Karen Adler, Co-Vice Chair of Programming

     Karen has been a Vice President of the Corcoran Group, specializing in the sale of residential properties in Manhattan, for over 17 years.  Prior to working in real estate, Karen worked for the Metropolitan Opera in performing arts management and as the Associate Producer for their television series.  Karen joined the Foundation in January 2012.

 

Reagan Arthur 

     Reagan is Senior Vice President and Publisher of Little Brown. Previously, she was the founding editor of Picadou USA at St. Martin's Press. Writers Reagan has worked with include Kate Atkinson, Judy Budnitz, Oscar Casares, Elizabeth Crane, Rachel Cusk, Tony Earley, Joshua Ferris, Caitlin Flanagan, Tim Gautreaux, Elizabeth Kostova, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin, Joanna Scott and Lisa Selin Davis.

 

John Avlon 

     John is senior columnist for Newsweek and the Daily Beast as well as a CNN contributor. He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America as well as an editor of the anthology Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns. Previously, he was a columnist and associate editor for the New York Sun and chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012.

 

Jennifer Barth, Co-Chair

     A graduate of Yale University, Jennifer began her publishing career in 1986 as an editorial assistant at NAL. She has been Vice President and Executive Editor at HarperCollins since 2007. She served previously as first Executive Editor and then Editor in Chief at Henry Holt. She has worked for a variety of other publishers including Putnam and Hyperion, served as a scout for several foreign publishers and film companies, and spent time in London early in her career, reading manuscripts for a number of British publishers. Her author list is comprised of equal parts fiction and nonfiction, and her tastes are eclectic. The fiction writers she has worked with include Paul Auster and Michael Chabon; nonfiction authors include Mary Karr, Caitlin Moran, and Doug Stanton. Jennifer lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children. 

 

Christina Bennison Bryan 

      Christina received her undergraduate degree in history from Princeton University. She worked for a year and a half as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, then joined Take the Field in 2002 to help create the Academy for Careers in Sports - another New Visions high school in the South Bronx. She went on to work as a Development Associate at Citigroup and then as an Advisor at Goldman Sachs. Previously she served as a program director at the Urban Assembly and assisted in the development of five new, theme-based schools that opened in the fall of 2004. Christina is a founding member of the Bronx Academy of Letters Advisory Board.

 

Toni Bernstein, Co-Chair

     A graduate of Tufts University, Toni is an active volunteer in support of the Bronx Academy of Letters. Toni is a founding member of the school's Advisory Board and volunteers regularly in the school's College and Enrichment Office, where she assists students with applications for summer enrichment programs, among other things. Toni also sits on the board of JBFCS, one of the United States' largest nonprofit mental health and social service agencies. Toni is a mother of three almost adult children and has been happily married to her husband Seth for 25 years.

 

Sarah Carson Cloud

     Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Leota, a fashion design company based in New York that is known for innovative designs and meshing simplicity with glamour. Sarah is a life-long crafter who developed her design company after eight years on Wall Street, most recently as Director of Equity Sales and Trading at UBS. She holds a BA from Brown University.

 

Victoria Crispin 

     A graduate of Tufts University, Victoria began her career in Youth Development with the Girl Scout Council of Greater Boston. For the past ten years, she has worked to create student-centered leadership and enrichment programming models for school-based, out-of-school-time programs in NYC. Her primary areas of focus have centered around partnership development, volunteer cultivation, and the provision of equitable access to competitive enrichment and college preparatory opportunities for youth in underserved communities. She is currently an Associate Director with the NYC Department of Education’s Expanded Success Initiative, a pioneering effort to close the achievement gap for Black and Latino young men by significantly increasing the percentage of this population who complete high school prepared to succeed in college and careers. Previously she served as Director of Student Services at the Bronx Academy of Letters.

 

Azim Esmail

 

Jodie Freeman

      Jodie is an ardent supporter of public schools and has had three children in the schools in her neighborhood of Westchester. She is an active board member of Sanctuary for Families, the leading provider of comprehensive domestic-violence services in NYC, and has successfully run its annual benefit since 2002. Jodie graduated from Tufts University in 1984 and spent the next thirteen years in various brand-management and marketing positions with Coach, Liz Claiborne, The Gap, and Macy's. Jodie is a founding member of the Bronx Academy of Letters Advisory Board.

 

Elizabeth Hellman

     Elizabeth joined Dstillery as Chief Marketing Officer in January 2012. She spent the prior ten years as VP of Corporate Marketing for Alloy Media + Marketing, a pioneer in non-traditional marketing services for the millennial market. Prior to joining Alloy, she held marketing positions with Scholastic and Radio City Entertainment. She takes an active role in the NYC public education community through her efforts with PENCIL and as a director of the Foundation for Letters. She holds a BA in Art History from Dartmouth College.

 

Lisa Jardine, Co-Vice Chair of Outreach and Development

     With a B.S. from NYU, Lisa spent ten years working for Merrill Lynch Futures in their New York, Chicago and Tokyo offices. After raising four children, both in the U.S. and Japan, Lisa went back to school to study creative writing at Manhattanville College where she received her M.F.A. She has written for The Japan Times, CNN, Metropolis Magazine and for the past year she wrote a weekly column called “The Westchester Wanderer” for Hometown Media. She has helped dozens of high school seniors at various schools around the world with their college application essays.

 

Susan Kahn, Co-Vice Chair of Programming

     Susan Kahn is a political scientist who has worked in journalism, taught in universities, worked at the United Nations, and in foundations.  She is actively involved in New York cultural organizations and a political activist.

 

Josh Kruter

     Josh is the Vice President of Marketing at Vdopia, the global leader in mobile video advertising. Previously, he has served as Director of Youth Connections at Alloy Media and Marketing, Vice President of Global Marketing Communications at PVH, and Director of Brand/Integrated Marketing at Virgin Mobile. He holds a BA from Boston College and an MBA from Columbia Business School. 

 

Wendee Lunt

      Wendee joined the Bronx Letters Advisory Board in 2009. She is a seasoned international executive with more than two decades of luxury brand development experience. She is Founder and President of TLX Partners, a consulting firm providing strategic business development services for companies seeking to leverage their brand point of difference. TLX Partners specializes in identifying brand growth opportunities through licensing, international expansion, product development and marketing enhancement. Clients include Tory Burch, Dylan’s Candy Bar, Ghurka, and Tracy Reese. Prior roles include management positions at Tiffany & Co., Coach, Movado, Judith Leiber and Tumi. Wendee holds a BA from Dartmouth College.

 

Natalie Mackiel

 

Ian Marsh, Co-Vice Chair of Finance

     Ian is a real estate adviser and investor who has worked on investment properties in markets across the country. His clients and employers have included Morgan Stanley, the Harvard Endowment, and GE Capital. Ian earned a BA at Hamilton College, which makes a priority of writing effectively. From Boston University, he received an MBA with a concentration in finance. He lives with his wife and two sons in Westchester County, New York. 

 

Jenny McPhee

     Jenny is a co-founder of the Bronx Academy of Letters and is also a founding member of the Advisory Board. She is the author of the novels The Center of Things, No Ordinary Matter, and A Man of No Moon. She is the co-author with Martha and Laura McPhee of Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits. She has curated the film program at the Italian Academy for Advanced Study at Columbia University and currently lives and works in London, where she is working on her next novel and a translation of Natalia Ginzburg's "A Family Lexicon" for the New York Review of Books.

 

Deborah Murnin, Co-Vice Chair of Finance

     Deb joined the Advisory Board in 2008 and has served on the Endowment and Eduction committees.  She is a finance professional currently working as a senior director in investor development for Fitch Ratings.  She has previously worked in structured finance roles at Morgan Stanley, XL Capital Assurance and JPMorgan Chase and performed accounting and special projects work for the CFO and COO of gourmet grocer Citarella.  In addition to her work with BAL, Deb volunteers as a member of the Board of Associate Trustees of Siena College and is the Vice Chargee de Presse for the Mid-Hudson chapter of the Chaine des Rotisseurs culinary society.

 

Peter Picard

 

Amanda Schosid, Co-Vice Chair of Outreach and Development 

     Amanda is an Account Executive at Dstillery, a leading advertising technology company in New York. Dstillery specializes in creating custom audiences for brands to help them find new customers.  Prior to joining Dstillery, Amanda worked at Beanstalk, a brand licensing agency, on brands including HGTV, DIY Network and US Army.  Amanda is passionate about public education and giving back to the community. She graduated with a BA in Psychology and Visual Arts from Union College and is currently pursuing her Master's in elementary education at Hunter College. 

 

Samantha Skey 

     Samantha works with top consumer internet companies to build scalable business models amid rapid growth. As Chief Revenue Officer for Recyclebank, a New York City-based clean web company, she built the company’s advertising and rewards strategy to serve thousands of brands and generate twenty six million in new revenue. Previously, Samantha was Chief Marketing Officer at Passenger, Inc., a social software company providing online community for consumer brands, where she remains an advisor, and served as Executive Vice President of Strategic Marketing for Alloy Inc., where she helped grow the company from under one million to over one hundred million in revenues. Samantha has served in management positions at the Walt Disney Company and CNET and started her digital career at Interactive Imaginations’ award-winning Riddler, one of the web’s first real-time, multi-player, reward-based gaming sites. A frequent presenter and commentator for digital and advertising business and trade media, Samantha lends free time to consult leading organizations in driving social impact through digital engagement. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Hamilton College and is an adviser to YouthNoise, Kuato Studios, GoodSearch, ad:tech and SmartyPants Ltd.

 

Darnley D. Stewart

     Darnley is a partner at the law firm of Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP, specializing in plaintiffs’-side employment work.  Darnley obtained her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. Ms. Stewart joined the Advisory Board in 2007.

 

Joan Sullivan

     The founding principal of the Bronx Academy of Letters, Joan currently serves as Deputy Mayor of Education for Los Angeles. In this role, she oversees the mayor’s education policy agenda, working closely with the superintendent and board president to transform the nation’s second largest school district. She also oversees the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a non-profit turnaround organization that is accelerating student achievement at scale within the district’s lowest performing schools. Before founding Bronx Letters, Joan worked on Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign, documenting her experiences in a memoir, An American Voter (2002). She began her career working for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a NYC agency charged with investigating police misconduct. Joan is a graduate of the Broad Fellowship for Education Leadership; she holds a M.S. in School Leadership and a B.A. in American Studies from Yale College, where she earned All-American honors in lacrosse.

 

Kimberly Witherspoon 

     Kim is a founding partner of InkWell Management, a literary agency. Her clients include Kate Atkinson, Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Lena Dunham, Amity Gaige, Gabrielle Hamilton, Sophie Kinsella, Eloisa James, Peter Meehan,  Julie Orringer,Yotam Ottolenghi, and Lionel Shriver. She has represented several books on education, including Stephen O’Connor’s Will My Name Be Shouted Out: Reaching Inner City Students Through the Power Of Writing and Alife Kohn’s The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and Tougher Standards. A graduate of Brown University, she is a member of the Authors Guild and the editor of two anthologies, including: Don’t Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World’s Greatest Chefs. Kim is a founding member of the Bronx Academy of Letters Advisory Board.