vice President of Finance, and Chief Operations Officer. He currently holds the title of Chief Financial Officer. A CPA since 1982, Howell worked for the international accounting firms of Deloitte, Haskins and Sell, and Coopers & Lybrand prior to joining the Conservancy. He has served on a number of nonprofit Boards, and was a founding member of the Business Volunteers for the Arts program of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington. He was awarded one of the inaugural outstanding volunteer service awards for his efforts.
Frank Hicks, Board of Directors
Hicks, Vice President for Investment Opportunities at BioLogical Capital, has over 20 years of international development experience, with more than 15 years based in developing countries. Hicks leads the company’s investment strategy, including project evaluation and strategic partner relations. Prior to this position, he was the Director of Forest Trends’ Business Development Facility. Hicks has been Director for the Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Agricultural Program, Program Manager for TechnoServe’s Ghana office, Regional Representative for the Biodiversity Conservation Network, and a Program Officer with the Ford Foundation. Hicks has a public policy master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, with a focus on international development, and a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University.
Tara C. Kenney, Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Kenney, Portfolio Manager for Deutsche Asset Management, is currently head of institutional business development in Latin America. Prior to that, Kenney spent 13 years as a portfolio manager for Deutsche/Scudder’s Latin American equity portfolios, responsible for managing over $3 billion in assets. Kenney began her career in Latin America at Bankers Trust. In the 1980s, Kenney was instrumental in the debt restructuring for the bank’s exposure to Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and Peru. Prior to her career in commercial banking, she worked in microenterprise finance for the Inter-American Development Bank. Kenney received her MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Michael Murray, Board of Directors
Murray is a founding partner of New Millennium Partners, a venture capital fund that focuses on both early stage startup funds and late stage mezzanine deals. Prior to founding New Millennium Partners, Murray was the Managing Director of Brĝderbund Software’s Online Venture Fund and General Manager of their online business unit. Murray gained 12 years of significant general management experience at Pacific Bell in such areas as sales, strategy, engineering, product development, sales management, data communications, and broadband. Murray holds an Executive MBA from Tuck, Dartmouth’s Business School.
Tammy E. Newmark, Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Newmark has headed the fund management team for EcoEnterprises Fund since the launch in 2000. She also serves as President and Treasurer of Fondo EcoEmpresas, S.A. Before joining the Conservancy in 1998, Newmark led Technoserve, Inc.’s environmental business advisory services in Latin America and Africa. Prior to that, she was a founding officer and a vice president of the Environmental Enterprises Assistance Fund, the first nonprofit venture capital fund that specialized in renewable energy, clean technology, and green investments. She established investment advisory groups: Yayasan Bina Usaha Lingkungan and Preferred Energy Investments in Indonesia and the Philippines, respectively. She has also worked for the International Finance Corporation and J.P. Morgan Chase. Newmark has a MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Bradford Northrup, Board of Directors
Northrup, who has been with The Nature Conservancy since 1971, is currently the Deputy to the Chief Conservation Programs Officer. Previous titles he has held include Director of Conservation Strategies Group, Vice President and Director of the Conservancy’s Mid-Atlantic Division and Vice President and Director of International Conservation Support and Operations for the Conservancy’s Latin America and Caribbean Program. Prior to that, as Vice President of the Conservancy’s Eastern Region, he supervised land acquisition and stewardship activities regionally and initiated ten state conservation programs. As Vice President of the Conservancy’s Support Service Division, Northrup directed the organization’s finances, personnel program, data processing, and training and planning activities. He helped launch the Conservancy’s Caribbean Program and served as Director from 1989 to 1996.
Judy Oglethorpe, Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Oglethorpe is currently Managing Director, People and Conservation at World Wildlife Fund-US. Before that, she served as executive director of the Biodiversity Support Program, a collaborative five-year project of The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute that supported on-the-ground conservation projects integrating social and economic development, research and analysis, and information exchange and outreach. Oglethorpe has 20 years experience in wildlife and natural forest management, policy formulation, tourism development, environmental impact assessment, institutional development, and project evaluation.
Daniel Shepherd, Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Shepherd joined the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as an environmental specialist in February 1999. Before coming to the IDB, he was a member of the Climate Change Team of the World Bank, where he developed a renewable energy policy tool for less-developed countries that utilizes Global Environment Facility resources. Shepherd has held research positions at the Smithsonian Institution and the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. He received Masters degrees in Environmental Studies and International and Development Economics from Yale University.
Richard P. Schifter, Board of Directors
Schifter has been a managing partner of Texas Pacific Group since 1994, and of the venture capital fund Newbridge Latin America since its formation in 1996. Prior to joining Texas Pacific Group, Schifter was a partner at the law firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC, where he specialized in bankruptcy law and corporate restructuring. He joined Arnold & Porter in 1979 and was a partner from 1986 through 1994. Schifter is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Antonia E. Stolper, Board of Directors
Stolper is a partner with Shearman & Sterling, LLP, based in New York City. Her practice focuses primarily on corporate finance transactions in emerging markets. She has extensive registered public offering experience for foreign private issuers. Recently, her practice has focused on debt and equity securities offerings for Latin American issuers, representing both underwriters and issuers, and on restructuring transactions in Latin America, representing issuers, dealer managers, and creditors. In addition, she advises a number of foreign and domestic issuers on their ongoing SEC reporting requirements, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and corporate governance matters. Stolper received her BA from Yale University and her JD from New York University School of Law.
Maria Teresa Szauer, Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Szauer is currently the Director of Environment for Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the Andean regional development bank. She oversees the both the environmental and social programs of the institution. She has worked as a consultant on sustainable development issues and has done impact assessment for private, urban and infrastructure sector projects, as well as for international agencies such as the World Bank, UNDP and IDB. She helped draft and edit the environmental and human rights chapter of the preparatory phase of the 1991 Colombian Constitution. Szauer holds an MS from the University of London, where she studied nature conservation, natural resources and environmental planning, and natural resources management.
