Eijk Van Otterloo, Chairman
Mr. Van Otterloo became majority shareholder and chairman of the Board for Chemonics in 2006. He led the company’s efforts to become 100 percent employee-owned in 2011. Mr. Van Otterloo is a founding member of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Company (GMO), an investment management company based in Boston. He also supports local and international organizations in education, medicine, and the arts through his service on the boards of the YMCA, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Science Museum, and the United World Colleges. Before GMO’s founding in 1977, he managed investments at Phoenix Mutual Life Investment Company and Keystone Custodian Funds. Mr. Van Otterloo studied economics at Amsterdam Municipal University (Netherlands) and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ronald J. Gilbert, Vice-Chair
Mr. Gilbert is cofounder and President of ESOP Services, Inc., an international consulting firm specializing in all aspects of Employee Stock Ownership Plan applications and ESOP privatization for private and public companies and government-owned entities bringing an important perspective to Chemonics’ transition to full employee ownership. He currently serves on the board of directors of The National Center for Employee Ownership, The ESOP Association’s Legislative and Regulatory Advisory Committee, and the board of directors of four ESOP companies. Mr. Gilbert is co-author and co-editor of Employee Stock Ownership Plans: ESOP Planning, Financing, Implementation, Law and Taxation, the most comprehensive work on the subject, as well as author for numerous other ESOP articles. Mr. Gilbert holds a bachelor’s degree from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and a Master of Financial Services from The American College.
Susanna Mudge, President and CEO
Since joining the firm in 1992, Ms. Mudge has focused on strategic private sector development and sustainable natural resource management. After seven years of service as senior vice president to the firm’s Latin America and Caribbean Division, she was promoted to executive vice president in June 2005. Ms. Mudge sees quality project management as "inextricably linked to business success because that is what differentiates us and makes us competitive." Raised in Latin America, she began her career as a regional development and tourism specialist for the Organization of American States, then consulted on marketing and investment projects in Latin America and elsewhere.
Eric Howell, Chief Financial Officer
As chief financial officer, Mr. Howell is responsible for corporate financial planning and management. He joined Chemonics in 2005 as a director in the Europe and Eurasia region, overseeing projects in Kosovo, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Prior to working for Chemonics, Mr. Howell served as chief of party for a land privatization project in Ukraine and a privatization project in Belarus, and worked as an investment banker for Salomon Smith Barney in New York and Hong Kong.
Fernando Bertoli, Board Member
Mr. Bertoli first joined Chemonics in 1982 as an information systems specialist in the Basic Village Services Project based in Cairo, Egypt. Following his work as the senior technical specialist in the home office, Mr. Bertoli served as chief of party on various USAID economic development activities for the past 17 years. He has extensive leadership experience in Egypt, Honduras, and South Africa through numerous Chemonics projects. Mr. Bertoli served as chief of party to the Economic Policy Reform and Competitiveness in Mongolia, a project which provides advice on trade, financial, and economic policy. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in Sociology and speaks Spanish, English, Arabic, and French. With more than 28 years of experience in international development, Mr. Bertoli offers extensive experience and insight to the field.
Martha Verrill Schlager, Board Member
Ms. Schlager, a board member since 2007, founded MVSA, LLC, a management consulting/executive search firm. A former senior executive with A.T. Kearney and Korn/Ferry International, Ms. Schlager's practice is focused in higher education. Ms. Schlager has lead executive management projects for leading colleges and universities and business schools nationally and internationally. Clients include Harvard University, University of Virginia, University of Michigan, El Zamorano, Escuela Agricola Panamericana (Honduras), London Business School (UK), University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management, among others. Ms. Schlager brings an outside perspective to the board also having served as a founding member of the Board of Georgetown University Hospital Department of Pediatrics and recently as Vice President of Service Learning at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C.
Annika Sweetland, Board Member
Dr. Annika Sweetland currently serves as a Global Mental Health Research Fellow at Columbia University School of Medicine. In addition to several published academic works, Dr. Sweetland has extensive technical knowledge and experience in health around the world including in Nigeria, Haiti, and Peru. Her previous work with the World Health Organization, Partners in Health, and her work with higher education institutions greatly contributes to her valuable perspective on the board. Dr. Sweetland received a Doctor of Public Health degree from Columbia University in 2010 and is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Barbara C. Teele, Board Member
Barbara C. Teele was married to the late Thurston F. Teele, Chemonics' founder, and has been with the company for 27 years. An educator by profession, her experience also includes working for one of the national political parties and serving as director of a public affairs program for the American College of Nuclear Physicians. Over the last 15 years, she traveled to many countries as a representative of Chemonics and hosted many social events for visiting international dignitaries in the United States.
Rose-Marie Van Otterloo, Board Member
Rose-Marie Van Otterloo is an investor and a philanthropist. Trained as a social worker, she currently serves as president of the Van Otterloo Family Foundation, which she and her husband, Eijk, founded in 1997 to support community, education, and arts groups, particularly those that help urban, disadvantaged, or developmentally disabled youth. Mrs. Van Otterloo serves as a senior associate at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and is vice president of the board of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. She is also on the board of the Holderness School in New Hampshire and the Guadalupe Center in Florida. She joined Chemonics’ board of directors in 2008.
Dov S. Zakheim, Board Member
The Honorable Dov S. Zakheim is a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Senior Fellow at the CNA Corporation. The former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense (DoD), Dr. Zakheim developed and managed Departments budgets, negotiated five major defense agreements with U.S. allies and partners, and served as a principle advisor to the Secretary of Defense. He also served as the DoD’s coordinator of civilian programs in Afghanistan. Dr. Zakheim is currently serving as the Vice Chairman of both the Center for the National Interest and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, as well as being a board member of Search for Common Ground. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Chatham House/The Royal Institute of International Affairs and a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences. Dr. Zakheim holds a doctorate in economics and politics from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, where he held three graduate and post-graduate fellowships.