The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has named Dr. Barbara Ferrer as its new chief strategy officer. Dr. Ferrer is well known as the most recent executive director of the Boston Health Commission, where she managed a 162 million dollar budget and over 1,000 employees to develop, implement and operate the city’s numerous public health programs. She was instrumental in getting several city agencies, non-profits and corporations to work together to leverage impactful changes across the city to improve the health of vulnerable communities. Before her time at the Boston Health Commission, she worked in the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health as the director of health promotion and chronic disease prevention and then as director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health. Ferrer has a master’s in public health, a master’s in education, and a doctorate in social welfare. These accomplishments, among many others, have earned her a reputation of being a practical and effective leader in public service. Having dedicated her career to protecting the vulnerable, Dr. Ferrer is ready to continue helping those in need through the work of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
In addition to choosing a new chief strategy officer, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation recently brought on Linh Nguyen as its new chief operating officer. Nguyen has been at the foundation since June 2013 when he joined on as vice president for Learning & Impact. For several months now he has served as interim vice president for program strategy. Prior to his time at the foundation, Nguyen was managing director for organizational and human capital consulting at the Virginia-based consulting company, Innovate, Inc. He also served as a senior executive in management consulting for Accenture and managing director for the U.S. public-sector talent and organizational performance group. In 2008, Nguyen was selected as part of the Obama Presidential Transition Team as transition co-lead for the Office of Personnel Management. As a graduate of Yale University with over 23 years of experience in consulting and policy work, Linh Nguyen brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where he will seek to expand and improve the foundation’s ability to serve its core customers and beneficiaries.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced the appointment of Suganthi Simon as its new program officer for Quality of Life. Simon joins the foundation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where she served as special assistant to the deputy regional administrator and the pollution prevention & sustainability coordinator. She earned her bachelor’s in environmental science from Wellesley College in 1997 and her master’s in industrial environmental management from Yale University in 1999. Her environmentally-focused background indicates a new direction in the operations of the Blank Family Foundation as it continues to make environmental health a bigger part of its Quality of Life initiatives aimed at improving the health of vulnerable communities and their inhabitants in and around Atlanta and beyond. Simon is excited for her new position where she says she, “look[s] forward to the opportunity to work with communities on innovative solutions that enable young people and families to achieve results beyond what seems possible today.”
Rob Correia has been announced as the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) director of finance and administration. Correia, who holds a B.S. in accounting from the University of Massachusetts and a M.S. in management from Lesley University, most recently worked at Taza Chocolate as its finance manager. Previously, he held a position at the Transportation Security Administration as a financial specialist where he was responsible for the financial operations at T.F. Green Airport and served as an advisor to the federal security director. He also had a nine-year stint at Ocean Spray Cranberries in several positions, including that of lead financial analyst for product marketing. Correia will be working with CEP’s senior leadership team in Cambridge, MA, overseeing the center’s finance and administrative functions and reporting directly to the president, Phil Buchanan.
