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Erick Rengifo / Co-Founder
Erick Rengifo is an associate professor in the Economics Department at Fordham University. He is a co-founder of Spes Nova Inc, a nonprofit corporation whose main goals are to provide funding to microenterprises, assist in market creation, and provide insurance products for the working poor around the world. He is also the founder and director of the Center for International Policy Studies. Professor Rengifo is an active scholar with interests in market development, microfinance, micro-insurance, market microstructure, behavioral finance, risk management, insurance, and econometrics. He is a private consultant in the fields of algorithmic trading, investments, risk management, microfinance and micro-insurance. Professor Rengifo holds a PhD in economics with a concentration in finance and econometrics from Catholic University of Louvain-Belgium.
Steve Carlsen / Co-Founder
Steve Carlsen is a co-founder of Spes Nova, and continues to serve as a Director. Steve has a 35-year career in the insurance and reinsurance industries, specializing in underwriting, pricing and managing catastrophic risk. He was an early developer of capital consumption models through the application of modern portfolio theory to insurable risk. He was a co-founder of Endurance Specialty Holdings (ENH), where he continues to serve as a Director and member of its Risk and Finance Committees. He also continues to provide consulting services to private equity groups and hedge funds investing in the insurance and insurance services sectors.Steve has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Cornell University and received his PhD in Economics from Fordham University in May 2013.
Dana Nelson / Director of Operations
After Cambridge, she was sponsored by USAID to work in Accra, Ghana with Ethical Apparel Africa to build out robust social and environmental compliance standards for the region’s emerging garment industry. Specializing in workers’ rights and safety, the project helped ensure proper treatment and dignity for the predominantly low-income, female workforce. Returning to New York City, she was the first full-time hire of Equivico, a woman-owned investment management firm supported by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. She ws integral to the launch of its first fund, which focused on scaling responsible, affordable small business lending, particularly to women, minority, and veteran-owned businesses, as well as those in low- and moderate-income communities. Currently, she consults for an investment firm on their social impact strategies with a regional concentration in Latin America.
Desiree Bermudez / Team Member
TBD
Father Luis Felipe Gómez / Director of Javeriana Cali University
Father Luis Felipe Gómez Restrepo S.J., is a lawyer with a master's degree in Economic and Business Sciences, a philosopher from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and a theologian from the Sèvres Center of the Society of Jesus in Paris. He has been a teacher at the 2 Javeriana campuses and at 3 other universities, he was also dean of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Javeriana Cali.
Silvio Borrero Caldas / Dean - Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Javeriana Cali University
Academic leader and professional manager with a doctorate in business, extensive teaching experience and business experience. Expertise in consulting, research and teaching, on issues of strategy, innovation, organizational behavior and management education.
Relevant experience in corporate governance, business advice, engineering projects, retail businesses and manufacturing. Key competencies include interpersonal skills, leadership, coaching, motivation, communication, teamwork, and problem solving, developed in competitive and multicultural contexts.
Viviana Gutiérrez / Director of the organizational management department of Javeriana Cali University
Viviana Gutiérrez has an MPhill in innovation, strategy and organizations from the University of Cambridge and a master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad del Valle. She is an assistant professor of business strategy, strategic management, and planning courses in the Department of Organization Management at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali. His research interests are institutional theory, innovation, technological change, strategy, and discourse analysis. She is also a consultant in innovation management.
María del Pilar Gómez / Spes Nova project Leader of Javeriana Cali University - Fordham University
María del Pilar is an assistant Professor at the Javeriana Cali University in Colombia and teaches entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial Mindset and Leadership and team work. She led a joint Javeriana/Fordham University fair trade, project that focused on Colombian artisans making handcrafts for sale in the U.S.
Her research interests include entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurial education, motivation, leadership, and skills development on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. She also attends MBA students in their case study development for their degree. Her textbook, La Mentalidad Emprendedora (2019) is used in 14‐16 undergraduate courses each semester at Javeriana University.
Professor Gomez received her undergraduate degree in business administration from San Buenaventura University and her Master degree in education/human development from the same university.
María Camila Pascuas / Spes Nova Project assistant of Javeriana University - Fordham University
María Camila is a business administration bachelor from the Javeriana university, Cali. She is the assistant of the fair-trade interinstitutional project between Fordham University, New York and Javeriana University, Cali.
She has been involved with the project of Spes Nova because of her career's internship in entrepreneurship with Campus Nova Javeriana Cali University, and at the moment she is working side by side with indigenous communities from Nariño, Colombia developing an all-inclusive brand wich, in addition to contributing economically to these communities, makes ancestral knowledge visible and values. Thanks to her initiative, her project was one of the outstanding undertakings of the Javeriana Cali University.
She communicates directly with the communities, to learn about the products that the artisans are going to offer to the international market, and she ensures that the relationships last over time. She is a social entrepreneur willing to work for vulnerable communities to improve the complicated situation they are going through.