Oxfam America Senior Staff
Raymond C. Offenheiser
President
Raymond C. Offenheiser is the president of Oxfam America, a non-profit international development and relief agency and the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam International. Oxfam works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change. Since Mr. Offenheiser joined Boston-based Oxfam America in 1995, the organization has grown more than fourfold in size and has positioned itself as an expert on international development and global trade.
Mr. Offenheiser, who has worked his entire career in the non-profit sector, is a recognized leader on issues such as poverty alleviation, human rights, foreign assistance, and international development. Before joining Oxfam America, he served for five years as the Ford Foundation Representative in Bangladesh and, prior to that, in the Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America. He has also directed programs for the Inter-American Foundation in both Brazil and Colombia and worked for Save the Children Federation in Mexico.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Global Interdependence Initiative at the Aspen Institute, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Inter-American Dialogue. Mr. Offenheiser has served as an advisor for the Harvard University's Asia Center, the Hesburgh Center for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Mr. Offenheiser is a frequent commentator in the media on such issues as foreign aid, international debt, human rights, and global trade policies. He has appeared in programs on CNN, NPR, and the BBC, and has been a quoted source in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun and other major American newspapers.
Mr. Offenheiser holds a Masters Degree in Development Sociology from Cornell University and earned his Bachelors Degree from the University of Notre Dame. He speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.
Stephanie Kurzina
Vice-President for Resource Development
Stephanie Kurzina joined Oxfam America in 1996 to lead the organization's fundraising programs and was promoted to Vice President in 2003. During her tenure, annual revenues have more than tripled from $12 million to over $45 million per year. Her major focus is to strengthen the Institutional Support and Individual Major and Planned Giving Programs, and to further enhance methods—including the Internet—of recruiting a broader base of members, donors, and supporters. Ms. Kurzina believes that a key factor to overcoming global poverty is the involvement of more US donors and supporters to increase Oxfam America's influence. Ms. Kurzina has led the planning and launch of its first major capital campaign for program growth and also serves as President of the Oxfam America Advocacy Fund, founded in 2004.
Prior to joining Oxfam, Ms. Kurzina was an Associate Director at the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Director of Development at New England Aquarium in Boston, and Director of Major Gifts at the Joslin Diabetes Center, where she directed a $45 million capital campaign. She has a Bachelors Degree in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, where she began her fundraising career in the University's New York Regional Development Office.
John Ambler
Senior Vice-President for Programs
Mr. John Ambler is the Senior Vice President of Programs at Oxfam America. Prior to this role, Mr. Ambler was the Regional Director for Asia at CARE USA based in Bangkok. He supervised and set strategic direction for CARE's relief and development operations for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan. He oversaw the largest budget in the CARE system and the work of over 5,000 CARE staff in Asia. Mr. Ambler provided strategic and conceptual direction for CARE's programs in rural development, development finance, urban poverty, HIV/AIDS, health, education, and nutrition. He also played a central role in that organization's effort to adopt a rights-based approach to development.
Before joining CARE, Mr. Ambler had spent nearly ten years with the Ford Foundation, as a program officer in Indonesia, as the Deputy Representative of the office for India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and as the Representative for Vietnam and Thailand. He also opened Ford's first office in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Prior to his tenure with Ford, he spent many years working in Indonesia on issues related to the organization of water management, a field in which he is a world-class specialist. He speaks fluent Indonesian as well as some Vietnamese, Burmese and German. Dr. Ambler received his B.A. from Stanford University, his M.A. from the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, and his Ph. D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University.
Jim Lyons
Vice President for Policy and Communications
Jim Lyons has a long professional career as an environmental policy professional. Before joining Oxfam he was the Executive Director of the Casey Tree Endowment Fund, a DC-based not-for- profit committed to restoring the city's tree canopy. He led the growth and development of this organization into one of the nation's largest urban conservation and ecological restoration NGOs. Earlier, Jim served in the Clinton Administration as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the Department of Agriculture. The many highlights of his time in that position include drafting the conservation and forestry titles of the 1990 Farm Bill, co-chairing an interagency effort to develop the Clean Water Action Plan, assisting in the restructuring of the Department of Agriculture, promoting national conservation and environmental leadership at the USDA, and facilitating major land acquisitions for the national forest system. Jim has been teaching at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies since 2001.
Mark F. Kripp
Interim Vice-President for Operations
Mark Kripp is the Director of Finance for Oxfam America. He joined Oxfam America in July of 2005 after working most recently as the Vice President of Finance for Spryance Inc, a socially progressive organization in India. Prior to that Mr. Kripp was the founder and principal of EJE Associates Consulting. In this capacity he directed financial activities of multiple organizations, including corporations, foundations, and the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti. Mr. Kripp has over 25 years of extensive and varied experience with all aspects of finance, and has brought the weight of that experience to bear in Oxfam America's operations department. In addition Mr. Kripp has served on the Board of Directors and various Board Committees of the Grant Foundation/Hospital Albert Schweitzer, American Leprosy Missions (Greenville, SC) and is currently Treasurer of the Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School (Franklin, MA).
Muthoni Miriu
Director of Regional Programs
As Director of Regional Programs, Ms. Muriu provides strategic guidance and practical management to all seven Regional Offices, as well as to the Regional Program support unit based in Boston. Prior to joining Oxfam America in October 2006, Ms. Muriu worked for Oxfam Great Britain as Regional Program Manager for West Africa. She previously held the position of Head of Pan African Trade Policy at Oxfam International and also worked as a Regional Policy Advisor for West and Southern Africa for Oxfam Great Britain. She has spent seventeen years working in international development and is fluent in English, French, and Kiswahili. She holds a degree in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Political Science and Economics.
Michael Delaney
Director of Humanitarian Assistance
Michael Delaney has worked in the international arena for the last 25 years and philosophically believes that urgent, humanitarian emergencies in poor countries require a long term approach to help them recover and rebuild. As Director of Humanitarian Response for the international relief and development organization, Oxfam America, Michael has led the agency’s response to all emergencies over the last ten years, including the Asian tsunami, earthquakes in Pakistan and El Salvador, Hurricane Mitch in Central America, food crises and conflict in West Africa, Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., and complex emergencies in Ethiopia and Sudan. Michael believes that each of these crises offers an opportunity to build up community organizations that together, can find lasting solutions to poverty and also make the affected community better able to survive the next disaster.
Michael is a member of Oxfam International’s Humanitarian Consortium Management Group, which is responsible for all aspects of emergency response in over 120 countries. As a member of the Tsunami Fund Management Team, Michael is responsible for the $280 million dollar Oxfam response to the December 2004 disaster that affected 13 countries. Prior to this role, Michael was Oxfam America's Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, responsible for overseeing the agency's development projects in three sub-regions: Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. He initiated Oxfam’s programs in Cuba and Mexico.
Before joining Oxfam America in 1990, Michael spent five years in Central America and Mexico, working with refugee populations and promoting grassroots development initiatives in war torn El Salvador. He also coordinated disaster relief efforts following the devastating 1986 earthquake in San Salvador. Michael holds a B.A. in Political Science from Niagara University and a M.A. in Economics from SUNY, Buffalo.
Jeffrey Ashe
Manager of Community Finance
Jeffrey Ashe is the Manager of Community Finance at Oxfam America. Prior to coming to Oxfam, Mr. Ashe founded and served as Executive Director of Working Capital, the largest micro enterprise program in the United States. Before Working Capital, Mr. Ashe was Director of the "PISCES Project," the first worldwide investigation of programs reaching the smallest economic activities of the poor. He also served as Senior Associate Director at ACCION International where he assisted in the dissemination of peer group lending throughout Latin America. Mr. Ashe designed, assisted and evaluated microenterprise programs in thirty-five countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe for the World Bank, the Agency for International Development, CIDA, ODA, and many NGO clients. In addition, he developed micro-enterprise projects in Arkansas, North Dakota and Canada. Before his work in the micro-enterprise field, Mr. Ashe directed a nation-wide rapid rural appraisal for the Costa Rican government and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador. Mr. Ashe has published extensively in the micro-enterprise field and is the author of several books and articles on the topic. He also teaches microfinance at Brandeis and Columbia Universities. He holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkley, and an MA in Sociology from Boston University.
Chris Jochnick
Director of Private Sector Engagement
Chris Jochnick is the Director of Private Sector Engagement at Oxfam America. Mr. Jochnick is the co-founder and former director of two non-profit organizations devoted to economic and social rights. He has worked more than 15 years on issues of human rights and corporate accountability, including seven years in Latin America supporting grassroots campaigns around extractive industries, sovereign debt and trade agreements. Prior to joining Oxfam, Mr. Jochnick worked as a corporate attorney with the Wall Street law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrizon, where he advised companies on environmental and social responsibilities. Mr. Jochnick is a graduate of Harvard Law School, a former MacArthur Fellow and currently an adjunct associate professor of human rights and development at Columbia University.
Susan Bird
Regional Director for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean
As Regional Director of our CAMEXCA Program, Susan Bird directs activities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, and Haiti (2005). She joined Oxfam in December 2002, after working for five years with Save the Children-Mexico in the states of Sonora and Guanajuato and in Mexico City. Her work focused on children's rights programming, food security, and urban violence prevention and mitigation. She also worked with Ecumenical Ministries of the Oregon Refugee Resettlement Program, and with various at-risk youth programs in the US. Ms. Bird has a Bachelors Degree in International Relations from Drake University, and a Masters Degree in Intercultural Management and Sustainable Development from the School for International Training.
Gonzalo Delgado
Regional Director for Oxfam America's South America
Gonzalo Delgado joined Oxfam in September 2006, after having worked with Plan International as a country director in Honduras and in Colombia. He also established Plan Internationals Research, Evaluation and Dissemination Unit at its headquarters in the UK. His work in Plan was based on child rights-based programming and focused community managed development. Mr. Delgado is a native of Bolivia who has extensive experience working with indigenous groups in the Andean region. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology from George Washington University and a Master's in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Brian Lund
Regional Director for East Asia
Brian Lund is the Regional Director for Oxfam America's East Asia Office, based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Mr. Lund joined Oxfam America in 2006 and brings more than twenty years of experience managing agricultural development, community development and natural resource management programs and organizations in Cambodia, Indonesia and his native Australia. Mr. Lund was awarded a Degree in Agricultural Science from La Trobe University and an MBA from the University of South Australia.
Minor Sinclair
Regional Director for the United States
Mr. Minor Sinclair is the Regional Director for the US program and leads Oxfam America's Gulfcoast Emergency Program. He has served ten years with Oxfam including a post as Program Officer for the Cuba program and co-leading Oxfam Canada's Caribbean program based in Havana. Prior to joining Oxfam, Mr. Sinclair worked for nine years on human rights and global issues focusing on Central America, the Caribbean and domestic refugee policy. He began his international work as a Mennonite Central Committee volunteer working with Central American refugees. He has authored and edited several publications, including the book The New Politics of Survival: Grassroots Movements in Central America (Monthly Review Press/EPICA). He obtained a MPA degree from the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) and a B.A. in International Development from Davidson College in North Carolina.
Paul O'Brien
Director of Aid Effectiveness
Paul O'Brien joined Oxfam America in May 2007. He came to Oxfam from Afghanistan where he advised the Senior Economic Advisor to the President, and two Ministers of Finance on aid coordination, development planning and policy reform. He was the senior international advisor to the Afghan Government in the development of Afghanistan's National Development Strategy (interim) and the Afghanistan Compact. Prior to that, he worked for CARE International as their Afghanistan Advocacy Coordinator and Africa Policy Advisor. Previously, Mr. O'Brien was the President of the Echoing Green Foundation, which uses venture philanthropy principles to support social entrepreneurs, and a litigator in New York for Cravath, Swaine and Moore. He is the co-founder of the Legal Resources Foundation in Kenya and the founder of the Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium in Afghanistan. Mr. O'Brien has a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and has published on humanitarian policy, human rights and emerging trends in development.