Mr. Blaise Judja-Sato,
CEO and Founder, VillageReach

Mr. Judja-Sato founded VillageReach in early 2000 after a life-changing experience coordinating relief assistance to flood victims in Mozambique. He is responsible for setting the organization’s vision and strategy, driving overall execution, and managing the VillageReach team. Blaise is also responsible for VillageReach's key external relationships with strategic and funding partners.

Prior to founding VillageReach, Blaise served as Director of International Business Development for Teledesic LLC, a company formed by Craig McCaw and Bill Gates to provide broadband satellite communications services worldwide. Prior to that, he was the Africa Regional Managing Director for AT&T undersea fiber-optic systems. Blaise is the President of the Nelson Mandela Foundation USA and Vice-President of the US Friends of the Foundation for Community Development based in Mozambique. He serves on the board of trustees of the Africa-America Institute (AAI) and the UNICEF chapter of greater Seattle.

Blaise earned an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds Masters degrees from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST) in Paris, and the University of Montpellier in France. A native of Cameroon, Blaise is fluent in French and English and conversant in Portuguese and several African languages.