Our Team

Hans Picker, Cofounder and CEO of VIAGlobus

Hans has vast and wide-ranging experience as entrepreneur, executive, consultant, researcher, and professor.

Prior to VIAGlobus, Hans was the cofounding Partner, President and Senior Consultant of CEC International, a management consulting firm specializing in values-based strategic change. In 1980, he created CEC in Boston with Ivan Mimica, and in 1991, he established CEC International Latin America with Bertha Lucia Fries. At CEC, he consulted with and advised numerous board members, leaders and managers of a variety of organizations - Fortune 100 and smaller companies, government ministries and agencies, universities, NGOs, cities and communities, international agencies - in the US, Latin America, Europe, and Japan.

Hans also founded and was the first Executive Director of CLADEA (Latin American Council of Management Schools), an international network of deans, professors, and students, aimed at widening the scope and diffusing innovations of management theory and practice. He taught finance and management policy in several universities and was a Ford Foundation consultant for developing executive education programs. Hans was a research fellow at the Center for Studies in Education and Development (CSED) at Harvard University where he developed a set of models and frameworks for assessing the relevance of education systems. He also created and led his own businesses and helped create and served top management positions, including Sigdo Koppers corporation, one of the main conglomerates in Chile serving the services, industrial, commercial and automobile industries.

Hans has a long lasting interest in promoting sustainable development that is based on strong values through globally responsible leadership and organizations worldwide. To this effect, he co-developed several management models and solutions, including "Values in Action (VIA)", a method companies use to declare, disseminate, live up to, and measure corporate values to become globally responsible companies.

Hans holds a Business Engineering degree from the Catholic University of Chile, attended the MBA program at Northwestern University, and earned his doctoral degree from Harvard University in Planning, Administration and Social Policy.

Bertha Lucia Fries, Cofounder and President of VIAGlobus

Bertha Lucia has a long and successful experience as entrepreneur, executive, consultant and professor in values-based leadership and organizational change.

Prior to VIAGlobus, in 1991 Bertha Lucia cofounded with Hans Picker CEC International Latin America, and became Partner, Executive Director and Senior Consultant. During her tenure, she created innovative methods to assess and satisfy stakeholder needs and measure results, including the Values in Action (VIA) instrument. She consulted with many organizations in different sectors and countries to enhance their competitiveness and become more responsible citizens. She also helped build an integrated database of the global responsibility industry to gain better understanding of the different approaches and trends and support strong strategies for change. In recognition for her work in implementing the Values in Action methodology, Bertha Lucia was the only Latin American delegate invited to participate as in the World State Forum.

Prior to CEC, Bertha Lucia created and performed leading roles in a variety of organizations. Among these, she founded and served as the CEO of a coop aimed at fulfilling basic education, health, and housing needs of local communities; was selected by a large bank in a national contest to bring first women to top executive positions; trained small business owners for building management skills and obtaining bank loans; worked with young people to raise their awareness about their roles as future leaders; and lectured at several universities.

Bertha Lucia believes that we lack socially acceptable values that provide meaning to our life and work and that unite us better in civic community. This is often reflected in the loss of trust among individuals and institutions and in behaviors contrary to the public good. To fill this ethical void, we must joint the efforts of visionary and globally responsible leaders.

Bertha Lucia earned two MAs from the University of Massachusetts and Cinde, an international masters program, and a degree in Political Science and Management form Los Andes University, Colombia.

At VIAGobus, Bertha Lucia is responsible for content development, traffic generation as well as affiliate marketing and partnership programs.

Artemis A.W. Joukowsky, III, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist

Artemis is a founding member of VIAGlobus. He has been a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, non-profit activist and film producer. He has formed ten for-profit and eight non-for profit institutions and has been a founding partner in two venture capital funds. He has been part of four companies that have gone public.

Artemis is a Senior Advisor of Econergy International, a diversified international energy service company focused on the clean energy markets, traded publicly on the AIM market on the London Stock Market. Before the company's IPO, he was its Vice-Chairman. Artemis is currently Chairman and CEO of Avalon Financial Group LLC, Union Limited Partnership and HFG Financial Group, which advises and manages a total of over $100 million in equity and venture assets. In 1997, he cofounded Solstice Capital, an $85 million early stage venture fund. He currently serves as an Advisor at Solstice as well as at Utah Ventures II, an $80 million dollar fund based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and at Commons Capital, a socially responsible early stage venture fund in Boston.

Artemis cofounded several non-profit organizations and socially responsible investment networks, including the Investors' Circle (with Susan Davis) and the Social Venture Network. He served on the Board of Directors of Hampshire College from 1992-2000 and as the Chair and Co-Chair of two capital campaigns from 1994 to the present.

Artemis is also the Cofounder and Chairman of No Limits Media, an organization committed to transforming the world's view of people with disabilities. He was a member of the United States Paralympics Team 2002-2004 and has competed in the US and abroad.

Artemis is a member of the Finance Committee and a Program Officer for the Joukowsky Family Foundation.

He earned a BA in Social Ecology from Hampshire College and an MA in Psychology from Goddard College.

Ivan Mimica, CEO of Consortium for Technology and Innovation (CTI)

Ivan is a founding member and a director of VIAGlobus. Currently, Ivan is the CEO of CTI - an innovative biotechnological company that focuses on cancer research and product development. CTI integrates business, universities, research centers and government, and is co-funded by the World Bank and private sector companies.

Ivan started his entrepreneurial career in 1980 when he cofounded, with Hans Picker, CEC International - a media, education and communication company based in Boston. His decades of experience in high tech companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) began in 1984 when he co-founded Enterset in San Francisco, CA, USA and then in 1987 founded and developed in Boston, MA, USA a pioneering speech recognition and language technology business called Articulate Systems, Inc. (ASI). ASI became a leader in speech recognition applications developing two landmark products: Voice Navigator and Power Scribe that became one of the best-selling AI and speech recognition products in the world. In 1998, ASI was sold to Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) where Ivan became Senior Group Vice President responsible for a $140 million, 1400-person division.

In 2000, with a group of successful entrepreneurs and academics, Ivan founded Unveil Technologies, Inc., which developed the Conversation Manager - an innovative system that engages users in intelligent, flexible and personalized conversations with computers and connects these users with the information they seek. This innovative approach was recognized by MIT, Giga Information Group, Gartner Group, the Red Herring and others and received the Product of the Year Award in 2003. Unveil Technologies was sold to Microsoft in 2004.

Ivan received a degree in Sociology from the Catholic University of Chile and two Master degrees from Harvard University, where he also did his doctoral work in Cognitive Sciences. He taught consumer behavior, communication, marketing and social psychology at several universities.

Maciek Gadamski, Chief Operating Officer (COO)

At VIAGlobus, Maciek is responsible for operations, client services and product development.

Maciek has 15 years of successful domestic and international leadership experience in international development, technology and consulting, designing and managing fast-paced and challenging projects, products and teams, including as Project Director for the World Bank's private sector development arm - the International Finance Corporation (IFC). He has extensive track record of building rapport with private and public institutions and attracting funding from investors and donors. Maciek cofounded three companies (USA and Poland) and raised $9M in capital; he also helped secure $100M in financing commitments for clients. While at IFC, Maciek recruited, trained, deployed and managed multidisciplinary/multicultural teams of up to 120 in multiple locations (Ukraine, Russia, Vietnam). Maciek is an accomplished team player who can build consensus across multiple constituencies and at all organization levels, delegate effectively and motivate teams.

Prior to VIAGlobus, Maciek cofounded a technology/service firm (LeadershipTools) by successfully transforming a 50-year old consulting company (The Cleaver Company International). There, he co-developed and launched an innovative talent management and leadership development SaaS platform aimed at improving human capital management and increasing organizational performance. Maciek was responsible for product, business and project development, operations and client services. He established and maintained a system for planning and execution, product development and delivery, resulting in improved bottom line, more efficient operations and better client services.

Previously, Maciek cofounded Emerging Value Group, a Massachusetts-based consultancy, aimed at advising private and municipal clients on attracting mainstream investment to economically-distressed communities in the US (New Orleans, Baltimore, Atlanta). He also served as Project Manager/Director in Ukraine and Vietnam for the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) focusing on small business development and privatization and received the prestigious Award for Excellence in 1998 for one of two best projects implemented by the World Bank Group globally.

Maciek speaks five languages and earned his BA from Brandeis University, AM from Harvard University, and MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

Gregg Kline, Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Gregg, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of AeroWeb, has been a part of the Information Technology field since 1999, primarily within the banking and telecommunications industries. His background includes experience in computer security administration, quality assurance, software release engineering and configuration management, at companies including FleetBoston Financial, Comverse Technology, and Parker Hannifin.

Gregg has managed a wide array of design and development projects ranging from local and small businesses to state government and nationally recognized universities. These projects include web development services for State Representative Christopher G. Fallon of the 33rd Middlesex District in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to more complex database applications for Northeastern University's George J. Kostas Nanoscale Technology and Manufacturing Research Center.

Gregg is actively involved in all aspects of business operations, product development and project management and has been instrumental in helping AeroWeb become a trusted provider of web based IT and e-business solutions for individuals, professionals, small businesses and corporate clients from coast to coast and around the world.

At VIAGlobus, Gregg has been in charge of developing the website and its applications. He received his BA from the University of Rhode Island in 1998 and a degree in Management Information Systems from Northeastern University in 2000.

Vanessa Goldstein, Executive Editor

Vanessa is an accomplished analyst in the field of educational diversity. She is presently Research Assistant in the Office for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School where her responsibilities include assisting in all aspects of research projects, the dissemination of the results to the University and community at-large, as well as composing reference documents for internal and external purposes. She is primarily responsible for specific components of research projects such as the development and management of data sources and literature searches and leads the ongoing development of a new website's structure and content.

Prior to this engagement, Vanessa was Staff Writer, Webmaster and Program Coordinator at the New England Board of Higher Education in Boston, MA, where her roles included Editor-in-Chief and author for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) educator professional development publications and contributing ghost writer to the New England Journal of Higher Education. She also assisted with strategic plan development and the preparation of proposals to a variety of funding sources.

Vanessa's independent consulting work includes program evaluations for organizations that focus on academic enrichment, assembling background statistical data for incorporation into proposals for funding, and providing editing support for a variety of communication materials.

Vanessa received her BA from the University of Hawaii's flagship Manoa campus. While pursuing her degree, she also provided therapeutic treatment to children in educational settings, tutored English-learning adults and taught nonviolent conflict-resolution to elementary school students.

At VIAGlobus, Vanessa is responsible for managing the company's publication production and distribution as well as editing and reviewing internal and external publications for relevancy and accuracy.