Puente's Board of Directors is comprised of dedicated, experienced professionals. Each board member has lived in Oaxaca for a minimum of three months and donates annually to Puente. We are currently looking to expand Board membership. If you are interested in learning more, please do not hesitate to
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. Scroll down to learn more about each board member.
Board President Kate Seely began working with amaranth in 2002, after which she returned to co-found Puente in March of 2003. Currently, Kate works with Hispanics in Philanthropy in San Francisco, an organization dedicated to strengthening Latino and Latin American communities by increasing philanthropy to Latino and Latin American civil society, increasing Latino participation and leadership throughout the field of philanthropy, and fostering policy change to enhance equity and inclusiveness. Kate graduated from Middlebury College where she studied Latin American Literature and Political Science. She has spent almost five years living in Latin America, during which time she was either working in community development or engaged in education and poverty issues.
Board Vice President Leslie Payne has been involved with Puente since the summer of 2003 when she worked as a development consultant to help the organization formalize its structures and grow. Her professional background includes nonprofit development and philanthropy, and she currently works for a philanthropic consulting firm in Washington, DC. Leslie studied art and anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned her MBA at Georgetown University.
Board Treasurer/Secretary Katherine Lorenz co-founded Puente in March 2003 and has spent the last six years working in international development. Prior to co-founding Puente, she spent two summers living and working in rural, poor communities in Latin America with the volunteer program Amigos de las Américas and now serves on their Program Committee and is a Trustee of the Amigos Foundation. Katherine is an active member and leader of the Next Generation Sustainable Rural Development Subgroup of the Synergos Institute (GPC). Additionally, she serves on the Boards of Directors of the George and Cynthia Mitchell Foundation and the Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science, and she is the President of the Amaranth Institute. Katherine holds a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Davidson College.
Board member Tim Watson is a lawyer in the San Francisco law firm of Watson & Lanctot, LLP, where he advises numerous nonprofit organizations on tax and governance issues. Over the years, he has represented hundreds of Central American and Mexican immigrants and refugees in asylum and immigration proceedings. Tim and his wife and fellow board member, April, lived in Oaxaca for two years, during which time he worked at a nonprofit providing microfinance loans to women in rural Oaxacan communities. He is also a co-founder of Un Mundo, a community development organization working in rural Honduras. Tim received a bachelor's degree in history, with an emphasis in Latin American Studies, from Boston College and a law degree from the University of California, Davis.
Board member April Watson joined Puente’s Board in the fall of 2006. She works for a nonprofit community hospital in Redwood City, California, managing community health programs. Prior to this, April worked for six years—2 years of that time based in Oaxaca, México—for Freedom from Hunger, a nonprofit international development organization. She provided training and technical assistance to organizations in Latin America, created health education curricula, led evaluations of community health and microcredit programs, and authored papers on the impact of development programs. April holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.
Board member Caroline Boyd is a management consultant based in New York. She first became familiar with Puente's work while living in Oaxaca for two-and-a-half years, where she worked as coordinator of strategic planning for a Mexican microfinance institution that serves women in rural communities. In this role, she designed and led training, fundraising, and program evaluation initiatives. She has also worked in various capacities for a number of non-profit organizations in the United States, focusing on community development and access to financial services among low-income and immigrant communities. Caroline graduated from Haverford College with a degree in History and a concentration in Latin American Studies, and she holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
