Our Team

Anir Chowdhury is a global leader in digital transformation, widely recognized for advancing digital equity, institutional innovation, and inclusive digital public infrastructure. As President of the DXGlobal Foundation, he spearheads global efforts to close digital divides and build systems that leave no one behind. With decades of experience at the UNDP and groundbreaking work in Bangladesh, he has championed whole-of-society innovation—strengthening institutions, empowering communities, and saving billions for millions of marginalized citizens. He combines grassroots insights with high-level policy influence from the Prime Minister’s Task Forces, the World Economic Forum, and UN committees to drive institutional reform, digital service delivery, and inclusive financing. He is the creator of the 9i Digital Transformation Framework and is authoring an AI-powered playbook to help governments and communities design inclusive digital futures. As Strategic Advisor to the Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL), he supports governments, development agencies, and philanthropies in reimagining public institutions with cutting-edge tools and partnerships. He also serves as Advisor to Rangeet, a global edtech initiative enhancing children’s emotional and ecological well-being, and as Chief Scientist of JetPatch, where he is helping reimagine AI-powered enterprise management. Anir graduated magna cum laude in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Brown University, with postgraduate studies at Harvard, Columbia, Oxford, Bradford, and Boston University. He has been honored as a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow, a Chevening Fellow, and Honorary Professor at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

Fitsum (Fitse) Gelaye leads Resilient Cities Network’s engagement in Africa, where she serves as Senior Manager of Programs. An urban designer and planner with over seven years of experience, she is passionate about building holistic resilience in African cities and strengthening the networks of people who make it possible. At R-Cities, Fitse works closely with member cities and resilience professionals across the continent—fostering partnerships, supporting program implementation, and advancing research on critical issues including water and energy resilience, sanitation, food security, and climate services. She also helps shape the Network’s capacity-building efforts, creating spaces for peer-to-peer learning and collaboration. Before joining R-Cities, Fitse taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Urban Design at Columbia University, where her teaching and research centered on water-based urbanism and urban water resilience in African contexts. She also worked as a development strategy consultant with Dalberg Advisors in Addis Ababa. Fitse holds a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA in Architectural and Environmental Studies, with honors, from Mount Holyoke College.

Dr. Juan Toro is Managing Director of Arfima Financial Solutions and founder of Alpha-Klima. He holds a PhD in Econometrics from the European University Institute (Florence) and was a Marie Curie Fellow at Oxford. With extensive experience in finance, commodities, and risk management, he has led projects on energy market simulation and climate risk assessment, bridging academic research with applied innovation.

Kevin Bourne has 30+ years of experience in finance and investing, having held senior leadership / Executive Committee roles at global institutions such as FTSE/LSEG, HSBC, and S&P Global Sustainable1. He has built companies and business units, and he has led modeling and product development initiatives. He was instrumental in developing the financial services industry’s leading models in the ESG domain.

Michael is a senior climate change adaptation and resilience specialist focused on finance, risk assessment, policy integration, and institional capacity building. He has led and implemented adaptation field activities in over 30 countries in collaboration with multilateral development banks, bilateral donors, CSOs, philanthropies, and private companies. He serves as strategic adviser to Adaptation Without Borders Transboundary Risk Initiative, African Development Bank, the Climate Bonds Initiative, UNFCCC/GGA Indicators Team, and Open Source Adaptation and Resilience Toolkit (OSCAR). Michael holds a Master’s of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School and a Master’s of Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Nelson Gonzales has for 25+ years leveraged technology, entrepreneurship, public policy, research, and capital markets to drive social and environmental impact at systemic scale. Nelson was Global Head of Impact Computing at Amazon Web Services, where he managed R&D in areas including Decision Intelligence for Climate Risk, Agriculture for Food Security, and Healthcare Analytics. He was Chief Commercialization Officer at HUM.AI, an innovator in Gen-AI powered Earth Observation solutions, Co-Founder of Declara, a venture-backed collaboration AI platform, Chief Strategy Officer of the Stupski Foundation, and Founding Director of the Royal Institution World Science Assembly.

Nick Kellett, Founder & CEO of Deploy Software Solutions, is a software technologist, entrepreneur, and educator with more than 30 years of international experience in consulting and software development. As Founder and CEO of Deploy Software Solutions, he leads pioneering efforts to harness Earth observation and ground data to help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from climate impacts and natural disasters. Nick brings deep expertise in cloud architectures, big data, and Earth observation projects, with a particular focus on climate resilience and physical risk. Passionate about bridging the gap between technical and non-technical audiences, he combines innovative technology with proven best practices to deliver impactful, scalable solutions that strengthen global resilience.

Ryan is a software developer dedicated to building high-quality applications and solving complex problems through practical coding, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Truman Semans is a leader, strategist, entrepreneur, investor, and team builder with 30+ years of experience at the intersection of finance, business, technology, and policy/regulation with climate, nature, and sustainability. He has a proven track record of founding and managing successful organizations and initiatives, including OS-Climate, for which he served as CEO from 2018-2024. His prior positions span government, the private sector, and NGOs, including with the US-Treasury Department and McKinsey.

Wilder Semans is an Associate at OSCAR, where she coordinates cross-functional teams and manages project delivery to advance open-source tools for climate adaptation and resilience. She recently earned a BA in International Studies from Leiden University, focusing on economics, sustainable business and finance, and Africa studies, and is now pursuing an MA in Global Risk at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Her experience includes roles with RBC SRI Wealth Management and OS-Climate, spanning sustainable finance, ESG research, and climate technology. Wilder is passionate about bridging technical data with stakeholder needs to make climate risk insights more accessible and actionable for governments and communities worldwide.