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City Year New York Board

Local community and business leaders work together to advance our mission to ensure public schools are places all students can thrive.

Shannon Barton
Managing Director TowerBrook

Prior to joining TowerBrook, Shannnon Barton was a member of the financial sponsors group in the Investment Banking Division at Citigroup. Shannon earned a degree in finance from Wake Forest University and received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Morgan Brennan headshot
Morgan Brennan
“Closing Bell: Overtime” Co-Anchor

Morgan Brennan is co-anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” (Monday-Friday, 4-5pm ET), which broadcasts live from CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Previously, Brennan was co-anchor of the 10am ET hour on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” and co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.” She joined the network in December 2013 as a general assignment reporter based at CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and continues to cover a variety of sectors, including manufacturing and defense and space. Brennan is also host of the CNBC podcast Manifest Space.

Prior to joining CNBC, Brennan was a staff writer and reporter for Forbes Media where she reported for Forbes Magazine, ForbesLife Magazine and Forbes.com, most recently covering real estate. She began her career at Forbes in 2009, holding several positions including anchor/reporter and producer for the Forbes Video Network, covering a wide range of business and finance topics. Previously, Brennan was a regular guest on a variety of networks discussing business and economic stories and also interned at Newsweek International, where she was a fact-checker and contributing writer. Brennan has interviewed billionaires, heads of state, thought leaders and chief executives of multibillion-dollar corporations and her profile story on Equity Group Investments Chairman Sam Zell was one of five magazine covers featured on the 2013 Forbes 400 issue. Brennan graduated summa cum laude from New York University, majoring in social science with a double concentration in anthropology and media studies.

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Gary Clare
Partner Bain & Company New York

Gary Clare is a leader in Bain & Company's information technology and financial services practices.

Gary has more than 20 years of consulting experience crossing a range of industries and encompassing a portfolio of multinational companies throughout North America and Europe.

Gary advises clients across a range of industries, with particular depth in financial services.

His primary focus is on helping companies maximize the business benefit from investments in IT. In addition, he has a broad range of experience in business and IT strategy development, IT enabled operations reengineering and leadership of large-scale implementation programs. As an avid supporter of greater alignment between business and IT strategies, Gary has been active in both speaking and publishing in this arena. Prior to joining Bain, Gary was a vice president in the strategic technology practice of a consulting firm, where he led the global development and deployment of technology strategy capabilities. Prior to this, he was with another consulting firm in London and New York, where he was a director in the integrated strategic services practice. Gary earned a Bachelor of Science with honors in mechanical engineering from Portsmouth University, England.

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Ryan Cotton City Year
Ryan Cotton, Board Co-Chair
Partner and the Global Head of the Consumer/Retail Vertical Bain Capital Private Equity

Ryan Cotton joined Bain Capital Private Equity in 2003. He is a Partner and the Global Head of the Consumer /Retail Vertical and is a member of the North American Private Equity team.

Prior to joining Bain Capital Private Equity, Ryan was a consultant at Bain & Company. Previously, he worked in baseball operations at the Boston Red Sox.

Ryan received an MBA from The Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was a Siebel Scholar, an Arjay Miller Scholar, and the winner of the Alexander A. Robichek Award for outstanding achievement in finance. He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Princeton University.

Douglas Donahue
Partner at Linklaters

Doug Donahue is a Partner in the Finance Division at Linklaters, specializing in OTC Derivatives.

Prior to joining Linklaters, Doug was a Partner at Mayer Brown and a Special Counsel at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Doug received his J.D. from New York University School of Law and his B.S. in Accounting from St. Francis College.

Patrick Dorime
Partner at Ropes & Gray

Patrick Dorime is a nimble and versatile deal lawyer who advises investment firms and their portfolio companies in corporate transactions, many involving companies in distressed and special situations. With a background in M&A, Patrick has amassed years of experience with acquisitions, divestitures, structured capital investments and other bespoke corporate transactions. Today he leads clients across industries through mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, equity investments and other general corporate matters. Patrick also works closely with the firm’s restructuring group to offer a corporate perspective for clients undergoing restructuring, reorganization or other distressed or special situations.

A natural problem solver, Patrick enjoys working with clients and counterparties to come up with creative solutions to complicated issues that arise in deal-making. He is also commended by clients and colleagues for his calming presence in negotiations, as well as his exceptional ability to read the room. He brings these strengths to counseling clients in many industries, including health care, technology, energy and infrastructure, sports and entertainment, manufacturing, chemicals and industrial services, among others.

Liz Gray
Global Co-Head CAA Brand Consulting

Liz Gray is a seasoned executive with expertise in consumer insights, cultural analysis and strategic marketing. Based in the CAA New York office, Gray brings a strong track record of generating revenue streams and working on high profile, innovative business initiatives within sports, entertainment and social impact.

Currently Global Co-Head of CAA Brand Consulting, Gray collaborates with forward-thinking brands, including JPMorgan Chase, Bose, Reebok, Mattel and others by helping them interpret macro-level cultural shifts and understand the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of consumers in order to develop strategic marketing solutions.

Prior to CAA Brand Consulting, Liz was Head of Strategy at The Female Quotient where she was responsible for working with brands on their internal and external initiatives through the lens of diversity and inclusion. Previously, she was also President of Trendera, a leading research, consulting, and trend analysis company. Gray began her career at ESPN and Condé Nast. Gray was named to the 2019 Adweek List of Women Trailblazers. Her impact work includes the Global Sports Mentoring Program (GSMP), CAA Wins (Women in Sports), and Dr. Alaa Murabit’s Emerging Women Leadership Lab. She has served as a fundraising ambassador for Worldwide Orphans Foundation and sat on the board of the Lollipop Theater Network. She currently sits on the Board of Hope Remembered, a non-profit whose work is focused on the country of Guinea-Bissau where her youngest son was born. Gray graduated from The University of Richmond with a B.A. in Sociology.

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Evan Hanlon
Global Client Lead, Walgreens Boots Alliance WPP

Evan Hanlon is the global client lead for Walgreens Boots Alliance. He leads a dedicated team of integrated specialists across marketing, creative, comms, media, and data to deliver a transformational new agency model that powers WBA's vision of mass personalization.

Prior to leading the WBA team, he served as Global Chief Product Officer at Essence, a data and analytics focused media agency that represents global brands including Google, Target, NBCUniversal, and Airbnb. He focused on bringing the agency’s capabilities to life through advanced and differentiated products and services, with a focus on innovation happening at the cutting edge of data, technology, analytics, and addressable media markets. He also held roles previously leading the addressable media operations within GroupM North America, as well as strategic development of new data-informed services.

He first came to WPP through Xaxis in 2011, where he led the audience strategy discipline and created new approaches to audience buying for some of the first brands to move into programmatic, and served in a number of leadership roles in GroupM. In another life, he began his career in advertising as a brand strategist and copywriter. Hanlon holds a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard College.

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Anne Herrmann
Community Leader

Anne Herrmann has been a supporter of City Year since her son, Jed, joined the Boston corps in 1994. Anne played an integral role in bringing City Year to New York where her second son, Tim, was a service leader in East Harlem during our founding year.

Anne is an educator who has worked in schools and as a tutor. She sits on several boards in the City and is a regular volunteer at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Anne has a deep passion for education and believes in City Year’s ability to make a difference in the lives of the children we serve. She is always interested in getting to know corps members and learning about how the board can better support our service work.

Randall Jackson CYNY Board
Randall Jackson
Partner Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Randall Jackson is a partner in the Litigation Department and the White-Collar Defense and Compliance, Investigations & Enforcement Practice Groups. Randall focuses on government and internal investigations, white collar criminal defense, complex civil litigation and regulatory compliance. A former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Randall is recognized as one of the leading trial lawyers to come out of government service in recent years.

Randall has served as lead or co-lead attorney in over 20 federal trials, including some of the longest and most complicated over the past several years. In 2019, Randall co-led the successful defense against securities fraud charges brought by U.S. Department of Justice against shipbuilding executive Jean Boustani, securing a complete acquittal on all counts after a two-month long jury trial in the Eastern District of New York. Randall has also briefed and argued numerous appeals before the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and has been instrumental in negotiating favorable resolutions of regulatory matters involving the U.S. Department of Justice, the New York Attorney General’s Office, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and other agencies.

Named a “Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal (2017) and Law360 (2017), Randall has been cited in a variety of publications, including Forbes, as a force in the courtroom. He was awarded the U.S. Department of Justice’s Distinguished Service Award in 2011 and the John Marshall Award in 2014 for his work as a prosecutor on the Times Square Bomber and Madoff cases, respectively.

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Richard Kim CYNY Board
Richard Kim
Partner Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Richard K. Kim is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he specializes in representing financial institutions in a broad range of regulatory matters, including in connection with mergers and acquisitions, enforcement actions, compliance and related matters. Previously, he was an attorney with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked on a wide range of bank supervisory matters. He was also Assistant General Counsel with NationsBank Corporation.

Richard is a graduate of Stanford University and Columbia Law School. He is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the American Bar Association, where he previously served as Chair of the Mergers and Acquisitions Subcommittee of the Banking Law Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, the City Year New York Advisory Board, and a former trustee of the Rye Country Day School and The Stanwich School.

Jeremy Kroll, Chair Emeritus
President, CEO, and Co-Founder K2 Integrity

As president, CEO, and co-founder of K2 Intelligence, Jeremy M. Kroll is responsible for charting the firm’s growth strategy, including market development, strategic partnerships, and acquisitions. With more than two decades of investigative and leadership experience, Jeremy has led K2 Intelligence since its inception in 2009 through its growth into an internationally recognized firm with six offices across the United States and Europe.

Using the strategic acquisition of intelligence to inform risk mitigation strategies, Jeremy helps executives and business owners to further their business objectives. He serves as a trusted advisor and complex problem solver to business owners, boards of directors, and C-suite executives, working with them to mitigate risk across the corporate and family office spheres. He advises clients on risk management as they pursue strategic investments, including cross-border acquisitions and multinational investments, and helps them to navigate the changing physical and cybersecurity landscape in a way that embraces technological change while minimizing strategic risk.

In his capacity as CEO, Jeremy is also responsible for managing the company’s global business lines. He spearheads K2 Intelligence’s technology initiatives, with an emphasis on cyber defense, information security, and data analytics, helping the firm marry professional excellence with cutting-edge technology. Before co-founding K2 Intelligence, Jeremy spent 11 years in senior leadership positions at Kroll Inc., a global corporate investigations and risk consulting professional services firm, where he served as general manager of Kroll’s information security group as well as managing director and vice president of corporate sales and marketing. Jeremy is a respected thought leader on compliance, security, and risk in technology investing, and is a sought-after speaker on these subjects. He has moderated panels on cybersecurity investment in business and spoken at conferences hosted by organizations such as the National Association of Corporate Directors, Evercore ISI, Bank Leumi, Bank of America, Simpson Thacher, and the Association of International Bank Auditors. He has been quoted extensively on cybersecurity and risk management issues in print, digital, and television media, including CNBC, Bloomberg, and Reuters. Jeremy is also active in the investment community. His focus is on emerging and growth companies at the intersection of technology and security. He sits on numerous advisory boards for investment funds that actively invest in and foster the success of companies in the cybersecurity, risk management, fintech, big data analytics, and cloud computing sectors. Jeremy is a member of the advisory board of BlueVoyant, a cyber intelligence services firm K2 Intelligence helped to establish. He is part of the business leadership of The Partnership for New York City, of which K2 Intelligence is a member. Jeremy also serves as chairman of the board of directors for City Year New York, an organization dedicated to lowering the dropout rate of high school students across New York City, and is president of the American Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery of London. Jeremy received his M.B.A. from TRIUM, the executive global M.B.A. program of the New York University Stern School of Business, HEC Paris, and the London School of Economics. He holds a B.A. in foreign languages and fine arts from Georgetown University.

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Alice Kwan
Principal Deloitte Consulting

Alice Kwan has over 25 years of consulting experience leading clients through large scale transformations with a focus on organizational, cultural, change management and talent implications. She has advised clients and led many global projects that focus on developing new business and operating models and developing and executing talent management strategies. Her areas of expertise include leadership alignment, organizational design, change management, and talent management strategy development and solution implementation. Alice has provided consulting services to global organizations in various industries with a focus in Financial Services. Alice currently serves as the lead consulting partner for American Express, where she is responsible for the consulting portfolio that Deloitte delivers to American Express. Alice is a frequent publisher and speaker on talent and inclusion issues.

Gess LeBlanc
Associate Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology Hunter College

Gess LeBlanc received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center.  Dr. LeBlanc is a co-founder of Hunter’s Urban Center for Assessment, Research, and Evaluation (UCARE) and a co-founder of the college’s Master of Arts program in educational psychology.

As a developmental psychologist, Dr. LeBlanc has taught graduate courses in research methodology and undergraduate and graduate courses in educational psychology, child development, and adolescent development.  He is a recent receipient of the Harold Ladas Award for excellence in teaching.

Dr. LeBlanc’s research reflects his interest in the role of peer-based instruction in student learning.  This line of research has garnered awards from the Spencer Foundation and the American Psychological Association.  More recent interests include developing techniques for enhancing achievement motivation in children and adolescents, and examining culturally responsive pedagogy.  He is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Research in Child Development.

Robert McCall
Partner, GTIS Partners

Robert McCall is a Partner and Head of U.S. Industrial and Brazil Acquisitions, focusing on development, asset management and strategy for the company’s U.S. industrial direct investments and joint ventures. In Brazil, Mr. McCall focuses on business development and strategy for GTIS’ Brazilian business transactions.

Mr. McCall’s experience in the real estate industry began in 2003. Prior to joining GTIS in 2007, Mr. McCall was with Eastdil Secured in Atlanta, GA where he was an Associate responsible for financial valuation of investment properties ranging from $10 million to $600 million using various financial metrics to determine optimal marketing strategy to maximize returns. Before Eastdil Secured, Mr. McCall worked for CB Richard Ellis in the Financial Consulting Group and prior to that he worked as an Analyst with the Wells Fargo Real Estate Group.

Mr. McCall is a member of the Board of Directors of Brazil Hospitality Group, one of the largest owners and managers of hotels in Brazil. Mr. McCall received a B.S. in Business Administration from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Seth Meisel
Senior Managing Director Blackstone

Seth Meisel is a Senior Managing Director in the Private Equity group and is based in New York.

Before joining Blackstone, Seth was a partner at Bain Capital where he was involved in leading and executing investments in the chemicals, industrials, and packaging sectors. Prior to that, he was with Mercer Management Consulting (Oliver Wyman) in New York and Hong Kong.

Seth received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Princeton University cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School with high distinction as a Baker Scholar.

Michelle Moosally, Board Co-Chair
Head of Regulatory Relations Wells Fargo & Company

Michelle Moosally is the Head of Regulatory Relations at Wells Fargo. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, she worked at Santander, where she was the General Counsel of Corporate & Investment Banking and Commercial Banking. Throughout her career, Michelle worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP. Michelle earned her J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law and her B.A. from Dickinson College. She also holds an M.A. in Economics and International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies. Michelle serves on the board of City Year New York and resides in New York City with her two sons, Alessandro and Matteo.

Vanessa Sussman
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Eurasia Group and GZERO Media

As chief marketing and communications officer for Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, Vanessa's years of experience in communications and marketing, as well as her deep interest in international relations, informs her work driving the firm's brand recognition, growth, and success across platforms.

Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Vanessa was head of corporate communications, private markets, at Nuveen, the $1.2 trillion asset manager of financial planning firm TIAA. She previously served as vice president of marketing and communications at Morningstar and also ran her own boutique communications firm specializing in exchange-traded funds. She has worked at the Council of the Americas, Foreign Policy magazine, and the United States Mission to the United Nations.

Vanessa is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese, French, and Italian, with over a decade's experience working, living, and traveling throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. She has a master's degree in economics and international relations from Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of International Affairs and a bachelor's degree in Spanish and Latin American and Iberian studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Originally from Chicago, Vanessa lives in Brooklyn with her husband, three children, and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

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Alexa Vignone
Executive Vice President, Technology Salesforce

Alyson Villano
Executive Vice President, General Counsel of Consumer and Business Banking Santander Bank

Alyson is the General Counsel of Santander’s Consumer Bank and has been with the bank since 2019. Prior to joining Santander, she worked in-house at M&T Bank and JPMorgan Chase. She joined Chase after litigating for 9 years in private practice at an international law firm. Alyson attended Seton Hall Law School after graduating from Wellesley College. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with her goldendoodle Harper.

Ali Zelenko
Senior Vice President, Communications NBC News

Ali Zelenko is senior vice president, communications of NBC News. In this role, she is the chief spokesperson for NBC News and oversees all strategic communications and media relations for its units and broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, TODAY, Meet the Press and Dateline.

Ali joined NBC News in September 2013 from Time Inc., where she had served since 2006 as senior vice president of communications for TIME, FORTUNE, Money and CNNMoney.com. She was in charge of programming and publicity for the annual TIME 100 Gala, one of the most high-profile events in media; and she also managed promotion for key FORTUNE conferences, including the annual Most Powerful Women Summit, and its Global Forum events in Capetown and Chengdu, China.

At Time Warner, which she joined in 1998, Ali served in a number of other media relations roles, including as PR director at CNN in Washington, and PEOPLE in New York, and as vice president of corporate communications for Time Inc. Previously Ali worked in the Washington offices of two international PR firms, APCO Worldwide and Edelman Worldwide. In 2003 Ali received the Nafziger Award from her alma mater, the school of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which annually honors one recent graduate for professional achievement. She also subsequently served for two years as the chair of the Board of Visitors of the journalism school. Ali serves on the board of City Year New York, and lives in Manhattan with her husband Dan, and their two young sons.

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National Strategic Partners
National Partners