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.
Jabari Asim
Jabari Asim is the author of five books for adults and nine books for children. His most recent works are Only The Strong, a novel; Preaching To The Chickens: A Story of Young John Lewis; and A Child’s Introduction To African American History. His next book, We Can’t Breathe, will be published in October. His other books include Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice and Life (editor); The N Word: Who Can’t Say It, Who Shouldn’t and Why; and What Obama Means: For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future.
He is a frequent public speaker and commentator who has appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “The Today Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Hannity & Colmes,” “the Tavis Smiley Show,” “the Diane Rehm Show” and countless other programs. His byline has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Essence Magazine, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune, among others.
He was an editor for 11 years at the Washington Post, where he also wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture, and social issues. Asim also served for 10 years as the executor editor of the Crisis, the NAACP’s flagship journal of politics, culture, and ideas. His awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2016, and a Massachusetts Book Award Honor. He is an associate professor at Emerson College, where he directs the graduate program in creative writing.
Ben Bradlee Jr.
Bradlee was a reporter and editor with The Boston Globe for 25 years and is the author of five books. He is currently working on a biography of Daniel Ellsberg, the father of whistleblowing in America, best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, first to the New York Times, and then to other newspapers.
Bradlee’s most recent book, on the election of Donald Trump, was published by Little, Brown in 2018. The Forgotten: How the Abandoned People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America, is an in-depth examination of Trump voters in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County, a swing county in the Northeast part of the state, which played a pivotal role in Trump’s election. The Forgotten is a sociological history, exploring why and how voters stunned the world by electing who they did -- and how America changed as a result. Bradlee’s previous book: The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, was published by Little, Brown in December of 2013, and was a New York Times bestseller.
Bradlee spent ten years as a reporter and fifteen years as an editor at The Boston Globe. from 1979 to 2004. As deputy managing editor, he oversaw the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church from 2001 to 2002 and also supervised the production of a book on the subject, Betrayal, which Little, Brown published in June 2002. “Spotlight,’’ a major feature film on the Globe’s investigation, was released in the fall of 2015 and won two Academy Awards, one for best original screenplay and one for best picture. Bradlee was portrayed in the film by actor John Slattery.
As a reporter, he served on the Spotlight Team, at the State House bureau, and as the paper’s roving national correspondent from 1982 to 1986. He covered the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis and also reported overseas for the Globe from Afghanistan, South Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Vietnam.
Bradlee has written three other books. His first was The Ambush Murders, about the case of a black activist accused—and ultimately acquitted after three trials—of killing two white policemen in Riverside, California. It was a story about small-town justice and how justice functions in emotionally charged circumstances when police investigate the deaths of two of their own. The book was published in 1979 by Dodd, Mead and later made into a television movie for CBS.
Bradlee was co-author of Prophet of Blood—the story of polygamous cult leader and self-styled prophet-of-God Ervil LeBaron, whom authorities consider responsible for up to a dozen murders in the Intermountain West and Mexico during the 1970s. The book—which explored the interplay between sex, violence, and religion in an offshoot of the Mormon Church -- was published by G.P. Putnam in 1981.
Bradlee's third book was ``Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North.'' Published in 1988, the book chronicled North and the Iran-Contra affair, and was the basis for a four-hour television mini-series which aired on CBS in May of 1989.
A graduate of Colby College, Bradlee served in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan from 1970-1972.
Linda Dorcena Forry
Linda Dorcena Forry is Suffolk Construction's Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations for the Northeast region. In this position, she is responsible for strengthening its diversity and inclusion program, developing long-term talent, and ensuring compliance with local workforce requirements. Before joining Suffolk, Dorcena Forry served in the Massachusetts State Legislature for thirteen years. She was the first woman and person of color elected to represent the First Suffolk Senate District, which includes Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mattapan, and South Boston. She served in the post since 2013 and before that was State Representative for the Twelfth Suffolk House District.
Dorcena Forry is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up near Uphams Corner in Dorchester. Along with her new trustee position, Dorcena Forry also serves on boards including the John F. Kennedy Library Advisory Board, the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Dorcena Forry lives in Dorchester will her husband Bill and their four children.
