Lisette Nieves, President, Fund for the City of New York

Lisette Nieves is the President of the Fund for the City of New York (FCNY), an institution charged with developing and helping to implement innovations in policy, programs, practices and technology in order to advance the functioning of government and nonprofit organizations in New York City and beyond. Lisette is also a Distinguished Clinical Professor at NYU, overseeing doctoral students and supporting research initiatives in the Doctoral Program in Leadership and Innovation, which she co-founded.

Lisette has served in a variety of cross-sector leadership positions. She is an experienced social entrepreneur and public sector leader. She has supported social entrepreneurs, educators and organizational leaders nationally through her work with Lingo Ventures. Lisette has also held senior leadership positions in the municipal and federal government. That includes roles with the Department for Youth and Community Development in the Bloomberg administration, the Corporation for National Service in the Clinton Administration, and the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics in the Obama Administration.

Lisette, a policy expert on youth workforce and education, also served as the founding Executive Director of Year Up NY, an innovative workforce development program, where in the span of five years she grew the organization from a $250,000 seed grant to a $6 million operation with over 20 corporate partnerships.

Lisette is a proud first-generation college student who received her B.A. from Brooklyn College, B.A./M.A. from the University of Oxford, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a doctorate with distinction in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Truman Scholar, Rhodes Scholar, Aspen Pahara Fellow, 2020 Richard P. Nathan Public Policy Fellow and she is among the 2021 Top 100 Women We Admire in New York State.

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Aldrin Bonilla, Executive Vice President, Fund for the City of New York

Aldrin Rafael Bonilla is the Executive Vice President of the Fund for the City of New York. Aldrin leads signature Fund initiatives such as the Sloan Public Service Awards, Sloan Awards for Excellence in Teaching Science and Math, and the NYC Community Planning Fellowship program. Aldrin also leverages his experience in civic engagement, innovation, technology and training in order to expand and scale the Fund’s programming and impact in these focus areas citywide.

Currently, Aldrin also serves as Commissioner and Chair of the New York City Equal Employment Practices Commission which audits, evaluates, and monitors the City of New York’s employment programs, practices, policies, and procedures to ensure that municipal entities and the City as an employer maintain a properly structured, efficiently administered affirmative employment program of equal opportunity for minority group members and women employed by, or seeking employment with, City government.

Prior to this position, Aldrin was the Manhattan Deputy Borough President. In that capacity, he also served as a Trustee to the New York City Employee Retirement Pension Fund and on the board of directors of the Theater Sub-District Council. As Deputy Borough President, Aldrin led Community Board reform efforts, civic technology initiatives, community leadership trainings, police-community relations forums and advocacy for responsible pension fund investing. Within his portfolio, Aldrin directed the Community Affairs and Constituent Services Units, as well as managed the Community Board and Solid Waste Advisory Board membership appointment process and technical assistance. Aldrin chaired monthly Borough Boards, which consist of the Manhattan City Council delegation and Community Board Chairs, and he also chaired the monthly Borough Service Cabinet meetings, which include Community Board District Managers and City Agency Representatives.

For over 25 years, Aldrin has served in a variety of government, nonprofit and academic leadership positions including executive positions in education (CUNY in the Heights), youth development (The Valley, Inc.), civic technology (Fund for the City of New York), government (US Census Bureau) and diplomacy (United Nations).

Aldrin has a BA from Colgate University in International Relations, as well as an MA in Political Science and an MPA in Public Policy Analysis from Binghamton University. He also holds advanced certificates from Harvard University’s Institutes of Higher Education, UPENN’s Wharton School of Business and the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

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Michael Arad, Board Chair, Fund for the City of New York; Partner, Handel Architects, LLP

Michael Arad’s design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site, titled “Reflecting Absence,” was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation from among more than 5,000 entries submitted in an international competition held in 2003. Mr. Arad joined Handel Architects as a Partner in April 2004 where he worked on realizing the Memorial design as a member of the firm.

A native of Israel, Mr. Arad was raised there, the U.K., the United States and Mexico. He came to the United States and earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1994 and a Master of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999.

Mr. Arad became a resident of New York City following his studies. He worked for Kohn Pedersen Fox in the city before joining the Design Department of the New York City Housing Authority, where he was working during the Memorial competition.

In 2006 Mr. Arad was one of six recipients of the Young Architects Award of the American Institute of Architects. In 2012, he was awarded the AIA Presidential Citation for his work on the National September 11 Memorial. In addition, he was also honored in 2012 by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the Liberty Award for Artistic Leadership. His work on the Memorial was recognized with Honor Awards from the AIA and ASLA.

In 2017 Mr. Arad was selected to design a memorial to the victims of the 2015 Charleston church massacre at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Helen Arteaga Landaverde, Chief Executive Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst

Helen Arteaga-Landaverde has served as CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, a 545-bed Level 1 Trauma and Academic Medical Center serving over a million patients a year, since February 2021. She is the first woman of color and the first Latina to lead the hospital’s executive team. During her tenure at Elmhurst, Helen has worked closely with the hospital’s clinicians to oversee an unprecedented COVID-19 testing and vaccination program throughout multiple waves of the pandemic, and has guided the institution’s recovery as it moves into a post-pandemic future.

Under her leadership, Elmhurst has improved clinical quality measures and patient satisfaction and secured funds for a major renovation of the hospital that will include critically important areas such as the hospital’s main entrance, operating suites, intensive care units, HIV Clinic, Labor and Delivery suite and Women’s Pavilion for expectant mothers. She has overseen an ambitious campaign to build community partnerships and expand public health outreach to underserved people of color throughout Central and Western Queens, with a special focus on COVID-19 vaccine-hesitant communities disproportionately impacted the virus. Helen has also recognized the critical need to provide extra support to healthcare workers at Elmhurst by overseeing the implementation of NYC Health + Hospitals first comprehensive Wellness program. As the hospital enters its second century, she looks forward to further developing Elmhurst’s mission to provide comprehensive, safe, and accessible healthcare for all those who need it.

Prior to her role at Elmhurst, Helen served as Assistant Vice President, Queens Network and Executive Initiatives at Urban Health Plan, a network of community health centers located in three boroughs in New York City. Her passion for the healthcare field grew out of her own family’s difficult experiences in accessing vital medical services while she was growing up in Corona, Queens. These obstacles propelled her towards realizing her dream of establishing a community health center that would provide quality health care to local residents. Following the death of her community activist father, she set out to build that health center in her beloved neighborhood. Working with Our Lady of Sorrows Church and other community leaders, she sought out Paloma Hernandez, the President and CEO of Urban Health Plan, Inc., to make her dream a reality. Together, they opened Plaza del Sol Family Health Center in Corona in June of 2009. Last year, Plaza Del Sol provided care to more than 29,000 patients regardless of their ability to pay. The health center was dedicated in her father’s memory in 2014.

Helen has a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a Master of Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She completed a fellowship with the National Hispana Leadership Institute and Harvard Kennedy School of Government in September 2010. In March 2016, she was appointed to the NYC Health + Hospitals Board of Directors and to the NYU Alumni Board of Directors. She is currently completing her doctoral degree at CUNY-School of Public Health. She was one of 31 women selected by the New York City Commission on Women’s Issues to be featured in “NYC Women: Make it Here, Make it Happen,” a series highlighting women who made a difference in their communities. Helen is a recipient of the Community Impact Award, Humanitarian Award and City of New York American Dreamer Award. In both 2021 and 2022, she was named as one of City and State’s Queens Power 100 and has been named one of Crain’s New York Business’s Notable Hispanic Leaders and Executives. She was also honored by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz during Hispanic Heritage Month for her contributions to the community.

Helen is married to Victor Landaverde and is the proud mother of 3 amazing children: VictorLuis, Moses, and Victoria. She continues to reside in her beloved Corona, Queens.

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Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and Chief Executive Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals

Dr. Katz is the President and Chief Executive Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal health care system in the United States, with 11 acute care hospitals, 5 skilled nursing facilities, dozens of community health centers, a home care agency and an insurance plan, MetroPlus Health.

Since his appointment in 2018, the health system has significantly expanded access to health care, including the creation of NYC Care, a universal health access program that provides care to more than 100,000 uninsured New Yorkers. He oversaw the creation of a modern electronic health record system, increased the number of nurses working in the system, developed a modern ambulance transport system, and launched new street outreach programs to improve the health of homeless New Yorkers. He also led the financial turn-around of NYC Health + Hospitals by eliminating the deficit through enrolling more New Yorkers into health insurance and appropriately billing insurance plans.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Katz provided strategic guidance to Mayor Bill de Blasio, while directing the public health system’s response to the surge of patients that peaked to a maximum of 3,700 patients, requiring the tripling of ICU capacity at its 11 hospitals to save New Yorkers. As the epicenter of the epicenter, NYC Health + Hospitals became the trusted care provider for thousands of New Yorkers, led the city’s Test and Trace operation, and administered more than 1.3 million COVID-19 vaccines.

Previously, Dr. Katz served as Director of the Los Angeles County Health Agency, which combines the Departments of Health Services, Public Health, and Mental Health into a single entity to provide integrated care and programming within Los Angeles. The Agency has a budget of $7 billion, 28,000 employees, and a large number of community partners. Dr. Katz served as the Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS), the second largest public safety net system in the United States. During this time, he created the ambulatory care network and empaneled more than 350,000 patients to a primary care home. He eliminated the deficit of DHS through increased revenues and decreased administrative expenses, and used ACA funding to pay for a new integrated electronic health system. He moved more than 4,000 medically complex patients from hospitals and emergency departments into independent housing, thereby eliminating unnecessary expensive hospital care and giving the patients the dignity of their own home.

Before he came to Los Angeles Dr. Katz served as Director and Health Officer of the San Francisco Department of Health for 13 years. He is well known for funding needle exchange, creating Healthy San Francisco, outlawing the sale of tobacco at pharmacies, and winning ballot measures for rebuilding Laguna Honda Hospital and San Francisco General Hospital.

He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical School. He completed an internal medicine residency at UCSF Medical School and was an RWJ Clinical Scholar. Dr. Katz continues to practice as a primary care physician and sees patients at NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

He is the Deputy Editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (previously the Institute of Medicine) and the recipient of the Los Angeles County Medical Association 2015 Healthcare Champion of the year.

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Ester R. Fuchs, Board Vice Chair, Fund for the City of New York; Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science, Director of the Urban and Social Policy Program, Columbia University

Ester R. Fuchs is Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science and is the Director of the Urban and Social Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She served as Special Advisor to the Mayor for Governance and Strategic Planning under New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from 2001 to 2005. Previously, Professor Fuchs served as chair of the Urban Studies Program at Barnard College and Columbia College and founding director of the Columbia University Center for Urban Research and Policy.

Professor Fuchs serves on the faculty of the Earth Institute, executive committee of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and its Smart Cities Center, the board of American University’s Metropolitan Policy Center, Senior Fellow of the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, and an Associate at the University of Technology Sydney Institute for Sustainable Futures. Fuchs is also a member of the Faculty Steering Committee of the Eric Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights and Provost’s Just Societies Task Force at Columbia.

She received the Bella Abzug Leadership Award in 2017, the Above & Beyond Exceptional New York Women of 2017 Award for Education, the NASPAA Public Service Matters Spotlight Award for WhosOntheBallot.org, an Award for Outstanding Teaching at SIPA and the City of New York Excellence in Technology Award for Best IT Collaboration among Agencies for Access NYC. She also received the Distinguished Alumna Award from Queens College.

Currently, Professor Fuchs serves as Director of the WhosOnTheBallot.org, an online voter engagement initiative for New York City. Whosontheballot.org is designed to improve voter turnout through a single online portal that provides easy access to customized sample ballots, polling place locations, and candidate information.

While at City Hall, Professor Fuchs coordinated three significant mayoral initiatives: the restructuring the City’s delivery of Out-of-School Time (OST) programs to children, youth, and families; the Integrated Human Services System Project (Access New York) to streamline the screening and eligibility determination processes, case management, and policy development and planning functions within and across the 13 human services agencies through the use of technology; and the merger of the Department of Employment with the Department of Small Business Services to align the City’s workforce development programs with the needs of the business community.

Professor Fuchs currently serves on the Committee on Economic Inclusion of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Town and Gown Advisory Board, and is a member of the boards of the Fund for the City of New York, the Citizens Union, the Museum at Eldridge Street, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Global Cities, Inc. a project of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Professor Fuchs was the first woman to serve as chair of the NYC Charter Revision Commission in 2005. She has also served on the NYC Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board, the NYC Workforce Investment Board, the NYC Commission on Women’s Issues, the NYC Economic Opportunity Commission, and the Advisory Board for NYC’s Out-of-School Time Initiative.

Professor Fuchs has been working with former New York City Mayor David Dinkins organizing the David N. Dinkins Leadership in Public Policy Forum since its inception in 1995. She also organizes the Global Mayors Forum at SIPA. Between 2007 and 2013, Professor Fuchs organized and moderated annual international summits sponsored by the Office of the Mayor of New York and New York City Global Partners. The conferences brought together mayoral delegations from cities around the world to discuss important urban policy issues and share best practices.

In April 2017, Professor Fuchs collaborated with Professor Patricia Culligan of the Columbia University Data Science Institute to complete a study for the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, “Stopping Trash Where It Starts: A Project to Mitigate Floatable Trash NYC Waterways through Targeted Street Litter Reduction.” It is being replicated by the City of Dallas. In July 2017 she published a study for the 125th Street Business Improvement District, “Promoting a Cleaner and Healthier Harlem: Reducing Street Litter in the 125th Street Business Improvement District.”

Professor Fuchs has been the recipient of many grants including ones from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, the Laurie Tisch Illumination Fund, the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the Wallace Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Greater London Enterprise, the U.S. Department of Justice the National Health and Human Service Employees Union AFL-CIO, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation.

Professor Fuchs is an expert in urban politics and policy; American politics; and American parties and elections. She consults for governments, NGOs, businesses and political campaigns. She is a frequent political commentator in print, broadcast and new media and lectures internationally. She received a BA from Queens College, CUNY; an MA from Brown University; and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Verna Eggleston, Program Lead, Women’s Economic Development, Bloomberg Philanthropies

Verna Eggleston has led the Women’s Economic Development initiatives at Bloomberg Philanthropies since the inception of the program in 2007. The initiatives, part of the Founder’s Projects at Bloomberg Philanthropies, have impacted over half a million women benefiting over 2.8 million family members globally, ensuring their economic independence.

Programs under Eggleston’s direction include a partnership with locally based non-for-profit organizations working to create economic opportunities for women and their families through skills-building and vocational training around the world, including the United States. Additional partnerships have been developed in current years to bring market access to handworkers and people who work from home. Initiatives of these types have resulted in the first State of the Handworker Economy Report and the Compliance Program for Homes and Small Workshops launched at the United Nations.

Eggleston currently holds a permanent seat at the United Nations Economic and Social Development Council (ECOSOC), representing Bloomberg Philanthropies in a consultative status and currently serving as an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Eggleston has recently been appointed to the Africa Advisory Board for the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.

Prior to joining Bloomberg Philanthropies, Eggleston worked for more than four decades in human and social development, both in government and the private sector. Eggleston returned to government as the Commissioner for New York City’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) for the Bloomberg Administration. She was the longest serving Commissioner of the agency, serving in this role from 2002 to 2007, and was the first Commissioner appointed to the position twice by the same sitting Mayor.

Under her leadership, HRA developed “We Care”, a Mayoral initiative which received the 2008 Innovation Award from the United States Department of Labor. In 2016, Eggleston received the Civic Leadership Award from the Citizens Committee in New York and in 2017 received the Radical Generosity Award from the New York Women’s Foundation.

Eggleston served for 12 years under the Administrations of Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins at HRA, opening the first facility for infants with AIDS, to being appointed Deputy Commissioner for the Administration for Children’s Services and Deputy Administrator of the Emergency Assistance Units in the five boroughs of New York City.

Eggleston also served as the Executive Director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School. While there, she met Mike Bloomberg who sought her advice on social services issues in New York and joined his first campaign for Mayor.

Eggleston was named one of the 100 Black Executives by Black Enterprise magazine and received the Arthur Ashe award for social development. She presented her work on social reform before Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma of South Africa, and the Presidents of Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. She worked with Oprah Winfrey and the Governor of Illinois on legislation against child abuse, and Attorney General Janet Reno on hate crimes.

Eggleston received her Master’s Degree as a Mayor’s Scholar at the New School of Social Research School of Urban Development.

Eric Adams, 110th Mayor of New York City

Mayor Eric Adams has served the people of New York City as an NYPD officer, State Senator, Brooklyn Borough President, and now as the 110th Mayor of the City of New York. He gave voice to a diverse coalition of working families in all five boroughs and is leading the fight to bring back New York City’s economy, reduce inequality, improve public safety, and build a stronger, healthier city that delivers for all New Yorkers.
Like so many New Yorkers, Mayor Eric Adams grew up with adversity—and overcame it.

As one of six children, born in Brownsville and raised in South Jamaica by a single mom who cleaned houses, Eric and his family did not always know if they would come home to an eviction notice on the front door or food on the table. And when he was beaten by police in the basement of a precinct house at 15, Eric faced a life-changing act of injustice.

But instead of giving into anger, Eric turned his pain into purpose and decided to change the police department from within. He joined the NYPD and became one of its most outspoken officers, calling out racism and bias in the department and pushing for major reforms.

As a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, Eric would often police the streets in a bulletproof vest one day during the high-crime 1980’s and 1990’s and protest bad behavior by cops the next, marching side-by-side with his fellow civil rights advocates. He rose to the rank of captain, helping to build the first computerized system for tracking crime in the city, which led to historic gains in public safety.

Eric’s efforts to change policing began his lifelong work to improve and protect New York. From the NYPD, he moved on to the State Senate, where he represented sections of central and Brownstone Brooklyn. In Albany, Eric built winning coalitions to advance New York City’s values and goals, helping to push through measures to protect tenants and workers, combat gun violence, end the NYPD’s abuses of stop and frisk, and advance human rights — including marriage equality. He also became the first person of color to chair the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee.

Eric was then elected Brooklyn Borough President in 2013 by putting together a diverse coalition of Brooklynites to become the borough’s first Black leader. As the representative of one of the nation’s largest counties, Eric fought tirelessly to grow the local economy, invest in schools, reduce inequality, improve public safety, and advocate for smart policies and better government that delivers for all New Yorkers.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the city, Eric moved a mattress into his office and worked around the clock to deliver donated meals and PPE to essential workers and vulnerable New Yorkers, demanding government produce more equitable relief.

In addition to continuing to fight for struggling New Yorkers and a better quality of life for all, Eric became a national leader on public health policy after learning he had developed Type 2 diabetes. Following his diagnosis, Eric completely changed his diet and his body, reversing the disease and launching a personal mission to educate New Yorkers about preventative care and wellness. His work has already led to successful proactive public health efforts across the city and increased education in schools and with high-risk populations in lower-income areas, partnering with civic organizations and health experts.

Eric is a lifelong New Yorker. He received his master’s degree in public administration from Marist College, and is a graduate of New York City Technical College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is also a proud product of New York City public schools, including Bayside High School in Queens. Today he lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he has resided for over 20 years. Eric is the proud father of Jordan, an aspiring filmmaker and graduate of American University.