Board of Directors

Arun Prabhakaran is the Chief of Staff for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Previously Arun was the Senior Vice President and Chief External Affairs Officer for the Urban Affairs Coalition. At UAC Arun oversaw UAC’s External Affairs work: development, new business, government relations, strategic partnerships, board development and relations, marketing and communications and community affairs. Arun’s previous professional experience includes Government Relations and Public Sector Sales for Solutions for a public policy IT firm. Arun founded the city’s first youth-oriented harm reduction drop-in center at the Youth Health Empowerment Project, serving homeless youth with substance abuse challenges. He has worked as an independent consultant to nonprofits, government, political candidates, and other institutions and has over a decade of grassroots organizing experience working to advance human rights and end poverty in the U.S. Currently, Arun serves in a leadership capacity on the following initiatives: National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, Steering Committee; Read by 4th, Advisory Committee; Entrepreneur Works, Board of Directors; and Philadelphia Works, Member of Research and Policy Committee. He is a Senior Advisor to Larry Krasner, Democratic Nominee for Philadelphia District Attorney, and to The Lafayette Practice, consortium of international professionals solving the complex problems that foundations and NGOs encounter. In addition to his service on the MCC Board of Directors, he is a former board member of the Bread and Roses Community Fund as well as a former Trustee of the Philadelphia Montessori Charter School.  Arun holds a BA in Chemistry from Kent State University.

Ismael Alvarez Jr., is the Division Director of Center Based Services at Children’s Crisis Treatment Center (CCTC). A graduate of Temple University’s Counseling Psychology Program, he is a Licensed Professional Counselor with over 10 years of experience working in non-profit mental health settings, serving children and adolescents with emotional/behavioral problems along with their families. In his current position, he manages the daily functioning of four programs (Outpatient, Trauma, Therapeutic Nursery, Acute Partial, and Parent/Caregiver Services,) at CCTC. Mr. Alvarez’s commitment to his own development as a clinician and supervisor makes him a well- informed, compassionate Director, who manages to keep hope springing eternally in a very challenging environment.

“As a Latino male, born and raised in North Philadelphia,I have experienced and understand the obstacles facing the lives of the people and communities served by MCC and I am proud to give time and effort to an organization that supports communities like the one I grew up in that has shaped who I am today. Serving as a member of MCC’s Board of Directors will give me an opportunity to share my experience, knowledge, and expertise of the human condition and particularly the issues and adverse childhood experiences that impact the lives of young people and their families in hopes of leading them towards healthier and positive lifestyles and futures.”

Arthur Gimenez  is currently the Director of Business Development at PIDC’s Business Lending department and has several years of experience in lead generation, business model evaluation and financial statements analysis. Previously, Arthur worked as a Director for The Enterprise Center Capital Corporation where he oversaw business development, underwriting and portfolio management activities. Arthur received his MBA from Temple University’s Fox School of Business with a concentration in Finance and Marketing. Before pursuing his MBA, Arthur was a management consultant for Accenture’s Finance and Performance Management practice and assisted clients such as Comcast, and T-Mobile and Time Inc.

Megan Knowlton Balne is an attorney at Hyland Levin where she focuses on commercial litigation.  She clerked for the Honorable Jerome B. Simandle, Chief U.S. District Judge for the District of New Jersey and for the Honorable Ronald E. Bookbinder, Assignment Judge of the New Jersey Superior Court for Burlington County. Megan is a graduate of Ramapo College and Rutgers University School of Law-Camden.  She won the award for Outstanding Scholarship from the New Jersey Women and Gender Studies Consortium and was awarded a fellowship from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. At Rutgers, Megan was Editor-in-Chief of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion and represented victims of domestic violence. Megan also has a passion for the arts and is an active Community Theater and regularly participates as an actor, director or stage manager in different productions. Megan lives in Somerdale, New Jersey with her husband, Tommy, her vivacious three-year-old son, Sammy and her newborn twins Abigail and Lillian. Megan is a graduate of the United Way Board Leadership program and serves on MCC’s Corporate Advisory Committee.

Keith Daviston is the Chief Financial Officer for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Keith is a seasoned finance veteran with more than 25 years of both for-profit and non-profit experience. Currently, Keith is the Chief Financial Officer of Arbill Industries Inc. Arbill  is a leading manufacturer and distributor of industrial safety products, and a provider of safety consulting and training services. Previously Daviston served as the Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Daviston also served as CFO of the Urban Affairs Coalition and has worked for more than a decade in various management roles in banking, including positions with MBNA and Bank of America. Daviston has also held senior roles in the manufacturing, and energy sectors. Daviston attained the rank of Major (retired) in the Delaware National Guard and is a Certified Public Accountant. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Peirce College in Philadelphia and as the Audit Chair of  East Side Charter School in Wilmington, Delaware. He is a graduate of Slippery Rock University with a BS in Accounting.

Lisa Farnin is an accomplished marketing professional, project manager, and program manager with more than 25 years of experience in the areas of systems integration, consulting, sales, marketing and corporate citizenship with IBM and Ford Motor Company.  Lisa has been recognized locally and nationally for her leadership in team building, negotiating, problem solving, and service.  She has served on a number of nonprofit boards and has experience with startups, mergers, and much in between.  Lisa is a 20+ year breast cancer survivor, diagnosed when pregnant with her second child. She has a BS in Engineering from Lehigh University and an MS in Computer Science from Villanova University.  Lisa resides in Bucks County, PA with her husband and two college age children.

Katherine Foy is the Senior Vice President of Quality, Compliance and Risk at Robins’ Nest in Glassboro, New Jersey. Katherine inspires a culture of continuous quality improvement and excellence with the context of integrated healthcare and population health. She safeguards operational and related activities through the development of robust policies and procedures that ensure legal, ethical and proper conduct. Prior to joining Robins’ Nest, Katherine was the Director of Compliance and Consumer Risk for the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC). Katherine led the internal processes for proactively identifying, evaluating, mitigating and reporting on compliance and risks across the corporation. In addition, Katherine served as a Federal Project Officer/Program Specialist with the United States Department of Health and Human Services.  She monitored and oversaw more than $60 million for Head Start programs; offered expertise on federal rules and regulations; directed teams in defining risk assessment processes for federal, state, and local compliance; and educated board members and senior management on fiscal oversight and program governance requirements. Professionally and philanthropically, Katherine has more than 25 years of experience in social services, economic empowerment, and education. She received a M.S.W. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work and a B.A. in Criminal Justice with a minor in Political Science from Temple University.

Iola Harper is a nationally-recognized, award-winning advocate for small businesses and urban neighborhoods. She has spent well over two decades working diligently with minority and women-owned firms and economic development agencies across the Delaware Valley, helping them gain access to needed financial, technical, and contract opportunity. The small business and economic development agencies that she has worked with are too numerous to name, but her work and efforts have benefited thousands of small business locally and regionally.  In 2016 she began work as the Deputy Director of Commerce for the city of Philadelphia. In this role she runs the Office of Economic Opportunity. This job involves ensuring that people of color, women and disabled-owned firms have equal access to city, quasi-city and some private sector contracts. Iola looks at this as an opportunity to open the door for businesses that she helped prepare to walk through.  Her success working with not only small businesses but in urban neighborhoods garnered the attention of former Governor of PA when she was named one of Pennsylvania’s top 50 Women in Business. Her work drew a national spotlight several years ago when she was honored by the Small Business Administration as one of the Nation’s top small business advocates and when she was named one of Philadelphia’s most influential women by the NAACP.

Ana Lopez is a strategic marketing and business development executive who has worked with Fortune 100 companies and nonprofits to define new growth strategies, develop marketing programs and align business goals with the needs of consumers and other stakeholders. She has deep expertise with high- growth consumer markets, including Women, Multicultural and Millennial markets. Throughout her career, Ana has also had a strong focus on using emerging digital technologies to drive consumer engagement.

As Vice President, Direct Channels with TD Bank Group, Ana played an instrumental role in driving the launch and adoption of new digital capabilities, such as Mobile Deposit. Previously, she was Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning with Wells Fargo, where she developed business and marketing strategies to drive growth and financial accessibility across key consumer segments. Ana spearheaded the Bank’s first enterprise Hispanic strategy, which was leveraged throughout the organization to better meet the needs of the segment and drive new retail growth. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Ana was a Senior Vice President with Bank of America, where she managed the P&L of the Hispanic savings business, and led the overall strategy and execution for Multicultural consumer markets, driving customized product and brand development, channel enhancements, community relationships, and marketing programs, and launching a Spanish language website.

Ana holds BS and MBA degrees from Columbia University and MS and JD degrees from Georgetown University. She was admitted to the Bar in New York. Ana has been involved with nonprofits through board memberships, skills-based volunteer roles, and consulting engagements, working on strategic planning, branding, marketing communications, development and strategic partnerships. She has served on the Board of Trustees of the Latino Community Foundation in San Francisco, and on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Institute for Housing and Economic Development in Boston. She was drawn to the Maternity Care Coalition’s mission due to her longstanding interest in working with organizations committed to improving the lives of women and children.

Randy Mintz- Presant Randy Mintz Presant is director of public affairs for the Gift of Life Donor Program, a world leader in promoting life-saving organ transplantation.  As part of the senior management team, Randy oversees outreach and education initiatives. Her background includes holding senior leadership positions in top communications and health care organizations, and leading marketing communications programs for major companies such as AstraZeneca, Cigna, Dun & Bradstreet, and IBM. Randy started her career in journalism, writing for national publications such as Cosmopolitan, Family Circle and The Washington Post. She and her family are longtime residents of Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood, and she has served on numerous committees for area parks and schools, as well as organizations such as the Public Citizens for Children and Youth and the National MS Society. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Syracuse University and a master’s degree in marketing communications from Temple University. Randy is in her second term on the Maternity Care Coalition Board; her tenure includes serving on the Strategic Planning, Celebrating Mothers Event, and Corporate Advisory, Fund Development and Marketing committees.

Bonnie Wingate has been connecting executives with the power Insigniam provides to catalyze breakthrough results in their most critical and challenged initiatives. She has worked with executives of Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods, food and beverage, and banking. Among Bonnie’s clients are a medical device company that accelerated their R&D timeline by 75% in four and a half months, an IT department that raised their ComputerWorld ranking from #170 to #17 in one year, and the R&D division of a consumer product company that created and commercialized what the industry called “the holy grail” product. The company’s products held the top three places in the market for years, and for six years they and their competitors had been working on the next-generation product. The company which solved “the holy grail” would own the category’s future. After just six months of working with Insigniam, R&D created the product that had evaded them and their competitors for years, retaining market dominance. Before joining Insigniam, Bonnie grew the start-up division of a local personnel service from the ground up. After seven years under her leadership, Day & Zimmermann purchased her company. She was an Executive Vice President before the purchase and retained that position during five years with D&Z; she was the first woman executive at D&Z. Bonnie is the President of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. She formerly held the position of Vice President and President-Elect, and has been a member of the HBA Board since 2012. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University.

Desarae Woodall Smalls  is currently President of the Early Head Start Policy council. She serves also as an Oral Ambassador for Head Start, and represents MCC’s EHS program in regards to home visiting and center based care. Desarae has been a leader among EHS parents and was previously a client of MCC’s services. In January 2018, she participated in the federal review of the EHS program which required extensive knowledge of the program’s model and performance standards. Desarae has a deep understanding of the needs of the organization’s client base and the fiscal challenges the local community faces daily. Additionally, she attended Head Start’s national training on parent engagement. Desarae resides in Norristown, PA with her husband and three children.

Mary Pat Sherry is Director of Market Development for the AmeriHealth Caritas Family of Companies. In this role she is responsible for new business opportunities and the development of key stakeholder relationships nationally. In her previous role as Director of Corporate Public Relations she led the implementation of grassroots and associate advocacy campaigns and supported the corporate marketing strategy through community development initiatives. She joined AmeriHealth Caritas in October, 2007. Her career began as a health educator for the American Cancer Society where she was responsible for the development and facilitation of cancer awareness and prevention programs for schools, hospitals and community groups. Mary Pat serves on Maternity Care Coalition’s Early Head Start Board Committee (EHSBC). She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health from West Chester University.

“I was drawn to Maternity Care Coalition because of a shared mission to improve access to quality prenatal and post-natal care for women and children. I am impressed by MCC’s community based services that focus on strengthening families.”

Giuliano Pignataro is a real estate developer committed to architectural preservation, classic design, and uncompromising environmental sustainability. Born and raised in Philadelphia, his range of experience includes several years as project manager for one of the nation’s largest home builders in both suburban and urban markets; director of construction and development for a portfolio of over two thousand luxury rental residential units; and as managing director of a green building project in Jamaica, West Indies.