With 17 years of experience working in capacity building, training, and facilitation, Erin is passionate about helping people and organizations improve patient access to medicines. Erin’s work spans dozens of countries and cultures across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe for clients in government, healthcare, supply chain, academia, and the pharmaceutical industry. Erin brings her expertise in strategic planning, project management, relationship management, development, corporate responsibility, and superior networking skills to the Board as well as her personal history and commitment to ensuring breast cancer survivors, and all cancer survivors, have a fresh chapter.

Michaela Leo is currently the Director of Compensation with Merck & Co, Inc. based in Pennsylvania. She has more than 20 years of global compensation management experience in pharmaceutical and services industries.

Through personal experience and loss, she knows how devastating cancer can be, both physically and emotionally. In her words, “I was drawn to the A Fresh Chapter’s mission because it’s message is one of resilience, strength and looking beyond oneself.”

This quote from Elizabeth Edwards is particularly meaningful to her: “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”

Arin Assero

With a strong track record in advocacy relations in the healthcare sector, Arin has led the charge on patient advocacy engagement for international non-profits, biotech clients, and healthcare technology companies. Formerly Vice President of Global Advocacy at the International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) and Director of Research Marketing & Advocacy at 23andMe, she has led many successful efforts in improving patient access to care, research recruitment, cross-industry coalition building, educational programming, branded marketing campaigns, and grassroots mobilization. These initiatives, both U.S. and international, have included programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Arin is passionate about social justice and has a strong cultural sensitivity for successfully engaging stakeholders of various professional, cultural, and geographic backgrounds.

Toy Okotete
Toy is a Senior Relationship Manager in Commercial Card, providing strategic consultation to
Corporate Clients with annual revenue over $500MM. In her current role, Toy manages a
portfolio with nearly $1B in annual spend and partners with Commercial Bankers and Treasury
Management Officers to grow her portfolio and retain client relationships.

In her 17 year career with J.P. Morgan, Toy has served in various roles including management,
analytics and direct client relations. Prior to her current role, Toy set and helped execute the
performance strategy for the Columbus, Ohio Consumer Card Operations Center, successfully
leading a total restructure of the customer service model for the site while maintaining
exceptional customer and employee satisfaction results. She also led multiple client service
teams, including the Elite Client Service Team and the Executive Card team, who provided
white-glove service to our ultra high net worth customers.

In addition to her passion for the client experience, Toy is a leader within Wholesale Payments.
She was responsible for successfully leading a cross-functional team of Relationship Managers
in developing a reporting mechanism to quantify the success of their growth efforts in 2021. In
addition, Toy led the Commercial Card DE&I Mentor Program.

Toy attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and completed her Bachelor of Science in
Business Management. In 2017, she received her Master of Business Administration with
honors from Ashland University.

Toy lives in Columbus, Ohio with her three-year old daughter. She is an active leader at her
church, leading the Health and Wellness ministry and enjoys indoor spinning, yoga and
meditation. Her true passion is family and traveling the world.

Arash Asher, MD
Director of Cancer Survivorship & Rehabilitation at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His clinical and research interests focus on the rehabilitation of cancer patients to help restore their maximal functional capacity and quality of life. Dr. Asher completed an internship in internal medicine at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, a physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at the UCLA/Greater Los Angeles VA, and a cancer rehabilitation fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Kendall Bergman

Kendall’s professional life has spanned the gamut. Early on, she spent time working in various capacities within the legal, real estate, and technology industries. Over the past 14 years, she immersed herself in the non-profit cancer space. Kendall experienced an early mid-life crisis of sorts and landed in Seattle to study at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. In 2006 she graduated with an MA in Counseling and a Master of Divinity. While her professional, academic, and personal endeavors have taken her from Dallas to Seattle and Austin, she is happy to be back home in Dallas – close to family and friends and with her two standard poodles, Sunny and Otis. She is currently grateful for fresh space to breathe, experimenting with new opportunities, and discovering new rhythms.

Dr. Kevin Stein

Dr. Kevin Stein is a clinical psychologist, behavioral scientist, and public health executive with more than 25 years of experience in clinical care, higher education, and non-profit advocacy settings. Dr. Stein’s clinical care, research, and advocacy efforts center around helping cancer survivors and their loved ones cope with the challenges of a cancer diagnosis and treatment.  Dr. Stein is currently a health psychologist with Wellstar Health Systems and an adjunct Associate Professor in Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.  He has also served as the Executive Director of the Cancer Support Community’s Research and Training Institute and as the Vice President of Behavioral Research for the American Cancer Society.  He is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed publications and three book chapters and is a Fellow of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society. 

Peggy Doyle
Peggy Doyle is the CEO of Gardening Know How, a digital media platform that offers free guides and videos, articles and expert advice, courses, workshops and more. Each year, more than 180 million gardening enthusiasts connect with Gardening Know How for information and inspiration and top brands and advertisers rely on us to connect with their core customers. 

A serial entrepreneur, Peggy has held leadership roles at multiple early-stage start-ups and start-up divisions within Fortune 500 companies in the technology, media, and entertainment sectors. She has created, launched, and grown a wide range of products and services that serve consumerandsmall businesses.

Peggy started in television where she developed and produced award-winning programs for broadcast and cable networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, HBO, Showtime & Disney. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Carnegie Mellon University and Master of Professional Studies from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University.

In addition to her work supporting the important mission of A Fresh Chapter, Peggy freely shares her time and expertise as the co-founder of a social venture that helps level the playing field for women entrepreneurs and provides them with free tools and support to launch and grow their businesses.

Farhana is an accomplished professional in the humanitarian sector, with 16+ years of experience leading a global non-profit. Currently, Farhana is part of the Leadership Team at Peek Vision, an organization that brings better vision and health to everyone. Farhana heads up Program Partnerships with INGOs, NGOs, and governments in LMIC’s. Farhana is the former President of Cross-Cultural Solutions, an INGO that operated high-impact, values-driven volunteer programs in developing countries and humanitarian crisis settings. At Cross-Cultural Solutions, she developed a highly successful vision screening program for vulnerable school children across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, and designed an innovative volunteer support program for the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece. Farhana has proven leadership and program development skills, with a strong background in stakeholder management, governance, training, corporate social responsibility, and managing senior international staff.

Jennifer Hoffman is the Executive Director of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE). SEE was formed in 1994 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and provides support services to start-up nonprofit projects in order to alleviate the initial obstacles faced when transforming a project vision into a reality. AFC has been a fiscally sponsored project of SEE since June 2015. As Executive Director, Jennifer has led SEE through for over ten years of organizational growth and development. Jennifer’s position working directly with programs from inception to more mature stages has provided her with a unique perspective on effective growth and impacts of non-profits. Jennifer has served on the board and advisory committees for efforts relating to human rights and environmental conservation. Most recently, she launched a social enterprise program within SEE titled Accountability, which offers administrative and financial services to independent non-profit entities. Jennifer is the co-founder of the Southern California Fiscal Sponsors Network, a regional group that meets quarterly to discuss the unique aspects of fiscal sponsorship. Jennifer attended the Florida Institute of Technology and holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Harvard University.

Mariska Leighton

A Marketing Consultant with extensive strategic marketing experience, Mariska has held multiple senior leadership roles in multinational companies where she led country teams in marketing efforts designed to help patients gain access to medical devices, both within funded and non funded healthcare markets. She has developed and championed health promotion programs to influence healthcare protocols for access. This included cultivating relationships with senior medical staff, healthcare commissioners, charities, researchers, patients, volunteers and technology teams. As a marketing professional, Mariska is passionate about working with brands/organizations to develop compelling content that highlights the patient journey through various channels and help organizations achieve their business goals and make a difference in the world.

Julie Scanlon is a proven management consultant known for driving top and bottom line growth, innovation, and employee success through her work in strategy, business operations, partner management and talent development. Julie founded and leads Springboard Global Consulting, a management consulting firm focused on strategic, operational, and workforce solutions. She is also a Senior Advisor to Treehouse Innovation (a London-based collaborative design and innovation company), as well as Sprintbase (a design thinking platform and process company).

Julie’s prior roles include Senior Vice President and North American Sales Operations Leader at Pearson Education; Global Vice President, Business Operations at SAP America; Partner and US Leader at Bridge Consulting International; and Senior Manager, Ernst & Young management consulting. Julie’s success profile spans corporate and non-profit clients in 50+ countries, but she is most proud of her work in a pilot pro-bono consulting project in Pretoria, South Africa.

Julie thrives on traveling, cycling (preferably both at the same time), and working with (and learning from) people of different cultures.

Michelle DiSabato
A philanthropic professional with more than 20 years experience in successfully developing, designing and implementing key business and programmatic strategies including managing and executing U.S. and international, multi-million dollar philanthropic initiatives and programmatic social impact analyses. Michelle has worked with a wide range of clients in industries ranging from healthcare to consumer products and has helped them focus their giving to meet business and societies needs. Her “Results Card” approach effectively communicates progress and achievement.

Liza Bernstein
A 3-time Cancer survivor and patient-centered design consultant, has combined her hard-earned experience as an ePatient with her career in innovation, design thinking and digital media. Known on Twitter as @itsthebunk, she is a top influencers on #BCSM, the Breast Cancer Social Media tweetchat, where she helps engage and empower patients. Her advocacy has led to invitations to attend Stanford Medicine 2.0, Stanford Medicine X, and recently, Doctors 2.0, as a bilingual speaker. Liza serves on Project Angel Food’s board of directors and on the Stanford Medicine X ePatient Advisory Board.

Jason King is a senior executive with extensive experience in leadership of everything from start-ups to large corporations. He builds high-powered sales teams and marketing strategies to turnaround and deliver revenue and product growth across local and international market territories. Experienced in highly complex, consultative and collaborative enterprise solution selling approaches, Jason’s leadership tenures include CEO at Lavasoft (the makers of Ad-aware), Vice-President for CSoft and Managing Director for TeamQuest International Operations.

Dr. Marian Gryzlo

A NY-based consultant and coach, Marian creates strategies that combine profit and purpose to drive both business and social value. Leveraging a doctorate in leadership, MBA and 25 years’ experience in fields ranging from consumer product to cancer research, she brokers win/win cross-sector partnerships, designs cause marketing programs and develops systems and talent to realize corporate social responsibility and mission goals. A catalyst, cause champion, and cancer-survivor herself, Marian approaches work and life with an attitude of positivity, ingenuity and compassion.

Melanie Vuynovich
A San Francisco-based communications consultant, Melanie partners with organizations to develop strong messaging, build awareness with key constituents, deliver compelling content across channels, guide reputation management and crisis communications, and create long-term strategic programs that impact public perception and corporate culture. Melanie has significant agency experience and has led communications efforts in house for early stage start-ups and complex global organizations. Her international experiences have convinced her of the healing power of meaningful travel.

Molly Huber
A leading Vancouver consultant with extensive experience in talent acquisition strategy, business process design, and capacity building. Throughout her career in Eastern and Western Canada, she has been featured in conferences, publications and media interviews. Using her strong leadership skills, she has developed high functioning teams, streamlined operations, and created effective people strategies. Molly has had both friends and family impacted by cancer and is inspired to be part of a fresh solution for healing.

Janie Brown is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Callanish Society (callanish.org), a non-profit organization based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, providing retreats and support for people with cancer and their families. The first Callanish retreat was held in 1995 and weeklong retreats have been held four times a year ever since. Janie has over thirty years experience working in oncology where she has developed a deep trust in peoples’ capacity to heal into life, or death. You can read more on her beautiful blog: lifeindeath.org

Luanne Hatane
Currently the Deputy Director at PATA (Pediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa). She is a qualified social worker and an experienced project manager with extensive leadership capability in the HIV and Development sector. Luann has been Director to NACOSA (Networking AIDS Community of South Africa), HIV program coordinator to CARE in Lesotho and South Africa and was Country Director to Cross-Cultural Solutions in South Africa. Luann provides a contextual narrative on the synergies and universality of disease and an appreciation for the power of connection and transformation.