BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Christie Doherty – Chair

Christie Doherty is the President of Trinity Partners, LLC a business performance consulting firm that specializes in leadership and organizational development, business process and workforce transformation. Trinity Partners has a unique niche in the area of corporate culture and engagement strategies for progressive organizations focused on state of the art talent management. As a former telecom and cable executive, she has extensive experience successfully leading large, complex, diverse organizations through organizational change and transformation.

She is past President of the Women'sVision Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on the development and advancement of corporate women. During her leadership tenure, the Women'sVision Foundation grew to more than 62 corporate members and 3,600 individual members. Women'sVision provides a wide array of leadership and professional development programs, events and networking resources to its members.

Former Vice President, Wholesale Service Delivery at Qwest, Christie had responsibility for Customer Service Operations for Wholesale customers, managing over 1,700 employees with revenue responsibility for $3.2 billion. She held a number of positions in the telecom and cable industries, including assignments in Strategic Planning, Customer Operations, Marketing, Sales, and Organization Effectiveness. For three years she was Vice-President, Marketing and Sales for Time Warner Cable, with responsibility for the development of the company's integrated cable/telecom business.

Christie is a member of the International Women's Forum and WiseWomen Council; Board Chair for INROADS—Rocky Mountain Region and National INROADS Board Director; and Board Chair for the Foundation for Asia Pacific Education. A graduate of Regis University with a degree in Business, Christie also sits on the Regis University Executive Advisory Council; is the chair for the Women's Collaborative for Colorado; and a member of the Development Committee with the Women's Foundation of Colorado. She is a recipient of the US West Chairman's Award for Leadership, the Women's Leader of Excellence Award, and the 2004 Woman of Vision Award.

Cynthia Banks – President

Cynthia Banks is Founder, Executive Director, and President of GlobaLinks Learning Abroad, the umbrella organization of the AustraLearn, AsiaLearn, and EuroLearn international education programs. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, GlobaLinks Learning Abroad has helped more than 20,000 North American students realize their study abroad dreams in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Asia and Europe.

A native of Colorado, Banks earned a Bachelor of Business (marketing) degree from Colorado State University, a Graduate Certificate of Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado and a Master of Organizational Development degree from the University of Colorado - Denver.

Banks is Chair of the Education Abroad Knowledge Community of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. In addition, she is both an international and Colorado member of the International Women's Forum, a member of the Board of the Up With People non-profit organization, and assists the Women's College of the University of Denver with new degree programs. Her other associations and memberships include The Forum on Education Abroad, EAIE, CIEE, AEI, CBIE, the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce, and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

In 2008, Banks was a finalist for the Denver Business Journal's "Outstanding Women in Business" Awards. In 2009, GlobaLinks Learning Abroad was named the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce "Small Business of the Year." In 2010, ColoradoBiz magazine ranked GlobaLinks Learning Abroad 9th among Colorado's "Top 100 Women-Owned Companies."

Banks attends major conferences worldwide to speak about international education, North American students and management of a small and dynamic organization. She has extensive international travel experience and resides in Colorado with her husband and two children.

Lawrence Bell – Treasurer, Secretary

For the past 18 years, Larry has been the chief international officer on the campus where he has worked. Each of the three campuses where he has served in this capacity has been somewhat differently organized but all three offices have been responsible for both the inbound and outbound students and faculty.

Originally trained as an ESL teacher, Larry is a graduate of Southern Illinois University (SIU) where he taught for two years. He also taught in and directed the Intensive English Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for 12 years before moving into international education administration on that campus. All told, the higher education international experience combines for a total of 32 years.

Larry has served NAFSA: Association of International Education in a number of positions including regional chair, national office, conference organizational positions. Larry was Chair of Region V in 1993-4. Prior to that he held a variety of state and regional positions on the Region V NAFSA teams. He recently served as NAFSA's Vice President for Policy and Practice (2005 – 07). He served as Chair of the Consular Affairs Working Group from 2001 to 2004. He has been conference and local arrangements chair for TESOL Regional and NAFSA Regional conferences and was Local Arrangements Co-Chair for NAFSA '99 the annual conference of 6,000 plus held in Denver.

Larry developed his interest in international activities while serving as a draftee in the military in Viet Nam. After leaving the army, he studied Vietnamese language and linguistics (his BA is in Vietnamese Language from SIU, MA in Linguistics) and that started him on his international journey.

Shelia Houston – Director

Shelia is the Director of AustraLearn's in country operations in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. She has worked with AustraLearn for more than 12 years and has served as the Acting Executive Director in the US office.

Shelia was born in the USA and following her university study, she traveled the world extensively and immigrated to Australia. She has a broad business background in international businesses in both public and private sectors. Recently she has become a founding member of the Australian Internship Industry Association

Jill Montera – Director

Jill's entire career has been focused on education, both at the corporate level and within higher education. She has a strong interest in empowering others through learning and is a proponent of broadening students' experiences through study abroad opportunities.

Upon graduation from business school at the University of Colorado, Jill worked at Andersen Consulting/Accenture, focusing on organization and human performance. This included work with multiple global Fortune 500 companies in the telecommunications and energy industries in Denver and Houston. She then moved to the University of Denver, to lead Corporate Relations for the Daniels College of Business and ultimately run the MBA Career Services Center. This work allowed her to interact with business leaders all over the United States as well as help students from all over the world. Jill now works for Application Experts, a small software company headquartered in Broomfield.

Jill had the opportunity to study abroad during school, attending Semester at Sea. This life changing experience inspired her love for travel as she has since traveled to many countries, including New Zealand, Vietnam, Philippines and Peru.

Nancy Kepner – Executive Director

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Nancy Kepner is the executive director of the Foundation for Global Scholars. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was a director and a co-founder of Firefly Autism in Denver, overseeing its operational growth from a start-up nonprofit to the largest learning center for children with autism in the Rocky Mountain region.

She has been on the ground floor of three start-up organizations in Colorado and served on the board of the Big Life Foundation. Nancy also started an educational and advocacy group in 2000 that evolved into the Autism Society of Boulder.

Her experience living and working in Japan and Russia for several years and a summer at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico sparked a wholehearted appreciation for the transformative power of international experiences.

A Texas native, Nancy received a BA from Baylor University, an MA from the University of Texas, and a Masters in Education from Western Washington University. She is also a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA).

Karen Brockwell – Director of Scholarships

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Karen held a number of positions in the International Trade and Compliance areas for a IBM Corporation. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and a Master of Science degree from the University of Denver.

Karen has traveled throughout Europe and Asia both personally and professionally.