Tim Berners-Lee and Martin Eakes Join Ford Foundation Board

NEW YORK, September 29, 2011 -

The Ford Foundation Board of Trustees today announced the election of two new members, Martin Eakes and Sir Tim Berners-Lee.  

“Martin is one of the most successful social entrepreneurs of his generation, having founded a series of national nonprofit organizations. Tim’s work in the early development of the World Wide Web makes him one of the great innovators of his generation. They have launched ideas and built institutions that have had enormous impact in the lives of people around the country and around the world,” said Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation. “Together they represent an extraordinary addition to the Ford Foundation’s board.”

Eakes co-founded and leads Self-Help, a community development lender, which has provided almost $6 billion in financing to more than 60,000 homebuyers, small businesses, and nonprofits. Mr. Eakes also founded the Center for Responsible Lending, a leading research and advocacy organization for equitable banking practices. Most recently, Eakes has built a network of credit unions in North Carolina and California with more than $900 million in assets.

Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He is currently a professor at MIT as the 3Com Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is also a professor in the Electronics and Computer Science Department at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.

Berners-Lee is director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. He is director of the Web Science Trust, which supports the global development of Web science. He is also founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, launched in 2009 to fund and coordinate efforts to advance the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

“Through their work and in their lives, these individuals have shown a deep commitment to the values of individual opportunity and social justice that lie at the heart of the Ford Foundation’s mission,” said Ubinas, adding, “We are honored to have them join our board and know they will contribute greatly to our work across the globe.”

Including Eakes and Berners-Lee, seven new trustees have joined  the 14-member Ford Foundation board since Ubinas arrived in January 2008.

Martin Eakes

Self-Help reaches low-income families who are underserved by conventional financial institutions through retail credit unions that offer a full range of deposit accounts, consumer loan products, and services to residents. Eakes also founded the Self-Help Ventures Fund, which manages Self-Help’s higher-risk business loans, real estate development, and home loan secondary market programs, and the Self-Help Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit entity that purchases and develops residential real estate in low-income communities.

In 1998, Eakes helped assemble the Coalition for Responsible Lending, a coalition of financial institution CEOs and organizations representing millions of North Carolina citizens to stop predatory lending practices across the United States. The work of the Coalition resulted in the nation’s first anti-predatory mortgage lending law enacted in 1999 in North Carolina.  

In 2002, Self-Help created a research and policy affiliate, the center for Responsible Lending, a not-for-profit, non-partisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. The Center helps American families save more than $4 billion annually.

Earlier this year, Eakes was one of 12 recipients of the Ford Foundation’s Visionaries Award for his contributions to creating financial opportunities for the poor. He is a nationally recognized expert on development finance and has also been honored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as a MacArthur Fellow for his work.  

Eakes’ current and former board positions include the N.C. Institute for Minority Economic Development, The Stewards Fund, Guilford College, N.C. Community Development Initiative, N.C. Center for Nonprofits, N.C. Low-Income Housing Coalition, and Pew Partnership for Civic Change. Mr. Eakes holds a law degree from Yale Law School, an M.P.P. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton University, and a BA from Davidson College, where he majored in physics and philosophy.

Tim Berners-Lee

When awarding him an honorary doctor of science degree in 2011, Harvard University described Berners-Lee as a “pioneer and advocate of the Internet age…best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.” Berners-Lee continues to be a pioneering voice in favor of an open and accessible internet for all people.  

He is a founding director of the Web Science Trust launched in 2009 to promote research and education in Web science, the multidisciplinary study of humanity connected by technology. He is also a director of the World Wide Web Foundation launched in 2009 to fund and coordinate efforts to advance the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

In 2009, Berners-Lee began to work with the UK government to help make data more open and accessible on the Web, building on the work of the Power of Information Task Force. He is currently a member of the Public Sector Transparency Board to advance the UK government’s work on transparency.

Born in London, Berners-Lee graduated from the Queen’s College at Oxford University, England, with a degree in physics. In 1984, he was a fellow at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. His work there led to the development of the Web.

In 2001, Berners-Lee became a fellow of the Royal Society. He has been the recipient of dozens of international awards including the Japan Prize, the Prince of Asturias Foundation Prize, the Millennium Technology Prize and Germany’s Die Quadriga award. In 2004, he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth and in 2007 he was awarded the Order of Merit. In 2009, he was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. He has received many honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Columbia and Oxford.  

The Ford Foundation Board

Ford Foundation trustees are elected by the full board and serve six-year terms. Trustees set broad policy relating to grant making, geographic focus, investments, governance and professional standards, and they oversee internal and independent audits. The foundation’s trustees hail from four continents and have extensive experience in the worlds of higher education, business, finance, technology, law, government and the nonprofit sector.

The full Ford Foundation board of trustees includes:
Irene Hirano Inouye, Chair. Hirano Inouye is president of the U.S.-Japan Council, and served as president and executive advisor of the Japanese American National Museum from 1988 to 2009. She was president and chief executive of the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy and executive director of T.H.E. Clinic Inc., both in Los Angeles. She was previously a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and associate director of the Asian Women’s Center.Hirano Inouye has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2006, and chair since 2010.

Kofi Appenteng is a partner at Constant Capital Ltd., and also at the West Africa Fund. Appenteng also serves as chairman of the African-American Institute and the International Center for Transitional Justice. He is a board member of the University of Cape Town Fund and a trustee emeritus of Wesleyan University. He is also a former partner at Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP. Appenteng has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2007.

Afsaneh M. Beschloss is president and chief executive of The Rock Creek Group. An authority on international and corporate finance, she formerly served as CEO and CIO of Carlyle Asset Management Group and is former treasurer and CIO of the World Bank. She serves on the investment committee of the Smithsonian Institution, and is on the boards of the Urban Institute and the World Resources Institute, among others. Beschloss has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2002.

Juliet V. Garcia is president of the University of Texas at Brownsville. In 2009, she was named by Time Magazine as one of America’s 10 best college presidents. She serves on the board of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is a past president of the American Association of University Presidents.  Garcia has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2003.

J. Clifford Hudson is chairman and chief executive officer of Sonic Corp., where he previously served as general counsel, CEO and COO. He is a former chair of the Oklahoma City School Board, where he served between 2001 and 2008. In 1994, Hudson was appointed by President Clinton to chair the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, where he served until 2001. Hudson has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2006.

Yolanda Kakabadse is president of WWF International and senior adviser of the Ecuador-based Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano, which she founded in 1993 to promote sustainable development in Latin America. Kakabadse was minister of environment for the Republic of Ecuador from 1998 to 2000, and is a past president of the World Conservation Union. She has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2000.

Robert S. Kaplan is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and a senior director of The Goldman Sachs Group. He was formerly a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and headed its operations in Asia. He is a trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary and board chair of Project ALS. He served as interim CEO of the Harvard Management Company, the group responsible for managing Harvard’s endowment, from November 2007 until June 2009. Kaplan has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2008.

Thurgood Marshall Jr. is a partner in the international law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP in Washington, D.C., and a principal at Bingham Consulting Group. He served in the Clinton White House as assistant to the president and cabinet secretary, coordinating relations with executive branch departments from 1997 to 2001. He is the vice-chairman of the U.S. Postal Service, and on the board of the National Women’s Law Center.  Marshall has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2007.

N.R. Narayana Murthy is chairman emeritus of Infosys Limited, one of the world’s largest software services firms, which he co-founded in India in 1981. Mr. Murthy also serves on the boards of several global companies, including HSBC. He is a member of the advisory boards and councils of several educational institutions, including The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, University of Tokyo, and others. Murthy has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2008.

Peter A. Nadosy is managing partner of East End Advisors. Until 2008, he served as president and vice chairman of Morgan Stanley Asset Management. He has served as a board member of WWF USA, as chair of the Amherst College investment committee, and since 2004 as a board member of the Harvard Management Company, where he was also interim CEO from summer 2005 to March 2006. Nadosy has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2009.

Cecile Richards is president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Earlier, she served as deputy chief of staff for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and in 2004, founded and served as president of America Votes, a coalition of 42 national organizations working on voter registration, education and mobilization.  Richards has been a member of the Ford Foundation board since 2010.

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For 75 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Suzana Grego, Media Relations Chief, Ford Foundation, s.grego at fordfoundation.org, +1-212-573-5128