Board of Directors
Pursuant to Article I, Section 1.1, et seq., of the By-Laws of Network 20/20, Inc., adopted on September 29, 2004, the Board of Directors is as follows:
Anne H. Mai, Chair
Kemal Askar
George Billard
Mary S. Cross
Seth M. Ginns
Patricia S. Huntington, President and Founder
Anne E. Impellizzeri
Geraldine S. Kunstadter
Omeed Malik
Sylvia L. Rodman
Lena Sene
Dennis P. Sheahan
M. Sava B. Thomas
Advisory Council
Rachel Bronson
Sydney M. Cone III
Lee Cullum
Ambassador April H. Foley
Rita Hauser
Bernard A. Haykel
Colonel Paul D. Hughes
The Honorable Andrew Jacovides
Priscilla Lewis
Wm. Shaw McDermott
Riordan J.A. Roett
H. Onno Ruding
Arthur B. Sculley
Frances Fragos Townsend
Founding Chairman
Geraldine Kunstadter
Kemal Askar is a charter member of Network 20/20 and a long-time supporter of the organization. Raised in the U.S. and Turkey, Kemal Askar attended the preparatory school Robert College in Istanbul, where he was awarded the Herbert Lane Award, the Armine Sukur Science Award, and the International Scholar Award. Following high school, he went to Princeton University, where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering summa cum laude in 1998, with certificates in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Engineering and Management Systems, and Public Policy.
After graduation, Kemal Askar joined J.P. Morgan Chase to pursue his interest in applying quantitative reasoning to complex markets. He is now Managing Director and Head of USD Swaps, Government and Agency Bond Trading. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Operations Research and Financial Engineering Department at Princeton University and on the Board of Robert College.
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George Billard is a founding member of Network 20/20’s Entrepreneurial Diplomacy Program. He is a film maker based in New York City and president of Do Diligence, a film production company with productions in more than 30 countries, including Mongolia, Japan, Peru, French Polynesia, Australia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and Chile’s Easter Island. He also produced and directed The Well-Seasoned Traveler for the A&E television network. He has created a library of motion picture imagery that is distributed internationally through Getty Images.
George Billard has a B.A. in broadcast and film from Boston University, and in 2005 he earned an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
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A photographer and writer, Mary Cross was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1936. A student of philosophy and literature at Sorbonne University in Paris and portrait photography under Philippe Halsman, she graduated from Hollins College with a BA in history and politics.
An avid traveler, an intense observer, and an imaginative photographer, Mary Cross has visited Vietnam, China and Burma at length and spent a substantial amount of time in Egypt. She has authored and photographically illustrated many praised articles and books, including Behind the Great Wall (1979); Egypt (1991); Morocco: Sahara to the Sea (1995); and Vietnam: Spirits of the Earth (2001). She has had numerous solo exhibitions of her photographs at Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Meridian House in Washington, D.C. and the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. Over the last 18 years, her works have been shown many times at the Bernstein Gallery, and in 2009 her works were exhibited at Koç University in Istanbul. She has recently become deeply interested in Turkey.
Mary Cross has strong academic and institutional credentials. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the American University in Cairo, the American School of Tangier, and the Near East Foundation and sits on the advisory councils of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, and the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University.
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Seth Ginns is a Managing Director at Jennison Associates, an investment management firm. Prior to his current position, he was a financial analyst in the health care investment banking group at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he worked with life sciences and healthcare services companies. In addition to this board he serves on the International Advisory Council of the International Crisis Group and is a member of the Carnegie Hall Notables Board.
Seth Ginns received a B.A. in mathematics and South Asia regional studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks French and Hindi.
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Patricia S. Huntington
President and Founder, Network 20/20
For more than 20 years, Dr. Huntington advised grant makers in foreign policy, international affairs and development programs, and strategic philanthropy. Her clients included American Express, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State. She has traveled extensively and worked on six continents.
In 2004, Dr. Huntington founded Network 20/20 to engage next generation leaders in the U.S. in entrepreneurial diplomacy in countries of global security importance. Believing in the importance of on-the-ground experience overseas, she organized Network 20/20 field visits to Turkey, Poland, Iran, and Pakistan. Co-author of Talking Turkey: A Private Perspective on Public Diplomacy; Reframing Iran: Views from the Field; and A Different Kind of Partner: A Paradigm for Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in Pakistan, reports that have been widely distributed at home and abroad, Dr. Huntington is a frequent participant in policy briefings and foreign policy roundtables.
Prior to Network 20/20, Dr. Huntington directed a Rockefeller Foundation field research project in eleven countries on four continents. She reported the results in a position paper, “Landmines and U.S. Leadership: A View from the Field.” She also created an educational CD-ROM on global humanitarian mine clearance titled, “Landmines: Clearing the Way,” that has been disseminated widely throughout the world.
Dr. Huntington is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Women in International Security, and the Foreign Policy Association’s Off-the-Record Lecture Series. She is a member of the Board of the Fund for Peace and sits on the Advisory Board of New York Law School’s Center for International Law. She earned a Summa Cum Laude for her Smith College undergraduate work on British Imperialism in Southern Africa, an M.A. in African History from UCLA, and an Ed.D. from Rutgers University.
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Anne Impellizzeri has wide-ranging experience in both business and nonprofit organizations. After starting her career in teaching, she spent 20 years at Metropolitan Life, rising to Vice-President in charge of Corporate Social Responsibility. She then worked at the New York City Partnership and went on to head two nonprofit organizations–in mental health at the Blanton-Peale Institute and in historic preservation at Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center. In addition, she has served on a number of boards, including Smith College, Nuveen Mutual Funds, Scenic Hudson (Treasurer, Secretary), the Bard Music Festival, the Women’s City Club of New York (Vice-President), the Howland Chamber Music Circle, the Village of Cold Spring Special Board for a Comprehensive Plan (Vice Chair), the American Association for Gifted Children (Chair), and the Lakeland School Board (President). A graduate of Smith (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa junior year), she has a Master of Arts in Teaching from Yale. She is Co-Chairman of Network 20/20′s Speakers Committee.
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Geraldine Kunstadter is the Chairman of Network 20/20’s Board of Directors. She is the Chairman and a Director of the Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation, a private foundation actively engaged in both domestic and international projects and programs. She brings to this foundation a background in languages, international affairs, and many years of public service. In her work with the Foundation, she has spearheaded the funding of programs in Central America, Southern Africa, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
Geraldine Kunstadter serves on the Boards of Directors of the Yale-China Association, Institute of World Affairs (Chairman), Bridge to Asia Foundation (Chairman), Friends of the New York City Commission for the UN, Consular Corps and International Businesses, Inc. (President), The Atlantic Council of the United States, International Development Enterprises, and National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, among others. She is Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange and also serves on the Advisory Council for the East Asian Studies Program of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Geraldine Kunstadter studied Electrical and General Engineering at MIT. She has studied in London, Paris, and Florence, speaks French and Italian and is studying Chinese.
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Anne Mai was elected to Network 20/20’s Board of Directors in 2007. She is a trained social worker and has worked on issues of child care, family planning and mental health. She sits on the Board of Directors of Fountain House, which provides services for people with severe and persistent mental illness, and also advocates on their behalf. She is also a member of National Public Radio’s Foundation Board.
Anne is married to Vincent Mai, Chairman of AEA Investors. Their philanthropic interests are diverse, though many of the organizations they support and work with use education, defined very broadly, as a tool to benefit society; this includes building bridges across divides within society, helping overcome discrimination and promoting reconciliation. Their work is concentrated in South Africa, Vincent’s home country, and the United States. They continue to support “organizations and approaches that work, and make a difference.”
In 2011, Anne Mai received Network 20/20′s inaugural Visionary Award in recognition of her unswerving and pacesetting commitment to the mission and goals of Network 20/20.
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Omeed Malik was elected to Network 20/20’s Board of Directors in 2011. Omeed Malik is an experienced financial services professional and securities attorney. Currently, he is a Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Omeed was a Vice President at MF Global where he helped reorganize the firm’s distribution platform globally and developed prime brokerage relationships with institutional clients. Prior to joining MF Global, Omeed was a corporate lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP working on transactional matters in the capital markets, corporate governance, private equity and bankruptcy fields. Omeed has also worked in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
He holds a JD, with Honors, from Emory Law School and a BA in Philosophy and Political Science, Cum Laude, from Colgate University.
He also holds NASD/NFA Series 7, 63 and 3 licenses.
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Sylvia Rodman was elected to Network 20/20’s Board of Directors in 2011. Sylvia is a Chilean born writer. She is the Former Director of Programming for GALAVISION, a Spanish Cable Service and a Former Director of Advertising and Public Relations at SIN, the Spanish International Network. Sylvia is also a member of the Women’s International Forum and the Dramatists Guild. She is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
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Lena Sene is a founding member of Network 20/20 and Treasurer of its Board of Directors. She is currently Director at Deer Isle Capital, where she is responsible for business development. Previously, she was at Impact Capital Partners, an international alternative advisory firm focused on impact investing in emerging and frontier markets where she advised USAID on the placement of a $100 million climate change fund investing in small and medium size enterprises in emerging markets.
Before business school, Lena Sene was selected in 2006 as one of fourteen White House Fellows nationwide. Prior to that, she was an Investment Representative at Lehman Brothers, where she advised high net worth individuals on a full range of investment strategies. Before that, she was a Private Banker at the JPMorgan Private Bank, where she was selected as the sole recipient of the annual JPMorgan Chase Rising Star Award. She holds NASD Securities Licenses 7 and 63. She was elected a Board member of the UN Association of New York and appointed to the Bates College Board of Trustees, and is a member of the Economic Club of New York.
Born in the United States, Lena Sene has a B.A. from Bates College, an MBA from Harvard and a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was selected a Mort Zuckerman Fellow. She was raised in Senegal, Russia, and the Ukraine and is fluent in English, French, Russian, and Wolof.
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Dennis P. Sheahan was elected to Network 20/20’s Board of Directors in 2011. Dennis is a seasoned professional who has been an entrepreneur in the field of cellular phone technology for 20 years. In addition, he has worked as Vice President of Cushman & Wakefield and Vice President of First Chicago Corporation, representing the First National Bank of Chicago in the acquisition and management of its international real estate portfolio.
Dennis’s pro bono work and community involvement has been numerous. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cristo Rey New York High School as Chairman of the Facilities Committee. In the past, he volunteered as Chair of the Building and Properties Committee at YMCA of Greater New York, President of the Board of Directors at Children’s Cancer and Blood Foundation, President of the Board of Directors at Southampton Rose Society, and Chairman of the Stewardship Campaign at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church of Bridgehampton, NY.
Dennis earned a B.A. in economics from Marquette University in Milwaukee, a J.D. in Urban Planning & Law from St. Louis University Law School, and a certificate in Systems Dynamics from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
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A founding member of Network 20/20, Sava Thomas was elected to Network 20/20’s Board of Directors in 2007. She is a lawyer in Chile as well as the United States, where she received a Juris Doctor degree from Fordham University School of Law. She has broad-based experience in the corporate area in the United States, having been an associate at Curtis, Mallet, Prevost, Colt & Mosle, counsel in the International Legal Department of Warner Lambert Company, followed by work in the financial area at Citicorp Investment Bank and at Security Pacific National Bank, where she organized and directed the Legal Department for its Merchant Bank. Currently she teaches a course on U.S. Corporate Law in the graduate program of the Catholic University School of Law in Santiago, Chile. She is President of Friends of Catholic University in Chile, Inc., a U.S. foundation whose mission is to promote higher education in Chile by providing assistance to the Catholic University.
As a member of the Inter-American Bar Association, in 1992 she participated in the foundation of its Women’s Rights Committee and served as its President for over 10 years.
In addition, Sava Thomas is active in the Board of Directors of civic and cultural organizations in New York City, including the Omega Ensemble, the Spanish Repertory Theater and CIVITAS.