Our Board of Directors

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Matthias Grenda is a communication & business consultant as well as versatile networker.

Mr. Grenda has extensive years of international experience as a media representative, including for several Olympic athletes and artists. He is a veteran event, entertainment and communications consultant as well, including such organizations as Cirque du Soleil, television networks, and celebrities. He is a certified communications trainer, and is a founder and chair of the non-profit organization "Society for Biographic Communication e.V.“ 

Mr. Grenda organizes the annual Nordwalder Biografietage (Biography Days), an event format that is unique in Germany and Europe, encouraging the exchange of life stories and life experiences. 

This biographic approach holds great value for Sustainably Empowering People Globally / Africa and its Impact4Africa campaign. 

Since 2026 he is also Co-Director of The Patrick Gruhn Research Institute of Entrepreneurial Innovation and Social Philosophy.

Shirley Martey Hargis is a multilingual strategist with a Ghanaian background, and over a decade of experience in China and Taiwan's domestic politics and foreign affairs.

Ms. Hargis' writings and commentary appear on domestic and global platforms, including the Wall Street Journal, POLITICO China Watcher, American Purpose, Taiwan Insight, the Carter Center, and the book Politics and Society in Contemporary China Edition 2. She has lived and worked in various areas within mainland China and Taiwan, is proficient in Chinese. As a second-generation American born to parents from Ghana, she is fluent in three Ghanaian dialects.

Ms. Hargis focuses on China's resurgence and cross-Strait tensions, including US-China relations, and China's matters in the Indo-Pacific and "Global South." Her domestic and foreign policy expertise spans defense and security, political economy, and technology in consulting, intelligence, policy research, and supporting policymakers, the intelligence community, DoD, and federal law enforcement communities.  

Ms. Hargis serves on the Truman National Security Project's Board of Directors, the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations' Board of Advisors, and CJPA Global Advisors' Global Advisory Board. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on US-China Relations and a nonresident fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation.  

Bruce Kibler has over twenty years of experience in the international IT and telecommunications industry, research, and partnership building.

Mr. Kibler has worked in international business development and strategy in Europe and the U.S. with Deutsche Telekom and IBM, researching opportunities as well as finding the right partners for consortium building. Having started in mobile satellite communications at COMSAT in Washington, D.C., Mr. Kibler's work has focused on balancing the interests of collaborative partners across the 72 nations of the Inmarsat (International Maritime Satellite) signatories. Of special note is his persistent work in privatizing markets, i.e., collaborations with state officials and partners in winning bids and executing the build-out of national mobile communications networks. 

Mr. Kibler has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of MD, College Park, with minors in Math & Geography, where he also completed a teacher education program. He holds an M.A. in German Language and Literature from the University of MD, College Park, and received an M.A.S. in Business and Information Technology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He received his Ph.D. in Business, focusing on Strategy and International Business in Slovakia, at Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica.

Bringing innovative, sustainable technologies to nascent markets and enabling personal empowerment through partnering and training are the issues that drive his motivation and actions. 

Honorable Mark Lindsay is the former Assistant to President Clinton for the White House Office of Management and Administration.

As the Chief Operations, Chief Financial, and Chief Information Technology Officer, Mr. Lindsay reported directly to the President and the President’s Chief of Staff and led the White House’s largest office with a staff of over 2,500, managing an annual budget in excess of $1 billion dollars.  

Mr. Lindsay served as the General Counsel to the Executive Office for the President, where he was responsible for providing legal and strategic counsel to bodies including the Domestic Policy Council, the National Security Council, and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). He supported CEQ’s efforts to coordinate the federal government’s work to improve, preserve, and protect America’s public health and environment, and assisted the development of the Administration’s environmental and energy policies. In this capacity, he also testified extensively before the United States Congress to ensure the delivery of the President’s objectives.  

Prior to his appointment to the Clinton White House, Mr. Lindsay was the Senior Legislative Aid and Counsel to Congressman Louis Stokes (D-OH). On behalf of Congressman Stokes, Mr. Lindsay worked closely with colleagues across the House of Representations Appropriations Committee to secure consistent funding for programs run by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the Presidential Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).   

During his time in Congress, Mr Lindsay also advised members of the South African Parliament who were responsible for the formulation of the new South African Constitution on United States Constitutional law and the political process, and worked on several Congressional task forces addressing issues such as ethics, technology transfer, economic development, and international human rights.  

Following his tenure at the Clinton Administration, Mr. Lindsay worked at United Health Group, the 5th largest company in the United States by revenue. During this time, he served as the Vice President of the Group’s Public Communications and Strategy, where he coordinated all of the company’s worldwide contacts with the media as central spokesperson and communications leader.  

Mr. Lindsay, a member of the District of Columbia Bar, is a graduate of the Wharton School, as well as of Georgetown University and Case Western Reserve University. 

He currently works in association with the Livingston Group, where he is responsible for advising clients on a variety of public health, energy, and environmental issues. 

Dr. Wolfgang Rams is an Entrepreneur and Professor of Innovation Management.

Dr. Wolfgang Rams is co-founder and former CEO of Africa GreenTec, was chair of the supervisory board and served on the board for three years, with the goal of scaling the company and the impact brought about by AfricaGreenTec's extensive experience and expertise in  corporate strategy, product, and marketing management, innovation, venture capital and entrepreneurship, finance, and company building. 

Dr. Rams attended the University of Duisburg-Essen, FernUniversität in Hagen, and RWTH Aachen University. 

In 2016, he invested in Africa GreenTec, was chair of the supervisory board and served on the board for three years, with the goal of scaling the company and the impact brought about by AfricaGreenTec's solar power energy work to many rural, underserved communities in sub-Saharan Africa.