UK Board

Kanini Mutooni 

Managing Director – Draper Richards Kaplan

Kanini Mutooni is a Managing Director at Draper Richards Kaplan, a Venture Philanthropy institution investing in global early-stage entrepreneurs creating impact. She is also a Senior Adviser for Toniic, the global action network for impact investors with over 300 asset owners representing over $16b in investable wealth.  Prior to this appointment, Kanini was the Director for Investment at the USAID-funded East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, a $65m, 8 country initiative to attract investment and increase trade in the East Africa region.

Kanini is a UK Chartered Accountant with a record of exceptional leadership gained in East Africa, Europe and the United States. She is the immediate former Board Chair of The Global Innovation Fund, a $250m investment vehicle supported by the UK, US, Canadian, Australian and Swedish Governments. The fund focused on investing a range of capital for early-stage innovations in emerging markets with a focus on Food and Agriculture, Healthcare, clean energy and Fintech.

Kanini has worked at Board level in leadership positions at investment banks in London and US, such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. In 2014 she was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for her exceptional leadership in business and global entrepreneurship. She is currently Chair of AMREF Health Innovations and she continues to be a Senior Advisor providing strategic advisory support to a number of Africa focused impact funds, such as the $150m African Agriculture SME Fund and Union Bank Privee’s (UBP) listed global equity impact fund.  She is currently the Chair of the Investment Committee of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, a pan-African $250m challenge fund focussed on investing in early-stage agriculture and food SMEs.  She is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Capetown’s Bertha Center for Social Innovation.

Matt Forti

Managing Director, One Acre Fund

Matt Forti has been involved in One Acre Fund's board since the organization's founding in 2006, and was our first Board Chairman. Matt joined One Acre Fund's staff in 2013, as the director of One Acre Fund USA. He also manages One Acre's UK operations.

Prior to joining One Acre Fund's staff, Matt was a Manager and Co-head of the Performance Measurement Practice at the Bridgespan group, a 501(c)3 that helps nonprofit and philanthropic leaders develop strategies to achieve breakthrough results. Matt received an MBA with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University with a BA in economics and sociology. While at Northwestern, Matt studied economics at the University College London.

Pooja Mall

Partnership Consultant (Global Development) 

Pooja Mall is currently a consultant to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Prior to that, she was a trade policy coordinator at Oxfam GB, and worked as an independent consultant in the areas of global health and food security. Previously, she worked as a senior programme officer at the GAVI Alliance Secretariat in Geneva. She also worked for the 2005 G8 Commission for Africa Secretariat set up by Tony Blair and Morgan Stanley.

Pooja received a first class degree from Manchester University in Economics, an MSc in Information Systems from the London School of Economics and an MA in International Economic Development from Columbia University. She has undertaken Post-Graduate courses in rural development at SOAS and is currently studying towards a Post-Graduate certificate in Research Methods at Kings College.

Saul Morris

Director Program Services, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition 

Saul Morris is the Director of Programme Services at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Saul joined GAIN after three years at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), where he oversaw a USD 200 million grant portfolio, including all of the organisation’s investments in combating chronic malnutrition and anaemia. He has more than twenty-five years’ experience in international nutrition, having worked in research at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and as Head of the Public Health Nutrition Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and as a funder at the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Saul has more than eighty publications in peer-reviewed journals, including as one of the lead authors of the first Lancet series in 2008 on maternal and child nutrition. He has worked intensively with partners to implement vitamin A, zinc, and supplementation programmes in Africa and South Asia; nutrition-sensitive conditional cash transfer schemes and agricultural development projects in Latin America, India, and Africa, and community health worker platforms in Africa and Bangladesh.

Sonny Bardhan

Chief Strategy Officer, Omidyar Network

Sonny Bardhan is Chief Strategy Officer, and a managing director of the Omidyar Network, a social change venture that reimagines critical systems, and the ideas that govern them, to build more inclusive and equitable societies. He develops and advances Omidyar Network’s corporate strategy and planning, and oversees impact, learning, and research agendas. 

He previously worked at the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, where he developed strategy and investment opportunities to improve children's welfare in developing countries. Sonny previously served as an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, where he worked in both the financial institutions group and the social sector office. He began his career at Capital One, and has also worked with Innovations for Poverty Action and UnLtd.

Sonny received a first class degree from Cambridge in Natural Sciences, an MBA with distinction from Oxford, and an MPA in International Development from Harvard, where he was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship

Steve Wiggins

Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute

Steve Wiggins is an agricultural economist with over 40 years’ experience of agricultural and rural development, primarily in Africa and Latin America. He has lived in Paraguay, Bolivia, El Salvador and Kenya. Formerly at the University of Reading, since 2002 he has been a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, London.

His current interests centre on smallholder commercialisation; food and nutrition security, including obesity; and changing patterns of rural development with a particular interest in SE Asia and Latin America.
He is lead editor of Development Policy Review and a former President of the Agricultural Economics Society.
 

Suveer Kothari

Vice President Augmented Reality, Google 

Suveer Kothari currently serves as Vice President, Google Hardware. He previously served as Director for Chromecast Global Partnerships, managing relationships worldwide with consumer electronics manufacturers, content owners, operators and retailers, and is responsible for the global rollout of Chromecast. In his time at Google, Suveer has helped launch Mobile Ads, YouTube, and Display advertising across EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). Suveer led the YouTube and Display team across the Nordics and Emerging markets in EMEA.

Prior to Google, Suveer worked as a strategy consultant with Booz and Co. He holds a first class degree in Economics and Management from Oxford, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.