Archives: Our Team

Anish Aswani

Anish Aswani is a Managing Director at Florac and in late 2016 established Florac’s North American operations with offices in Los Angeles. Florac is an investment vehicle whose purpose is to exclusively invest the funds of the Meyer family (a branch of the Louis-Dreyfus family – historical shareholders of the Louis Dreyfus Group). Prior to joining Florac, Anish spent more than a decade in investment banking, most recently at Moelis & Company. Anish began his career as a design engineer at Intel Corporation. Anish earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Emily Bancroft

Emily Bancroft is a global leader in systems change, dedicated to transforming health care delivery to reach everyone.

As CEO and President of VillageReach, she works with a global leadership team to guide VillageReach’s programming and partnerships to reduce inequities in access to quality primary health care.  Emily is recognized for her expertise in supply chains, health workforce development and digital health technologies. Emily has been instrumental in VillageReach’s growth since 2010, first serving as Director of the organization’s Health Systems Group before she became Vice President in 2015, and President in 2017.

She is a Clinical Instructor at the University of Washington School of Public Health, a faculty member of Connected Women Leaders, a mentor for WomenLift North America, and a 2022 UBS Global Visionary. Emily holds an MPH from the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and a BA from Princeton University.

Jim Fruchterman

Jim is a serial tech and social entrepreneur who has proven how technology can change entire fields in the social sector. He was the founder and CEO of Benetech for nearly 30 years, delivering large-scale change in partnership with hundreds of organizations as part of social enterprises addressing education, disability, human rights, and the environment. In addition, he has advised hundreds of diverse social enterprises on the use of technology and data.

Previously Jim founded two successful for-profit Silicon Valley tech companies in the machine learning/artificial intelligence field and is an active angel investor in and board member for several companies. Jim has been widely recognized for his social change work, including being selected as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award, and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni award.

Moz Siddiqui

Moz Siddiqui joined the Nexleaf Advisory Board in April of 2023. Moz has experience in strategic partnerships and specializes in innovation at the forefront of global health and development, adapting disruptive innovations such as drones, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and blockchain to accelerate progress against UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Rupesh Shah

Rupesh currently leads product management for Granular, the software arm of Corteva Agriscience, a leading agricultural company. Rupesh has 20+ years of product experience striving to solve important customer problems by developing deep customer empathy and working closely with design, engineering and data science to design and build innovative software and data products for end users. Previously, Rupesh held leadership roles in product development at Khan Academy, Infusionsoft, LAUNCH, Simpa Energy, and Intuit, in addition he has also led sustainability and solar initiatives at Simpa Energy and Intuit. Rupesh is on the Board of De La Gente, a coffee cooperative and wholesaler based in Guatemala and is advisor to several high potential social enterprises through Rippleworks. Rupesh holds a BA in Sociology from UC San Diego and an MBA from Northwestern University.

Yacine Diop Djibo

Yacine Djibo founded Speak Up Africa in 2011 to discover and implement effective, sustainable solutions to the most challenging problems facing the African people. Focusing on strategic communications, policy, and advocacy, Speak Up Africa is dedicated to collaborating with African leaders and citizens to take on issues such as malaria, neglected tropical diseases, and sanitation in order to save and improve lives.

Yacine Djibo currently sits on the Board of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and the Faecal Sludge Management Alliance and serves in an advisory capacity to several organizations, including the Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance (MESA), GeneConvene Global Collaborative, and UNITLIFE.

Previously, Yacine Djibo worked as the Senegal country director for Malaria No More, where she developed and managed several high-profile national programs to promote malaria prevention and treatment. Before devoting her career to the health and well-being of children and families in Africa, Yacine Djibo honed her skills in business administration, finance, and real estate at several private-sector companies.

Nithya Ramanathan

 

 

Nithya Ramanathan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Nexleaf Analytics, a non-profit technology company that partners with countries to make sure they have the data they need to improve the health of people. Nexleaf’s unique approach brings together sensor design, data analysis, software engineering, and field engagement to identify and address big problems. Nexleaf technology currently protects the vaccine supply for 1 in 10 babies born each year. Nithya and her team have achieved this outsized impact by working shoulder-to-shoulder with Ministries of Health — rather than attempting to bypass governments — to scale cutting-edge technologies refined through close collaboration with personnel at every level of the health system, from top-tier government officials to last-mile health care workers.

A computer scientist specializing in sensor technologies and data analytics, Nithya is a tech-for-good pioneer and a leading thinker on global vaccine distribution. Nithya’s career started in Silicon Valley,  and continued as Research Faculty in sensor technologies at UCLA. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley. Her work has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals. Nithya is a TED Fellow, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, Switzer Environmental Fellow, and a Rainer Arnhold Fellow. She is the winner of the 2017 Hedy Lamarr Award for Female Tech Pioneer, was named a Gavi Got Life! Champion in 2018 alongside world leaders, and received the Tällberg Foundation/Eliasson Global Leadership Award in 2020. 

Martin Lukac

Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder

Martin Lukac is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Nexleaf Analytics. Martin holds a B.S. from Haverford College, and received his Ph.D. from UCLA for innovations in wireless seismic and acoustic sensing systems. He previously served as a Visiting Scientist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). At Nexleaf, Martin leads all aspects of the technical design and architecture of Nexleaf’s sensing systems and connected devices. He has personally deployed device prototypes across Southeast Asia, Africa, and beyond. His work has led to one patent and several more in the works.

Martin’s technical designs and innovations for Nexleaf have been recognized by several award competitions and publications, including Financial Times and Devex. ColdTrace was named first place winner as a tech for social good by the Museum of Innovation at the Tech Awards in 2015 and by Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project in 2013. StoveTrace won the 2016 Harnessing Data for Resilience Recognition Award, offered by USAID and FHI360, and was a finalist in the 2017 Global Mobile Awards.

Martin’s research experience includes building, deploying, maintaining, and evaluating embedded systems for seismic, structural, environmental, and public-health applications. As part of his graduate thesis work, he developed one of the first large scale wireless seismic networks and deployed and maintained the system in Peru and Mexico for over two years, spanning over 250 km. Over the course of his work at UCLA, he has worked closely with geophysicists, structural engineers, and ecologists. Martin has presented and published his work at numerous peer-reviewed conferences and journals in computer science and Earth science.

Kevin Arts

Kevin leads business operations and finance for Nexleaf Analytics. He’s focused on driving performance, collaboration, and operational excellence throughout the company.

Prior to joining Nexleaf, Kevin led teams and strategic initiatives at Google, Adobe, Bitly, Deloitte Consulting, and the Alliance for Health Reform. He earned his MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and his BA in Economics, International Relations, and Asian Studies from Tulane University.

Andrew O’Keefe

Andrew O’Keefe is the Senior Manager of Business Operations & Finance at Nexleaf Analytics, responsible for leading and overseeing business, finance, and administrative operations and supporting the organization’s business strategy, budget, and key metrics. Andrew brings over 14 years of financial planning and analysis expertise, managing and optimizing financial functions for public and private organizations. He is a driven leader with experience managing teams in financial forecasting, planning, analysis, administration, accounting, reporting, and compliance.

Before joining Nexleaf, Andrew served as Finance Manager at the Oregon Department of Transportation, encompassing wide-ranging aspects from strategic planning, financial forecasting, and accounting to successfully implementing substantial budget increases and setting up major new programs.

Andrew attained his Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Portland in 2009. He is currently earning his MBA at Villanova University with concentrations in Business Analytics and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.