 |
|
Kathleen Robbins, co-founder of Jatropha Pepinyé, has held a range of successful executive leadership positions at consumer product companies, high technology firms and cellular companies. She has extensive experience in identifying and capitalizing on profitable growth opportunities, expanding existing ones and is an innovative entrepreneur.
A few years ago, Kathleen left the business sector and has been traveling the world in efforts to use her skills to help alleviate the plight of the poor. Kathleen is particularly interested in bringing technological advances to remote and impoverished regions of the globe to help the economic development of struggling communities.
Kathleen led an effort to provide access to information communication technology to people in developing countries living on $2 or less a day. Kathleen developed FonkoSel Aktive pa Digicel, a replication of the Grameen Bank Village Phone program, creating a partnership between Digicel, Haiti’s largest cellular provider and Fonkoze, the largest Microfinance Institute in Haiti.
Kathleen, formerly Director of Clean Energy of Green Microfinance LLC, is Co-Founder of Jatropha Pepinyè, a non-profit business located in Terrier Rouge, Haiti. The biofuel program uses Jatropha Curcas, a perennial, non-edible plant native to Haiti that has low moisture requirements and grows on deforested land. The nursery grows and sells transplant seedlings of Jatropha Curcas for renewable energy, rural economic development and the re-vegetation of devastated landscapes.
Jatropha Pepinyè is structured to train, facilitate and support small farmer association members in growing Jatropha Curcas in an economically sustainable manner, introduce commercial possibilities, and use microfinance to develop small businesses to use the pure plant oil. The program’s larger goal is to further develop an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory, and includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction.
Kathleen received her engineering science degree from the United States Air Force Academy, earned an MBA from California State University Sacramento, and a Doctor of Ministry degree.
|