D2D Staff

Denisse Dubrovsky, Financial Innovation Project Coordinator

Denisse Dubrovsky is the Financial Innovation Project Coordinator at D2D. She works in all project areas at D2D to provide research, technical, and communication insights and support. Before D2D, she spent some time in Austin, TX, at Edelman Worldwide Public Relations working with brands such as Starbucks and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Denisse holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences and a minor in Economics from Brandeis University.

Sarika Abbi, Director of Ideation

Sarika Abbi is the Director of Ideation at D2D Fund. She works on initiatives to design and pilot new saving products as well as new ways to market and distribute these products to underserved consumers. Prior to joining D2D her work focused on improving financial access for low income households in developing countries. While at Ideas42, she worked with researchers and practitioners in development finance to design financial products and managed a research center and team internationally to pilot test and evaluate the designs. Before entering the financial inclusion field, Sarika worked in the private sector consulting on issues of executive compensation. She holds a Masters in Public Administration from New York University and a Bachelors of Economics from the University of California, Berkeley

Timothy Flacke, Executive Director

Timothy Flacke is the Executive Director of D2D Fund, serves on the organization's Board of Directors and helped launch D2D in 2001. Tim has seventeen years experience helping lower-income people focus on saving, in both the private and non-profit sectors. He has worked as an independent consultant, author and grant writer in the field of asset development. In this capacity he co-authored The Individual Development Account (IDA) Program Design Handbook, successful grant applications under the federal Assets for Independence Act (AFIA) program, and Dollar $ense, a financial education curriculum for IDA programs. Tim was a VISTA volunteer at Central Vermont Community Action Council during the start-up phase of that organization's American Dream Demonstration IDA Program, Tangible Assets. Before entering the asset development field, Tim managed employee benefits, risk management and stock option plans for Filene's Basement, Inc., a chain of off-price apparel retail stores with 5,000 employees in 13 states. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Boston College.

Nick Maynard, Director of Innovation

Nick Maynard is the Director of Innovation for D2D Fund. Since joining D2D, Nick has led initiatives improving marketing to LMI families, piloting prize-based savings in the credit union industry, and offering US Savings Bonds at tax time. In addition, he directs the financial literacy video game initiative. Prior to joining D2D, Nick spent almost a decade providing customer, market, and operational strategy consulting to Fortune 1000 executives while at Deloitte Consulting and Braxton Associates. Nick holds both a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University. He also holds a Bachelors of Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University.

Preeti Mehta, Director of Project Incubation

Preeti Mehta is Director of Project Incubation for D2D Fund. Preeti currently leads the Savings Bond work at D2D and created the original design for the Prize-Linked savings project "Save to Win" in Michigan. Prior to joining D2D, Preeti was a management consultant in the private and nonprofit sectors, first with PricewaterhouseCoopers Management Consulting Services and then as a self-employed consultant, specializing in business process design, operations improvement and strategic planning. Her private sector clients included a range of Fortune 500 companies in several industries. In her capacity as consultant to the nonprofit sector, Preeti served as the Director of Economic Development for a local community-based organization helping launch and run asset-building programs. She also served on the Board of a Low Income, Community Development Credit Union and on the Boston EITC Coalition's Steering Comittee. Prior to her consulting career, Preeti worked at GTE Laboratories in Waltham, MA. She holds a Master of Science in Mathematics from Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA, and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai, India.

Joanna Smith-Ramani, Director of Scale Strategies

Joanna Smith-Ramani is the Director of Scale Strategies for D2D Fund, working on the expansion of successful innovation pilots. Prior to joining the D2D, Joanna was the Director of the Baltimore CASH (Creating Assets, Savings and Hope) Campaign, an asset building, tax preparation, and EITC coalition in Baltimore, MD. Joanna has over 12 years working in community development, community development finance, and personal finance/asset development. She has worked for Self Help Credit Union, ShoreBank, several Habitat for Humanity affiliates and the Policy Development and Research Division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Joanna holds a master's in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

D2D Fellows

Joel Rosen

Joel Rosen has a long career helping launch, fund and build organizations. He has held senior management positions in a range of public and private firms, including Chief Executive Officer of a $100MM company and a start-up. Earlier in his career Joel worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company, and as a venture capitalist evaluating and helping fund new ventures at Charles River Ventures. Joel holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and an AB in economics from Harvard College. Joel has been involved in D2D’s prize-linked savings (PLS) work since 2008, with a focus on developing PLS products suitable for distribution through state lotteries.

Bernie Wilson

Bernie Wilson has over 20 years in the financial services industry in a wide range of senior strategy, product development, marketing and community outreach roles. His work has been principally focused on developing affordable financial products and services tailored for low income working families. In order to develop workable industry solutions he pioneered a series of public/private partnerships throughout the country that focused on LMI financial services while at H&R Block. That work led to common ground on best practices among a broad coalition of industry leaders, regulators and legislators, consumer activists, policy influencers and leading scholars. His work focused on ways to develop innovative solutions that reduce or eliminate transaction costs associated with check cashing, and developed deposit-taking and affordable credit alternatives. In addition, in partnership with the nation’s leading behavioral economists, Bernie worked to develop policy change through first-quality scientific evidence of scalable market-based solutions. In 2008 Bernie and small team of industry colleagues developed ADVENT Financial Services, a company focused on the introduction of affordable banking solutions at tax-time. In May of 2010 Bernie left ADVENT and is currently focused on a variety of small business development initiatives and remains focused on the development of affordable and accessible financial services solutions that lead to savings and expense reduction for working families. Bernie works with D2D’s tax time savings team to extend the reach and impact of the new national tax time savings bond purchase option, especially in the commercial tax preparation industry.