Who We Are

Kamal Amakrane is an internationally recognized leader, diplomat, and scholar working at the intersection of climate action, sustainable development, forced displacement, and global cooperation. He is Managing Director of the Global Centre for Climate Mobility and Professor of International Relations at Columbia University.

Over more than two decades, Kamal has worked with governments, international institutions, and civil society to turn complex global challenges into practical solutions, with a particular focus on communities on the frontlines of climate change. As Climate Envoy and Political Director to successive Presidents of the UN General Assembly, he helped shape and advance landmark global agreements on sea-level rise, forced displacement, and climate mobility.

Kamal began his international career in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and subsequently held senior roles across the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations in Iraq, Myanmar, Côte d’Ivoire, and Darfur. Trained as an architect, he has combined systems thinking, diplomacy, and innovation to navigate complex challenges, build unlikely partnerships, and turn ambitious ideas into practical, lasting impact.

Cissé Cheikh Boide has served as the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania to the United States of America since March 2021. She is Mauritania’s first female ambassador to the United States and is also accredited to Mexico, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, with residence in Washington, D.C.

Ambassador Boide has built a career centered on sustainable tourism as a catalyst for development and intercultural dialogue, representing Mauritania abroad, advocating for national interests, and playing a key diplomatic role through her commitment to peace, stability, and international cooperation. She has served as Mauritania’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in Paris, as Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sports, and as Director of Tourism at the Ministry of Commerce, Handicrafts, and Tourism.

An advocate for women’s leadership, Ambassador Boide has led numerous initiatives to empower women in public service and civil society, and has actively promoted Mauritania’s participation in global forums on gender equality. In Washington, she has engaged with U.S. institutions, think tanks, and the African diplomatic corps to champion policies that foster women’s inclusion in governance and economic development. Selected as the 2025 Ambassador of the Year by the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, Ambassador Boide continues to play a key role in strengthening Mauritania’s bilateral and multilateral cooperation in areas such as education, energy, trade, culture, and security, notably through partnerships with U.S. institutions and international organizations IMF and World Bank.

She holds a postgraduate degree (DESS) in Strategic and Operational Management of Supply Logistics from the Institute of Industrial Management in Lille, France, and earned advanced degrees in management from the University of Lille, and a bachelor’s degree in Tourism, Administration, and Hotel Management from the International Institute of Tourism in Tanger, Morocco.

Jake Cusack is co-founder and Managing Partner of the CrossBoundary Group, a firm focused on bringing capital into underserved markets to drive sustainable growth and strong returns. The firm has over 20 offices globally on six continents. He co-leads the firm’s investment advisory business as well as its investment platforms.

Jake holds joint MPP and MBA degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. Jake has written on finance and international relations for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Prior to CrossBoundary, Jake served as a Marine Corps officer, receiving the Bronze Star for actions in Iraq.

Cindy Huang has over 20 years of experience leading humanitarian and global development efforts across government and non-profit sectors. She is currently a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) and the Migration Policy Institute, as well as a research professor at the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Previously, Cindy served as Director of Policy at USAID, where she led policy planning and strategic initiatives at the intersection of development and national security, and as Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. In her public service, she also led food security and conflict prevention initiatives at the State Department and oversaw major investments in agriculture, health, and education at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

In the nonprofit sector, Cindy served as Vice President of Strategic Outreach at Refugees International and as co-director of the program on migration and displacement at CGD. She began her career as a humanitarian responder with Doctors Without Borders.

Cindy received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, her MPA from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and her BA from Yale College.

Carol Koech is the Vice President for Africa at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, where she leads the Africa region on strategy, partnerships, and operations across the continent. She is responsible for driving the Alliance’s mission to accelerate the Just Energy Transition, expanding access to clean and affordable energy, and catalyzing economic opportunities for millions of people across Africa.

Carol brings over two decades of leadership experience in the energy, infrastructure, and consumer sectors. Prior to joining the Alliance in August 2025, she served as Strategy Director for Sustainability, Thought Leadership & International Operations at Schneider Electric, where she helped shape the company’s global sustainability agenda and advanced programs that expanded energy access to tens of millions of people worldwide.

Prior to that, Carol was the Country President for Schneider Electric East Africa, becoming the first Kenyan woman to lead a multinational energy company in the region. In that role, she oversaw strategic growth across multiple business lines, strengthened country partnerships, and scaled access-to-energy programs. Before Schneider Electric, she held senior roles at General Electric (GE), where she led regional sales and commercial expansion across Sub-Saharan Africa, and earlier spent five years with Unilever, where she built foundational expertise in operations and commercial functions.

Carol is also a passionate advocate for women in STEM and inclusive growth. She actively mentors young professionals through initiatives such as the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and Go Green City, and champions the empowerment of women and youth in Africa’s energy transition. She has also previously served in Schneider Electric’s Inclusion & Care Advisory Board and the French Chamber of Commerce-Kenya.

She holds a B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Nairobi, an MBA from Strathmore Business School, and is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Elvira Lefting is the co-founder of Finance in Motion, a global asset manager with $4.5 billion in assets focusing on climate, social, and nature impact strategies in over 40 lower and middle-income countries, and is recognized as a pioneer in blended finance that catalyzes private investment through public and philanthropic funding enhancements.

Her expertise in public-private partnerships and blended finance has been key in creating impact investment funds targeting decarbonization, sustainable practices, land use, and improved livelihoods, with a career dedicated to development finance and building an investable green and equitable financial asset class.

With decades of experience in emerging markets for both public and private sectors, she has overseen Finance in Motion’s global investment operations growth.

Elvira holds a Master’s of Arts in Slavic Studies from Heidelberg University in Germany.

Mohammed Naeem has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of advocacy and strategic communications, with a focus on advancing refugee representation and shaping more humane approaches to migration and humanitarian policy.

He is the Senior Director for Advocacy Strategy at Refugees International, where he leads the organization’s congressional engagement across humanitarian, displacement, and foreign policy issues. Before joining Refugees International, Mohammed held roles at the American Immigration Council and More in Common, where he helped build national campaigns, cross-sector partnerships, and audience research initiatives. He has played a leading role in advancing refugee-led advocacy nationally and globally, previously serving as inaugural Chair of the United States Refugee Advisory Board and Co-Chair of the UNHCR Refugee Advisory Group on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways.

Mohammed currently serves in advisory and board roles with the Ad Council, Pathways International, and Refugee Council USA. He holds a B.S. from Stony Brook University and is from Queens, New York.

Paul-Franklin Okomba is a software engineer at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, where he contributes to the development of large-scale cloud and identity systems. Earlier in his career, he interned at Meta, where he contributed to the Messenger web platform and its communication experiences.

Beyond his engineering career, Paul-Franklin is an entrepreneur and the founder of Kulture, a technology company focused on developing digital solutions for African markets. Through Kulture, he leads initiatives including INZO, a real estate and hospitality platform serving the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

His experience spans technology, entrepreneurship, product development, and the application of digital solutions to real-world challenges. He is particularly interested in how technology and innovation can support economic development, expand access to services, and create new opportunities in emerging markets.

Paul-Franklin holds a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering from Seattle University, and a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Jakob Øster is the Founder and Executive Director of Last Mile Climate. Last Mile Climate was founded to catalyze multistakeholder public-private partnerships for climate action, an approach called “Climate Action Partnerships.”

Under Jakob's leadership, Last Mile Climate has emerged as a new kind of NGO, with a unique focus on creating sustainable, impactful solutions at scale with and for impacted “last mile” communities.

Last Mile Climate currently works on three large-scale Climate Action Partnerships, including SOLCO, the Solar Electric Cooking partnership that seeks to raise a minimum of $100 million towards enabling at least 250,000 households to transition from biomass to solar-powered e-cooking by 2027.

Prior to founding Last Mile Climate, Jakob spent 10 years in UNHCR, where he instigated and led several partnerships with innovative organisations that have become flagship partnerships for UNHCR. Before that, he worked in the Confederation of Danish Industry.

Jakob holds a master’s degree in International Law, Economics and Management from Copenhagen University and Copenhagen Business School.

British A. Robinson is a recognized leader in international finance with executive experience in blended finance, impact investing, institutional capital mobilization, and foreign policy. She has held leadership roles at Citibank, the U.S. Department of State, and major nonprofits, where she structured large-scale public-private partnerships, mobilized institutional capital for high-impact initiatives, and created unique marketing campaigns to drive awareness.

Robinson currently serves as Chair, Africa, for Milken Institute International, where she spearheads the Institute’s portfolio of initiatives across the continent, working to drive further strategic engagement with African leaders, investors, and stakeholders.

Of all the causes Robinson has had the privilege of championing, she considers the opportunity to improve lives and livelihoods in Africa her greatest passion. To that end, she has spent decades cultivating innovative partnerships that create jobs, support businesses, and establish life-saving systems and infrastructure, bolstering economic prosperity and health outcomes across the continent.

A seasoned diplomat, she previously served as Deputy Assistant Administrator/Coordinator of Prosper Africa, where she worked across sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, development finance institutions, and private equity firms to unlock investment opportunities in Africa.

Robinson holds a master’s degree in government from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in public policy and business administration from George Washington University. She has received honorary doctorate degrees from American University and Fairfield University. She currently serves as a senior advisor for Concordia; on the boards of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Board of The Center for Development Finance Studies (CDFS), and Leadership Roundtable; and on the advisory board of Arlington Partners International.

Deeply committed to education and community development, Joseph Maloba Twite is President of the Complexe Scolaire Bellevue in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the largest private school systems in Africa, serving more than 4,000 students. He is also the National President of the Association of Statisticians of Congo.

He serves as a lecturer at the Institut Supérieur de Statistique de Lubumbashi, where he contributes to the education and development of future professionals in the field.

With extensive involvement in the private sector, international business, and the energy industry, Joseph is the Director General of United Petroleum SARLU, a leading company in the petroleum sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also serves as Chief Executive Officer of GALAZIO Energy, an offshore energy company based in Dubai, reflecting his strong engagement in global energy markets. His leadership extends to key industry roles, including President of the Professional Committee of Petroleum Operators for the southern region of the Federation of Enterprises of Congo (FEC) and Vice President of the National Hydrocarbons Commission within the same organization.

In addition to his corporate and international business activities, Joseph is a dedicated humanitarian, actively engaged in initiatives supporting displaced populations, orphans, and underserved communities. He has contributed to programs that provide educational opportunities, including scholarships for underprivileged students, reflecting his commitment to social impact and inclusive development.

Joseph holds a master’s degree in statistics, specializing in management mathematics from the University of Lubumbashi.

Betsy Williams is a social entrepreneur and philanthropist who believes investing in government, the people and institutions through a strong civil service, is the secret sauce to a country’s ability to deliver services to its people, scale innovation and ensure inclusive growth. She came to that view over two decades of work across Africa and Asia at the intersection of social development, foreign policy and global health, launching and supporting programs at USAID, JSI, Asia Society and Physicians for Human Rights.

In post-war Liberia, working in support of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's administration, she founded and launched the President’s Young Professionals Program in 2009 to help make sure the right people were in the right positions to bring about change. It has since grown into Emerging Public Leaders, working across Liberia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone, whose alumni now serve in senior government roles. Betsy’s philanthropy and investments also support inclusive economic growth, human rights, the arts, and opportunities for women, from public service to professional sports.