Carla Javits President	Calvin Chin Portfolio Associate	Vanessa Collins Director of Operations and Communications
David Derryck Business Partnerships Manager	Cynthia Gair Managing Director of Programs	Katie Gavigan Office and Events Manager
Samra Haider Enterprise Development Manager	Esther Kim Portfolio Director	Lorelle Malboeuf Executive Assistant
Anna Martin Manager of Research and Evaluation	Jill Niehuser Online Communications Coordinator	Anastasia Stathopoulos Administrative Assistant
Jason Trimiew Director of Fund and Business Development

To see REDF’s staff structure, please view our organizational chart.

Past REDF Directors: Where Are They Now?

Since 1990, REDF has benefited from having outstanding leaders who advanced solutions to poverty with passion and dedication.

Kristen Ace Burns

Kristen Burns joined REDF in 2001, and served as its President from 2003 to 2006. Under her leadership REDF successfully spun off from The Roberts Foundation to become an independent 501(c)(3) organization, while maintaining its dedication to measurement, innovation, and helping individuals find stability and hope through employment.

Prior to joining REDF, Kristen was an Associate with Mercer Management Consulting in San Francisco. She also served as Program Manager for a private family foundation in Washington, DC. She holds an AB in History with a Certificate in American Studies from Princeton University, and an MBA and Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.Kristen now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter, where she serves as Program Officer for The Grable Foundation. Grable is devoted to improving the lives of children; Kristen leads Grable’s work on early childhood issues.

Melinda Tuan

Melinda Tuan co-founded REDF along with George Roberts and Jed Emerson, serving first as Associate Director from 1997 to 1999 then Managing Director from 2000 to 2003. During her tenure, REDF became known for its rigorous measurement practices proving the effectiveness of social purpose enterprise in creating lasting positive change in the lives of formerly homeless and low income individuals.

Prior to REDF, Melinda was a manager at a national healthcare nonprofit and a management consultant specializing in growth strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Her numerous volunteer activities include co-founding Boston Cares, a nonprofit volunteer service organization and starting up a social-mission driven company called Dayspring Technologies in San Francisco. Melinda is currently on the Board of Managers for Evergreen Lodge.She currently resides with her husband and three children in Philadelphia, PA where she is a Senior Fellow with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and exploring new opportunities for creating positive social change.

Jed Emerson

Jed Emerson is presently a partner with Uhuru Capital Management, an investment firm pursuing full financial returns for investors together with social/economic development impacts. Uhuru is an integrated firm which contributes one quarter of its firm profits to support the expansion of social entrepreneurship in emerging markets, both domestic U.S. and internationally. As Director of Integrated Performance, Jed is charged with overseeing and executing Uhuru’s approach to augmenting financial analysis with sustainability and economic development insights. He is also a member of the firm’s investment committee and works with investors to explore how they may attain maximum value through coordinating their market rate investing with their philanthropic and life strategies. He is currently leading Uhuru’s effort to explore how best to apply these concepts to commercial rate, hedge fund investing.

Previously, Mr. Emerson was a Senior Fellow at the Generation Foundation of Generation Investment Management. During his time at the Generation Foundation, Mr. Emerson held senior staff positions at the Sun Ranch Group, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and New York University’s Wagner School of Public Policy. Mr. Emerson has held additional fellowships at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Harvard University as the Bloomberg Senior Research Fellow in Philanthropy. From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Emerson was the Founding Director of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF). Prior to his work with REDF, Mr. Emerson spent six years as the Founding Executive Director of the Homeless Economic Development Fund, also at The Roberts Foundation. Mr. Emerson is the pioneer of the Blended Value Proposition, which is widely considered a significant innovation in the field of sustainable investing.

During his tenure as Executive Director of REDF (1989-1999) and President (2000), Jed’s contributions had an immeasurable impact upon many nonprofit organizations and the populations they serve, as well as the broader field of venture philanthropy. The Nonprofit Times has twice selected Jed as one of the “Top 50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector,” individuals whose thoughts and work are felt to have significant impact on how the sector evolves in the coming century.