Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane grew up in Boston. Since his first novel, A Drink Before the War, won the Shamus Award, he has published eight more novels with William Morrow & Co. that have been translated into more than 30 languages and become international bestsellers: Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; Mystic River; Shutter Island; The Given Day; Moonlight Mile; and Live by Night. Morrow also published Coronado, a collection of five stories and the play, Coronado, which has received stage productions in New York City; Chicago; San Francisco; and Genoa, Italy. Three of Mr. Lehane's novels – Mystic River; Gone, Baby, Gone; and Shutter Island – have been adapted into award-winning films. Mr. Lehane and his wife, Angie, divide their time between the West Coast of Florida and Boston.
Laura DeBonis
Laura DeBonis is a member of the founding Board of Directors for the Digital Public Library of America and serves as the organization's Secretary. In the past, she chaired the Technology Advisory Board of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force at Harvard's Berkman Center. She served in a variety of management roles at Google, most recently as the Director of Library Partnerships for Google Book Search. Her previous professional work includes web strategy consulting and production for documentary films and multimedia. She is a graduate of Harvard College and has a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Robert E. Gallery
Robert Gallery served as Bank of America Massachusetts President from 2004 through 2015, providing business, civic, and philanthropic leadership for the company throughout the Commonwealth. Gallery joined predecessor institution Bank Boston in 1991 and held a number of positions including managing director of U.S. Trust/Private Wealth Management for Greater Boston, various leadership roles in the Corporate-Investment Bank for FleetBoston, and head of Bank Boston's European business while based in London.
Earlier, Gallery held a number of positions at First Chicago in corporate banking and strategic planning from 1975 to 1991. He joined the organization's Boston office in 1981 and served as regional manager from 1986 to 1989.
Gallery has served on several nonprofit boards, including the United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley, Cradles to Crayons, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, and the Overseers of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is a trustee of the Boston Plan for Excellence, a public/private partnership focused on driving outcomes for all students by developing great teachers and great schools. Between 2012 and 2014, he was chairman of the Board of Overseers at WGBH and served as chairman of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce from 2010 to 2012.
Gallery is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago, BA, and Northwestern University, MBA.
Zamawa Arenas
Five-time Emmy award winner Zamawa is a marketing strategist and entrepreneur intent on making a difference. She is the Founder and CEO of Flowetik, a brand marketing consultancy that helps socially responsible leaders grow their startup or social enterprise.
Prior to founding Flowetik, Zamawa served for 15 years as co-owner of Argus, a full-service marketing agency that partners with clients to do work that stands for something; work that matters. She led the agency with a commitment to leveraging resources, transparency, and driving client success.
Active in Greater Boston’s business and nonprofit community, she currently serves on the boards of several organizations including the Boston Foundation, Boston Chamber of Commerce and Eastern Bank. Since 2006 Zamawa has served as a Trustee of the Boston Public Library.
Zamawa has received many awards for her business and community efforts, including five Emmys. She is the recipient of the Emerging Executive Pinnacle Award from the Boston Chamber of Commerce and was named Leading Woman by the Girl Scouts, Patriots’ Trail Council. She received the Give Liberty a Hand award from the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. She was also inducted into the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers, and was named by the Boston Business Journal as a “Hispanic on the Move” an award for Hispanic professionals making a difference in Boston.
A sought-after public speaker, Zamawa is invited to participate in a variety of panel discussions and speaking engagements on entrepreneurship, branding, and marketing, and building leadership in a diverse workplace.
Joyce Linehan
Joyce Linehan, a lifelong resident of Dorchester, was Chief of Policy and Planning for former Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. In this role, she advised the Mayor on a wide array of issues, from housing to economic mobility and workforce development to substance use disorder. She and her team coordinated policy initiatives across cabinets and departments. She led the efforts to create several of the Mayor’s signature departments, including the Office of Strategic Partnerships, the Office of Resilience and Racial Equity, and the Office of Recovery Services. She also led the effort to elevate Arts & Culture to a cabinet-level position, fulfilling an early campaign promise of Mayor Walsh’s.
Before joining the administration in 2014, she owned and operated Ashmont Media, a public relations company that served Boston arts organizations. She co-owns Ashmont Records, an independent record label.
She was previously the Senior Vice President of Artists and Repertoire for Sub Pop Records, where she identified and cultivated talent, supervised recording sessions, and managed tours. Prior to this, she worked as an artist manager. For most of her life, she has been a community activist and organizer volunteering on a range of political and social justice campaigns. Linehan holds a B.A. and an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she received the Dr. Robert W. Spayne Research Grant for study at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Her master’s thesis – The Day My Mama Socked it to the Harper Valley PTA: Country Music Womanhood in the Second Wave of Feminism, received the American Studies Book Award from UMass Boston. She is the co-founder of the Dorchester Arts Collaborative; an animal advocate and leader in the fight to end breed-specific legislation; and serves on the board of Interim House, a residential substance use disorder treatment center. In 2012, she received an Unsung Heroine of Massachusetts award from the Massachusetts Commission of the Status of Women, and in 2017, she received the Robert H. Quinn Award for Community Service.
As a child, she spent a lot of afternoons at the Adams Street Branch of the BPL, and is grateful for the wonderful staff at service at Lower Mills, her current local branch.
