Scenarios for Recovery & Renewal in the Tri-State Region

Scenarios for Recovery & Renewal in the Tri-State Region is an online panel of the 30th RPA Assembly.

Afua Atta-Mensah joined the Community Voices Heard team in September 2016 as the Executive Director. Prior to joining as the Executive Director, Afua served on the Community Voices Heard board. From her work in Ghana, West Africa to the urban centers across America, Afua has worked to improve the quality and quantity of fair and equitable housing, defend racial and social justice initiatives, and galvanize support for programs benefiting low-income families.

She was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in support of her work at the International Federation of Women Attorneys (FIDA) advocating on behalf of indigent women in Ghana. During her tenure at FIDA Afua represented indigent women in court and was a visiting university lecturerat Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where she taught a course on women’s rights in the context of Ashanti-tribal law.

Afua and her husband are proud residents of Central Harlem. She is the mother of two children and holds a law degree from Fordham Univ. School of Law, and a BA in Sociology and Africana from Trinity College.

Professor Hubbard is a specialist in public finance, managerial information and incentive problems in corporate finance, and financial markets and institutions. He has written more than 90 articles and books on corporate finance, investment decisions, banking, energy economics and public policy, including two textbooks, and has co-authored Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System. In a recent book, Tax Policy and Multinational Corporations, he argues that U.S. tax policy significantly affects financing and investment decisions of multinational corporations. Hubbard has applied his research interests in business (as a consultant on taxation and corporate finance to many corporations), in government (as deputy assistant of the U.S. Treasury Department and as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and many government agencies) and in academia (in faculty collaboration or visiting appointments at Columbia, University of Chicago and Harvard).

Jonathan K. Law is a Partner in McKinsey & Company’s New York office. Since joining the Firm in 2001, he has worked with clients in the public sector and in philanthropy on topics related to economic development, higher education, infrastructure, innovative social finance, and organizational effectiveness and operational efficiency. Prior to joining McKinsey, Jonathan has worked at the United Nations, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Jonathan obtained a JD from Columbia Law School and an AB in Social Studies from Harvard College.

Heather C. McGhee joined Demos in 2002 and served as its president from 2014 through June, 2018. A recognized thought leader on the national stage, McGhee is now a Distinguished Senior Fellow, advancing the vision of an equal say and an equal chance through her writing, public speaking and media appearances.

McGhee is writing a major book to be published in 2019 about the personal, economic and societal costs of racism to everyone in America, including white people. She serves as a contributor to NBC News and frequently appears on shows such Meet the Press. Her opinions, writing and research have appeared in numerous outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, and The Hill. She has received New York University’s McSilver Award for Leaders in the Fight Against Poverty, and Citizen Action of New York’s Progressive Leadership Award.

Over the years, McGhee’s work has had a profound influence on public policies and issues. Her efforts at Demos as both staff member and president have led to achievements that include: landmark consumer protections to rein in credit card abuses and save consumers over $50 billion in fees; critical contributions to policies that rewrote the rules for how financial institutions operate; billions in wage increases at large companies and for government contractors; four million low-income voters registered at DMVs and public agencies; and pro-democracy reforms, such as public campaign financing, same-day registration, and automatic voter registration, won in a dozen states and Washington, D.C.

McGhee currently serves on the boards of the Center for Working Families, Consumer Reports and Indivisible. She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

Dr. Herminia Palacio joined the Guttmacher Institute as President and CEO in August, 2019. In this role, Dr. Palacio shapes and guides the Institute in fulfilling its mission to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States and globally. She works to create a strong organizational culture, provide leadership and inspiration for the Guttmacher staff and shape the Institute’s long-term vision to ensure the continued impact of the Institute’s work. You can learn more about Dr. Palacio’s vision for Guttmacher in this November 2019 profile published in The Lancet.

Prior to joining the Guttmacher Institute, Dr. Palacio served as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services for the City of New York. In this role, she was in charge of coordinating transformation efforts across the City’s public health and healthcare system, expanding access to social services, and ensuring that agencies serving the City’s most vulnerable populations are run compassionately, equitably, and effectively. She had oversight for eleven City agencies and mayoral offices entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the health and wellbeing of all New Yorkers, with a total budget of $24 billion, approximately a quarter of the City’s budget.

Dr. Palacio is a crisis management expert who was charged with serving as Medical Branch Director for the Hurricane Katrina Houston/Harris County Reliant Park/Astrodome mega-shelter operation in 2005. In this role, Dr. Palacio was responsible for standing up and overseeing the public health and healthcare delivery emergency response operations for 27,000 evacuees from the New Orleans area. Her work during Hurricane Katrina earned her the Excellence in Health Administration Award from the American Public Health Association in 2007. Dr. Palacio also previously served as a Special Policy Advisor to the Director for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, where she addressed a variety of public health challenges and issues. Throughout a storied career, Palacio has demonstrated strong dedication to public health issues and a clear ability to respond with innovative solutions that influence national policy.

In addition to her policy work, Dr. Palacio practiced clinical medicine for nearly 20 years, including nearly 15 years at San Francisco General Hospital during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She has also held a number of fulltime or adjunct academic appointments at medical and public health schools, including the University of Texas School of Public Health and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston as well as the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.

Dr. Palacio received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York a Master of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health, and a BA in biology from Barnard College at Columbia University. She has authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

She served on the Harris County Healthcare Alliance (HCHA), as President of the Texas Association of Local Health Officials (TALHO), as Chair of the Texas Public Health Coalition. Nationally she was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), and appointed to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Board of Scientific Counselors for the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response and the CDC Advisory Committee to the Director. In 2011, she was appointed by President Obama as a member of the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.

Anthony E. Shorris, currently John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs Visiting Professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, most recently served as the First Deputy Mayor of New York City from 2014 – 2018 where he was responsible for the work of New York’s 375,000 public employees and its $88 billion annual operating budget. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, NYC Commissioner of Finance, Deputy Chancellor of the NYC Board of Education, and Vice Dean/Chief of Staff of the NYU Langone Medical Center. He currently serves on advisory boards to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the NYC Independent Budget Office, Columbia University World Projects, as well as representing the city on the Board of the New York City Ballet. He is also serves as Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company.