Eric Berg, Executive Director, LINGOs
Adam Bricker, Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Major Programmes, World Vision International
Marie-Laure Curie, Manager, Learning and Performance, PSI
Oley Dibba-Wadda, Executive Director, FAWE Forum for African Women Educationalists
Yolette Etienne, Haiti Country Director, Oxfam America
David Holcombe, Chair of LINGOs Board of Directors, Founder & CEO of The eLearning Guild
Alfredo Leone, Managing Director, QuickLessons
David Palasits, Director, Workforce Development, Catholic Relief Services
Alison Smith, Executive Director, InsideNGO
Ashley Brown, Director, Digital Communication & Social Media, CocaCola Company
Eric Berg, Executive Director
LINGOs represents Eric's third career. He began in social work and remedial education with the NJ Department of Community Affairs and the YMCA. He worked in the Street Academy Program in Harlem and Newark and with rural youth in Maine. He then took a turn to "the dark side" and began a 25 year career in the private sector which began with the founding of a training and development firm that was recognized as an INC 500 company. After selling that company, Eric became an officer and Group VP for a NYSE company. The attraction of high tech and the West Coast brought a move to Seattle where he became a principal and CEO of a software and computer interface company which was eventually sold to a division of General Electric.
After a brief break to travel, he then began his third career initially by volunteering in the non-profit sector with Social Venture Partners, The Rensselaerville Institute and Mercy Corps and eventually as the first Executive Director of LINGOs. On the personal side, he is married with two grown children and three grandchildren and he competes in Senior Tennis Tournaments – though generally unsuccessfully.
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Adam Bricker, Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Major Programmes, World Vision International
Adam Bricker has a BS in Aerospace Engineering and an MS in Engineering, Mathematics and Applied Physics. Adam began his career as an aerospace engineer at General Dynamics in San Diego in 1985, having the opportunity to work on cruise missiles, the Space Shuttle, and very cool hypersonic missiles. He fondly remembers the 'good fun' associated with designing, building and then blowing up missiles and airplanes in the southwestern US deserts. Adam moved on to tracking advanced technologies and becoming the chief systems engineer of a major weapon system. Adam then had a short stint in consulting to Fortune 500 companies in the areas of IT department performance improvement. One of his clients was Southwest Airlines, who asked him to join full time as Director of Purchasing and then as Director of Information Systems. Four years later, Adam moved his family back to California to work for the global restaurant company, Yum!, as their VP of Information Technology to design, develop and implement a new operations system in 30,000+ restaurants in over 100 countries. In 2000 Adam joined BearingPoint as Partner/Managing Director leading a global consulting practice in the areas of operational excellence (Lean, Six Sigma, supply chain strategies, etc.), IT systems and field service strategy. However, after assuming more and more responsibilities, he found himself travelling more than 200,000 miles a year. After almost six years at BearingPoint, Adam received a very clear sign for God that his life was about to change dramatically. Adam joined World Vision October 30, 2006. As the global CIO, Adam has responsibility for the information systems and ~700 staff in ~100 countries. Adam also has responsibility for several of the "Big 5" and other partnership-wide initiatives, such as PMIS, Partnership Portal, Communities of Practice systems,and Global One (microfinance operational processes and system). Adam, his wife and four children live in Laguna Niguel, CA and attend Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church. Adam enjoys mountaineering, rock climbing, cycling, travel, and sailing… when not consumed by his children's numerous endeavors.
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Marie-Laure Curie, Manager, Learning and Performance at PSI
Marie-Laure (ML) has worked in the field of international development for 15 years. She first started at the World Bank Institute, organizing training events on reproductive health and infrastructure finance for World Bank stakeholders. She then joined PSI as a program manager in 2000. Over the 10 years she spent at PSI, she managed programs in Uganda, Madagascar, Senegal, Morocco, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Nicaragua, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Burundi and Haiti. She then took the responsibility of running the newly-created central training department and is now serving as Manager for PSI's Global Capacity Building Department. ML is comfortable working in English, French and Spanish. She also would love to practice her Japanese more often in order not to forget it (her first job which she had for 5 years, was with the Japan External Trade Organization). She holds a French business degree which is equivalent to an MBA and a degree in statistics. She lives in Washington, DC and has two young kids.
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Oley Dibba-Wadda, Executive Director at FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists)
Ms Dibba-Wadda is a specialist in gender equality in international policy and programming in multicultural and multidisciplinary environments. She has held a number of regional coordination and country management roles in gender- and education-related organisations and projects operating in Africa and Asia.
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Yolette Etienne, Country Director, Haiti, Oxfam-America
Yolette has sixteen years working in international development with a passion for social and gender justice issues. Her vision and management skills were often put into practice over the last 10 years, as Country Director of Oxfam Great Britain, one of the largest international Non Governmental Organisations operating in Haïti. She started a career in education, teaching at elementary, high school and professional school. She then moved to the development sector working with grassroots national, international NGOs and UN agency like IFAD. One of Yolette's key strengths has been her ability to grow bonds with local grassroots organisations and other actors of the Haitian civil society. In 2007, HM Queen Elizabeth II awarded Yolette, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to development and humanitarian aid in Haiti with Oxfam Great Britain. She is fluent in French, English, Spanish, Creole and holds a BSc in management. In addition, she has done master studies in International Affairs with FLACSO (Facultad Latinamericana de Ciencias Sociales). She is currently Country Director for Oxfam America in Haiti.
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David Holcombe, Chair of LINGOs Board of Directors, Founder & CEO of The eLearning Guild
David Holcombe has been focused on learning and performance improvement for his entire professional career. Over the last 25 years, he has organized hundreds of events across North America and Europe that have collectively provided tens of thousands of participants with information, ideas, and knowledge to enable them to leverage various information technologies to improve knowledge and performance. These events have addressed topics such as e-Learning, computer training, technical support, information design & development, knowledge management, and user assistance and Help design. In addition to his role at the Guild, David also serves on the Advisory Board of the eLearning for Kids Foundation.
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Alfredo Leone, Co-founder and Partner of Nexus Global Partners; Managing Director, QuickLessons
Alfredo is cofounder and partner of Nexus Global Partners, a boutique cross-border advisory firm focused on international expansion of technology companies. At Nexus, Alfredo manages strategic development of the company and is responsible for ICT related projects with focus on North and Latin America. Nexus is active in all continents with a network of local partners and associates that Alfredo was personally instrumental in identifying and establishing.
As part of the activities that Nexus manages directly related to eLearning, Alfredo is Managing Director of QuickLessons LLC which is a Joint Venture with the leading Brazilian Corporate Training company Affero. In this role, Alfredo manages all activities aimed at growing an international market presence for an innovative software as a service content development platform for both B2B and B2C as well as represents Affero in other international partnership opportunities. Keeping in line with Alfredo's interest for eLearning, he is also Managing Director for EMEA and Latin America for IntraLearn Software Corporation responsible to manage international sales channels for this pioneer LMS company.
Alfredo holds a BS and an MS with honors in Electrical Engineering from Boston University. He is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish and fully conversational in Portuguese. Traveling is the most enjoyable activity for Alfredo. As any good Italian, he is also very fond of soccer, food and a nice glass of wine!
David Palasits, Director, Workforce Development, Catholic Relief Services
David's career has focused on alleviating poverty and building capacity in Africa, impoverished parts of the US and globally in a variety of roles and locations, in large part with Catholic Relief Services. Membership in LINGOs, since its founding in 2005, been beneficial to the growth of CRS organizational learning systems. David has mobilized LINGOs resources to provide the programming staff of CRS and its partners access to and use of first rate learning and project management tools to serve better the poor and marginalized. David brings keen strategic insight and a depth of experience in the field of international development to the LINGOs Board.
David holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia College, and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Michigan. In addition to serving on LINGOs' Board of Directors, David actively serves his community in Maryland as a coach for various athletic teams, a Boy Scout troop committee chair, and adult leader for volunteers who participate in the Appalachian Service Project. David, his wife and three children live in Maryland, USA.
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Alison Smith, Executive Director and Founder of, InsideNGO
Alison has taken InsideNGO from a volunteer support group for operations professionals to a respected and well known training, resource sharing, advocacy and networking organization with a focus on Human Resources, Finance, Grants, Contracts, Legal and Tech issues within the international relief and development sector.
Prior to InsideNGO, Alison served as CFO and Director of Training at PACT. While CFO at PACT, Alison helped found the Association of PVO Financial Managers and of The Personnel Co-op. Prior to PACT, Alison served as Events Coordinator, CFO and Acting Executive Director at Oxfam-America.
Alison serves on the Board of Directors of InterAction, ASAE's Content Action Committee, and Independent Sector Advisory Group on Nonprofit Effectiveness. She and her husband live in Westport, CT.
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Ashley Brown, Director, Digital Communication & Social Media, Coca-Cola Company
Ashley Brown leads digital communications and social media for The Coca-Cola Company. In this role he leads the development and execution of the Company's digital strategy, expands our ability to amplify the Coca-Cola story online, and guides the development of digital and social media policies and training. He also works across the System to equip employees to be effective brand ambassadors, and advises our customers and partners on their digital and social media efforts. Prior to joining Coca-Cola, Ashley led international public relations, consumer campaigns, and issues management for Microsoft's Windows group. While working on the agency side, he managed media relations for Gilead Sciences, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Health Organization. Ashley holds an M.A. in International Relations from Boston University and is member of the Alumni Board of The Walker School, a lover of cars, urban design, public transit, and electronic music.
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