Dr. Martin J. Fisher, Board Chairman
Dr. Martin J. Fisher is the co-founder and executive director of KickStart, a non-profit organization that develops and markets technologies that are bought by entrepreneurs to kickstart profitable small businesses. Over 38,000 new businesses have been started using manually operated irrigation pumps, hay balers, and oil seed presses, generating over $37 million per year in new profits and wages. KickStart was founded in 1991 and employs over 80 staff in Kenya, Tanzania, and San Francisco. Martin and his partner, Nick Moon, are 2002 Schwab Social Entrepreneurs, and were named "European Heroes" by Time Magazine in 2003. ApproTEC International has won the Beacon Prize for Creative Giving, AGFUND International Prize for Development Projects, and the 2002 San Jose Tech Museum Award for Technologies Benefiting Humanity in the Accenture Economic Development category. Martin has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
M. Timothy Louis, Board Secretary and Treasurer
M. Timothy Louis is a financial consultant to the software and telecommunications industries. He is currently employed by Verizon Telecommunications, supporting its corporate sales group. Tim has over 15 years experience performing complex financial analysis in a number of settings. For 9 years, Tim worked in the litigation support arena, providing economic analysis and expert witness testimony on commercial litigation matters. Prior to that, Tim focused on the financial valuation of independent and alternative energy plants, and since then Tim has focused on determining and effectively communicating the economic impacts of certain technologies in various environments. Tim earned his MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and his BS in Finance from Miami University (OH). Tim makes his home in Marin County, California.
Paul VanderMarck
Paul VanderMarck is Chief Products Officer of Risk Management Solutions, the world's leading provider of products, services, and expertise for the quantification and management of catastrophe risk. In this role, Paul has overall responsibility for definition and execution of the firm’s product strategy. Since joining RMS in 1992, he has played a central role both in the development of RMS’ global catastrophe modeling capabilities as well as in advancing the state of practice for using modeling to manage catastrophe risk. In 2003, Paul was recognized by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute for his contributions to the field of earthquake risk mitigation and management with the Shah Family Innovation Award. Paul holds a BS in civil engineering and an MS in structural and earthquake engineering, both from Stanford University.
Bruno Walt
Bruno Walt, after a 30 year career in multinational Corporations (IBM, Roche, Hilti), where he has held various executive positions in Finance and General Management in North America, Asia and Europe, has founded in 2010 a management and investment consulting firm in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Today, he acts as a senior consultant to the Hilti Foundation and as an investment advisor to Switzerland based Venture Incubator AG, a CHF 100 million venture capital fund specializing in seed and start-up funding. In addition, his company is advising a variety of small and midsized corporations in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Germany in the field of business and investment strategies and selection of executives. Bruno Walt holds a business degree with a major in Finance and is an alumni of University of St.Gallen, Switzerland and INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France..
Anne Marie Burgoyne (ex-officio)
Anne Marie Burgoyne is the Portfolio Director for the Draper Richards Foundation. Before joining Draper Richards, Anne Marie was the Executive Director of United Cerebral Palsy of the Golden Gate where she undertook a successful financial and operational turn-around and program merger. Prior, Anne Marie was a Roberts Enterprise Development Fund Farber Fellow at Community Gatepath, a non-profit that provides services to children and adults with developmental disabilities. During her time with the agency, she doubled the capacity of the children's center and grew the agency's client-staffed business enterprises. Before entering the non-profit arena, Anne Marie was the Vice President of Service at Digital Impact, a publicly-traded email marketing company, and an Associate at Robertson Stephens, where she did investment banking with emerging market clients. Anne Marie received her Master of Business Administration and Public Management Program certificate from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and was selected by her peers as the recipient of the Ernest C. Arbuckle Award. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School, respectively.
The major driving force for Build Change's founder, Dr. Elizabeth Hausler Strand, is the repeated, avoidable loss of life during earthquakes in developing countries. Elizabeth is compelled by the failure of current approaches to permanently change construction practices, and motivated by the lack of opportunities for poor people to make money - if they had enough money, they could build a house that is earthquake resistant, as shown clearly by the low number of fatalities in recent earthquakes in the developed world. But we can’t afford to wait for economic development – people are dying today.