Board of Directors
 Matt Blumberg Bio | LinkedIn |
 Gayatri Agnew Bio | LinkedIn |
 Cathie Black Bio | LinkedIn |
 Neema Bollampally Bio | LinkedIn |
 Cindy Guerra Robbins Bio | LinkedIn |
 Cathy Hawley Bio | LinkedIn |
 Jayne Jamison Bio | LinkedIn |
 Sheena White Bio | LinkedIn |
Advisory Board
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Board Bios
Matt Blumberg
Matt is co-founder and chairman of the Path Forward board and CEO and co-founder of Bolster, an on-demand talent marketplace that connects high-growth companies with trusted and flexible executive talent for on-demand roles and board seats. Bolster partners with membership organizations including Path Forward to ensure they have a diverse network of qualified candidates. Previously, Matt was the co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Return Path, a data solutions provider based in New York City.
It was with great pride that he has watched this initial creation grow to a company of more than 500 employees with the market leading brand, innovative products, and the email industry’s most renowned experts. Return Path was acquired by Validity in the summer of 2019. Among the many initiatives that Matt championed at Return Path, one of the ones with the biggest impact was the return to work program which aimed to give moms the opportunity to get back into the workforce after taking a break for childcare. The program proved so successful that in 2015 Matt decided to make it the basis for a new nonprofit organization called Path Forward. Before Return Path, Matt ran marketing, product management, and the internet group for MovieFone, Inc. (later acquired by AOL). Prior to that he served as an associate with private equity firm General Atlantic Partners and was a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting. He holds a B.A. from Princeton University. He is the author of Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business which grew out of his popular entrepreneurship blog Only Once – one of the first CEO blogs on the internet.
Gayatri Agnew
Gayatri Agnew is the Senior Director of Corporate Philanthropy at Walmart Giving. In this capacity, she serves on the leadership team of Walmart’s Global Responsibility division where she leads strategy and partnerships for Walmart’s efforts on economic mobility, specifically a shared value approach to human capital, partnerships and philanthropy focused on key issues such as employer practices change, improving work-based learning and strengthening inclusion in communities. Gayatri’s personal mission is for more people to find purpose through the way they earn a living. She is also the founder of both the Walmart Career Moms employee group and Mother’s Monday, both intended to create community for mothers in corporate America. Gayatri holds a board seat with the Vote Mama Foundation and has served on the board of the Center for Women and Democracy and as a trustee of Seattle Community Colleges.
Before her time at Walmart, Gayatri fulfilled a wide variety of both public and private sector roles in the United States and India. In Washington State, she worked on the campaign for Governor Christine Gregoire and then served in her administration. She ran the Career Center at Seattle University and the Seattle-King County City Year (AmeriCorps) site. She has also lived and worked in India to research skills development pathways for youth. In 2018, Gayatri was a candidate for the Arkansas State House, where she successfully petitioned the state ethics commission to allow campaign funds to cover campaign-related childcare.
Gayatri Agnew attended Foothill-De Anza Community College before transferring to Seattle University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Masters Degree in Business Administration. She lives in Bentonville, Arkansas with her husband and two young children.
Cathie Black
Cathie Black is a well-known media and publishing executive having spent the majority of her career as president, then chairman of Hearst Magazines, publishers of popular consumer titles including Cosmopolitan, O, the Oprah Magazine, Food Network, Esquire, and Harper’s Bazaar. Prior to Hearst, Cathie was president/publisher of USA Today for seven years and was the first woman publisher of a consumer weekly, New York Magazine. She was also part of the team that founded Ms. Magazine.
For much of her career, Cathie has been the “first,” breaking through barriers to pave the way for the next generation of female media executives. She is the author of Basic Black: the Essential Guide to Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life), a New York Times and Wall Street best seller. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of Notre Dame, and was a long time board member of IBM and Coca Cola. A graduate of Trinity College, she holds ten honorary degrees. Now, Cathie lives in the start-up world as an advisor, board member and investor in a variety of young companies including PubMatic, Yieldbot, Bark & Co (Bark Box), and Pinks and Greens.
Neema Bollampally
Neema Bollampally is a senior program manager for product launches at Twitter. She pivoted into tech through a Path Forward returnship at LendingClub in 2019. Read more about her journey here.
Prior to taking a career break, Neema worked in finance and social impact. She built the operating and fundraising infrastructure for a New York City-based food education nonprofit, and later managed strategy, operations, and grantmaking at a corporate foundation. Neema views her career through a growth mindset, intent on finding new ways to create structure and process to enable teams and organizations to do their best work.
Neema holds a dual bachelor’s degree in economics and English from the University of Michigan. She is a certified Project Management Professional, trained yoga instructor, and graduate of Coro’s Women in Leadership program. Neema is passionate about closing the opportunity gap, mentoring caregivers who are preparing to reenter the workforce, connecting with nature, and building community. Most of all, she enjoys raising her five-year-old twin boys with her husband in the Bay Area.
Cindy Guerra Robbins
Cindy Guerra Robbins is an independent board director, corporate advisor, and senior executive with 20+ years of experience counseling CEOs and other senior executives. As President and Chief People Officer of Salesforce until 2019, she designed and oversaw a global workforce that became a model of innovative corporate culture. She is an expert on recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, optimizing productivity and employee satisfaction, and building healthy and diverse cultures that facilitate growth. She was instrumental in making Salesforce an equal-pay pioneer, one of the world’s most admired companies, and one of the best places to work. Her leadership in pay equity and other innovations she made in people operations enabled Salesforce to integrate talent successfully across the globe. Under her guidance, Salesforce became one of Glassdoor’s Great Places to Work and reached No.1 on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.
In 2019 Cindy joined the Board of Year Up, a non-profit organization that works with more than 250 corporate employers to provide training and internships to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition to her nonprofit work, Cindy serves on the boards of ActiveCampaign, a private equity-owned technology company, and was just appointed as Senior Advisor at Silversmith Capital Partners. She graduated from Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Political Science.
Cathy Hawley
Cathy is co-founder and Path Forward board member, and also co-founder of Bolster, an on-demand talent marketplace that connects high-growth companies with trusted and flexible executive talent for on-demand roles and board seats. She is an experienced Chief People Officer with a track record of creating inclusive and people-focused workplaces. With more than 20 years experience in developing People and Culture teams, Cathy has a passion around building effective teams and organizational and leadership development. Cathy has been a speaker on return-to-work programs and organizational diversity strategic roadmaps at the NCWIT Summit, and partnered with NCWIT on building their inclusion journey roadmap. She’s also spoken at Agile Mile High and the Target Product Summit about team effectiveness. Cathy was the driving force behind the creation of the return to work program at Return Path and was instrumental in recruiting partner companies to join in that effort and in advising partner companies on best practices related to creating a successful return to work program. Cathy loves spending time with her family, snowboarding, cycling, and traveling.
Jayne Jamison
For the last thirty years, Jayne Jamison has served as publisher for some of the largest magazine companies in New York: Gruner & Jahr, The New York Times, The Reader’s Digest Corporation, and The Hearst Corporation. She spent the majority of her career at Hearst, serving as the publisher of Redbook, Seventeen, and then Oprah. Under her stewardship, Oprah was named an Ad Age Magazine of the Year in 2016 and Adweek’s 2017 Hottest Women’s Magazine for developing innovative marketing solutions for large consumer companies.
One consistent thread throughout her career has been her desire to support young women with families. As the first female at The New York Times Magazine Group to return from maternity leave, she clearly understood the challenges and pressures facing this group. As the Group Publisher of Parents/Child Magazines, Jayne had ten mothers job sharing so they could remain in the workplace, and continued to offer flexible schedules to women with children while at Hearst Magazines.
A 14-year breast cancer survivor, she serves on the Breast Cancer Research Foundation Advisory Board and has been honored by both the American Cancer Society and the NYC Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Jayne is also an avid supporter of and mentor at her alma mater, The Pennsylvania State University, where she has been named a distinguished alumni, served on the advancement council, and has delivered the commencement addresses in both 1998 and 2015.
Jayne lives in New York with her husband Edward Bisno and a Westie named Alfie. She has four adult children sprinkled around the East Coast ranging in age from 29 to 37.
Sheena White
Sheena White is a director of global accounts at PayPal. She is responsible for developing growth strategies and driving revenue with PayPal’s largest multinational internet clients and partners in the Live Events segment. Sheena has extensive experience in driving revenue and consumer engagement growth for large enterprises leveraging financial services/fintech products and capabilities.
Before joining PayPal, Sheena was a senior vice president at Citi where, among other projects, she co-led the Google and Citi digital partnership. She also spent several years at American Express, where she managed a team focused on co-brand business development, a $10B merchant portfolio, and consulted with senior leaders as a strategist on the firm’s strategic planning team. Previously, Sheena interned at Walmart within strategic finance and worked at Goldman Sachs in its technology division.
Striving to unlock opportunities to empower personal and leadership growth, Sheena sits on Villanova University’s College of Engineering Advisory Board and the Girl Scouts of Greater New York Leadership Advisory Board.
Sheena holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University. She resides in Brooklyn with her husband, two sons, and their dog.
Advisory Board Bios
Brad Feld
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of Techstars. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and co-chair of Startup Colorado. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the widely read blogs Feld Thoughts, Startup Revolution, and Ask the VC. Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed 23 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states.
Muna Hussaini
Muna Hussaini is a Senior Manager in the Technology, Platforms, and Experience organization at PayPal. She is responsible for the DevOps Transformation effort. Muna has recently transitioned back to tech after managing Diversity & Inclusion programs at PayPal. Most notably, she is responsible for rolling out Recharge, a return to work program. To create that program she reached out the executives from Return Path, a private software company that had created a returnship program in Colorado. Her call became a prime impetus to launching Path Forward as a nonprofit organization to help other companies launch, run and expand returnship programs. Previously, Muna served as the Chief of Staff for Magento’s Technology organization, and has performed the role of scrum master, program manager, project manager, and mischief manager at eBay, PayPal, X.com, and IBM.
Wearing hijab post 9/11 made Muna a victim of several hate crimes. She uses her experiences to speak out against bigotry while redefining the Muslim American narrative. Muna serves as president of the board for Muslim Space, is a member of the City of Austin/Travis County Hate Crimes Taskforce, and is a board member for Interfaith Action of Central Texas. Muna is married with two kids and has a very large Hyderabadi family. She enjoys hiking and playing volleyball. On late nights, she can be found at Kerbey Lane enjoying a bowl of Kerbey queso. Last, but not least, Muna holds a business degree from the University of Texas at Austin and is a proud Longhorn. Hook ‘em!
Lisa Mann
Lisa Mann is an accomplished and proven leader of enterprise transformation. She is known for her ability to deliver profitable, topline growth for both emerging businesses and Fortune 100 companies, as an internal operator or as an external strategic advisor. Her unique background is the result of her work with both entrepreneurs and big food companies, overlaid with deep experience and well-honed skills in strategy, brand marketing and distribution expansion.
Most recently, Lisa was President of the $7 billion Global Nutrition Group at PepsiCo, where she changed the corporate conversation around nutrition. Prior to PepsiCo, Lisa was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at KIND Healthy Snacks, the fastest growing US snack company. Before KIND, Lisa was Senior Vice President, Global Gum Category at Mondelez (formerly Kraft Foods).
In between her Kraft careers and while living in Atlanta, Denver and Chicago, Lisa launched and led Think Marketing Consulting, a strategic marketing consulting firm. Her client list included budding entrepreneurial ventures, privately and family-held companies and Fortune 500 corporations.
Lisa is a sought after thought leader in the emerging health and wellness space. Her passion to drive change has been recognized with the marketing industry’s highest honors, most notably: the 2016 Marketing Cojones Award, Advertising Age’s 2015 Women to Watch, the 2015 A-List Marketer awards, Adweek’s 2012 Brand Genius award and, the 2013 Cannes Grand Prix for the Oreo Daily Twist digital and social campaign among many other gold, silver and bronze awards. A frequent speaker at industry marquis events, Lisa was most recently invited to participate in The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Network.
Lisa is a member of the Board of Advisors for Tufts School of Engineering and the University’s Marketing Advisory Council. Lisa also holds advisory positions with several emerging health and wellness and digital media companies. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Tufts University. Lisa and her family reside in New York City.
Greg Sands
Greg Sands is the Founder and Managing Partner at Costanoa Ventures, an early stage investor in enterprise software. An early stage investor for over 20 years, Greg helps startups analyze and interpret early signals to identify and leverage the most valuable aspects of their solution. Prior to founding Costanoa, Greg was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill focusing on early stage, enterprise technology investments, including Merced Systems, AllBusiness, Quinstreet, Feedburner and Youku. Before Sutter Hill, Greg was the first hire at Netscape Communications after its founding engineering team. He was its first Product Manager, wrote the initial business plan, coined the name Netscape, and created the SuiteSpot Business Unit, which he grew from zero to $140M in revenue. Greg also served as Manager of Business Development at Cisco where he architected a global channel management plan.
Greg has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated from Harvard College Magna Cum Laude. Greg served a term as the President of the Stanford DAPER (Athletics Department) Investment Fund and remains on the executive committee. He is Former President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and served as a Trustee of the Stanford Business School Trust and Chair of its Venture Capital committee.
Rajiv Vinnakota
Rajiv Vinnakota is the Executive Vice President of the Youth & Engagement division at the Aspen Institute. This new venture will incorporate the use of the Institute’s innovative leadership development model to foster youth leaders in underserved rural and urban communities along with other entrepreneurial approaches to engage youth in the issues of the day. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Raj was the co-founder and CEO of The SEED Foundation, a non-profit managing the nation’s first network of public, college-preparatory boarding schools for underserved children. To date, more than 90 percent of SEED graduates have enrolled in college, and they earn bachelor’s degrees at 4.5 times the rate of our nation’s lowest income students.
In addition to his role at the Aspen Institute, Raj is a board director for a public company, Colfax Corporation (NYSE: CFX). He is a former trustee and executive committee member for Princeton University, former national chair of its annual giving committee, and former executive committee member for its Aspire capital campaign. In 2009, he received the Woodrow Wilson Award, the highest honor that Princeton bestows on an undergraduate alumnus. Raj is an Echoing Green fellow and an Ashoka fellow. He holds a degree in molecular biology from Princeton University. Raj is married and has one daughter and two cats. He loves basketball, working out and learning from his daughter.
Kristy Wallace
Kristy Wallace is the CEO of Ellevate Network, and is responsible for executing Ellevate Network’s mission to close the gender achievement gap in business by providing professional women with a global community to lean on and learn from. She directs the Network’s staff, is responsible for business growth and strategy, and works closely with Ellevate’s Chapter Leaders, Business Partners, and Champions to further Ellevate’s impact.
Kristy is host of the Ellevate Podcast: Conversations with Women Changing the Face of Business and is also a regular speaker and thought leader on Leadership, Diversity, Social Entrepreneurship, Networking, and Entrepreneurialism. Most recently, Kristy was recognized as a Woman of Influence by the New York Business Journal.
Kristy strives to support women and girls in achieving their dreams. She is an Angel Investor with Pipeline Angels, and organization creating capital for women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs; a Member of the UN Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change; an Advisor for the 92Y Women in Power Fellowship for Rising Female Leaders; on the Advisory Council for the Villanova University Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Institute; Co-Chair of the Leadership Advisory Board for the Girl Scouts of Greater NYC; and a Board Member at Workforce Professionals Training Institute.
Joanne Wilson
Joanne Wilson has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Catchafire, Vengo, Nestio, Captureproof, Makers Row, Le Tote, and Union Station. She has been involved in numerous real estate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. She is also an investor in a few restaurants in the New York area.
In addition to these endeavors, Joanne has been involved in various education projects and served as chairperson at Hot Bread Kitchen, a non-profit committed to increasing access to the culinary industry for woman and minority entrepreneurs. She also sits on the board of The Highline. Joanne has maintained her very popular blog, Gotham Gal for over 11 years. She loves to bake, cook, throw a good party, travel, read, collect art, do the crossword and stay on top of what’s happening around the globe and in NYC. Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising their three kids, Jessica, Emily and Josh.