Our Team – Chicago

Christine Poorman joined College Possible Chicago as the founding Executive Director in 2015. In this role, she leads programmatic strategy, board development and fundraising in support of a $2.7MM annual budget. As leader of the Chicago office, Christine has grown College Possible’s reach and impact to support more than 1,400 Chicago Public School students from low-income backgrounds on their path to earning a college degree.

Christine brings 20+ years of experience in educational access and success to this work. Prior to College Possible, she led the Chicago office of Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), which she launched as a start-up and grew to be one of their highest performing program offices. Christine holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management, Executive Education from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from Michigan State University.

Beth Satterfield joined William Blair & Company, LLC in 2015 as Managing Director, Head of Market Development in the Investment Banking group. Beth has over 25 years of banking, private equity and investment management experience. Most recently, she was Chief Operating Officer of Aurora Investment Management, LLC, an investment management firm focused on hedge funds. Prior to that, Beth was with Glencoe Capital, a private equity firm, and served on the firm’s investment committees as Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Before that, Beth was a leveraged finance banker with Bank of America and a commercial banker with JP Morgan Chase.

Beth received her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Beth lives in Bucktown with her three children ages 15, 13 and 8.

Martha Boudos has held leadership roles in financial services for more than 20 years. During her 19 years at Morningstar, Martha served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer for six years, guiding Morningstar through its transition from a private to public company. During her tenure, she successfully built the global finance organization, led Morningstar’s open-auction initial public offering, and was instrumental in the company’s acquisitions.

As Director of Community Relations, Martha developed Morningstar’s first community outreach program focusing on employee volunteer opportunities in urban education. The program included a partnership with a Chicago charter high school that won the city’s Best New School Partnership Award in its first year.

Early in her career at Morningstar, Martha served as a marketing manager for its newly-developed software products. She played a key role in the creation of Morningstar.com, the company’s Web site for individual investors, and she was responsible for creating Morningstar’s retirement advice business. Prior to being named CFO, she served for one year as vice president of human resources.

Before joining Morningstar, Martha held roles as a software developer at Design Options, Inc. and as an asset management analyst for The Boston Company.

Martha serves on the boards of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and College Possible Chicago. Martha holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She was named to the Crain’s “40 Under 40” list in 2004.

Bruce Cohen is a Senior Advisor at Sterling Bay. He is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wrightwood Financial, a real estate investment company. Before forming Wrightwood Financial, Bruce was a Senior Partner in the real estate group of Ares Management, a leading global alternative asset management company. He also served as President and COO of Ares Commercial Real Estate, a New York Stock Exchange publicly traded REIT, where he oversaw more than $1 billion of investment activity. Bruce joined Ares in 2011 upon completing the sale of Wrightwood Capital’s operating platform to Ares. During his tenure, he retained oversight of the Wrightwood Capital portfolio, as well as its third party funds, and continues in this capacity in his role at Wrightwood Financial.

Wrightwood Capital was an institutionally capitalized real estate investment firm that provided short-term, floating- rate first mortgage loans and mezzanine and preferred equity financing to owner-operators around the country. Bruce founded Wrightwood Capital in 2004 and served as its Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, the firm grew its balance sheet to almost $2 billion with total assets under management of approximately $2.5 billion. From its inception in 2004 until 2011, Wrightwood Capital was responsible for more than $4 billion of investment activity.

Bruce earned a B.A. from Tufts University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He currently serves on the boards of Wrightwood Capital, Erdman, a preeminent design-build firm focused on healthcare, and Cortland Partners. He is also a member of the real estate advisory boards of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Mohit Kalra is the General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at Numerator. Prior to joining Numerator, Mohit spent 13+ years at Google where he focused on data privacy, intellectual property, commercial agreements, and other related topics.  Mohit began his legal career at Mayer Brown, where he worked on mergers & acquisitions and securities offerings for a broad range of clients.

Mohit graduated with Honors with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan and with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He currently is on the Corporate Advisory Council of Cradles to Crayons, a non-profit that is currently working on expanding to the Chicago area. He lives in Chicago and enjoys spending time with his wife Manali, and his two boys, Rian and Nayan.

Tim Kincaid’s practice focuses on private equity transactions and mergers and acquisitions. He has represented corporations, private equity funds, and investment banks in documenting and negotiating acquisition and sale transactions, capital raising transactions, and equity purchase and sale transactions. He also has experience counseling clients on day-to-day corporate and LLC matters, including entity formation, contracts and corporate governance.

Tim is the co-chair of the Compensation Committee and chairman of the Foundation Committee. He is a member of the firm's Executive Committee and Associate Evaluation Committee.

Kristin Flink Kranias is a consultant. Previously, she was the SVP of Analytics Solutions at HAVI, the global leader in logistics, supply chain management and analytics for the food service industry and also one of the largest private companies in the U.S. Prior to HAVI, Kristin led the global professional services team at ShopperTrak, a market leader in retail analytics owned by Tyco/Johnson Controls. She joined ShopperTrak when they acquired a company she co-founded, SaleTally, a promotion analytics start-up in the retail space. Kristin began her career at Bain & Company in San Francisco where she spent nearly 10 years consulting to a range of industries including retail, CPG, industrials and biotech. She specialized in growth strategy, pricing, operations and organizational projects.

While at Bain, Kristin was active in the probono consulting practice and led projects in strategy, board best practices and customer/donor analytics for two organizations in the Bay Area targeting the homeless. In addition, she was a board observer at Girls for a Change during grad school.

Kristin received her A.B. in Economics cum laude at Harvard and her M.B.A. from Stanford. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and their 4-year-old twins.

Carol Levy is a woman with a clear vision and confident style. In a world overcrowded with mega stores, Carol has taken the necessary risks to thrive in the competitive retail space. Making a series of opportunistic moves in step with market trends, she has created thirty years of smashing success for Material Possessions. The secret behind the home decor store's stream of loyal shoppers can be attributed to Carol's steady leadership, affinity for function, as well as form, and her customer-centered approach.

Carol attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts until she transferred to and ultimately graduated from Northwestern University. After a successful career in commercial real estate, Carol decided to put her innate business instincts, sharpened by a wealth of life experiences, to a creative use. In 1983, she became Co-Owner of Material Possessions with Peggy Swartchild. With her clever combination of entrepreneurial spirit and imaginative thinking, Carol helped expand the store to a downtown Chicago location.

Carol's achievements are also abundant outside the walls of Material Possessions. In 2004, she and her husband, Larry, founded the Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. They took the venture a step further in 2007 and established the Carol and Larry Social Entrepreneurial Lab. Her contributions to the community continue with her work on the Board of Directors for the Marwen Foundation, the University of Chicago Hospitals, and her role as a Lifetime Trustee for the Francis W. Parker School. She sites one of the evidence of her success as the invitation to speak to art students at the Marwen foundation and at the apparel mart speaking to budding new artists.

Chris Moree is the chief of staff to the co-founder of Apollo, an alternative investment manager. He previously served in a variety of leadership positions across the U.S. Army, Navy, and the White House, and has worked with Brad Keywell and Mayor Emanuel in Chicago. He helped found Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem. Chris served in the U.S. Army for 7 years and graduated from NYU as the top student in his class.

Adnan Nisar currently serves on the board of directors of Academic Partnerships, Unitek Learning, Apollo Education Group and Vanta Education. He previously served on the board of directors of HigherEducation.com and Penn Foster Education Group.

Prior to joining Vistria, Adnan was an investment professional at Mubadala Investment Company, a global investment firm capitalized by the Government of Abu Dhabi. He began his career at M3 Capital Partners focused on principal investments and M&A advisory.

Adnan received a B.A. in economics and finance from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Ramkumar (Ram) Ramanan is an Assurance Partner in Ernst & Young LLP (EY), based in Chicago. Ram has 19 years of public accounting experience serving large and medium-size publicly held and privately owned companies and fast growth companies in software/technology, healthcare, business services, consumer products and industrial products. He also serves as the Strategic Growth Markets Leader responsible for the EY’s middle market business in Illinois.

Ram has extensive experience with initial and secondary public offerings, debt offerings, private equity portfolio company audits, acquisitions including purchase accounting and post-integration accounting policy alignment, and consulting with clients on new accounting pronouncements, SEC accounting matters and SEC comment letters. He has significant experience advising clients on complex revenue recognition matters including software accounting and multiple element arrangements, accounting for equity and debt securities, and implementation of internal controls and compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Ram is actively involved in EY’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. He is a co-sponsor of EY’s America's steering committee for the Pan-Asian Professional Network (PAPN) and the executive sponsor for PAPN in EY Chicago.

In addition to these many accomplishments, Ram is also active in the community and serves on the Chicago board of College Possible, a not-for-profit organization focused on making college admission and success possible for low-income students through an intensive curriculum of coaching and support.

Ram was born in India, where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree and the Chartered Accountant qualification. Prior to moving to Chicago, where he became an Illinois-licensed Certified Public Accountant, Ram worked at EY Singapore for six years.

Outside of work, Ram enjoys spending time with his wife and his ten- and six-year old sons. He enjoys playing golf, reading and traveling.

Carol Rubin is Jenner & Block’s chief operating officer, providing strategic direction, financial planning and analysis, and operations management for all firm offices. Her career has focused on leading and revitalizing government and nonprofit organizations. Past leadership roles include Associate Director of Schools of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the second largest public transit agency in the U.S., as well as CAO of the Chicago Park District, the largest municipal park system in the country.  In addition, she served as head of Corporate Strategy for Exelon Corporation, a major electric utility, and as the director of the Child Care Facilities Development Program of the Illinois Facilities Fund, a national nonprofit agency.

Carol holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and French Literature, Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate University.

Susan Stone is Executive Vice President and General Counsel for CNA. In this role, Susan leads the Company’s Law Department and serves as the principal counsel for CNA on all legal matters including legal consultation across domestic and international business operations, compliance, regulatory and government affairs, securities law and company litigation.

Susan has over 30 years of legal experience, in both the private sector and as a federal prosecutor. Most recently, she served as General Counsel and Executive Committee Member at Marsh LLC, and had oversight over litigation, transactional, regulatory, and compliance matters for a heavily regulated insurance broking and risk advisory business. Prior to Marsh, Susan was an Executive Committee Members, Practice Group Head, and Partner at Sidley Austin LLP.

Susan holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. She has served on multiple civic and philanthropic Boards of Directors, including WWCI/WTTW Public Television, Roosevelt University, Erikson Institute and the Women’s Board of the Joffrey Ballet.

Jono Keedy is currently an Account Executive for Enterprise Platforms at Stripe, working with the most innovative software platforms in the world to help them facilitate payments and financial services for their customers.  Platforms like Shopify, Lightspeed, and Mindbody leverage Stripe’s financial infrastructure to create new lines of revenue by embedding payments and financial services to their software.  Prior to joining Stripe, Jono spent three and a half years at Synchrony, working a variety of roles in its Sales organization.

Jono received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, majoring in Finance and Managing Organizations.  He attended Boston College for his undergraduate degree, where he also studied abroad at Boston College, Ireland and University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Ryan is an Associate Client Investment Officer at Northern Trust Investments. Ryan works directly with clients, providing professional multi-manager investment programs, which include building out investment policies, allocation, manager selection, and continuous monitoring over the client’s portfolio. Previously, Ryan worked at Robinhood Markets where he helped retail investors with trading equities and options. Immediately prior, he worked at JP Morgan Chase in the Asset & Wealth Management group as a Client Service Associate.

Ryan is a proud graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he majored in Communications.

Gabriel is a Change Management Consultant at Root, a part of Accenture. Root works with companies to create discovery-based learning experiences that help build support and understanding for strategic changes the companies are undergoing. Prior to his work with Accenture, Gabriel was a high school teacher, where he taught everything from Spanish to Algebra 1. He loves the field of education and hopes to be a resource to students navigating their careers.

Gabriel received his B.A. in Spanish Literature and Religious Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. After six years as a teacher, he returned to grad school where he earned an MBA from the University of Michigan. He joined the College Possible Auxiliary Board in the Fall of 2022.

Meredith is currently a manager at Bain & Company, with experience in the healthcare and digital marketing practices. Prior to Bain, Meredith founded and ran an independent college counseling practice in New York City, working directly with high school students and their families to provide support during the college search and application process. She also ran the Candidate division at Scouted.io, a recruiting startup that helps companies hire recent college grads.

Meredith earned her B.A. from Dartmouth College, and her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In her free time, she enjoys playing basketball, snowboarding, and letting The Infatuation food blog lead her to as many delicious Chicago restaurants as possible.

Trevor Ivy is an Account Manager at ComEd within their Large Customer Services Department. In his current role, Trevor serves as a liaison between ComEd and local large entities such as schools, hospitals, commercial buildings, factories and other large commercial and industrial customers, building and maintaining relationships to increase customer satisfaction. Trevor was a former intern for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation serving in the DC office under Congressman Danny K. Davis.

Giving back to the community in which he was raised is what Trevor loves most. Since 2017, Trevor has been a mentor at Holy Family School located in West Lawndale on Chicago’s westside.  Trevor is also member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. One of the philosophies he lives by is “It Takes a Village”. Trevor believes that success is mirrored by the people around you.

Trevor holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Philander Smith College located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, Trevor is completing his paralegal certificate at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Austin currently works in Chicago for Stripe (Payment Processing Infrastructure) as an Account Executive in the Startup & SMB segment. Prior to Stripe, Austin worked in the consulting and staffing space, focusing on company initiatives that prepared both recent college graduates and transitioning veterans for job readiness.

In 2018, Austin graduated from Northwestern University’s school of Education and Social Policy with degrees in Learning & Organizational Change as well as Economics. His passion for enabling higher education opportunities for underprivileged individuals was ignited by the numerous hands-on classes and experiences that explored the racial and socio-economic divide that prevents upward mobility for so many inner-city Chicago families.

Outside of work, Austin has spent time throughout his career partnering with various education and job readiness programs, including America’s Urban Campus (Chicago) and Roll Call Chicagoland.

Liza is a member of Facebook’s Global Business Group, where she works as a Partner Manager with advertising agencies and brands that leverage Facebook’s suite of advertising products. She’s passionate about helping businesses grow and tell their stories through a variety of mediums. Prior to Facebook, Liza worked at Digitas, a Publicis agency in Chicago.

Liza earned her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She also sits on the Young Professionals Board of Swipe Out Hunger, an organization she’s been a part of for many years, founding the chapter at the University of Pennsylvania. In her free time, she loves to travel, see live music, and support her Chicago sports teams!

I believe in the power of a brand's ability to uplift and inspire people beyond transaction. To capture true emotion and real feelings that make for defining moments where brands and consumers align over shared values and common beliefs. As a brand strategist, I revel in unlocking insights that help champion the human emotion our favorite brands unlock within us everyday.

Over the years, I’ve honed my strategic abilities in research, insights, media planning and creative ideation to become a multi-dimensional strategist. My experience extends across a wide variety of industries, helping brands like Courvoisier, Effen, Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, NBC Universal, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, MillerCoors, and Jordan Brand identify insights that connect their brands with consumers over shared values to drive real business results.

As Director of Strategy and Integration at TEN35 today,  I've been given the opportunity to help build a young company with an old soul, where I strive to help brands champion their purpose, key consumers, KPI's, and the cultures and communities driving them forward.

Courtney is an Investment Analyst at Sustainable Growth Advisers, a growth equity firm based in Connecticut. Previously, Courtney worked at William Blair & Company, LLC as a sell-side Equity Research Associate and GCM Grosvenor where she worked on the investment due diligence team covering the firm’s global equity hedge fund investments.

She graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana – Champaign with a B.S. in Finance and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School. She joined the College Possible Auxiliary Board in the Fall of 2017.

Erik is currently Director, Digital and Commercial at Sasser Family Companies, a fourth-generation, family-held transportation asset services and management company. At Sasser, Erik helps to lead strategic technology and finance initiatives in addition to client-facing digital offerings. Additionally, Erik currently serves as President of Change for the Better, Sasser’s internal charitable organization that helps support educational, cultural, civic and community, and health and human services organizations in Chicagoland and beyond.

Erik holds a B.A. and M.A in Technical Writing from Missouri State University, where he focused on visual communication and digital storytelling.

Kyle is the co-founder and CEO of Chicago Scoops. Scoops owns and operates 50+ Cold Stone Creamery locations across 14 states.

Prior, Kyle served as operating partner for Chicago Caesars, a multi-unit Little Caesars franchise group and as CEO of Epic Burger, leading the brand to be named in the 40/40 List for 2020: America’s hottest startup fast casuals. Mr. Welch began his professional restaurant career at Sizzling Platter, a multi-concept restaurant management company, as the lean champion leading process improvement projects, market acquisitions and new store openings. Kyle is a certified lean six sigma green belt.

Welch holds a degree in hospitality business from Michigan State University and is a member of the Northern Illinois Franchise Association, the Illinois Restaurant Association and Young President’s Organization (YPO) Chicago. Kyle currently serves on the auxiliary board for College Possible Chicago, as a mentor at the Food Foundry Chicago and as a founding board member of Prosper Chicago, a non-profit dedicated to erasing food insecurity in Chicago.

In 2020, Kyle was recognized as a member of Crain’s Chicago 40 under 40 and in 2021, Kyle was awarded the Young Alumni Grand Award from Michigan State University.

As Chief Investment Officer, Elliot evaluates a variety of investment opportunities across private equity, real estate, and public equities. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors of Chicagoland Equipment & Supply and Lagunita Franchise Operations. Prior to Cooper Management, Elliot spent three years in the Global Equities division of Citadel where he invested in the consumer sector. Prior to Citadel, he worked at Freeman Spogli & Company, a Los Angeles based private equity firm focused on the consumer and distribution sectors.

Elliot attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He joined the College Possible Auxiliary board in 2017.