GOVERNING BOARD
Maxine Friedman – Board Chair
Senior Vice President Growth, Bionic Solution
Maxine has 20+ years of strategic partnerships, business development and marketing experience at agency, startup and Fortune 500 companies. She currently leads Talent and Business Development for Bionic, an innovation and entrepreneurial practice helping the world’s largest companies launch new businesses. For five years, Maxine was Vice President of Partnerships at Clickable, where she was a part of the founding management team. She holds a B.S. in Journalism from California State Polytechnic University and an MBA from both Columbia University and London Business School and began her career at Cunningham Communication, a Silicon-Valley branding/PR agency, where she built and managed holistic communications programs for some of the largest technology brands – including, Oracle, Motorola and eSchwab (Charles Schwab)
Maxine, her husband, and two children live in the Meatpacking in NYC.
CAROLYN ROSSI COPELAND
Executive Producer
Carolyn Rossi Copeland founded Award-winning Lambs Theatre in 1978 where she was Producing Director until 1997. She produced and housed over 50 Off-Broadway plays and musicals, includingCotton Patch Gospel, Painting Churches, The Boys Next Door and the first revival of GODSPELL. She nurtured the talents of Mark St. Germain’s and Randy Courts’ The Gifts of the Magi and Johnny Pye, Andrew Lippa’s and Tom Greenward’s jon and jen and Horton Foote’s directing The Roads to Home starring the late Jean Stapleton. www.lambstheatre.org. She was VP of Creative Affairs Radio City Entertainment/MSG, where she oversaw the Broadway reincarnation of The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Wizard of Oz tour and A Christmas Carol. She returned to reopen The Lambs after 9/11 until it was sold in 2006. She produced the hit Freud’s Last Session which played NYC for 2 years, and Chicago. Amazing Grace has been in development since 2007. She’s thankful for the gift of leading this team. All good gifts come from heaven above for Jamie, Beatrice, Marion, Eugenia, Margaret and Colin.
Nelson Mills
President, Columbia Property Trust
Nelson has more than 30 years of experience in the real estate investment and financial services industries. He is responsible for overall strategy, operations, and financial performance of Columbia Property Trust, a $6 billion public real estate owner/operator. He also serves as a director on the Columbia Board. Prior to joining Columbia in 2010, he served for five years as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Williams Realty Advisors, LLC, managing and advising a series of real estate investment funds. Previous roles included CFO of Lend Lease Real Estate Investments and Partner at KPMG LLP. He received a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee and an M.B.A. from the University of Georgia. Nelson and his wife, Judy, live adjacent to Madison Square Park in New York City.
Patrick Murphy
President, John Hancock Financial Services | CEO, New York Life Retirement Plan Services
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Patrick has spent the past 25 years in the financial services industry helping companies and their employees achieve financial security. He is currently the President of John Hancock Retirement Plan Services. Pat has also spent significant personal time as a coach and mentor, helping young people realize their potential on and off the athletic fields. He became a believer in the Many Hopes mission after meeting Thomas for lunch in 2012. He was a private donor and helped with fundraising before joining the board.
Joseph Zito
Founder, (X)form Coaching and Consulting
Joseph is an Elite-Performance Strategist dedicated to transforming professional lives of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity into realities of clarity, control, calm, and continuous improvement. He previously spent 20 years in the corporate realm, serving as an operating executive in both early-stage startups (including two successful exits) and large global enterprises. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his amazing wife and their two incredible children.
Becky Welday – Board Treasurer
Becky grew up in Texas and graduated from Baylor University with degrees in Economics and Finance in 1990. A former credit analyst and commercial lender at Bank of America, Becky stopped working in order to stay home with children, Richard and Layne. She met her husband, Rick, at Baylor and got married shortly after graduation. The Weldays have lived all over the world including periods in Switzerland, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Saint Louis, and all over Texas. Her extra time is spent volunteering with churches and other organizations and she enjoys reading, traveling, cooking, and spending time with family and friends.
UK GOVERNING TRUSTEES
David Scott
Alice Scott