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.

Guy Margalit, Senior Program and Regional Manager

Guy is an OGS alumnus of the class of 2019. Previously, he was the Director of The Library – Tel Aviv Municipality’s Urban Innovation Space, where he founded the city’s accelerator for shared economy technologies and initiated smart city pilot projects for early-stage startups. Prior to that, he established a nonprofit named Shakuf, a crowdfunded independent journalism platform, which today is the largest independent media organization in Israel. Guy holds a Master’s in Philosophy and a Bachelor’s in Middle Eastern Studies and Philosophy from Tel-Aviv University. From time to time, you can find Guy in the Tel Aviv newspaper archives, chasing fun pieces of local politics and sports from the 20th-century. Guy can be reached at guy@ogspeaks.com.

Helena Sinai, Operations Manager

Helena joined OGS in January 2021 as operations manager.  She comes with many years of experience in managing operations in high-end catering with Wolfgang Puck, and healthcare working with institutions such as Beth Israel Deaconess and Massachusetts General Hospital.  Helena’s focus is on process creation and implementation, organizational efficiencies, and performance improvement.  After immigrating from Ukraine, Helena and her family lived in Chicago where she grew up and graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor’s in Psychology.  She relocated to Boston and graduated with a MBA from Boston University.  Helena loves spending time with her husband and their 3 year old daughter, who never ceases to keep them on their toes. Helena can be reached at helena@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.

Izzy Nickel, Department Coordinator

Izzy joined the OGS team in 2018. During her last year as an undergraduate at Brandeis University, she worked with the team as an intern before continuing as a permanent staff member. Previously, she held a position with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco office, as well as worked with international solicitors and humanitarians while working and studying in The Hague, The Netherlands. She holds a Bachelor’s in International Global Studies and Sociology from Brandeis University with a special focus in conflict resolution. Izzy keeps us in line with her Californian temperament and a flair for English grammar. Izabella can be reached at izzy@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.

Carol Fierke (ex officio), Provost of Brandeis University

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).

Roberta Clark, Teaching Faculty

Bobbi, an Associate Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Marketing at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, is an expert in the fields of healthcare marketing and the marketing of services. She received the school’s Broderick Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the American Marketing Association’s Philip Kotler Award for Excellence. She holds an MBA and Doctorate from Harvard Business School. In addition to serving as an expert witness for the Department of Justice on pharmaceutical marketing, she co-founded a pediatric obesity service in collaboration with Children’s Hospital Boston and was the co-founder and president of Advance Medical U.S., an expert second medical opinion service which served over 11 million people.