February 19, 2021 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Kaboom
Lysa Ratliff, vice president of partnership development and acting CEO since July, will continue as CEO on a permanent basis. She is the first Black woman to lead this organization that develops playgrounds for children in areas in need.
She succeeds James Siegal, who led Kaboom for the last five years and will remain at the organization as a senior fellow.
Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties
Danita Nias, vice president for institutional advancement at Florida Atlantic University and CEO of the FAU Foundation, has been appointed president and CEO of the $180 million community fund.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Beth deHamel has been appointed as vice president of operations and chief financial officer at the $4.1 billion foundation.
She recently served as interim CEO at Mercy Corps, where she was previously its chief financial officer.
More New CEOs
Christopher Bradford, co-founder and CEO of the African Leadership Academy, will next serve as president of the Morehead-Cain Foundation, which grants scholarships to students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Loreen Chant, president and CEO of Easterseals South Florida, has been named president and CEO of the Health Foundation of South Florida. She is the $127 million foundation’s first woman leader.
Donald Lassere, president of the Muhammad Ali Center, will now lead the Chicago History Museum as president and CEO.
Other Notable Appointments
Marianne Coppock, managing director of client service at Two Rivers Marketing, has been hired as vice president of client success at the Stelter Company, which provides marketing services to nonprofit groups.
Mike Deetsch, previously the director of education and engagement at the Toledo Museum of Art, has been promoted to senior director of learning and interpretation. Also, Andrea Gardner, director of collections, has been promoted to senior director of curatorial affairs.
Ivan Heredia, vice president of marketing, brand engagement, and revenue at the Walt Disney Company, has been named senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the National 4-H Council.
Sona Khosla, vice president of marketing at Benevity, has been promoted to chief impact officer. In this role she will lead the software company’s new Impact Labs, which will provide data and research insights to its corporate, nonprofit, and individual clients.
Ophelia Liu, assistant controller, was promoted to chief financial officer at YouthBuild USA.
Lisa Metcalfe, major gift officer at the Archdiocese of Denver, has joined Leadership Roundtable as its director of services and programs.
Jackeline Montalvo, director at Dream, has been promoted to managing director of communications and brand at this children’s charity formerly known as Harlem RBI.
Eero Simoncelli will be the first director of the Simons Foundation’s Center for Computational Neuroscience. He is a professor of neural science, mathematics, data science, and psychology at New York University.
Joel Weiss, senior vice president for advancement at Jewish Senior Life, in Rochester, N.Y., is now director of development at Delivering Good, which gives donated merchandise to people living in poverty.
Helena Wright has been appointed policy director at the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Most recently she was vice president of sustainable finance at the World Wide Fund for Nature, in Singapore.
Departures
Henry Berman is stepping down as CEO of Exponent Philanthropy. He joined the group in 2010 as acting CEO and was installed in the position permanently the following year.
Charles Venable has resigned as president of Newfields, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, following public outcry over a job posting for a director’s position whose responsibilities included “maintaining the museum’s traditional, core, white art audience.”
Legacy
Betsy Dubovsky, executive director of the Staten Island Foundation, died on February 9 at age 69. Originally a social worker, she led the community foundation from its creation in 1998. She recently spoke to the Chronicle about how her group has worked with government agencies on disaster recovery in response to Hurricane Sandy and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Send an email to people@philanthropy.com.
