Boston Foundation announces four new board members, including UMass Boston chancellor

Boston - In a vote on June 18, the Board of Directors of the Boston Foundation welcomed four new members, Rosalin Acosta, Managing Director and Senior Vice President of Enterprise Investment Advisors; Zamawa Arenas, Principal at Argus; J. Keith Motley, Chancellor of UMass Boston; and Scott Squillace, Esq., Principal Squillace and Associates.

Retiring from the board after serving two five-year terms are Jackie Jenkins-Scott, President of Wheelock College; Jack R. Meyer, Senior Managing Partner at Convexity Capital Management L.P.; Herb Morse, retired Managing Partner of KPMG’s New York Metro Practice; and Board Vice Chair Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank.

The new board members will serve five-year terms and represent a diverse group of Boston leaders.

“We at the Boston Foundation are grateful for the service of our departing board members and excited to welcome our new members,” said Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation.  “Collectively our new board members have more than 100 years corporate, academic, and charitable experience. We look forward to their contributions.”

Rosalin Acosta, who holds Series 7, 24, and 66 FINRA licenses, brings more than 27 years of banking and financial management experience to her role at Enterprise Investment Advisors. She is a well-respected banking professional who has held progressively responsible leadership positions in wealth management, government banking, cash management, and commercial lending throughout the Greater Boston region.

Prior to joining Enterprise Investment Advisors, Acosta served as Regional Wealth Leader for New England at TD Bank and previously served as Executive Vice President/Managing Director of the Wealth Service Division at Sovereign Bank.

Acosta is a recognized public speaker and cultural ambassador on matters of diversity and motivating youth. She has been selected for three consecutive years by El Planeta Newspaper as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics in Massachusetts. She also received the YWCA Boston Academy of Women Achievers award this June.

Acosta is also a member of several boards including the Board of Overseers of Boston Children’s Hospital, where she also co-founded the Latino Executive Council for Children’s Hospital. She is the Vice Chair of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance & Accounting and, in March, was awarded the Community Hero Award by the Northeast Massachusetts American Red Cross.

Zamawa Arenas came to Boston more than 20 years ago, after successful stints in journalism, PR, and cable broadcasting in her native Venezuela. Upon completing a master’s Degree at Boston University, she continued her career in the United States. In 1997, Arenas founded Argus, the only Latino-owned advertising agency located in Boston, specializing in multicultural marketing.

Arenas, also serves as a Boston Public Library Trustee and is a founding member of the Latino Legacy Fund.

She currently serves on the board of the Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Eastern Bank, and Simmons College. Her work has been recognized with Emmy Awards, the Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award, and the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers award.

J. Keith Motley is the eighth chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, a research university that is part of the University of Massachusetts System, which has 11 graduate schools and colleges, and more than 16,000 students.

Prior to his appointment as chancellor in 2007, Dr. Motley, who has been a higher education administrator for more than 30 years, served as vice president for business, marketing, and public affairs at the University of Massachusetts President’s Office, where he worked closely with President Jack M. Wilson, university leaders, and the Board of Trustees. He was the interim chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, and as dean of student services at Northeastern University.

Dr. Motley is a founder of the Roxbury Preparatory Charter School. He is also a founder and education chair of Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts, Inc., and the Paul Robeson Institute for Positive Self-Development, an academic and social enrichment program for school-aged children of color.

He also serves on numerous boards of community organizations, including Carney Hospital, Freedom House, the Boston World Partnership, the Boston Sports Museum, the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Commonwealth Corporation, and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

Dr. Motley was appointed as the co-chair of the College Success Task Force by the Mayor’s Office of the City of Boston, and is chair of the national American Association of State Colleges and Universities.  He serves on the board of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and is a member of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Effective Leadership.

Dr. Motley holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northeastern University and a doctor of philosophy degree from Boston College. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh’s Upward Bound Program.

Scott Squillace is a business and estate planning attorney with more than 28 years of experience practicing law. He is the principal and founder of Squillace and Associates, a boutique estate planning firm in Boston.

Squillace began his career as a corporate attorney at Skadden, Arps, where he assisted in opening its Paris and Moscow offices in the early 1990s. During his time at Skadden, he did significant private and public company corporate and securities work, as well as international transactional work from the firm’s New York, D.C. and Hong Kong offices.

Squillace has significant business counseling experience as an in-house corporate attorney, first as General Counsel for Levi Strauss & Co.’s European division in Brussels. Later he served as European Counsel for Cabot Corporation in Boston, a NYSE public company. He was also the first General Counsel for Grand Circle Travel, a privately held Boston based travel company.

His current practice focuses on estate and business planning matters including tax and philanthropic planning for high net worth individuals and families.

Squillace has a particular focus on helping same sex couples and members of the LGBT community with their unique planning needs.

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The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, is one of the largest community foundations in the nation, with net assets of some $1 billion. In 2014, the Foundation and its donors made more than $112 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of nearly $112 million. In celebration of its centennial in 2015, the Boston Foundation has launched the Campaign for Boston to strengthen the Permanent Fund for Boston, Greater Boston’s only endowment fund supporting organizations focused on the most pressing needs of Greater Boston.  The Foundation is proud to be a partner in philanthropy, with nearly 1,000 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes.

The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, provider of information, convener and sponsor of special initiatives that address the region’s most serious challenges. The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), an operating unit of the Foundation, designs and implements customized philanthropic strategies for families, foundations and corporations around the globe. For more information about the Boston Foundation and TPI, visit www.tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.