Arc Finance Board
Philip J. LaRocco (Board Chair)
Founder, E+Co.
Philip LaRocco, E+Co’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, has over 25 years of experience in international business and project development. Regarded as a pioneer in his field, Phil developed the enterprise-centered model for clean energy investments that is working in over thirty developing countries. Since it was founded in 1994, E+Co has invested in more than 200 energy enterprises and mobilized more than US$183 million in capital. He teaches graduate-level energy and development courses at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to founding E+Co, Phil was the Director of World Trade and Economic Development for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In this capacity, Phil oversaw the New York World Trade Center and a network of international offices. He has been the keynote speaker at various conferences and received the Carlo Marchi Foundation Award from the World Renewable Energy Congress in 2006. Under his leadership, E+Co won the Financial Times’ prestigious Sustainable Investor of the Year award in 2008, which highlights groundbreaking achievement in the area of sustainable investment, recognizing programs with outstanding triple bottom-line impacts. Learn more at E&Co.
Nancy Barry
Founder and President of Enterprise Solutions to Poverty
Nancy Barry launched Enterprise Solutions to Poverty (ESP) in 2006. ESP works with major corporations, emerging entrepreneurs, and leading business schools to build business models that engage low-income producers as suppliers, distributors, and consumers of products that build income and assets. Nancy is recognized as a global leader in building finance and enterprise systems that work for the majority. She was President of Women’s World Banking from 1990 to 2006, expanding the WWB network to reach over 20 million low-income entrepreneurs and shaping microfinance worldwide. From 1975 to 1990, Nancy worked at the World Bank, pioneering small-enterprise programs and leading work on industry, trade, and finance. Nancy has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has received various awards, including recognition as one of Forbes magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 2004 and 2005. She was also named in U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s 20 Best Leaders” in 2006.
Ellen Morris
Director, Energy, Columbia School for International and Public Affairs
Dr. Ellen Morris is a co-founder of Arc Finance. Prior to joining Arc, Ellen founded Sustainable Energy Solutions (SES) in 1996. SES is a company that focuses on international development, policy analysis, and research on energy issues for national governments, development agencies, foundations, and the private sector.
Since 1996, Ellen has been a senior consultant for the United Nations Development Programme in the sustainable energy program. Her work at UNDP focuses on technical and programmatic support for countries seeking to advance energy as a means for poverty reduction. She has served on UNDP’s External Advisory Group on Environment and Energy since 2007. Ellen has done pioneering work in energy and microfinance since 2004 by studying how to link the two sectors to meet the needs of the poor.
Most recently, she was the lead for the design and implementation of the Citi Foundation/USAID/SEEP Energy and Microfinance Research Initiative, and the findings were published in 2007.
As an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Ellen teaches graduate-level energy and development courses.