Executive Staff

Jennifer started her career in banking in New York, moving to Asia with Chase (as it was then known) in 1996 at the height of the Asian boom. She was on Sumatra island when the 1997 financial crisis hit Indonesia and saw first-hand the fear, anxiety and uncertainty that people in the real markets of Asia – buyers and sellers of goods and services, especially the poor – were experiencing as their world collapsed. As she thought about the billions of people who live like this every day, she realized it was time to make a change.

In 1998, she became aware of and embraced microfinance – the idea that a small amount of capital made available to a poor woman to buy a goat or start a shop can transform her own life as well as that of her family. Since then, she has worked extensively with poverty-focused microfinance institutions and other social enterprises throughout Asia, supported social investment (through Calvert Social Investment Foundation and the Aavishkaar India Microventure Capital Fund, among others), and published a number of articles. In more recent years, she has come to believe deeply in the possibility of extending sustainable, economic opportunities to the poorest people in the hardest-to-reach and least economically active places, and the power of the mobile phone to deliver on that promise in ways we never imagined before.

Jennifer joined Grameen Foundation in February 2005 as the founding Director of the Capital Markets Group, where she led the development and launch of the $30 million Growth Guarantees product. She subsequently took on a strategy role before overseeing Grameen Foundation’s activities across Asia in January 2009. She has lived across Asia – Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and China – for the past 15 years and currently lives in Hong Kong with her husband and two children.

Julia Soyars joined Grameen Foundation in March 2005 and started the Grameen Foundation legal department.  After working five years in energy and government contracting law and litigation at Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in Washington, Julia joined the legal department at The American National Red Cross, where she spent eleven years handling domestic and international transactions. Julia is a founding member of the Microfinance Council of Counsels and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Julia holds a JD Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University.

Camilla Nestor joined Grameen Foundation in August 2005 and previously served as Growth Guarantees Manager and Director of the Capital Markets. She has 15 years of experience in microfinance and commercial banking. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she worked in Citigroup’s Structured Corporate Finance Department where she executed credit-enhanced debt financings for emerging markets firms in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining Citi, she spent five years on the ground in Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and Africa working with microfinance institutions and rural banks on start-up, new product development, and capital raising. Camilla holds an MBA and a masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Colorado College. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs and serves on the boards of Grameen Capital India and Microlumbia.

Heather leads Grameen Foundation’s Information Flows solution area, which includes overseeing Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Agriculture and Mobile Health program areas worldwide.  She is responsible for developing integrated solution strategies with other solution areas, and execution strategies with Regional CEOs.   Before this, she led Grameen Foundation’s AppLab program, focusing on creating sustainable models for delivery of services and micro-businesses via the mobile phone that measurably improve the lives of the poor. This included building and scaling Grameen Foundation’s Community Knowledge Worker initiative, a mobile phone-enabled agriculture-extension program that is expanding across Uganda, as well as the build-out of a mobile phone-based microfranchise network across Indonesia, which has so far empowered more than 10,000 poor women entrepreneurs.

Before joining Grameen Foundation, Heather spent nearly six years at Microsoft in strategy, product management and operational leadership roles (including work focused on emerging markets consumers) in the Windows, Microsoft Research and Mobile divisions. Before Microsoft, she was an associate with McKinsey & Company, started her own outdoor gear company, worked in Russia for a Moscow-based investment bank and for NASA on the US/Russia space program. She holds BA degrees in Russian Language and Political Science from University of Washington, and an MBA from Wharton.

As Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Effectiveness at Grameen Foundation, Norm Tonina is driving strategic alignment, organizational effectiveness, and human resource re-engineering initiatives. He also serves as a member of Grameen Foundation’s five-person Executive Committee.  He also consults with organizations on strengthening strategy and organizational alignment, and increasing leadership effectiveness to improve business performance.

Norm began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1987. During his six years with the company, he eventually became a Senior Software Business Manager for DEC’s flagship operating-systems products, where he was responsible for pricing and licensing operating systems and software products. 

Norm joined Microsoft Corporation in 1993 as a Finance Manager for its Systems products, eventually becoming CFO of Microsoft’s Platforms and Applications business.  In 1999, he migrated from Finance to Human Resources, where he has held a series of corporate HR leadership positions and directed major strategic global HR initiatives in the areas of executive and high-potential development, and organization effectiveness. He played a key role in launching Microsoft’s People and Organization Capability (POC) Center of Excellence, and was responsible for HR strategy development and program and services deployment world-wide. Norm retired from Microsoft in 2008, after 15 years as POC’s General Manager, leading and directing major change management initiatives focused on company culture, talent management and leadership development.

Norm earned his Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University, a certificate in Executive Human Resources Leadership from the University of Michigan, and a Masters in Organizational Psychology from Antioch University. He has been an adjunct faculty member for the graduate level HR program at Antioch University in Seattle, and has lectured in the University of Washington’s Technology Management MBA Program. He also is co-creator and faculty member of University of Washington’s Strategic Human Resources Leadership certificate program, which launched in 2010.

Outside of the professional arena, Norm serves on multiple boards in the areas of education, community and human resource leadership.  He also is very active in coaching youth sports.

Jorge Highland is Chief Strategy Officer at Grameen Foundation. In this role, he leads Grameen Foundation's internal strategy group and manages corporate strategic initiatives, strategic planning and performance management efforts. Before working in international development, Jorge was process improvement consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked with financial services and technology clients to improve their operations and decision making processes through better use of information.

Jorge received his M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, where he studied International Commerce and Business, and his B.S. from Boston College in Operations and Strategic Management. He is a native of Mexico and is fluent in English and Spanish.