Governance

The EDTF Board of Directors is the apex governance body. It comprises of fifteen (15) persons* drawn from the diaspora globally. Functions of the Board of Directors include:

• Provide overall leadership and set the strategic direction, policy, oversight and accountability of the EDTF
• Hire staff to support the operations of EDTF including  Executive/Development Director(s), Finance & IT and Programs support staff.
• Approve an appropriate executive compensation for the EDTF Staff as needed, including developing an annual budget
• Approve the EDTF Operational Manual including project submission procedures, formats, report submissions, etc.
• Review and approve project funding requests from Implementing Organizations

• Establish appropriate Board Committees that will assist the Board to function smoothly and ensure proper accountability
• Commission periodic reviews of the EDTF
• Secure the cooperation of appropriate government entities for the efficient and smooth implementation of EDTF ‘s overall objectives and activities
• Adopt its own rules of procedure and
• Perform an annual evaluation on any hired staff as applicable

Ms. Lulite H. Ejigu, Chair

Ms. Lulite Hailu Ejigu is Executive Director in Risk Management at JP Morgan Chase, a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries across the globe. She provides Risk Oversight for the Residential Mortgage and Home Equity Portfolio and Risk Policy Management and Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. She has extensive financial industry experience in Operations, Process Engineering, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Compliance Advisory and Credit Risk functions across the Commercial and Home Lending businesses.

Lulite was recognized as a Market Leader in Dallas as well as a Diversity and Inclusion champion in different capacities across JP Morgan Chase. Most notably, she is a member of the Consumer & Community (CCB) Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Council and serves as the Texas Co-Chair of “Women on the Move” in Risk Management. Outside of JP Morgan Chase, Ms. Ejigu is the founder and CEO of MAMO Worldwide, an organization whose mission is to serve, restore, and connect individuals with rare essentials for the advancement of the communities they serve.

Lulite holds an Executive MBA from Texas A&M University – Commerce with a focus on Global Operations and Strategic Management, as well as a BA in Psychology with a minor in Communications Studies from Texas Tech University. She enjoys dancing, hiking, and traveling, and serve as a proud member of her local church, Shoreline City, located in Garland, Texas.

Mr. Mesfin Demessie, Treasurer

Mr. Mesfin Demise is Executive business leader with an impressive track record implementing efficient financial operations across domestic and international locations while seamlessly directing all accounting functions. Strong SEC expertise and background in business valuations, M&A, and SOX requirements.

Mesfin developed and built business from start up to quickly achieve $1.2M+ in revenue providing global call routing solutions to telecommunications companies nationwide. He started the company with no debt and a positive cashflow.

As a CFO for HC2 Holding Inc Mesfin led five direct and 15+ indirect team members focused accounting treatments and control policy/procedures for acquired companies, consolidated, in one year, all five merged and acquired companies under one financial reporting system based on SEC requirements, closed five Merger & Acquisition agreements within one year, and advised and worked collaborated with financial teams in Manufacturing, Marine services, Telecom, Utilities, Life sciences, and Insurance.

Mesfin has served as Senior Director of Finance for Primus Telecommunications, Inc.
where he led and mentored a group of 50+ team members across the United States, India, and the United Kingdom to manage revenue of $250M, integrated financial and operational functions from the acquired company and assumed financial management responsibility for US and UK operations.

Mesfin holds Bachelor of Arts in Accounting & MIS from George Mason University, and a CPA. He enjoys swimming, basketball and traveling.

Mr. Solomon Lemma, Secretary 

Mr. Solomon Lemma is currently President of SOL R1 Enterprise, LLC where he specializes in business development, commercial excellence, strategic marketing, business improvement and mergers and acquisitions in specialty chemicals and materials industry. He is also Senior Outside Advisor at Bain & Company, a $4.5 Billion revenue American management consulting company.

Solomon has served as board member at the Boys and Girls Club, Bethlehem, PA and National Public Radio, Allentown, PA. He was also Co-founder and President of Ethiopia-Cleveland Connection, an organization dedicated to helping schools and hospitals in Ethiopia while creating cultural connections between Ethiopia and Cleveland, Ohio. He was also Co-founder and President of Northeast Ohio Ethiopian American Association.

Solomon is a 30 year chemical industry veteran having held a series of technical and commercial leadership roles of increasing responsibility such as Vice President and General Manager, Specialty Additives at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., a $10 Billion revenue global industrial gases and chemicals company; General Manager, Americas at Arkema, Inc., a $10 Billion revenue global industrial chemicals company headquartered in Paris, France; and Global Business Manager and Research and Development Associate at The Lubrizol Corporation, a $6.5 Billion revenue Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary focusing on specialty chemicals.

Solomon holds multiple commercially successful international patents and invention records and was named Corporate Inventor by The BFGoodrich Corporation in 1995 which led to his induction into The National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.

Solomon holds a B.Sc degree in Chemical Engineering from Cleveland State University and an MBA with concentration in industrial marketing and strategic planning from Case Western Reserve University.

Mr. Elias Wondimu

Mr. Elias Wondimu is a social entrepreneur, knowledge broker, institution builder, peace and cultural ambassador. He is the founding director of TSEHAI Publishers, a global knowledge company. Since the 2011 closure of Howard University Press, TSEHAI is the only African or African American publisher housed in an American or European university. In this unique position, Elias plays a crucial role in bridging the global knowledge gap about Africa.

As a distinguished public intellectual, Elias serves as a senior fellow of the International Strategic Studies Association; a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities; Resident Scholar at Loyola Marymount University; contributing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books; advisor to the Ethiopian manuscript collection program at Princeton University; and served as a lecturer at the LARB/USC Publishing Workshop and gave guest lectures in many universities.

Elias has received several awards and commendations, including the Bikila Award (2019); the Hidden Heroes Award by Loyola Marymount University (2018); Grand Officer of the Imperial Order of Emperor Menelik II by the Crown Council of Ethiopia (2017); received the Innovative Global Project Award by Loyola Marymount University (2014); Ambassador for Peace by the Universal Peace Federation (2007); and featured in Who’s Who in Black Los Angeles (2008). He also appeared in many national and international media outlets including NPR, BBC, ETV, Pacifica Radio, the Los Angeles Times, and the Ethiopian Herald Newspapers.

Dr. Ghenno Senbetta

Dr. Ghenno Senbetta is a change management professional who provides consulting services focusing on nonprofit and educational institutions. He has served as an Adjunct Professor at Purdue University teaching graduate students human performance technology and strategic assessment and evaluation online courses. As a business consulting professional, Ghenno has held several global leadership roles in learning and development; knowledge management; technology implementation and ethics and compliance at Abbott Laboratories, BP America, Inc., Arthur Andersen LLP, Ernst & Young and Accenture. As an entrepreneur he was the founder and president of Powered Performance, Inc., a performance consulting business offering services to help people learn faster and work smarter.

Ghenno has served as board member for CARE Chicago, a nonprofit organization providing financial literacy education to high school and college students. He has served as a volunteer since the beginning of the Ethiopian Diaspora Trust Fund (EDTF).

Throughout his career, Ghenno has contributed to and volunteered for local and international nonprofit organizations including Rotary International, United Way, World Vision and several book and food depositories to support fundraising and community service projects.

Ghenno is a pragmatic problem solver and a creative innovator. He has a passion for applying his skills and experiences to developing and implementing practical solutions to improve the lives and livelihoods of people in need. He strives to enable organizations to develop their capabilities focusing on delivering measurable results to meet targeted goals.

Ghenno earned his Ph.D. in Educational Computing and his B.S in Geology from Purdue University.

Dr. Henok Tesfaye

Dr. Henok Tesfaye is the President and Chief Executive Officer of U Street Parking, Inc. (USP), a company he founded in 1998. Under Henok’s leadership, USP has become a premier parking company in the highly competitive parking market in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. His efforts proved successful when USP was awarded multi- million-dollar contracts to manage parking facilities at five of the busiest airports on the East Coast, including Orlando International Airport.

Henok plays an important role in giving back to the community. He serves as Chairman of the Board of the Mary Joy Foundation USA, a non-profit organization that seeks to help children and seniors in his homeland, Ethiopia.

Henok is also involved in the real-estate sector, at United Investments with multi-million-dollar properties currently in development within the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. He is featured in multiple publications. The Washington Post described him as “a District of Columbia entrepreneurial success story, a savvy and focused businessman with good standing within the community.”

Henok is a Board Member at Capital Bank and the Washington Architectural Foundation, as well as numerous civic and professional associations including the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Enterprise Development Group, and the National Parking Association.

Professor Lemma W. Senbet

Professor Lemma W. Senbet is the William E. Mayer Chair Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland, College Park, and former Executive Director/CEO of African Economic Research Consortium (AERC: www.aercafrica.org), the largest and oldest economic research and training network in Africa. Prior to his current roles, he was a distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and held the Charles Albright Endowed Chair.

Lemma has achieved global recognition for his extensive and widely cited contributions to corporate finance, international finance, and financial sector reforms and development. He has received numerous recognitions for his impact on the profession. He was elected twice as director of the American Finance Association and is a past president of the Western Finance Association (WFA). In 2000, he was inducted into the Financial Economists Roundtable (FER), a distinguished group of world-wide financial economists. In 2006, he was inducted into the Fellow of the Financial Management Association (FMA) in recognition of his career-long distinguished scholarship. In 2005, Prof Senbet was awarded an honorary doctorate by Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia’s flagship university. In 2012, he was awarded the Ethiopian Diaspora (SEED) award for exemplary lifetime achievements and community service.

Lemma has advised the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, AfDB, and various agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Africa on such issues as financial sector reforms. He has made significant contributions to the US financial industry.  Lemma was a director of Fotris Funds and is currently an independent director for the Hartford Funds.

Ms. Muluemebet Chekol Hunegnaw

Ms. Muluemebet Chekol Hunegnaw is the Vice President and a member of the Executive Leadership Team at HIAS, a global non-profit organization with programs across Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, the Middle East and Eurasia regions.

Mulu has held several senior leadership and global advisory roles in the areas of strategic planning, program management, program design, monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management, and accountability systems.  She has overseen multiple country programs in Africa in her role as Save the Children’s USA Africa Regional Programs Director and a Country Director for South Sudan, Somaliland, and Kenya Programs. As the Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor at the United States Aid International Development mission in Ethiopia, she has worked with multiple US government partners implementing humanitarian and development programs. As the Senior Energy Expert with the Ethiopian Energy Authority, she has participated in several research projects and served as the core member of the National Energy Policy and National Energy Masterplan development task forces and authored the “Women and Energy” section.

Mulu has represented children’s issues in various policy forums including testifying before the United States Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs, sub-committee on Africa. She has also served as a board member for local NGOs in Ethiopia and volunteers in various community initiatives.

Mulu holds an MA in Development Economics from University of East Anglia, United Kingdom as well as a BA in Economics from Addis Ababa University. Mulu is a Yale World Fellow of Emerging Global Leaders.

Mr. Solomon Seyoum

Mr. Solomon Seyoum is an accomplished financial analyst, researcher, trainer, business consultant, and also passionate advocate for justice. He holds that the true measure of progress & civilization is justice and the rule of law. As a survivor of near-death experiences during the totalitarian era in Ethiopia, this has been his lifelong passion. Currently, Solomon works as finance manager for the largest non-profit organization in Seattle, Washington. He also owns and runs a business consulting firm focused on helping Ethiopian and Eritrean minority and immigrant businesses. He believes small minority businesses do need as much professional services as the bigger enterprises but are in dire need for help for they often face insurmountable financial and cultural challenges.

For the most part of his adult life, Solomon had been a teacher, a job he respects very much. He taught accounting classes at the foremost Addis Ababa Commercial College for 13 years. In the US, he taught accounting and finance courses at the University of Phoenix, online and on-ground campuses, for a total of 13 years. Solomon also spends a great deal of his time and energy advocating for his community in Seattle, and his country of birth, Ethiopia. He serves in multiple committees and task forces as a volunteer and attempts to set an example to the younger generation, including his kids, and show them that the biggest reward and accomplishment in life comes from offering others help without asking for anything back in return.

Solomon has earned a BA degree (Honors) in accounting from Addis Ababa University and MBA in accounting and finance from the Catholic University of Leven, Belgium. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Walden University and he is working on his doctoral study that examines Ethiopian diaspora entrepreneurship. At the heart of his study are the success and the challenges of the Ethiopian diaspora businesses in both the country of residence and the country of origin.

Dr. Tesfaye Desalegne

Dr. Tesfaye Desalegne is a development consultant working on various policy analyses, having established Tsedall LLC since 2014. He has a combined expertise on trade policy analysis, industrial development, and foreign policy, having worked for over two decades in the Ethiopian public service.

Previously, having reached the rank of Minister Counsellor, in the Ethiopian foreign service, he served in Tokyo, Dubai and Khartoum as a resident economic attaché, where he represented Ethiopia’s economic interest in the respective countries. At the Ethiopian foreign ministry, he served as a Director for Development Finance and Technical Cooperation Department, and European Affairs Directorate where he led teams of experts for overseeing various bilateral cooperation programs. His engagements on preparation, monitoring and evaluations of the Ethiopian development plans in the 2000s as well as being a lead in resource mobilizations from DAG sources are notable.

Prior to joining the foreign service, Tesfaye worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade and Industry as well as the National Bank of Ethiopia as a junior economist.

Tesfaye earned his PhD from Howard University’s African Studies Department with public policy concentration in 2020. His research project won the prestigious Sasakwa Fellowship for examining industrial linkages in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector vis a vis FDI and technology transfer. He obtained his MSc in Economic Development and Policy Analysis from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), under the British Chevening scholarship, a Post Graduate Diploma in International Trade India) and a BA in Economics (with distinction) from Addis Ababa University.

Tesfaye has published several articles on nation-state building, structural transformation, foreign policy and food security. Being member of the Ethiopian Economic Association and the African Studies Association, he presented various papers on African development, more particularly the Horn of Africa. With a combined studying or working experience in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America, Tesfaye carries a unique professional exposure of several international multicultural setting.

Mr. Yehenew T. Walilegne

Mr. Yehenew Tsegaye Walilegne is Senior Legal Counsel at the World Bank Group (WBG), based in Washington D.C. Prior to joining the WBG, he was Legal Officer at WHO (Geneva) where he handled international law, constitutional law, and international civil service law matters for eight years. He has also worked as Lecturer in Law and Assistant Dean of Addis Ababa University School of Law; Rule of Law Project Manager and Head of Project Office with United Nations Development Program Sudan; Human Rights Officer with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and in-house counsel for the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation.

Yehenew has co-authored a book on Ethiopian labor and employment law, and a monograph on international migration, health and human rights. He has also published a number of articles on the hydro politics of the Nile Basin; labor market flexibility and employment and income security; state of emergency and human rights in peer-reviewed journals. He earned his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree (Distinction) in 1997 from Addis Ababa University School of Law, Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Law in 2001 from Dalhousie University Law School (Nova Scotia, Canada), and Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Human Rights Law (summa cum laude) in 2004 from Notre Dame University Law School (Indiana, United States). He has also attended highly coveted short courses in international law and forced migration at The Hague Academy of International Law and the United Nations International Law Commission and the University of Oxford.

Dr. Yodit Benalfew

Dr. Yodit Benalfew is a practicing internist at Kaiser Permanente MAPMG serving as a primary care physician in the mid-Atlantic region for over 25 years. She is a leading champion of preventive care and has consistently maintained high performance in cancer screening, prevention, and management of diabetes. She has served as a module lead in the Kaiser Permanente Fair Oaks Center for over 5 years, where she led a team of 10 physicians.

Yodit is the co-Founder of The Kidus Legacy Education and Soccer Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Ethiopia which works with Addis Ababa University providing underprivileged youth with tutoring and soccer training to raise the next generation of Ethiopians.

Yodit was recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for her professional contributions. She was nominated by her peers and recognized by the Northern Virginia Magazine as one of the 2017, 2019 Top Doctors in the region and by Washingtonian Magazine 2020.

Yodit obtained her medical degree from the Medical College of Poznan, Poland. She completed the educational commission for Foreign Medical Graduates Certification (ECFMG) in the U.S. She then completed training at the internal medicine residency program in Presbyterian Medical Center, University of Penn Health System in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

An 18-member EDTF Advisory Council is appointed by H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed with a global mandate. Its principal functions were:

• Provide advice on mobilizing the Ethiopian Diaspora Community globally to make financial contributions to the EDTF Account on a timely and sustained basis to ensure the realization of the EDTF objectives;
• Promote the establishment of chapters globally in cities and countries with significant presence of Ethiopians to increase the EDTFs outreach and resource mobilization;

• Serve as a discussion forum for the formulation of strategies for adequate resource development and funding of development projects within the mission framework of the EDTF;