Skoll | Board

The Skoll Fund, created in 1999, is a supporting organization associated with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation of San Jose, California. The private foundation, the Skoll Foundation, was launched in 2002. Each entity is governed by its own Board of Directors. The two entities share grantmaking, program, and administrative resources.

Founder and Chairman Emeritus

Jeff Skoll

Skoll Foundation Board of Directors

James DeMartini III

Jim DeMartini is the Chairman of Seiler LLP. In his role as a trusted advisor, Mr. DeMartini counsels clients in matters including income, estate and gift tax planning, wealth management, all facets of real estate, and charitable gift planning.

Currently, Mr. DeMartini is a member of the Board of Directors of the Skoll Foundation and the Stupski Foundation. Mr. DeMartini was also Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of Sports Association for Youth, a non-competitive baseball league that currently benefits more than 1,000 Bay Area youths annually. Additional past community activities include Notre Dame de Namur University Trustee, Executive Committee Member, and Chairman of the Audit Committee; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of California Advisory Board; Santa Clara University English Advisory Board; Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford Capital Campaign Committee; Stanford University Medical Center Friends of Orthopedics; Chair of the Santa Clara University Men’s Golf Committee; and Skoll Global Threats Fund board member.

From 1999-2004 Mr. DeMartini served on the Board of Directors of Mid-Peninsula Bank, a member of the Greater Bay Bancorp group. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Golden Gate University. Mr. DeMartini pursued graduate studies in taxation and speaks on a variety of related topics. Mr. DeMartini is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and California State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

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Cheryl Dorsey

Cheryl L. Dorsey is the president of Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that supports emerging social entrepreneurs and invests deeply in their ideas and leadership. A social entrepreneur herself, Cheryl received an Echoing Green Fellowship in 1992 to launch The Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit in Boston. Cheryl has served in two presidential administrations and currently serves on several boards including The Bridgespan Group and Skoll Foundation. She has received numerous awards, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award, and the Manual C. Carballo Memorial Prize. Cheryl has been named one of "America's Best Leaders" by US News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and one of The Nonprofit Times' "Power and Influence Top 50." She has a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her master's in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

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Donald Gips

Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, leads the organization’s work investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs to create transformational social change around the world. His experiences span public service, politics, business, finance, and technology.

Most recently, he led Albright Stonebridge Group’s Africa Practice, consulting with companies, entrepreneurs, and foundations investing across the continent. Previously, he served as Director of Presidential Personnel in the Obama White House, ushering in the most diverse administration in U.S. history. He served as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa where he managed more than 1,000 staff and a budget of over $600 million across multiple government agencies.

Early in his career, he helped design and create a $650 million start‐up government corporation to promote community service which became the AmeriCorps program, still operational today. He served as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore and Chief of the International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission. Still earlier in Don’s career, he developed a clean water project with Sarvodaya, a leading social enterprise, and managed a refugee camp in Sri Lanka.

He sits on the board of Liquid Telecommunication, a Pan‐African provider of fiber and telecommunications services led by Strive Masiyiwa, one of Africa’s preeminent entrepreneurs and philanthropists; and the President’s Council on International Affairs at Yale University.

Don received an MBA from the Yale School of Management and his undergrad degree from Harvard University. He is married to Elizabeth (Liz) Berry Gips, who is a venture partner at Draper Richards Kaplan. Don and Liz have three grown sons: Sam, Peter, and Ben.

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James Mwangi

James Irungu Mwangi is the Executive Director of the Dalberg Group, and a Partner with Dalberg Advisors. James established Dalberg’s presence in Africa, beginning with the Johannesburg office in 2007, and has continued to expand its footprint on the continent, with offices in Nairobi in 2008, and Dakar in 2009. James also served as Global Managing Partner and Chief Executive of Dalberg’s consulting business from 2010 to 2014.

Prior to Dalberg, James worked at McKinsey & Company. He is a 2009 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow of the African Leadership Institute, a 2013 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization. He also currently serves as a member of the Global Entrepreneurs Council of the UN Foundation.

James holds an AB Hons Degree in Economics from Harvard University.

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Lindsey Spindle

Lindsey Spindle serves as President of the Samueli Family Philanthropies and Chief Operating Officer of H&S Ventures which oversees all the Samueli Family’s for-profit and not-for-profit activities. The philanthropic entities operating under the oversight of H&S Ventures include the Samueli Foundation, the Anaheim Ducks Foundation, the San Diego Gulls Foundation, the Irvine Ice Foundation, and The Rinks Foundation.
Spindle was President of The Jeff Skoll Group, where she connected and advised Mr. Skoll’s entrepreneurial portfolio of philanthropic and commercial organizations that include the impact entertainment company Participant, Capricorn Investment Group, and the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is centered on social entrepreneurship and innovation, with a focus on five main, interrelated areas: climate change, inclusive economies, protection of democracy, pandemics prevention and health systems strengthening, and racial justice. Participant has produced more than

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Skoll Fund Board of Directors

Shashi Buluswar

Dr. Shashi Buluswar is a scientist and a serial social entrepreneur working on a range of areas including global health, energy access, water and food security.

Most recently, he served as the founding CEO of Global Health Labs, a new nonprofit created by Bill Gates to develop technology breakthroughs in global health, in partnership with the Gates Foundation. Under his leadership, GHL grew to a team of 100+ scientists and engineers, and has developed a broad portfolio of technologies including advanced molecular diagnostics for TB and other infectious diseases, FDA-approved rapid tests for COVID-19, AI-enabled image analysis for cervical cancer and maternal health, and oxygen delivery systems. Before that, Shashi was the founding CEO of the Institute for Transformative Technologies, incubated at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a special initiative of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy under the Obama administration. With a mission to build technology solutions for sustainable global development, ITT launched India’s largest infrastructures for off-grid solar power and natural sanitation, which collectively serve hundreds of thousands of the country’s poorest citizens. In response to COVID-19, Shashi also led ITT’s launch of Oxygen Hub, which has become Africa’s largest medical oxygen franchise with operations in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Prior to creating ITT, Shashi was a Partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a mission-driven strategy consulting firm, and served several international NGOs, foundations, governments, social entrepreneurs, the World Bank, and a number of UN agencies. Among his projects at Dalberg was the launch of Educate a Child, a major multilateral initiative responsible for enrolling 10 million of the world’s most vulnerable children into primary schools. Before joining Dalberg, he was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, a Vice President at Zurich Financial Services, and a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University.

Shashi is a recognized thought leader in the broader global equity and justice movement. He is the lead author of the “50 Breakthroughs” study, widely considered the technology complement to the Sustainable Development Goals. He has also co-edited a book on civil conflict and human rights in India, and has written numerous articles on issues such as global health, water security, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, environmental protection and technology-for-impact. Shashi also teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

He recently joined the board of the Skoll Foundation, and has been a long-term volunteer advisor to a number of NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize), The Citizens Foundation (which provides education for hundreds of thousands of low-income children in Pakistan), and the Pacific Institute (a leading think-tank on water security).

Beyond his professional interests, Shashi spent a decade competing on the Indian national rowing team, and made a critically acclaimed documentary film about the India-Pakistan conflict and “cricket diplomacy”.
He holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts in Artificial Intelligence, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Goshen College.

Shashi was born and raised in India.

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