The Public Welfare Foundation today announced the election of Jackie M. Clegg, Goodwin Liu, and Maria Otero to its Board of Directors.
“We are pleased beyond measure to welcome these three distinguished individuals to the board of the Public Welfare Foundation,” said Peter B. Edelman, Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. “Each brings distinction in a different way, in terms of their diverse talents, background, and accomplishments. Yet they are distinctively similar at the same time, in that all of them are distinguished people who are at the top of their fields and deeply respected by everyone who knows them and the important contributions they make to the well-being of our society. We look forward to having them as colleagues.”
Jackie M. Clegg is the founder and managing partner of Clegg International Consultants, LLC (CIC), a strategic consulting firm formed in 2001. Ms. Clegg serves as a board member for several publicly traded companies and has participated in many mergers and acquisitions. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the CME Group, Inc., the most extensive and diverse global derivatives exchange in the world, which merged with the Chicago Board of Trade in 2007. She also serves on the boards of Blockbuster, Inc., Brookdale Senior Living, Inc., Javelin Pharmaceuticals, and Cardiome Pharma Corp. Previously, President Clinton appointed and the Senate confirmed Ms. Clegg to serve as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. She has also worked as a professional staff member on the International Finance and Monetary Policy subcommittee of the Senate Banking Committee.
Goodwin Liu is a law professor and associate dean at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Since joining the law school faculty in 2003, he has taught constitutional law and education law and policy, with additional research interests in civil rights and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to teaching, Mr. Liu was an appellate litigator in the Washington, DC office of the Los Angeles-based law firm, O’Melveny & Myers, and he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He previously coordinated policy development on K-12 education issues as a special assistant to the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education during the Clinton administration and directed a major federal program to help colleges and universities integrate community service with academic study as a senior program officer with the Corporation for National Service. He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society and was recently elected Chair of the Board, starting in 2009. In addition, he serves on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University and the Boards of Directors of the Alliance for Excellent Education, the National Women’s Law Center, and Chinese for Affirmative Action.
Maria Otero is the President and CEO of ACCION International, a leading global microfinance institution that has been a pioneer in making small loans to the self-employed poor since 1973. ACCION indirectly serves three million borrowers – 65 percent of whom are women – on three continents by providing equity investments, financial services and technical assistance to 30 of the world’s most advanced microfinance institutions. Ms. Otero, who began working with ACCION in Honduras in 1986, opened the organization’s Washington, DC office in 1989 and became its chief executive officer in 2000. She also chairs the board of ACCION Investments in Microfinance, a separate investment company. Her service on other boards includes the Calvert Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and BRAC Holding of Bangladesh, the world’s largest non-governmental organization (NGO). She has been widely recognized for her efforts to alleviate poverty, including her appointment by former United Nations’ Secretary General Kofi Annan to a UN Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors in 2006.
Ms. Clegg and Ms. Otero will begin serving at the next scheduled board meeting on October 17, 2008. Mr. Liu will begin serving at the board meeting on February 6, 2009.
The Public Welfare Foundation is a national foundation with assets of more than $500 million that supports efforts to ensure fundamental rights and opportunities for people in need. Its main areas of focus are Criminal and Juvenile Justice, Health Reform, and Workers’ Rights. For more information, please visit www.publicwelfare.org.
