Welcoming Acumen Fund’s Summer Associates

Today, Acumen Fund welcomes a new class of fifteen Summer Associates – undergraduate and graduate students who will spend their summers working closely with our team. These associates bring a wealth of real-world and academic experience to bear on our work, and we’re very pleased to have them with us. Some will spend the summer in our New York office; others will be based out of our offices in Nairobi, Karachi and Hyderabad.

These Associates – much like our Fellows – represent Acumen Fund’s commitment to building talent in the social sector. Not only will we benefit immensely from the Summer Associates’ work, but we hope they will leave us in 11 weeks with a better understanding of the role of business in driving social change.

By way of introducing them to our broader community, here are short bios for the 2008 class of Acumen Fund Summer Associates:

Akash Akash - Summer Associate - India
Akash currently is a program manager at a private cleantech incubator firm, where he has managed a range of projects. Akash has nine patents pending, three of which are in the clean technology/environmental area. He has also worked at University Venture Fund, where he conducted due diligence and made investment recommendations on a wide range of energy/environment related investments ranging from solar and ocean energy to green building materials. Akash has a B. Tech. (IIT Bombay, India), MS (Penn State) and MBA (Univ. of Utah, 2008). He is interested in poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability using innovative socio-techno-business practices and by forging key alliances & partnerships.

Ali Anwerzada - Summer Associate – New York
Ali is pursuing Masters in Public Policy degree from Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He is interested in exploring ways to provide credit to underprivileged members of the society through social entrepreneurship. Prior to his graduate studies, Ali worked for Dubai Islamic Bank and ABN AMRO (Pakistan) in the capacity of Relationship Manager for Corporate and Investment Banking. Last summer, Ali worked with Acumen Fund’s Pakistan Office as a summer intern for the housing portfolio. Ali graduated from Lahore University of Management Sciences, where he did his undergraduate work in Computer Sciences and completed a MBA in General Management.

Emily Friedberg - Summer Associate – Uganda
Emily Friedberg is pursuing her MBA at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan focusing on business in emerging markets and innovative private sector approaches for serving the bottom of the pyramid. Before coming to business school, Emily worked for Chemonics International, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development on business development and poverty alleviation programs in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Prior to Chemonics, Emily lived and worked in Tanzania, East Africa first, teaching primary school, and then as a consultant with TechnoServe Tanzania, developing grant proposals for their coffee program. Since coming to Ross, she has been involved the Net Impact club and was recently elected co-president of the Emerging Markets Club. She participated in an independent project with GE Healthcare to launch a product in rural India and most recently completed a team consulting project with Microsoft India. She holds a BA in English Literature and Art History from Middlebury College.

Sajjad Haider – Summer Associate – Pakistan

Nina Henning - Summer Associate – New York
Nina is a dual-degree student at the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, earning an MBA from the Ross School of Business and an MS from the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Her primary interest is in creating sustainable, private-sector business models for poverty alleviation in developing countries. Nina spent the summer of 2007 in Hyderabad, India, designing and implementing an impact assessment study for the Scojo Foundation. Prior to graduate school, Nina spent five years in Kathmandu, Nepal managing Wild Earth, a herbal body care company with a mission to support women’s economic development and the sustainable harvesting of Himalayan herbs. Nina earned her BA in History from Princeton University.

Amy Lin - Summer Associate – Kenya
Amy is pursuing an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MA in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she worked at the World Bank in its Development Marketplace group, which awards grants for innovative projects that meet development needs. Prior to the World Bank, Amy advised microentrepreneurs on expansion strategies as part of TechnoServe’s team in Peru. Before moving to Peru, she worked with the strategy consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in the financial services, consumer goods, and pharmaceutical industries. Amy holds a BA with Distinction in Political Science from Yale University.

Anusha Mehar – Summer Associate – New York
Anusha Mehar is a second year student at The College of Mount Saint Vincent, interested in international relations, English, and history. Before enrolling at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Anusha was a volunteer English teacher to young children in Thailand. She is currently studying abroad in Chile, where she is conducting independent research on indigenous migration and participating in a community service project with a toma de terreno. Anusha is Mount Saint Vincent’s first Jeannette K. Watson Fellow. For her first Watson summer, Anusha worked at the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience. She is working at the Acumen Fund for her second.

Theresa Newhard - Summer Associate – New York
Theresa is an MPA candidate at NYU Wagner School of Public Service and a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Theresa is dedicated to building capacity in the social entrepreneurship field and promoting civic leadership across sectors. Most recently, her professional efforts in these areas have focused on expanding communications and technology projects through integrated marketing strategies, citizen journalism and interactive media. Theresa spent the past nine months on the communications team at Coro New York Leadership Center. Prior to that, she worked as an editor and producer at the WashingtonPost.com, and as a program manager at Princeton Project 55. She received her BA in Comparative Humanities and Spanish at Bucknell University in 2004.

Albert Norweb - Summer Associate – New York
Albert Norweb is a dual-degree student at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School focusing on private-sector methods to economic development. Before his graduate studies, Albert worked for Marakon Associates, a management consultancy, and did strategy development in industries including pharma, healthcare distribution, energy, industrials, and aerospace. He also served as a Volunteer Consultant for TechnoServe, Inc., in Honduras where he worked to develop and implement a competitive strategy for the Honduran cocoa sector. Prior to that, Albert worked for a media education start-up in Knoxville, TN. He graduated from Duke University where he studied economics and public policy.

Priya Pandya - Summer Associate – Pakistan
Priya is pursuing her MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University and is specializing in Finance and Strategy. She is interested in working on innovative and sustainable health-related investments in the developing world. Priya will be spending seven weeks in Malawi, Niger and Ethiopia working with the Clinton Foundation HIV/Aids Initiative before arriving in Karachi. In Africa she will analyze the supply chains of local producers of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), an innovative nutrient-dense product used to treat malnutrition. At Stern, Priya serves as the Vice President of Marketing of the Entrepreneur’s Exchange and a Career Development Committee member of the Social Enterprise Association. Prior to business school Priya worked in economic development at the World Bank, management consulting at the Corporate Executive Board, and also founded a cultural dance company, Dhoonya Dance LLC. Priya received her B.S in Foreign Service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Shaila Parikh - Summer Associate – India
Shaila Parikh is currently a Master of International Affairs candidate at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to returning to graduate school Shaila spent a year implementing grassroots development projects in an urban slum in India. Among her projects, she initiated the launch of a community based micro-social enterprise to promote the adoption of smokeless cooking stoves. Before her time in India, Shaila worked as a consultant for Bain & Company in Los Angeles and as a hedge fund credit analyst for Bear Stearns in New York. She holds a BA in Business Economics and BS in Microbiology/Molecular Genetics from UCLA.

Janisha Sabnani - Summer Associate – New York
Janisha Sabnani is a third-year in the JD/MBA Program at NYU School of Law and the Stern School of Business. She is interested in integrating her legal and business education to pursue a career focused on social enterprise and international development. Janisha currently serves as Director of the JD/MBA Association and is a Teaching Fellow for the undergraduate course Law, Business & Society. Prior to attending law and business school, Janisha founded and directed a grassroots coalition working to prevent the expansion of a casino into an impoverished city in California’s East Bay and worked as a finance assistant for a presidential campaign. She holds a BA in Political Science and Mass Communication from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kajal Shah - Summer Associate – New York
Kajal’s interest is in international development and human rights law. Prior to coming to Brooklyn Law School, Kajal graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She worked for the Millenium Villages Project in Kenya where she and a team of graduate students designed a microfinance intervention to cross cut the existing interventions being conducted in the Millenium Village community in Sauri, Kenya. Kajal is interested in poverty alleviation and human rights advocacy, and feels that the legal system has the ability to provide a backbone of support for many different aspects of both fields.

Adil Syed – Summer Associate - Pakistan
Adil is currently a Financial Analyst in the Investment Management Division of the Goldman Sachs. He’s been working in San Francisco with one of the largest Private Wealth Management teams on the west coast to manage assets for various institutions, foundations and high net worth individuals. Prior to joining the team in 2006 Adil worked in the Fixed Income Research Division of Barclay’s Global Investors, focused on high yield credit analysis. Adil graduated from the University of California Berkeley where he received his B.A. in Economics.

Gautam Tambay – Summer Associate - India