Archives: Team

Cassie Landers has a Doctorate in Education, as well as a Master’s in Public Health, both from Harvard University. Since 1985, Dr. Landers has worked with UNICEF and other international agencies to promote policies and programs in support of young children and their families. She has provided technical assistance and support to child development programs in over 60 countries throughout Southern Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. A primary focus of her work has been the design and evaluation of integrated community-based programs to support parents and families. She has been a primary investigator of several multicounty school readiness initiatives for high-risk children. In collaboration with the Open Society Foundations, Dr. Landers has designed a MA in Early Childhood Development, BU-IED University, Bangladesh. She has been instrumental in the development of curriculum materials for BRAC’s Play Labs in collaboration with the Lego Foundation. Additional international activities include the development of child protection strategies for children in emergencies, and a program for mapping and assessing child protection systems. She is currently on the faculty in the Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and teaches courses in child development and global health.

Dr. Chen is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and International Coordinator of the global research-policy-action network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are employment, gender, and poverty with a focus on the working poor in the informal economy. Before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident experience in Bangladesh working with BRAC and in India, where she served as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh.

Marty received a PhD in South Asia Regional Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of numerous books including Bridging Perspectives: Labour, Informal Employment, and Poverty, The Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty, Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction, Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture, and Perpetual Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India. Dr. Chen was awarded a high civilian award, the Padma Shri, by the Government of India in April 2011 and a Friends of Bangladesh Liberation War award by the Government of Bangladesh in December 2012.

James A. Torrey founded The Torrey Funds in 1990. After investing in hedge funds since 1977, he established an investment business to identify and sometimes seed several of the most promising and compelling hedge fund managers in the world. In 1992, he formed the first exclusively international fund-of-funds in the U.S. with the same strategy of identifying and investing with hedge fund managers focused and largely domiciled abroad. The firm was built to well over $1.25 billion in assets.

In 2009, The Torrey Funds was merged in to Cadogan Management, a $4 billion fund-of-funds firm with offices in New York, Tokyo and London. After the completion of the merger, Jim became a senior advisor to Cadogan. In addition to his position at Cadogan, Jim has served on the Board of Directors of MicroVest, a unique micro-lending enterprise based in Bethesda, MD, since 2005. He has become increasingly involved in its capital development and strategic planning.

He also served on the board of the Milano Graduate School of Public Policy at the New School in New York City for several years. In 2010, Jim was appointed by President Obama to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the development agency of the U.S. Government. Mr. Torrey has three children and five grandchildren. He resides in Westport, CT.

Raymond C. Offenheiser leads the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development (NDIGD) in its mission to promote human development and dignity among people worldwide by overseeing and developing its academic, research, and public policy activities, as well as its strategy for long-term growth. Offenheiser also identifies and cultivates critical, strategic partnerships between NDIGD and companies, federal agencies, foundations, and private philanthropists. Additionally, he represents NDIGD at local, national, and international events.

Offenheiser serves on the University of Notre Dame faculty as Distinguished Professor of the Practice and teaches graduate and undergraduate students in the Keough School of Global Affairs, where he teaches a course on the Foundations of Sustainable Development. Offenheiser also serves on the Keough School’s Leadership Council. His research interests and areas of expertise include poverty alleviation, human rights, United States foreign policy, and international development. He has been a frequent commentator with U.S. and international media on these and other subjects and is available to analyze, provide context, and commentary through Notre Dame’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications.

Prior to joining Notre Dame in August 2017, Offenheiser was the president of Oxfam America – a Boston-based international relief and development agency and the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam International – for over 20 years. Under his leadership, the agency grew more than eightfold and repositioned itself in the U.S. as an influential voice on international development, human rights and governance, humanitarianism, and foreign assistance.

Prior to joining Oxfam America, Offenheiser represented the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh and the Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America. He has directed programs for the Inter-American Foundation in Brazil and Colombia, and he has worked for the Save the Children Federation in Mexico. At the 2012 G20 Summit, he was appointed by the Obama administration to represent civil society interests on the leadership council of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa.

Offenheiser has also served as honorary president of Wetlands International; he was a co-founder of the following organizations: ONE Campaign, the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, and the Food Policy Action Network. He has served on the advisory boards of the World Economic Forum, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute, the World Agricultural Forum, the Gates Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame, and Cornell University.

A 1971 graduate of Notre Dame, Offenheiser also holds a master’s degree in development sociology from Cornell University.

Ann is an independent consultant based in New York. Her areas of expertise include management, financial services, impact investing, and working with non-profit organizations.

Ann has worked with a range of organizations including Citibank, N.A., Women’s World Banking, BlueOrchard Finance, and Mastercard Foundation. She has traveled and worked in over twenty countries, and in the last eight years, her work took her to several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Her work in the last twenty years has focused on financial services for the poor. At Women’s World Banking her team worked with fifty microfinance institutions and banks to raise funding for their operations and growth. At BlueOrchard Finance her team invested in the debt of microfinance institutions and raised more than $120 million in a Latin American focused debt fund. Ann led several teams at Mastercard Foundation, which worked in financial inclusion, youth livelihoods and in thought leadership and innovation. During this time the Foundation significantly expanded its portfolio in financial inclusion and launched its first challenge fund, the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity. This fund seeks innovative financial solutions to address the needs of rural and smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ann graduated from Drew University with a B.A. in Economics and French Literature. She lives in Locust Valley, New York with her husband, Peter B. Colgrove, an attorney.

Barbara Lucas is a retired securities, commodities, and banking lawyer with more than 35 years of experience in law, business, and government. She currently provides consulting and litigation support services to financial services companies and law firms.

Prior to her consulting career, Ms. Lucas was a partner and chairperson of the banking department at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Before joining Cadwalader, she was General Counsel to what was then known as Citicorp’s Investment Bank. She also served as Chief Counsel to the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement and Director of its Office of Policy Review, as well as Special Counsel to the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.

In addition to her professional activities, Ms. Lucas is on the board of several organizations including Accion International, a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world. She also chairs WomensTrust, a Ghana-based NGO that empowers poor women and girls through education, health care and economic development. She also serves on the board of the Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center, a New York City-based settlement house.

Ms. Lucas received her undergraduate degree in English from Cornell University and her J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University. She lives in New York City with her husband, Richard Nesson.

Brigit Helms is a seasoned executive, bringing more than 30 years of leadership experience in pioneering innovative approaches to finance and other market-based solutions to poverty. Brigit now serves as the Executive Director for the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University, which has accelerated more than 1,000 social enterprises since 2003, leveraging its location in the heart of Silicon Valley and its Jesuit ambition to end poverty and protect the planet.

Prior to the Miller Center, Brigit was the Vice President for Technical Services at DAI Global, where she led a large team of technical experts in project design and implementation across 90 countries. Brigit’s career spans the public and private sectors, multinational organizations, and nonprofits. Additionally, Brigit has served as a mentor, angel investor, and founder of several startups. Brigit has lived and worked in more than 40 countries, speaks several languages, and still loves to travel. She holds a PhD in Development and Agriculture Economics from Stanford University and a Masters from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Lincoln C. Chen is President of the China Medical Board. Started in 1914, the Board was endowed by John D. Rockefeller as an independent American foundation to advance health in China and Asia by strengthening medical education, research, and policies.

Dr. Chen was the founding director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative (2001-2006), and in an earlier decade, the Taro Takemi Professor of International Health and Director of the University-wide Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (1987-1996). In 1997-2001, Dr. Chen served as Executive Vice-President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 1973-1987, he represented the Ford Foundation in India and Bangladesh. In 2008, Dr. Chen assumed the Chair of the Board of BRAC USA, having completed two terms as Chair of the Board of CARE/USA in 2007. He serves as Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee to the FXB Center on Health and Human Rights at Harvard. Dr. Chen also serves on the Board of the Social Science Research Council, the Institute of Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington), the Public Health Foundation of India, and the UN Fund for International Partnerships (counterpart to the UN Foundation). He was the Special Envoy of the WHO Director-General in Human Resources for Health (2004-2007), and the Founding Chair of the Global Health Workforce Alliance (2006-2008).

Dr. Chen is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He graduated from Princeton University (BA), Harvard Medical School (MD), and the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (MPH).

Dr. Richard A. Cash is a senior lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), where he has been a faculty member for over 40 years.

Presently, he has visiting faculty appointments at a number of schools of public health throughout the world including Public Health Foundation of India in Delhi and the James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University in Dhaka.

Richard has focused his work on infectious disease problems in the developing world and on ethical issues in international health research. He is credited with saving millions of lives as a co-developer and promoter of oral rehydration therapy to treat cholera and other diarrheal diseases. In this regard he is especially interested in scaling up effective yet simple interventions. Richard was a joint recipient of the 2006 Prince Mahidol Award for “exemplary contributions in the field of public health,” and in 2011, he received the Fries Prize for Improving Health.

James Carlson serves as an Adjunct Professor at the New York University School of Law, teaching Securities and Capital Markets Regulation since 1996. From 2009 – 2011, James also taught Derivatives and Changing Regulation at the School of Law, and from 2010 – 2012, taught Microfinance and Access to Finance for the Global Poor as an Adjunct Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business.

James, who has been practicing law since 1981, currently is a member of the law firm Mayer Brown, LLP, where he has been a partner since 1998. From 1997 – 2004, he was the Partner-in-Charge of the firm’s New York office, and also served as the firm’s Global Practice Leader from 2004 – 2008. He brings extensive knowledge in corporate and financial strategies and is a highly regarded member of both the legal and business communities. James also serves on the Board of Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., where he is the Chairman of the Compensation Committee and a member of the Audit Committee.