Leadership Category: Private Sector

Meshell Whyte serves in a Private Sector seat representing Homes for Families. Whyte is a Consumer Advocacy Team member with Homes for Families where she advocates for homelessness and other critical programs in the House of Representatives and the Senate on the Mass. State budget agenda for current and future fiscal year budgets. Whyte holds an Associate Degree in Biotechnology/Biomanufacturing,…

Attorney Patricia Groves focuses her practice on governmental affairs, compliance & HIPAA privacy and administrative law. Now in her 20th year of private law practice, she has gained a wide variety of experience representing clients before the Social Security Administration, Workers’ Compensation Board and in the Federal Court system. She has a history of success leading strategic and operational initiatives within…

Vanessa Aguirreche Snow serves in a Private Sector seat representing Greater Boston Labor Council AFL-CIO, where she is a Council Organizer.  Prior to joining the GBLC, Snow worked as a community organizer and youth worker in Jamaica Plain.  She has several years of experience organizing campaigns around affordable housing, health equity, college access and arts education. Snow pursuing her BA…

Samuel (Sam) DePina serves in a Private Sector seat representing Boston Public Schools. DePina is a graduate of Boston Public Schools from the Jeremiah E. Burke High School and has worked for the BPS for the past 19 years. He has served as a high school mathematics teacher and an assistant headmaster, and has served as the operational superintendent since…

Marvin Venay serves in a Private Sector seat representing the Boston NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Venay is an advocate, political analyst, government liaison, public speaker, and recently has become an entrepreneur. Professionally, Venay owns a small business called ‘the Venay Square’ – a fresh and innovative custom pocket square line designed to empower its wearer to…

Reverend Sharyn Halliday serves in a Private Sector seat representing the Black Ministerial Alliance (BMA) of Greater Boston. Reverend Halliday works at BMA as Program Coordinator for Teen Cafes/Youth Jobs, a program that provides jobs and develops peaceful strategies to youth violence in the Boston area. Reverend Halliday is Pastor of Malden Mission African Methodist Episcopal Church. She earned a…

Joan Cirillo serves in a Private Sector seat representing Massachusetts Association of Older Americans. She is President & CEO of Operation A.B.L.E., a non-profit organization that helps job seekers 45 years and older re-enter the workforce. Cirillo spent 13 years as a teacher and consultant in the Chicago Public School system and nine years in increasingly more responsible human resources…

Celia M. Grant serves in a Private Sector seat representing Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM). She is the Vice President of Marketing at AIM and has 17 plus years of multi-industry project management, strategic marketing and creative direction experience. Grant holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Printmaking from Brandeis University.  Grant joined the ABCD Board of Directors…

Caryl Beison serves in a Private Sector seat representing MelroseWakefield Healthcare. As an Executive Leadership Team member there, Beison serves as Vice President, Managed Care and Executive Director of the PHO (Physician Hospital Organization). She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health and has a strong interest in public health as well as understanding the impact of socioeconomic factors on health…