Our Board
On our board we have Honorary Board Members and Board of Directors
Martin Baier
President & CEO of The International Center
Honorary Consul of France, Indiana.
Mario Guerendo
President of the Board
Mario Guerendo is global multicultural business executive. He currently serves as the Global Chief Information Officer for Hanzo Logistics Group – An International logistics provider
Amy Wright
BOARD MEMBER; VICE-PRESIDENT
Amy Wright is a partner at Taft where she focuses on trademark, copyright and right of publicity law. She has extensive experience on various Indianapolis boards (Dance Kaleidoscope, Ballet International, New World Youth Orchestra, Indianapolis Men’s Chorus, etc.) About a quarter of her clients are French, and she spends several weeks a year in Paris.
Jocelyne Kongolo
BOARD MEMBER; TREASURER
Jocelyne Kongolo is of French, Central-African and Portuguese descent and has been living in Indianapolis for the last 11 years. She has spent the greater part of the professional life in banking; in the last 3 years has transitioned as a self-employed French-Sango-English interpreter for medical and judicial worlds as well as for educational and cultural events. She is also self-employed as a well-being coach. She wishes to bring her experience to benefit and support the mission of the Alliance Francaise.
Robby Kongolo
BOARD MEMBER; DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Robby Kongolo grew up in Île de France (Meaux) and in Maine et Loire (Angers). He moved to Indianapolis in 2005. He has been a member of Alliance Française of Indianapolis since 2013. He occupied several positions in the Board of AFI from 2013 to 2017. He has been teaching French for the past 17 years. He would like to continue serving AFI and the greater Indianapolis in the sphere of Community Relations.
Envelope
Andrea A. Richter-Garry
Vice President for International Engagement, IEDC
Andrea Richter-Garry currently serves as the Vice President of International Engagement at the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC). In her role, Richter-Garry oversees international business development efforts, including six foreign-based offices. She also manages relationships with foreign governments on behalf of the state. Previously, Richter-Garry held the role of Advance Lead to President Barack Obama at the White House where she led teams to prepare the logistical, security and communications aspects for the President’s foreign and domestic travel.
Richter-Garry began her government career at the U.S. Department of State in 2009 and honed an expertise in economic statecraft and international summit development. While holding the role of Chief of Staff of the Bureau of Energy Resources within the Department, she shaped foreign policy engagement at the critical nexus of energy and national security.
She hails from Watertown, Minnesota and completed her B.A. in Political Science, Global Studies and German at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN and received her M.A. in European Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, and sits on the boards of the State International Development Organization, America China Society of Indiana, U.S. Midwest Japan Association and Ready to Ready Indiana.
Nicolas E. Lance
BOARD MEMBER
Nicolas Lance is a global French-American senior executive with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry with top-tier firms such as OneAmerica, MetLife, AXA, and Generali.
He served around the world leading the execution of large-scale enterprise strategic growth initiatives, and heading shared services operations at regional, national, and international levels. While at OneAmerica, he led the integration of the company’s largest acquisition in its 140-year history and transformation efforts of its Retirement Services division. At MetLife, he was responsible for integrating the $16.2B AIG Alico acquisition in EMEA with a focus on Western Europe. He contributed to AXA’s worldwide growth in various M&A leadership roles, was COO of AXA Equitable’s At Retirement® division in the U.S., served as AXA Group’s Global Head of Internal Communications in Paris, and was Chief Operating Officer of AXA Advisors’ Northeast Division in New York. He began his career in Washington, D.C. with Europ Assistance, a subsidiary of Generali.
He holds a Masters of Business Administration degree in International Business from The George Washington University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of Rhode Island, an Executive Certificate in Retirement Planning from the Wharton School, and a Retirement Management Analyst (RMA®) designation. He is a past board member of the Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA) and member of the Life Insurance Marketing & Research Association’s (LIMRA) Big Data Committee.
Martine Romy Bernard
Lawyer
Tucker is a lawyer at the Marion County Public Defender Agency. She represents indigent clients accused of major felony crimes. Though an American-born citizen, Romy spent the first 19 years of her life in Haiti, one of the few French-speaking countries in the Caribbean. Romy is passionate about languages. She is fluent in French, Haitian Creole and English; she is also conversational in Spanish. Romy believes that languages bring people together and everyone should take the opportunity to learn a new language.
Marc Aguilera
Trilingual speaker and business executive
Marc Aguilera – Trilingual speaker and business executive with Doctorate Education (4.0 GPA), and MBA from the University of Indianapolis and a Bachelor’s Degree from ESCP Business School in Paris, FR. He is the Chair of Business Division at the American College of Education and has been there for 2 years. He served at the Art Institute as the Principal Academic Officer and Academic Chair for 10 years where he led fundraising, programming, capital campaign development, identified partners and empowered volunteers. Recently he served as the Executive Director of Academics for Distance Learning Systems headquartered in Greenwood where he was responsible for evaluating data for strategic planning, preparing scorecard reports and providing data analysis for historical data and institutional outcomes. His employment ended in February due to an owner’s relative assuming her previous employment and being hired into his position. He shared a very positive letter of recommendation from the former CEO stating Marc “took pride in providing meaningful, accurate and timely data necessary to effectively maintain and grown our for-profit education company.” He added that he worked closely with Marc daily and believes “that he will integrate easily into any organization where work ethic, attitude, intelligence and commitment are valued.” Marc has been the recipient of several international and community awards including an award from Mayor Goldsmith for “Outstanding Citizen contribution” in 1997 and has organized special events for many world dignitaries working at the French Presidential Palace in Paris; the official residence of the President of the French Republique.