"Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person." Mother Teresa

"Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person." Mother Teresa

Board of Directors

Harriet Buckman Stephenson, Ph.D., Founder and President

Harriet is a champion for social enterprise, the "Triple Bottom Line" and microenterprise in the Albers School of Business & Economics at Seattle University (SU). She uses her energies and Chair resources to globalize her microenterprise interests and integrate the WomensTrust partnership experiences and Women's Center-Ofankor model into SU curriculum and her life. She is particularly interest ed in scaling the model through her colleagues in colleges and universities nationally and internationally.

Sue Mackey, Vice-President

Sue Mackey, President of The Mackey Group (TMG), a firm that develops and publishes core competency, soft skill based training and assessment tools for the public and private sector. TMG has received international recognition for their work in the development of skill standards, both hard and soft skills. Mackey has also been a successful business columnist for fifteen years and has served on many boards throughout her career. Her passion for The Village Net and microlending in Third World countries is driven by her conviction that if we teach a man to fish, he/she will feed a village and through entrepreneurial success people will thrive and flourish one village at a time.

Michael P. Ervick, MBA, PMP

Mr. Ervick i s a consultant and lecturer in Business Process, Project Management , Cultural Change, Strategy and Policy. A seasoned business management professional, he has served a variety of industries. His clients have included At&T Wireless, Augat Communications, Boeing, Compaq, Costco, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Netlink Communications, Time Warner Cable and the United States Navy.

Dr. Steve Holland

Dr. Steve Holland served as Director of the Business Program at the University of Washington Bothell from 2002-09 and continues to serve as Professor of Business. He previously taught at the University of Kentucky, the University of Michigan, the University of Colorado, and Texas State University and served as Economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Previous administrative appointments include Vice President of the Economics Institute at the University of Colorado and Chair of the Department of Finance and Economics at Texas State University.

He has a long-standing interest in international education and economic development. He has led the development of educational programs for graduate students from Korea, Indonesia, and South Africa and taught through travel in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the former Soviet Union.

“I’m excited to join the Board of Directors of The Village Net and help in any way I can to support TVN’s mission of spurring grass-roots economic development in the heart of Africa. The stories of how TVN is changing the lives of women and their families in Kenya and Ghana are very inspiring. I believe that microfinance is helping to pave the road to prosperity for much of the world.”

Salar Salahshoor

Salar Salahshoor , Managing Partner at Turn Click, LLC, a digital marketing agency based in Seattle, is a serial entrepreneur and business consultant working with TVN to guide its communications and marketing strategies at home and abroad. Salar and his agency have worked with clients across many sectors to help them reach their company goals; from Amazon and Zillow.com to retailers and product companies, and now The Village Net! We're excited to have Salar join our Board and help build awareness about our programs and grow our base of supporters.

"Joining the Board of Directors of The Village Net is an amazing opportunity to apply my passion for entrepreneurship to help underdeveloped villages in Ghana and Kenya rise out of their depression. My goal is to apply my experiences and skills in the most effective ways possible to support TVN in its mission to empower hard working women in poverty build their businesses, feed their families and get their children in school. "

Hongqing Chen , P h.D

Ms. Chen is a seasoned finance executive and an Adjunct Professor teaching Fixed Income at Seattle University. She has been the COO for Community Capital Development, responsible for fundraising and streamlining operations. Prior to joining CCD, she was First Vice President and Senior Manager in Risk Scoring Strategy in Small Business Banking at Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu). During her tenure over nine and a half years in WaMu, Ms. Chen led teams in Asset Liability Management, MSR valuation and hedging, prepayment research and modeling, portfolio analytics and strategy, and delivery of other analytics services supporting business initiatives. Before joining WaMu, Ms. Chen was a senior ALM analyst for Wilshire Financial Services Group and as Adjunct Professor of Finance at School of Business Administration at Portland State University.

Board of Advisors

Chris Weber - in Spirit
(Chris was one of four who vetted the first group of borrowers and said--let's start a program--the birth of Women's Center Ofankor which soon evolved into The Village Net--Ghana. Chris died after a valient health battle in Spring of 2010.)

Chris Weber has lived on the island of Antigua, and in North Carolina and Washington state. He received his M.A. in Economics from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University. Since 1993, taught at Seattle University, where he was Professor of Economics. His research and teaching interests included economic development, theoretical and empirical macroeconomics, microeconomic theory, and the history of economic thought.