North America

Abby Chroman

Before coming to Ashoka, Abby grew up in the woods in Northern California, studied International Relations at UC Davis, chaired the Davis chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition and helped launch a sustainable energy initiative for the university. During college, Abby moved to Central Europe to study post-communist transition and assist with rural development policy proposals at Demos, a think tank in Budapest. After graduating, Abby interned with the National Human Services Assembly in Washington DC, where she contributed to the publication of a national youth polity agenda and researched for policy development addressing the national housing crisis. She joined the Ashoka US Team in November, 2008.

Célia Cruz

After five years as the Director of Ashoka in Brazil and Paraguay, and over one year as Managing Director of Global Fellowship, Célia is now the Director of Ashoka Canada. Before she came to Ashoka, Célia worked with the Institute for Development of Social Investment, where she was a Program Coordinator for two years and supported the creation of community foundations in a number of Brazilian cities. She founded the fundraising consulting firm Philantropics in 1994, and until 2000 she served as fundraising coordinator for the Escola de Administracao de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundacao Getulio Vargas.

Chris Heald

After more than fifteen years of providing technical advice and support to a wide range of citizen sector organizations, Chris finds himself continually impressed by the people he meets and by how open they are to change, and how willing they are to adopt (and adapt!) new technologies to advance their goals. Having made a lifelong occupation of being the person who helps develop and deploy new technology in organizations, that is what he has come to do at Ashoka. And as a trend-setting organization with globe-spanning and wide-ranging impact, Chris look forward to the unique opportunities and challenges that lie ahead working for Ashoka Canada

Stephanie Schmidt

After working on the launch of the Full Economic Citizenship initiative from Arlington, Stephanie is now leading FEC in Mexico engaging social and business entrepreneurs to innovate to address needs from marginalized populations. Mexico focus so far is on small farmers through access to technology, input and financial services. Prior to Ashoka, Stephanie worked in Rwanda where she launched a program to produce essential oils with rural communities and oversaw HIV/ AIDS and Child Survival programs. Stephanie started her career as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting in Paris, and in Boston. She holds a MBA from ESSEC in France.