CPI is creating career pathways career pathways for first-generation, low-income college students

Theresa brings two decades of experience in the social impact space to Liminality Partners. As the Founder of Liminality Partners, Theresa advises families and individuals who want to leverage their resources and tackle the social problems that are important to them. She collaborates with her clients to craft and implement their philanthropic strategies, work through operational challenges, and evaluate their effectiveness.

After beginning her career in education evaluation, Theresa founded CommonImpact, a social enterprise that was the first to build systematized, pro-bono programs for Fortune 500 companies. After serving as CEO of Common Impact,Theresa took an appointment as the Gleitsman Visiting Practitioner at theCenter for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In this role, she taught leadership, worked closely with students interested in social enterprise, and conducted research on the role of multi-sector leadership in addressing complicated, societal challenges. More recently, Theresa returned to Dartmouth and led the reorganization of the Tucker Foundation.

Theresa earned an AB in Religion with honors at Dartmouth College where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She received the Phillip D. McInnis Class of 1936 Award, given to the outstanding woman in the graduating class. Theresa serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Brookwood School and as a judge at several social enterprise competitions. She also served on the Board of Trustees of the Essex County Community Foundation. She lives on Boston’s North Shore with her husband, their two children, and their dog.

Rusty Greiff currently serves as a Senior Strategic Advisor for numerous AI-powered workforce innovation, job matching and skilling companies and impact funds.

Rusty is a nationally recognized startup founder and edtech entrepreneur, Postsecondary and workforce innovator and impact investor with over 20-years leadership experience driving impact across the public and private sector.

Starting this Fall, Rusty will begin his appointment as an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School where he will lead new practitioner curriculum, original research and guest lecture in HBS’ Social Impact and Advanced Leadership departments.  For the past four years, Rusty has served as Chief Strategy and Growth Officer of Jobs for the Future (JFF). Rusty co-founded two successful Silicon Valley edtech startups, Grockit (acquired by Kaplan, Inc.) and Learnist (private equity acquisition). Previously, Rusty served as founding Managing Director for 1776 Impact Fund investing in over 15 education and future of work startups. Before his work in the private sector and with universities, Rusty served in the Clinton Administration, launching the AmeriCorps program at the Corporation for National and Community Service. Rusty was a Policy Analyst for Senator John Kerry’s leadership staff in the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.  Rusty is a  former NY Coro Leadership Fellow, and graduate of Washington University, St. Louis with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and three sons, two cats and a basset hound.

Rusty is an avid hiker and runner, and draws, paints, and enjoys reading, live music and traveling.

Julian Johnson serves as an Institutional and Program Development Consultant.

Formally Julian served for over 20 years at SEO, overseeing all program activities for SEO Scholars, SEO Career, SEO Law, and SEO Alternative Investments, in addition to SEO’s alumni programming.

Previously, Julian was Director of Development and Corporate Partnerships at the Institute of International Education (IIE) where he helped to develop the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund. He has also held senior development and executive positions at Teach for America, Associated Black Charities of New York, A Better Chance and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He holds Master’s Degrees in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University and in Non-Profit Management from the New School. Julian presently serves on the board of trustees of the Institute of International Education and on several scholarship and fellowship review committees.

Tom Kuo is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of A-Street. Prior to A-Street, Tom was a Managing Director at Berkshire Partners and an investor at General Atlantic and Goldman Sachs. He chairs the boards of Teach for America Massachusetts and Mighty Earth, a leading climate advocacy group. Tom also serves on the boards of Great Minds, Gratitude Railroad, the Community Music Center of Boston, and he is a Trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Tom holds an A.B. in Environmental Science & Public Policy from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. He is passionate about companies and organizations which work to achieve a more equitable, just society and a sustainable future.

Mitch Kurz is a leading education advocate who serves as Treasurer of the Harlem Children’s Zone and Academic Dean of the Bronx Center for Science and Math. A retired President of Young & Rubicam, he also led Wunderman Worldwide, which he built into the world’s largest database marketing firm.  

Mitch Kurz has 22 years of experience working with New York City public schools, beginning with his role as a trustee of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Teach for America, and New Visions for Public Schools. Serving on these boards so inspired him that Kurz “retired,” earned a second master’s degree, and began teaching mathematics in the South Bronx. He was the Academic Dean, director of college counseling, and chair of the math department at Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics.

Kurz graduated from Dartmouth College Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in economics and psychology. He also lettered in lacrosse and played freshman football. He was a brother of Alpha Theta and business manager of the Jack O’ Lantern. He received his MBA with honors from Harvard University. He has served on the Tucker Foundation Board of Visitors since 2009. Kurz and his wife, Sandy, have two sons and live in New York City.

Sam Lalanne is the Chief Diversity Officer at Morgan Stanley. 

In this role, Sam is a strategic partner to colleagues across ISG and Human Resources to help drive diversity and inclusion initiatives, including a focus on improving diversity representation, advancement, and retention. Sam is a member of the ISG Diversity Council as well as additional divisional diversity committees across the firm. 

Previously, Sam was the Sam Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Morgan Stanley’s Institutional Securities Group (ISG). Sam joined Morgan Stanley from Citi where he had a distinguished career spanning 19 years. During his tenure at Citi, he held various leadership roles within the Institutional Clients Group, including Head of Fraud Management, Head of Group Information Security, and Head of Vendor Management for the North America Private Banking Division. Most recently, Sam served as Senior Vice President in the Global Diversity and Talent Organization, where he was focused on building enterprise-wide, data-driven diversity efforts for the firm.

Sam holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Sam lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and two daughters.

Jeff Nelson is Co-Founder and National Board Chair of OneGoal, a Beck Visiting Social Innovator at Harvard Kennedy School, and an Entrepreneur in Residence at New Profit. During Jeff’s 12 years as CEO, OneGoal grew from a startup serving 30 students with a $200K budget to a national leader in the post-secondary field serving over 13,000 students with a $25M budget. To date, 88% of OneGoal Fellows have enrolled in college and 79% have persisted a year later. Paul Tough profiled Jeff and OneGoal in his NYT bestselling book ​How Children Succeed and President Obama highlighted OneGoal has an organization that must be scaled in his closing speech at the College Opportunity Summit while in office.  

Jeff began his career as an elementary teacher and Teach For America corps member in Chicago. During his tenure at OneGoal, Jeff was awarded the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship Award, Teach For America’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and was named one of the “40 Under 40” by Crain’s Chicago and one of Town & Country’s Top 50 Philanthropists in the US. Jeff earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, his MAT from Dominican University, and his BA from the University of Michigan. Jeff lives with his wife Betsy and four kids – Emma, Henry, Maddie, and Theo – in Ann Arbor, Michigan.