Samasource Team
Leila Chirayath Janah, Founder and CEO : Leila first developed the idea behind Samasource while working as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.), where her clients included global leaders in the outsourcing and telecom sectors and a number of prominent non-profits. Along with Professors Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis, she founded Incentives for Global Health and helped produce a plan for incentivizing the development of new drugs for neglected diseases. As an undergradudate, Leila authored background papers for the World Bank's Development Research Group and Ashoka on equity and social rights. Leila is a recipient of the Rainer Arnhold and TEDIndia Fellowships, and serves on the San Francisco board of the Social Enterprise Institute. She is a former Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Program on Global Justice and the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Australian National University. When she's not running Samasource, Leila blogs on Social Edge and tries to keep up with her Twitter account. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University.
Jess McCarter, Vice President of Sales : Jess joins Samasource after 10 years as an entrepreneur and project manager. Co-founder of Sagebit, LLC, a web application development firm specializing in open source technologies, Jess is now helping Samasource build a sales network. Prior to Sagebit he was a real estate developer working on mixed use renovations. He also founded Nofufi, an art gallery and education center in Encinitas, California. Jess has always been a part of socially conscious organizations, from his days in high school with Amnesty International to his current work with Samasource. In addition to web application development and technology he really likes traveling to new parts of the world and learning their cuisines. Jess received a BA in Psychology and International Relations from Dartmouth College.
Alex Onsager, Vice President of Engineering : Alex jumped into the tech world as co-developer of Facebook's original Graffiti application. Later that year, he studied the psychology and virality of Facebook applications and co-developed Send Hotness, which grew to 5 million users in roughly 5 weeks. After graduating from Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems, Alex decided to use his experience to promote social good, and joined Samasource as the head of technology. His focus is to develop Samasource's website from the ground up, creating a powerful tool that can alleviate poverty on a greater scale.
Eric Nguyen, Vice President of Product Management : Eric has been building products for the web for over ten years, ever since the business plan competitions of his undergraduate years. Since then, he has helped grow five start ups in the Bay Area. These include Merced Systems (enterprise software for call centers) and Instructables.com (fun, user-generated content). At the same time, Eric has always been a part-time social entrepreneur. Squeezed into sabbaticals, nights, and weekends, he has used his technology experience to address social inequities that he sees in the world. He has developed records management systems for a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a school in Vietnam, and has helped several non-profits maintain an online presence. He joined Samasource to help achieve its major goal: to bring digital work and skills to the next billion. Eric received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Anar Simpson, Program Director : Anar brings to Samasource expertise in effective communications, hands-on project management, and the appropriate application of technology, all the essential ingredients for a successful business. Anar has been blending these skills for over fifteen years in diverse industries including entertainment, printed and on-line news and information, as well as academia and the oil & gas arenas. Born and raised in Kenya, she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Economics as well as her Masters in Communications from the University of Calgary in Canada. Social development has been a key part her life through the various activities of the Aga Khan Development Network and Anar is keen to bring to fruition Samasource's vision to use technology as leverage against poverty.
