Board of Directors

Our consultants and Board are key to our Value Proposition. As former CEO’s, CFO’s and other Senior Managers, our Board and consultants possess vast experience in all functional areas of business, including finance, branding, recruiting, marketing, organizational development, and fundraising. In addition, our consultants are adept at applying their experience to the nonprofit sector, where we know business and process can be more challenging.

Mark Gorman

Mark Gorman, Board Chair

Mark Gorman  is an expert in not-for-profit accounting with over 35 years’ experience as an auditor, consultant, and financial executive. He has served as the Director of Finance and CFO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the San Francisco Opera, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County. He also has served as a board member for community based organizations, committees within the accounting profession, and governmental commissions. As a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee, he participated in the deliberation and drafting of Audit Guides, Statements of Position (SOP’s) and other authoritative literature that form the basis of current not-for-profit accounting and financial reporting rules.

Mr. Gorman was an adjunct Professor of Accounting and Economics at the University of Vermont, Vermont State College, and Sonoma State University. In addition to university instruction, he has taught seminars in not-for-profit accounting and other subjects for the AICPA, Foundation for Accounting Education, and CPE Corporation. He has made presentations at AICPA national conventions and other conferences and professional forums. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Accountancy and Philanthropy Monthly.

B.A. Franconia College, M.S. Accounting Long Island University

Joel Greenbaum

Joel Greenbaum, President and CEO

Joel Greenbaum, President and CEO

Joel Greenbaum brings a diversity of both private and public sector experience to ESC- Florida. After college, Joel worked as a professional musician/arranger/composer in New York City. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Award to compose a piece for jazz ensemble and orchestra. While in NYC, he built and served as President of Evergreen Recording, a professional recording studio, where he worked on recordings with artists such as John Lennon, Herbie Hancock, Harry Belafonte Hugh Masekela, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many more.

After volunteering with various nonprofit organizations, Joel decided to reconcile his social conscience with his work skills. As a result, he transitioned into nonprofit management, where he served as the Executive Director of Youth Resource Development Corporation in Poughkeepsie, NY. While there, Joel was at the forefront of the national service program, AmeriCorps, and was a founding member and Treasurer of the New York State Corps Collaboration, a statewide collaboration of youth service and conservation corps, and the 4th largest AmeriCorps Program in the country. Joel later moved with his family to Fort Lauderdale, FL, where he worked as the Executive Director of Leadership Broward Foundation.

In moving to Florida, Mr. Greenbaum’s childhood love for the sport of tennis was rekindled, and he jumped back into the private sector, where he founded and served as President of Match Point Tennis, a retail and e-commerce tennis store with 3 locations in South Florida. In 2017, after operating Match Point Tennis for 16 years, Joel sold the business so he could once again utilize his unique skill set, passion, and experience to assist South Florida’s nonprofit community. Joel brings his expertise and experience to ESC-South Florida in business development, leadership training, board development, strategic planning, marketing & communications, and fundraising, among others. Mr. Greenbaum obtained a B.S. from New York University and holds several additional nonprofit certifications.

Melanie Hillenbrand

Melanie Hillenbrand, Past President & CEO, Board Member Emeritus

Melanie Hillenbrand has a passion for helping organizations build the capacity of leaders to drive success. She brings strong skills in Leadership Development, Succession Planning, Talent Acquisition, Executive Coaching, Team Building, Organization Development, and Career Development. Before leading her own consulting firm focused on executive development, Melanie held senior-level leadership and organizational development positions at Mercer HR, one of the world’s premier HR consulting firms; KPMG, one of the Big Four Accounting Firms; and Bellevue Hospital, the oldest and largest public hospital in the country. She also served at CNA Insurance and with the BlueCross/Blue Shield Association. In addition, Melanie has received recognition for two major innovative initiatives judged as “best-in-class.” The first was the development of a Business School for over 600 partners and managers to help them develop leading-edge skills in consulting to their Health and Life Science business sector. The other was the creation of a Global Career Development program for the 15,000 consultants of an international HR consulting firm.

Melanie has a strong track record of building teams that get results, notably successfully managing a national interdisciplinary team of over 100 professionals tasked with realigning a 12,000 person organization. Melanie has particular expertise in functional start-ups and turnarounds, in one case enhancing employee satisfaction by over 200% while increasing product offerings and reducing costs by over 30%. She has also been a pioneer and facilitator of 360-degree feedback systems and assessment tools such as MBTI, DISc and several other well-known tools. Ms. Hillenbrand obtained a BA from Boston University and an MBA from DePaul University.

Hanna Fink

Hanna Fink, Corporate Secretary

Hanna Fink is a results/team oriented executive with extensive nonprofit sector experience in problem solving and leading and managing people, programs, and facilities in highly complex and diversified organizations. Ms. Fink has spent the past 25 years working in the South Florida community for a national health and social service organization. Having invigorated the volunteer base, she orchestrated one of the largest walk-a-thons in the U.S. along with being responsible for planned giving, major gifts, and numerous special events,. Ms Fink’s ability to lead and manage while developing relationships with key stakeholders in the community has been critical to her success.

Previously Ms. Fink was the Executive in a multi disciplined full service Community Center serving 7,500 individuals and a local development corporation in an historic neighborhood. She recently completed a comprehensive course through the Society of Certified Senior Advisors (SCSA) earning the designation of Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)®, The SCSA is an international organization that has trained more than 30,000 professionals to meet the changing needs of a growing senior population. Currently involved in the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program with the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, serving as an advocate for seniors and populations who are unable to advocate for themselves.

M.S.W. Wurzweiler School of Social Work-Yeshiva University, New York, and an M.B.A. from Pace University, New York.

Kathy Octavio

Kathy Octavio, Treasurer

Kathy Octavio is an experienced, multi-faceted CIO and executive manager with over 35 years experience in the oil and gas industry. She was a founding partner and CIO of a successful oil and gas start-up company after holding senior executive positions in different vertically integrated business units and then in corporate headquarters in a major international oil and gas company. She started her career in its Research and Technical Development affiliate.She has proven success in IT, strategic planning, management and governance, business process analysis and alignment, outsourcing relation design and assuring IT service levels. She also has the ability to provide strategic direction and guidelines, leveraging IT so it becomes a fully client-oriented function contributing to meeting the organization’s strategic goals.

Ms. Octavio is bilingual (English and Spanish). She holds a PhD in Environmental Systems and a MSc and Eng. degree in Civil Engineering from M.I.T. and a BA in Physics from Clark University.

Barbara Gray

Barbara Gray, Board Member

Barbara Gray has over 25 years of senior management experience in healthcare at the local, regional, and national levels. Her work has included operations management, organization development, and start-up/turnaround success. She has served as Senior VP at Caring Foundations, VP of Hospice Operations for Vitas Healthcare, and COO of Dimension Health, among other companies.

Barbara has steered organizations to be responsive to community needs. She has consistently demonstrated the ability to deliver outcomes that include high customer and employee satisfaction, improved revenue, increased operational and administrative effectiveness, enhanced compliance with regulations, and strict adherence to sound and ethical business practices. Working with both for-profits and nonprofit organizations, Ms. Gray has built cohesive, productive teams by reinforcing corporate values and standards, establishing goals, and implementing plans to reach them.

Barbara’s consulting practice has focused on strategic planning, compliance program assessment, operations review and improvement, and pre-merger due diligence/post-transaction integration.

Ms. Gray obtained her BA from the University of Florida, an MA in College Teaching from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Compliance from George Washington University.