Phoebe Boyer, Board Chairperson
Phoebe Boyer is the Executive Director of the Tiger Foundation and Interim Executive Director of Robertson Foundation, where she is responsible for the overall management of both Foundations.
Prior to joining Tiger, Ms. Boyer identified and secured private funds for The After-School Corporation (TASC), an organization established to enhance the quality and availability of after-school programming. Before joining TASC, Ms. Boyer was the Assistant Executive Director of Inwood House, a social service agency that works with pregnant and parenting teens. While there, she was responsible for the overall administration and financial management of the $6 million multi-service organization. She also has several years of experience in the public and private sectors.
Ms. Boyer received a Bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University. She is a board member at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, and a member of the inaugural class of the Aspen Institute NewSchools Fellowship: Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education.
Ms. Boyer lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Emary Aronson
Emary Aronson is the Managing Director of Education at the Robin Hood Foundation. She is also the managing director of the Robin Hood Relief Fund, a $65 million fund dedicated to addressing the needs of those affected by September 11.
Before joining Robin Hood, Emary was the Director of Education Initiatives at the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce. In this role, she helped develop a $29 million education reform program as well as manage a youth employment program and a school principal management training program.
Prior to her work with the New York City Partnership, Emary taught history and economics at the college level.
Emary holds a BA in History from Smith College, an MSc in Economic History from the London School of Economics, an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, and a PhD in History from the University of Chicago.
Geoffrey Canada
In his 20-plus years with Harlem Children's Zone, Inc., Geoffrey Canada has become nationally recognized for his pioneering work helping children and families in Harlem and as a passionate advocate for education reform.
Mr. Canada joined Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. (then called the Rheedlen Foundation) in 1983, as Education Director. Prior to that, he worked as Director of the Robert White School, a private day school for troubled inner-city youth in Boston. Since 1990, Mr. Canada has been the President and Chief Executive Officer for Harlem Children’s Zone. In 1997, the agency launched the Harlem Children’s Zone Project, which targets a specific geographic area in Central Harlem with a comprehensive range of services. The Zone Project today covers 100 blocks and aims to serve over 10,000 children by 2011.
In 2006, Mr. Canada was selected by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as co-chair of The Commission on Economic Opportunity, and in 2007, he was appointed co-chair of New York State Governor’s Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board. Mr. Canada is also the East Coast Regional Coordinator for the Black Community Crusade for Children.
Mr. Canada received a bachelor of arts degree from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree in education from the Harvard School of Education.
Cecily M. Carson
Cecily M. Carson is president of the Carson Family Charitable Trust. She is also a trustee of The Museum of Arts and Design, Fisher House Foundation and the Excellence Girls and Excellence Boys Charter Schools of Bedford-Stuyvesant; chair of the Robin Hood Foundation's Leadership Council; and a member of the President’s Leadership Council at Dartmouth College, the Advisory Board for Columbia School of Business’s Social Enterprise Program and the NY Public Library’s Library Council
Ms. Carson is a native New Yorker who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1995. She majored in Government, minored in Film and has a certificate in Women's Studies. She spent two years at Andrew Edson & Associates, Inc., a corporate and financial public and investor relations firm in New York. She then studied for two years in the Fashion Institute of Technology's (FIT) Jewelry Design program and started an independent jewelry design business called, CMC Jewelry Designs, Inc.
Recy Dunn
Recy Benjamin Dunn is the Executive Director of the Charter Schools Office at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). In this role, Mr. Dunn is working to implement a portfolio strategy for charter schools in NYC: opening 25 new, high-quality schools a year, while holding all charter schools accountable for their performance. Mr. Dunn previously served as Executive Director of Early Childhood at the NYCDOE, where he managed early childhood initiatives citywide, spanning the birth through grade three continuum with a focus on Universal Prekindergarten. Prior to joining the NYCDOE, Mr. Dunn worked in Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland and before that completed The Broad Residency in Urban Education while at the District of Columbia Public Schools.
Mr. Dunn's earlier work includes establishing the Los Angeles office of Platform Learning Inc., a provider of supplemental educational services. Additionally, Mr. Dunn worked at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), directing the Investment Banking and Asset Management programs where his clients included nine Fortune 100 firms. Prior to joining SEO, Mr. Dunn was an energy trading analyst.
Mr. Dunn completed his School District Leadership program at Bank Street College of Education. He received his Master of Business Administration and Master of Education from Stanford University. Mr. Dunn also earned Marketing and Humanities degrees at the University of Texas at Austin.
Jeffrey Litt
Prior to joining Carl C. Icahn Charter School, Jeffrey Litt was a principal in three New York City Department of Education public schools. While at the Mohegan School in the South Bronx, Mr. Litt adapted E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Program for his Bronx students. He is recognized as a Core Knowledge expert and has trained teachers and administrators throughout the country. Mr. Litt hosted hundreds of educators at the Mohegan School, the second school in the nation to pioneer Core Knowledge. Visitors included administrators from Australia, Great Britain, Italy and Israel. His success in this area has been publicized in educational journals, newspapers and national network television shows. Jeffrey Litt was also noted in the March 1997 issue of The American School Board Journal.
Joseph Reich
Mr. Reich, along with his wife, Carol, is the co-founder of the Beginning with Children Foundation. He was a founder of the New York Charter School Center and served as its Chairman until December, 2007. He was formerly the managing general partner of Centennial Associates and Centennial Energy Partners, L.P., investment partnerships.
He was the founder of Reich & Tang, Inc. in 1970, a leading investment management firm. He served as president until 1987 and Chairman of the Board of Directors until 1989. Additionally, he was a co-sponsor, with his wife, of an “I Have A Dream” Foundation class of 62 Brooklyn children and serves as a trustee of Continuum Health Partners and the New York City Investment Fund.
He received a B.A. in Economics from Cornell University and an M.B.A from Stanford University.
Rossana Rosado
Rossana Rosado has spent many of her twenty seven years in the New York media at El Diario La Prensa. She has been Publisher and CEO since 1999, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the oldest Spanish-language newspaper in the country where she is responsible for over $22 million in annual revenue. She was recently named Director of Corporate Civic Empowerment Initiatives and Community Journalism Projects for ImpreMedia.
Prior to becoming publisher Ms. Rosado was Editor in Chief of the paper where she also worked as a journalist in the early 80’s. She was the first woman to hold that position at the now 95 year old paper.
During her media career, Ms. Rosado has been a reporter at El Diario-La Prensa where she covered The Bronx, City Hall, and wrote a weekly column. In 1988, she joined WPIX, Inc. as a producer of Public Affairs programming. She was later promoted to Public Service Director, responsible for the creation and placement of hundreds of Public Service Announcements on the air. She won an Emmy in 1992 for the production of a series of PSA’s featuring organizations which helped children.
She currently serves on the board of The Innocence Project, and the New York Women’s Foundation, Repertorio Español, 100 Hispanic Women of Westchester and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
Ms. Rosado is married and the mother of two children – ages 15 and 18. She received her B.A. in Journalism from Pace University in White Plains, New York.
Dennis Walcott
Dennis M. Walcott is Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. As Chancellor, Walcott oversees a system of almost 1,700 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees, and a $23 billion budget. Building on Mayor Bloomberg’s Children First reforms, Chancellor Walcott is committed to cultivating teacher talent; expanding school choices for families so that students attend schools that best meet their individual needs; creating strong partnerships with parents; and preparing students to graduate from high school and succeed in college and careers.
Prior to his appointment as Chancellor, Walcott served as Mayor Bloomberg’s Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development for more than eight years. In that capacity, he oversaw and coordinated the operations of the Department of Education, the New York City Housing Authority, the Department of Youth and Community Development and the Mayor’s Office of Adult Education.
As a kindergarten teacher in the childcare center where he began his career, Chancellor Walcott recognized the need for a male role model in many of the children’s lives, and in 1975, he founded the Frederick Douglass Brother-to-Brother program, a mentoring program for young boys. Before joining the Bloomberg Administration in 2002, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Urban League where for more than 12 years he expanded educational and youth service programs including Jeter’s Leaders and Bridge to Brotherhood programs, Healthy Start, Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, and the 140th Street Building Block Program. He was previously the Executive Director of the Harlem Dowling Westside Center where he expanded services to children and families.
Chancellor Walcott graduated from New York City public schools in Queens, including P.S. 36, I.S. 192, and Francis Lewis High School.