Our Board of Directors

Michele Caro

Michele Caro worked on Wall Street for the past 10 years, most recently at JPMorgan Asset Management where she was a Vice President. Previously, she held sales and management positions at Barclays Global Investors and Scudder Investments. Michele holds a B.A. in Psychology and Behavioral Medicine from the University of North Florida. She recently completed her first triathlon and is currently training for the Ironman. Michele lives with her husband Adam and her two boys in New York City.

Carl D. Folta

Carl D. Folta has served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications for Viacom Inc. since November 2006. He is Viacom’s chief communications strategist and spokesperson, responsible for Viacom’s overall communications activities and the coordination of communications at the Company’s operations, including MTV Networks, BET Networks and the Paramount Motion Picture Group. Mr. Folta also has oversight for all financial communications, and directs the Company’s media relations activities for industry issues and public affairs, including regulatory, legislative and legal matters. Additionally, he is responsible for managing corporate events and oversees the Company’s philanthropy activities and public affairs programs.

In his previous role in the Office of the Chairman, Mr. Folta served as advisor and spokesperson for the Executive Chairman of Viacom and CBS Corporation, Sumner Redstone. Before that, he served for 12 years as the senior communications executive for Viacom, most recently as Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations.

Mr. Folta joined Viacom in April 1994 as Vice President, Corporate Relations, from Paramount Communications Inc., where he held various communications posts of increasing responsibility since 1984. Mr. Folta received a B.S. in 1980 from Boston University’s College of Communications and was presented with the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998. In 2003, he initiated the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning KNOW HIV/AIDS, a ground-breaking public education partnership with CBS Corporation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. He is currently leading Viacom’s partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to raise awareness about the significant challenges facing America’s public education system. He is a member of the boards of the Staying Alive Foundation and the International Radio and Television Society.

Jennifer Glassman

Ms. Glassman is CFO and a Managing Director of TowerBrook. Ms. Glassman was previously a partner and CFO at Soros Private Equity. Ms. Glassman has worked in a variety of financial control and reporting roles for Soros Fund Management LLC. Ms. Glassman is a certified public accountant, and prior to joining Soros, was a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, where she worked in the Financial Services Business Assurance practice for over seven years. Ms. Glassman earned her B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and received her M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Sonia Ortiz-Gulardo

Sonia Ortiz-Gulardo is a native of Puerto Rico and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She received her BA and MS from Hunter College of the City University of New York. Sonia’s entire career has been in the field of education. She was a teacher, staff developer and Director of Bilingual Programs in the then Community School District # 4 in East Harlem. After working in District 4 for eighteen years, Ms. Gulardo moved on to Teachers College, Columbia University as the Director of the Multifunctional Resource Center, a part of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Sonia’s interest in working with young children led her to work for the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood Education (Project Giant Step) under Mayor Koch.

After working at various levels in the field of education, Sonia realized that if she was truly going to make an impact on children’s lives, it would be at the school level. In 1992, she was offered the opportunity to be the founding principal of Beginning with Children School in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The school started as a collaboration between the Board of Education, the Beginning with Children Foundation and Pfizer, Inc. Beginning with Children opened as a Board of Education school with 25 kindergarten and 25 first grade students in 1992. It developed into a kindergarten through eighth grade school, serving four hundred and fifty students. The school converted to charter school status in 2001. Sonia served as principal of the school for eleven years. In 2003 she assumed the position of Alumni Program Director at the Beginning with Children Foundation. She conceived the Alumni Program with the goal of supporting the graduates of Beginning with Children Charter School and Community Partnership Charter School during high school and college. After developing and implementing the Alumni Program for six years, Sonia continues her work at the Beginning with Children Foundation as Director of Special Projects.

Bret Halverson, Ph.D.

Since 1996, Dr. Bret Halverson has consulted workforce development organizations, corporations, and foundations in the areas of program development and executive coaching. Clients have included: the New York City Workforce Development Funders Group; JobsFirst NYC, Public/Private Ventures, the Clark and Tiger Foundation’s Neighborhood Youth Employment Project; U.S. Department of Labor for some of its Youth Opportunity Grant sites; the United Neighborhood Houses; and the Texaco Foundation’s Education program. Dr. Halverson’s prior positions include: Senior Vice President, United Way of New York City, where he managed fundraising activities and a series of public/private partnerships; and Director and Associate Dean in the Research, Demonstration and Policy Division at the Bank Street College of Education, where he developed and directed innovative employment and education projects. He serves on the board of Literacy Inc. and Board Chair of New Ways to Work. Dr. Halverson has a BA and MA from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and MA and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University. He was a Rotary Foundation Fellow.

Deborah Lans

Deborah E. Lans was a founding partner of Morrison Cohen Singer & Weinstein, LLP and was the head of its Commercial Litigation Department for more than 15 years, until she left in 2000 to serve for two years as the Executive Director of Mentoring USA. Having returned to the practice of law, she concentrates in arbitration, trial and appellate litigation of complex commercial business, employment and marital disputes.

Ms. Lans has published and lectured extensively on legal and education issues. Ms. Lans is currently a member of the New York Supreme Court Departmental Disciplinary Committee and has served on or chaired, among others, the Executive, Judiciary, Bioethical Issues and Young Lawyers Committees and the Council on Judicial Administration of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Ms. Lans is a member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia Land Conservancy and serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Literacy Inc.

A profile of Ms. Lans appears in Nancy Carson's Believing in Ourselves: A Celebration of Women (Ariel Books 2002), a book about 38 women who have distinguished themselves in a variety of fields and give back in ways that help to build a healthy world.

Mimi Levin Lieber, Founder

In 1996, Mimi Lieber founded Literacy Inc., merging her expertise in attitude research and education to promote community involvement and help all young children read on time. In 1961, she founded and served as president of Lieber Attitude Research, Inc., a full-service consumer and public opinion research organization serving numerous Fortune 500 companies. Prior to founding LINC, she was a member of the New York State Board of Regents for 15 years. She has a BA and MA in the social sciences from the University of Chicago, and was a fellow at Harvard University during the years 1959-1960.

Shari Levine

Shari has served on LINC’s Board of Directors for five years. As the mother of two teenagers, she also serves on the Parents and Teachers Committee of The Fieldston School. She has experience organizing volunteers, event planning, and fundraising. She previously served as CFO and COO for Funny Garbage Inc., a small media company specializing in web design and web content, as well as finance officer for The Red Hot Organization. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Finance and Administration for Columbia Pictures. Ms. Levine earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Rochester, and received her M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Ron Rentel

Ron Rentel is a veteran of the new product world, with over twenty years experience in the innovation and marketing industry. He founded Consumer Eyes in 1991, after 6 years with Gerald Schoenfeld, Inc., a pioneering innovations/brand development company. Continuing to reach out for new ways to explore consumers' minds and motivations, in 2000 he co-founded BuzzBack, Inc. an online market research company. He currently resides in Croton-on-Hudson, NY with wife Barb and 4 kids. Ron is a magazine junkie, an avid foodie and traveler, and has been playing in a monthly poker game for over a decade.

Ann Sand

Ann Sand is a NYS Certified Social Worker; the first social worker to be elected as an Alumni Trustee of Columbia University. She has held various positions within the fields of childcare, homelessness and education. During her career, she has worked extensively with several consortiums and is very experienced in community organizing. Ms. Sand retired the summer of 1995 and was recently elected an NASW Pioneer.

Luke Sarsfield

Luke serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Literacy Inc. He is a managing director and global head of the medical device investment banking practice at Goldman Sachs. He joined the firm’s Healthcare Group in 1999 and served as the group’s business unit manager in 2002. He was named managing director in 2007. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Luke was a consultant for McKinsey & Co. and a healthcare investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA in Anthropology, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.

Robert Spierer, CPA, MBA

Mr. Spierer specializes in the taxation of closely held businesses and high net worth individuals. He has extensive experience in many business sectors including manufacturing, real estate operators and distributors, publishers, service providers, law firms and others. He has extensive experience representing businesses and individuals in tax controversies at the federal, state and local levels.

Mr. Spierer received a BA in Economics from the State University of New York at Cortland, an MBA in Accounting and Finance from Tulane University and an Advanced Professional Certificate from New York University.

Debra Stern

Debra Stern is the Founding Partner of JAM, a branding consultancy specializing in the creative development of strategic initiatives and creator of a proprietary new briefing model, The 3D Brief. The 3D Brief is being adapted by clients and their marketing partners to dimensionalize and articulate the "brand" in a language that can better drive the creative process.

Debra's reputation as a thought leader began at Young & Rubicam, where she was EVP Creative Director for more than twenty years. Debra’s award winning work has been recognized across a wide range of corporate and consumer categories as well as Fortune 500s. Debra also worked with the Pentagon on a new branding initiative for the US Army.

A graduate of NYU, Debra earned her BFA in film and television and began her career as a film editor. Eventually, she joined the marketing/advertising team at United Artists. She is the writer and co-director of a documentary about female Olympians written and aired by NBC and the writer of a full-length documentary on the current travesty of veteran healthcare. In 2007, Debra joined the Board of Directors at LINC, where she serves as Marketing Chair and is a member of the Governance Committee.

Bios Pending:

Tracee E. Davis, Esq., Senior Associate, Zeichner Ellman & Krause LLP

Yvonne De Gaetano, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Hunter College School of Education

Jacqueline A. Kaiko, Managing Director, JPMorganChase

Susan J. Sutherland, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP