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The Leon T. Nelson Advisory Committee

From the Nelson Family:
“We would personally like to thank the Board and staff of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts for recognizing one of Boston’s unsung heroes and trailblazers. We are committed to supporting your mission and work as it continues to move the ideals of GRCC forward.”

THE LEON T. NELSON ADVISORY COMMITTEE

We recognize that a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences are necessary for the success of any organization. With a desire to support staff and surround them with as much talent, expertise, and resources as possible, we established an Advisory Committee, made up of 12 to 15 people who are a cross-section of business, industry, labor, and community leaders.

The Nelson Committee is non-voting and does not engage in decision-making related to programs, personnel, budget, or internal policy development.

Advisory Committee members will serve a two-year term with the possibility for a renewal of additional terms based on their interest, involvement, and at the discretion of the Executive Director. No formal meetings are required except at the request of the Executive Director or Committee members. 

Expectations include:

  • Being available to advise the Executive Director at least one hour per quarter 

  • Connecting one’s network to BECMA programs and other opportunities

  • Making programmatic recommendations that ensure they address the needs of BECMA membership and the community 

  • Providing feedback, advice, and/or assistance with programs and other matters

  • Serving as an advocate for BECMA in the community

Leon Thomas Nelson was a native of New Haven, CT. He attended the James Hillhouse High School — the oldest public high school in New Haven — where he became a local basketball legend. He moved to Massachusetts in order to attend Curry College and Northeastern University. He studied political science and business administration respectively at each institution.
Mr. Nelson’s work in pursuing socio-economic justice for his community started with the Boston Branch NAACP, where he served as its president (1969-1970). He later served as the head of the national NAACP’s security team for 17 years. However, it was in his local work with the Boston branch that would introduce and unite him to his best friend, partner, and wife of 28 years; Charlotte Nelson. Mrs. Nelson would also serve as president of the Boston NAACP.
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After serving in leadership for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Freedom House, Inc, Mr. Nelson pursued his ultimate dream to serve his community by founding the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce (GRCC). He and a close team of Black business leaders and stakeholders began meeting to develop strategies on how to empower and teach local residents on wealth building and ways to support Black businesses and leaders in the city. This effort produced many important initiatives, such as:

  • The 100 Listing: a directory of the top 100 influential black leaders in Boston;
  • The GRCC annual dinner; and
  • The GRCC Business Council: a partnership with the city of Boston (via the office of the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino)

GRCC was part of the team that supported the development of the Grove Hall Mecca, among various other small businesses in the Grove Hall area. GRCC served as a catalyst to begin the exploration and expansion of black business and development in downtown Boston as well. Mr. Nelson was a trailblazer, a risk-taker, and a bold and unwavering voice for socio-economic justice for Black people in the city of Boston. After a battle with liver cancer, he passed in 1999. His legacy lives on in his daughter who now serves as the Chief Resilience Officer for the city.

Meet the Advisors

Sheena served in the role of Director of Economic Opportunity at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, where she led & supported initiatives engaging the business community in advancing economic inclusion & racial equity in the private sector. She developed and managed the Pacesetters initiative, focused on enhancing corporate supplier diversity practices, which received the NAACP Boston Branch’s Corporate Leadership Award and recognition as a GK10 Most Game-Changing Equity Idea.

In addition, Sheena is the Managing Director of City Awake – a program of the Chamber – which serves as the regional platform to empower and mobilize the next generation of talent. She curated a six-day festival, Fierce Urgency of Now (#FUNinBOS), designed to highlight the experiences, challenges, and possibilities for millennials of color in Boston. The festival was awarded the 2018 Chamber Innovation Award for a large city Chamber.

She is a proud board member of Jeremiah Program Boston and on the Selection Advisory Council for the Greenlight Fund. Sheena received her BA from Spelman College and her Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Michael Curry, Esq. is the immediate past president of the Boston Branch of the NAACP (2011-2016). Elected to the National NAACP Board of Directors in 2014, Mr. Curry was recently re-appointed to the National NAACP’s Executive Committee and appointed to Chair the National Board’s Advocacy & Policy Committee and Vice-Chair the Political Action and Legislation Committee. He also serves on the Legal, Image Award and Constitution Review committees, as well as on the Quality Education Task Force and Chairs the Image Award Awards Ticketing Task Force.

Mr. Curry serves as the Deputy CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, which represents 49 health centers, serving over 800,000 patients. He also serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, the Massachusetts Non-profit Network, Kids Count Advisory Board, City of Boston’s Compensation Advisory Group, and Roxbury Community College.

Mr. Curry earned a Bachelor’s of Arts from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from New England School of Law, and later graduated from the inaugural class of the Executive Leadership Council’s Pipeline to Leadership Program.

Mr. Curry is the father of three boys: Marcus (22), Michael Jr. (14) and Malcolm (9).

Adler is the Chairman of the Haitian American Chamber of Commerce of Massachusetts, with the responsibility to support the growth of Haitian-American and Diaspora’s small businesses in the Commonwealth. Adler has over 18 years of experience championing Small Business and Young Professionals leaders throughout Massachusetts.

He is the Chief Procurement Officer at State Street Corporation. Adler is a key leader at State Street that oversees the firm strategies to achieve our supply diversity objective of creating business opportunities for minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, and LGBT-owned businesses.

Previously, Adler was the Director of Corporate Diversity Relationship, Technology and Innovation, at the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts (ULEM). Before the Urban League, Adler was a Senior Supplier Diversity & Development Manager at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). Prior to the MBTA, Adler was a Senior Business Developer at Verizon Business.

He currently serves as an Advisory Board Member at National Alliance for the Advancement of Haitian Professionals (NAAHP), a member of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Chamber Leadership Alumni Council and a Director for the Irish International Immigrant Center (IIIC).

Nia K. Evans is the Director of the Boston Ujima Project. She joined Ujima’s executive leadership after serving as a co-founder and Steering Committee member since 2015. Nia is the former Executive Director of the Boston NAACP, where she helped grow the membership and advance the Chapter’s Education and Economic Development strategies.

Nia’s educational background is in the areas of labor relations, education leadership, and policy. Her advocacy includes a focus on eliminating barriers between analysts and people with lived experiences as well as increasing acknowledgment of the value of diverse types of expertise in policy. She is a co-creator, along with artist Tomashi Jackson, of Frames Debate Project, a multimedia policy debate project that explores the intersection between drug policy, mental health services and incarceration in the state of Massachusetts.

Nia has a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Master of Arts in Education Leadership, with a course of study in Leadership, Policy, and Politics from Teachers College at Columbia University. She also studied abroad at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where she focused on International Labor Relations.

James Jennings received a B.A. from Hunter College in 1971, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1976. His dissertation is titled, “Puerto Rican Leadership Patterns in New York City”. He was appointed Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University in 2001. Professor Jennings has taught graduate courses on social policy and community development; and race and class in U.S. society. Between 1979 and 1983 he served on the faculty of Harvard University as Assistant Professor of Afro American Studies. He taught the following undergraduate courses: Black Politics; Ethnic Politics; Black Urban Communities; Politics of Urban Education; Puerto Rican Politics; and Black Political Thought. In 1983 he was appointed Dean of the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts Boston. After serving five years in this position he was appointed Director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute and then Senior Fellow at The Trotter Institute and Professor of Political Science in the Africana Studies Department until 2001. He has served on editorial boards for The African-American Almanac, 6th ed., Sage Race Relations Abstracts, Souls: A Journal of Black Culture, and the Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies.

Malia Lazu is a powerful culture creator and strategist whose instinct and clarity have changed cities, institutions and organizations throughout the US and abroad for over 20 years. Having started her first cultural endeavor at age 19 – in which she was credited with forever changing the voting landscape in Boston – Malia has been using strategy and the connective tissue of community networks to build diversity in authentic ways and creating consistent impact.

With over two decades of experience building a diverse culture in the political and civic space, Malia felt the diversity and inclusion industry was in need of disruption in the private sector. While at MIT, Malia launched a space for diversity research and development called The Urban Labs, which has emerged as a boutique multi-cultural agency helping corporations and institutions be more effective in their diversity and inclusion efforts.

Malia has experimented in attacking ongoing diversity problems, creating Accelerate Boston, an accelerator for creatives. In its first five years, Accelerate Boston helped launched 20+ minority businesses by supporting their search for investment capital.

Malia is a former BECMA board member.

Lori Nelson was most recently the Director of Communications and Constituency Services for the City of Boston’s Housing Authority. She commits time to community work, serving on the Advisory Council for the Barbara Lee Foundation; chairing the Political Action Committee for the Black Ministerial Alliance since 2013 where she was appointed to the executive leadership team in 2017. She also served in leadership as the first Vice President of the NAACP Boston branch from January 2017 through April 2018 and now continues her advocacy as a member within the branch.

Before joining the City of Boston’s Housing Authority, Nelson was the Deputy Chief of Staff for the MBTA. Prior to joining the MBTA, she worked for Governor Deval Patrick as the Deputy Director of Community Affairs and Special Projects, where she served as a liaison on community-related affairs, particularly concerning youth, ethnic groups, and coalitions across the Commonwealth, faith-based initiatives, and worked with Public Safety and Health and Human Services on youth violence reduction. Nelson specializes in coalition and partnership building, as well as political strategy in urban areas. Nelson studied English Literature and African American Studies at Northeastern University.

Lori is the daughter of Leon T. Nelson.

Ayele is a veteran classroom teacher who taught for eleven years in the Los Angeles area and Boston. She served as Chair of the Education Committee for the Boston NAACP for three years and in 2015 she was appointed by the Boston School Committee to co-chair the Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Task Force for the Boston Public Schools. Ayele is listed in the GK100 Most Influential Black Bostonians roster and was recently inducted into the Barr Fellows Program, an elite cohort of outstanding nonprofit leaders in Boston.

Prior to coming to BUILD, Ayele served as the President and CEO of the Boston Learning Center for 15 years. Ayele co-authored the book Boost School Performance – A Parent’s Guide to Better Grades Fast and is a contributor to the Huffington Post and Entrepreneur Magazine. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Boston University and a Master’s degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

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