The Amani Institute

Joe Joseph is currently a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Putnam Investment Management where is he responsible for managing a team that runs mutual fund and institutional portfolios investing in both US and non-US stocks. Joe joined Putnam in 1994 in the Equity Research department as an analyst. He was the Associate Director of Research at Putnam's Boston, London and Tokyo offices. He has been in his current position since 1998. Prior to joining Putnam, Joe was a co-founder of Vert Independent Capital Research. Before starting Vert, Joe was a Manager at Price Waterhouse in their private equity valuation group for four years and in the Audit group for three years. He has an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. He is also a CPA and a Chartered Accountant.

Ed is a native Philadelphian who received his B.S. in Accounting from Saint Joseph's University in 1983. He currently serves as the Vice President for Finance & Administration at Davidson College where he has been employed for the past 21 years (he served as Controller and Director of Business Services from 1990 until 2010). He also served as President of Davidson College Development Corporation from 1997-2008. Prior to Davidson, Ed worked for the audit practice of Coopers & Lybrand for 6 years. Ed is currently a member of the Small Institutions Council of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Ed’s past community service roles have included Chairman of the Board of the Metrolina AIDS Project, President of the Rotary Club of North Mecklenburg, Vice President for Education of the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce, and membership on the Education Futures Commission (appointed by the Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners). Ed is married to Donna Kania, and they have one daughter, Kristina, a doctoral student in clinical child psychology.

As Community Director, Erin fosters the strategic development and growth of the Ashoka U community of practice with the goal of supporting colleges and universities everywhere to become hubs of social innovation. Before coming to Ashoka in 2008 to help launch Ashoka U, Erin served as Program Director for Escuela Nueva International, coordinating collaborative partnerships for the global expansion of Escuela Nueva. Prior to Escuela Nueva, Erin evaluated program effectiveness for MobileMetrix, a community-based data collection company in Brazil, and as an Eben Tisdale Fellow, contributed to Hewlett Packard’s Global Citizenship Program. During her undergraduate and graduate studies, Erin participated as a contributing author and researcher for the Stanford Study of Writing, a five-year longitudinal study of college writers. Erin holds a BA in International Relations and an MA in International Educational Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University.

K.C. Soares is a Senior Consultant in organization development and institution building, leadership, and human capacity building. She worked for over 18 years in the Organization of American States and was the head of their Center for Training and Development. Subsequently, she started her consultancy practice and works on large macro systems change and development at national and regional levels, working in areas ranging from information technology to disaster management, and from microfinance to human capital systems development. K. C. serves on several Boards, among them – the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University; the OAS Staff Federal Credit Union; Partnership for Sustainable Peace; and was the founding President of the International Organization Development Association. K.C. holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Business from Cornell University; Scholar-in-Residence in Business, Vanderbilt University; and, an M.S., honors, in Education and a B.S. in Business, University of Southern California. She has worked in over 40 countries and been published in 11 countries.

Ehsan is an attorney and consultant specializing in post-conflict and post-disaster rule of law, civil rights and national security issues. He has worked on legal and civil rights issues in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the South Asian earthquake, the earthquake in Haiti and most recently during the BP oil spill. His past clients include the American Bar Association, the American Red Cross, Ashoka and CDRS. After law school he co-founded the Los Angeles Mobile Legal Aid Clinic (LAMLAC), a self-sustaining mobile legal aid clinic focused on providing preventative legal aid to low-income communities in Southern California. Ehsan now serves at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington D.C. where he advises DHS and its components on the civil rights and civil liberties implications of existing and proposed Department policies, programs, and procedures.