Village Enterprise Fund's Board of Directors

Our Organization
Board of Directors

Peter Carpenter is a former Executive Vice President of the ALZA Corporation and the former Executive Director of the Stanford University Medical Center. As a retiree, Peter serves as a board member or trustee of several organizations including Annual Reviews, Inc., the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, Population Resource Center, the United States International University, Kenya and VEF. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Peter often travels to Africa to visit our projects. He feels passionately that helping the poor is not merely an obligation, but the best way to build bridges of trust and understanding.

Jay Friedrichs is a General Partner of Cypress Growth Fund in Menlo Park. He has been involved in financing and building small enterprises for more than thirty years. Village Enterprise Fund provided Jay with an opportunity to rekindle his international interests and apply his financial experience to encourage entrepreneurship globally. Jay received his undergraduate degree as well as his MBA from Stanford.

Deborah A. Hall serves tirelessly as VEF’s Board Chair. She has considerable marketing expertise from managing her own consulting practice and through her prior work with Metaphor Computer Systems, Banner Blue Software and the Boston Consulting Group. She is involved in leadership roles with Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and the Girl Scouts of Northern California. Debbie received an undergraduate degree from Duke and an MBA from Stanford. Serving with Village Enterprise Fund is an ideal match with Debbie’s interests in business, faith and Africa.

Woody Hobbs has served as President and CEO of Phoenix Technologies since September 2006. He held the same positions at Intellisync prior to its acquisition by Nokia. Woody has worked as a consulting executive for the venture capital community and a strategic systems consultant to large corporations. His career also includes tours of duty at Tesseract Corporation, Charles Schwab and Service Bureau, a division of IBM. Woody is excited to join VEF's efforts to bring success to thousands of small business owners in Africa who only need a small grant and a little business advice in order to support their families.

Larry Langdon is a Partner and Director of Global Tax Services for Mayer Brown Rowe and Maw, LLP in Palo Alto. Larry is the former Commissioner of Large and Mid-sized Businesses for the Internal Revenue Service and a former Vice President of the Hewlett-Packard Company. He currently serves on eight nonprofit boards. Larry has law degrees from Ohio State and New York University. He enjoys working with VEF and helping people start their own businesses so that they can support their families and communities.

Tracea Routie works in Corporate Strategy & Development at the Hewlett Packard Company. She has held positions in Equity Research, Investment Banking and Corporate Strategy & M&A at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Tracea earned her MBA from Stanford and a BS from New York University. Tracea believes VEF is breaking the cycle of poverty in the third world by fostering entrepreneurship and creating sustainable development – one village, one enterprise and one fund at a time.

Tim Tight is the West Coast Partner of SCIUS Capital Group, an investment bank helping early stage companies raise their next round of funding and providing business development and strategic marketing services. Tim was Co-founder and CEO of Edge Capital Access, a niche investment bank performing these same services with an emphasis in “strategic philanthropy” for client companies. Tim has held executive positions at Immersion Corporation, Diablo Research, Whisper Communications, Raychem and Metcal. He has an MBA and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and an undergraduate degree in Physics from Denison University. Tim views VEF’s business-based initiative as a wonderful way of bringing hope to people who are in need.

Christopher Wuthmann is Principal of Renew Property Services, a commercial and residential real estate consulting and development firm based in San Carlos. Chris is active in Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos. He has a BA from Williams College, an MAR from Yale Divinity School and an MBA from Wharton. Chris feels strongly about the prospects for community and peace that VEF helps create in Africa through providing opportunities for economic development and hope to enterprising volunteers and poor families.

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