Leah Peskin

Founder & President

Leah Peskin is a community leader, philanthropist, and executive search professional serving the financial services sector. She is the Managing Partner of Bard Partners. Prior to entering the search industry, Ms. Peskin spent 16 years at Citigroup as vice president, advising in human resources policy.

She has served on the Boards of Directors of Let's Get Ready, a nonprofit that assists high school students from low-income backgrounds to gain access to a college degree, and Riverside Symphony. Additionally, Leah has served in an advisory capacity to many other NYC-based nonprofit organizations. Ms. Peskin earned a B.A. in history at NYU.

She is the proud mother of three children and is also a proud grandmother. In launching the Gavin Farrell Foundation in memory of her son, she is committed to positively impacting the lives of many. Ms. Peskin currently resides in New York City.

KATHERINE DONDANVILLE, PsyD, ABPP

Senior Program Consultant

Dr. Katy Dondanville, PsyD, ABPP, is a psychologist who works with researchers, clinicians, and systems to make mental health care better and easier to access. She's an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, focusing on improving mental health care.

As the Director of the STRONG STAR Training Initiative, Dr. Dondanville leads a team that trains mental health clinicians. They've trained over 3000 clinicians across the U.S. and internationally, reaching over 10,000 people with evidence-based treatments for PTSD, suicide, and related areas. Dr. Dondanville is also the Chief Scientific Advisor for Face the Fight, a USAA-founded initiative aiming to reduce veteran suicide rates. Dr. Dondanville leads efforts to support organizations implementing new suicide prevention practices through training, technical assistance, and evaluation. She is the Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, guiding Face the Fight's strategy by analyzing emerging research, policies, and new opportunities for veteran suicide prevention efforts.  

Dr. Dondanville focuses on making mental health care better and easier to access. Her research, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DoD), focuses on PTSD treatments like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). She's committed to using research to help real people by finding quicker ways to train therapists and making sure more people can access the right treatments. She believes using virtual platforms and mobile health tech can make therapy more available and cheaper for therapists to learn. In addition to her research and leadership roles, Dr. Dondanville mentors junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows. She's published over 100 scientific papers and given over 150 presentations at research conferences.

Tom Kedar

Operations Manager

Tom Kedar is the Operations Manager at the Gavin Farrell Foundation, where he oversees daily operations, coordinates strategic initiatives, and ensures the effective execution of programs to raise awareness and training for PTSD treatments. Tom plays a key role in managing partnerships, streamlining internal processes, and driving the foundation’s mission to provide comprehensive support for individuals impacted by PTSD.

Tom Kedar earned a B.A. in economics at Brown University. He currently resides in New York City.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mel Schneiderman, Ph.D.

Dr. Mel Schneiderman is the former Senior Vice President and co-founder of New York Foundling’s Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection, a national leader in the field of child maltreatment, and is the former Senior Vice President of Mental Health Services at the New York Foundling. He is currently on the American Psychological Association (APA) Advocacy Coordinating Committee, which prioritizes advocacy issues for the 157,000 APA members nationwide. Dr. Schneiderman serves on the Advisory Board of the World Childhood Foundation, whose mission is to promote and develop solutions to end violence, exploitation, and sexual abuse against children. He serves on the executive committees of the National Initiative to End Corporal Punishment, the New York State Initiative to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse, and the Psychological Maltreatment Alliance. He is past Vice President of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of the Children (APSAC) and served on the board of Directors of Prevent Child Abuse New York. He has published twenty-one articles in peer-reviewed journals and presented at over seventy-five conferences and workshops.

Owen Davis

Owen is General Partner at Contour Venture Partners and has been the Managing Director of NYC Seed, a seed stage venture capital fund in New York City. He also founded the NYC Seedstart accelerator and Overlap, an artificial intelligence software company for scheduling. Owen is a Board Director of numerous technology and marketing companies. Owen Davis has worked in all aspects of the online world, including work with early versions of AOL and MSN.  He created one of the first 200 websites online and founded Thinking Media, an online marketing firm which pioneered online tracking of pages and advertisements.  He co-founded Sonata in 1999, a wireless company that provided location-based services and marketing to cell phones. Owen also co-founded Petal Computing, a firm that developed software which allowed large numbers of commodity PCs to act like a single unit and was a precursor to cloud computing.

Owen is the author of various patents in Internet methods and technologies.  He is also the author of the book Instant Java Applets, available from Ziff-Davis Press. He is an original member of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium and served on that group's original board.  He was also an original member of the board that set online advertising and media specifications and has served as Managing Director of the Wireless Advertising Association.  Owen was named various times as one of the 100 Top Internet Executives in New York by The Silicon Alley Reporter and has also been named one of the 100 most influential people in Silicon Alley by Business Insider. 

He received his bachelor's degree from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.  He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School and has been an adjunct professor of engineering at New York University in New York City and Abu Dhabi.

Jamie Greenwald

Jamie Greenwald is the Co-CEO and Partner at Metaurus Advisors LLC, an asset management firm specializing in innovative investment strategies for financial advisors and institutional investors. With over three decades of industry expertise, Jamie has a proven track record of leadership and innovation in the financial sector. Previously, Jamie served as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he led the Global Structured Products Business and the Global Product Innovation team within the Equity Division for over a decade. During this time, he also managed the equity division’s intellectual property portfolio, global cost management, headcount reduction programs, and various new technology initiatives. Jamie's work at Morgan Stanley took him to both New York and London. Before joining Morgan Stanley, Jamie headed the Merrill Lynch Institutional Derivative and Structured Products Marketing team in the U.S. from 1990 to 1995. His career began at Bankers Trust, where he specialized in multi-asset class structured product development from 1986 to 1990. Jamie resides with his wife, Ren, splitting their time between the East Coast and Texas.

David Neubert

David Neubert pioneered the first automated arbitrage and trading systems for Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) at Morgan Stanley, where he led global equity electronic market making, portfolio trading risk, and index arbitrage. Rising rapidly, he became the firm’s youngest Managing Director in 1998. He also held leadership roles in global portfolio trading, derivatives trading, and macro proprietary trading.

In 2003, David joined Lehman Brothers, where he spent two years as Managing Director, Head of Equity Trading Technology and Strategy. An entrepreneur at heart, he founded and invested in multiple startups, including The Panelist (a socially conscious investing platform) and Kapitall (a financial education technology firm). He now advises diverse companies across fashion, healthcare, and fintech, consults for hedge funds, and mentors students in economics and finance.

David has served on several boards, including New World Foundation, MedicalRecords.com, and Performance Space 122. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and graduated with honors in Economics from Pitzer College. David lives in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, with his wife and their children.

Marlene Jupiter

Marlene Jupiter is an experienced Wall Street professional and accomplished author. Starting as a secretary, she rose to Managing Director at Bessent Capital, a $1 billion global macro hedge fund. She built her career specializing in quantitative research and complex financial instruments at prestigious firms like Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ). Marlene is also a successful investor and board member for Nexera Medical, which achieved FDA approval for its N95 anti-microbial respirator mask. She has raised significant capital, including a $95 million private placement for an NYSE-listed company.

As the author of Savvy Investing for Women, Marlene has appeared on prominent programs like CNBC's Squawk Box, CNN, Bloomberg, and PBS. Her personal story of overcoming challenges on Wall Street was featured in PBS’s Retro Report and the book She-Wolves: The Inside History of Women on Wall Street.

Ms. Jupiter was a founding member of Cornell University’s President’s Council of Cornell Women and a member of Cornell University’s Council. She also served on the advisory board to the Dean of Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, as well as the Investment Committee of the New York Women’s Foundation. She is on the board of Special Olympics, Broward County, Salarullo Race for Champions. She was Republican District Leader and Co-District Leader for the 61st A.D.

H. Allen Browning

H. Allen Browning is a consultant with expertise in the areas of audit and internal controls. He was previously a director at Accume Partners, a corporate consulting firm specializing in risk and regulatory services, internal audit, and cybersecurity/privacy solutions. Earlier in his career, he served as chief financial officer for Lowe Direct, a direct market advertising agency, and was a math teacher at various NYC schools. He graduated from Central Washington University and currently resides in New York.