Board of Directors

Carla Benka was preservation planner for the town of Brookline for 15 years and served as PTO co-president of the Heath School. She has been a Town Meeting Member since 2002 and has served on the Town Advisory (Finance) Committee for 13 years. Carla is a member of the grants committee of the Panwy Foundation and is an ad hoc member of the Steps to Success Advisory Committee as well community representative to the Brookline High School Site Council.

Andrew Bernstein is the CEO and co-founder of Kearsarge Energy. He has extensive experience in project finance and has consulted on energy development. Andrew has over 25 years experience managing a broad range of organizations and divisions including Cymfony Inc., HotHouse Venture Partners, Articulate Systems, and the international division of the Stride Rite Corporation. Andrew lives in Brookline and currently serves on several boards of both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Judy Bullitt and her husband Tom have lived in Brookline for 23 years. They have three much loved children who are currently in various stages of leaving the nest. She arrived in this area after completing her Masters of Social Work and taking her first job at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She has spent the better part of the last 25 years raising her children and diving into all the activities related to full-time parenting. For seven years she served as co-director of the Sunday School at her church where she just finished a four-year vestry term.

She had the privilege of serving on the board of directors of the 21st Century Fund at Brookline High School, and now spends most of her time focused on building a mentoring and SAT program for the youth of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in the South End of Boston. 

Gerald Davidson is a vice president at Fidelity Investments in Boston, where he works in the Treasurers’ Office for the Fidelity Funds. Jerry has nearly 30 years of experience in financial services, principally in the mutual funds industry, in areas involving internal controls and internal audit, compliance, systems development and consulting. He was previously on the board of the Pierce School Extended Day Program, where he also served as president, and he was also a trustee at Temple Israel in Boston. Jerry has lived in Brookline for 25 years where he and his wife, Deb, have raised two daughters who attended and graduated from the Brookline Public Schools.

Alexandra (Ali) Dorf is a managing director in the Boston office of Cambridge Associates LLC. She was previously employed by Highmount Capital as a Summer Associate and in the Client Strategies Group of Pell Rudman Trust Company. Ali holds the Certified Financial Planner ^TM designation. She enjoys hiking in New Hampshire, backpacking and mountaineering in the Sierras and Tetons, and skiing or snowshoeing just about anywhere. Ali has lived in Brookline since 2003.

John F. Hodgman retired in 2001 as president and CEO of the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation (MTDC). Since then he has focused his professional activities on teaching entrepreneurship and assisting non-profit organizations that deal with education and career development. He is a professor of the Practice in Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies (ELS) at the Tufts University Gordon Institute. He also serves as a member of the following organizations: Governor's STEM Advisory Council (Executive Committee and Data Subcommittee co-chair); board of directors of the Mass Biotechnology Education Foundation; board of directors of JFYNetWorks, Inc.; and board of overseers of the Brookline Educational Foundation. John has lived in Brookline since 1974. He was a co-founder of the Brookline Education Foundation and was a member of the School Committee from 1993 to 1996.

Sytske Humphrey is a specialist in early childhood education who recently retired after 30 years of service in the Brookline Public Schools. She has also worked extensively with inner city children and families, both as an educator and pre-school director. Sytske and her family moved to Brookline in 1975. She has been a Town Meeting Member since 1999 and in 2000 was appointed to the Town Advisory (Finance) Committee, where she currently chairs the subcommittee on Human Services.  

Kristen Jilek is a vice president at Boston Private Bank & Trust Company. As a relationship manager, Kristen manges deposit business for private companies, non-profits and successful individuals and families. Throughout her career, Kisten has held marketing positions in several facets of the financial services industry. Before Boston Private Bank, she led new business devlopment efforts at Bainco International Investors in Wellesley. Kristen's introduction and interest in the non-profit community came from four years spent as the director of development at the Boston Foundation. She also spent a decade in various sales and marekting positions in the mutual fund industry. Kristen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Kenyon College, and lives in South Brookline with her husband Dave and sons Cole and Cameron.

Mini Kolluri is a marketing and customer analytics professional with 15 years experience in the financial services industry. She was vice president in the Consumer Deposit and Investment Business at JP Morgan Chase. Mini and her family have lived in Brookline since 2006. She previously served as co-chair of the Runkle PTO. 

Melissa Langa is the managing shareholder in the Boston law firm of Bove & Langa, PC. She has built her practice guiding individuals, families, businesses and charitable organizations in designing and implementing customized tax-efficient structures to meet their particular estate planning, business and charitable needs. Ms. Langa has assisted families who wish to pass a business to certain children while treating the other children fairly, helped clients navigate the legal and tax implications of a death in the family and designed complex gifting structures to meet specific philanthropic goals. She is a founding co-chair of the Boston chapter of the London based Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP Boston); and is a vice-chair of the ABA's Asset Protection Planning Committee. Melissa is also a past president of the Boston Estate Planning Council.

In addition to her professional activities, Melissa is a member of the board of directors of Boston's SpeakEasy Stage Company where she chairs the Governance Committee; a member of the President's Advisory Committee of Colby-Sawyer College (NH), and is an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Law Graduate Tax Program teaching Estate Planning. She has participated as a writer and lecturer at programs presented by many organizations including the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA, the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Boston Bar Association. 

Jay Lebed (Treasurer) is vice president of equity research at Boston Investment Advisers, Inc. and founder and CEO of Lebed Asset Management, LLC. Jay manages portfolios of individual stocks for the firms' clients, primarily high net worth individuals and families. Prior to founding Lebed Asset Management, Jay served as chief financial officer of Lewtan Technologies, a provider of information and software to the asset-backed securities industry, where he held various executive positions over a 14 year period. Jay received a PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science from MIT and a BA in Philosophy with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College. He lives in Brookline with his wife, Karin; his son, Henry; and his daughter, Piera.

Michael Lindstrom is currently the principal of studioMLA/Michael Lindstrom Associates Architects in Brookline, Massachusetts, which provides a full range of architectural services in the design of environments for children. One of the leading architects in the field, Mike, along with Jim Greenman, led the annual Child Care Design Institute at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design from 2000 to 2008. He has served as an advisor to the American Academy of Pediatrics on Child Care Center Design. In his more than twenty years of designing both buildings and outdoor play and learning areas for children, Mike has extensive experience with the complex design, regulatory and construction processes inherent in creating children's environments.

StudioMLA has completed world class projects in India, Japan, England, Ireland and Scotland as well as the US and Canada.

Mike has practiced architecture since 1982 in Paris, New York and Boston. In addition to teaching at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, he has served as an instructor for the Boston Architectural Center and as an assistant professor for the Parsons School of Design - Paris Program. Mr. Lindstrom received a Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois.

In addition to co-authoring the LISC Resource Guide for Greening Early Childhood Centers, Mike is a LEED accredited professional and has designed multiple LEED certified children's centers.

Julie Marcus (Vice Chair) is a marketing and communications consultant specializing in the non-profit sector with nearly a decade of experience. Most of her experience has been with City Year, the Boston-based national non-profit youth service organization, where she was the events director and subsequently the director of communications. Julie is also a busy mother of three young children and a Heath School parent.

Ashley Mason (Clerk), now at home with young children, was previously the renewable energy market development manager with the Conservation Services Group, working with legislative groups and renewable energy businesses to strengthen public policy and markets for renewable energy and regional energy credit markets. Before this, she was with APX and Xenergy, working to develop green energy policy and markets for renewable energy.

Paul Saner is retired  from a career in real estate finance. He currently serves as vice chair of the Carroll Center for the Blind and chair of the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum. He is also co-chair of Brookline's Economic Development Advisory Board and is a Town Meeting Member.

Paige A. Scott-Reed is a litigator with more than ten years of experience handling civil and criminal disputes. Paige has represented and counseled a wide range of clients, from large Fortune 100 companies to small start-up ventures and individual defendants. As a trial attorney, her practice focuses on the effective resolution of complex disputes. She appears regularly before state and federal courts and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, both at the trial level and as an appellate advocate. Prior to joining Prince Lobel, Paige was an associate at Palmer & Dodge, LLP. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Dolores K. Sloviter, former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. While at Harvard Law School, Paige was an executive editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Frank Steinfield (Chair) Frank Steinfield is a management consultant and community leader who translates strategic planning into action by promoting better communication among key stakeholders. He has worked extensively with the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Child Welfare Strategy Group (CWSG) since 2001, creating a portfolio of knowledge resources that support public agencies, CWSG consultants and the field at large, including best-practice guides to decision-making, resource family development (Building Successful Resource Families, 2012 with Denise Goodman), and performance management in child welfare. Frank has also provided strategic communication support to Casey system reform projects in multiple jurisdictions, including Maine, Virginia, Indiana and New York City. 

Frank's other recent consulting work includes partnering with AltshulerGray LLC on strategic planning for academic medical research institutions and evaluation for youth development programs with Mendelsohn, Gittelman & Associates. Prior to working with the Casey Foundation, Frank worked as a marketing consultant for Philip Johnson Associates (pja) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, managing teams of writers and designers on marketing campaigns for technology and service companies. He is the Chair of the Board of the Brookline Community Foundation, a Brookline Town Meeting Member, and serves on Brookline’s Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) Advisory Committee. He also served on the Lawrence School Extended Day Program (LEDP) Board from 2005-2011. Frank holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Yale University.

Joanne M. Sullivan is vice president and director of Government & Community Relations at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. Prior to that she was senior manager of government affairs for Fleet and BankBoston. Joanne serves on the boards of a variety of national and regional organizations. Locally, she serves as a commissioner of the Brookline Housing Authority, is a board member of the Women's Lunch Place and is a member of the Political Action Committee for the multipartisan Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus.

David Wood is a long-time Brookline resident and director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI), a project of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at the Kennedy School of Government. He has directed projects on responsible investment across asset classes, responsible investment consulting, mission investment, investor use and corporate disclosure of environmental, social, governance issues, responsible property investment, impact investment and public policy and offshore investment in sustainable small and medium-sized enterprises, among other topics. Before joining the IRI, he taught the history of ethics, including the history of economic thought, at Boston University. He received his Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University, and an M.A. in Political Theory and B.A. in History from the University of Virginia.