People

Lobna Agbaria, Program Director

Lobna was introduced to OGS as a fellow in 2017 and joined the team in 2018. Before moving to Boston, Lobna practiced law for 7 years. As the manager of her own firm, she specialized in construction law with a focus on planning and zoning. Lobna is a Palestinian Citizen of Israel and, in her early 20s, co-founded the Sana Foundation, a nonprofit that provides academic scholarships to Arab women in Israel. As an OGS fellow in 2017, she co-founded SnapLand, an online platform for real estate professionals. Lobna holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. In her free time, you can find Lobna playing middle blocker on a volleyball court. Lobna can be reached at lobna@ogspeaks.com.

Chrissie Cinquegrano, Operations Manager

Chrissie joined OGS after 20 plus years in the for-profit sector. During this time, Chrissie managed and led an international team in the production of over a dozen global conferences and tradeshows in the Big Data, Digital Marketing, Business Process, and Marketplace industries. During the past decade, she has been extremely involved in the sports, health, and wellness in the Waltham community, teaching kickboxing, volunteering, and coaching for the Waltham Girls Softball program, as well as volunteering in the annual John F. Kennedy Middle School Health & Fitness expo, teaching students the benefits of kickboxing for fitness. In her downtime, you can find her practicing yoga and meditation or on the soccer field and basketball court cheering her son on! Chrissie can be reached at chrissie@ogspeaks.com.

Liron Klein, Venture Development Specialist

Liron joined the OGS team as a consultant for corporate affairs in 2018 and today provides professional support and guidance for our budding ventures upon their return to the region. Liron is a general manager and entrepreneur specialist with a background in general management, human relations, operations, and transforming new initiatives into viable programs. Liron has a passion for human beings, creating connections, bringing ideas into practice, and drinking Guinness beer on the beach. Liron can be reached at liron@ogspeaks.com.

Becky Kopilovitch, Fellowship Manager

Becky was introduced to OGS as a fellow in 2019 and joined the team in 2021. Prior to joining the OGS community, Becky was a professional volleyball player. During these years, she played for the Israeli national team, as well as coached and led the nation-wide efforts for girls and women empowerment through volleyball. Becky co-founded the Players’ Organization to better the status of professional volleyball players in Israel and to provide legal support for contracts and disputes. Becky earned her BA in Economics from the University of San Francisco, Summa Cum Laude; and her MA in Economics with a Behavioral Economics focus from Ben Gurion University of the Negev. When not OGSing, you can find Becky running after her nephew in Arizona or being plainly excited for no apparent reason. Becky can be reached at becky@ogspeaks.com.

Leslie Black, Development and Communications Manager

Leslie joined OGS in 2022. Before joining the team, she spent most of her professional career in fundraising. Most recently Leslie held the position of Senior Development Officer at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston where she focused on Major Gift growth. Leslie is an avid learner and connector who enjoys sharing her passion for non-profit work with others. She graduated from New York University with a B.S. in Hospitality and Tourism Management as well as a MA/M.B.A. from the Heller School at Brandeis. In her free time, Leslie can be found at the beach, walking her dog, or spending time with family and friends. You can reach Leslie at leslie@ogspeaks.com

Perry Solomon, Co-Chairperson of the Growth Committee

Perry is the former CEO and Chairman of Esquire Solutions, which is a company that employs 2500 people and operates in 36 domestic cities. Perry served for 6-years as CEO of Wordwave, during which the company grew EBITDA 470% and revenue 175%. The company acquired and integrated 36 acquisitions and successfully sold to Merrill Communications. Perry has also served as the CEO of Bankruptcy Management Solutions, HR Logic, BostonCoach, and as an Executive in Residence for Battery Investment.

David Mendels, Co-Chairperson of the Growth Committee

David has helped build and lead several of the most innovative software companies of the last 25 years. Most recently, David worked as the CEO of Brightcove, the leading software-as-a-service online video platform. Brightcove was also named Best Place to Work in Boston by the Boston Globe. Prior to Brightcove, he held multiple leadership roles at Macromedia and Adobe for over 16 years, including leading the business units for technologies that had a fundamental impact on our experience of the internet such as Adobe Flash and PDF. David currently serves on the Board of Witness and Resilient Coders and serves as an advisor to the Movement Voter Project.

Sari Rapkin, Retired Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Sari’s career in public accounting and non-profit involvement in Greater Boston spanned over 35 years. Recently retired, Sari served as an Assurance Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in their Private Company Services practice. Sari currently serves on the boards of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, Jewish Arts Collaborative, Jewish Family Service of Metrowest, and the Jewish Federations of North America. Sari also serves on the Heller School for Social Policy and Management Board of Overseers at Brandeis.

Lester Fagen, Partner at Cooley LLP

Les Fagen has been a leading attorney representing both emerging and established technology companies and investors, as well as non-profit businesses, for over 35 years. His clientele runs the gamut from entrepreneurs launching new disruptive technology to Fortune 1000 clients in the fields of life sciences, software, information technology, medical devices, health services, smart city technologies, data, and artificial intelligence. He focuses his practice on companies that have the promise for meaningful social impact and entrepreneurs who are mission-driven. He co-founded and served as the head of Cooley’s Boston office and serves on the Board of a number of non-profit organizations.

Sally Ourieff MD, Founder of Translational Consulting

Sally Ourieff MD has over twenty-five years of experience as a physician, health care leader, executive advisor, and management consultant. As the founder of Translational Consulting, she works with C-suite leaders and teams to improve leadership performance and organizational management. Her clients range from Fortune 25 companies to start-up ventures with a primary focus in health care, pharma, biotech, academia, and finance. Sally is an adjunct faculty member at Brandeis University in The Heller School of Social Policy and Management where she teaches in their MBA for mid-career physicians. She also is a facilitator and coach in executive education at Harvard Business School, including in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative for mayors.

Sleiman Solomon Owayda, Founding Partner of Mozaic Capital

Solomon is a founding partner of Mozaic Capital with over 32 years of experience investing and managing institutional private equity investment portfolios. Prior to forming Mozaic Capital, Solomon was a Managing Director at Siguler Guff where he was a senior member of the investment team. Solomon started his private equity career at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System where he was head of alternative investments.  Solomon is currently a trustee of The Church Pension Group, a $17 Billion Pension Fund where he serves as Chairman of the Investment  Committee.

Carol Fierke (ex officio), Provost of Brandeis University

Carol A. Fierke serves as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, with a faculty appointment in the Department of Biochemistry. She earned a PhD in biochemistry at Brandeis in 1984. Prior to returning to Brandeis in her current role, Fierke was provost and executive vice president at Texas A&M University. Before that, she was dean of the Rackham Graduate School and vice provost for academic affairs, graduate studies, at the University of Michigan, where she also served as chemistry department chair for nearly a decade, and was the Jerome and Isabella Karle Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry.

Brenda Anderson, Academic Director

Brenda serves on the faculty at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management and the International Business School at Brandeis University, and is an adjunct associate professor at Tufts School of Medicine. In these roles, she teaches in the accounting and finance fields across numerous Brandeis graduate business programs and is extensively involved in providing financial literacy training to physician leaders in executive education programs. Brenda received her BS from the University of Connecticut and PhD from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. She is a Certified Public Accountant and prior to entering academia, Brenda worked for KPMG.

Carole Carlson, Venture Development Leader

Carole is the Director of the MBA program at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management where she teaches courses in strategy, entrepreneurship, and consulting skills.  She has worked with OGS teams from the very beginning helping them create, shape and pitch their ventures.  Prior to joining the Heller School, Carole was a Principal and Engagement Leader for The Parthenon Group, where she directed client engagements in the nonprofit, government, information, and education sectors.  Carole is the author of multiple case studies, three Core Readings in Entrepreneurship (Harvard Business School Publishing) and Social Entrepreneurship (Sage Publications, forthcoming.)  She holds advanced degrees from the Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Elif Sisli Ciamarra, Teaching Faculty

Elif is an associate professor of finance in the Leo J. Meehan School of Business at Stonehill College and an adjunct associate professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her research and teaching interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship and financial technology. She is also the founder and president of Derin Adaptive, a start-up company that meets the clothing needs of children with special needs. Elif received her BS from Bogazici University (Istanbul, Turkey), MBA from International University of Japan (Niigata, Japan), and PhD from Stern School of Business at New York University.

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Teaching Faculty

Joel is a professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, with expertise in large-scale systems change, multi-stakeholder collaboration, employment relations, high performance work systems, negotiation, and new technology.  Previously he served as a professor and dean of the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and as a faculty member in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. Joel has consulted with unions, employers, and government agencies in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, United Kingdom, and the United States.  He holds a Ph.D. in industrial relations from MIT.

Alain Lempereur, Teaching Faculty

Alain promotes responsible negotiation, mediation and leadership, as the Alan B. Slifka Chair Professor and Director of the Conflict Resolution and Coexistence Program at Brandeis University.  He is an affiliated faculty and executive committee member of the Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON), the academic editor of Negotiation Briefings and a PON Global instructor.  He published a dozen books, including The First Move. A Negotiator’s Companion and Mediation. As a facilitator or a mediator, he supports nonviolence programs in the Near East (Forward Thinking, Negotiation Strategies Institute, Our Generation Speaks) and humanitarian organizations (HHI, ICRC, MSF).

Brian Denenberg, Teaching Faculty

Brian Denenberg is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Venture Lane Studio, Co-Founder of Sales Hunters Inc and an Adjunct Professor at the Brandeis University Heller School of Business – Our Generation Speaks program.

He has been part of multiple founding teams, a 6 time founder and has over 25 years of senior sales experience. He has held sales leadership roles at early-stage companies that were acquired by Thomson Reuters, Hewlett Packard, Business Week, Quadient, and Yellow Media.

He has extensive experience building direct, channel, and inside sales teams. In addition to working with over 100 early stage companies, he has advised over 50 multinational companies on their regional or global channel sales strategies. This has included working directly with partners of major IT vendors to better plan their Go-To-Market strategies.

Brian has developed the Agile Sales Method ™ which assists company founders and executives in evaluating, building, and measuring the best path to market for their company’s products, services, and culture.