Jon Bishop, Founder and CEO.

For the inspiration behind Envest, read "From Field Biology to International Finance: A Personal Journey"

Jon is an experienced microfinance professional with a successful track record managing two international community investment funds before founding Envest. He has a BA in Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MS in Biology (emphasis in ecology) from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and a Masters in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona.

Jon created Envest out of his conviction that poverty and environmental degradation are inextricably linked. He is also an active volunteer in prairie and savannah restoration along the Ice Age Trail near Madison, Wisconsin. 

Julia Glad, Communications Manager 
Julie is a graduate in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus on sustainable business and socially responsible investment. She was awarded a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship by the Morgridge Center for Public Service for her work on sustainability and microfinance in the U.S. and Latin America. 

Her work in socially responsible investing began with a consulting project with CUNA Mutual Group. In 2006 Julie worked with Progressive Investment Management’s Portfolio 21 conducting research on corporate renewable energy initiatives. She has extensive experience in program development, sales and marketing at Girl Scouts of Milwaukee Area, Inc., where she was involved in both local and national organizational affairs. She is functionally fluent in Spanish and a student of Japanese.  

Francis Soza Huete, Country Representative – Nicaragua
Francis manages all in-country operations for Envest in Nicaragua. In addition to her role with Envest, she and her husband own a business that sells and installs computer and software systems. Her professional experience includes forming cooperatives for the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform and serving as the Director of Technology for Telesecundaria, a program that provides high school courses by video to rural areas that have no access to secondary schools.
Francis holds a degree in Pedagogy from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua. She studied business development in Colombia and Germany and was a contributing author on a book on the sustainability of farms. Francis is a member of Movimiento por Nicaragua, a non-partisan civic organization that promotes human and civil rights in Nicaragua.

Board of Directors

Jon Bishop, Chief Executive Officer

See above.

John Geigel

After 22 years as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Wisconsin Business Development Finance Corporation (WBD), a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Certified Development Corporation (CDC), in 2004 John founded Community Financial Services of Wisconsin, a source of alternative financing for community bankers. 

During his tenure at WBD he built the fifth largest CDC loan program portfolio in the United States, with more than 150 transactions in excess of $50mm annually for six years.  His staff of 28 included four loan production teams in five offices around Wisconsin.

He also implemented lender technical assistance programs with over 100 financial institutions including credit unions.

When he was a board member and officer of the National Association of Development Companies, the trade association for CDCs in the United States, he helped guide the national CDC movement in its evolution of the 504 loan program from $150M per year to nearly $3 billion today.

Sergio Loureiro

Mr. Loureiro is a partner with Autonomous mind, a locally-owned communication and planning consulting firm in Madison, WI. Autonomous Mind specializes in providing communication and business planning services to small businesses and organizations, with a focus on sustainability and renewable energy.

Mr. Loureiro worked previously in the U.S. financial industry and in the consumer goods industry in Europe. He holds a degree in engineering from Universidade Católica, Porto, Portugal, and a MBA from University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has held board positions in various non-profit organizations over the years.

Paul Sager

Paul operates an independent consulting firm in Madison, Wisconsin specializing in supply chain management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations. He has managed business implementations in North America, Asia and Europe in industrial, retail and high tech verticals for nearly a decade. A business graduate of the University of Toledo, he has expertise in the business, financial and technical aspects of supply chain management.

Paul has extensive travel experience in the developing world including Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Africa and has seen the benefits that small loans can bring to individuals and their communities. He volunteers with the Sierra Club and Dane County Farmers Market.

Richard Brooks, Chair
Rick is an Outreach Program Manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches Facilitating Health and Social Change and provides social marketing consultation to programs in youth and community development, public health, service learning and global education.

Chair of the board of Sarvodaya USA, the support organization for the largest NGO in Sri Lanka, he has also served as board president of SHARE Wisconsin, a three-state community building, food security and service program; the Wisconsin Positive Youth Development Initiative and Wisconsin Partners for SustainAbility as well as more than 20 other local, statewide, national and international non-profit groups. Rick was a founding board member of the Dane County Timebank .

Having worked and taught in Tunisia, Jamaica, Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico, Japan and Sri Lanka, he is the co-founder of the Dane Buy Local Initiative in South Central Wisconsin.

Justin Conway

Justin is the Relationship Officer at Calvert Foundation, a nonprofit provider of innovative financial products and services that channel affordable capital to underserved communities and markets.  He is responsible for managing relationships with financial professionals and investors to increase the understanding, acceptance, and sales of the Foundation’s community investment products. 
Before joining Calvert Foundation, Justin managed the Community Investing Program of Co-op America and the Social Investment Forum, where he was instrumental in helping build the overall demand for community investing.  He has worked in Hong Kong on labor issues, spent time in Central America with economic development projects, and has a degree in Sociology and Statistics from James Madison University. 
Justin currently serves on the Board of Co-op America, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating a just and sustainable society by harnessing economic power for positive change.

Tom Eggert

Tom Eggert is the Division Policy Advisor of the Air & Waste Division at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He is also an Honorary Fellow and Lecturer, Institute for Environmental Studies and School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mr. Eggert has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MPA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before obtaining his JD at George Washington University, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. Following completion of his JD, he worked in environmental law with the Attorney General’s Office in Montana, and subsequently with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Mr. Eggert is on the faculty of the Management School of Restorative Business where he teaches courses on ethics and sustainability in business. In his capacity with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, he serves as an internal management consultant responsible for high visibility projects, and he has authored legislation aimed at incorporating sustainability into the state regulatory framework.

Kathy Hankard

Kathy Hankard is a certified financial planning advisor and owner of Fiscal Fitness, LLC., a financial coaching and planning firm located in Verona, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison. She is a member of The Garrett Planning Network, a nationwide network of professional, fee-only financial advisors.

Ms. Hankard holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and worked in systems programming and software engineering before earning her Certificate of Financial Planning in 2002.