Board of trustees

Amy Luster oversees administration for Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies.  She has over 15 years of operations and financial management leadership experience working in a wide variety of nonprofit organizations.  In addition, she is a teaching assistant for Harvard Kennedy School’s Nonprofit Financial Stewardship course providing leaders across the US and globe tools to be effective stewards of their organizations.  Amy and her husband Thomas have lived in Brookline in the Lawrence School District since 1996.  Their children attended the Brookline Public Schools.

Ben Chang has over 25 years of investment banking and private equity investment experience. In that period of time, he has completed nearly 100 transactions aggregating over $1 billion in value. Ben currently leads Consilium Partners’ healthcare services practice and has been a director or investor in 10 companies. Ben and his family have been residents of Brookline for nearly 30 years residing in the Runkle School district. He served on the Brookline School Committee from 2012-2018. During that time he chaired both the finance and policy subcommittee. Ben received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Relations from Tufts University and an MBA in Finance from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

A retired lawyer, David began his 33-year legal career as an associate with a large Washington, DC law firm. He was in-house counsel at Marriott International for over 23 years, then Deputy General Counsel in a department of over 100 lawyers. He moved to Boston to serve as Chief Legal Officer for Dunkin’ Brands for 3 years and ‘retired’ from full time work in January, 2022. David is now working on “phase three” of his life, including as an angel investor for Launchpad Venture Group, as a mentor for first-time entrepreneurs at E for All Roxbury, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Dartmouth Educational Association, as a Corporate Trustee for the Trustees of Reservations, and as Co-Chair of the Boston Regional Council of the Smithsonian Institution. David received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH and his J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, MI. A native of Suffield, CT, David currently lives in Brookline with his wife Jelena, his son Lucas and daughter Ella. David enjoys tennis, golf, travel, learning and reading, family time, cooking, and word puzzles. He also takes courses at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement and acts in the occasional play there.

Gioia Perugini is the Director of Philanthropic Services at Hemenway & Barnes, LLP, a Boston-based legal and fiduciary firm. She works with individuals, families, advisors, charitable trusts and foundations to provide a range of philanthropic advisory and client services. She works with clients to design and implement charitable giving strategies, research particular charities, negotiate gifts of cash and/or tangible assets (with a specialty in gifts of fine art) and coordinate family meetings. Gioia is a frequent speaker, writer and panelist on issues relevant to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. She co-authored a Family Office Exchange publication “Sitting on a Nonprofit Board: What to Consider Before Saying Yes” and authored “It’s All About the Money…Or Is It? Creative Strategies for Charitable Giving.” Gioia lives in Brookline with her husband Jamie Bakum and two children, Nina and Alex.

Jennifer Segel is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Fish Family Foundation, a Boston-based private foundation focusing on human services for low-income individuals and families in the Greater Boston area, with a focus on immigrant inclusion across Massachusetts. Previously, she worked for five years as a Program Officer at The Klarman Family Foundation in Boston working to identify and address areas of unmet needs. She also served at The Langeloth Foundation in New York City supporting health and racial equity outcomes to foster and sustain safe and healthy communities. She graduated from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and received her Master of Science (M.S.) in Social Work from Columbia University. Jennie is a proud Brookline High School alumna. She has lived in New York City, Sevilla, Spain, and currently lives with her husband and two sons in Brookline, MA.

Manish Maski is the Global Medical Head for Rare Nephrology at Sanofi Genzyme, leading and overseeing the global medical strategy and activities related to the Fabry disease, ADPKD, and Alport syndrome programs. Prior to joining Industry, Manish was an attending physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS), where he still maintains a part-time faculty position and performs inpatient nephrology consultations within the BIDMC hospital system. Manish is a board-certified clinical nephrologist and is formally trained in basic, translational, and clinical research at both BIDMC and HMS. Manish lives in Brookline and has children at the Baker school.

Oliver Scholle is a partner at Harvest Wealth Management, an independent financial advisory firm in Needham. Oliver joined the firm in August 2015, today focusing his wealth management practice on sustainable, responsible and impactful investing (SRI). Financial planning was not Oliver’s first career. After his graduation from Harvard College in 1976, Oliver spent 20 years pursuing a career in international business in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2004, he left the corporate world to become an independent financial advisor. Oliver has deep roots in the Brookline community where he has lived with his wife Beth for 23 years while raising three children. Outside of work, Oliver enjoys travel, sailing, golfing, hiking and camping with his wife and family.

Rob Daves has found himself engaged in a variety of compelling ventures over the years in both his work life and in his life in the community. He has worked as a molecular biologist, a stay-at-home dad, and historic preservation carpenter. Before coming to Brookline 20 years ago, he served on a school board and as Vice President for Government Relations for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. He has been a Town Meeting Member since 2002 and is also a member of the Town’s MLK Celebration Committee. In 2016, Rob worked with Hidden Brookline to honor the great tenor Roland Hayes with a series of events including the dedication of a plaque in front of his former home. Most recently, he helped organize and lead the Committee to Commemorate John Wilson which raised $100,000 to place Wilson’s inspirational bronze sculpture of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the lobby of Town Hall. Rob is a long-time board member of the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance and co-founder of the Friends of the Green Dog Program. He lives with his wife Jennifer on Pill Hill where he has singlehandedly restored their 1895 home, winning a Preservation Commission award in 2014.  Their three children graduated from Brookline High School.

Steven A. Heikin, an urban designer and architect, is a co-founder and Senior Principal Emeritus of ICON Architecture, Inc.  His professional experience includes an array of award-winning mixed-use development, planning, and design projects, and mixed-income projects in the public interest that involve both new construction and rehabilitation.  Steve served as Principal-in-Charge of the award winning Quinnipiac Terrace project, which transformed an obsolete public housing project in New Haven into a 229-unit “community of choice,” including both rental and home ownership opportunities, and mixing families and senior residents on a riverfront site on the Quinnipiac River.  He led the planning and design of Olmsted Green, a mixed-income, mixed-use development on a 42-acre portion of the former Boston State Hospital site in Mattapan, the largest undeveloped tract of land in Boston. He holds an M.Arch. from the Yale School of Architecture and an M.C.P./U.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. A resident of Brookline since 1988, he currently serves on the Brookline Housing Advisory Board and is Chair of the Brookline Planning Board.

Veronika (Nika) is the Director of Development at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, securing philanthropic support from individual, corporate, foundation and government sources to steward the 1,100 acre Emerald Necklace park system in Boston and Brookline. She has nearly 20 years of fundraising experience across development operations, membership, annual fund, institutional giving and major & capital campaign gifts. Prior to joining the Conservancy, Nika worked for over 15 years in museums and cultural settings. She and her husband have resided in Brookline since 2017 and, together with their two children, they enjoy Brookline’s myriad parks and splash pads and exploring indoor and outdoor destinations in the Boston area and beyond.

Victor Viktorov is a management consultant and business advisor who has worked with companies from startup to Fortune 500 to drive profitable growth. He started his career in finance with General Electric and then was a partner at a startup boutique consulting firm that was acquired by Accenture Strategy. After emigrating from Ukraine to Allston in 1979, his family moved to Brookline in 1986 where he attended Runkle School and Brookline High School. His mother still lives in Brookline. Victor now resides in South Brookline with his wife and twin daughters who attend Baker School. He enjoys sports, cooking, and spending time with his family around Brookline.

Zoraida is committed to social justice and has worked towards it in various professional and personal endeavors. She is excited to continue this work in Brookline with BCF. Zoraida is currently doing independent research focused on understanding race/racism, political economy, and inequality. In her career as a lawyer, she worked to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals; defend people in the criminal legal system; helped working people pursue employment discrimination claims; and represented students and faculty involved in university proceedings. Prior to that she worked with civil rights and other nonprofit organizations. She is an immigrant from Nicaragua who grew up in Southern California and now lives in Brookline with her husband and two daughters, who attend Lincoln School. She loves all things fall in New England, spicy food, and adventures with her family.