Staff

Charles J. Billand, Executive Vice President

Mr. Billand serves as Executive Vice President of The Communities Group and oversees both the international and the domestic consulting portfolios. He has multi-disciplinary housing and community development experience gained through work on more than 100 projects both in the United States and abroad. His forte is housing finance. He also has considerable hands-on experience with urban planning and capital project finance, non-profit housing development, international urban development, institutional development, property management, rehabilitation, and training. As urban advisor to USAID/India, he designed and authorized $15 million in technical support programs, and $160 million in USAID loan guaranty funding. This included numerous delivery orders and 2 long-term institutional contracts: the Housing Finance System Expansion project and the Financial Institutions Reform and Expansion project. He served as chief of party for a six year, $10 million long-term USAID institutional contract, and $200 million loan and grant program, for low-income shelter and community upgrading in Egypt.

Prentiss de Jesus, Program Manager

Prentiss de Jesus has been involved in the conception and administration of USAID-sponsored training programs since the mid 1980s. As both a seasoned administrator and seminar leader he has directed staff and instructors in the development of training programs ranging from environmental policy to project management and computer applications. He has collaborated closely with international donors in providing targeted programs that support mission goals, such as organizational capacity-building, job skills development, and professional growth in both the private and public sectors. He has worked in many regions, including sub-Saharan and North Africa, Central Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands. In addition to his competence in training, he has fulfilled key backstopping responsibilities for field projects, by providing research and documentary materials, and cultural sensitivity orientation for departing staff and consultants. Mr. de Jesus received his B.A. from Brown University and his Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Archeology from The Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Anne Martin Holt, Program Manager

Ms. Martin Holt’s professional experience has focused on urban policy and programming in Latin America. Prior to joining TCG International, she worked for an environmental technology trade association, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and USAID. At the trade association, she reported on market opportunities and designed training activities and seminars, particularly related to concessions and management competitiveness in the Brazilian municipal water and wastewater sector. At the IADB, Ms. Martin Holt reviewed the Bank’s urban loan portfolio and assessed current and future lending trends, orchestrated a three-day symposium on urban management during the annual meeting of the Bank in 1997, and coordinated an exhibit and seminar about the innovative city of Curitiba, Brazil. She also wrote a concept paper about Bank support for cultural heritage conservation. While working for USAID’s urban office in Ecuador, she managed policy dialogue activities in the water and sanitation sector and organized municipal training seminars around decentralization, management efficiency, and cost recovery. She also reported on urban management activities in the region and coordinated the first stage of a pilot project on low-tech water purification technologies. As a municipal management intern for USAID she identified appropriate training courses and initiated the urbanization seminar series. Ms. Martin Holt attended Middlebury College and received her master’s in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida. She has completed courses on historic town revitalization, community-based housing, and financial feasibility analysis (to support the Development Credit Authority). Currently, she is working for TCGI from Cairo, Egypt. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese.

Kerry O'Neill, Program Manager

Ms. O'Neill combines a background in international relations with communications and public relations skills. In her previous positions, she has focussed her efforts on raising public awareness of development and environmental issues in the U.S. and overseas.  At Catholic Relief Services, she was responsible for obtaining media exposure for the organization's programs in southern Africa and Latin America. She oversaw coverage of the Central American rebuilding process following Hurricane Mitch and published op-eds, magazine features, and newspaper articles based on her visits to the region. As part of the emergency response team, she developed a media strategy to highlight the $80 million commitment made to the region. While working for a private consulting firm, Ms. O'Neill assisted local government officials with their environmental initiatives. Specifically, she produced technical publications and videos and developed conferences targeted at urban sprawl issues, pollution prevention, and growth management. She spent several years in Paris, France at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conducting outreach to non-member countries.   Ms. O'Neill received her M.A. from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies during which time she also worked in USAID's Office of Housing and Urban Programs. She received her B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Christopher Ray, Program Manager

Mr. Ray is a finance specialist with international experience in Central and South America as well as the South Pacific and India, having worked for USAID, the Walt Disney Company, and the Western Samoa Treasury Department. He recently conducted credit risk and financial feasibility analyses in India for the Development Credit Authority Ò a USAID loan guarantee facility. Sectors analyzed included renewable energy and microfinance. Mr. Ray worked with a local NGO in Panama to design a diagnostic study of the administrative and financial aspects of solid waste management for three semi-urban municipalities. Also for USAID/Panama, he provided technical and capacity-building assistance on a variety of short-term projects. He was able to draw on this experience to conduct a study of effective public-private partnerships in solid waste management for the Inter-American Development Bank.  In Argentina, Mr. Ray provided on-site assistance for overhead, capital budget and ad-hoc financial reports for an Argentine film company purchased by Disney Studios. He also provided these services for Disney's entire Latin American presence through Disney's main foreign subsidiaries in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. He coordinated the collection and analysis of financial forecast data between these offices and US headquarters. As a privatization specialist for the Western Samoa Treasury Department, Mr. Ray provided assistance with the privatization of four state-owned enterprises (SOE). His responsibilities included project planning, implementation, share/asset valuations, analysis of privatization alternatives and advertising. Additional responsibilities included auditing, accounting and computer software training to several SOEs and Treasury staff.  Domestically, Mr. Ray worked for three years with the management consulting firm, The Amherst Group, Ltd. He developed and facilitated workshop training materials to improve the customer service approach of corporation's internal support functions. Mr. Ray also analyzed temporary employment services, purchasing and human resources activities and costs across 25 operating companies of a large U.S. pharmaceutical corporation. Mr. Ray has a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Virginia and a MBA in finance and economics from the University of Chicago. He speaks Spanish.

Karolijn van Ginneken, DHV Consultants, BV, program manager

Ms. van Ginneken is an urban development specialist working for the Urban Development and Housing department of DHV Consultants, BV of the Netherlands. Based in Washington DC, she works closely together with TCG International to expand and broaden the strategic alliance formed by the two firms, and to work on mutual business development. Her experience focuses on urban policy and planning in Dutch and international issues.  As an urban geographer and policy planner at the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Ms. van Ginneken was involved in policy preparation and design of Dutch spatial planning issues such as the location of the national airport Schiphol and the expansion of the northern Randstad. Furthermore she was involved in the Dutch Chairmanship of the European Union, writing the European Spatial Development Perspective and organising the conference for the European ministers of Spatial Planning.  Internationally, Ms. van Ginneken has worked on in land-use planning issues in Poland and Ukraine, focusing on the exchange of experience between EU and non-EU spatial policy and planning issues. She has worked on integrated urban planning in Indonesia, giving support to the urban development and housing component of the Surabaya Urban Development Project to 2018, and editing the project's final report. On the island of Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles, Ms. van Ginneken has done an evaluation of the population dispersement on the island, concentrating on the spatial planning policies of the past twenty years, evaluating the results and advising on future perspectives. As an urban development specialist for DHV Consultants, Ms. van Ginneken was furthermore involved in the financial and strategic management of urban development projects in Indonesia, Nepal, India, Rwanda and Georgia.