In order to provide the high-level networking and programming that ADI has become known for, we are guided by an experienced and talented Board of Directors that oversees the organization. These individuals are all accomplished leaders in their fields, and provide the American Democracy Institute with unparalleled insight and guidance
Our Board of Directors includes:
Amy Curtis-McIntyre
Betsy Myers
Marc Nathanson
Geronimo Rodriguez
Judith Zarin, Founding Member
Jan Gilbert, Secretary to the Board of Directors
Amy Curtis-McIntyre is the Senior Vice President, Marketing for Old Navy. She is responsible for leading all aspects of marketing and brand management, including developing strategies that continue the brand’s momentum and build deeper engagement with target customers. Before joining Old Navy, she served as senior vice president, brand communication for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, where she developed and launched Hyatt's first global advertising campaign. Before joining Hyatt, Curtis-McIntyre was the founding Chief Marketing Officer for JetBlue Airways, where she joined in 1998 when it was simply a concept known as NEW AIR Corporation. In her role as head of sales & marketing, she had responsibility for developing the brand platform, advertising, promotion, public relations, web strategy, sales team efforts and other traditional marketing elements. Additionally, and truly in start up form, Curtis-McIntyre took charge of product development and internal communications including the uniform design (and served as the flight attendant prototype), aircraft interior and exterior, implementation of the first-ever DIRECTV system on a plane, recruiting and training communication and even gave JetBlue its name. Prior to JetBlue, Curits-McIntyre was the Vice President of Marketing for Virgin Atlantic Airways, and the Director of Marketing for Celebrity Cruises. She began her marketing career in the consumer and travel division of Hill & Knowlton Public Relations.
Since leaving JetBlue in 2005, Curtis-McIntyre has spoken and lectured widely for corporations and universities on the subjects of brand and culture building, brand management and effective communication. As an independent consultant, she has offered marketing and branding counsel to a wide variety of clients, including: Yahoo; Google; The Gap; Dunkin Brands; BRGuest Restaurants; and several university schools of business administration, such as Yale, Kellogg, Harvard, Cornell and Wake-Forest. She is a native New Yorker and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts.
Betsy Myers
Betsy Myers most recently served as a senior advisor to Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. She joined the campaign in January 2007 as the Chief Operating Officer and served in this capacity from the start-up phase of the campaign through the primary season. She is known for establishing the campaign with a business operational model and customer service mentality. During the general election campaign, Myers represented the campaign as Chair, Women for Obama. Prior to this appointment, Myers was the Executive Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. As a senior official in the Clinton Administration, she was the President's senior advisor on women's issues and the first Director of the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach (1995–1997).
Marc Nathanson
Marc Nathanson is Chairman of Mapleton Investments, LLC., and Mapleton Communications. He served as Chairman and CEO of Falcon Communications, the nation's tenth largest cable television operator, from its formation in May, 1975 until it was sold in November, 1999 to Paul Allen's publicly traded Charter Communications, where Mr. Nathanson presently serves as Vice-Chairman.
In 1998, President Clinton appointed Mr. Nathanson to chair the Board for US International Broadcasting, which oversees Voice of America, Radio/TV Marti, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Mr. Nathanson is a trustee of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California, and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is Chairman of Homeland Security Advisory Council for Los Angeles County Region One and a member of the Los Angeles Mayor’s Committee on Homeland Security. He also serves on the Board of the UCLA Foundation, the Rand Graduate School, the American Democracy Institute, chairs the Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg School for Communication, and is vice chair of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
In addition, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Affairs Council, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Mr. Nathanson holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Denver and a Masters degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara (USCB) where he was a National Science Foundation fellow.
Geronimo Rodriguez serves as Vice President of Diversity and Community Outreach at Seton Family of Hospitals in Austin, Texas, and an Adjunct Faculty member at St. Edward's University where he teaches Mass Media and Politics. He has over 15 years of public service experience advising federal, state, and local officials and helping to manage presidential, gubernatorial, and attorney general campaigns.
From 2001 to 2006, he was with Leonard Frost Levin Van Court & Marsh, P.C., in Austin. From 1999 to 2001, Rodriguez was Counsel to the Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor. Earlier he served in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor, in the White House Office of Congressional Affairs and Presidential Personnel during the Clinton administration, and in the Office of the Texas Attorney General.
Currently Rodriguez is Chair of the Hispanic Bar Association of Austin Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Observor, the Texas Advisory Board of Environmental Defense, and a member of the American Swiss Foundation and the Embassy of Spain Young Leaders' Conferences. He graduated from St. Edward's University with a bachelor's degree, cum laude, attended the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.
Judith Zarin, Founding Member
Judith Zarin is a champion of women’s rights, serving as a board member of the National Naral Pro-Choice America Foundation and a member and supporter of the Democratic National Committee Women’s Leadership Forum and Emily’s List, a political network for pro-choice Democratic women. A supporter of the Eleanor Roosevelt Girls’ Leadership Workshop, Zarin helped create a New York mentorship program which exposes girls to strong female role models working in New York City. From 1988 through 1995, Zarin was a member of the Board of Trustees of The Calhoun School in Manhattan. From 1998 through 2005, she was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, having served on the Finance committee as well as the Education committee.
Along with her husband, Gerald Rosenfeld, Vice Chairman of U.S. investment banking at Lazard, Zarin has established the first two undergraduate scholarships at The Stern School of Business at New York University specifically dedicated to New York minority women. In addition, they have also established the first scholarship dedicated to female rabbinical students at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Zarin holds a PhD in Psychology from the Graduate Center of the New School for Social Research and a J.D. from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
Jan Gilbert, Secretary to the Board of Directors
Jan Gilbert has more than twenty years experience counseling franchisors and franchisees on all facets of domestic and international franchising, including structuring franchise programs, counseling with respect to federal and state regulatory issues associated with franchising activities and franchise relationship matters (e.g., transfers, terminations, renewals), drafting franchise- and distribution-related agreements (e.g., master franchise, franchise, development and area representative agreements, sales and service contracts, confidentiality and non-competition agreements, and distribution agreements), negotiating domestic and international agreements and disputes, franchisee compliance issues, franchise system mergers and acquisitions, drafting franchise offering circulars, responding to state and federal administrative inquires and investigations, obtaining exemptions and interpretive opinions from regulatory agencies, and establishing franchise advisory councils and cooperatives. He has worked with both start-up and mature franchisors. Gilbert is a member of the ABA Forum on Franchising, Antitrust Section, and the Legal/Legislative Committee of the International Franchise Association.