Speakers/Presenters representing the following organizations
will be participating in the conference:
 

Featured Presenters:

Judy Anderson

Judy Anderson is the U.S. Executive Director for HEAL Africa and has worked in the international development and aid field for more than 35 years. She currently splits her time between Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Monroe, Washington.

Mrs. Anderson began her career with a medical foundation in the former Zaire in 1971. She has worked with locally based NGOs, INGOs, governments, and foundations over the course of her career. Her work has primarily been focused in Africa with significant amounts of time spent in the Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has also worked in Haiti and Kyrgyzstan as a consultant for aid organizations. Mrs. Anderson offers a wealth of knowledge and experience in community based healthcare and conflict transformation and is committed to working alongside locally led organizations that equip people with skills and education.

Peter Bladin

Peter Bladin serves as the Executive Vice-President of Programs and Regions for the Grameen Foundation.  In this role, he oversees three Regional CEOs and the Vice-Presidents of Microfinance and Technology, presiding over projects based in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  In addition, Peter was the Founding Director of the Grameen Technology Center (GTC).   During his tenure as Director of GTC, he led the microfinance industry in driving relevant and appropriate technology innovation. The team he established continues to be leading experts in ICT for development and work closely with technology companies to create business models that benefit people living at the “base of the pyramid”. Peter was also a founding member of the MTN-Village Phone board, the first public-private partnership to extend telecommunications access to the rural poor. He is a frequent speaker at international telecommunication and microfinance conferences, and is an Executive Board Member of the International Telecommunications Union Connect the World initiative. Peter is also actively involved with various Seattle-based non-profits including Global Partnerships and Social Venture Partners. Peter has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden.

Kathleen Braden

Kathleen Braden is a Professor of Geography at Seattle Pacific University and an affiliate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. She is the main advocate and advisor for the newly launched Global Development Studies B.A. This undergraduate degree program combines a liberal arts perspective from Political Science and Geography with courses in Business, Economics, Global Health, and Theology. Students with vocational aspirations to engage in non-profit work to improve the well-being of people around the world have been attracted to the major.  Kathleen received her undergraduate degree in Russian from Boston University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Washington. A specialist on resource and economic geography of Russia, Kathleen has taught at SPU since 1982, received Fulbright grants to conduct research and lecture in Russia and Kazakhstan four times, and now serves on the review committee for Americans applying for Fulbrights to the former Soviet states.

Kate Cochran serves as Vice-President for External Relations for Unitus.  Kate joined Unitus in 2003 with 15 years of management experience in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. A member of the initial management team, she has led Unitus’s fundraising, finance, and operations functions and is a frequent spokeswoman. Prior to joining Unitus, Kate was COO for Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley. Kate holds a B.A. from Stanford and an M.B.A. from UCLA’s Anderson School, where she graduated as top human resources student in her class.

Bob Dickerson

After being born at Madigan Army Hospital, Bob Dickerson traveled extensively with his family until his dad retired from the Army in 1960 and the family moved to Lakewood, south of Tacoma.   He spent three years in Europe with the U. S. Army and then studied at the University of  Washington, graduating in 1971 Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta.  After having looked for employment as a teacher for two years, he entered Law School at UW, graduated in 1976 and began private practice in personal injury.

A turning point in his life came with a diagnosis in 1999 of Carcinoid Syndrome, a type of cancer with no cure, and a prognosis suggesting he would live between 1 and 20 years.  At that point he decided to stop work and spend his time volunteering full time.  He has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and Make-A-Wish Foundation, with programs concerning literacy and with a number of other programs with his church.  He has been a volunteer with national grassroots lobby RESULTS since 1989, gradually has dropped his other volunteer work, and now spends nearly full time as a volunteer for RESULTS.  He is passionately seeking to bring about an end to hunger around the world, and an end to the worst aspects of poverty.  In 2005 he was the recipient of the Thomas C. Wales Award for Passionate Citizenship.

Matt Flannery

David Mesenbring

David Mesenbring has lectured in over 100 North American cities; worked in 25 African countries; travelled widely in Europe and the Americas; and speaks Spanish, the native language of his wife, Maria.  A Lutheran, he is Pastor for Church in the World Ministries at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle.  He serves on the Board of Directors for Oikocredit USA, and has been financially invested in that ecumenical pioneer of microfinance for 21 years.     

Cheryl Sesnon

Cheryl Sesnon is the Executive Director of Washington Community Alliance for Self-Help (CASH). Washington CASH is a Seattle based microenterprise organization that provides the business training, supportive community and capital to help enterprising individuals with limited financial resources gain self-sufficiency through small business ownership.

Cheryl is passionately committed to empowering individuals to move out of poverty. From 1994 to 2000, Cheryl was the Executive Director of FareStart, a job training program serving homeless men and women. Following FareStart, she spent seven years as a consultant and trainer for nonprofits, working locally, nationally, and internationally. She received her Master's in Not For Profit Leadership from Seattle University and now serves as an adjunct professor teaching graduate level strategic planning for nonprofits and public organizations. Her favorite volunteer activity is working with Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH), where she teaches in orphanages throughout Central America. Cheryl fully understands the skills needed and the challenges faced by small business owners, having run her own cake decorating and catering business for six years.

Atul Tandon

Atul Tandon serves as Senior Vice-President for Donor Engagement for World Vision and as a board member for VisionFund International (World Vision’s microfinance subsidiary).  Atul describes his role as “connecting those who have much with those who don’t have much.”

 Before joining World Vision in 2000, Atul had a19-year career in the global financial services industry with Citigroup. He was on Citibank’s global leadership team and played a key role in expanding its global branch and consumer market networks.

But he was born to a different life. He grew up in India in a family with little means, and says he lived his first 21 years “pretty much on less than $1 a day.”

Atul leads World Vision’s efforts to engage individual donors, churches, corporations, foundations and community institutions. He also oversees major gifts; volunteer engagement and World Vision’s work serving the poor in major cities across America.

He speaks from the perspective of business, faith, a world of rich and poor, and the excitement of serving others. In his travels for World Vision, he has learned important lessons. He recalls sitting with a woman in Darfur who was raped and whose husband was killed, yet her prayer was that she find forgiveness and that her attackers would have love for others. “The tremendous pain she had, and yet she was able to show me so much more than anything else that I’ve seen in my life. This is what God’s grace, love and forgiveness is about.”

Atul received an MBA from the University of Delhi, India, and has taught at the University of San Francisco’s McLaren School of Business. He played an integral role in creating the Better Safer World campaign in 2004, which later joined with Bono’s DATA organization to launch the ONE campaign in the United States.

Jeff Van Duzer

Since August 2001, Jeff has served as Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific University   He also has an appointment as Professor of Business Law and Ethics in the School.  For the twenty years prior to his full-time association with SPU, Jeff practiced law in Seattle with Davis Wright Tremaine.  His practice emphasized finance and natural resources.  During that time he supplemented his practice with service as adjunct faculty at SPU and studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.  He writes and speaks frequently in both church and professional settings. Jeff is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University Law School.

Laurie Werner

Laurie Werner has worked at Agros International since June 2003, and currently serves as Director of Program. Her previous experience includes working with orphaned and abandoned children in Honduras and consulting for a microcredit program in El Salvador through Global Partnerships. Laurie has a Bachelors Degree from Whitworth College (1994) in Sociology and Religion, and attended graduate school at UW at the Evans School of Public Affairs. She graduated in 2002 with her Masters in Public Administration, emphasizing in nonprofit management and international development. In her spare time Laurie sits on the board of the Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship, and loves to spend time playing in the mountains surrounding the Seattle area.