Priscilla Brown
President and CEO, Amalgamated Bank
Priscilla Sims Brown serves as President and CEO of Amalgamated Bank, a full-service bank, lender and investment manager with a century-long commitment to advancing positive social change.
Amalgamated Financial Corp., the holding company for the Bank, is the first publicly traded (NASDAQ: AMAL) financial institution to be a public benefit corporation. Brown guides Amalgamated Bank in championing social responsibility through values-based banking, customer-centric services, and mission focused lending, serving individuals and organizations, including climate groups, foundations, labor unions, advocacy groups, political campaigns, and other socially responsible businesses, who care that their deposits are put to work for good.
Brown is also dedicated to addressing environmental and social justice issues at Amalgamated Bank. More than 60% of the Bank’s lending and select balance sheet investments are high impact through affordable housing, nonprofits, and climate solutions. Named one of the Most Powerful Women in Banking in 2023 by American Banker, Brown has been featured in The New York Times, TIME Magazine, PBS, and CNBC Changemakers, among others. Brown's unwavering commitment to social responsibility makes it possible for Amalgamated Bank to do well by doing good and continues to shape the future of the financial industry.
Whoopi Goldberg
CEO, CIO, and Founder, Xponance
Whoopi Goldberg is one of an elite group of artists who have won the Grammy, the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the Emmy and a Tony. She is also a prolific producer, bestselling author and entrepreneur and she is well-known around the world for her many humanitarian endeavors. Born and raised in New York City, she performed in San Diego and the Bay Area with the Blake Street Hawkeyes theatre troupe. It was there that she created the characters which became “The Spook Show” and evolved into her hit Broadway show, Grammy Award-winning album and the HBO special that helped launch her career.
Whoopi made her motion picture debut in Steven Spielberg’s film version of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” for which she earned an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe Award. Her performance in “Ghost” earned her the Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and she has starred in such films as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Clara’s Heart,” “The Long Walk Home,” “Soapdish,” “Sister Act,” “Made in America,” “Boys on the Side,” “Ghosts of Mississippi,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” “Girl, Interrupted,” and such animated classics as “The Lion King” and “Toy Story 3.”
Whoopi has recurring roles on Amazon’s “Harlem” and the EPIX series, “Godfather of Harlem.” She reprised her iconic role of Guinan in season two of the Paramount+ series, “Star Trek: Picard” and lent her voice to the recent animated features “Luck” (Apple TV+) and “My Father’s Dragon” (Netflix). She starred in the 2020 adaptation of Stephen King’s best-selling novel “The Stand,” and she appeared in and produced the critically-acclaimed feature film, “Till,” which has amassed countless awards and honors since its release in late 2022. She will appear in the highly-anticipated Amazon Prime Video series based on Neil Gaiman’s “Anansi Boys.”
Her new memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, is out May 7 and she will publish her first graphic novel, The Change, this Summer
Chip Wade
Chip Wade | CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group
Union Square Hospitality Group
As Chief Executive Officer of Union Square Hospitality Group, Chip is responsible for further
enhancing and evolving the company’s culture, driving an even greater experience for guests,
and bolstering the excellence and growth of its businesses. Chip joined the USHG Executive
team as President, in 2019, following a rich 30-year career in operational leadership in the
hospitality industry. In 2022, he was named Chief Executive Officer.
Before, Chip was the Executive Vice President of Operations for Red Lobster and an Officer of the
company. As the senior leader of all operating functions, Chip was responsible for in-restaurant
execution, P&L’s, and driving strategy to maximize the guest experience and EBITDA growth for
677 U.S. restaurants, located in 45 states, and 27 restaurants in Canada with average unit sales
of $3.3M and $2.4B systemwide.
Previously, Chip was Senior Vice President of Enterprise Operations for Darden, the world’s
largest full-service restaurant operating company. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President of
Red Lobster’s Liberty Division where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations of nearly
100 restaurants located in seven states and the District of Columbia. Chip initially joined Darden
as the Director of Revitalia for Olive Garden’s existing restaurants. Revitalia was part of a systemwide repositioning of the brand.
Chip spent two years away from Darden when he served as Chief Operating Officer for Legal Sea
Foods, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts. In this role, he managed all operations for the familyowned group’s 31 restaurants and oversaw the launch of the Legal Test Kitchen, a new concept.
Chip also led as the Senior Vice President of Development for Smokey Bones, a former Darden
concept.
Earlier in his career, Chip spent 13 years with T.G.I. Fridays where he progressed through various
management positions, in Operations, Human Resources and New Business Development.
A Pennsylvania native, Chip received his culinary degree from Johnson & Wales College, his B.S.
from Widener University, and his M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Dallas.
In addition to his professional experience, Chip serves on the boards of Cracker Barrel Old
Country Store and Share Our Strength, a national organization working to end childhood hunger
and poverty in the United States. He is also a senior advisor for Junzi Kitchen, a Chinese fast
casual restaurant and concept based in New York.
Chip previously served on the Board of Trustees for Johnson & Wales University from November
2016 through June 2025 and on the board of Youth Villages, a non-profit offering services and
support for families of children with emotional, mental, and behavioral problems, from
September 2015 through July 2023.
Anne Willians-Isom
(Ann S. Kheel Honoree)
Former Deputy Mayor and lifelong Public
Anne Williams-Isom was appointed Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services in December 2021 by then Mayor-elect Eric Adams, assumed office on January 1, 2022, and served until March 2025. The Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services is responsible for ensuring the agencies that deliver social programming are run compassionately, equitably and effectively, and that the City’s public health and healthcare delivery systems are working for all New Yorkers.
Agencies and Mayor’s Offices reporting to the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services include: NYC Health + Hospitals, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Department of Social Services (Human Resources Administration and Department of Homeless Services), Administration for Children’s Services, Department for the Aging, Office of Immigrant Affairs, Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, Department of Veterans’ Services, the Office of Community Mental Health, and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. All those agencies and offices total roughly $20B annual spending and have a combined total of approximately 68,000 staff. Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom leads multiple interagency teams covering cross-cutting, urgent issues such as the City’s policy regarding services engaging New Yorkers with severe mental illness and the response to the asylum seeker global humanitarian crisis.
Anne Williams-Isom is a nonprofit executive, attorney and educator with more than 34 years of leadership and management experience in large, complex organizations. Ms. Williams-Isom has been a proponent for children’s rights and advocate for underserved Americans her entire professional life.
As Deputy Mayor, Williams-Isom's accomplishments include: increasing support for people experiencing untreated severe mental illness, supporting the safety and well-being of children and families, driving initiatives to reduce Black maternal mortality and morbidity, expanding programming for people experiencing street and subway homelessness, and helping relieve approximately $2B in medical debt for ~500k New Yorkers, the largest municipal effort to relieve medical debt in the country. She has also played a key role as part of the senior leadership team managing the influx of and providing supports to over 215,000 migrants who have passed through the city’s care.
She previously served as the James R. Dumpson Chair in Child Welfare Studies at the Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University. In her role as the Dumpson Chair, Ms. Williams-Isom worked with faculty and students to develop research, programs, and policy analyses that improved services to underserved children and families. She used an equity and social justice lens to focus on the challenges of and solutions for families of color and promoted an interdisciplinary approach toward
improving the quality of life for this population. In 2019, Ms. Williams-Isom earned her Doctor of Ministry degree from New York Theological Seminary. The title of her thesis was " The Power of the Holy Spirit to Bring About Systemic Change: The Leader's Role".
Previously Ms. Williams-Isom served as the Chief Executive Officer for the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), before which she served for five years as HCZ’s Chief Operating Officer. As CEO, she oversaw all programs in HCZ’s cradle-through-college pipeline, including the Promise Academy Charter Schools. She led HCZ’s 2,000+ staff, and strengthened the organization’s use of data to improve services and outcomes for 25,000 children and adults in Central Harlem. She also led the development of HCZ’ Healthy Harlem initiative which serves over 7,000 children and 3,000 adults. Healthy Harlem was designed to combat childhood obesity and promote health and wellness at the community level. She assumed the position of CEO in July 2014 and served in the role for six years.
Prior to joining HCZ, Ms. Williams-Isom held leadership positions at New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) for 13 years, concluding her tenure as Deputy Commissioner of the Division of Community and Government Affairs. While at ACS, she instituted and oversaw the implementation of several innovative initiatives, including the first ever ACS Leadership Academy for Child Protection, a program designed to help the 160 ACS Child Protective Managers lead the 3,800 frontline staff responsible for investigating the 55,000 reports of child abuse and neglect each year. In 2022, Ms. Williams-Isom wrote a book about her experiences at ACS entitled "Leadership Lessons: How to Create Sustained Change in Children and Families Services".
Ms. Williams-Isom found her calling to help improve the lives of vulnerable children and families when she was still a child herself. Growing up with a single mother in Queens, she witnessed firsthand the many challenges confronting kids in struggling communities. But it was always clear that, with the right support and opportunities—above all, education and a lot of love—all children have the potential to do extraordinary things.
Ms. Williams-Isom earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology from Fordham University. Soon after, she began working in Community Affairs for the New York Police Department in Brooklyn. While working in Brooklyn at the height of community policing in the 1980s fueled her commitment to social justice, it was during her time as a student at Columbia Law School that she fully discovered her passion for advocacy work and came to appreciate the critical role played by
communities in finding lasting solutions to social problems. After receiving her Juris Doctor degree she practiced law for five years at two of New York’s most prestigious firms before joining ACS.