Alex serves as Director of Strategic Partnerships at Tides, which facilitates effective grantmaking programs for individual donors and institutions and also provides infrastructure and nonprofit management services to hundreds of nonprofit projects nationwide. Alex was previously Director of Innovation Investments and Portfolio Director at the Skoll Foundation. Alex is founding Chairman and President of Excelerate Foundation and its predecessor non-profit organization, a role that he has held for 25 years. Excelerate supports innovative non-profit organizations that drive positive change in the areas of social entrepreneurship, health, the environment and community development. Alex spent 18 years as senior investment professional at several leading venture capital firms including Expansion Capital Partners, JPMorgan Partners and Hambrecht & Quist’s venture unit. He started his career at the Vietnam Fund Management Company, managing one of the first venture funds in Vietnam based in the firm’s Hong Kong and then Ho Chi Minh City offices. He has invested in and guided innovative private companies from seed stage through IPO/acquisition in a variety of technology sectors, including Clean Technology, entertainment and media, web/cloud-based services, enterprise software and communications services. Alex currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University and on the Steering Committee of the EYElliance, a collaborative effort by leading non-profit and for-profit actors in the eye care industry that is targeting market expansion for low-cost eye care and glasses for Base of the Pyramid consumers. Alex is also a board member of the Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation in San Francisco. Alex earned a B.A. degree in International Relations and Asian Studies from Tulane University, studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and holds an MBA from Cornell University.