Whit Alexander
Whit brings to Burro more than 25 years' experience in product development, brand marketing, operations management and entrepreneurship including more than five years living and working throughout West Africa. Before founding Burro, Whit spent almost ten years as a leader in the board game industry—co-founding Cranium, developer of the smash hit Cranium party game, five-time Game of the Year winner at the New York Toy Fair, and one of the largest international game brands ever built before its sale to Hasbro in 2008. Prior to Cranium, Whit built and led the Microsoft team that created the Encarta World Atlas, the most detailed atlas that had ever been created, a content and technology leader that still forms the core of Microsoft mapping applications. Whit, who speaks fluent French, has a bachelor's degree in African Studies from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and has lived and worked throughout West Africa as a student, consultant, and entrepreneur. When not in Africa, he lives in Seattle with his wife Shelly Sundberg, a Program Officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and their two children.
Email Whit

Jan Watson
With a proven track record of driving multi-million dollar improvements for dozens of companies, both as an executive and as a consultant, Jan brings exceptionally valuable operating skills to Burro. Jan joined Burro in October 2008 and is heading up the operation of the Ghana pilot branch. She developed the Burro financial and operating models and is leading our efforts to meet or beat the expectations it has established. Jan and Whit met when she was recruited to transform global operations at Cranium. Following award-winning success there, Jan was director of solution management at Microsoft, where she adapted a range of state-of-the-art techniques to support planning, procurement, material management, and cost forecasting for the XBOX 360, Zune and PC hardware business units. Jan studied mathematics at Washington State University and holds a master's in industrial engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When not living in Ghana, she and her partner, Leslie Phillips, who directs the pharmacy at Providence Medical Center, live in Medford, Oregon.
Email Jan

Tim Gamor
Tim brings deep local expertise, entrepreneurial zeal, and passionate training skills to the Burro team. He operates a successful construction company in Ghana's capital of Accra and has weathered more trying conditions than most entrepreneurs can imagine. Tim also has extensive experience in natural resource related industries and has taught for several years at the university level. He comes from a royal family of the Ewe ethnic group from Ghana's Volta Region. Tim attended Accra's Achimota School, one of the most elite secondary schools in Africa, and then majored in biochemistry at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He went on to earn a master's degree in timber management. Tim speaks Ewe, Ga, and Twi fluently. He lives in Accra, Ghana with his five children and wife Shika Acolatse, the Ghana Country Director for Enablis, an organization supporting developing world entrepreneurs.
Email Tim

Rose Dodd
Branch Development Manager, Rose Dodd, is a 2009 graduate of Ghana's renowned Ashesi University, the private liberal arts school founded by Patrick Awuah, an American-educated Ghanaian and former Microsoft engineer and program manager. At Ashesi, students balance a core curriculum of the classics and practical learning in business and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on ethics. Rose grew up in Accra and has career aspirations in project management and is also interested in developing Ghana's tourism infrastructure. One very big project Rose hopes to spearhead someday, is an initiative to clean up the city's long stretches of Atlantic beach—and keep them that way. At Burro Rose manages a far-flung delivery route and helps oversee the company's promotional efforts. Rose speaks fluent Ga, Fante, Twi, and English and is rapidly learning Krobo, yet another of the many Ghanaian languages spoken by the clients of our Koforidua pilot branch.

Nii Ayertei Tettey

Our Route Development manager Nii Ayertei Tettey came to Burro straight off the dean’s list of the class of 2010 at Ashesi University with a BSc in Business Administration. In addition to a liberal arts education, Nii left Ashesi with work experience: he served as a business manager for the Astrient Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes education through scholarships and tutoring programs, as well as encouraging women’s empowerment. As Burro’s Route Development Manager, his primary task is to scout out prime locations for Burro’s new routes and drive Burro’s business growth reseller by reseller. He combines information from global imagery software, existing regional maps, census data, and field work to strategically place resellers to serve the most clients. He is also responsible for selecting the reseller for each location, which he enjoys: “It’s good to know you are bringing a new member into the Burro family.” In his free time, Nii has taken some pilot training, and has logged time flying an ultralight aircraft. He aspires one day to become an airline pilot.

Modupe Dzorka

Our Senior Staff Accountant Modupe Dzorka has 13 years of experience working internationally in accounting and finance.  She hails from Nigeria, where she earned a degree in Accounting at Ondo State University. Determined to push herself further, Modupe went on to Oxford Brooks University in the United Kingdom to get a degree in Applied Accounting, so she could “get a universally accepted degree, and be more knowledgeable in the field.” She has put her degrees to work at a mining company in Nigeria, a tax consultancy firm in England, and Shell Ghana Limited, to name a few. At Burro, she keeps track of every last pesewa in our financial records, as well as processing the payroll, filing taxes, and managing cash flow. Her attention to detail and constant smile make her a valuable part of the team.

Cecilia Wiafe
Administrative Assistant Cecilia Wiafe keeps Burro’s batteries in top running order. Besides making sure all batteries get re-charged when they come back from the field, Cecilia performs rigorous computer testing on every cell. “The voltage must be 1.2,” she says, and any battery that fails her test gets pulled for reconditioning. It’s a job that requires a lot of attention to detail and would not suit everyone. Then again, it does mean working in Burro’s air-conditioned battery room—a nice place to spend a hot Ghanaian afternoon. Cecilia has completed four years of secondary school and is saving for Kumasi Polytech, which she hopes to attend in the near future. She speaks Twi, Ga and English.

Nat Oklah

Relatively few Ghanaians know how to drive, so finding a good driver is a challenge. Burro is justifiably proud of our Route Administrator Nat Oklah, who previously worked for eight years as a deliveryman for a major international beverage company. Nat knows the roads around Koforidua better than anyone, and his tireless good humor keeps him on track, even when torrential rains wash out roads and stretch his work day into the night. On his previous job, Nat, his wife and their five children lived in one company-owned room, and could not afford school fees. Now his kids are in school (except the oldest, Cecilia, who also works for Burro), and the family has more spacious accommodations. “When I resigned from my last job,” says Nat, “they offered me more money, but I said it’s too late. Burro is better.”