Marty Linsky, Board President
Marty Linsky is co-founder and principal of Cambridge Leadership Associates (CLA), a global leadership development firm. He has had extensive experience as a consultant, facilitator, teacher, and trainer in leadership with a wide range of public- and private-sector clients in the U.S. and abroad.
His most recent book is The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Ronald Heifetz, with whom he co-founded CLA, and Alexander Grashow, CLA’s managing director. He is the co-author, with Heifetz, of the best-selling Leadership on the Line.
Linsky is also a faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he has been since 1979, except for three years in the early 1990s when he served as chief secretary and counsel to then-Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. He joined Harvard after careers in politics and journalism, having served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; an assistant Massachusetts attorney general; a reporter and editorial writer at the Boston Globe; and the editor of the alternative weekly, The Real Paper.
Linsky is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School. He is the father of three children, and he lives in New York City with his wife, Lynn Staley.
Marsha Bannister
Marsha Bannister oversees the Student Life Organization at Brooklyn Ascend Middle School, through which scholars build their leadership skills and commitment to their community by assuming meaningful responsibilities and participating in various activities. Bannister formerly taught eighth-grade English at the Achievement First Endeavor Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant as a Teach for America corps member. She was also the director of ENCORE, an after-school program, and she operated a Saturday empowerment program for girls at Achievement First. She worked previously for the Administration for Children’s Services and Prep for Prep in New York. Bannister earned her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University, where she served as program coordinator of the Georgetown Campus Ministry; and her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was co-founder and co-director of the Student Public Service Collaborative and vice chairwoman of the school’s Black Policy Conference.
Paulette Dalpes
Paulette Dalpes is dean of student affairs at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to this position, she worked at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as the Director of Academic Support. She presided over the board of trustees of the SABIS Holyoke Community Charter School, preceding the school’s opening and during its initial years of operation. Dalpes also served on the board of the Massachusetts Charter Public Schools Association.
Throughout her career Dalpes has ardently addressed issues of equity and access in education for low-income, at-risk, or underprepared students. Her background includes facilitating federally funded TRiO grant programs serving first-generation, low-income students and students with disabilities; training and development on issues of diversity and inclusion; and work in residential life at large universities. She has worked closely with adult basic education and English as a Second Language programs as well as other programs that support alternative avenues to higher education.
Dalpes has taught as an adjunct or guest lecturer at Holyoke Community College; the University of Massachusetts; and the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She is a member of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and of NASPA’s Region II and Community College Advisory Boards. She has also served as faculty for NASPA’s Undergraduate Fellows Program and NASPA’s Manicur Symposium for Aspiring Senior Student Affairs Officers. Dalpes attended Colorado State University as a first-generation college student, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in college student personnel administration. She earned her doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts.
Kathleen Quirk
Kathleen Quirk is chief operating officer of Cambridge Leadership Associates (CLA). Her focus is on management operations for the company and in this capacity she is continually refining CLA’s business development strategies to better meet clients’ needs.
Prior to joining CLA, Quirk worked for the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) as special assistant to chancellor Joel Klein and later as associate director of knowledge management. In these roles, she managed the 2006-2007 district-wide winning application for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and also worked closely with NYCDOE’s governing body, the Panel for Education Policy. She previously held positions at the University of California Berkeley in student affairs and served as a Jesuit/AmeriCorps volunteer in an elementary school in West Oakland, California. Quirk is an active member of the New York City Coro Leadership Center, and an onsite support staff member for a volunteer community in Bedford Stuyvesant.
Quirk is a former Coro Fellow in New York City and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the College of the Holy Cross.
David Pashman
David Pashman leads the legal team at MeetUp.com, the world's largest network of local groups, where he focuses on corporate governance, enforcement of intellectual property rights, and commercial contracts. Prior to joining MeetUp, Pashman practiced corporate law at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in New York City, with an emphasis on venture capital financings. He also practiced at Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
He serves on the board of directors of Camp Interactive, a non-profit organization that seeks to empower urban youth through outdoor education and technology training. Pashman has served as a legal advisor to the School of One initiative within the New York City Department of Education. He also advises InSITE, an organization of J.D. and M.B.A. students at Columbia and New York University that counsels early-state technology companies. He has consulted with the 92nd Street Y, Ramapo College, and Adelphi University. Pashman holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.
Lisa Smith
Lisa Smith is a parent of a Bushwick Ascend scholar and a longtime resident of the community. She has worked for nearly a decade at Infotech Solutions, a recruiting firm for IT professionals, most recently as office manager. Previously, she worked for the New York Transit Authority as traffic checker and as a clerk for Merlite Industries. She holds certificates of achievement from CEC Computer Educational Consultants.
