Hope Neighbor
Founder and CEO
Hope’s professional focus is on improving philanthropic and development effectiveness. Hope has been quoted in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, KQED Radio, and others. Her functional areas of expertise are customer insights, strategy, and management for impact.
Prior to Hope Consulting, Hope was a strategy consultant with Marakon Associates, a boutique strategy consultancy. At Marakon, Hope advised senior executives of F500 healthcare, hospitality, and retail companies on growth strategy. Previously, Hope worked in international development, making institutional loans and grants for a $270M portfolio in health, HIV prevention, social protection, and rural development at the World Bank. Earlier in her career, Hope worked for the International Rescue Committee in Burundi and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. She holds a joint Master’s in Public Affairs/Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University, and a BA in Public Policy from Pomona College, where she graduated with distinction. Hope serves on the advisory boards of GreatNonprofits and Catalytic Women, a start-up philanthropic advisory practice. She has been profiled as a social entrepreneur by Fast Company. Hope is fluent in French.
Salim Haji
Managing Director, Strategy
Salim advises operating companies, nonprofits, and private equity firms in agriculture, specialty chemicals, beverages, global health, and water industries, on growth, profitability, and operational effectiveness. Previously, Salim was Senior Vice President of Strategy at MacDermid, a $700M global specialty chemical company. Prior to this, Salim was a Vice-President and Partner at Oliver Wyman (formerly SPA), a leading strategy consultancy with over 2,500 consultants in 40 offices around the world. Salim is also an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Daniels College of Business at Denver University, where he lectures in Corporate Strategy. He spent a year as a visiting Fulbright business professor in Tanzania, where he lectured in Corporate Strategy and Economics. Salim has a BA in Economics and Development Studies from Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude and where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and an MBA from Stanford University. Salim is fluent in French and conversant in Kiswahili.
Scott Herring
Managing Director, Marketing
Scott is a senior marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience helping companies develop and execute brand and business strategies. Scott specializes in brand architecture, positioning, and ROI-driven marketing campaigns to drive customer acquisition and revenue growth. Prior to working with Hope Consulting, Scott was the Senior Vice President of DDB/Chicago, managing the AT&T account. Before his post at DDB, Scott was the Vice President of Marketing at Support.com, a company that provides technology support services and software for consumers and small businesses. Scott also spent over six years at McCann Worldgroup, San Francisco, where he was Executive Vice President, Director of Client Services for Microsoft’s global marketing. As EVP, he was responsible for the global consumer businesses management of Windows, Office, Xbox and MSN/Bing. In this role, he managed the Microsoft account and brand/advertising across 98 countries. In addition, Scott has worked across a variety of industries with senior management teams, including financial services, e-commerce, CPG, consumer services, and retail to improve marketing performance, and achieve core business objectives in measurable and quantifiable terms. Scott graduated from Kansas University.
Our Team
Bill Wilkie
Senior Advisor, Insights and Brand
Bill distills information to its core essence to facilitate change in for- and non-profit organizations. Bill has over twenty years’ experience as a brand strategist to the world’s leading companies. Indicatively, Bill worked exclusively on brand strategy for various Microsoft initiatives including .Net, Windows, and Windows Media Player, and on related corporate initiatives for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He also worked deeply on MSN globally and MSNBC, to develop their brand strategy. On the nonprofit side, in a campaign initiated by two of the US’ leading foundations, Bill used interviews and focus groups to discern the brand narrative that would drive target nonprofits and foundations to discuss and identify how to use data more intensively. He holds a BA from Fairfield University and a Master’s in Religion from Yale University.
Eric Bigirimana
Senior Advisor, Global Health
Eric is a Burundian national with deep experience in health strategy, program design, and behavior change in resource-poor settings. Prior to working with Hope Consulting, Eric played a key role in the development of Burundi’s 2006-2010 and 2011-2015 National Health Plans as a senior health advisor to Burundi’s Ministry of Health. His work focused on supporting public healthcare providers in delivery of quality care at each level of the healthcare system. In addition, he helped Burundi to elaborate the National Strategic Plan for Community Health, by creating new approaches to field intervention, aimed at introducing innovative strategies of behavioral and organizational change. Before that role, Eric was responsible for the design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of health services in the province of Bururi and worked as a general practitioner. Eric has also presented widely, notably on new approaches to financing healthcare in resource-poor settings at the Ottawa Charter conference in Vancouver, Canada in June, 2007. Eric holds an MD from the University of Burundi’s Faculty of Medicine and a Master’s in Community Health from the University of Laval, in Quebec, Canada. His thesis subject was “Determinants of condom use in first- and second- generation African and Caribbean immigrants in Quebec.” Eric was awarded a World Bank/Japan Scholarship to support his Master’s studies.
Neha Gupta
Project Lead
Neha brings expertise in branding and marketing to Hope Consulting, as well as experience in web campaign development and project management. She has been integral to the Markets for Good web campaign. She recently finished her term as a Farber Fellow with REDF, a San Francisco-based social enterprise and winner of White House Social Innovation Fund support. Previously, Neha worked in marketing at Clorox and Unilever, where she managed marketing budgets of up to $53 million. In the social sector, Neha has worked at a microfinance institution in India, and the New Teacher Project, a New York-based nonprofit that improves teacher quality through innovative brand management and training. She also manages pro-bono Stanford Alumni Consulting teams to provide strategy consulting services to Bay Area nonprofits. Neha started her career as a strategy consultant with Mercer Management Consulting. She holds a BA in Economics from Stanford and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Gabe Turner
Project Lead
Gabe blends his knowledge of the hi-tech sector with his experience in strategy consulting to help Hope Consulting’s clients leapfrog into the 21st century. He is currently working on furthering the Markets for Good initiative, which aims to improve the usage of data and information in the social sector. Prior to Hope Consulting, Gabe was a management consultant with Deloitte for five years where he worked with executives across consumer goods, technology and energy industries as part of Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations practice. Gabe left to become an independent advisor to the government of Abu Dhabi on policy related to science, technology and innovation. In addition, Gabe’s skill set is bolstered by his startup experience, having grown a sustainable food companyfrom the ground up, and more recently by advising early-stage consumer technology ventures. Gabe graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Political Economy and a BS in Business Administration, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is originally from Montevideo, Uruguay where soccer and grass-fed steak are the keys to happiness.
Tim Durbin
Project Lead
Tim blends his knowledge of the consumer and technology sectors with his experience in strategy consulting to help Hope Consulting’s clients leapfrog into the 21st century. He is currently working on furthering the Markets for Good initiative, which aims to improve the usage of data and information in the social sector. Prior to Hope Consulting, Tim was an engagement manager and senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting for six years where he worked with executives across consumer goods, healthcare, technology and energy industries as part of Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations practice. Tim graduated from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill with a BS in Business Administration, and holds an MBA from Haas School of Business at UC—Berkeley. Originally from Illinois, Tim is an avid outdoorsman and runner.
Dvorit Mausner
Change Strategist
Dvorit establishes knowledge of social issues and implements social change initiatives by crafting and coordinating Hope Consulting’s approach. Much of her work is focused in our communications strategy to change behavior on key issues, while also contributing significantly to our business growth and strategy consulting engagements. Dvorit brings with her to Hope Consulting eight years of fundraising experience for the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed a deep understanding of donor behavior, community development, and communications strategy. Previously, as a manager and front-line fundraiser for The Penn Fund—Penn’s $30M annual fund for undergraduate education—Dvorit set numerous records in donor participation, dollars raised, and leadership society membership. In conjunction with Penn’s comprehensive $4.3B campaign, Making History, Dvorit served as a leader in the design and implementation of the young alumni engagement strategy, yPenn, which included over 50 events across the world, reaching more than 1,500 alumni in less than two years. She has shared her expertise during conferences and webinars of Ivy+ Annual Giving, Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and MCON12 presented by Achieve. Both from Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, Dvorit holds a BA in the biological basis of behavior and a Master of Liberal Arts with concentration in social justice and philanthropy. She also earned a Wharton School certificate in business essentials. Dvorit is conversationally fluent in Spanish and an avid dancer and cyclist.
Eric Henderson
Web Curator
Eric brings over twenty years of marketing and communications experience with for-profit and nonprofit firms including Pepsi Cola Co., Citigroup, and GE Capital, where he led the implementation of GE’s first online financial services channel—a full suite of personal services—and re-engineered the deal-sourcing database for GE Commercial Finance, a $5 billion unit of the company. Eric once also led the re-branding of Living Cities, where his responsibilities included the articulation of new positioning, revision of all assets, and establishment of media relations. Eric also counts on his deep experience as a consultant, writer, and internationally exhibited fine art photographer to inform his work. He is a current contributor to Huffington Post and a previously featured principal artist for Bombay Sapphire UK and lead facilitator for the BMW Guggenheim Lab. The sum of his experience is a documented track record of persuasive and technical communication in the in public, private, and nonprofit arenas. For Hope Consulting, Eric is the Conversation Curator for Markets for Good, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the financial firm, Liquidnet. (Learn more about this initiative on our Markets for Good project page.) Eric maintains an active personal involvement in the social sector, volunteering to teach young males in New York City schools and leading the Global Arts Program of OneWorldNow.org. Eric holds an MBA with concentrations in Marketing and Finance from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, including one year at ESADE, Barcelona, Spain. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and conversant in Catalan.
Lionel Wang
Senior Advisor, Customer Analytics
Lionel is an expert in growth strategy and a top marketing scientist whose clients respect him for exceptionally knowledgeable and innovative thinking about all aspects of marketing research. Lionel founded Marketing and Innovation, LLC in 2001 and has successfully developed and delivered many top-rated applications to leading management consulting firms (e.g. McKinsey & Company), marketing research companies (e.g. IPSOS), media agencies (e.g. WPP), and other clients. Prior to establishing his consulting firm and applications, Lionel held a variety of research and development roles in the
marketing research field. He spent five years at NPD as a director of analytical services where he was responsible for providing analytical support, consulting, and research design to NPD clients and staff. He also held key senior development roles at IRI (director of product development), Nielsen (VP analytics), and NFO Interactive (VP product development). He began his career as a strategic planning analyst at Gillette. Lionel holds dual Master’s degrees—Operations Research, Engineering from Stanford and
a MBA from California Polytechnic University—and he obtained his BS in Economics from Tamkang University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Nada Long
Executive Assistant
Nada leads Hope Consulting’s day-to-day operations, focusing on efficiency and integrating the latest business solutions technology. She works closely with our team to ensure that our infrastructure is fully optimized for project work and client-team communication. Nada gained experience in the field of philanthropy as the interim Executive Assistant to Gap Foundation’s Chief Foundation Officer and Gap Inc.’s SVP of Global Responsibility. She previously worked in executive search and management consulting at Egon Zehnder International. There, as Executive Assistant to the Global Head of Internet and Media, she handled C-Level and Board candidate scheduling and travel logistics, as well as full search documentation. Prior to EZI, Nada was an Assistant to the Municipal Securities Housing Group at UBS Investment Bank. She began her career as Executive Assistant, Office Manager and Marketing Coordinator at a San Francisco-based healthcare architecture and planning firm. Nada earned a BA in Magazine Journalism from San Francisco State University and a Professional Degree in Foreign Correspondence from the Danish and Dutch Schools of Journalism. Originally from Washington State, she has become a San Franciscan, global traveler and connoisseur of new ideas.