Jan C. Stewart, Esq.
Board Chair
Ms. Stewart is Chair of the Board and also serves on the Operations & Benefits and Governance Committees. Ms. Stewart retired as Vice President of Human Resources at GEICO in August 2021.
Prior to her human resources career, she was Corporate Secretary and Assistant General Counsel at GEICO from 2002 to 2006. Before joining GEICO, Ms. Stewart specialized in employee benefits law working in Washington, D.C., as an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend and a partner at McDermott, Will & Emery.
Ms. Stewart serves as a mentor to a "teen scholar" through Generation Hope, which provides teen parents in college with mentoring, tuition assistance, mental health services, a peer community, and other critical services and support to help them earn their degrees.
Deborah G. Ullman
Board Vice Chair
Ms. Ullman is Vice Chair of the Board and also serves on the Audit and Investment Committees.
Ms. Ullman spent most of her career in the insurance and financial services industry. She started as an actuary before moving into senior management roles in finance, customer service. and corporate strategy.
Her “encore career” was as CEO of YWCA Hartford Region, which she joined in 2004. While CEO, she was involved in several Hartford area organizations that advocated for eliminating homelessness, early childhood education, eliminating racism and financial empowerment for women.
Ms. Ullman retired in 2017. She stays active in retirement as a fiber artist, both knitting and quilting. She also serves in several volunteer leadership roles including arts and culture, and human services.
Kathleen A. Granchelli
Secretary
Ms. Granchelli is Board Secretary and Chair of the Governance Committee. She also serves on the Audit Committee. She was CEO of YWCA of the Niagara Frontier in Lockport, NY, until her retirement in 2023.
Since beginning her tenure in 1994, Ms. Granchelli has established a formerly local agency as a county-wide provider of services for women and girls. Among the initiatives she has led are an after-school violence prevention for middle school-age students, Universal Pre-School, a nationally recognized economic self-sufficiency program for women, a rape crisis program, and a campaign to Stand Against Racism. She also established county-wide homeless housing units for women and children.
Ms. Granchelli serves on the Board of Directors of The Homeless Alliance of New York, is a founding Executive Committee member of The Niagara County Community Commission on the Status of Women and is a member of The Niagara County Workforce Investment Board. She is a graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy State School and Local Government Program, and also holds BA and Master's degrees from SUNY and an advanced degree from the American Institute of Banking.
Barbara Glass
Treasurer
Ms. Glass is Board Treasurer and serves on the Investment and Operations & Benefits Committees.
Prior to her retirement, Ms. Glass spent more than 30 years working with employee benefit plans and was certified to practice before the Internal Revenue Service. She spent several years on the Board of Directors for YWCA Tulsa, including two years as President.
Ms. Glass chaired the Asset Management and Development Committee of the YWCA’s National Coordinating Board for seven years and joined the Board of Trustees of the YWCA Retirement Fund in 2009. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and a Master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma.
Currently, Ms. Glass is a trustee of a local Tulsa foundation that supports the performing arts and she enjoys painting, classical music, and traveling in her free time.
Jacqueline W. Bostic
Trustee
Ms. Bostic serves on the Audit and Operations & Benefits Committees.
Among the many firsts of Ms. Bostic’s 32-year career with the United Postal Service were: becoming the first female education specialist in the Houston Postal District (1964-1967), the first female and African American to serve as investigator in the Southern Region (1974-1986), and the first female and African American Legislative Director for Texas. She also served on the Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and the Texas AFL-CIO Board of Directors.
Ms. Bostic has served on the Board of Directors of YWCA Houston and the YWCA’s National Board. She has been active in Delta Sigma Theta since joining at Fisk University in 1956, where she also grew a school tutoring program and was active in launching political forums.
Currently, Ms. Bostic serves as Chairman of the Fourth Ward Redevelopment Authority and TIRZ #14 for the City of Houston. She has been listed in the Who’s Who Of American Women since 1983.
Diana Gibson
Trustee
Ms. Gibson serves on the Investment and Governance Committees. She is Chief Investment Officer of a private family office.
She has over 20 years of experience in investment management for foundations, endowments, family offices, and pensions.
Ms. Gibson earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard College (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude), and a Master’s and Doctorate from the University of Oxford, England.
Marilee Pierotti Lau
Trustee
Ms. Lau serves on the Audit and Governance Committees. She provides consulting and educational services for firms that specialize in employee benefit plans.
Prior to her retirement in 2009, Ms. Lau was the National Partner in Charge of KPMG’s Employee Benefit Plan Audit Practice. She is a founding member and a former Chair of the AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center’s Executive Committee and was the 2011-2013 AICPA’s representative to the Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council.
She has served on the AICPA’s Employee Benefits Plan Experts Panel, numerous task forces, and was the chair of the EBP Audit Guide Overhaul Task Force.
Ms. Lau assisted the AICPA in writing the new ESOP and Multiemployer chapters for the EBP Guide as well as the pension chapters for the State and Local Government Guide.
Besides her professional work. Ms. Lau serves on the Board of Fellows for Santa Clara University, the Board of Directors for Marin Villages, and the Retired Partner Council for KPMG.
Kris Machajewski
Trustee
Ms. Machajewski serves on the Operations & Benefits Committee. She is the President and CEO of YWCA Northwestern Illinois; a position she has held since 2006. She is also the President of YWCA Northwestern Illinois Foundation.
She began her professional career in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Military District of Washington working in personnel management. She was also a Senior Consultant at a Naperville, an Illinois philanthropic consulting firm that provides major gifts expertise to a wide range of non-profits and privately held foundations. She led the founding and startup of two charitable foundations, one of which is the $6mm Aurora Women’s Empowerment Foundation, where she served as President for four years, the second being YWCA Northwestern Illinois Foundation, of which she is currently the President.
Ms. Machajewski has served on multiple boards of directors including the OSF Saint Anthony Hospital Board of Advisors and the Rockford Chamber of Commerce. She also served for nine years as an elected Trustee for the Village of Winnebago and chaired the Police Committee, Finance Committee, and Administrative Team.
Ms. Machajewski holds several certifications, including Nonprofit Leadership from Rockford University and the Northwestern Kellogg School of Nonprofit Executive Education, with a focus on Nonprofit Strategy: Planning & Positioning for the Future.
Margaret Mitchell
Trustee
Ms. Mitchell serves on the Audit and Operations & Benefits Committees. She is CEO of YWCA USA and previously served as the President & CEO of YWCA Greater Cleveland. Among her achievements, in 2019 she led the call to Declare Racism a Public Health Crisis in Cleveland and across the state, led the acquisition of the Norma Herr Women’s Center, and launched the transformation of the YWCA Greater Cleveland Early Learning Center into the only trauma-informed preschool serving children and families experience homelessness.
Previously, Ms. Mitchell was the President & CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters Greater Cleveland, served as the VP of Business Development and Director of Partnerships at Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas (now BBBS Lone Star), and held senior leadership roles at Menttium, a for-profit industry leader in one-to-one corporate mentoring.
Ms. Mitchell began her career in publishing and received a BA with honors in Mass Communications from Hampton Institute. In 2020, The Cleveland Orchestra, in partnership with the City of Cleveland, honored her with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – Outstanding Service Award.
Margaret S. Neilly
Trustee
Ms. Neilly serves on the Investment and Governance Committees.
Ms. Neilly was one of the first women to graduate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. From 1962, she worked in the investment business both as an employee and the owner of her own firm. She has been a YWCARF Trustee since the late 1980s.
Sondra Vitols
Trustee
Ms. Vitols serves as Chair of the Investment Committee. She has over 20 years of alternative investment experience for endowments, pensions, and family offices.
Ms. Vitols began her finance career at McKinsey & Company and has served in senior roles at Credit Suisse and D.E. Shaw & Company. She has also held faculty positions at Clark University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Vitols earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and philosophy (with honors) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Doctorate in Chemical Physics from Princeton University.