Brooklyn RISE Board of Trustees
Ben herbst, Treasurer
Founding Board Treasurer Ben Herbst is Vice President within the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs in New York. At Goldman he is a member of the Public Sector and Infrastructure Banking Group, where he serves municipal clients throughout the eastern United States, including numerous school districts and nonprofit entities, in various investment banking activities. Prior to his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Herbst worked at JPMorgan in a similar capacity for five years, and before that he was a 2008 Teach For America Corps Member in Brooklyn, NY. As a Corps Member, Mr. Herbst taught second and third grade at Explore Charter School in East Flatbush, where he also served as the faculty representative to the Board of Trustees, and co-founded a not-for-profit, Engaging Achievement, that brought over 300 Brooklyn middle school students on overnight college visits. Mr. Herbst received an AB in History from Colby College.
Grace Han, secretary
Founding Board Secretary Grace Han is Civic Engagement Manager at The Wing, a network of co-working and community spaces for women. In her role, she manages the company's scholarship program and philanthropic partnerships. Grace’s career in education began in 2011 when she taught second grade as a Teach For America corps member in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After completing her TFA commitment, Grace was the lead second grade teacher on a team that founded UP Academy Dorchester, an in-district charter school in Boston, MA that had the highest one-year growth of any school in Massachusetts’ history. From this experience in particular, Grace brings valuable expertise in community outreach and school launch. She also has expertise in school operations, student enrollment, state reporting, teacher recruitment, grant writing, and non-profit finance. Grace holds a BA in International Relations with a concentration in East Asian Studies and Chinese from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Christina Hu, TRUSTEE
Board Member Christina Hu is an Associate Director of Valuations at SS&C Technologies, a hedge fund administrator. Previous to that, she was a Securitized Product Research Associate and a Rating Analyst at Deutsche Bank and Moody's Investors Services, respectively. Outside of her professional career, Ms. Hu is passionate about community service and leadership work. She is a Community Producer at the Brooklyn Freespeech Television with BRIC and a Director of Civic Engagement with the Taiwanese American Citizens League (TACL), the national board for ten chapters of Taiwanese American Professionals (TAP). Also, she is a Returned U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV); she taught English and American Studies in Ukraine from 2003 to 2005. Ms. Hu holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from University of Virginia and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. As an immigrant, Ms. Hu is honored to be part of Brooklyn RISE in serving the community in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Bianca Cabrera, TRUSTEE
Bianca Cabrera is a born and raised Brooklynite of Dominican descent with most of her upbringing spent with her family in Sunset Park. After graduating from Princeton, Bianca taught kindergarten through ninth grade primarily in a Special Education capacity. She is a proud Teach for America alum who taught in Lawrence, MA, the Southside of Chicago, Bronx, NY, and Brooklyn, NY working mostly in founding schools. In 2017, she won the TFA Social Innovation Award and piloted a special education technology software at several charter and district public schools focused on making IEPs more data-driven and easy to use for teachers and administrators alike. From there she completed the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship, and now works as a Director, Programs at Teach for America – New York where she supports TFA corps members and principals at partner schools in pursuit of educational equity. She is excited to continue working to support strong education outcomes for families in the Sunset Park community that has been such an important part of her life as a board member of Brooklyn RISE Charter School.
Brooklyn RISE Advisory Council
ashley weech, COUNCIL
Advisory Council Member Ashley Weech is the Chief Operating Officer at Coney Island Prep, a K-12 public charter school serving just over 1,000 students and families in District 21. Ashley began her career at MDRC, a non-profit organization, where she was a project manager for research studies of educational programs. In that role, Ashley bore witness to educational disparities up close and through data, which prompted her interest in joining the charter school movement. In 2014, Ashley joined Coney Island Prep as the Director of Operations at the Elementary School. She led the school through its founding and as it grew from 120 students to 320 over four years. In her current role as COO, Ashley leads a team of 15 staff who manage day-to-day operations and compliance of three school campuses and a central office. Ashley is passionate about schools being a place where students, staff, and families work together in service of racial equity, college access, and opportunity for all students. Ashley is excited to contribute her six years of experience in school operations to support Brooklyn RISE through its founding years. Ashley holds a BA in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.
Board Approved Policies and Procedures:
2D Policy and Parent Bill of Rights
Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) Policy
Friends of Brooklyn RISE
Diana Marmur - Chair
Diana is currently Corporate Counsel at Amazon, where she supports the Amazon Web Services (cloud technology) business and continues to work on pro bono initiatives. Previously, working as an Assistant General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase and n Associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. She brings broad-based litigation experience to the Board and a commitment to serving the public interest. Throughout her legal career, Ms. Marmur has worked on numerous pro bono matters, including representing low-income and immigrant families in immigration, detention, housing, and criminal proceedings. In addition to serving on the Founding Board for Brooklyn RISE, Ms. Marmur is an active member of JPMorgan’s Pro Bono Committee, through which she has organized various pro bono projects and clinics for the firm. She previously served on the Associate Advisory Board for Legal Services NYC and was a member of the International Human Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Ms. Marmur attended Brooklyn public schools and currently lives in Brooklyn. She has a BA from Rutgers University and a JD from Columbia Law School.
Ricardo Martiniski
Ricardo Martiniski is a Director at ELLO Capital. Mr. Martiniski joined the Firm in 2020. During his career as an investment banker, Mr. Martiniski worked on over 45 transactions with an aggregate enterprise value in excess of US$15 billion. Prior to joining ELLO, Mr. Martiniski served as a Director at Atlas Advisors, a New York-based boutique investment bank focused on mergers and acquisitions, having advised on transactions globally in sectors such as food and beverage, consumer, technology, and industrial sectors. Previously, Mr. Martiniski worked as an Associate at Lazard Frères & Co. in São Paulo, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and advisory transactions in Latin America. Mr. Martiniski began his career as an investment banking analyst at Violy & Company, a boutique investment bank focused on Latin America. Mr. Martiniski holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo - Fundação Getulio Vargas.
LESLIE HERNANDEZ, secretry
Founding Board Member Leslie Hernandez has over 10 years of experience in product marketing for educational programs. As Senior Marketing Manager at Scholastic, she has driven brand strategy and product management for early learning, summer learning, and family engagement programs. Recently recognized for providing exceptional sales support, she is the inaugural recipient of Scholastic’s National Advisory Council Service Award. Prior to Scholastic, Ms. Hernandez managed the customization of the Success for All Foundation’s customer relationship management system and led the product launch of its social-emotional learning curriculum. Ms. Hernandez’s passion for education advocacy extends into the community. She has held several roles in her hometown of Baltimore, including serving as Parent Teacher Student Association VP of Membership and spearheading a career advancement conference for undergraduate women. Ms. Hernandez holds an MS in Integrated Marketing from New York University and a BS from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.