The core team of Criterion Ventures is responsible for moving forward projects, and engaging the breadth of our network, its creative resources and reach.

 

Note: Like most professionals, we have several ways to tell our story. If you are looking for a formal or more specific bio on any of us, just ask.

Joy Anderson is a prominent national leader at the intersection of business and social change. She began as a high school teacher in New York City Public Schools. She went to New York to understand how power works in big systems and stayed for eight years because she fell in love with the students. Joy played leadership roles in the teachers union and managed federally funded programs for the school and the district.

Jackie VanderBrug is a leader in the emerging global field of gender lens investing, heading the Women Effect Investments initiative out of Criterion Ventures.  Women Effect Investments seeks to build the field of gender lens investing by cultivating a set of investors committed to investing with a gender lens and strengthening a gender lens on new and existing investment vehicles. In doing this work, Jackie works with a wide range of stakeholders to create the enabling environment for this field to emerge – not only investors, fund managers, investment and philanthropic advisers, and social entrepreneurs, but also networks, foundations, government and multi-lateral organizations, academic institutions, incubators and more. 

Jackie is also a leader in the social capital markets. She was instrumental in the establishment of social investing fund, Good Capital, and is deeply immersed in networks seeking to reimagine the economy. Jackie is a skilled facilitator and public speaker in this space. Through her role in developing and facilitating Structure Lab© workshops she has helped over 600 entrepreneurs and organizations think through their legal and financial structures. Jackie serves on the Advisory Boards of the Social Venture Fund at the Ross School of Business and of social enterprise, Prosperity Candle. She is a judge for social enterprise fellowships and competitions at Echoing Green, Social Impact Exchange, and the Ross Social Venture Fund. 

Jackie also has experience at the Congressional Budget Office of the U.S. Congress, as Vice President of Business Development at internet telecommunications firm iBasis, where she  led a division through a period of major growth -  from start-up stage to $1 billion, as a CSC Index consultant, and as co-founder of WORK IN PROGRESS, a non-profit social enterprise enabling underprivileged youth to develop social networking skills required for finding internships. She has consulted for clients that range from Trinity Wall Street to Environmental Defense Fund to K Mart.

Jen joined the Criterion Ventures team as a project manager in 2012, following a fellowship with Criterion. She is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. At Ross, Jen was selected as a Women's Leadership Council Scholar and as a Teaching Assistant in the Strategy Department. She also served on the Board of Directors for a Detroit nonprofit, Common Ground, and authored a study on gender lens investing for use in a new Ross course. 

Anna is a volunteer with Criterion Ventures and works in Project Development at Innovations for Poverty Action, a nonprofit dedicated to discovering what works to help the world's poor through the application of rigorous techniques to evaluate and implement proven solutions to real-world problems. Formerly a Project Associate across initiatives at Criterion, Anna now curates content on Shaping Markets (please feel free to drop her a line on what you're reading or working on!) and assists in coordination of Criterion's network of Shaping Markets volunteers. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a Sociology and Latin American studies degree and international relations certificate. During her time at Wesleyan, she raised awareness about social enterprise as leader of Wesleyan's IMPACT chapter. She interned in Nicaragua at the Norwalk-Nagarote Sister City Partnership doing youth enrichment and micro-entrepreneurship business plan consulting and studied/interned in Quito, Ecuador at Liberation Theology-based NGO, FEPP. In Ecuador, Anna studied Solidarity Economy, a system of people-over-profits cooperatives that seek to create an alternative equitable economy. Anna is excited about changing the way people and institutions use the capital markets for social impact - how dollars can be directed in new and innovative ways but also more effectively - thinking critically about how we define impact. Anna loves living in New Haven and enjoys cooking, hiking, yoga and planning/embarking on travel adventures.  

As an investment professional with a focus on impact and women-led business investments, Amy has spent most of her career working at private credit and equity funds. As an original investment team member at PennantPark Investment Advisers, Amy focused on providing debt and equity financing to middle market companies. She previously worked at DLJ Investment Partners (Credit Suisse's mezzanine fund) and Jefferies (investment banking).