Our Board
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Nell Merlino
Nell Merlino is Founder, President and CEO of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources for women to grow their micro businesses into million $ enterprises. She is author of “Stepping Out of Line: Lessons for Women Who Want It Their Way in Life, in Love, and at Work,” from Broadway Books.
Throughout her career, Nell Merlino has been inspiring millions of people to take action. She is the creative force behind Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which moved more than 71 million Americans to participate in a day dedicated to giving girls the opportunity to dream bigger about their future.
Through Count Me In, Nell is now inspiring women entrepreneurs to dream big and achieve even more. She is leading a global movement to empower women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses to a million dollars and beyond by providing tools, resources, and a supportive community of their peers. Count Me In’s Make Mine a Million $ Business program reaches women entrepreneurs in communities around the country through events and on-line community. This movement will not only add millions of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity, but take women to new levels of independence, empowering them to act as economic leaders.
Merlino is also the founder and President of Strategy Communication Action, Ltd. (SCA) in New York City, a firm specializing in the creation of public education campaigns that motivate people to act. Prior to founding Count Me In, at SCA Merlino created on campaigns like the YWCA’s The Week Without Violence, the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, worked in two state governments, was an advance woman in presidential politics, a union organizer and a Fulbright Scholar.
Merlino lives in Manhattan with her husband, Gary Conger.
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K. Shelly Porges
K. Shelly Porges is a recognized expert in marketing and strategy development with a significant track record in launching products, brands and companies, as well as in raising funds for a range of non-profit and political organizations. Having recently exited her company, Global Payments Experts LLC, of which she was a co-founder and managing partner, she is now spends full time serving on a variety of boards.
Ms. Porges' career includes a ten-year stint at American Express, culminating as executive head of marketing for American Express Canada, followed by three years as senior vice president of retail product management for Bank of America, the bank's chief retail marketing officer, and the first woman to be elevated to that level. Ms. Porges also held executive positions in a number of start-up ventures including Executive Vice President, New Business Initiatives for a precursor subsidiary of Wachovia Bank, Executive Vice President-Marketing for Third Age Media and Chief Marketing Officer of Scudder Weisel Capital LLC.
Ms. Porges has been quoted in such publications as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune and American Banker.
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Vickee Adams
Vickee’s extensive experience with Burston-Marsteller, Dow Jones, Ketchum and currently Hill & Knowlton has led to an outstanding reputation for superior client service and management expertise. As a former broadcast journalist, Vickee coaches senior executives to communicate in high-stakes communications situations. Her experience She was Director of Corporate Communications at Dow Jones and SVP at Ketchum Public Relations. Vickee serves on the boards of WNYC public radio and Count-Me-In. Previously she was board member of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. She has volunteered for 2 Democratic National Convention Committees as press aid, political consultant and media coach.
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Lorene Arey
Lorene Arey is founder and President of the Clara Fund, a philanthropic organization whose focus is to help create economic opportunities for women globally.
Before joining the public sector, Lorene was the head of Worldwide Corporate Communications at Cisco Systems where she was responsible for Cisco’s worldwide media relations, public relations and executive communications. Since joining Cisco in 1993 she played a key role in shaping and positioning Cisco’s public image. The accomplishments of her team were spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal in 2000 when Cisco was recognized as the company with the best publicity across all industries worldwide for 1999.
Lorene serves on the Board of Directors for Count Me In for Economic Independence, The Women’s Edge Coalition, and The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. In the private sector, Lorene serves on the Advisory Boards for TransAria, Inc., and 463 Communications. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Maureen Borzacchiello
During her 12+ year career in the trade show display industry, Maureen Borzacchiello has proven to be a skilled executive and visionary entrepreneur. Prior to starting Creative Display Solutions, Inc. in 2001, Maureen experienced success during her career with a leading international display manufacturer as a top sales person, Sales Manager and ultimately General Manager, running their multi-office organization. In her role as GM she was responsible for generating a double digit increase in sales revenue. Accomplishments include creating policy and procedure standards to streamline sales and production processes, implementing a CRM program and developing a formal training program.
As a business owner, Maureen has worked to develop and expand her company, with repeat business representing 52% of total sales annually. She believes that this is due to their commitment to the client’s goals and objectives, the product diversification in their offerings and stellar, reliable service. Maureen feels that her purpose, which she translated to the mission of Creative Display Solutions, is to create and build experiences that make look great and feel amazing. She and her team accomplish that by taking a very open minded approach in listening to their clients’ needs and doing whatever it takes to find the right solution. Solutions which are based on the varying needs of her clients, from design and planning, to production of their trade show displays and event exhibits, to the storage, management and logistics of those assets.
An accomplished corporate strategist and marketer, her vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable growth. Maureen’s company, Creative Display Solutions almost tripled its revenue in 2006, and is trending at a 200% increase for 2007.
Maureen shares her knowledge and experience within her community, as a speaker at various educational meetings and seminars. Additionally, Maureen is a member of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, a board member and gala chairperson of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Long Island and holds the highly recognized certification as a women owned business from WBENC, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. She is an award recipient of the Make Mine a $Million Business™ program from Count Me In and OPEN from American Express®. Most recently, Maureen was honored with Long Island’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Business award, and was appointed to the Customer Advisory Council for American Express.
Her achievements and comments have been featured on NBC’s The Today Show and in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsday, Long Island Business News, as well as other business media.
Maureen resides in Long Island, New York with her husband Frank and 4 year old son, Dominick.
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Debra Kaye
Debra Kaye is a global innovation expert focused on evolving and future consumer markets, product development and brand strategy. A futurist who forecasts longer-term consumer trends as a springboard for innovation, she has conceived new products and developed innovative business models for clients such as L'Oreal, Colgate, Reckitt Benckiser, McDonald's and Johnson & Johnson.
Previously, Debra was CEO of TBWA Italy, a top ten international advertising agency network, during which time she was named Italy's top marketer in 2001. Her extensive prior general management experience includes CEO of her own integrated strategy company in Spain, BDDP/Mancebo Kaye, CEO of Siegel & Gale, a strategic branding company, and various international brand marketing posts at multi-national companies. She also recently developed a mass market personal care line as part of a joint venture, which will debut at the end of 2007.
Her articles on brand strategy and communication have been published throughout Europe. She holds a BA from New York University and MBA from University of Chicago.
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Garnett Newcombe
In 1997, Garnett Newcombe established Human Potential Consultants, L.L.C. (HPC) out of the desire to provide additional employment resources for individuals that were unemployed or underemployed, facing extra-ordinary challenges in navigating the employment seeking process and staying employed. Many of HPC’s target populations are classified as returning veterans and/or homeless veterans , persons with background, dislocated workers, emancipated youth 18 to 21 years of age and individuals with background issues. With this in mind, she placed a high priority on targeting governmental agencies that were workforce-centered and required assistance with transition individuals from government assistance program to self-supporting employment.
With Newcombe at the helm, HPC has grown from a very small firm operating with contract awards totaling $400,000 to a thriving, fiscally sound organization, currently operating with contracts totaling $18 Million until 2010 by offering services to government customers each year. Revenue and Sales from the above mentioned contracts will be approximately $3.2 Million by December 31, 2007.
Under Newcombe’s direction, her biggest obstacle was convincing government agencies and private organizations that HPC’s goal was not to replace a service, but to be used as an alternative enhancement to their already existing program. Today, HPC has established itself as an alternative resource for government and private industry. The company is one of only a handful “for-profit” firms that offer social service assistance ranging from pre-employment preparation, case management, workforce-centered projects, to staffing support services for governmental agencies. This achievement and persistence confirms that HPC implements the highest standards for all our customers.
Ms. Newcombe has over 20 years of experience in community outreach, recruitment and working with individuals classified as having extra-ordinary challenges with re-entering the workforce (i.e. persons with disabilities, dislocated worker, youth 17 to 25 years of age, persons with little or no work history and individuals on parole or probation). Her expertise in project management, program development, and research design and service delivery of various programs evolved while teaching at three (3) Southern California Community Colleges and a California State University, for more than ten years.
Ms. Newcombe is the co-author of Income Rights, Mothers’ Rights, or Worker’s Rights? Collective Action Frames, Organizational Ideologies, and the American Welfare Rights Movement Article published in Contemporary Social Problems, May 2003. Co-author: Impact of Welfare Reform from Two Perspectives: Welfare Mothers and Professionals; Welfare then and Now; Primary Investigator for Research Project: City of Carson Senior Citizen Needs Assessment. In addition, she has co-authored many of the HPC’s publications with her partner, Ms. Keener, to include Human Potential Consultants’ Employability and Work Preparation Workbook; Job Readiness and Self-Marketing Program Workbook; Job Club: Another Source.
Ms. Newcombe is active with a number of community-based social services arena, educational and human relations organizations and have received numerous awards, certificates of recognition, scholarships and honorary mentions for exemplary service and leadership form employers, universities, clubs and organizations.
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Jed Scala
Jed Scala is a Vice President at American Express OPEN, the division at American Express dedicated to small business. In his current role, Jed is responsible for growing revenue and profit of OPEN's High Value Customer Segment. This segment currently delivers the majority of OPEN’s billings and profit. Previously, Jed was Vice President and General Manager of Small Business Financing in OPEN, a business that provides lines of credit and loans to small businesses. Over the course of his ten years at American Express, Jed has also held leadership positions in strategy & marketing at American Express Financial Advisors (now Ameriprise) and American Express Interactive.
Before joining American Express, Jed was a small business owner, and also served on the faculty at Berkshire School where he taught art history and coached both ski racing & lacrosse.
Jed holds a MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Williams College. In addition to serving on the Count Me In Board of Directors, Jed is also a member of the Berkshire School Advisory Board.
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Deborah Shah
Deborah Shah has recently retired from Fidelity Investments where she was Executive Vice President, Strategic Consulting for the Brokerage Company. Prior to joining Fidelity fulltime Ms. Shah was the President and Founder of Management Partners, a consulting firm that worked for nearly twenty years with senior management on issues of organizational change and individual effectiveness. Her firm assisted some of the world’s most dynamic companies – Fidelity Investments, JPMorganChase, Disney Publishing, Time, Inc. and Volvo Cars of North America.
