Dr. Peter C. Okantey, Founder & President
Peter holds a Doctorate Degree and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Strategic Leadership from Regent University's School of Business and Leadership, Virginia, USA. He holds a Master's Degree in Business Administration both from Warner Pacific College. He also holds a teaching certificate from the Presbyterian College of Education in Ghana, West Africa and a Public Administration Diploma from the University of Ghana Business School. In 2009, Peter received the Young Alumni of the Year Award from Warner Pacific College. He has several years of professional work experience including, founding and managing a consulting business and non-profit organization, working within the private and non-profit sectarian leadership positions in Ghana and the United States. He is the Founder and President of Palm University College and the Naa Amerley Palm Education (NAPE) Foundation.
Matt Storer, Board Chair
Matt is a regulatory compliance professional with decades of experience working for large U.S. and global banks including HSBC, Capital One and Wells Fargo. With a specialty in the privacy discipline, Matt is a certified information privacy professional and is also experienced with information security, IT, AML and lending compliance requirements. Matt holds a BS degree from Eastern Oregon University with a concentrationin Marketing and Management, and a MS degree fromWarner Pacific in Organizational Leadership. Outside of work, Matt enjoys boating, fishing and snowboarding.
Lee C. Nusich, Emeritus Board Member
Lee holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University Of Oregon School Of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geological Engineering from the University of North Dakota. He has practiced law in Portland, Oregon for the past 33 years and is currently affiliated with the law firm of Lane Powell, PC. His current practice emphasizes commercial litigation and representation of financial institutions. He has been an active volunteer with several nonprofits over the past 20 years and in that capacity has traveled to Romania, Russia, China, The Philippines, Mongolia and Vietnam.
Matthew S. Essieh, Member
Matt is the President and CEO of EAI Information Systems with offices in both U.S and Ghana. Since founding EAI in 1989, Matt has worked with some of the leading financial institutions in the United States, applying leadership in strategy and in the areas of technology management. EAI’s reputation for excellence in its products and services is a direct result of Matt’s personal commitment to the values of honesty, leadership, integrity and responsiveness to customers. Matt’s career in banking and finance spans over 20 years. Prior to EAI he was the Chief Financial Officer of Westmark, a financial services firm catering to national and community banks. Matt is active in leadership roles in a number of industry and public service organizations, and has been a speaker and writer on banking technology. He is a founding board member of a community bank in Oregon, a former board chair of The World Affairs Council of Oregon, and current board member of Portland Opera. Matt has actively sponsored and founded community projects in education and healthcare in Ghana. Through his charitable work, he has built social and infrastructure services in rural Ghana. Among the projects he has commissioned and managed are the construction of a dormitory to accommodate over 100 girls at a Senior Secondary School and the construction of a 40 bed hospital ward and a maternity ward to service a district population of about 78,000. He has also actively sponsored students in higher education in Ghana and the U.S. Born in Ghana, he holds BA and MBA from Southern Oregon University.
Beth Okantey, Secretary
Beth holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work with a minor in Sociology from Pacific Lutheran University (1996) and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Walla Walla University (2001). Beth has been working in the area of social work for more than 20 years. Within the US, she worked with homeless adults assisting in an employment and work readiness program, with chronically mentally ill adults assisting them to live semi-independently, in the area of child welfare and in public health providing counseling for low income pregnant women and helping to implement a grassroots community development project. She also spent 2.5 years in Malawi, S. Africa and 1 year in Ghana, W. Africa as a US Peace Corps Volunteer and 1.5 years in London, UK working within child welfare. Currently, she teaches social work courses online for Portland State University, Ashford University and University of Alabama. She also developed and coordinates a program for social work students to complete their practicum hours in various organizations in Ghana. She has supervised 47 students participate from 13 universities.
Caleb Pilling, Member
Caleb works for Geffen Mesher & Company P.C. providing audit, tax and consulting services for clients in the manufacturing, software and construction industries. Caleb is a licensed certified public accountant and a member of the Oregon Society of Certified Public Accountants. Before joining Geffen Mesher, Caleb was an equity analyst intern at Chinook Capital Management. While at Chinook Capital Management, he assisted senior equity analysts in managing the Chinook Emerging Growth Fund, including building valuation models,
monitoring buy opportunities and writing buy recommendations for equity analysts. He earned a BA degree in Accounting and a BA degree in Business Administration from George Fox University where he graduated magna cum laude in 2007. Outside of work, Caleb is active in youth ministries at Sunset Presbyterian Church and enjoys hiking, fly-fishing, and golfing.
Brenda McLaughlin, Member
Brenda, a pediatric nurse by profession, retired from Portland State University Foundation in 2014 where she supported the Chief Financial Officer and the Accounting Team. At PSU Foundation much of her time was spent managing the scholarship module. This proved to her what a difference a scholarship could make to a student’s life.
Brenda has had the opportunity to live in many countries in the world and her interest in Ghana stems from her daughter’s experiences there. In retirement she continues to volunteer for local non-profit organizations.
Ato Micah, Member
Ato Micah is the Managing Principal of Maverick Research – a technology oriented market research company that counts the World Economic Forum (Davos), Borderless Alliance, The World Bank and Dentsu Aegis as clients. Ato has 19 years of work experience across Market and Social Research, Brand Management and General Management.
Prior to Maverick, Ato spent 7 years in various leadership roles with Nielsen, the world’s leading market research company in various role. He led Nielsen’s Retail Measurement Practice in Ghana and Nigeria, covering over 100 FMCG categories in both markets. In this role, he championed various benchmarking standard across the consumer sector in Ghana and Nigeria highlight Consumer, Retailer and Manufacturer sentiment within the FMCG industry and consumer sector.
He was also the Country Director for Ghana and Client Business Partner – Unilever, where he led significant growth of the Ghana business and the Unilever-Nielsen engagement across Sub Sahara Africa.
Ato joined Nielsen in 2012, having spent 12 years growing brands at Procter and Gamble (Cincinnati, OH) and Sun Products (Wilton, CT) and driving growth at Millward Brown (Fairfield, CT).
Ato holds an MBA from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was the Kraft Fellow and received his Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics from Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH.
Advisory Board
Jay Barber, President Emeritus, Warner Pacific College, Portland, OR
Roger Martin, Assistant Professor, Warner Pacific College, Portland, OR
Richard White, Professor, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Darrell Brown, Professor, Former Dean, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Karen Howells, President & Founder, The Howells Group Inc., Portland, OR
Susan de la Vergne, President, Liberal Arts Advantage for Business, Los Angeles, CA
Members of University-College Council
Prof. Sarah Darkwa, Dean, Graduate Studies, University of Cape Coast, Member
Mrs. Susan Adu-Aryee, Country Director – World Education, Member
Dr. Bernice Welbeck, Director, Human Resource, National Labour Commission, Member
Mr. Yaw Owusu Okyere, HR Practitioner, Member
Mrs. Dora Siaw-Lartey, CHRMP, Consultant, Member
Mr. Onesimus N.A Barnor, Member
Mr. Samuel J. A. Allotey, Esq., Member
Mrs. Beth Okantey, Director, International Programs
Dr. Peter Carlos Okantey, Founder & President
Ms. Cynthia Wawaa Fosu, CEO, IZONE Ghana Limited, Member