our team
Jerry Hauser – Chief Executive Officer
Jerry brings to The Management Center his dual passions for promoting social change and creating high-performing organizations. His previous roles include serving as the President and CEO of the Advocacy Institute and as the Chief Operating Officer at Teach For America, where he helped the national nonprofit grow from $8 million to $38 million in annual revenue and from 3,000 to 17,000 applicants each year. Jerry also learned about creating strong organizations while an associate at the management consulting firm of McKinsey & Company in Washington, DC. He began his career as a high school math and history teacher through Teach For America in Compton, California, and he holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Duke University. Jerry has written and spoken extensively on nonprofit management and leadership; his article on “Organizational Lessons for Non-Profits” appeared in The McKinsey Quarterly in 2003 and more recently he co-authored the book Managing to Change the World. Most importantly, Jerry is the proud father of future soccer stars Alex and Theo.
Rebecca Epstein – Chief Operating Officer and Vice President, Client Services
Rebecca’s experience in organizing and policy analysis fostered her deep commitment to supporting political and social justice organizations by building their capacity to do good work. She began her career as a community organizer on Chicago’s west side, mobilizing low-income and immigrant residents in campaigns for affordable housing, bilingual property tax information, neighborhood safety, and improved public services. Rebecca has conducted research for Demos and the Taub Urban Research Center on economic disparities by race and ethnicity and state-based affordable housing policies, respectively, and has also explored factors influencing awareness and uptake of the Earned Income Tax Credit. Prior to helping to start The Management Center, Rebecca served as Manager for Strategic Planning and Organizational Development at the Advocacy Institute. She is the author of “The Right to Know: How Latinos in Chicago Fought for Information in Their Own Language and Launched a Movement” (Shelterforce, 2003), among other publications, and holds an M.P.A. in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a B.A. in Anthropology from Amherst College.
Monique Ayotte-Hoeltzel – Partner
Monique Ayotte-Hoeltzel is passionate about the intersection of leadership and social change. Her career began as a Teach For America (TFA) corps member in the Mississippi Delta, where she taught high school English and received her district¹s highest teaching honor. Later, she joined the staff of TFA, where she served in several leadership roles spanning more than a decade, including vice president, admissions and executive vice president, alumni affairs. She was the chief architect of TFA's corps member selection model, and she served on the founding leadership team of Teach For All, where she developed the organization's first measures of success. As a member of TFA's senior leadership team, she helped make strategy, capacity, and culture decisions impacting more than 1,000 staff members. A teacher at heart, Monique enjoys coaching and developing others, especially around managing teams to achieve maximum impact. She is the proud mother of Cassius, who has recently begun to exert his leadership and test his mother's coaching skills. She lives with her husband and son in Brooklyn, New York.
Elizabeth Hampton Brown – Vice President, Management Training
Elizabeth has a passion for social and political justice and brings a commitment to working to make progressive organizations perform at their best. Most recently, Elizabeth worked at Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National as a field organizer and then as the Director of Policy and Programs. At PFLAG, she co-wrote The Guide to Being a Straight Ally and helped design and execute corporate diversity trainings that engage straight allies in the workplace for LGBT rights. She has trained for clients as diverse as the CIA, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, and numerous non-profit organizations. Prior to her work at PFLAG, Elizabeth was a Henry Luce Scholar working for an indigenous rights organization in Thailand, where she developed women's capacity-building trainings, and worked as a investigator in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Elizabeth holds a B.A. in Political Science from Vassar College.
Iimay Ho – Operations Manager
Iimay is an advocate and organizer who is deeply committed to social justice. She’s also passionate about creating effective and efficient systems and is excited about her role in helping TMC move to the next level of performance. Iimay worked on the Power Shift 2011 conference, where as the Deputy Programming Director she helped ensure that all programs for the thousands of youth mobilizing around climate change ran smoothly. Prior to Power Shift, Iimay was Program Manager for Student Leadership Development with the Organization of Chinese Americans, where she managed a mentorship program and coordinated OCA’s internship, leadership development, and scholarship program. She has also worked at Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a Southern LGBTQ grassroots organization, and at the Asian American Justice Center. Iimay was a Fall 2009 New Leaders Fellow at the Center for Progressive Leadership and holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina.
in residence
Linda Bush
Linda founded and led the LGBT Movement Advancement Project (MAP), an independent think tank that provides rigorous research, insight, and analysis to help speed equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Previously, she was a startup company CEO, a senior manager at McKinsey & Company, and a U.S. Navy officer. From 1998 to 2002, Linda founded and grew the technology startup SafeRent, Inc. from $0 to $12 million annual revenue. SafeRent gained recognition from Forbes (Best of the Web 2001 and 2002), Inc (Killer App 2002), and The Wall Street Journal (Under the Radar, 2001). Since selling SafeRent in 2003, Linda has concentrated on strategic and operational consulting to nonprofit organizations, foundations, and individual philanthropists. Linda has a B.S. in Economics with Highest Distinction from Penn State and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia. She is a certified Project Management Professional.
Carrie L. Ellis
Since 2005, Carrie has led the Project Management team at KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit that creates playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities across North America. Carrie has managed her team in completing more than 1,300 community-built playspace projects, impacting more than 3.5 million children. Previously, Carrie worked in several capacities on the national staff of Teach For America and served as a Teach For America corps member, teaching middle school in Los Angeles. Carrie is the Chair of the Board for Teaching for Change, a nonprofit that provides teachers and parents with tools to transform schools into centers of justice where students learn to read, write, and change the world. She is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, where she earned a degree in English, and she has a master's degree in Communication Management from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.
Nicole Baker Fulgham
Nicole has held leadership positions at Teach For America since joining the organization in 2001. Nicole served as Vice President of New Site Development and helped bring Teach For America to four new regions. She later become Vice President of Teacher Preparation and Support, where she managed 30 full-time staff and more than 700 summer staff and saw the corps double in size while simultaneously increasing corps members' classroom effectiveness. Nicole is currently Vice President of Faith Community Relations and has mobilized more than 1000 external constituents to support Teach For America’s mission. Nicole began her career as a Teach For America corps member, teaching fifth grade in Compton, California. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she earned a B.A. in English, and she has a Ph.D. in urban education policy from UCLA. Nicole is on several nonprofit boards, including Lighthouse Academies, a national public charter school network, and Faith in Public Life. She and her husband, Alonzo, live in the D.C. area and have three children.
Alison Green
The co-author of Managing to Change the World, Alison also writes the popular Ask a Manager website, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues, and she writes a weekly column on career and management issues for U.S. News & World Report’s website. As the chief of staff of the Marijuana Policy Project, Alison oversaw day-to-day staff management. Before joining MPP, Alison worked in communications for several nonprofit organizations, including six years as a staff writer and campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), where she made headlines for an effort that resulted in Procter & Gamble placing a moratorium on animal testing, taught students how to work with the media and organize on campuses, and authored a guide to campus activism. Her writings have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and more than 250 other publications.
Amy Huffman
Amy’s experience in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors has given her an appreciation of how strong management skills are fundamental to achieving great results. The Management Center's former VP of Training, Amy also served as Vice President of Communications at Teach For America, where she grew media coverage by 127% during her tenure. Prior to that role, Amy served as the head of learning and development for Teach For America’s campus recruitment team as applications grew 36%. Charged with leading training efforts for the 170-person team, she overhauled the curriculum and introduced intensive week-long simulations to help new recruiters move rapidly up the learning curve. Prior to Teach For America, Amy worked at ABC News, where she helped launch multiple digital media initiatives, and at The Walt Disney Company, in their strategic planning group. She holds an M.B.A from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in economics from Harvard University.
Lucy Perkins
Lucy Perkins served for 11 years a Leadership Group Member of Ashoka, the $35 million global organization that has pioneered social entrepreneurship around the world. Lucy has designed and led major organizational changes for Ashoka at both the regional and the global levels, as Asia Director, Europe Director, Global Operations VP, and CFO. Before joining Ashoka, Lucy spent seven years in international finance, first with the International Finance Corporation/World Bank and then with Emerging Markets Partnership, a global investment firm. Lucy has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and earned her MBA from Wharton. Lucy's two daughters have been honing her skills as an eavesdropping chauffeur and emotion management coach.
chairman
Peter B. Lewis
Peter B. Lewis is the non-executive Chairman of Progressive Corporation, having served as its CEO from 1965 to 2000. As CEO, Mr. Lewis grew Progressive from a small, specialized insurance company with $6 million in revenues and 100 employees into the nation’s fourth largest auto insurer, with 27,000 employees and annual sales of $15 billion. Through his philanthropy, Lewis invests in people with purposes he shares and the management ability to achieve those purposes. Lewis serves on the Board of his alma mater, Princeton University and is its largest-ever contributor. Lewis believes deeply in the value of individual freedom and tries to foster necessary governmental and social change. He supports the American Civil Liberties Union and helped finance the beginnings of The Management Center, America Coming Together, MoveOn.org, Media Matters and the Center for American Progress. Lewis is amicably divorced from Toby Devan Lewis and is the father of three and grandfather of four.