Board of Directors

Romanus Berg

Director, NetHope
VP, CIO & Leadership Group Member, Ashoka

 

Romanus is VP & CIO for Ashoka, which promotes social entrepreneurs through 12 programs covering over 60 countries. He joins Ashoka from Oceana, where he served as VP of Global Operations and still serves as VP and CIO. Oceana is focused on preserving the world's oceans. "I currently work with Ashoka, Oceana, NetHope and visionary private, public and citizen sector partners that bring social solutions to a global marketplace. At Ashoka we are rapidly scaling an "Everyone a Changemaker" vision. Ashoka has a proven 28 year track record of supporting widespread and irreversible positive change; this is in part done by continually sourcing and supporting Ashoka Fellows, representing the world's largest network of leading social entrepreneurs from over 66 countries. One example of Ashoka's 2000+ Fellows is Muhammad Yunus who was awarded the Nobel Piece Price for translating his vision into practical action for the benefit of millions. At Oceana this means having established and now continuing to grow a global organization so adept at helping to manage 3/4 of our planet. After launching in 2001, we sustained an aggressive organizational growth curve as a result of strategic planning and proactive infrastructure investments; this enabled us to scale Oceana faster than any private, public or citizen sector organization would normally be allowed to grow: Within 2 1/2 years we pushed our operations across Europe, North and South America to deliver impressive results on behalf of world oceans." Born in Guatemala to German immigrants, Romanus attended university in France and Germany before obtaining a BS in Computer, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences from the University of Maryland. After graduation, he helped build public-private bridges supporting the successful $1.8 billion privatization of the United States Enrichment Corporation; he continued to work across public, private and social sectors to find his true calling in developing competitive advantages for substantive missions at the intersection of communities, practice and technology.