Kim Davis is the co-chairman and a founding partner of Charlesbank Capital Partners. He serves on the boards of directors of HDT Global, Kinship Trust Company and Optomi. He was appointed to the Baltic American Enterprise Fund by President Clinton in 1994, and served as chairman of its legacy institution, the Baltic-American Freedom Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Kim holds an MBA from Harvard and in 2019, he received the Cross of Recognition from the President of Latvia.

Andres Trink is the CEO of Merko, the largest stock market listed real estate and construction group in the Baltic region. Prior to joining his current position at Merko, Andres has held senior management positions at Swedbank, and Bank of Estonia (central bank) and worked as the chairman of the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority and was actively involved in financial regulatory committees at the European level, including as a chairman. His experience also includes several board directorships of companies operating in the region, including Swedbank Investment Funds where he is currently a Director.

From 1997-1998 Mr. Trink was the country managing director of the Baltic-American Enterprise Fund, a 50 million US dollar debt and equity investment fund. From 1993-1997 he worked at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including three years as an economic diplomat at the Estonian Embassy in Washington, DC.

CEO of Latitude59, the Flagship startup and tech event of the world’s first digital society in Estonia. As a natural people person and community builder, she has spent the last couple of years in the startup ecosystem in Estonia and the U.S, working in both public and private sectors. Liisi is highly passionate about diversity and impact, which is why she's active as a mentor and also a part of The Better Fund - the only fund in CEE that focuses on investing in female-led teams.

Liisi spent her BAFF year in New York, where she had the opportunity to work for two different edtech startups - Fluent City as a Private Lessons Coordinator and at StartEd - an edtech accelerator/incubator in NYU. She considers organising the accelerator events (in total 80+ in 5 months) and managing 300 speakers at the NY Edtech Week her greatest accomplishments.

An Honorary Consul of Latvia to Texas and a member of the Board of Directors of Apache Corporation and The Williams Companies.

Mr Ragauss holds a Graduate degree from Harvard Business School and has served with companies in the energy sector throughout his career. He is also a patron of the Latvian film industry, including the 2020 Latvian historical drama “The Sign Painter” and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alley Theatre in Houston.

Ms. Ilves currently serves as the Advisor on Digital Policy to the President of Latvia. Having previously worked at NATO and the EU, she is focused on digital policy and cybersecurity: equal access, regulations, and transformation.

A BAFF Graduate Scholar in 2011, she studied for her master’s at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD.

With experience in running difficult cross-sectoral and international projects, she is passionate about democracy and human rights with a track record of freeing political prisoners. She also runs a project “A Computer for Every Child”

A Security Research Fellow in residence at Hudson Institute, Washington DC, Fall 2015. Before joining Hudson Institute, he was the BAFF security research scholar based at Center for European Policy Analysis.

Marius’ study areas include Russian domestic and foreign policy, Putin's kleptocracy, information wars, and security in the Baltic region. He is considered to be one of the leading experts on Russia in Lithuania and has received several awards for his contributions to Lithuanian foreign policy.

Currently is an independent political analyst, in his previous career, Mr Laurinavicius spent 22 years in journalism in Lithuania and was considered one of leading journalists of the country. He holds a Master’s degree from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University.

An experienced journalist and media expert, former Foreign News Editor at Latvian Television.

Anna has worked for the Latvian and international media, mostly focusing on international relations and Russia. She has also worked as a fixer and translator for international researchers and journalists in Latvia with fixers.press.

She was a co-creator of the "Baltic Reports" podcast (the only English language Baltic news podcast). In 2019 she got acknowledgement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for significant contribution to strengthening bilateral relations between Latvia and the U.S.

Anna Ūdre is a BAFF community member since 2017, when she spent a year interning with JBANC in Washington D.C.

A highly experienced and innovative entrepreneur, CEO and Director with an accomplished record of founding, leading, growing, and selling unique life science and health care services companies.

An Honorary Consul of Latvia to Texas and a member of the Board of Directors of Apache Corporation and The Williams Companies.

Mr Ragauss holds a Graduate degree from Harvard Business School and has served with companies in the energy sector throughout his career. He is also a patron of the Latvian film industry, including the 2020 Latvian historical drama “The Sign Painter” and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alley Theatre in Houston.

The leader of many major cultural initiatives and the founder of ERDA – the first consultancy firm in the Baltics specializing in employer branding.

In addition, Zane is the Co-founder of Find Ada and UpMatched, has served as a commissioner for the Latvian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale: North by North-East and taken an active role in implementing many large-scale cultural projects like Riga Festival (2013), European Capital of Culture (2014), Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU (2015). Since 2018 she is the CEO of Riga Jurmala Music Festival.

Zane was a BAFF Graduate Scholar in 2011 when she did her Masters’ at Columbia University, New York City.

Maarja is the Group Communications Manager at Nortal. Before that, she acted as the Senior Consultant and Team Lead at Meta Advisory Group, the Head of Swedbank’s cooperation and social participation unit, and in the brand management team of NOBULL.

She is a graduate from Erasmus University Rotterdam with a M.A. in Media and Business and the University of Tartu with a B.A. in Journalism. In 2021 she was awarded with a Silver Egg in the corporate communication category for the campaign "How we got the whole country to talk about internet prices".

Maarja did her Professional Internship program in Fall 2015 at Bald and Company in Boston MA.

Until recently Joanne was a Managing Director at BlackRock, a global diversified asset manager, where she was a member of its Global Public Policy Group. She also served as a Senior Advisor to BlackRock’s Vice Chairman on corporate governance and stewardship issues. Joanne was a Member of BlackRock’s Public Policy Steering Committee and its Global Operating Committee.

A partner at Wise Guys Cyber, Egita has worked with more than 15 international startup accelerator batches and knows the process from A to Z. She also plays a part in the Latvian startup ecosystem, formerly designing EU support projects in Ministry of Economics, running TechHub Riga and organising TechChill, taking the position of chairwoman of the Startin.lv - Latvian startup association, and been part of SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event Advisory Board of 2018.

Egita was a Professional Internship Program participant in Spring 2013. Her host organization was Sack Consulting (TechStars) in Seattle WA.

Currently the Managing Director at Kilo grupė, she has extensive project management experience and team leading skills, gained through working in local and worldwide organizations. She also has volunteered at transparency and civil rights oriented projects.

Lina was a Professional Internship Program participant in Spring 2012. Her host organization was Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Member of the BAFF Alumni Council and project manager in Trafi - the world's leading Mobility-as-a Service tech platform committed to building sustainable solutions for cities. Justinas has also been an advisor and hands-on product manager in multiple projects bringing business ideas to startup MVPs.

Justinas is a BAFF Graduate Scholar from Fall 2014 when he studied International Affairs at Brandeis University in Waltham MA.

Dr. Asta Sendonaris is an experienced economist and business strategy consultant who advises founders and CEOs of startup companies at Founder Institute, the world’s premier pre-seed startup accelerator, that have helped launch over 3,500 companies across 180+ cities and six continents since it was founded in 2009.

Mr Quarles is the Vice Chairman for Supervision Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Specialized in financial services investing and financial services policy, he has 30 years' experience in financial services, public service, and private equity.

Now the Cofounder at Salto X, Elise Sass is the Co-founder & COO of LIFT99, startup mentor, and a serial hackathons runner who has also taken care of Microsoft’s team in Central and Eastern Europe to develop cooperation between startups and the corporate sphere.

Elise was a Professional Intern in 2011 and her host organization was Elegran Real Estate in New York City.

A litigation & arbitration expert and a partner at Motieka & Audzevičius, Justinas is a results-driven commercial lawyer admitted to practice law in Lithuania and New York. Besides traditional litigation and arbitration, he creates additional value by using mediation and negotiation, which he studied with the godfathers of this subject at Harvard Law School. As a father of two, he recently spoke on Žinių Radijas on how do modern men raise children.

Justinas was a BAFF Graduate Scholar in Fall 2015 when he studied Law at Harvard Law School in Cambridge MA.

Rolands Bogdanovs is a self-driven multidisciplinary leader. He has spent the last 6 years working in the public sector taking various roles, most recently establishing a new public agency, the “Investment and Tourism agency of Riga” as its Founding Managing Director, to foster foreign direct investment attraction and advancement of investment climate, tourism growth, as well as creation of a global brand for the city.

He has been a great mentor of the BAFF Alumni Mentorship program and also mentored students, colleagues and 100+ young entrepreneurs (startup creators) through his participation in different acceptance committees of startup incubators and the management of 3 municipal entrepreneurial support programs.

Rolands was a Professional Intern in 2016 and his host organization was the International Bar Association in Washington DC.