As of January 1, 2024, Leading Edge is pleased and proud to welcome three new members onto our board of directors. Each of them is an extraordinary and dynamic leader with a track record of building trust and driving change, and together, they bring broad and deep experience in both the business world and the Jewish community to their new roles helping to govern Leading Edge.

The new board members are:

Laurie Blitzer

Laurie Blitzer serves as the Global Chair of Birthright Excel and is a past Vice Chair of the Birthright Israel Foundation, of which she was a founding member. She is also a board member of Hillel International, Moishe House, HaShomer HaChadash (New Guardians of Israel), sits on the North American Advisory Committee for TOM (Tikkun Olam Makers), on the Advisory board of Global Jewry, and just completed her board term at BBYO International. She is also on the board of UJA- Federation of New York, where she co-chairs the Center for Youth Philanthropy. Laurie is also a past member of JFNA's Young Leadership Cabinet and the Wexner Heritage Fellows program.

Alisa Doctoroff

Alisa has been active on the boards of a wide spectrum of organizations and foundations — small and large, new and old — that promote deep engagement with Jewish life, and that build and provide care for community. She is immediate past chair of the Jim Joseph Foundation Board.  She is also past President and Chair of the board of UJA-Federation of New York where she has long been involved with its grantmaking in the Jewish education space as well as in Israel. A past president of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City, she was instrumental in founding its high school division and building a new school campus. Additionally, she has served on the boards of The Hadar Institute, Moving Traditions, and the Jewish Agency for Israel.  

Rachel Kay

Rachel Kay is SVP and Chief People Officer of the Hearst Corporation, a global diversified media and information services company headquartered in New York City. Rachel joined Hearst in 2019 after nearly two decades at McKinsey & Company, the global management consultancy, where she served as a consultant and then as a leader of internal talent and HR functions.  She lives in White Plains, New York, with her husband (the head of school of a Jewish private school) and two children.

Stating the (seemingly) obvious: Why boards matter

In Leading Edge’s recent State of the Jewish Workplace report, we found that not everyone in the Jewish nonprofit sector is familiar with what nonprofit boards do and why they're important, and that there is a large divide in knowledge and perceptions between employees who work directly with their boards and those who don't.

We recommended in that report that leaders find opportunities to remind their teams and communities of their boards' contributions and why they matter. So as we welcome these three new members who have joined the other incredible leaders who make up our board, we're taking our own advice!

Nonprofit boards are entrusted by law with fiduciary responsibilities to make sure that the organization's resources, which the public allows to be tax-exempt, are used prudently and legitimately, advancing the organization's mission in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations. Boards govern the organization at the highest level, including:

• Setting the organization's mission and long-term strategy;
• Evaluating and monitor the organization's impact over time;
• Hiring, overseeing, and partnering with the CEO;
• Providing financial and budgetary oversight;
• Acting as ambassadors for the organization in the broader community;
• and (in many cases, though not in every organization) help the organization raise funds to support its work.

The Leading Edge board is a remarkable set of leaders, and together they help Leading Edge expand and evolve our impact on the Jewish nonprofit sector. Recent Leading Edge board contributions over the past few years include overseeing the 2022 acquisition of Boardified; reshaping our mission and vision; providing invaluable thought partnership to our President & CEO, Gali Cooks; shaping and approving our budget and roadmap of our work each year; and exploring and guiding multiple other long-term strategic possibilities and initiatives, about which we'll share more when the time is right.