Proteus Fund Thrilled To Introduce Five New Members of Its Board of Directors
Together, the five leaders joining the Board of Directors bring decades of experience in philanthropy and the progressive non-profit sector, with particular expertise in areas including financial management, program development and design, grantmaking, policy, and partnerships.
Patricia Eng is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at the New York Women’s Foundation managing the NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color, the first collaborative fund in the country focused on young women and gender non-binary youth of color. Among other accomplishments over the past two decades, Pat founded the first organization on the East Coast working with battered immigrant Asian women, and innovated grantmaking strategy in several areas, including masculinity and violence and the prevention of child sexual abuse. Pat serves as co-chair for the New York Chapter of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.
Odell Mays joined the Board of Directors this summer, and serves as Treasurer. Odell is the founder and Principal of Mays2 Consulting LLC, a specialized management consultancy focused on working with non-profits on fiscal management and operations, in addition to governance and compliance issues. He has over 25 years of management experience in nonprofits and board leadership, including as chair and co-chair of the board of Gay Men's Health Crisis and as treasurer of the NYC LGBTQ Community Services Center. He is also an adjunct faculty instructor at Columbia University and NYU.
Sushma Raman is the Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has a diverse and global background in philanthropy, human rights, and social justice, including leading significant initiatives at both Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations. She has graduate teaching experience at the Harvard Kennedy School, UCLA, and USC and is currently working on a book with co-author Bill Schulz on the future landscape of human rights, to be published by Harvard University Press.
Mai-Anh Tran is the Director of Financial Planning and Budgeting at Ford Foundation. Prior to joining Ford, she worked in mergers and acquisitions and private equity, specializing in media and technology. She was also the director at the Alliance for Downtown New York, where she managed a loan and grant portfolio program to help small businesses in Lower Manhattan recover following 9/11.
Eric Ward is the Executive Director of Western States Center. From 2011-2017, Eric served as a Ford Foundation Program Officer and a Program Executive for The Atlantic Philanthropies. Eric is a singer-songwriter and board member of Revolutions Per Minute, a nonprofit agency that provides artists with strategy and support for their activism and philanthropy.
They join Ryan Alexander, Jennifer Berman, Richard Burns, Jason Franklin, Sara Gould, Helena Huang, and Erica Hunt on Proteus Fund's Board of Directors.