Board

Jeroen van der Sommen, co-founder, chairman of the board

Jeroen ignited the Akvo phenomenon after meeting Thomas Bjelkeman at Stockholm World Water Week in summer 2006. Since then he has steered Akvo's evolution to ensure it is relevant to, and supported by, a wide range of implementation NGOs, funding partners and global institutions. Jeroen started his career as a hydrologist in Burkina Faso in 1982 and holds an MSc. in Hydrology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He worked throughout the 1980s in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Niger, Mali, Indonesia and India, managing water supply and management projects on behalf of organisations such as the World Bank and the European Union. In 1998, Jeroen founded the Netherlands Water Partnership. Here he has built a dynamic network of 175 member organisations that collaborate. Today, NWP acts as both a venture capital engine and a collaboration network, supporting organisations like Akvo that wish to challenge 'business as usual' in the water and sanitation sector.

Fon Koemans, board member

Fon Koemans studied law in Utrecht, and completed his military duties, after which he worked for ten years at ABN Bank. In 1981 he became a board member and in 1991 chairman of The Nederlandse Waterschapsbank N.V. (NWB or Dutch Bank for Water Boards). Mr Fon Koemans is also a member of the Task Force on Financing Water for All. This Task Force was formed at the end of 2005 and provided a cross-sector perspective on Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Local Actions for the World Water Forum in Mexico.

Mark Nitzberg, board member

Mark has been involved with Akvo as an advisor since the first meeting at Netherlands Water Partnership in Delft in 2006. He is co-founder and CTO of Smartleaf, Inc., a leader in scalable portfolio management solutions for financial firms now used for over $50 billion in assets. Mark is also co-founder and president of the Blindsight Corporation, which creates computer vision technology for the blind. Prior to this, Mark was a principal at Viaweb, which built the first web application: a browser-based e-commerce platform. Now Yahoo! Store, the platform is used by over 20,000 merchants to build, maintain and run online retail stores handling millions of transactions daily. Mark has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Sunita Nadhamuni, board member

Sunita is CEO of Arghyam, a unique not-for-profit foundation based in India. With its mission of ensuring "safe, sustainable water for all", she brings to Akvo's board extensive experience in both grant-making and technical, research and advocacy initiatives that aim to help transform conditions for India's urban and rural poor. She is experienced in forming partnerships that connect governments, NGOs and other institutions, for impact and scale. Between the late 1980s and 2004, Sunita lived and worked in the United States for technology companies including Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, WebMD (Healtheon) and GlobeTrades Inc. From 1996 to 2004 she was an executive member of ICA Indians for Collective Action, based in Santa Clara, CA. She also helped forge cooperation between US and Indian communities through work with the American India Foundation, Rejuvenate India Movement, and founded SEVA, which supported grass-roots development work in rural India. She holds a Masters degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication from Andhra University.