OUR TEAM
Cassandra Lee, Co-Founder & Executive Director
Edison Lee, Co-Founder & Managing Director
Jérémie Simpenzwe, Interim Country Director
Djimmy Mathe, Interim Deputy Country Director
Jen Chai, Donor Relations Manager (US)
Anselme Sabuni, Leadership Development Program Associate
Aline Mungumua, Gender Rights Program Manager
Esther, Finance Administrative Assistant
Ee-Reh Owo, Chief Technical Officer
Narine Vlotman, Education Program Manager
Deborah Katungu, Finance Manager
Racheal Vichei, Education Program Associate
Ben Savonen, Project Managment Officer (Seconded from GDI)
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Warren Allan, Board Chair
Warren Allan is the President of Optivest Properties, founded in 2007, which currently operates 90 self-storage facilities as RightSpace Storage (www.rightspacestorage.com) throughout the United States. Prior to Optivest Properties, Warren began his self-storage career as the Operations Director of another large regional storage operator. He is also one of the founding partners of the largest publicly traded self-storage REIT – National Storage Affiliates (NYSE: NSA) formed in April 2015. Warren and his wife, Kristy, have been married for 38 years and enjoy splitting their time between Dana Point (CA) and Park City (UT). They have three grown children along with one grandson. Warren and Kristy are both Directors in the Optivest Foundation that was formed in 2007 together with Warren’s business partner, Mark Van Mourick. Their objective has been to contribute 10% of the gross revenue generated by the business enterprise to primarily benefit, faith-based humanitarian initiatives. To date, they have made more than $1.4 million in grants towards projects in the US and other countries around the world.
April Tam Smith, Secretary
April Tam Smith is a devoted philanthropist, finance professional, and socially-conscious entrepreneur living in New York City. She is currently a Managing Director in a top tier investment bank’s equity derivatives team, covering hedgefunds. At age 30, April founded P.S. Kitchen, a social enterprise vegan restaurant in Times Square that donates 100% of its net profits to philanthropic endeavors, while providing gainful employment to those who need a second chance in the local community, including the formerly incarcerated, victims of domestic violence, and those struggling with homelessness. April was the recipient of the 2018 Columbia Tamer Center Social Enterprise Award, the 2018 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business Award, and the 2015 John Mack Leadership Award. She received her Bachelor's of Science in Engineering from MIT in 2005 and her MBA from Columbia Business School in 2009.
Jason Wendle
Jason is a Director at the Global Develpoment Incubator (GDI), working in the AgEnterprise portfolio and also spearheading GDI’s emerging anti-human trafficking efforts. At GDI, he most recently directed the launch of the Mastercard Foundation Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab. As a senior advisor to the Lab, he supports a research agenda to advance the knowledge frontier in smallholder finance, and advises the directors of $175M worth of programs on how to measure impact and capture actionable learnings.
Jason helped design the Learning Lab for the Mastercard Foundation as an Associate Partner in the Nairobi office of Dalberg, where he spent 7 years providing strategy advice to clients across a broad range sectors . His clients have included the world’s largest private foundations, bilateral and multilateral donors, African governments, and Fortune 100 firms. He also provided leadership to Dalberg’s evaluation work on the continent. Jason holds an MPA/ID from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and has published and presented work on smallholder finance, SME banking, and impact measurement. Jason lives with his wife Krista and their three kids in the DC area.
Shaun Zacharia
Shaun Zacharia is a founder and advisor. Most recently, Shaun was the co-founder & President of TripleLift, a leading enterprise software company which he grew from startup to its sale. Upon transitioning to an advisory role at the beginning of 2022, Shaun has turned his attention towards building and investing in organizations that alleviate oppression by increasing economic freedom. Shaun graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Tech in 2010 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and attended Harvard Business School before withdrawing from the MBA class of 2014 to co-found TripleLift.
Deborah Taylor
Deborah Taylor brings more than 20 years of higher education leadership experience in academic affairs, preceded by a 12-year career as a K-12 private school administrator. Upon joining the Biola University faculty, in addition to teaching, Deborah led the teacher education program in curriculum development and outcomes-based assessment from 2001-2010. From 2010-15, Deborah joined the Provost Office team, where she established systems of accountability for student learning across the university and led the university’s accreditation processes.
From 2015-22, Deborah served as Provost and Senior Vice President of Biola University, providing supervisory and mentoring support to the academic deans of the nine schools of the university, as well as providing leadership to academic areas such as: Student Success, Library, Registrar’s Office, Faculty Development, Educational Effectiveness, Core Curriculum, and Diversity and Inclusion.
Deborah earned her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University with an emphasis in diversity, assessment, and research, focusing her doctoral dissertation on teaching practices in postsecondary education that foster a positive environment for first generation students and students of color.
Nathalie Kalombo
Nathalie Kalombo is a current litigation attorney who represents clients who are survivors of physical and sexual violence in a family context. She also works as an international human rights law consultant, including for an international nonprofit focused on advocacy in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). While pursuing her LLM at Emory University School of Law, she specialized in transitional justice because of her passion for implementing transitional justice in DRC, where she was born. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and a Bachelor of Science in Corporate Communication, she worked in politics, helping to organize state and presidential campaigns while living in Washington, D.C., Florida, and Austin, Texas. She is passionate about justice for the oppressed and marginalized.
Edison Lee, Interim Treasurer
Edison Lee is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Justice Rising. He previously worked at FBR & Co., a leading middle-market investment bank, advising clients on strategic alternatives and equity / debt capital raises. After graduating from the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California in 2009, Edison moved to Zimbabwe as a missionary and development aid worker. He later moved to Rwanda and worked as a Business Analyst with Karisimbi Business Partners, a strategy consulting firm focused on developing management capacity for high impact businesses in East Africa. He currently resides in New York, NY with his wife, Cassandra Lee.
Cassandra Lee
Cassandra Lee is the Co-Founder and President of Justice Rising. She has over ten years of international experience living and working in conflict areas around the world, including Southern Sudan during the Darfur crisis, Northern Uganda, the Middle East where she worked with Syrian refugees, and in North Korea. For the past seven years, she has worked primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country defined by war and conflict for over twenty years. Cassandra currently resides in New York, NY with her husband Edison Lee.