Board of Directors

Christine W. Letts is the senior associate dean for Executive Education and the Rita E. Hauser Lecturer in the Practice of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has extensive experience in private, nonprofit, and public management. She joined the faculty of the Kennedy School in 1992 and teaches courses in nonprofit leadership and philanthropy to both degree and executive-education students.

Nicholas Burns is professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. He served in the United States Foreign Service for 27 years until his retirement in April 2008. He was under secretary of state for political affairs from 2005-08, the nation's highest-ranking career diplomat. In this position, he led negotiations on Iran, India, Kosovo and oversaw US diplomatic efforts in each region of the world. Prior to that, he was United States ambassador to NATO and ambassador to Greece. During his career in the State Department, he was State Department spokesperson for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher. He served at the White House during the collapse of the Soviet Union, where he was special assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs, as well as a member of the National Security Council staff. He also served as the American consulate general in Jerusalem and at the American embassies in Egypt and Mauritania. He has received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award, the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Johns Hopkins University, and the Boston College Alumni Achievement Award.

Stephen W. Carr is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School. He is a retired partner of the law firm of Goodwin Procter, where he was an attorney for 35 years and served on the executive and management committees. He currently is a director or trustee of various publicly held and nonprofit organizations.

Alan Detheridge is associate director of The Partnering Initiative, a global program of the International Business Leaders Forum in association with Cambridge University. Before joining the Initiative, he spent 30 years with the Royal Dutch Shell Group, retiring in April 2007 as vice president for external affairs. In addition to MSH, he is a member of the boards of the Synergos Institute, Africare, and the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help. He also serves on the advisory board of the Revenue Watch Institute.

Rebeca de Vives is president of RDV Consulting and was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. She studied business in the United States and started a career as an intern at Saks Fifth Ave, eventually becoming president of REVILLON, Inc., a French fashion apparel company with enterprises at Saks and Bloomingdales stores throughout the United States. She has served on the board of Accion International, a well-known microlending institution, with offices in the United States, Latin America, Africa, and India. She currently lectures on corporate social responsibility in Santiago's University of The Americas’ Business School and has participated in projects and roundtables on corporate leadership.

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Sue J. Goldie is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, director of the Program in Health Decision Science at the Harvard School of Public Health, and faculty director of Harvard Institute for Global Health. Trained as a physician, decision scientist, and public health researcher, she is best known for bringing together a wide variety of disciplinary approaches to address critical global health challenges. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Award, has published more than 100 original research papers, serves on several international committees that influence health policy, and has received numerous teaching and mentorship awards.

Peter Karoff is the founder and chairman of The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), an organization that in its two decades of work has managed a billion dollars of philanthropic investment in a wide range of social issues on behalf of individuals, foundations, and corporations. He has been on the board of more than 30 nonprofit organizations and foundations, including Blackside Productions, as producer of the PBS series, "The Eyes on the Prize"; the Gerald and Henrietta Rauenhorst Foundation; the Robina Foundation; and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. Peter is the author of The World We Want—New Dimensions in Philanthropy and Social Change, (AltaMira Press: 2007). A graduate of Brandeis University and Columbia University, he received an honorary degree from Lesley University in 2002. He was made a fellow of the McDowell Colony in 1989 and in 2006 became a Purpose Prize Fellow. Peter teaches in the University of California-Santa Barbara Global and International Studies Program.

Ronald O’Connor is the founder of MSH. He was exposed to the health realities of rural Asia by an inspirational physician/Hiroshima survivor working in rural Nepal as a medical student in the 1960s. He realized that poor health prospects in the developing world emerged largely from basic problems that were resolvable with existing knowledge and local resources—if only well organized and applied. Despite growing international interest and resources for development at that time, existing institutions did not focus on the application of practical public health management knowledge and experience to the health problems of developing country institutions and communities. To fill this gap, he created MSH in 1971 in order to provide a platform for motivated individuals who were committed to helping countries use existing tools and knowledge to address their public health challenges.

Joyce Sackey-Acheampong is an associate professor in the Departments of Medicine and Public Health, and dean for Multicultural Affairs and Global Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is also cofounder of the Foundation for African Relief (FAR), a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that fosters collaboration between US academic medical centers and their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa to improve access to education and health care. FAR has contributed to the fight against HIV & AIDS in Africa by training African physicians in the forefront of providing care to people living with HIV & AIDS in Ghana, Sudan, and Botswana.

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James M. Stone is chair of the Plymouth Rock Companies. He holds BA, MA, and PhD degrees from Harvard University, where he also taught the economics of securities markets. Stone has been Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance, chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an advisor to governments in three developing countries, and a director of the Boston Globe. He currently serves as a director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Barbara Stowe is a consultant in the field of international philanthropy. Her clients include universities and organizations based in the United Kingdom, South Asia, and North America. With more than 30 years of fundraising experience in higher education and health care, her expertise includes institutional planning, campaign organization, and fundraising operations. She spent 25 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, serving for 12 years as vice president for resource development.

Deirdre Strachan has been a foundation executive and reproductive health specialist for 28 years. She has provided technical assistance to reproductive health programs in developing countries and managed programs and projects for MSH, Pathfinder International, and the PROFIT Project in Brazil. She has taught management courses on reproductive and community health at the Harvard School of Public Health and at INCAE Business School in Nicaragua.

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