René J. Canezin is a Managing Partner and Founder of Evolution Credit Partners. He has 28 years of experience in building and managing investment businesses in multiple global locations across all asset classes and derivatives. His experience includes senior management responsibilities at Harvard Management Co, Barclays Bank, and Lehman Brothers.

Eileen Alexopoulos is the Senior Director of Health Equity and DEI Liaison at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the largest private health plan in the state and one of the largest independent, not-for-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the country.

Eileen leads and executes BCBSMA's internal and external efforts to advance health equity while working in partnership with BCBSMA executive leadership, staff, healthcare organizations, government officials, and other strategic partners. She works collaboratively with DEI Pillar leads (care, commerce, community, career, and culture) to align strategies and achieve more impactful outcomes.  Also, she creates and oversees bold initiatives to address health equity.

Eileen has more than 20 years of health plan experience in operations, medical management, and enterprise technology. She has held a variety of leadership roles driving project management, business strategy and planning, integration, budget, and communications efforts and most recently in the COO Office as Chief of Staff.

Eileen received her MBA from Bentley University and her Bachelor of Arts in communications from the University of Puerto Rico. She holds certifications in project management (PMP) and as health insurance executive (CHIE). Also, she serves as Board Chair to Amplify Latinx.

Dr. Paul Biddinger is the Medical Director for Emergency Preparedness at Mass General Brigham.  He also holds the Ann L. Prestipino MPH Endowed Chair in Emergency Preparedness and is the Director of the Center for Disaster Medicine, and Vice Chairman for Emergency Preparedness in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston.  Dr. Biddinger additionally serves as the Director of the Emergency Preparedness Research, Evaluation and Practice (EPREP) Program at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and at the Chan School.

Matt Freeman is a Managing Director at Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading private investment firms with over $105 billion under management. Matt leads growth for Bain Capital’s global private equity portfolio and works across industries including consumer, retail, technology, healthcare and financial services. Prior to Bain Capital, Matt was global Vice Chairman of McCann Erickson, CEO of IPG Mediabrands Ventures and the Founder & CEO of Omnicom Group’s Tribal DDB Worldwide. Matt is the Chairman of Advertising Week, has been inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement and has been named one of Fast Company’s most creative people in business.

Paul Sullivan is Vice President of Verizon’s Northeast Wireline Operations, where he leads a team of about 5,400 employees serving the needs of wireline customers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Mid-State & Upstate New York. Paul is responsible for the delivery of world-class customer service to more than 3 million consumer, small business, wholesale and enterprise customers served by 77 garage work centers, 725 Central Offices and 3 Video Hub Offices.

Paul served on the board of directors for the American Red Cross of Northern New Jersey and was previously the chairman. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree (with highest honors) in Engineering Technology and a master's degree in business administration from Northeastern University in Boston.

Anne Alzapiedi is the HR Executive Director for GE Vernova Corporate and Global Functions, located in Cambridge, MA.  She has served in HR Leader roles across multiple General Electric businesses for 25+ years and took on a special assignment as the GE Newtown Recovery Program Leader where she led a team of GE employees in a private-public partnership providing leadership, vision, and strategic direction on a variety of after-crisis initiatives following the Sandy Hook tragedy.

In support of her community, Anne serves as a board member of the American Red Cross Board Massachusetts Chapter, and she deployed to Florida after Hurricane Ian as a Red Cross Elected Official Liaison. Additionally, Anne volunteers as a licensed Emergency Medical Technician.

Anne holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from Skidmore College and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Connecticut and is a certified Professional Executive and Leadership Coach.

Susan Black is Managing Director at Boston Financial Management.  She has extensive experience in wealth management.  Susan holds undergraduate degrees from Wellesley College and Bar Ilan University, and she has a M.Ed. in Counseling and Education Management from Cambridge College.

Ms. Bolotin is the EVP and Chief Financial Officer of Great-West Lifeco US., parent of Empower and formerly Punam Investments.  Andra served concurrently as CFO of both Putnam and Empower and played a key role in shaping growth strategy through M&A and strategic initiatives and transforming cost structures in highly regulated enterprises.  In her role as CFO, she was responsible for Finance as well as critical areas such as Investment Administration, Procurement, Risk Management and Corporate Actuarial.  She joined Putnam in 2008 and has been in the financial services industry since 2004 starting with Fidelity Investments. Her prior experience includes stints at McKinsey and Company, Polaroid, and IBM. 

Ms. Bolotin earned an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.   She is a member of the Museum Council of the Plimoth Patuxet Museum.

Mary is a partner in EY’s Assurance practice in Boston, Massachusetts. She provides accounting and auditing services to public companies across the world. With more than 29 years of professional experience, she has acquired expertise working with numerous multinational corporations across multiple industries. Her experience includes a recently completed 3-year rotation in London as a partner within the EY Capital Markets group. Mary is an expert in matters relating to US GAAP accounting, SEC reporting, Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 reporting and has advised numerous clients on public equity and debt offerings as well as mergers and acquisitions. Mary was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Michael F. Price College of Business where she earned a BBA in Accounting. Additionally, she is a CPA licensed in Massachusetts and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as well as The Boston Club. Mary lives in Wellesley with her husband Chris and her daughter Grace.

Marion Dorsch is the President and Chief Scientific Officer at Atavistik Bio, an innovative biotech company developing novel therapies for cancer and rare genetic diseases. She is an accomplished scientist and senior executive with a proven track record of discovering and advancing innovative therapies to patients. Before joining Atavistik Bio, Marion was the Chief Scientific Officer at Blueprint Medicines where she led the Discovery and Translational Medicine teams and oversaw the progression of a strong portfolio of precision medicines. Prior to Blueprint, Marion held roles of increasing responsibilities at Agios, Sanofi, Novartis and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. During her 25-year tenure in biotech and pharma, Marion has made major contributions to the discovery and development of six FDA-approved precision medicines. Marion received her Ph.D. in Biology from the Free University of Berlin, Germany and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in New York.

Enrikson Eugenio leads data and analytics for Santander’s Consumer and Business Banking group, supporting the network of 400+ branches in the northeast. He previously led the Consumer Strategy team, helping support and execute the Bank’s Digital Transformation program. Prior to joining Santander, Enrikson was Consumer Lending CFO at MUFG Union Bank, where he also held a variety of other roles in finance and strategy. Enrikson was born in Seattle, Washington and holds a B.A. and M.A in Public Policy from Stanford University.

Juliette Kayyem is a world-renowned security and emergency preparedness expert in the public and private sectors. Presently, she serves as a regular on-air national security analyst on CNN; Professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and Co-Founder and CEO of Grip Mobility, a tech start-up focused on ridesharing vehicles. She served as President Obama's Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. There she played a pivotal role in major operations including handling of the H1N1 pandemic and the BP Oil Spill response; she also organized major policy efforts in immigration reform and community resiliency. Before that, she served as Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor.

Stephanie Kessler graduated The George Washington University, summa cum laude with a BBA in finance and information systems in 2002.  She worked in New York for Swiss Reinsurance in the finance department and private equity fund of funds group before heading to Boston College for her MBA. She received a MBA with a concentration in finance in 2007. From there she worked at the Analysis Group in Boston for a year before heading to Eastern Bank where she worked until 2015 as the Direct Marketing Manager. Stephanie has been a member of the Boston Children’s Hospital League since 2017, the Executive Board since 2019 and is currently the co-Vice President of fundraising.

Brenda Lyons is executive vice president and the executive business manager for Investment Services at State Street. In this capacity, Brenda is charged with executing against the strategic priorities of the Investment Services organization, acting as the central network for business management across the division globally and providing management support and engaging management functions to drive strategy execution. Previously, Brenda served as global head of Asset Servicing Product responsible for establishing product and commercialization strategies, product development and management of product solutions and advocacy for our products with clients and in industry forums.

Across her 35-year career, Brenda has demonstrated capability in driving and executing innovative and transformative change across global businesses, aligning businesses to achieve a common strategy and establishing industry differentiation for products and services. Prior to joining State Street, Brenda was a managing director with Deutsche Asset Management (and its legacy companies) where she served as president of the Scudder Mutual Funds, among other responsibilities. After leaving Deutsche Asset Management, Brenda started a consulting practice where she consulted to a board of trustees overseeing a large mutual funds complex. Brenda is experienced in board governance previously serving on boards of various nonprofits in Massachusetts.  Brenda received a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Bentley College.

Sofia Mistretta earned her Master of Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University and her bachelor of Science in Business Management from Babson College. She is currently the Senior Director, Inclusion, Diversity & Equity at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where she is developing and delivering best-in-class, game-changing programs and solutions that enable Vertex to recruit, engage, develop and retain diverse talent around the globe. In 2020, she was selected by the company’s CEO to represent the organization as a CEO Action for Racial Equity Fellow. Sofia spent nearly two years committed to the fellowship’s mission to identify, develop and promote scalable and sustainable public policies and corporate engagement strategies that will address systemic racism, social injustice and improve societal well-being. Prior to Vertex, she was named John Hancock’s first U.S. Head of Diversity & Inclusion in 2018.

Mai Lan Nguyen is the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for North America at Schneider Electric. In this role and together with a team of great HR professionals, she leads the successful execution of a people strategy focused on engaging others to perform at their best to drive business success and growth. To do so, the team works with passion on shaping the best employee experience through people policies and inclusive programs enabled by digital. She is a member of the North America Executive Leadership Team.

Mai Lan defines herself as a global nomad and has been with Schneider Electric for 17 years. Her dream was to build an international career and for that last 13 years, she has worked in France, China, Brazil, and the USA.

Mai Lan received the award of CHRO of the year from HRO Today in 2022. She completed the General Management Program (GMP30) at Harvard Business School in 2021. She holds a master’s degree in Business/Managerial Economics from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Grenoble and a second master’s degree in Human Resources/Personnel Administration from Ciffop-Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas.

Dunkin’ Franchisee

Benny Omid was born in Iran and immigrated to Boston in 1988. When Benny lived in Iran, he was an emergency relief volunteer for the Red Crescent Society.  Benny began his career with Dunkin’ Donuts over 30 years ago on the ground floor cleaning stores. Through determination and hard work, in 1996, Benny became a Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee and now owns restaurants in Allston, MA. Benny was the Northeast Co-Chair and Treasurer of The Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation and a director at the American Red Cross Biomedical Services, where he had been an integral part of the “Dunkin’ Donors Make a Difference” campaign. He has served as a board member on the Foundation from 2009 through 2017. He is also a member of the Dunkin’ Donuts Advertising Committee for the Northeast Region and the Vice Chair of the Allston Board of Trade.  Benny lives in Belmont with his wife Margarite and his son Jacob.

Reed Passafaro is chief of staff for National Grid New England, a business responsible for the safe, reliable and affordable energy delivery to National Grid’s customers in New England, including gas and electric operations in Massachusetts and transmission in New England, while being at the heart of the energy transition. Prior to joining National Grid, Reed was the chief of staff at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), a $1B quasi-public economic development and transportation agency that owns and operates Logan International Airport, Worcester Regional Airport, Hanscom Airfield, Conley Container Terminal and Flynn Cruiseport Boston, and also manages commercial real estate assets. Before Massport, Reed was the director of speechwriting for Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Reed is a graduate of St. John Fisher University and received an MBA from Northeastern University.

Ms. Redfield, CIMA, is the Senior Vice President, Wealth Management, Wealth Advisor, Senior Investment Management Consultant, at Morgan Stanley. She is responsible for providing highly customized investment consulting, asset allocation and investment management services to individuals, endowments and nonprofit organizations.  Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1999, Robyn worked at Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor to individual investors, corporate executives and nonprofit organizations. She has also held management positions at Estee Lauder.

Robyn is active in her community serving on the boards of the American Red Cross as a director, The Forsyth Institute, the President’s Council of Cambridge College and founder of the Tiffany Circle of Women Leaders of the American Red Cross.  She holds a B.S. from the University of Bridgeport as well as a Certified Investment Management Analyst and CEC designation from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Hosni is currently the Chief Administrative Officer for the Wealth Management and Investment Service division of U.S. Bank. In his current capacity, he oversees strategy design, capital planning and transformational initiatives for the business. Additionally, he drives the Continuous Improvement and digitization efforts in the bank. Prior to joining U.S. Bank, Hosni led product innovation at State Street and was a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group. He holds a Bachelors in Engineering from The University of Pittsburgh and MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. 

Steve has 34 years of experience in the financial services industry, primarily focused on private equity and venture capital investing, fund development and operational management, investment banking, and structured finance. Steve is President, Managing Member and Co-Head of Alternative Investments, and a member of the Management and Investment Committees at Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk, LLC. Recently Steve was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Infusion Global Partners, a global alternative asset management firm.

Steve has extensive governance experience, having served on the boards of several corporate and non-profit organizations. Steve received his BA in Political Science from Bates College and received the college’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Steve also received the Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40 Award, and the Ten Outstanding Young Leaders (TOYL) award from the Boston Chamber of Commerce.

Peter Caruso provides critical advice to individuals, families and businesses to help them achieve their short- and long-term financial goals. He works with clients to develop strategies designed to preserve and grow wealth. Peter is a CERTIFIEDFINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) professional.  Away from the office, Peter is a Nichols College Board of Advisors, a Member of the Worcester Economic Club, and a member of the Professional Advisor Network for the Greater Worcester Community Foundation. Peter enjoys exercising, golf, music, yoga, and travel, and has been a private wine maker for over 30 years. He lives with his wife Lilly and two children, Stephen, and Ava, in West Boylston, MA.

Geri Denterlein’s life work has been at the intersection of business, government and journalism and, as the CEO and founder of the strategic communications firm Denterlein, she is a trusted advisor to some of the region’s most respected brands, institutions, and leaders. She leverages her 30-year career in journalism and public affairs to help corporate and nonprofit organizations promote and protect their reputations.  In board rooms, the political arena and the local community, Geri is known as a champion for women, advocating for equality by helping many women find their voice, and communicate effectively for change. Geri recently received the Abigail Adams Award from the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus for her outstanding leadership in achieving parity for women. She was inducted into the Academy of Women Achievers by YW Boston and received the Hall of Fame Award from Boston Women's Business. Geri has also received the Pinnacle Award from the Boston Chamber of Commerce and a Workplace Innovations Award from Bentley University.  She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Cincinnati and a Master of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also holds a certificate in leadership from the Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and is a faculty member of Harvard's Executive and Continuing Professional Education Program.

Barry is the principal of the Law Offices of Barry R. Crimmins, P.C., with offices located in Stoughton, Falmouth, and Hyannis. His practice has focused for over 30 years on Estate Planning, Estate Administration, and Elder Law and Medicaid Planning, where he has assisted many elders and their families in long-term care planning and asset protection, as well as younger families and retirees with all aspects of Estate Planning. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Plymouth County Bar Association, and the Bar Association of Norfolk County. He has served for over 20 years as an elected member of the Stoughton Housing Authority, currently serving as Chairman and the Authority’s representative to the Stoughton Community Preservation Committee, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of the Stoughton branch of the Old Colony YMCA and the Children’s Museum of Easton. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accountancy from Bentley College and his Juris Doctorate degree from New England School of Law. Attorney Crimmins is a life-long resident in his hometown of Stoughton, Massachusetts, where he resides with his wife and two children.

Chris Olson is responsible for implementing programs designed to identify, evaluate, mitigate, and monitor operational risks at MassMutual. He has also held leadership roles in information technology, business resilience and information governance at MassMutual. Chris was elected to the Western MA Board of Directors in 2018, served as Chairman of the Board from 2020-2023, and became Chairman of the Central-Western MA Board in June 2023. He served as the Chairman of the Business Continuity Committee at LOMA, a featured presenter at numerous industry events and has been published in the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning and Corporate Security magazine.