LOIS BRUU JOINS COUNTERPART INTERNATIONAL’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

April 14, 2020

Counterpart International today announced the appointment of Lois Bruu to the organization’s Board of Directors.

Lois Bruu brings to Counterpart expertise in technology, financial services, and social innovation. As Vice President on the Humanitarian & Development team at MasterCard, she designs financial services solutions that foster financial inclusion and economic development in developing countries. She currently leads product development for the micro-commerce sector, which is focused on connecting consumers and merchants to the formal economy primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also held key partnership management roles, including managing MasterCard’s relationship with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the grant from which funded the Lab for Financial Inclusion in Nairobi.

“We are truly delighted that Lois Bruu has joined the Board of Directors of Counterpart International,” said Raul R. Herrera, Board Chair. “Throughout her professional career, Lois has demonstrated an entrepreneurial ability to achieve social change through business endeavors. Lois has successfully built and scaled  organizations while making a societal impact. We welcome Lois’s addition to our dynamic and outstanding board.”

Prior to joining MasterCard, Bruu served as President of Concero Connect, L3C, a social enterprise designed to deliver affordable Internet and mobile money services via satellite to countries in Africa. Previously, she was President of ECO Capacity Exchange, Ltd., a digital currency-based exchange for multilateral barter. For 13 years, she held leadership positions at TradeCard (acquired by GT Nexus / Infor), a cloud-based supply chain management platform. She helped manage TradeCard’s growth from early stage to $50M in revenue.

Bruu co-founded two international satellite companies in with social missions in emerging markets and grew them to $100M+ valuations. BelCom was a telecommunications company for the former Soviet Union that reached $15M in revenue, later purchased by Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications. DTV was a satellite television and Internet service for Russia. For both, she designed the corporate social responsibility strategies, focused on allocating bandwidth to underserved communities. She raised $12M and $25M investments and managed early-stage operations.

She has a master’s degree in Telecommunications, specializing in economic development, from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Boston College.

“We are thrilled that Lois Bruu has joined Counterpart International’s Board of Directors.  Lois brings to Counterpart great private sector expertise and broad geographic experience. Lois believes in creating positive social change through business and her impressive career addressing complex challenges and building unique solutions makes her a perfect fit for our organization’s mission and vision,” said Ann Hudock, President and CEO of Counterpart International. “On behalf of the entire Counterpart Network, I welcome Lois to our Board of Directors and look forward to her partnership.”

About Counterpart InternationalFor over 50 years, Counterpart International has forged partnerships with communities and local organizations to build inclusive, sustainable communities in which people thrive. Our current project portfolio is focused on education, food security and agricultural development, effective governance, institutional strengthening, and economic development.

For more information, please visit Counterpart.org.