ASK Board of Directors

Mary Ellen Kanoff
Mary Ellen Kanoff is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins and is a member of the Corporate Department, specializing in public and private mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. Ms. Kanoff's merger and acquisitions practice includes the representation of targets, bidders, private equity firms and investors in strategic acquisitions and joint ventures in a variety of industries including food and beverage, film, equipment, hospitality, technology and consumer products. In the corporate finance area, Ms. Kanoff handles public and private securities offerings and other financing transactions, representing issuers, institutional investors and major investment banks. Ms. Kanoff regularly represents companies and boards on, and is a frequent speaker on, corporate governance and securities regulation issues. Representative clients include Nestle USA, Caterpillar Inc., Jefferies & Co., Foster Poultry Farms and New Regency Pictures.

Nancy Walker Koppelman
Nancy sits on committees and advisory boards for several International organizations including Direct Relief International, Women for Women International and Human Rights Watch. She is an Ambassador for Arts and Lectures at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Nancy served on the National Finance committee for President Obama and continues to be active in political causes in the US and worldwide.

Tim Melesi
Tim is the Director/Partner of Ker & Downey Safaris, the oldest safari company in Africa. Tim was born in Mombasa, Kenya, a remote coastal town on the Kenya/Tanzania border. He was educated at boarding school in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania and later in England. Tim traveled extensively throughout Africa and led many varied safaris such as camel walks, fishing safaris, and tracking gorillas and chimpanzees in Rwanda and Tanzania. Tim began his career with Ker & Downey Safaris over 20 years ago when he first managed the on-location camp for the film, Gorillas in the Mist.

Shauna Mistretta
As of 2012, Shauna has formed a fair-trade business in partnership with the Esiteti community called, Beads of Esiteti.

Traveling to over 30 countries Shauna is committed to uplifting the planet by empowering women globally through fair trade craft initiative programs and creating international market access for women craft groups in Africa. For the past 10 years Shauna has worked, lived, and volunteered intermittently throughout the continent, volunteering as an HIV/AIDS educator in rural Ghana, interning in Tanzania with the Jane Goodall Instititute, starting a micro-finance craft group in Kenya, and visiting former child soldiers in Liberia. Shauna believes that fair trade is a key component in empowering women and making poverty history and is dedicated to being a voice for this global movement. She is fueled each day by the women of Africa who continually teach her the resilience of the human spirit and the innate creativity within each one of us.

Elizabeth Toro, M.D., M.P.H.
Elizabeth is a Board certified Obstetrician/ Gynecologist who has volunteered her expertise in Maternal and Child Health in Latin America, Southeast Asia and East Africa. She spent her last rotation in medical school at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi and returned as an OB/GYN resident to Kenya, volunteering at Tumu Tumu Hospital in 1986. Her humanitarian interest has taken her to work in maternity wards in war zones, cervical cancer screening programs in Central America and educational training programs in other developing countries. She has done projects for her master thesis in female circumcision and symphysiotomy practices in areas that lack surgical capabilities.

Sherry Villanueva
Sherry is a co-founder and principal of Twist Worldwide, a consumer trend and intellectual property management agency. Passionate about social justice, Sherry is actively involved in her community and in addition to ASKenya, she sits on several non-profit boards including Direct Relief International, Community Action Fund for Women in Africa, 1 in 6, and Santa Barbara High School Education Foundation.