Our Boards

Nicole Chang is a Financial and Operations professional with experience in both corporate and non-profit companies. At her last position as a Business Manager at Education Development Center (EDC), her focus was on budget creation and monitoring, as well as contract compliance to monitor contracts/awards issued to EDC as well as those contracts and awards that EDC subcontracts.  Her expertise is in Business financial and administrative operations.  She is a graduate of Tufts University and has an MBA from Babson College. 

José Brandão is a Vice President of Business Technology Risk at State Street Corporation a financial services firm in Boston. He is responsible for developing, directing, and managing the overall technology risk management program for the Investor Services Americas (ISA) business unit. Previously he also held roles at State Street in IT Regulatory Compliance, IT Operations, and Internal Audit at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Jose received both his B.S. in Finance & Management Information Systems and his MBA in High Technology Management from Northeastern University.

Prescott Taylor is the Head of Finance of Gupta Media, a digital performance marketing agency focused on driving sales results for its global client roster.  Previously, he was Finance Director of MarcoPolo Learning and Head of Finance at Cambridge Biomarketing Group, a biotech communications agency. He also previously served as SVP, Director of Finance for PR agency, Feinstein Kean Healthcare. In addition to five years at Boston-based Arnold Worldwide, Prescott spent three years as VP, Capital Planning at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the Boston-based K-12 educational publisher. He earned a B.A. in economics from Colgate University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Liz Bride joined Berkshire Partners as Director of Investor Relations in 2018.  Previously Liz spent nine years on the global Investor Relations team at Bain Capital and also served as COO of Guidepost Growth Equity.   Earlier in her career, she was a consultant in the private equity group at the Parthenon Group and on the research team at Cambridge Associates. Liz received a B.A. from Hamilton College and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Tanya Chakmakian is a Senior Account Executive for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts working with cities and towns to manage existing health care programs, implement new programming as well as targeting pilot programs and emerging solutions.  As such, she is responsible for account meetings and account-related activities such as analytic presentations, funding analysis, member education, requests for proposals and information, operational assessments, tours, and client relationships.

Tanya is a graduate of Stonehill College and lives in Boston with her husband and their two sons.

Erica Hafferkamp is Boston Collegiate’s ELA Teacher and Lower School Librarian for 5th and 6th grade students. She also oversees the Lower School Newsletter and serves as the 5th Grade Level Leader.

William Heiden is an experienced pharmaceutical/biotechnology executive, having served as a chief executive and a board member in several public and private companies in the Boston-area over the last eighteen years until his retirement in 2020.  He spent the preceding fifteen years in leadership roles in the US and internationally at Merck & Co.. Mr. Heiden holds an M.B.A. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, a Master’s degree of International Management from the University of Louvain (Belgium) and a B.A. degree in finance from the University of Florida.

Dina Model is the head of Financial Planning & Analysis at Agios Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company pioneering therapies for genetically defined diseases. Previously, she held roles at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Baxalta. She started her career in investment banking at Miller Buckfire, a division of Stifel Financial. Dina received her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and her B.S. in Finance and a minor in Psychology from New York University.

Ali is currently the Chief Operating Officer and a Managing Director at A-Street, an investment fund focused on investing in K-12 education.  Ali was previously head of Boston Operations and Strategic Initiatives and a Consulting Manager at Bain & Company, and she was a Senior Manager at The Bridgespan Group. Ali has a B.A., magna cum laude, in Chinese Language and Literature from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Maria Sena is an Agency Account Manager at Old Republic Title Company, prior to which she was an Agency Operations Manager for the Chicago Title Insurance Company for more than 20 years.

She has two children at Boston Collegiate (’25, ’27), and serves as the current Parent Trustee.

Natalie Velasquez is the Senior Engagement Manager at Mulesoft where she is responsible for handling all aspects of the post-sale services engagement across a vast portfolio of customers and projects that vary in size, complexity, and industry domain across their entire lifestyle.

Prior to this role, Natalie worked at State Street Corporation where she managed strategic initiatives for the Enterprise Data Governance and Management group. Natalie is a former Board Member of ALPFA (Association of Latino Professionals for America) where she served on the Programming Committee for the Boston Chapter. Prior to joining State Street, she worked for BBVA in Madrid, Spain within their Talent Development group through the Fundación Consejo España-Estados Unidos program. Natalie is a first-generation college student and holds a B.A. from College of the Holy Cross.

Karen currently is an Advisor to several companies, including The Bowdoin Group where she served as its Chief Operating Officer since 2012, and led its transformation to become the 5^th largest retained executive search firm in Massachusetts.  Prior to Bowdoin, Karen was Vice President, Sales Strategy and Global Operations at Pegasystems Inc., the leader in BPM and CRM software solutions, and where she led its global expansion from 130 to 400+ people in sales, alliances, product and operations.  Prior to Pega, Karen was the Chief Financial Officer and Head of People Operations for Boston Communications Group, Inc. (bcgi), a real-time transaction processing SaaS technology company. Karen led bcgi from VC-backed start-up through its IPO, growing to over 1,500 employees globally in 6 years.  Karen is a graduate of Boston College and serves as the Co-Chair of the Boston College Technology & Entrepreneurship Council.