Board of Advisors
Our advisory board is a group of leaders with diverse backgrounds who are responsible for helping set the direction of Just For The Children and make sure the organization is fulfilling its mission.
Gillian Hearst
Gillian Hearst was born in Palo Alto, California, and raised in Westport, CT. She attended the prestigious Lawrenceville School before earning her B.S. from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. After graduation, she moved to NYC, where she still lives today with her three beautiful daughters Harper, Hadley, and Sloane.
Hearst has been a very active member of the Associate's Committee since 2013. She has chaired many events including the Winter Lunch and the Bunny Hop. She has served as the Vice-Chairman of the Associate Committee under the wonderful leadership of Gina Tomenson from 2018-2020.
In addition to her Sloan Kettering duties, Gillian has worked for Town & Country Magazine for over ten years and currently serves as a Contributing Editor. She is on the Board of Directors of the Hearst Corporation. She currently co chairs the Good+Friends Committee.
She was a founding member of UNICEF's Next Generation steering committee, and co-chairs the New York Botanical Garden's Winter Wonderland Ball and the Wildlife Conservations Society's Summer Gala in Central Park.
Atoosa Rubenstein
Atoosa Rubenstein is the author of Atoosa Unedited, and at times confronting, at times healing weekly letter on Substack where she models authenticity, self-love, and acceptance for her readers. The former Editor in Chief of Seventeen Magazine and Founder/Editor in Chief of CosmoGIRL!
In 1998, Rubenstein created a prototype for CosmoGIRL! within 48 hours and was offered the job on the spot making her, at 26, the youngest Editor in Chief in the over 100-year history of Hearst Magazines. After a successful run at CosmoGIRL!, Hearst acquired Seventeen and tapped Rubenstein to turn the venerable title around. After just one year at the title, Rubenstein reversed a five-year decline in Seventeen's newsstand sales and delivered a total newsstand growth of 23% within two years. She also conceived and was an Executive Producer on MTV's Miss Seventeen a series that debuted in the fall of 2005.
The following year, Rubenstein left the industry altogether to undergo a grueling 13-year personal excavation and discovery mission that lead to three of her own daughters and now, a twice-a-week love letter Atoosa Unedited, written for her beloved readers, now adults in their own right. Columbia University has honored her as one of the top 250 alumni through the ages. She has also been recognized by the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York as a Woman of Distinction. Rubenstein has been featured in Crain's New York Business' "40 Under 40" and Folio's"30 Under 30."
She lives in Manhattan with her three daughters.
Aran Khanna
Aran Khanna is a Harvard Computer Science alum & former Amazon product lead who focuses on understanding the consequences of the increasing role of technology in our lives, particularly in the realm of personal privacy and impact of machines learning systems. Aran's approach is to build tools that empower users to discover for themselves the consequences of the digital footprints they are leaving online.
Most notably, his Marauders Map tool demonstrated the dangers of default location sharing in Facebook Messenger, which spurred Facebook to remove the features as well as rescind Aran's summer internship. Aran has given many talks on the consequences of a digitizing society including a popular TedX talk. He has also published widely cited research in the deep learning field in collaboration with CalTech Professor Anima Anandkumar as well as multiple papers on consumer privacy with former FTC Chief Technology Officer and Professor at Harvard, Latanya Sweeney.
Aran is currently the CEO and co-founder of Reserved.ai, which helps businesses scaling on public cloud platforms like Azure and AWS automatically navigate complex pricing rules to drive the most value out of their investment with the least risk.
Vanessa Lindley
Vanessa A. Lindley, the CEO of Lindley Consulting Group LLC is a transformative thought leader, trainer, coach, and author. She has 25-plus years in the finance industry and is an alumnus of the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Business program.
Her company is a certified Minority Women Business Enterprise (MWBE). Her mission is to advocate for racial and gender equity in order to eradicate poverty and build generational wealth.
As an author, Vanessa has written publications and curricula such as, “Achieve Financial Victory, 7 Ways to Win With Your Money,” “Realizing the American Dream,” “Life Balance for the Women on the Rise, “Financial Coaching: Helping Clients Reach their Goals” and “Delivering Effective Financial Education for Today’s Consumer.”
As a nationally recognized leader, she’s worked with fortune 500 companies, municipalities, universities, and small businesses including Citi, Chase, the State of New York, Harvard University, Columbia University, the FDIC, and the National Urban League among others. She’s a frequent award recipient including Community Leader of
the Year from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and most recently a Women of Wall Street.
When she is not out in the world being a change maker, she and her husband are raising three future female change-makers.
You can find her on all social media platforms @vanessalindley and online at VanessaLindley.com
Dr. Darria Long
Dr. Darria Long believes that everyone deserves access to clear, and data-driven health information — and the confidence that comes with that. She is a Harvard and Yale-trained Emergency physician, international TV contributor and regular on CNN, Headline News, The Dr. Oz Show, NBC, and other outlets, national bestselling author of Mom Hacks and TedX speaker of the now widely popular “An ER doctor on ending the crazy busy” - and mom of 2. Dr. Darria is also the founder of TrueveLab: the data-driven source of truth for your health questions.
Dr. Darria is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, and received her training in emergency medicine at Yale School of Medicine and her MBA from Harvard Business School.
Joni Grossman
Joni is a Managing Director at Regent Advisors Investments. Joni previously worked in Credit Suisse Private Equity's Customized Fund Investment Group. While at Credit Suisse, she invested in early to late-stage private equity funds and co-invested in fund portfolio companies on behalf of pension funds, endowments, and family offices.
Prior to completing her MBA at Columbia Business School, Joni was a senior investment banking analyst in Morgan Stanley's corporate finance department. At Morgan Stanley, she worked on several primary and secondary stock offerings, debt financings, and merger advisory assignments. Joni received a BA with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Additionally, she serves as Co-Chair of SCO Family of Services' Family Dynamics Council and is a member of Common Sense Media's New York Advisory Board.
Jeff Sine (Special Advisor and Mentor)
Jeff is a Co-Founder and Partner of Raine. Prior to founding Raine, Jeff was Vice Chairman and Global Head of Technology, Media & Telecom Investment Banking at UBS Investment Bank.
Jeff is a current or past board member of The Manhattan Theatre Club, The International Radio and Television Society, The Museum of Television and Radio Media Center, National Public Radio (NPR), The USC Annenberg School of Communication / Law Center Joint Venture, ITHAKA, Educational Testing Service and American University. He has also produced many plays and musicals over the past two decades on Broadway and in London’s West End, and is a three-time Tony Award Winner.
Jeff serves on the boards of Margaritaville, Blackbird, and Reigning Champs, all Raine portfolio companies. Jeff has a B.A. from American University and a J.D. from the University of Southern California.
Anas Saeed
Anas Saeed did his bachelor's and masters in computer science and is currently a Ph.D. candidate. His interests lie in AI, Machine learning, SDN and NFV. Other than his academics, he really likes to travel and has been to 47 states and would love to do all 50.
Samantha Sherrin
Prior to joining Just for the Children team, Samantha worked in the fashion industry, working in design and PR at companies such as Carolina Herrera, Kate Spade, and Nina Ricci. She has done a variety of work in marketing and client relations for the Four Seasons Restaurant, Tory Burch, and Glamsquad.
Samantha has designed her own personal collections as well as provided curated designs and paintings to personal clients for over a decade. She now works in the financial industry, helping to build the North America PE sector at her firm in client relations and management.
Samantha holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Parsons School of Design.
Vianca Victa
Vianca Victa graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy.
She has over 500 hours of practical training working in pediatrics, including creating interventions for teens who were in remote school and suffered from severe muscle pain from poor posture.
She has also worked for a physical therapy clinic as a technician. She helped set up electrotherapy stimulation on patients, helping doctors create effective treatment programs based on initial evaluations. She has also worked EMT for the Southampton Village Volunteer ambulance since 2016.
Vianca brings a unique perspective with her practical and theoretical knowledge of the mechanics of body movements. She loves working with children, and sees the need for further research and new interventions, as children spend more time on tech. When she’s not working, studying or helping with Just For The Children’s interventions, she loves to hike, and swim and eat healthfully.