Board of Directors
 Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.Patricia Yarberry Allen, director of the New York Menopause Center, is a gynecologist affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital and a board certified fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The president and a founding member of the board of Women’s Voices for Change, Dr. Allen is a spokeswoman on women’s health. She was the inaugural speaker for the Iris Cantor Lecture Series on Women’s Health at the American Hospital in Paris. Dr. Allen has been interviewed by The New York Times, USA Today, regional newspapers and major television news programs on womens health issues and is a contributing editor for More magazine. |
 Faith ChildsFaith Childs is a literary agent who represents writers of literary fiction and serious nonfiction, many of whom have won major literary and journalism awards. For more than two decades, she has headed her own agency in New York. Her representation includes these latest books: “Them,” by Nathan McCall; “Of Blood and Sorrow,” by Valerie Wilson Wesley; and “That Mean Old Yesterday,” by Stacey Patton.A lifelong reader and lover of literature in all its forms, she became an agent in order to make literature and the written word central to both her personal and professional lives. In the decade before becoming an agent, Ms. Childs was an attorney. Ms. Childs is active in publishing education programs, particularly those designed to increase the representation of people of color in the publishing industry. She lectures frequently at university publishing programs, writers conferences, and graduate creative writing programs on the centrality of literature to our culture, the publishing industry, and the relationship between the writer and literary agent. A founding member of Women’s Voices for Change, she has served on the boards of The New Press, the only non-profit press in the public interest, the Advisory Board of the New School University’s Creative Writing Program, and the PEN Open Book Committee. |
| Lesley Francis
Lesley Francis began her career at Saatchi & Saatchi in London. She later became a Board Director of both Ted Bates and D’Arcy, Masius, Benton and Bowles. During her career, she became known as an expert on marketing to women. Clients have included Procter & Gamble, where she developed the strategy for the launch of “Always” throughout Europe; Chesebrough Ponds; Acquascutum, Elizabeth Arden and Lancome. In 1987, on her appointment to the Board of Etam PLC, Lesley became one of the youngest female outside directors of a publicly listed company in the UK. After moving to New York in 1995, Lesley took time out of her career to raise her two children. In the past year, she has completed strategy development work on behalf of Patek Philippe watches, Spacenk, and Eve Lom skincare. |
 Elizabeth Hemmerdinger
Elizabeth Hemmerdinger is a born-and-bred New Yorker as well as an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. She is the founder of “Behind The Scenes at Tisch,” a program dedicated to developing new works by new writers at New York University, where she received her MFA in 2003. Her plays have been presented in a number of venues in New York and Los Angeles as well as at the Williamstown Theater Festival and The Denver Center. Her full length piece Squall is available through Playscripts, Inc., which is also publishing a volume of her short works this fall. She is currently working with Larry Gatlin on a musical about Rosie the Riveter. Hemmerdinger is a founding board member of Dancing Dreams, a program specially designed for children with physical challenges that focuses on establishing an environment where children, aided by a teenage volunteer, participate in the art of dance, giving them the chance to experience the pure joy of movement. |
| Lisa McCarthy
Lisa McCarthy graduated from Wheaton College in 1980 and began her career in sales. She worked at Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, and Karen Kane, where she rose to the post of Vice President of Sales before she left to become a full-time mother to Matthew (now 17) and Alana (14). A private pilot, Lisa works tirelessly on behald of ARF (Animal Rescue Flights), which promotes, plans, and performs the transportation of animals from overcrowded shelters to new homes with qualified families in other parts of the country. She and her husband Brian McCarthy, also a private pilot, reside in Manhattan and in Bridgehampton. Currently on the Executive Committee of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Administrative Board, Lisa is also treasurer of the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons and a trustee at St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, where Matthew and Alana are currently enrolled. She has also served on the board of the Nature Conservancy’s South Fork Shelter Island Chapter for over ten years, and has also been co-president of the board of Park Avenue Christian Church Day School. |
 Laura Baudo SillermanLaura Baudo Sillerman is president of a New York City-based charitable foundation and an active board and committee member for many educational and literary organizations, including the American Museum of Natural History, The 92nd Street Y Poetry Center and Poet’s House. She is a published author and poet. |
| Catherine Wood Catherine Wood works in New York City for AllianceBernstein where she is a senior vice president and portfolio manager as well as chief investment officer of Strategic Research, a division of AllianceBernstein. She lives in Wilton, Conn., with her three children. |
| Mary Kelly Selover, Executive Director
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