Ginna Baik and Phyllis Meadows
John A. Harford Foundation
The John A. Harford Foundation announced that Ginna Baik and Phyllis D. Meadows PhD, MSN, RN, have been elected to its board of trustees. Ms. Baik is leader of Senior Living Alexa Smart Properties for Amazon, where she directs business and strategy development. She has had more than a decade of experience in older adult care and technology, with a mission to provide scalable technology and services to underserved populations. Dr. Meadows is Senior Fellow with the Detroit Program at The Kresge Foundation, where she advises the Detroit and Health teams on the development of overall strategic direction in the design and implementation of grantmaking initiatives and projects. She has had a 30-year career spanning the nursing, public, health, academic, and philanthropic sectors.
Prior to her work in older adult care, Ms. Baik worked with Title I projects for Sylvan Learning in Chicago Public Schools. As she transitioned from serving the nation’s youth to the nation’s older adult population, she has established a social platform startup, led innovation and resident technology with a national senior care provider, Brookdale Senior Living, and most recently built the senior care business practice at a national technology solution provider, CDW. She is an executive board member at the American Society on Aging, a board member of LeadingAge California, and chairman of the board at OATS (Older Adults Technology Services), an affiliate of AARP.
Dr. Meadows is the former associate dean for practice at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and clinical professor in health management and policy, where she designed and implemented community-based health strategies, evaluation, research, and courses on leadership, policy, population health, and health equity. Dr. Meadows was Deputy Director and then Director and Public Health Officer for the city of Detroit. She has also served as adjunct faculty with Wayne State’s and Oakland University’s Schools of Nursing and maintains an active advisory role on several national and statewide initiatives and boards that focus on improving the health of marginalized and low-income communities.
Contact: Clare Churchouse at 212.324.7480 or clare.churchouse@johnahartford.org.
Margery Bronster and Paula Pretlow
Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced that Margery Bronster, a lawyer and Hawaiʻi’s former attorney general, joined its board of directors, and Paula Pretlow, who has served as a trustee since 2018, will begin a three-year term as chair of the board. Ms. Bronster and Ms. Pretlow are stepping into roles currently held by Ambassador Fay Hartog-Levin (Ret.), who has served as a foundation trustee since 2016 and as the board chair since 2020.
Ms. Bronster is an internationally and nationally recognized civil litigation attorney with extensive experience advising trusts and foundations on fiduciary duties. Before becoming a founding partner of Bronster Fujichaku Robbins (formerly Bronster Crabtree Hoshibata), she served as Hawaiʻi’s attorney general from 1995 to 1999. In that role, she showed steadfast leadership throughout a multiyear investigation into the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate charitable trust, the largest private trust in the country, resulting in lasting improvements of its overall administration and selection process for board members to better serve the community. She also won a settlement agreement from tobacco companies amounting to more than a billion dollars for the state of Hawaiʻi that has led to decades of new statewide health care programs and improved health across the islands.
Ms. Bronster is a recipient of the Profiles in Courage Award from the Conference of Western Attorneys General; Kelly-Wyman Award for Outstanding Attorney General from the National Association of Attorneys General; and Outstanding Women Lawyer Award from Hawaiʻi Women Lawyers.
Ms. Pretlow has extensive finance and investment management experience, building a career in helping company leaders maximize shareholder and stakeholder value. As a former Senior Vice President of Capital Group, a $2.2 trillion privately held investment management firm, she headed the firm’s public fund business development and client relationship group and was responsible for large client relationships. Ms. Pretlow serves on a number of boards in the private, philanthropic, and nonprofit sector, including Williams-Sonoma, Vroom, The Kresge Foundation, Northwestern University, and her synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El, in San Francisco, California.
Contact: 410.654.8500.
Daniel Cohn
Mt. Sinai Health Foundation
Mt. Sinai Health Foundation President Mitchell Balk announced the appointment of Daniel J. Cohn to the new position of Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer. Mr. Cohn was named Vice President, Strategy, in 2018 and previously served as Program Officer, Urban Health. Prior to joining Mt. Sinai in August 2015, Mr. Cohn served as Assistant Director of Cornell University’s Center for Engaged Learning + Research.
In this new role Mr. Cohn will support the foundation’s operations in program planning, information technology, and communitywide innovation in health improvement, focusing on Mt. Sinai’s many leadership activities beyond health and medicine grantmaking. He will continue to lead Mt. Sinai’s coalition-building and public-private partnership activities, as well as implementation of the Foundation’s prevention strategies to improve the health of the people of Northeast Ohio.
Contact: Adam Nation at 216.421.5500 or adam.nation@mtsinaifoundation.org.
Denise De Las Nueces and Carlos Cappas
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation appointed Denise De Las Nueces, MD, the Chief Medical Officer at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, and Carlos F. Cappas, PsyD, Chief Behavioral Health Officer at Lynn Community Health Center, to the board of directors.
Dr. De Las Nueces is a board-certified internal medicine physician and addiction medicine specialist who joined the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program more than a decade ago. She also serves as an assistant professor of medicine at the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine at Boston University.
Dr. Cappas has implemented behavioral health integration programs at community health centers and led initiatives focused on integrated care and population health in adult and pediatric primary care settings. Since joining Lynn Community Health Center in 2019, he has advanced behavioral health services through clinical and operational integration, telehealth expansion and workforce development. Dr. Cappas is a board trustee for Casa Esperanza and advisory board member for the Center for Integrated Primary Care at UMass Chan Medical School.
Contact: 617.246.6783.
Susan Perlin, Victor Hicks II, and Freddie Burton, Jr.
Ethel and James Flinn Foundation
The Ethel and James Flinn Foundation announced new board appointments. Susan Perlin, CPA is the Vice Chairman, Victor Hicks II is the Treasurer, and the Honorable Freddie G. Burton, Jr. has been appointed Chairman of the Board.
Ms. Perlin is a retired partner at Plante Moran, one of the country’s largest public accounting and business advisory firms. She was the leader of Plante Moran’s nonprofit industry group and has 38 years of experience serving nonprofit organizations.
Mr. Hicks is the Owner and Managing Principal of Lumin Financial, LLC. He’s been a certified financial planner since 1995, specializing in running employee benefits plans and managing retirement assets.
Judge Burton has been a member of the Wayne County Probate Court since 1987 and served as Chief Judge from 1990 through 1997. He has partnered with the Flinn Foundation on the Wayne County Jail Mental Health Initiative, which works to get nonviolent offenders mental health assistance instead of incarceration. Judge Burton replaces Duane L. Tarnacki, one of the state’s top nonprofit attorneys, as Chairman of the Board.