Board of Directors
Tiffanie DeBartolo
Board Vice President
Tiffanie is the Chief Executive Super Goddess of Bright Antenna Records and the co-founder of the ShineMaker Foundation. She is also a writer, and her novels include God-Shaped Hole, How to Kill a Rock Star, Sorrow, and a graphic novel called Grace: Based on the Jeff Buckley Story. DeBartolo has a B.A. in Philosophy from UC Berkeley.
Reece Hirsch
Secretary
Reece is a partner in the San Francisco office of Morgan Lewis and co-head of the firm’s Privacy and Cybersecurity practice. He received his J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School in 1990, where he served on the Southern California Law Review. He received his B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University in 1982. Reece is ranked by Chambers USA as a leading national expert in healthcare privacy and a leading California healthcare regulatory attorney. He is the author of six thrillers that draw upon his background as a privacy attorney.
Rachel Klemmer
Treasurer
Rachel is a Certified Public Accountant who provides accounting and consulting services to nonprofit organizations. Prior to her current role as a Manager at an accounting firm, she spent ten years working in accounting and finance roles for international development organizations. Many of the programs she supported were based in East Africa, including South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Harding University. She was first introduced to the VAD Foundation in 2016 and served as the organization’s bookkeeper for 3 years. She joined the Board of Directors in 2023 as the Treasurer.
Greg Larson
Board Member
Greg is a writer and consultant in the areas of public policy, social impact, economics, and sustainability. He spent six years in the U.S. Treasury Department's International Affairs division, focusing on economic policy and development finance, and has worked as a research fellow for the World Bank and Harvard's Center for International Development. He has a master's from Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor's from Stanford. Greg first joined the VAD Foundation at its beginning, serving as associate director from 2007 to 2011 and helping establish its flagship education center in Marial Bai, South Sudan.
Ann Goldblatt
Board Member
Ann has been active in the non-profit sector for 40 years. She oversaw capital campaigns and event planning for both Wildwood School and Windward School in Los Angeles. Ann assisted Dorothy Green, the 1st president of the environmental advocacy non-profit Heal The Bay in the organization's early days. She has been a long-term mentor/tutor to students through the Virginia Avenue Project after-school program for the Santa Monica public school system. Ann received her B.S. in Secondary Education, English & French, from Ohio State University and attended the Interior Architectural Design program at Santa Monica City College. She is currently an art consultant to several fine artists in Southern California.
Scott Schumaker
Board Member
Scott is the Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Bright Antenna Records. He has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado. Scott is also a former professional triathlete and the author of the children's book Henry's Big Star Adventure.
Oscar van Gelderen
Board Member
Oscar van Gelderen is the former publisher of Lebowski Publishers in Amsterdam. Between 1995 and 2002, he ran the independent publishing house Vassallucci, with Lex Spaans as his co-conspirator. Over the years he published a mix of fiction by Dutch and international authors (specializing in Israeli, Italian and American), and he has a special knack for rediscoveries and cult books. Some of the international authors he published are Dave Eggers, Niccolò Ammaniti, Roberto Bolaño, Lucia Berlin, Phil Klay, Melissa Bank, Hunter S. Thompson, Emma Cline, Philip K. Dick, Tristan Egolf, Roberto Saviano, John Kennedy Toole and John ‘Stoner’ Williams. In December 2020, he retired from publishing (after 30 years) but re-emerged in May 2021 as a manager of authors and artists: www.ovgmanagement.com.
Mascha Davis
Board Member
Mascha Davis MPH, RDN is a nationally recognized registered dietitian nutritionist, humanitarian and founder of Nomadista Nutrition, a private nutrition practice based in Los Angeles. Her writing and expertise have been featured in numerous publications and media outlets and her book with publisher Simon & Schuster, Eat Your Vitamins, is available online and in bookstores nationwide. Before launching her private practice, she spent 5 years in Africa managing programs for the treatment and prevention of malnutrition in women and children. She spent most of 2015 in South Sudan, and gave a TEDx talk about her experiences in 2016. She received her MPH from UCLA and B.S. in Nutritional Science / Dietetics from UW-Madison. Her nutrition tips, health advice and recipes can be found on her Instagram account @nomadista_nutrition and her blog on nomadistanutrition.com.
Brian Herlihy
Board Member
Brian founded Black Rhino in 2012. Mr. Herlihy has over seventeen years of infrastructure development experience and has built valuable relationships across the African continent in telecommunication, chemical processing, energy and infrastructure. He has been involved in over US$7 billion of project finance-related deals in Africa in 2007. He founded SEACOM, a US$600 million submarine fiber-optic network company that was the first cable to connect East and South Africa to Europe and Asia. He holds an MSc (Development Studies) with a concentration in African Economics and a BA (Economics and Philosophy) from the London School of Economics and Boston College, respectively. He served as CEO of SEACOM from 2007 until 2012 and remains as a Director of the Board. Prior to SEACOM, he was the lead developer on a US$5 billion alumina refinery in Guinea. He was elected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011.