Meet Our Board

Henry Mascia, Board President

Henry Mascia, JD, is a civil litigator and immigration attorney at Rivkin Radler, LLP. Henry and his wife, April, have supported the Nurse-Family Partnership for many years. They were inspired by the birth of their own children and the empirical data demonstrating the program’s long-term positive effects on families.

Ellen Cohen, Vice President

Ellen Cohen has had a career as an individual gifts fundraiser and was recently a longtime board member of Summer Search NYC, a youth mentoring organization for low-income high school students. The organization helps guide teens to college through summer trips and professional mentoring. Ellen sees Friends of NYC NFP as a natural extension of what she has been doing and is thrilled that its support for moms and babies starts in pregnancy.

Christina White, Treasurer

Christina White, CPA, is a director at PwC with over 12 years of experience providing accounting, audit, and business advisory services to both emerging growth companies as well as multinational companies within the technology, media & entertainment industries. Christina was inspired by the mission statement of Friends of NFP and was drawn to the program following personal life events. She sees the direct impact the organization can have on mothers and babies at a pivotal point in their lives and the hope and confidence the program instills in young mothers.

Rebekah Wahba, Secretary

Rebekah Wahba is the Head of Aladdin Platform Product Analytics at BlackRock. She has spent two decades working at the intersection of financial services and technology. Her focus is on solving complex problems and driving change through the integration of data-driven insights. She is a proven leader of global high performing teams and she has a passion for bringing out the best in people. Rebekah is enthusiastic about Friends’ commitment to improving babies’ lives and giving moms the tools they need to be able to achieve their own goals and support their families.

Susan Orkin, Founder & Immediate Past President

Susan Orkin, MSW, MBA, developed and managed programs for vulnerable families for over 35 years. She says, “At the end of my career I was an administrator for an NFP program in Pennsylvania. I knew that I had found the most life-changing program ever. When I later moved to New York City and found the NFP program there had some unmet needs, I knew I had to create a Friends group to raise money to expand the capacity of New York City Nurse-Family Partnership to reach its goals. Especially since my forte is building new programs from scratch.”

Julia Cherashore

Julia Cherashore, MBA, PMP, has 20 years experience at top companies in the financial services industry, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She is a seasoned Data Professional and brings her data acumen to tackle complex problems and opportunities.  She has been involved in a leadership capacity at corporate affinity networks and non-profit organizations since 2014.  Through her own experience as a parent, she became passionate about supporting youth and family causes.  She’s a believer in education in all its forms. 

Samantha Ekert

Mia Lipsit 

Mia Lipsit is a communications professional who has spent her career in the nonprofit and government sectors in New York City, working to advance equity in education, housing, public health and other areas relating to social justice. Having worked with NYC Nurse-Family Partnership’s nurses and clients for nine years as the program’s Communications and Outreach Manager, she brings to the Friends board a wealth of direct experience and expertise in the program as well as a passionate commitment to improving the lives of NYC’s most vulnerable mothers and their babies.

Stephanie Schwartz 

Stephanie Schwartz, MSA, CPA is a senior manager at PwC, leading public and private companies of varying size and age through complex change and enhanced financial operations within the technology, media & entertainment industries. Stephanie was drawn to, and inspired by Friend’s mission to help improve the lives of mothers and babies, particularly through empowering women to pursue secondary-education and a career path that will provide financial independence and means to support their families.

Linda Rothenberg Stein

Linda Stein has a B.S. from Washington University and an M.S. in education from Bank Street College of Education. Active in children’s services, advocacy and education, she is a member of the Citizens’ Committee for Children’s Advocacy Council and serves on the New York Advisory Committee of the News Literacy Project. NLP is a national education program that helps students sort fact from fiction in the digital age. She is also a member of the Executive Committee of Project Cicero, which collects and donates books to under-resourced New York City public schools. Until recently she was also on the board of Learning-Spring, a school for autistic children.

Christine Wasserstein, Co-Founder

Chris Wasserstein, now retired as a psychotherapist, has long been concerned about the effects of poverty on the emotional health of mothers and babies. When she read the 2006 article Swamp Nurse in the New Yorker, she understood that evidence-based Nurse-Family Partnership could transform lives. She was invited to join the Community Advisory Board of New York City Nurse-Family Partnership and also the Board of Directors of the national NFP. Chris also serves on the Board of Directors of Citizens Committee for Children of New York, a research-based advocacy organization.