Robert Gertner

Robert Gertner

Robert H. Gertner has been on the Chicago Booth faculty since 1986. His research interests include strategic decision-making, corporate finance, organization structure, theory of the firm, and social enterprises. He has published papers in numerous scholarly journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and the Yale Law Journal. He is co-author, with colleagues Douglas Baird and Randy Picker, of Game Theory and the Law. Gertner teaches courses in strategic decision-making, entrepreneurial strategy, and social entrepreneurship.

Gertner received a National Science Foundation Research Grant and an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics, and was a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has held visiting positions at CEPREMAP in Paris, Cornell Law School, The University of Chicago Law School, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Gertner is also a trustee of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, a national organization devoted to large-scale social research in public interest. He is also a board member of the Interfaith Youth Core, a member of the Evaluation Advisory Council of the Chicago Public Education Fund, and the Faculty Council of the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion International.

Gertner received a B.A. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. He worked as a consultant for AT&T prior to attending MIT.

Sriram Gutta

Sriram Gutta

One of Upaya's co-founders, Sriram left his full-time role as Upaya's Director, Business Development in Summer 2013 to pursue a Masters Degree at Columbia University on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Before Upaya's creation, Sriram worked full-time with partners in the Sorenson / Unitus Ultra Poor Initiative providing support in areas such as project planning, business development, and program management. Prior to Unitus, Sriram was with MXV Consulting, a boutique strategy and operations consulting firm based out of Bangalore serving entrepreneurs across several industries including telecom, real estate, and entertainment with capability development, pricing strategy, market entry strategy, goal setting and performance management among others. Prior to MXV, Sriram co-founded Mobile Medics Healthcare – the world's first social venture aimed at creating a sustainable business that provided private sector, high quality, and affordable medical care to rural India with seed funding as winners of the Global Social Venture Competition from the Goldman Sachs Foundation.

Sriram is also a staff writer at NextBillion.net – a discussion forum on the role of enterprise and markets in addressing the needs of the world’s low-income consumers and producers. At NextBillion, Sriram profiles social businesses, interviews key social entrepreneurs and agents of change as well as reports on the pressing issues affecting the bottom of pyramid. Sriram completed his Masters in Management Studies from BITS, Pilani.

Bill Harrington

Board member since 2022

Bill Harrington

Board Member

Bill Harrington is the managing director of a non-profit investment vehicle, Vista Ventures Social Impact Fund, which mentors and provides initial investments to promising social impact start-ups in East Africa and India.  These companies are engaged in a wide variety of businesses from construction of fire-proof slum dwellings in Nairobi to cold storage facilities for smallholder farmers in rural India.  The goal is to provide the guidance and capital necessary for early-stage social entrepreneurs to qualify for their first round of commercial capital from angel and seed investors.  One of Vista Ventures’ social entrepreneurs was one of five winners of the 2022 Earthshot Prize which resulted in an award of £1 million.  

Bill’s prior experience includes over 20 social impact investments in the US, East Africa and  India.  He has been a consultant and investment advisor to early-stage companies which has included work with entrepreneurs in energy efficiency in the US as well as consulting with microfinance institutions, mostly on raising commercial capital.  The microfinance work included travel throughout Latin America, East and West Africa, Pakistan, India and the Philippines.  He sharpened his investing and portfolio management skills with advanced technology companies while serving as executive vice president of Ben Franklin Technology Partners.  

Bill has a master’s degree in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lafayette College.

Kusi Hornberger

Board member since 2019

Kusi Hornberger

Board Member

Kusi Hornberger is an Associate Partner in the Washington, DC office of Dalberg Advisors. Kusi co-leads Dalberg’s impact investing practice area and is particularly passionate about the use of innovative finance and technology to accelerate the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Kusi’s recent work includes various projects at the intersection of impact investing/blended finance and agriculture, global health and financial services sectors. For example, in the agriculture sector, Kusi led a financial benchmarking of social lenders providing loans to agricultural small and medium enterprises. In the health sector, Kusi created an estimate funding need for Community Health Workers globally. In the financial services sector, he developed case studies on how data analytics and partnerships can be used to improve the sustainability of financial services to smallholder farmers

Prior to joining Dalberg, Kusi was Vice-President of Investment Research at Global Partnerships, an impact-first investor with investments across Central/South America and East Africa. He also has experience working as a management consultant at Bain & Company in South America and as an Investment Officer with the International Finance Corporation.

Kusi holds a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD Business School in Singapore, a Master of Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karishma Kiri

Karishma Kiri

Karishma Kiri is a leading Real Estate agent in Washington State, specializing In both home purchases and sales since 2012. Karishma has ranked in the top 1% of agents in Washington State and has been recognized by the industry & peers for the quality and impact of her work.

Prior to entering real estate, Karishma had a strong career in Tech, first with Microsoft where, as a Director, she ran global product management teams, including helping to start the BRIC team, which was the group that created the Unlimited Potential set of programs and incubations. Karishma was responsible for Microsoft’s strategies for the Base-of-the-Pyramid market segment. Another program that Karishma created and launched, was called Project Shiksha. This program was launched by Bill Gates in India, which later became a worldwide program focused on building tech literacy for educators and learners within the education sector.

After Microsoft, Karishma co-built a digital marketing company with a very successful exit. Karishma has an immense passion for the social-entrepreneur space and supporting organizations focused on building businesses that create sustainable, economic impact.

Karishma’s recognitions include: 5-Star Professional five years in a row, Five Star Professional Market Leader in Real Estate (Forbes Magazine), 5-Star Premier Agent (Zillow), 100 Most Influential Real Estate Professionals in Washington (Real Estate Magazine), and many more.

Tanya Manon

Tanya Manon

Tanya Menon is Associate Professor of Management and Human Resources at the Ohio State Fisher College of Business. She studies how social networks, power/persuasion, and national culture affect people's everyday assumptions and their patterns of decision making. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, Management Science, and Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, among others. Her research has been featured in various media outlets including the The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Times of London, The Guardian, and The Times of India.

As Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Menon was the winner of the 2006 Faculty Excellence Award for exceptional commitment to teaching as voted by students in the Evening MBA and Weekend MBA programs, and the 2007 Phoenix Award, voted by the class of 2007 for enriching the experience of students inside and outside the classroom. She has also been a visiting professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School, the London Business School, Insead (France), and the Indian School of Business.

She has conducted executive programs all over the world, including the US Intelligence Community, Discover Financial Services, Citibank (India), Tetrapak (Italy), Aetna, McCormick, CareerBuilder.com, National Starch, Baker-Tilly, and the Environmental Protection Agency. She has been a keynote speaker at organizations including American Bar Association Chief Bar Executives, Women's Food Forum, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and the Deloitte Women’s Group.

Menon earned a Ph.D. in organizational behavior in 2000 from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where she was also the recipient of an American Marshall Memorial Fellowship, a Kauffman Foundation Grant for Research on Entrepreneurship, a Stanford Center for Conflict and Negotiation Fellowship, and was selected as one of Chicago’s emerging leaders by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Menon earned a B.A. in sociology from Harvard University in 1995.

Asawari Raorane Agrawal

Board member since 2017

Asawari Raorane Agrawal

Board Member

Asawari's passion for the fight against Global Poverty stems from her personal experiences growing up in Kenya, India and Oman.

She has worked at organizations like Kiva, where she was responsible for growing and managing Kiva's network of Microfinance partners in Asia, as well as Unitus, a Microfinance Accelerator. At Unitus she held a variety of roles including building a peer learning network between the various Unitus partner organizations, managing donor initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and expanding Unitus' Indian portfolio.

Prior to Unitus, Asawari worked at McKinsey & Company in New York and San Francisco. Asawari holds a B.S. in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Suzanne Skees

Suzanne Skees

Suzanne Skees is the director of the Skees Family Foundation, a California-based family foundation which supports innovative self-help programs in the U.S. and 37 developing countries. Suzanne studied English literature (Boston College) and world religions (Harvard Divinity School) but has learned more from the school of personal mistakes and quiet listening. Writing for online and print media, Skees shares stories of what can happen when students and survivors, entrepreneurs and families, receive tools they need to build a life of choice.