Our board is comprised of leaders across the industry dedicated to making the Lafayette Square vision a reality.

Bart Winokur was the Chairman and CEO of the international law firm Dechert LLC for 15 years and is currently a Partner.  Mr. Winokur is currently Vice Chair of the Board of Cornell University. He is also a Trustee and past Chairman of the Board at Brandeis University. He also is on the National Board of the Posse Foundation a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Harvard Law School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Edith Cooper and her daughter, Jordan Taylor, are founders of Medley, a company that harnesses the power of small groups to help people grow personally and professionally.  Ms. Cooper served as Executive Vice President, Global Head, Human Capital Management of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from March 2008 to December 2017 and, prior to that, she held various leadership positions in Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division from 1996 to 2008. Ms. Cooper began her career in derivative sales at Bankers Trust and Morgan Stanley. Ms. Cooper is a graduate of Harvard College and the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Frank Raines is a Co-Founder and the Executive Chairman of XappMedia and Bespoken two companies which specialize, respectively, in interactive conversational audio application development and testing. Mr. Raines is the retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fannie Mae, and a former Partner of Lazard Freres & Co. He has served as a director of six Fortune 100 companies. Mr. Raines also served as White House Budget Director in the Clinton Administration; earlier he served as Associate Director for Economics and Government in the White House budget office, and as Assistant Director of the White House domestic policy staff, in the Carter Administration.  Mr. Raines is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and attended Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.

Mr. Van Amson is Managing Director of Sales and Trading management and administration in the Institutional Equity Division of Morgan Stanley, where he has served for thirty years. Mr. Van Amson also serves as Head of the Firm’s North American Analyst and Associate Advising and Development Program.  Before joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Van Amson was Vice President - Senior International Trader at Goldman Sachs.  Mr. Van Amson is a graduate of Columbia University and the Harvard Business School.

Huy Cao is Managing Director, Corporate Credit at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ). In this capacity, he is responsible for building strategic partnerships for the corporate credit portfolio as well as managing origination efforts for private credit. He is additionally engaged in the development and monitoring of the corporate credit investment strategy and portfolio. Mr. Cao serves on various CDPQ committees including certain investment and research committees.

Michael Forman is Chairman and CEO of FS Investments and has been leading the company since it was founded in 2007.  Prior to co-founding FS Investments, Mr. Forman had a successful career as a corporate and securities lawyer and serial entrepreneur.    Mr. Forman devotes a substantial amount of his time to civic endeavors and serves on a number of charitable boards.

Michaela Edwards is a Partner at Capricorn Investment Group, one of the largest mission-aligned investment firms in the world.  Prior to joining Capricorn in 2019, she spent nine years as a Senior Portfolio Manager with Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign wealth fund of Norway, where she lead the external global environmental portfolio. Before joining Norges, Michaela worked as a research analyst for Russell Investments in London and New York. She started her career on the trading desk of DNB in Oslo. She is a graduate of Cass Business School in London and Oslo University College. She is a CFA charter holder.

Peter A. Seligmann is the CEO and co-founder of Nia Tero, a joint venture of the Emerson Collective, the MacArthur Foundation, the Mulago Foundation and Conservation International. Nia Tero works alongside Indigenous peoples and local communities in securing their rights, cultures, and well-being through agreements that secure the vitality of their oceans and lands. Peter is also the Chairman of the Board, and former CEO, of Conservation International (CI), a global nonprofit organization he co-founded in 1987.

Peter is also a Director at First Eagle Holdings, Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the board of the Mulago Foundation, and served on the Coca-Cola Company’s International Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2014. Peter was also named to the Enterprise for the America’s Board by President Clinton in 2000.

Peter holds a Master of Science in Forestry and Environmental Science from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology from Rutgers University. Peter has Honorary Doctorates in Science from Michigan State University and Rutgers University.