Advisory Board

Brenda is an affordable housing finance attorney at Bocarsly, Emden, Cowan, Esmail & Arndt LLP. Previously, she was general counsel at Microvest Capital Management, LLC. She has 25 years of experience in the areas of SME lending and microfinance and international structured and corporate finance. She is experienced and skilled in complex legal and financial analysis and writing. Ms. Hansen is also trained as facilitator and mediator with experience in the areas of human rights, discrimination, and public housing. She is a graduate of University of Virginia and University of Virginia Law School and was a Law Clerk at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Sally is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and received her M.Arch from Washington University, St. Louis. After working full time as an architect, she has combined a solo practice in residential remodeling with service to schools, church, and civic associations in D.C., Maryland, and Michigan. She has organized and chaired numerous community events and committees, fundraisers and building projects. She has served on boards for the Decade Society (a DC non-profit supporting local charities), PTAs in DC and Montgomery Co., Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church, the Castle Park Association, and the Town of Chevy Chase. Her daughter, Erin, whose gap year took the family to Tanzania, has inspired her interest in helping women and families in East Africa.

Miranda is a 2021 graduate of Towson University, and joined WMI as a volunteer in 2023 to help with program impact data analysis, website updates and media presentations. Proving herself to be a talented, committed and resourceful team player, after her first year at WMI, she was asked to join the Advisory Board and take over the role of Media Manager, where she continues her efforts to strengthen WMI's media presence, as well as contributes to various projects within the organization. Miranda graduated with an Economics degree and after college became a contracting professional with the federal government, focusing on cost and price analysis. Her prior experience includes working with individual financial planners and creating marketing materials. She is currently working in Sevilla, Spain, teaching English as a second language.

Stephen Mukweli is a career banker, with over eighteen years of experience in executive positions. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (England and Wales) and attended the Executive MBA at Middlesex University, UK.

Mr. Mukweli served as a long-time Managing Director of PostBank Uganda, Ltd (PBU), a government-owned, socially oriented financial institution operating in a private sector environment. During his tenure, the bank deepened its outreach to the unbanked through innovative branchless solutions like mobile phone banking and mobile vehicle banking services.

He served on the Board of the World Savings Banks Institute based in Brussels Belgium, the Uganda Institute of Banking & Financial Services, and as rotational Chair of the Association of the Savings Banks of East Africa, the managing organization for the Postal banks in East Africa.

Prior to joining PBU, Mr. Mukweli served for seven years as CEO of The Uganda Institute of Bankers, during which time he focused on mainstreaming microfinance in the banking profession. He also served as a Chairman of the African Institutes of Bankers, an apex organization for the Banking Institutes in Africa which spear- headed professionalizing banking qualification in Africa.

Currently retired, Mr. Mukweli resides in Sironko District, Uganda, near WMI's headquarters in Buyobo.

Thomas is a retired, former director of the Joint Vienna Institute, Vienna, Austria. Previously he served as the IMF's Senior Resident Representative in Austria, as well as Senior Resident Representative in India and Nepal and Senior Resident Representative and African Department mission chief in Uganda. He has also been Mission Chief for Moldova, Cyprus and Belarus. He worked as resident representative in Russia in the 1990s and was an assistant professor of economics at Yale University before joining the IMF in 1993.

Montana Steveson is an independent consultant supporting companies in the food and agriculture sector to develop responsible sourcing and supply chain sustainability strategies. Previously, she was the Responsible Sourcing & Production Manager at Danone N. A. She graduated from the Erb Institute at University of Michigan, with an MBA and M.Sci. in Natural Resources and received a B.A. from UVA. Prior to joining Danone, she handled a fair labor standards and human rights issues project regarding food/electronics procurement at U-M, and worked as a Project Associate Analyst at Abt Associates in Bethesda, MD. As WMI's Project Director from 2010-2011, she worked with advisory board member Ainsley Morris, in Buyobo, Uganda to build program capacity.

Beth is a Board Member and Fundraising Committee Co-Chair at Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS). Previously, she was the Director Of Program Development at the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health (NPWH) and the Director of Advancement and Strategic Initiatives at Sister to Sister, The Women's Heart Health Foundation. She spent 12 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, specializing in cost recovery issues and advising regional case teams on complex litigation. She clerked with both U.S. District Court and MA Supreme Court justices. She graduated from Harvard University and received a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Carol is a retired librarian previously at Westbrook Elementary School and is a native of the Washington DC area. She has a B. A. in English from Oberlin College, a Masters in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and a Master's of Science in Instructional Technology from Towson University. Before returning to school for her library degree, she worked in international banking and served as Vice President of a start-up high technology company in Cambridge, MA.

Robert Lewis, Esq. at Epstein, Becker, Betts in New York, NY serves as legal counsel.