Richard (Dick) Jay
Founder & Chair
Richard Jay joined the board of The Child Center in 1998 and was President from 2009 to 2023. He currently serves as the Founder & Chair of Make An Impact. He is the chairman and principal of Port City Air in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He is the former president and chairman of Display Technologies LLC (located in College Point, Queens), which he sold in 2008 and is now owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Prior to this, Dick served as a senior marketing executive for many major companies. He received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and his MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Chicago. He lives in Connecticut and Manhattan with his wife and is a proud father of two daughters and grandfather of four.
Barbara Mulvee
Vice Chair
Barbara brings two decades of executive leadership in strategy, transformation, and scaling businesses. She serves as the Vice Chair of Make An Impact Board and is a member of The Child Center of NY Board, where she chairs the Strategic Planning Committee. Barbara is currently Head of Grants Management at Bloomberg Philanthropies. She previously led Business Development at Citation Capital and was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse, where she held multiple roles over her 12-year tenure, including Global COO of Securities Research and Head of Strategy for the Global Markets division. She started her career at Deloitte Consulting.
Barbara was appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2020 and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Academy of St. Elizabeth. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business and Marketing, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Maryland
Kris Amato-Aliani
Treasurer & Board Member
Kris Amato is a relationship-driven, commercial lending specialist with over 25 years of experience. Her deep understanding of business operations and efficient processes makes Kris a trusted advisor to business owners and top-level executives seeking holistic financial guidance. Kris's knowledge of treasury management, supply chain, trade cycles, FX, and lending options enables her to design solutions that empower businesses to thrive and succeed in a dynamic market.
Kris started her career with JP Morgan Chase where she was formally credit trained and earned a Moody’s Lending Certification during her eight years with HSBC Bank. In addition to her expertise in Commercial and Industrial lending, Kris provided commercial real estate financing during her 9-year tenure with TD Bank. Currently, Kris serves as an SVP, Senior Relationship Manager with City National Bank in the Commercial, Middle Market Division of the NY office and works between Melville and Manhattan.
Kris expresses her passion for helping others as a mentor to other female professionals, as a volunteer for several charities including her 9 years as a board member for The Child Center of NY. Kris is inspired by her young daughter and son and her supportive husband. She is actively involved in her children’s school events, church, and coaching youth athletics.
Joe Di Salvo
Board Member
Joseph Di Salvo is the founder and managing partner of Di Salvo Howard PLLC (formerly Di Salvo Group PLLC), a boutique law practice that primarily serves as general counsel to private equity-backed businesses focused exclusively on small and middle-markets competing in a wide variety of industries. The firm works closely with its portfolio companies’ founders, management teams, and boards to accelerate growth and maximize enterprise value, providing legal support and guidance concerning the critical functions of its clients’ businesses, including corporate governance, finance, operations, regulatory compliance, marketing, sales, intellectual property, human resources, and dispute resolution. Current and former portfolio companies include, Drunk Elephant® Skincare, Sun Bum®, babyganics®, Briogeo®, Quest Nutrition®, The Honey Pot Company®, Kosas®, KIND® Snacks, Pretzel Crisps®, Pirate’s Booty®, Spindrift®, Vega®, Junkless®, MedPower®, and Pet Life Unlimited®, among others. Prior to forming the firm, Joe was vice president and general counsel for Glaceau, Inc., maker of vitaminwater® and smartwater®, where he played an integral role in the development and execution of the company’s growth and exit strategy to the Coca-Cola Company, which purchased Glaceau in 2007 for $4.1 billion.
Joe began his professional career as a trial attorney with the law firm of McCarter & English, LLP, where he was a founding member of the firm's New York Office, and helped lead the firm's expansion into the New York marketplace, eventually becoming the youngest partner elected in the 165-year history of the firm.
Joe has also served as a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business for the last 7+ years, teaching Professional Responsibility & Leadership, a course centered around the lessons of understanding the importance of business ethics, stakeholder considerations, and the value of personal resilience and moral integrity, as he hopes to inspire future generations of business leaders and titans of industry to be not only good businesspeople, but also good people in business. Recently, Joe produced and directed his first film, a documentary entitled Bronx Socrates, which is a tribute to Joe’s mentor and dear friend Professor Bob Gurland. The film had its worldwide film festival premiere in the Long Beach International Film Festival.
Born and raised in Middle Village, Queens, Joe now lives on Long Island with his wife Tina, two children, Matthew and Mia, and their beloved dog, Finn. He considers himself the luckiest man alive.
Angeli Achrekar
Board Member
Angeli Achrekar is the Deputy Executive Director of the Programme Branch at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Prior to joining UNAIDS in January 2023, Ms Achrekar served as the Principal Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Over the past 20 years with the U.S. government and PEPFAR, she has held prominent positions helping to lead the largest global health effort of the U.S. government to ensure life-saving HIV prevention and treatment services to millions of people around the globe and strengthen health and community systems across 50 countries.
She is a passionate public servant, dedicated to advancing global health and development, across sectors, especially for women and girls. Angeli brings to the position extensive leadership and management experience in HIV/AIDS and public health. Over the years, she has helped evolve the program for more person-centered care, protecting and increasing HIV/AIDS gains while also capacitating countries for broader healthcare delivery. Her deep program, policy and partnership development experience at the global and country levels has cultivated strong multi-sectoral partnerships for large-scale and transformational impact, fundamental to ending the AIDS pandemic. She holds a Doctorate of Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Public Health from Yale University, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Marathi. Angeli is married and the mother of beloved twin daughters. She loves poetry and nature. An unrelenting champion for health and rights for all, she believes in the power of service and partnership for change.
Charlotte Bolland
Board Member
Charlotte is Regional Vice Chair (Europe) for the UNICEF International Council and chairs the Youth Taskforce (an initiative within UNICEF's International Council which focuses on empowering youth and young people around the world). Charlotte is on the board of the Child and Youth Friendly Governance Project (https://childfriendlygovernance.org), an international non-profit which aims to put young people at the heart of decision making.
Charlotte co-founded Solutions Research in 2001 (www.solutions-research.co.uk), a research consultancy which gives strategy and branding advice to both government departments and commercial companies. Charlotte was Vice President of the board of the Child Center of New York for 7 years and was involved with Pilotlight, a mentoring charity in the UK, for 4 years. Charlotte was also on the partnerships board at The Roundhouse, a UK charity which provides young people with skills in the creative arts for 4 years.
Charlotte graduated with a degree in psychology from Cardiff University. Charlotte currently lives in London with her husband Peter, 2 cats and 1 dog (and her 3 young people when they decide to come home!).
Roger Braunfeld
Board Member
Roger J. Braunfeld is a founding partner at Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld LLC. He focuses on financing and development strategies and transactions for investors and a wide array of businesses in various stages of development. Among other things, Roger’s practice encompasses fund formation, private equity and venture capital transactions, debt and equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and corporate restructurings, as well as a range of business and commercial transactions, agreements, and general business counseling. His clients include, single-family offices, multi-family offices, fin-tech businesses, public and private companies, private funds, tech businesses, and other types of companies and businesses. Roger is also actively involved in strategic opportunities for the firm, including the creation of an alternative investment platform that has deployed more than $400M. Roger is a founding member of the PA 30 Day Fund, chairman of the Board of ESF Dreamcamp, and a trustee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Roger has been recognized by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers asa Rising Star and selected by the Philadelphia Business Journal as a Forty Under 40 honoree. Roger earned his J. D. From Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in 1999 after earning his B.A. from Bucknell University in 1995.
As a former general counsel to several companies, Roger offers clients an enhanced perspective grounded in both legal and business considerations. He leverages this experience to deliver practical advice that addresses the challenges, pressures, and objectives that companies face on a daily basis.
Jeff Brown
Board Member
Jeffrey Brown, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at TriNetX and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School (HMS), is an internationally recognized expert in the use of real-world data to support the evidentiary needs of regulatory agencies and medical product sponsors and an expert in the assessment of data quality of real-world data resources. He focuses on the value of collaborative research with an emphasis on federated networks. He has expertise in assessing the fitness-for-use of real-world data and matching questions to methods to data to generate robust evidence. Dr. Brown has over 25 years of experience facilitating large-scale, multi-institutional observational research through use of distributed health data networks to support a learning health system and the use of electronic health data to support decision-making.
In his previous role as Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School he served as the Lead Data Scientist for the FDA Sentinel Operations Center and as a member of the Sentinel Operations Center Executive Committee, Principal Investigator of the analytic coordinating center for Innovation in Medical Evidence Development and Surveillance program and the Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Consortium. While at Harvard he also served as Principal Investigator of several industry-sponsored multi-site pharmacoepidemiologic studies to support FDA and EMA regulatory requirements. Dr. Brown holds a master’s degree in economics from Tufts University and a PhD in Social Policy from Brandeis University.
Melanie Jay
Board Member
Melanie Jay, MD, MS is a Professor of Medicine and Population Health at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and an expert on obesity. She is a general internist and a board certified obesity specialist who sees patients at the New York Harbor Veterans Health Administration in Manhattan. She Co-Directs the VETCARE Center for Innovation at the New York Harbor VA, which supports health services research. She serves as Director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity Research and Director of Research Collaboration and Mentorship for the Division of General Internal Medicine. She is passionate about mentoring trainees at all levels, especially those from groups that are underrepresented in science and medicine. She runs a program through the NYU CTSI called STEPPS focused on mentoring and training the next generation of scientists and physicians. Her research focuses on improving the treatment and prevention of obesity and addressing health disparities, particularly in primary care settings.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health and Veterans Affairs, she is/has been PI or MPI on 4 large obesity-related behavioral clinical trials and several smaller studies. She has published over 100 peer reviewed articles in top scientific journals. Her work and commentary has been featured on Oprah Daily, CBS News, Hill TV, New York Times, NBC Today Show, and other media outlets and publications. She recently did a TEDx talk about the future of obesity care that was featured as an Editor’s Pick.
Linda Rosenberg
Board Member
Linda Rosenberg exemplifies how cross-sector collaboration creates systemic change. Currently advising organizations including Empactful Capital and serving on boards of Netsmart Technologies, Triad Behavioral Health, and Pyramid Healthcare, she bridges technology, finance, and healthcare innovation.
As President and CEO of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing (2004-2019), Linda grew membership to 3,300+ organizations and increased revenue 30-fold through strategic partnerships across government, philanthropy, and industry. Her achievements include securing federal parity legislation and scaling Mental Health First Aid to over 2 million Americans.
From establishing frontline crisis centers to overseeing New York State’s mental health system as Senior Deputy Commissioner to creating national policy through CCBHCs, Linda brings an unmatched perspective on leveraging innovation and capital to solve infrastructure challenges. She’ll share pragmatic, tested strategies for turning bold ideas into measurable impact at scale.
Laura Yenchman
Board Member
Laura Yenchman, Esq. is a seasoned attorney with over fifteen years of litigation experience. A graduate of Brooklyn Law School, where she earned multiple academic honors including the CALI Excellence for the Future Award and the Public Interest Silver Award, Laura has built her career around advocating for underrepresented communities. This began during Laura’s tenure at the New York State Division of Human Rights.
Throughout her career, Laura has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in complex medical malpractice and employment matters, giving her a balanced perspective on the legal and ethical dimensions of patient care and employment practices. She currently serves as a Claims Attorney at Gallagher Bassett, where she oversees the litigation of hundreds of professional liability claims from inception through resolution, coordinating with hospital systems, defense counsel, and insurers to ensure equitable outcomes.
Additionally, Laura frequently consults with startups in the legal and mental health fields, offering guidance on compliance, risk management, and strategic growth. Her insight helps emerging organizations navigate complex regulatory landscapes while maintaining a strong ethical foundation.
Passionate about public service, she brings her legal expertise and commitment to justice to Make An Impact, helping advance the organization’s mission to serve the community with compassion and accountability.