Board of Directors

Our Directors are leaders in the fields of banking and investment, technology, education, media, marketing, hospitality, health sciences, entrepreneurship and real estate.

Brandon Robinson, Chair

Brandon Robinson is a managing director and Deputy Global Head of Alternatives of J.P. Morgan Asset Management. He is a member of the Asset Management Operating Committee and Alternatives Operating Committee. He is also a member of the JPMAM Black Executive Leadership Forum and an Investment Committee member of Project Spark. Prior to joining JPMAM, Brandon was a managing director at Neuberger Berman. While at NB, he was the chair of BLACK Experience, the black/African-American business resource group at Neuberger Berman and co-sponsor of the Neuberger Berman partnership with Frederick Douglass Academy II, a public school in Harlem. He earned his bachelor's degree in political science with a philosophy minor and his MBA from BYU.

Kevin Brandmeyer, Vice Chair

Kevin Brandmeyer co-runs a seven-person coverage team in Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s Investment Management Division and heads up many of the team’s strategic relationships with Endowments, Foundations, Family Offices and owners of private companies.

Justin Peagram, Treasurer

Justin Peagram is a Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Securities. He leads the firm's Sustainability Investment Banking practice, focusing on advising companies within the alternative energy and energy technology sectors. Prior to joining Guggenheim Securities, Justin was a Managing Director at Barclays in the Sustainable and Impact Banking (SIB) team, where he led the coverage of emerging growth companies in the clean energy sector. Justin began his investment banking career at Lehman Brothers. Justin holds a Bachelor of Science from Babson College.

Mimi Clarke Corcoran, Secretary

Mimi Corcoran is the Executive Director of the Child Mind Institute. Ms. Corcoran was previously a Principal at DRG, President of the National Center for Learning Disabilities and the Vice President of Talent Development at New Visions for Public Schools. She has also served as the Director of the Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation at The Open Society Foundations and the Executive Director of the Beginning with Children Foundation, Inc.

Saskia Traill, PhD

President & CEO

Prior to leading policy and research efforts at ExpandED Schools, Saskia worked to build state systems for early care and education. She has authored and co-authored articles for peer-reviewed journals, policy briefs, reports on a range of issues, and an essay on voter registration in a book about civic service (which included being recorded on a CD with Al Gore). Saskia earned a BA from Columbia University and a PhD in research psychology from Stanford University, and credits winning the Baltimore Science Fair in middle school with bolstering her love of science. She currently enjoys passing along that love of science to her twins.

Roger Blissett

Roger Blissett is Managing Director & Deputy General Counsel at MUFG. He was previously Vice President and Branch Manager of the U.S. licensed offices of Royal Bank of Canada, primarily focused on institutional clients and capital markets activities

Joseph D. Borrero

Joseph Borrero is a Vice President in Global Compliance at Goldman Sachs & Co. He manages a team that conducts compliance testing of the firm’s Private Wealth Management division. Previously, he was an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, specializing in antitrust and securities litigation. He is also a Deputy Regional President of the Hispanic National Bar Association and is an advocate for the advancement of minorities within the legal profession.

Kimberly Dolan

Kimberly Dolan is director at RBC Capital Markets. Kimberly is an attorney supporting the Central Funding Group of RBC and specializing is hedge fund linked products and fund finance. Kimberly graduated from Tufts University and Boston University School of Law. Kimberly is passionate about education in New York City and also is involved with mentoring high school students in the city.

Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson is Executive Founder of Way to Wellville, a 10-year nonprofit project which operates in five small U.S. communities, helping them to improve their own health. Its mission is "to demonstrate the social and economic benefits of investing in health and resilience, versus trying to fix things with expensive health care when it's too late."

Erin Erickson

Erin Erickson is the Head of Display Specialists within the gTech Professional Services organization at Google. In that capacity, she focuses on providing technical support to Google’s display advertising partners. Previously, Erin held multiple roles at Bridgewater Associates in the client service department. Erin has a BA in Economics from Hamilton College and a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Kaufman

Andrew Kaufman is a Senior Vice President of Leveraged Loan and High Yield Syndication at Macquarie Capital, where he is a senior member of a five-person team focused on structuring, pricing, and executing leveraged loan and high yield financing transactions. He has executed transactions in a variety of sectors and his current focus sectors include Industrials, Infrastructure & Energy, Financial Institutions, Healthcare, and Gaming. Andrew holds a BA in History and Economics from Yale.

Karen Ling

Karen Ling (ret.) was the Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at AIG. She was responsible for aligning AIG’s talent strategy with the company’s long-term strategic, operational and financial objectives. Karen previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Allergan plc. She holds a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.A. from Yale University.

Randolph Nelson

Randolph Nelson is President of Sanguine Gas Exploration LLC. Prior to working at Sanguine, he was a Senior Account Officer at Citibank in the Leveraged Lending Group.

Shael Polakow-Suransky

Shael Polakow-Suransky became the 8th president of Bank Street College of Education on July 1, 2014. Prior to this role, he was the second-in-command at the New York City Department of Education, serving as Chief Academic Officer and Senior Deputy Chancellor. In the nation’s largest school system, he oversaw teaching and learning across more than 1,600 district schools and was a strong advocate for teacher and principal autonomy, balanced accountability, and reforms designed to improve learning experiences for the City's most vulnerable students. Earlier in his career, he worked as a teacher and founding principal of Bronx International High School. He holds a BA from Brown University, and a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Bank Street.

Richard Roberts

Richard Roberts is Principal and Managing Director of Acquisitions for Red Stone Equity Partners,. He is the founding Managing Director of the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group and Chair of the Board for Global Kids. Richard is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School.

Stella Safo

Stella Safo, M.D., MPH, is the Chief Clinical Transformation Officer with Premier’s Applied Sciences team. In this role, Dr. Safo drives the work on how Premier’s innovative implementation research arm generates the care models and analytic tools and technologies necessary to drive healthcare transformation for Premier’s more than 4,000 partners. Prior to joining Premier, Dr. Safo served as program manager and Chief Medical Officer for the health system design team at Mount Sinai’s Arnhold Institute for Global Health before taking on a role as Senior Medical Director for Clinical Transformation with the Mount Sinai Health Partners in New York. Dr. Safo obtained her undergraduate and medical degree from Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. She completed a master’s in public health, specializing in global health, from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Rachel Skaistis

Rachel Skaistis is a partner with Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Litigation Department. She serves on the board of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) and the advisory board for the National Women’s Law Center. In 1999, she served a one year clerkship with Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Rachel Steinberg

Rachel Steinberg is an Account Executive of Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn. She has over 7 years’ experience as an integrated account executive, managing hundreds of boutique and blue-chip client accounts across a wide variety of verticals, with a focus on digital/social content marketing and ad-tech. Rachel holds a BA in Journalism & History from New York University.

Advisory Council

The ExpandED Schools Advisory Council members are select individuals who are committed to our mission of closing the learning gap. Advisory Council members are ambassadors for ExpandED Schools and special advisors to the Board Chair(s) and President.

Lucy N. Friedman

Lucy Friedman is a Fellow at the Pinkerton Foundation. She was the founding President of ExpandED Schools. Prior to founding ExpandED Schools (formerly known as TASC), Ms. Friedman was the founder and Executive Director of Safe Horizon (formerly known as Victims Services), a crime victim assistance and advocacy organization.

Annette L. Nazareth

Annette L. Nazareth is a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, leading trading and markets practice within the firm’s Financial Institutions Group. A key financial services policymaker for more than a decade, she was appointed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner in 2005. During her tenure at the Commission, she worked on numerous groundbreaking initiatives, including execution of quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms and modernization of the national market system rules.

Pedro A. Noguera

Pedro Noguera is a Distinguished Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA. He serves on the boards of national and local organizations and appears as a regular commentator on educational issues. He serves as an advisor to large urban school districts throughout the U.S.

Soledad O’Brien

Soledad O’Brien is the Chief Executive Officer of Starfish Media Group, which produces documentaries and scripted and non-scripted series for CNN and other networks. She was an award-winning anchor and special correspondent for CNN/US.

Jennifer J. Raab

Jennifer Raab is President of Hunter College, the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Previously she served as Chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Robert K. Steel

Robert Steel is a partner and Chief Executive Officer of Perella Weinberg Partners. Robert is also a member of the Pew Charitable Trusts Task Force on financial reform. He is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Herbert Sturz, Founding Chair

Herbert Sturz is a senior advisor of the Open Society Foundations, where he helped establish NURCHA, which has facilitated the construction of over 300,000 houses in South Africa. Mr. Sturz has served as founding director of the Vera Institute of Justice; New York City Deputy Mayor for Criminal Justice; Chairman of the New York City Planning Commission and founding Chairman of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods.

Diana Taylor

Diana Taylor previously served as Vice Chair of Solera Capital LLC. Prior to Solera, she served as managing director at Wolfensohn & Co., and before that as the New York State Superintendent of Banks and Chairwoman of the New York State Banking Board. She is board chair of ACCION International and Hudson River Park Trust. She is an emeritus board member of the YMCA of New York City.