(Click names for bios)

Business Planning: John Cronin, Chuck Holland, Diane Lynch

Idea Development/Feasibility: TJ Sondermann, Alan Harlam, Phoebe Salten, Sandra Enos

Financial Planning and Strategy: Mike Chase

Social Enterprise Structure/Legal Issues: Susan Keller, Toby Lederberg

Marketing: Ellen Donahue-Dalton

Outreach and Social Media: Ann-Marie Harrington

Metrics/Performance Evaluation: Melindah Sharma

Strategy: Thomas Brendler, Stan DeAngelis, Tony Silbert

 

Bios

Lorne Adrain

Lorne Adrain is a co-founder of SVPRI and served as chair for several years. He is highly engaged in philanthropy - author of a book series raising money to support community needs (www.adrain.com), founder of National Neighborhood Day, RI Foundation's "Inspiring Partner of 2005" and winner of Northwestern Mutual Life's community service award "Most Exceptional Volunteer" in the nation. Lorne serves on multiple boards including Harvard Business School, Big Picture Schools and the Business Innovation Factory. He earned his BS at University of Rhode Island and his MBA at Harvard. He is the founder of several technology firms and owns a national insurance and investment practice focused on sophisticated investors and successful entrepreneurs.

Thomas Brendler

Thomas Brendler is an associate at Bernuth & Williamson, a consulting firm that helps large nonprofits with strategy and positioning, managing change, and marketing and communications. The firm’s diverse clients include the Smithsonian, the Nature Conservancy, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Population Services International, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. He is also a founder and Director of Marketing at Leotus, a Providence-based start-up that was recently graduated from BetaSpring’s venture capital “boot camp,” and featured in Mass High Tech and xEconomy. Over more than a decade Thomas built and managed the National Network of Forest Practitioners, an association of non profits, small businesses, agencies and researchers working on community-based economic development and collaborative natural resource management. Under his leadership, NNFP launched a cutting-edge $4 million participatory research program, and became the first national conservation organization to create a cultural diversity program. Thomas was also Executive Director at Groundwork Providence, which provides environmental education and job training to low-income youth and unemployed adults across the city. He was a delegate at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, where he co-founded a global coalition of peasants, communities, and indigenous peoples.  He holds a Master’s Degree in Forestry from Yale and B.A. in English from Tufts.

Mike Chase

Mike Chase has been an SVPRI partner since 2004, and is an advisory team member for Amos House. He also volunteers with several area nonprofits. Mike is a Stanford Busines School graduate and a founder of Health Business Partners, a merger and acquisition firm serving the healthy living space. Mike also co-founded Ethnic Business Partners to provide advisory services for businesses approaching the Hispanic market. Mike is currently the COO of Rex Capital Advisors, a financial advisory firm located in Providence.

John Cronin

John Cronin is the State Director of the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University.  The Center provides counseling, training, networking and advocacy services to help Rhode Island’s entrepreneurs and businesses owners succeed.  In July 2006, John started-up the operation by engaging a core service team of nine professionals with a business development network that extends the full support of Johnson & Wales faculty, students and resource partners to Rhode Island’s business owners and aspiring business owners.

The Center’s core services include business planning and market development projects that help clients secure capital, increase sales, and manage best practices.   Working with more than 5,00 entrepreneurs over the past two years has produced significant results: $92.5M in total client sales; $15.3M in total capital assets; 1,020 total jobs and an estimated $5.79M in tax payments.

Prior to his current leadership role with Johnson & Wales University, he was the CEO of RIMES (RI Manufacturing Extension Services), Executive Director of the Greater Rhode Island Regional Employment and Training Board, the Director of Operations for the Economic Innovation Center in Newport, a Town Planner in North Kingstown and a Truck Loader/Union Steward with UPS.   He is a graduate of Brown University, and holds a BA degree in Economics. He also holds a Masters in Community Planning from the University of Rhode Island

Stanley DeAngelis

Stanley DeAngelis, AIA,  is President of DeAngelis Business Development, LLC, a company dedicated to "Growing Businesses Inside and Out". He creates business opportunities for his clients, primarily in the service industry with a concentration in the construction field, and helps them engage and focus their employees.

Prior to forming DeAngelis Business Development in 2009, Stan was Principal and Founder of WorkPlace Dynamics, Inc an eleven year old company dedicated to creating dynamic organizations that thrive; where employees are fully engaged in the business of the organization and feel more connected to their work. There his primary focus was on business development and employee engagement, for both WPD and its clients.

Stan was also the founder and managing partner of Vision III Architects which he sold in 1998 to create WorkPlace Dynamics. Stan has been active in the community for over 20 years chairing and serving on many boards including Leadership Rhode Island, East Providence Chamber of Commerce, and Groundwerx Dance Theatre.

Ellen Donahue-Dalton

Ellen Donahue-Dalton is a 20-year marketing executive with experience in global and start-up organizations. Currently the head of Dalton Marketing Group, which helps high-growth organizations define and meet their marketing objectives, Ellen provides executive-level market planning and programming services to non-profit organizations, as well as to clients nationally in healthcare, entertainment, and technology/services industries. Prior to DMG, she was VP, Worldwide Marketing and divisional President of GTECH Corporation, a global services provider. A member of the Delta II class of Leadership RI, Ellen has a BS from Dickinson College, an MS from Boston University and has done post-graduate work at Wharton. Ellen served on the board of the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children – the largest community shelter in the Southeast – and helped launch Dress for Success – Seattle.

Sandra Enos

Sandra Enos, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bryant University where she coordinates the service learning program. Dr. Enos is the author of several articles on community-university partnerships and the pedagogy of service-learning. Dr. Enos has taught courses in philanthropy and serves on several boards in Rhode Island. She is currently researching the history of child welfare in the state and working with several agencies to bring that history to the public.

Alan Harlam

Alan Harlam is the Director of Social Entrepreneurship at Brown University which provides resources, networking and funding to support student initiatives on and off campus. Recently, he has helped launch a catering business that rebuilds lives through training and employment experience and provides income to support much needed services to the poor and homeless in South Providence. Prior to his career as a social entrepreneur, he provided capital and turnaround management to financially distressed companies.

Bari A. Harlam

Bari A. Harlam is Vice President, Pharmacy Marketing and Customer Experience at CVS Caremark. Bari has also served on the faculty at the University of Rhode Island and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. She has published in a variety of journals including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, the International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Journal of Business Research. She holds undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School. Bari lives in Providence, RI with her husband, Alan and 3 children.

Ann-Marie Harrington

Ann-Marie Harrington founded Embolden in 1998, drawing on her background in business, technology and in the community foundation world.

Ann-Marie has grown Embolden into a premier web development, design and consulting firm specializing in community foundations and nonprofit organizations. Through Embolden, she offers an unmatched expertise in new and emerging Internet technology, highly personalized service, and deep first-hand knowledge of the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. She understands the need to build online communities using social networking technologies, to engage donors and constituents, and make operations more efficient.

Ann-Marie, named the RI Small Business Person of the Year in 2009 by the U.S. Small Business Administration, earned both a degree in business administration from Bryant University and a Master of Social Work degree from Rhode Island College. As an adjunct professor at Rhode Island College, she has taught courses in computer skills and developed and taught a course about information technology in social work practice. Ann-Marie frequently gives workshops to nonprofit organizations and community foundations on engaging donors and constituents via social media tools and applications.

A three-time winner of The Sloan Award, designed to highlight companies that have made real commitments to workplace flexibility, Embolden contributes both financial donations and in-kind services to local organizations. In addition, Ann-Marie lends her time to various social service agencies and schools in Rhode Island and speaks to groups about social issues she cares about. She brings a sense of social engagement to her company and staff, encouraging their interests and commitments.

Ann-Marie is a board member of Youth Pride Inc.; is on the Equity Action Campaign Committee (a fund of the Rhode Island Foundation); on the National Alumni Council at Bryant University; a member of the Rhode Island College School of Management Advisory Board; a member of Social Venture Partners RI; a Rhode Island Business Plan competition sponsor and judge; and a Brown Forum for Enterprise partner.

Chuck Holland

Chuck Holland is the board chair of Social Venture Partners Rhode Island; the advisory board chair of The Hanson Initiative for Language and Literacy, a Trustee of the International Yacht Restoration School, and a volunteer boat keeper at the Museum of Yachting in Newport. He is currently the project champion for the Rhode Island Literacy Project which will demonstrate the ability to teach all of our children to read by 3rd grade. Chuck combines his 25 years of high tech business experience with 7 years of intensive non-profit work to deliver imaginative strategic thinking for the emerging field of social enterprise.

Susan A. Keller

Susan A. Keller is Secretary of the SVPRI Board, chairs the SVPRI Investment Committee, works on multiple SVPRI Engagement Teams, and serves on several advisory boards. She is a partner at Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge LLP, specializing in corporate and private venture capital. She is a co-founder of the Women's Association of Venture & Equity, frequently counsels women entrepreneurs, and received the 2002 Women in Business Advocate of the Year award.

Toby Lederberg

Toby Lederberg is a member of the Board of Directors. He is a partner at the law firm of Lederberg & Black, focusing his practice in the area of corporate law, with extensive experience representing investors and companies in a variety of U.S. and international business transactions, both public and private, including leveraged buyout financings and venture capital investments. Toby also has substantial experience with mergers and acquisitions, dispositions, securities offerings, workouts, corporate governance matters and reorganization of business enterprises.

Diane Lynch

Diane Lynch joined SVPRI in June 2009 and has been lending her business consulting services to Amos House's "More than a Meal" catering business. Diane bring with her a career of business experience in the food & retail industries. She holds a BA from Brandeis University and an BMA from Boston University. Her public service experience includes education, municipal planning and trnasportation alternatives. Diane, her husband Jim and their three children reside in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

Melindah Sharma

Melindah Sharma is a Rhode Island native and consultant to global non-profit initiatives and organizations, Melindah Sharma, has joined SVPRI as an associate partner and operational consultant. She is currently providing support to three engagements with Newport’s Maher Center (www.mahercenter.org), The Institute for the Study and Practice of Non-Violence and Cookie Place. Melindah, a product development consultant to pharmaceutical companies, is also providing operational expertise to SVPRI to improve engagement quality and build core partner tools and resources. Melindah is a graduate of Harvard University.

Phoebe Salten

Phoebe Salten is President/CEO of High Street Properties, llc, a small enterprise that owns and manages rental real estate, primarily in the City of Providence. Phoebe is Chair of the School Board Nominating Commission for the City of Providence and a member of the Gift Planning and Stewardship Committee of the RI Foundation.

Phoebe holds an M. Ed from Harvard School of Education and a JD from Harvard Law School.  A resident of Providence, Phoebe’s social interests include education, the welfare of children in general, and support for the arts.

TJ Sondermann

TJ Sondermann is the Program Director for Betaspring (http://betaspring.com) a mentorship-driven startup accelerator in Providence RI. He is also a member of the Aptus Collaborative, a Providence-based, global consulting firm specializing in taking new products and services to market.

Jen Hetzel Silbert

Jen Hetzel Silbert serves as a Principal of Innovation Partners International. She is a consultant, trainer, facilitator, and author supporting public, private, and social profit organizations in the US and around the world. Jen specializes in teaching and applying Appreciative Inquiry and other strength-based, participative approaches to change, with particular focus on strategic planning, alliance building, stakeholder engagement, process innovation, workforce development, leadership, and community and family development.

Tony Silbert

Tony Silbert, a Principal and co-founder of Innovation Partners International, has nearly 20 years of experience in organization development, change leadership consulting, and training. His primary areas of emphasis include strengths-based and participatory approaches to large-scale change, strategic planning, organization design, innovation, and teaming/collaboration. He works with social profit, private and public sector organizations in a variety of industries, including: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the RI Dept of Education, Sprint-Nextel, Points of Light Foundation, and the U.S.