Board of Directors

Daniel Mejia, Chairman

Francis Lorenzo, Vice Chair

Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy, Vice Chair

Herb N. Oringel, Member

Dr. Jorge Suárez-Menéndez, Member

Jeanne Betsock Stillman, Secretary

Scott Wright, Member

David Stillman, Ex-Officio Member of the Board

Daniel Mejia
Chairman

Daniel Mejia is the Chairman of The Sun Land Group, which specializes in international financing and development of infrastructure projects. These contribute directly to the development of the countries where the company has business relations, in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Sun Land consists of ten companies with over a dozen offices around the world. It has more than a billion US dollars of infrastructure projects under development and much more under consideration.

Established in 1997, Sun Land Group is based in Miami and specializes in international financing and development of infrastructure projects such as bridges, airports, housing, seaports and highways.

Through Mejia's leadership, business relations were reopened in 2000 between the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Dominican Republic's public sector, which had been closed for 23 years. As a result of these efforts, between 2000 and 2003, the Ex-Im Bank provided credits to the Dominican Republic for more than one billion dollars.

In July 2006 Sun Land became a participant in the United Nations Global Compact, which supports business application of internationally agreed-upon principles on labor, human rights, environmental and anti-corruption standards.

Daniel Mejia was born in the Dominican Republic and later moved with his family to New Orleans. There he completed high school and then majored in Computer Science and Information at Tulane University. In 1982 he started his first company, which manufactured knitted clothing. In 1985, with his two brothers, he formed Data Byte, S.A., in the Dominican Republic, which assembles and sells computers, software and computer-related equipment, with offices in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles. In 1993 he founded Sun Land World Trade in Miami, Florida, selling edible commodities. He lives with his wife and children in Miami.

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Francis Lorenzo
Vice Chair

Ambassador Francis Lorenzo is the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN and focal point at the Dominican Mission to the UN in charge of work and initiatives relating to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He worked with the UN Public-Private Alliance for Rural Development (UNPPA) and the Economic and Social Council to negotiate the resolution that named the Dominican Republic as the second pilot country for the UNPPA. In 2007 he served as Vice President of the Commission on Social Development. Ambassador Lorenzo is a founder of the United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic (UNA-DR), which has brought together thousands of students, teachers and key stakeholders in the country.

Prior to his work at the United Nations, Lorenzo was a business entrepreneur, working in various cities around the world including New York, Santo Domingo, Paris, London and Moscow, among others. He speaks Spanish, English and French.

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Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy
Vice Chair

Ambassador Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy is the Permanent Representative of Madagascar to the United Nations. From 1999 until his current appointment in 2002, Andrianarivelo-Razafy served as Madagascar's Ambassador to the United States, as well as Ambassador to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. From 1987 to 1998 he was Senior Manager at Henri Fraise Sons and Company Group in Madagascar. Between 1983 and 1986 he was assistant to the President of HTR Enterprises, Inc., in Washington, DC.

Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy holds a Master's Degree in Business Administration, specializing in International Business, from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana; a Postgraduate Degree in Organizational Management from Poitiers, France; a Master's Degree in Economic and Social Administration (Angers, France); and a Bachelor's Degree in International Trade and Applied Foreign Languages (English and German) obtained in Nates, France. In addition to his native languages of Malagasy and French, he is also fluent in English and German. Married with two children, Andrianarivelo-Razafy is a cousin of the late former Ambassador to the United Nations Blaise Rabetafika.

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Herb N. Oringel
Member

Herbert Oringel joined PPAF as a volunteer in Strategic Planning in January 2008, after a 44-year career with IBM. Oringel has also consulted with the Community Environmental Center, a not-for-profit that delivers energy conservation and new energy initiatives to New York architects, building owners and homeowners, and with Aequus, an innovative "green" marketing communications firm.

At IBM he was Senior Marketing Manager from 1991-2007, where he contributed to the transformation of IBM to a solutions focused firm from a technology oriented product company. A major factor of the transformation involved integrating hardware, software and services stakeholders in order to deliver maximum client value profitably. As Marketing Manager he worked with Strategic Alliance partners and IBM colleagues to create and present business plans of approximately $15 Billion with underlying marketing tactics in the various dimensions of industry, geography and customer size, measured results and proposed corrective actions. He was selected for a special leadership role in a major sales and marketing transformation project which resulted in a major restructuring of IBM's sales and marketing "go to market" approach, including but not limited to roles / responsibilities / organization.

Oringel earned a B.S. in Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA in Marketing from New York University's Stern School of Business. His interests include politics, athletics, sustainable business and renewable energy and working collaboratively in a team environment.

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Dr. Jorge Suárez-Menéndez
Member

Dr. Jorge Suárez-Menéndez has served as Chief of Plastic Surgery at four major hospitals in the Miami, Florida area. He founded the Mesuá Dermasystem anti-aging skin care line of products. (www.mesua.com) He is also co-founder of Medwell Foods, Inc. (www.medwell123.com) He has received many international honors and awards of recognition for his service in the field of plastic surgery and business. He served as a director of the Medico de Familia, published by the Interamerican College of Medicine of Surgeons and is a member of the Editorial Board, Plastic Surgery Section, Medico Interamericano, Spanish Medical Scientific Journal (USA).

In addition to his professional activities, he has served on the boards of directors of a number of organizations in Florida, including the Florida National Community College, the Spanish American League Against Discrimination, Casino Español de la Habana, and the Trust Bank (Hialeah). He has also been a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee Business Advisory Council and received several awards for his work. He has written many articles published in medical and non-medical journals and a book, Spa Medicine (The Getaway to the Ageless Zone).

Suárez-Menéndez received his M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia. Augusta, GA. He completed post-doctoral residencies at Shands Hospital (Gainesville, FL), Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital (New York, NY), Orlando Regional Medical Center (Orlando, FL) and Mount Sinai Medical Center (Miami Beach, FL). He was a fellow and Chief Resident of Plastic Surgery at The Christ Hospital (Cincinnati, OH).

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Jeanne Betsock Stillman
Secretary

Jeanne Betsock Stillman consults in non-profit management, international public health, gender issues and program development. She has served as a staff member or independent consultant with non-governmental organizations, international organizations and universities in the US and 20 other countries. She is President of Strategies for Development, Inc., a consulting firm established in 1998.

She is active in the United Nations Association of the USA, where she is President of the UNA Southern New York State Division. She is a member of the Nominating Committee of the UNA-USA national board. As a Middle Atlantic Representative to the Council of Chapters and Divisions Steering Committee, from 2007-2009 she chaired its Sub-Committee on Communications. In the UNA Westchester Chapter, she has served as Executive Director and as a Board member and Secretary, and led development of many innovative programs. She produces the video series Going Global with the UN, which appears on many Westchester public access stations. 69 of the 70 videos in the series can be viewed here. Stillman also writes a blog.

Stillman edited the 11-volume Training Course in Women's Health (1993), and supervised the translation into French of a training course on HIV/AIDS. She designed and led training programs for health professionals in the US, many sub-Saharan African countries, Tunisia, Haiti and, in relation to Afghan refugees, Pakistan. She was part of a team in 2004 which drafted a Five-Year Master Plan for Rural Development for the Government of Madagascar.

Stillman holds a BA from the American University School of International Service, an MSPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and carried out doctoral coursework at Columbia University. She was Associate Editor of the two-volume International Encyclopedia of Population (Macmillan/Free Press, 1982). Honors include Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who of American Women.

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Scott Wright
Member

Scott Wright has been in private legal practice since 1988. His practice involves the representation of lenders, borrowers and arrangers in international trade finance transactions. He currently is involved in over $2 billion of emerging market trade finance transactions in numerous countries around the world. He has significant experience representing creditors in U.S. bankruptcy matters. He also represents US and international insurers, reinsurers, and financial institutions in diverse capital markets, insurance and derivative transactions. Through his practice, Mr. Wright has developed a network of legal contacts in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.

In 2003 and 2004, Mr. Wright represented the Government of Japan in a dispute with Loral Space & Communications over the MTSAT-1R satellite. The MTSAT-1R satellite replaced the existing weather satellite for weather forecasting in all of Asia. Mr. Wright protected the Government of Japan from losing its multi-trillion Yen investment in this project. This matter was reported by the American Lawyer. "Japan v. Loral," Big Suits Column, American Lawyer (April 2004).

Mr. Wright has written and spoken widely. His article on sovereign trade finance was published in 2005. "Sovereign Trade Finance Transactions: A Legal Perspective," Reed Smith Financial Services Newsletter "Material Matters," vol. III, no. 1 (January, 2005). His speech on United States bankruptcy law to The Japan Industrial Institute, "The United States Bankruptcy System and the Japanese Bankruptcy System: A Comparison," (Tokyo, May 2004), was published by the Japanese Institute of International Business Law. Journal of the Japanese Institute of International Business Law, vol. 32, no. 7 (July 2004) and vol. 32, no. 8 (August 2004). Mr. Wright also is the co-author of The Law of Reinsurance Claims (Andrews Publications, 1994/1997) and @Risk-Internet and E-Commerce Insurance and Reinsurance Legal Issues (Reactions Publishing Group, 2000).

He is named one of the world's leading lawyers by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc. and is included in the International Who's Who of Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers.

He is a 1988 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, where he was the Current Developments Editor of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. He graduated from Lake Forest College in 1985.

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David Stillman
Executive Director, Ex Officio Member of the Board

David Stillman is a founder and the first Executive Director of the Public-Private Alliance Foundation. He was formerly the general manager of the United Nations Public-Private Alliance for Rural Development, for which Madagascar and the Dominican Republic are pilot countries. Stillman also consults on human security issues, peace-building, human rights, gender and United Nations system development cooperation. David and Jeanne Stillman established Strategies for Development, Inc., a consulting firm, in 1998.

Stillman worked with the United Nations Secretariat from 1974 to 2004. As a Senior Officer in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, he was a member of the team that supports the deliberations of the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly. Previously he was an Advisor in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services. In the mid-1980s he served as Assistant Resident Representative in Islamabad, Pakistan, with the UN Development Programme, responsible chiefly for agricultural programs. Before joining the UN he worked in Togo, Ghana and Kenya.

Stillman is past-president of the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) Westchester Chapter (2003-2007), a member of the board of the New York State Southern Division of UNA-USA, a member of the board of JumpStart International and an honorary board member of the North Carolina-based American Freedom Association.

Stillman holds a BA from the School of International Service of the American University and an MA and PhD in political science from Duke University. He has traveled extensively internationally. Stillman speaks English and French. Honors include Who's Who in America.

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"The United Nations can only do its job properly with partners. We will need to forge even closer ties to civil society groups, foundations, academic institutions, the media, labour unions, and the private sector. Each has unique contributions to make."

-Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General,
Address to UNA-USA Business Council
for the UN,
New York, 10 January 2007

Public-Private Alliance Foundation Tel: 914-478-3450 Fax: 914-478-7859 ppafoundation@gmail.com