Board
Guy Russo, President
Mr. Russo is Managing Director of the Kmart retail chain owned by Wesfarmers Ltd in Australia and New Zealand. Formerly with the McDonald’s Corporation, which he joined in 1974, Mr Russo served as Managing Director and CEO in Australia and President of McDonald’s in Greater China. Based in Asia over 2007 and 2008 Mr Russo consulted with private equity interests as well as public companies with commercial interests in China. Over the course of his long business career Mr Russo has vigorously pursued his passion for life-saving children’s charities. He has served as Chairman of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) in Australia and as a board member of the charity in Hong Kong, and in 2006 Mr Russo ushered in the establishment of RMHC in China. Mr Russo has also served on the Business Council of Australia as well as on the Board of Diabetes Australia. Together with his family, he currently resides in Melbourne.
Nancy L. Spelman, PhD, Secretary
Dr. Spelman lived in East Asia for 25 years, including extended stays in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and Singapore. She received her doctorate degree in developmental psychology from the University of Hong Kong in 1987, and has taught at several universities including the University of Hong Kong, the National University of Singapore, Petaling Jaya Community College in Kuala Lumpur and George Mason University in Virginia. She has served on the Board of Directors of the International School of Kuala Lumpur and the Shanghai American School, and is a keen tennis player and hiker. Dr. Spelman and her husband Doug, a retired senior foreign service officer with the State Department, have two grown daughters, Brooke and Erin.
Matt Dalio
Matt Dalio is the Founder of China Care Foundation, Inc. and president of its board of directors. His passion for China began when he lived for a year in Beijing, China at the age of eleven. Even at a young age, he was able to see the difficulties suffered by many special-needs Chinese orphans, and in 2000 at the age of 16, he founded an organization that would aid in giving these children a better future. Mr. Dalio is a graduate of Harvard University.
Ellen Eliasoph
Ellen Eliasoph is partner in the Washington and Beijing offices of Covington and Burling, LLC. She has spent more than 25 years in China, Hong Kong and Japan and, as former managing director of Warner Brothers, China, has worked on many cutting-edge transactions in the media and entertainment industries, as well as with many leading companies and policymakers throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Her particular areas of expertise include the creation and operation of joint venture enterprises, the creation, protection and exploitation of intellectual property-based products and services, and the translation of sophisticated business and legal concepts across national borders.
Dana Johnson, MD, PhD
One of the world's foremost experts on health and developmental issues affecting the institutionalized child, Dr. Dana Johnson is the Director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota. He is a Professor in that university's Department of Pediatrics and the Director of its Division of Neonatology. Dr. Johnson has published dozens of journal articles and received numerous research grants. He serves as a Medical Consultant on International Adoptions to multiple agencies across the United States, is a Consultant to the Level II Intensive Care Unit International Mission of Hope, Calcutta, India, and is on the Board of Directors of Adoptive Families of America. He has three children, one adopted from India.
Peter Lighte
Mr. Lighte is the Chairman of JPMorgan Chase Bank (China). Prior to his return to China in 2007, he was associated with the bank in London, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He previously lived in Beijing as founding representative of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, during which time, he served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Lighte joined the bank in 1979. Fluent in Mandarin, Peter is a keen cyclist, calligrapher, mosaicist, painter, writer and traveller. He has served on the board of the London City Ballet, has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Princeton Alumni Council, Director of the Matilda Child Development Centre (Hong Kong) and JPMorgan representative to the Hayward Gallery in London. He is on the Corporate Advisory Board for Hope and Homes for Children (UK) and is a Member of the Advisory Board of China Institute Executive Summit. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University in East Asian Studies and is the father of two daughters, adopted from Hangzhou and Luoyang.
Melissa J. Ma
Melissa Ma is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Asia Alternatives, a firm dedicated to helping institutional investors make investments in private equity funds across Asia. Prior to launching Asia Alternatives, Ms. Ma was a Director at Hellman & Friedman LLC, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, and earlier worked with McKinsey & Co (Greater China) and Goldman, Sachs. She received an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and an AB in Economics and East Asian Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. Ms. Ma also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and on the Advisory Board of Room to Read. Based in San Francisco, she lives and works in Asia approximately half of each year and is fluent in Mandarin. She is also the mother of an adopted son, Justin Liang, from China.
Half the Sky Advisory Committee
Bi Zhijiang
Ms. Bi is a longtime supporter and advisor to the China Care Foundation. An importer and retailer of fine jade, Ms. Bi is a
standing director of the Gems & Jewelry Trade Association of China, and vice president of the Jewelry Jade Industry Association of Zhejiang Province. She has provided infant formula to China Care programs since 2006 and will continue to do so for the China Care Home at Half the Sky.
Richard Bowen, Emeritus Director
A founding director of Half the Sky's board Mr. Bowen and wife, Jenny adopted their daughters Maya (Guangzhou, 1997) and Anya (Yixing, 2000) when both were toddlers. Mr. Bowen, a graduate of the University of California, is a feature filmmaker, a motion picture cinematographer and a director-cameraman for television commercials. He lives in Hong Kong with his family and is the author-photographer of MEI MEI (Little Sister): Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage.
Carlos Cordeiro, Emeritus Director
An Advisory Director of The Goldman Sachs Group and Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (Asia), Mr. Cordeiro is also on the Board of the BHP Billiton Group. He received his AB in economics magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1978 and MBA from Harvard Business School in 1980. In 2002, after 12 years in numerous leadership positions at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Cordeiro retired, but continues an active association with the firm. He resides in Hong Kong.
Lou DeMattei, Emeritus Director
A tax attorney who worked for the Bank of America and for Intel Corporation before “semi-retirement”, Mr. DeMattei now counsels select private clients in matters related to tax and finance. Mr. DeMattei and his wife, celebrated writer Amy Tan, travel frequently, often to China, where they have become involved in efforts to help China's orphans. They reside in California and New York and have no children, except for pet Yorkshire terriers. Their beloved cat, Sagwa, is immortalized on children's television. Former HTS board president, Mr DeMattei serves on the audit committee.
Carolyn Pope Edwards, EdD, Emeritus Director
A founding board member of Half the Sky, Dr. Edwards is a Professor of Psychology and Family & Consumer Sciences at the University of Nebraska. She has taught at the Norwegian Center for Advanced Study, the University of Kentucky, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and at Vassar College. She has lectured all over the world on early childhood development issues and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters, and is co-editor of The Hundred Languages of Children, the seminal English-language textbook on the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education.
Robert Eisenberg, Emeritus Director
Building on several years of IT experience at the executive level, Mr. Eisenberg founded and built the hugely successful NaviSite, a complex web hosting and technology services provider. Shortly after that company's IPO, he left and joined Alta Communications Venture Partners as an Entrepreneur in Residence.Mr. Eisenberg and his wife, Leslie have three daughters adopted from China, Meghan (Huazhou, Guangdong), Holly (Wuzhou, Guangxi), and Lia (Nanning, Guangxi.)
Karin Evans, Emeritus Director
A longtime journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Health, Newsweek, More, Greater Good, and other publications, Ms. Evans is the author of the bestselling, The Lost Daughters of China: Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past, published by Tarcher/Penguin Putnam ( new edition, October 2008.) The recent recipient of an MFA in poetry, Karin lives in Berkeley, California with her husband, attorney, Mark Humbert and their two daughters, Kelly, born in Jiangmen, Guangdong and Franny, born in Changzhou, Jiangsu.
Linda Filardi, Emeritus Director
Ms. Filardi is senior counsel for General Electric Global Sponsor Finance in New York City. She relocated from Tokyo, Japan where she lived with her family for almost 5 years. In Tokyo, she was region counsel for GE Capital in Asia, serving Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China. She began her legal career in New York as a corporate lawyer where she represented large corporations in joint ventures, mergers and financings. Ms. Filardi is married with 2 children, Alex and Lily who was adopted at 18 months from Changchun, Jilin.
Ellen Hall, PhD
Dr. Hall is the founder and executive director of Boulder Journey School and also directs and teaches in the Teacher Education Program developed through a partnership with the University of Colorado at Denver, Health Sciences Center and the Colorado Department of Education. She is a founder of the Videatives Project, a founding board member of Hawkins Centers of Learning, and a founding board member of the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA), a network of educators, parents, and advocates seeking to elevate the quality of life, schools and centers for young children.
Kay Johnson, PhD, Emeritus Director
Dr. Johnson is a professor of Asian Studies and Politics at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where she lives with her husband, son and a daughter, Lili, who was adopted in 1991 from Wuhan, China when she was three months old. Dr. Johnson has been teaching and doing research about contemporary China for 20 years. Her early research concerned women and the family in rural China, focusing on the impact of various policies on women's lives and status.
Scott Kronick, Emeritus Director
President of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, China, Scott oversees the overall Ogilvy PR operation in China, leading a team of 70 in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou . Scott is one of the two founding members of Ogilvy PR in China and plays a pivotal role in the overall leadership and management of the firm. Scott joined Ogilvy PR/ New York in 1987. He writes frequently on public relations and international business issues.
Emily Kwong, Emeritus Director
Ms. Kwong has been a partner with a major international public accounting firm and a seasoned financial executive with a Fortune 100 company. She also lived and worked in China for several years. She has worked extensively on US-Asia transactions, including financings, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings. Ms. Kwong is currently with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). She is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Internal Auditor.