Meet our team

Leadership Team


Kryn Anderson
Chief Financial Officer
email Kryn


Brigid Brannigan
Senior Director of People
email Brigid


Sandra Chanduvi
Vice President of Financial Coaching
email Sandra


Carl Curran
Strategic Advisor
email Carl


Melissa Gopnik
Vice President of Innovation
email Melissa


Cris Martin
Vice President of Growth Strategies
email Cris


Ashley Wessier
Chief of Staff
email Ashley


Justine Zinkin
Chief Executive Officer
email Justine

LEADERSHIP TEAM

Kryn Anderson
Chief Financial Officer
email Kryn

Brigid Brannigan
Senior Director of People
email Brigid

Sandra Chanduvi
Vice President of Financial Coaching
email Sandra

Carl Curran
Strategic Advisor
email Carl

Melissa Gopnik
Vice President of Innovation
email Melissa

Cris Martin
Vice President of Growth Strategies
email Cris

Ashley Wessier
Chief of Staff
email Ashley

Justine Zinkin
Chief Executive Officer
email Justine

CUSTOMER GROWTH & EXPERIENCE


Vincent Giacalone II
Manager, Business Development
email Vincent


Sofronia Gould
Account Manager
email Sofronia


Hector Hidalgo
Account Manager
email Hector


Brendon Kinney
Manager, Customer Implementation & Account Management
email Brendon


Ilinca Munteanu
Director, Brand and Performance Marketing
email Illinca


Vincent Giacalone II
Manager, Business Development
email Vincent

Sofronia Gould
Account Manager
email Sofronia

Hector Hidalgo
Account Manager
email Hector

Brendon Kinney
Manager, Customer Implementation & Account Management
email Brendon

Ilinca Munteanu
Director, Brand and Performance Marketing
email Ilinca

FINANCIAL COACHING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE


Elayna Alexander
Financial Coach
email Elayna


Nathalie Baez
Senior Manager, Financial Coaching
email Nathalie


Janet Crump
Financial Coach
email Janet


Dametria Douglas
Senior Financial Coach
email Dametria


Justin Enany
Senior Training Specialist
email Justin


Denae Hannah
Senior Financial Coach
email Denae


Tamika Howell
Financial Coach
email Tamika


Samantha Kinney
Senior Financial Coach
email Samantha


Jonathan Lee
Senior Manager, Financial Coaching
email Jonathan


Alejandra Mazon
Financial Coach
email Alejandra


Megan Miles
Senior TrustPlus Administrator
email Megan


Ivania Mora
Manager, Financial Coaching
email Ivania


Michelle Morillo
Senior Financial Coach
email Michelle


Elise Nussbaum
Senior Financial Coach
email Elise


Tiffany Ordonez
Senior Financial Coach
email Tiffany


Ana Paez
Senior Financial Coach
email Ana


Bernard Saavedra
Senior Financial Coach
email Bernard


David Shusman
Senior Financial Coach
email David


Shanick Yermenos
Financial Coach
email Shanick

Elayna Alexander
Financial Coach

Nathalie Baez
Senior Manager, Financial Coaching
email Nathalie

Janet Crump
Financial Coach
email Janet

Dametria Douglas
Senior Financial Coach
email Dametria

Justin Enany
Senior Training Specialist
email Justin

Denae Hannah
Senior Financial Coach
email Denae

Tamika Howell
Financial Coach
email Tamika

Samantha Kinney
Senior Financial Coach
email Samantha

Jonathan Lee
Senior Manager, Financial Coaching
email Jonathan

Alejandra Mazon
Financial Coach
email Alejandra

Megan Miles
Senior TrustPlus Administrator
email Megan

Ivania Mora
Manager, Financial Coaching
email Ivania

Michelle Morillo
Manager, Financial Coaching
email Michelle

Elise Nussbaum
Senior Financial Coach
email Elise

Tiffany Ordonez
Financial Coach
email Tiffany

Ana Paez
Senior Financial Coach
email Ana

Bernard Saavedra
Senior Financial Coach
email Bernard

David Shusman
Senior Financial Coach
email David

Shanick Yermenos
Financial Coach
email Shanick

Solution Development, Tech and Data


Amauris Belen
Associate Product Owner
email Amauris


Stef Campolo
Senior Manager, UX & Design
email Stef


Christopher Dargin
Director of Innovation
email Christopher


Abdul-Ganiy Okanlawon
Manager, Data & Analytics
email Abdul


Kedar Potdar
Senior Manager, Technology
email Kedar


Kacie Price
Graphic Designer
email Kacie


William Ramirez
Salesforce Administrator
email William


Fitz Restituyo
Manager, Innovation
email Fitz


Rosie Silber-Marker
Senior Manager, Worker Insights
email Rosie


Theo Vaughn
Director of Product Services
email Theo

Amauris Belen
Associate Product Owner
email Amauris

Stef Campolo
Senior Manager, UX &  Design
email Stef

Christopher Dargin
Director of Innovation
email Christopher

Abdul-Ganiy Okanlawon
Manager, Data & Analytics
email Abdul

Kedar Potdar
Senior Manager, Technology
email Kedar

Kacie Price
Graphic Designer
email Kacie

William Ramirez
Salesforce Administrator
email William

Fitz Restituyo
Manager, Innovation
email Fitz

Rosie Silber-Marker
Senior Manager, Worker Insights
email Rosie

Theo Vaughn
Director of Product Services
email Theo

Finance and Operations


Priscilla Canela
Senior Bookkeeper
email Priscilla


Rashawna Wilson
Manager, Facilities & Operations
email Rashawna


Kathery Zapata
Senior Controller
email Kathery


Priscilla Canela
Senior Bookkeeper
email Priscilla

Rashawna Wilson
Manager, Facilities & Operations
email Rashawna

Kathery Zapata
Senior Controller
email Kathery

External Relations


Heather Goode
Director of Development
email Heather


Adrianna Gregory
Manager, Development
email Adrianna


Lauren Jadotte
Manager, Communications
email Lauren


Elio Pichardo
Senior Manager, Organizational Development
email Elio


Celia Schweizer
Development Coordinator
email Celia


Heather Goode
Director of Development
email Heather

Adrianna Gregory
Manager, Development
email Adrianna

Lauren Jadotte
Manager, Communications
email Lauren

Elio Pichardo
Senior Manager, Organizational Development
email Elio

Celia Schweizer
Development Coordinator
email Celia

9/11/1986 – 11/5/2022

From the moment John became a part of our team on August 24, 2011, it was evident that he would leave an indelible mark on our organization. Beyond his role as Product Owner, John was a friend to all, known for his caring nature, humility, and trustworthiness.

Known for his love for sports, particularly the Yankees and Knicks, and his deep appreciation for EDM music, he had a wide range of interests that reflected his vibrant character. What truly set John apart was his remarkable capacity for empathy and selflessness, which he displayed in every interaction. With his quick wit and innate ability to lighten the mood, he brought joy and laughter to every situation. John’s welcoming demeanor embraced others, making them feel at ease and accepted.

From his early days working at the credit union to becoming a Financial Coach and eventually a leader within our product team, John consistently displayed a passion for guiding and mentoring new colleagues while promoting a relaxed work environment. He led the implementation of our scheduler, currently utilized by clients for scheduling sessions with coaches, and played a key role in preparing Financial Coaches for the transition from in-person to remote coaching.

As a Financial Coach, John’s dedication to helping and supporting workers was unwavering. In this role, he empowered more than 1,700 individuals on their financial journeys helping his clients reduce more than $5,500,000 in debt, while instilling hope and confidence along the way.

We are grateful for John’s remarkable dedication, commitment, and the profound positive influence he brought to our organization. May his spirit continue to inspire us to make a difference in the lives of others, just as he did.

Board of Directors

Aliah Greene is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Percapita Group, LLC, a social impact fintech company. Prior to this, Aliah had a 21 year career at Morgan Stanley in various roles within Finance, Treasury, and Risk Management in both the US and the UK. Her most recent role was Managing Director, Head of Enterprise Risk Management and Analytics for the firm’s Wealth Management segment and Morgan Stanley Private Bank, N.A.

Aliah also serves on the boards of KEEN NYC, which provides free recreational activities for disabled children, and the League Education and Treatment Center, which provides educational and support services for children and young adults with developmental or psychiatric challenges. Additionally, she is the founder of Specially Centered, a support network for parents of neurodiverse and/or disabled children. An alumna of Brown University, Aliah is a proud New York City native raised in Harlem and The Bronx, and currently resides in Brooklyn with her partner and son.

Franco Baseggio recently was a Managing Director of HBK’s statistical arbitrage strategy, a position he had held for over 12 years.

Prior to that, Franco built a statistical arbitrage strategy at PCM, a hedge fund, and co-headed the fund-of-funds group at Commerzbank. Franco started his career with a 6 year stint at D. E. Shaw & Co. in a variety of programming, quant, and investing roles.

Franco received his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Harvard.

When he gets the chance he likes to play tournament bridge, where he has one major national victory.

Matthew Rhodes-Kropf is the Managing Partner at Tectonic Ventures, an early-stage venture capital company with a focus on finance, technology, and biotech companies. He is also a visiting associate professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He specializes in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, hedge funds, and corporate governance. He has been published in leading finance and economic journals including The Journal of Finance, The Journal of Business, Journal of Financial Economics, and The RAND Journal of Economics.

Matt previously managed RK Ventures and served as acting CFO of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and has been a member of its board of directors since its founding. In addition to being a member of the board of directors of Neighborhood Trust, he is on the boards of Duke University’s Graduate School, Ada Investment Management, a process driven hedge fund that uses long-run economic signals, and Correlation Ventures, a quantitatively-based venture fund.

Matt was formerly an Associate Professor at the Harvard School of Business and the Daniel W. Stanton Associate Professor of Business at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, where he received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. A graduate of Duke University, he holds a B.A. in computer science and economics and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics.

Chauncy Lennon, Ph.D., Vice President for the Future of Learning and Work at the Lumina Foundation, helps build out new ideas to advance the foundation’s attainment agenda. He joins Lumina from JPMorgan Chase where he drove the firm’s $350 million investment in philanthropic initiatives as Managing Director and Head of Workforce Strategy. He previously led large portfolios of work at Ford Foundation related to economic advancement and workforce development, and was responsible for the growth and operation of national initiatives that connect low-wage workers to income-enhancing benefits and services as Senior Vice President for Asset Building at Seedco, a national workforce development intermediary. He earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University, master’s degree from the University of Chicago and bachelor’s degree from Williams College. He has taught urban studies at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and at Barnard College.

Benjamin S. Appen, CFA, is a Founding Partner, Co-Chair of the Investment Committee, and Chief Executive Officer, responsible for developing and managing the Magnitude investment business.

Mr. Appen was previously a senior vice president at the D. E. Shaw group, a New York-based investment firm focusing on quantitative trading and technology venture capital activities. During his seven-year tenure, he co-founded and managed the firm’s fund of funds business. In this role, he oversaw the evaluation of investment strategies, manager selection, and quantitative research. Mr. Appen also managed the D. E. Shaw group’s venture capital investments, he served on the board of directors of Schrödinger, Inc., a computational chemistry software pioneer.

Immediately before joining Magnitude Capital, Mr. Appen was the chief executive officer of Alkindi, Inc., based in New York City. He was responsible for overseeing the development of a collaborative filtering application based on n-dimensional clustering algorithms. Alkindi’s improvements to this technology led to the company’s software being rated highest in user tests.

Mr. Appen has been invited to speak about hedge funds as a guest lecturer at Columbia University and New York University. Mr. Appen is also on the board of directors for Innovations for Poverty Action, which administers rigorous evaluations of development work around the world. He is a trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission.

In 1992, Mr. Appen graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in political science from Columbia University.

Maria Behrens is the Global Head of Financial Wellness in Workplace Advisory Solutions at Goldman Sachs, where she oversees the personal finance programs for the firm’s global population, manages strategic client growth opportunities, and defines success metrics for financial wellness and planning solutions.

Her previous roles include serving as the Head of Financial Wellness Program Management at Morgan Stanley at Work, where she oversaw new client implementation, client success and reinvestment opportunities, in addition to the firm’s cross-functional expansion of financial wellness across workplace and consumer solutions. Prior to Morgan Stanley, Maria created the Workplace offering and associated programmatic build of financial planning technology used by RIAs, employers and custodians to integrate goal-based planning and financial wellness services into their ecosystems. Maria fostered the strategic growth of the company that ultimately was acquired by Orion, a leading wealthtech financial firm.

Maria’s career has been dedicated to enhancing the health and wellbeing of populations through education, technology and the building of pathways and platforms required to help all people thrive, regardless of socio-economic status. She is a trained public health professional with an extensive background and a wealth of experience studying the social determinants of health and the impact cyclical poverty has on individuals, as well as their families, around the world.

Maria has spent nearly a decade developing solutions to enhance and expand financial wellbeing, and has personally created, and overseen the creation of, financial wellness strategies for hundreds of companies, from the Fortune 500s to regional corporates to startups, to help employees achieve greater financial security, reach financial goals, and ultimately lay the financial foundation required for sustainable growth.

Maria holds a Masters in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health, and graduated Magna cum Laude from Ithaca College with a B.S. in Health Sciences.

Sebastián Ceria is one of the world’s foremost authorities on optimization. Sebastian Ceria is Chief Executive Officer of Qontigo. He previously served as the CEO of Axioma (now part of Qontigo), which he founded and led since 1998. Before that, Ceria was an Associate Professor of Decision, Risk and Operations at Columbia Business School from 1993 to 1998. He was honored with the prestigious Career Award for Operations Research from the National Science Foundation, which is given annually to the two best researchers and teachers in the area. While at Columbia he was also recognized as the “best core teacher” by his students and the school. Additionally, Ceria has served as administrator for the Computational Optimization Research Center and as co-principal investigator in two National Science Foundation research projects.

Ceria is the author of many articles and has been featured regularly in a variety of publications including Management Science, Mathematical Programming, Optima and Operations Research. He has also been an editor for Optima, and a regular referee for a number of publications in the area. Past speaking engagements include international corporate and academic conferences. Ceria completed his PhD in Operations Research at Carnegie Mellon University’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration.

Ross Garon is the Head of Quantitative Strategies at Millennium. Prior to that, he was the Managing Director at Cubist Systematic Strategies, LLC. Mr. Garon began his career in quantitative finance in 1993 when he joined D. E. Shaw & Co. Mr. Garon graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

Sheldon Gilbert is a serial tech entrepreneur and currently the Founder and CEO of Kura Labs, a non-profit tech training academy in cloud infrastructure computing, cybersecurity, and AI.

Upon graduating from college in 1997, Sheldon began his career as a molecular genetics and bioinformatics research assistant before joining a tech startup in Silicon Valley, where he built machine learning algorithms and recommendation engines for first-generation e-commerce platforms. Thereafter, Sheldon developed and patented new systems for data processing and launched his own tech company, Proclivity Systems.

Proclivity’s early adoption of cloud computing in 2013 and its significant challenges in finding cloud engineers due to the surge in demand and the acute shortage of engineers for this new technology inspired Sheldon to launch Kura Labs in 2020. Kura Labs is focused on reducing the critical engineering workforce shortage in cloud infrastructure computing, cybersecurity, and AI infrastructure by developing new talent pipelines in traditionally underserved communities throughout the U.S.

In less than four years, Kura Labs has generated over $15 million in new wages for its students, training and placing nearly 100 Cloud Infrastructure, DevOps, SRE, and DataOps Engineers at Fortune 1000 and venture-backed companies, including Morgan Stanley, AWS, NASDAQ, Bloomberg, JP Morgan Chase, Oracle, DraftKings, Capital One, S&P Global, and Meroxa, achieving 80%-90% placement rates. With Kura Labs graduates earning an average entry-level salary of $100,000, often coming from households with an annual income of $30,000, the academy aims to generate billions in new wages over the next decade, given the extensive investment in digital infrastructure and next-generation data centers to support national efforts in AI computing and cybersecurity.

Kura’s mission and results have garnered support from MacKenzie Scott, the Charles Hayden Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Tiger Foundation, The Edwin Gould Foundation, Salesforce Foundation and has recently launched enterprise training partnerships with Google, ServiceNow, and several other global technology companies.

Sheldon is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. Molecular Biology & Biophysics), an alumnus of Prep for Prep (IX, Horace Mann), a Lincoln Center Fellow, and a trustee of The Student Diplomacy Corp and Neighborhood Trust. When he is not visiting family in St. Lucia, Norway, or New Zealand, Sheldon can be found trying to keep up with his two daughters, Kayla and Azuri, in Central Park on any given afternoon.

Rob Levy is the Mass Market Deposits Strategy & Pricing Lead for the Small Business Bank at Capital One, where he champions the success and growth of small businesses.

Prior to this role, Rob spent over 10 years at the Financial Health Network, the leading non-profit authority on financial health, where he led a 10-person research and policy team.

During this time, Rob oversaw the development of the Financial Health Pulse®, a multiyear research initiative to measure the financial health of Americans, and the FinHealth Score®, an open-source framework for measuring consumer financial health now widely used by dozens of organizations.

Rob has also served as Board Chair for Neighborhood Trust Federal Credit Union, NTFP’s partner credit union. He earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Aleksandra Mojsilović is a Senior Director of Research at Google. Previously, she was a scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. She received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia in 1997. She was a Member of Technical Staff at the Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey (1998-2000), and then joined IBM Research, where she led AI Science organization. Saška was the founder and co-director of the IBM Science for Social Good program. Over the last 20 years, Saška has applied her skills to problems in computer vision, healthcare, multimedia, finance, HR, public affairs and economics. Saška is one of the pioneers of business analytics at IBM and in the industry; throughout her career she championed innovative uses of analytics for business decision support. For her technical contributions and the business impact of her work Saška was appointed an IBM Fellow, the company’s highest technical honor. Saška is the author of over 100 publications and holds 16 patents. Her work has been recognized with several awards including IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award, INFORMS Wagner Prize, IBM Extraordinary Accomplishment Award, IBM Gerstner Prize, and Best Paper awards at ECCV and SOLI conferences. She is an IEEE Fellow and a member of INFORMS and SWE.

Justine Zinkin is CEO of Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners. She has led Neighborhood Trust since 2002, cultivating the organization as a national thought leader pursuing worker financial security and financial justice.

Justine has transformed the role of the workplace and credit unions as a platform for financial empowerment through Neighborhood Trust’s two core solutions—TrustPlus and Pathways to Financial Empowerment—as well as its role as a founding and leading provider of financial coaching through New York City’s Financial Empowerment Centers, a model the organization has helped replicate in over 60 cities through the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund. She also currently serves on the board of Neighborhood Trust Federal Credit Union and is an advisory board member for the Financial Health Network’s Financial Health Pulse.

Prior to joining Neighborhood Trust, Justine served as Director of Economic Independence Programs at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development and as Director of Workforce Development at Common Ground Community. She holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.A. from Brown University.