RoseAnn Rotandaro is the Founder and Executive Director of The Village Link. RoseAnn served in the Peace Corps from 1977-1979 in Sierra Leone where she lived in Pujehun and Golu, both in Sierra Leone's Southern province. RoseAnn's Peace Corps experience led to her current philanthropic efforts and her inspiration to launch The Village Link. Currently, RoseAnn is a co-founder and member of the consulting firm Cherokee Group LLC, which provides specialized business services to emerging companies in Silicon Valley. Prior to Cherokee Group, RoseAnn co-founded Virtual Law Partners LLP, now known as VLP Law Group, (“VLP”). She served as the law firm’s first president and an executive director.

Prior to VLP, RoseAnn founded Armor Legal Counsel, a boutique law firm that represented high tech companies. Before Armor, she held the position of VP & General Counsel for two pre-IPO technology companies, Equator Technologies, Inc. and BenefitStreet, Inc., where she was in charge of all legal affairs. RoseAnn also practiced with the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto for six years. Her law practice has covered general corporate, securities, and transactional matters, including venture financing, public offerings, and mergers and acquisitions.RoseAnn received her J.D. from Stanford University Law School. She also holds a Bachelors in Environmental Studies from East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania and an M.A.T. from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

EVELYN LEWIS

Evelyn Lewis is the Co-Director of Village Link, bringing with him a breadth of experience and a wealth of information and ties to important resources in Sierra Leone as The Village Link continues to grow. He has served as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SBTS Group, an ICT consulting firm for the last 12 years; Evelyn also owns TrainingSol, a training company and jobs portal. An avid tech-preneur, since starting his first business at age 12, developing his passion for expanding ICT into underserved communities, he has been involved in numerous technological initiatives. He was a core functionary in formulating the Sierra Leone Presidential ICT task force, which further wrote Sierra Leone’s ICT policy and lobbied to connect Sierra Leone to the outside world through submarine fiber optics. His primary company, SBTS Group currently has representation in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Washington D.C, USA and Pune, India with an outlook for global expansion, was featured in a Financial Times Publication, “This is Africa,” and was responsible for implementing the first commercial e-learning solution in Sierra Leone and online jobs portal and also the first biometric pension system in West Africa.

Prior to founding SBTS Group, Evelyn earned valuable experiences through proprietorship experiences in many forms of ICT and executive experiences with Companies such as Computer Consultants Corporation in Washington D.C with prior experiences in corporate I.T recruitment such as MacArthur Associates. Evelyn was responsible for team development and client relationship for the training and consulting streams with an overall responsibility stretching thousands of clients including DOD, World Bank, SHRM, and more. Mr. Lewis concluded a B.A. in Integrative Studies with a concentration in International Relations and a focus on Technology & Law from GMU and A.A in International Studies from NVCC, and is currently a member of the National ICT Council and acts as outgoing Chairperson for the Internet Society – Sierra Leone Chapter.

MICHAEL MCGIRR

Michael McGirr is a Co-Director for our fledgling program. A National Program Leader in the Center for International Programs at USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), he is responsible for developing and managing foreign and domestic projects in collaboration with American universities.  From 1990 to 1996, Mr. McGirr managed the agency’s Polish/American Extension Project, which involved collaboration with 31 land-grant institutions. He went on to develop agency initiatives in the former Soviet Republics, Central America, Africa, and, most recently, managed the Iraq Agricultural Extension Revitalization project.

He is currently overseeing the Afghanistan Agricultural Extension Project. In 2003, he launched the National Initiative to Internationalize Extension – an effort aimed at strengthening the global dimension of state and local extension programs here in the United States. He has served on the boards of several successful non-profit organizations, including Friends of Sierra Leone (FoSL) and Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR); and, is currently President-elect of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD).  Mr. McGirr began his career in international development as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone, as did our founder RoseAnn.  He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.

COLLEEN ROSSIGNOL

Colleen is the Director of Programs and Development for The Village Link. She works closely with TVL Sierra Leone to build, execute and monitor all programs. In addition to overseeing all programs, Colleen is constantly building strategic partnerships to further TVL's mission. Colleen earned a Bachelors of Business Management from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Prior to her work at The Village Link, Colleen had a successful 8 year career in corporate marketing and advertising working with such brands as Microsoft, Samsung and Wonderbread. Additionally she worked with start-up entrepreneurs helping them with marketing launch strategy and execution. In early 2013 she started working for her first nonprofit, the Global Women’s Leadership Network, as the Marketing Manager. Colleen considers herself a global citizen and is passionate about international development and economic development as a means to end poverty.