About the LaGuardia Community College Foundation
Since 2003, the LaGuardia Community College Foundation has raised more than $45 million for scholarships, stipends, emergency aid, and on-campus employment aimed at enhancing student success.
LAGCC Foundation Board members can access the
Foundation Board SharePoint.
Kenneth Adams was appointed President of LaGuardia Community College by the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York on June 29, 2020, and assumed the role on August 17, 2020. Previously, he was dean of workforce and economic development at Bronx Community College (BCC) from 2016, leading the departments of Adult and Continuing Education, Workforce Development, Career Services, Community and Economic Development, and the Center for Sustainable Energy.
Charles Boyce is Founder and President of Boyce Technologies, which specializes in engineering and manufacturing solutions for public safety and security communications systems such as MTA Help Points. Lately, Boyce Technologies was ranked as #3 of NY’s top-manufacturing and #16 of NY’s fastest-growing companies, and never stops breaking records. Recently, Mr. Boyce having been heard saying ‘we can build anything’, led Boyce Technologies as the only non-medical equipment producing company in the country to mass produce FDA approved ventilators in time for when they were needed. Prior to Boyce Technologies, he served as COO of Transit Technologies, Inc. where he designed integrated security and communications systems. He also serves on the executive board of the Long Island City Partnership and the Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation Council.
Joel Glasky is an investment banker with over 40 years of experience in the capital markets arena. His career has included senior management roles at leading investment banking firms including JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Citibank. His most recent role was heading capital markets at Financo, a boutique investment banking firm catering to the consumer sector. He is currently a senior advisor and consultant to early stage businesses. Mr. Glasky serves on the Board of the Harvard Business School Club of NY where he co-heads the Nominating and Governance Committee.
Ernest M. von Simson, Treasurer
Ernest von Simson is a Trustee of The New York Landmark Conservancy, Landmark West, and a charitable foundation in Hawaii. Mr. von Simson is also co-founder of the Research Board. He earned his MBA from New York University, and his articles have appeared in the Atlantic, Computerworld, Harvard Business Review, and many other publications. He is the author of “The Limits of Strategy” which recounts recurring turmoil in the IT sector.
Priscilla Alexander is a retired executive and entrepreneur who built her own successful travel business in New York called Protravel International. Over the years, Ms. Alexander has served on several advisory boards for the retail travel industry and has been frequently recognized by Travel + Leisure magazine in its A-List issue. She is also the 2009 recipient of a Travel Weekly Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sara Darehshori is a principal at Vestry Laight LLC, which partners with organizations confronting misconduct to create healthy and respectful work environments. Prior to founding Vestry Laight, Darehshori was senior counsel at Human Rights Watch where she researched and advocated on issues relating to the handling of sexual assault cases in the United States.
Before joining Human Rights Watch, Darehshori worked as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where she prosecuted the first case establishing rape as a war crime in an international court. Darehshori previously worked as a litigator in New York at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and in 2016 was appointed by President Obama to serve on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.
Marlene Debel is MetLife’s Chief Risk Officer and a member of the Executive Group. Prior to this role, she was Executive Vice President and Head of Retirement & Income Solutions. Other roles at MetLife include Chief Financial Officer of MetLife’s US businesses and Treasurer. Before joining MetLife in 2011, she was global head of liquidity risk management at Bank of America. She started her career at Merrill Lynch where she spent twenty years, most recently as Assistant Treasurer. Ms. Debel is on the board of Raymond James Financial and the Women’s Forum of New York.
Jeffrey Fine is a partner in the Real Estate Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he helps oversee the firm’s real estate investing activities globally. He also leads the firm's real estate capital raising and strategy efforts within the Alternatives Capital Markets & Strategy Group. Jeffrey joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2002, was named managing director in 2012 and partner in 2018. He is a member of the Cornell University Council, the Dyson School Advisory Council, the Real Assets Sub-Committee of the Cornell University Endowment and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jay Golan has spent more than three decades in nonprofit management. In his most recent position as Vice President for Advancement for the CUNY Graduate Center and Executive Director of the Graduate Center Foundation he was responsible for all private philanthropy funneled through this supporting foundation and for a 20-member Foundation Board. Earlier in his career, Jay was at Carnegie Hall for 16 years, leaving as Senior Director with responsibility for the Hall’s development, education, licensing, merchandising and strategic planning activities. He has also been Director of Development for WNYC and later led the Campaign to transition WQXR , New York’s premier classical music radio station, from the New York Times to New York Public Radio. Jay has held a variety of development positions and consultancies at The New York Public Library; The World Bank Links for Development Program; the American Museum of Natural History; the Manhattan School of Music; and others. He is a graduate of Harvard University and of the Columbia University School of Business. and cycles or takes the G train to LaGuardia to and from Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Sunil Gupta (VP of Adult & Continuing Education)
Sunil B. Gupta has 25 years of experience in higher education and is currently the VP of Adult Continuing Education & Workforce Development at LaGuardia. He previously held this role at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, where he oversaw more than $18.2 million in workforce training grants. VP Gupta is currently on the Boards of COMBASE and The Hispanic Educational Technology Services, and was past Board President of the National Council for Continuing Education & Training.
Rachel Hines is a former Managing Director at J.P.Morgan where she ran the Emerging Markets Capital Markets group. She is currently an investor in women-founded ventures through Plum Alley Investments, the Managing Partner of MRH Capital, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is Co-Chair of the Board of TechnoServe, an international development organization that works with small business owners and farmers to increase incomes and create lasting change. She is a former Trustee of Sesame Workshop where she chaired the Investment and Finance committees, and Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy where she was Treasurer. Rachel is also a founding member of the AllinBklyn giving circle in Brooklyn, where she is a long time resident.
Nicolas Nicolaou is the CFO of Max Finkelstein Inc. Previously he has served as the CFO of Mana Products and CFO of the Pepsi/Lipton Partnership at Unilever. Mr. Nicolaou started his career at Deloitte & Touche in New York after immigrating to the United States from Larnaca, Cyprus. He is currently the president of the Cyprus-US Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit organization with the mission of promoting trade between the US and Cyprus.
Suzie Scanlon Rabinowitz, Esq.
Suzie Scanlon Rabinowitz is Founder and Managing Partner of SRD Legal Group which is a women-owned virtual law firm working with high performing military spouse attorneys stationed around the globe. Suzie co-founded Bliss Lawyers in 2011, a virtual secondment firm employing high caliber attorneys to work on an engagement basis which was acquired by Axiom in 2020. Prior to joining the virtual law firm world she worked as a traditional lawyer at the law firms Sullivan & Cromwell and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. She also worked at the NASD (predecessor to FINRA) and in the New York State Executive Chamber of Governor Mario M. Cuomo as a Press Aide. She currently serves as a Trustee of NJ LEEP and on the Leadership Advisory Board of The Ridgefield Playhouse. She is also the founding board chairperson of the Danbury Hospital Associate Board.
Yifei Shen is Senior Vice President in the Capital Management team in Treasury at Citigroup. Mr. Shen immigrated to the United States from Shanghai China and attended LaGuardia Community College, where he learned English and majored in Accounting. While at LaGuardia, Mr. Shen was in the first cohort of President's Society and won the New York State Community College Math Contest in 2012 and 2013. He graduated from Columbia University where he studied Financial Economics, and started his career in Citigroup in 2016.
Eric Slovin is a writer and producer, working as an executive producer of Comedy Central's critically acclaimed, Broad City. Since 2006, he has served as Head Writer and Co-Executive Producer of Comedy Central’s (more recently HBO’s) Night of Too Many Stars, hosted by Jon Stewart to raise funds for autism education and programs. Mr. Slovin serves on the board of CASA-NYC, which advocates for children in New York City foster care.