Development - Raise and track funds

Clara Chow

Clara Chow is the President and CEO of Generation Enterprise. Her inspiration for what would become Generation Enterprise came as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, when she met a Nigerian activist working with street youth in Lagos who wanted to build a microfinance bank targeting homeless, unemployed, and unemployed youth. Her moment of obligation came when she realized that traditional microfinance was not enough to get these youth off the streets; they had access to cash through informal jobs and criminal activity, but needed a safe place and structured way to develop skills, change their mindsets, and build sustainable businesses that would create jobs for themselves and other "unemployable" youth in their communities. Borrowing and remixing ideas from her Wharton and StartingBloc classes, experience as a Toronto Youth Cabinet and United Way student executive, and McKinsey consulting projects, Clara developed a model for investing in youth with no fixed address, no work expereince, no guarantors, and no collateral. Clara continues to lead GEN's international management team from the Stanford campus in sunny Palo Alto, where she is pursuing an MBA. Previously, she served as senior manager at Hearst Innovation, a project manager at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. She is an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania and Sciences Po Paris's Programme International. Clara has held fellowships at the StartingBloc Institute for Social Innovation, the Institute for International Public Policy, and the Humanity In Action human rights program in Amsterdam, and served as a board member of the Canadian International Peace Project, a nonprofit expert advisor of Catchafire, and a team member of the educational startup Univercities.

Marketing - Exchange knowledge

Kristian Vazquez-Diaz

Kristian, originally from Bayamon Puerto Rico, has lived in 6 cities over the past 6 years but currently (temporarily?) lives in New York (Brooklyn!) where he works as a marketing consultant for the New York Knicks. He is a nerd when it comes to issues of marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, development, and public policy. When not wearing his sort-of-serious hat as the CMO of GEN, Kristian enjoys traveling, yelling at sporting events, photography, films, and every kind of random activity he can get into.

Roman Chappuis

Roman is a Graphic Designer/Desktop-Publisher from Switzerland. In the last 10 years he has lived in different countries like New Zealand, Liberia and Germany where he could gain new work experience. In the GEN Marketing Team, he works on the website and helps designing and laying out all the Marketing Material. He is now following a training at SAE Institute in Berlin to become a professional Web-Developer/-Designer and add new skills to his profession. Roman loves Snowboarding, Sailing, Tramping, Rock- and Metal-Music and everything about Multimedia... and of course the mighty FC Basel and the All Blacks!

Network - Scale GEN responsibly

Julia Cohen

Julia Cohen is the managing director of the Network Team at Generation Enterprise, where she manages GEN's stakeholder engagement and program expansion model. Specifically, Julia is focused on scaling operations within Nigeria and piloting GEN’s first international expansions to India and Colombia. Her interest in international development and youth entrepreneurship began during her time at the University of Pennsylvania, where she concentrated in international relations and oversaw the development of an International Development minor as a part of the Dean’s Advisory Board.

In addition to her role at GEN, Julia is a brand marketer at PepsiCo, where she has led in the strategy and implementation of national promotions, launched a number of product and packaging innovations, and executed branded entertainment integrations across three trademarks. At PepsiCo, Julia has also been able to develop her working knowledge of small and large business models, having had the opportunity to partner with a series of Silicon Valley start-ups through a corporate job residency program. Her exposure to PepsiCo’s various efforts to incubate small businesses both at home and abroad has inspired her belief in the power of enterprise to transform local communities.

Julia also serves on the executive leadership board of Conn3ct, PepsiCo’s Young Professionals group and is a member of the Delta Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with a joint Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE) and Hispanic Studies. Julia currently lives in the East Village, where enjoys exploring the street artists and greenmarkets of New York City.

Ross Joy

Director of Delhi Expansion with GEN's Network Team, Ross graduated from Seton Hall University and currently serves with City Year, Inc. in New York City coordinating corporate and community service events. He is passionate about long distance running, urban planning and the power of youth.

Programs - Deliver rigorous training

Fairlie Chappuis

Fairlie is a reasearcher at the Freie Universität Berlin and specialist in security governance. In her free time she enjoys boating, the snow and working on GEN's Programs team.

Jade Scott

Outside of her work as an Associate Director on GEN's Programs team, Jade spends her time as a Research Analyst at the Corporate Executive Board, exploring new places to eat and hiking, skiing, and snowboarding when she ventures out of the city.

Enterprise Portfolio - Support business growth

Newton Omebere-Iyari

Newton is passionate about the personal and professional development of African youth and has helped set up development initiatives in Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. He was initially drawn to Generation Enterprise after discovering the operating model in an article online, and he didn’t rest until he made contact with Clara, its CEO. At Generation Enterprise, Newton leads the Enterprise Portfolio team, which is responsible for supporting the business growth of the Fellows. He splits the rest of his time between Iroko Capital, where he works as an investment banking analyst, and Health Lifeline Network, an indigenous charity organisation, where he helps to increase the awareness of symptoms of menopause amongst women in impoverished communities in West Africa. Newton is a Suffolk University alum and loves sports especially football (go Chelsea FC!) and a good game of squash.

Taishi Kushiro

In addition to his involvement with GEN’s Enterprise Portfolio team, Taishi is an analyst in Evercore’s M&A and restructuring advisory practices. Prior to Evercore, he had spent several summers at J.P. Morgan within their M&A advisory group, the United States Congress, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

While completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he had assisted the Grassroots Business Fund (formerly the International Finance Corporation’s Grassroots Business Initiative) on evaluating the social impact of its investments in Tanzania.

Taishi was born in Japan, but has lived in Thailand and Chile for the majority of his life. He is a native Spanish and Japanese speaker.

Erika Hansen

A 2012 Haverford College graduate, Erika Hansen, currently lives in Washington DC. At Haverford, Erika studied economics and enjoyed economics related micro-finance courses she took in her senior year. Her senior thesis was a financial econometrics study of the diversification value Micro-finance Investment Vehicles (MIVs) offered investors during the global financial crisis. She joined GEN to continue her interest in supporting micro-finance and small business growth from a bottom-up approach. Erika currently works in the Portfolio Enterprise team, after spending the last 6 months with the Programs team. She is currently a research analyst in the financial services practice at Corporate Executive Board. In her free time, she plays in several volleyball leagues in the DC area.

Special Initiatives

Ryan Takasugi

Su Huang

Alex Yen