Systems entrepreneurs John Kluge (Alight Fund & Toilet Hackers) and Tim Docking (IBM & Millennium Challenge Corporation) lead the RIN with incubation support from the Global Development Incubator (GDI),
We’re grateful to collaborate with an outstanding steering committee and partners that represent the full capital continuum and bring different perspectives to our work but all share a commitment to courageous action, innovative economic solutions, and deep collaboration.
John Kluge
John W. Kluge is a systems entrepreneur and committed social justice activist. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Alight Fund, an investment and financing company for refugee and host country entrepreneurs. Previously, he co-founded Eirene, a multi-family-office impact investing fund, Toilet Hackers, a social enterprise dedicated to scaling access to dignified sanitation for the 2.5 billion people without a toilet. Kluge currently serves as a Trustee of Babson College, as a member of the Center for Strategic International Studies’ Taskforce on Global Forced Migration, as a Director of the Fonderie 47 Foundation, as the Co-Chair of the Virginia Policy Entrepreneurship Lab, and as a member of the Human Rights Commission of Charlottesville. He is the co-author of the book, Charity & Philanthropy for Dummies (Wylie, 2013), the author of John Kluge: Stories (Columbia University Press, 2008) and has written about the intersection of business and social impact for Forbes and Conscious Company Magazine. Kluge holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an MBA from the Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.
Timothy W. Docking, Ph.D
Timothy W. Docking, Ph.D. is a Washington, D.C.-based business executive with twenty years of emerging market and public sector experience. As an intrapreneur, he worked at the intersection of business, technology and development and built a new $100M revenue stream at IBM; as a public sector executive and manager, he helped start up the MCC (U.S. government agency); and as a scholar, he directed Africa research at a D.C. think tank. Docking has testified before Congress, published and commented widely in the media, is a member of multiple national and international boards including the current co-Chair of the Private Sector Advisory Council at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and has helped form and implement policy at the highest levels of government while a White House Fellow. Docking holds a Ph.D. in comparative politics from Boston University and has lived and worked in more than 40 countries.
Joanne Ke Edelman
Joanne Ke Edelman is a Manager at GDI, where she helps design, build, and launch unconventional technology and capacity-building ideas to change traditional practices of global development. She’s played a critical role building GDI initiatives such as Emerging Public Leaders, Co-Impact, Convergence, and GDHI. She also co-authored “More than the Sum of Its Parts: Making Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives Work.”
Previously, Edelman worked at the World Bank Group, where she specialized in monitoring and evaluation at the IFC. Edelman earned an MA in Applied Economics from Georgetown University and a BA/MA in Economics and Management from Oxford University.
Andrew Stern
Andrew Stern is the Founder, President and Executive Director of the Global Development Incubator (GDI) and a member of the GDI U.S. and Hong Kong boards. He leads the team across focus areas and crafts unconventional perspectives to drive the global development sector forward. Stern has played many roles within GDI initiatives, including Interim CEO of Convergence, the global network for Blended Finance, and serves on the governance or advisory boards of Emerging Public Leaders, citiesRise and Tendrel. Prior to founding GDI, Stern was a Global Operating Partner at Dalberg Global Advisors. During that time, he helped design and launch the Aspen Network of Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and served as the founding chairman of mothers2mothers. Stern holds a joint MBA/MPP from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in Economics from Princeton University.
Christine Mahoney
Christine Mahoney is Professor of Public Policy and Politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, Director of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia, and a member of the RIN’s steering committee. She studies social justice advocacy, activism and direct action through social entrepreneurship. Her first book Brussels vs. the Beltway (Georgetown University Press) explored how advocates shape public policy in two of the most powerful political systems on the planet: the US and the EU. She conducted fieldwork in seven conflict zones in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America for her second book Failure and Hope: Fighting for the Rights of the Forcibly Displaced (Cambridge University Press). The book argues we need to advance social entrepreneurship for the 60 million people displaced by violent conflict worldwide. She has been a Fulbright Fellow, Visiting Scholar at Oxford, a National Science Foundation grant recipient, and recipient of the Emerging Scholar award from the American Political Science Association.
Selen Ucak
Selen Ucak is a social impact professional working at the intersection of business and international development. Prior to joining RIN, Selen supported refugee-owned small businesses and job creation in Turkey and Jordan as Program Director, Middle East at Building Markets. She is the lead researcher and author of “Another Side to the Story: A Market Assessment of Syrian SMEs in Turkey” and “The Untapped Potential of Supplier Diversity in Turkey,” among other research in refugee entrepreneurship and inclusion. Previously, Selen served as Executive Director of The American Turkish Society, promoting bilateral economic and cultural relations, and helped found Turkish Philanthropy Funds, where she continues to serve on the Advisory Board. Her experience also includes social entrepreneurship, grantmaking, and economic research. Selen holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School as the first Tashman Fellow and a B.A. in Economics/International Affairs from Colorado College.
Kaitlin Roh
Kaitlin brings significant international development experience, along with a specialization in forced displacement, to her current role as a RIN Africa Research Fellow. Previously, she spent five years in Jordan, where she managed operations and programs for a startup nonprofit, coordinated community engagement in the Syrian refugee camp Za’atari, and helped the Jordanian education system absorb Syrian refugees through USAID projects. As a graduate student in Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, Roh researched the opportunities and risks of using “big data” to monitor mobility and displacement for IOM and interned for the Global Development Incubator (GDI). Roh holds a BA in Political Science and Educational Studies from Macalester College.
Patrick Timmons
Patrick Timmons is a human rights and humanitarian crisis freelance investigator, journalist, and producer based on the U.S.-Mexico border. He has covered immigration for over 15 years, with bylines in news outlets including The Guardian, United Press International, The Texas Observer, The Telegraph, and El País. He is the founder and curator of the Mexican Journalism Translation Project: a blog which provides translations from Spanish to English of human rights stories by at-risk Mexican and Central American journalists. Timmons has worked as a human rights consultant, capital punishment mitigation specialist, and adjunct professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. He holds a Ph.D in Latin American History from the University of Texas at Austin, and an LL.M in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex.
Interested in Joining the Team?
We’re looking for creative, passionate changemakers to join the RIN team as we shift the narrative around refugees. Browse our current openings below or contact us if you don’t see the right fit now, but want to stay in touch.
