Our Team
Sharon Leslie DPT, MPH
Founding Executive Director
As the Founding Executive Director of Blue Compass, Sharon is dedicated to building a vibrant network for Jewish professionals working in secular nonprofits, creating space for connection, bridge-building, and collective impact. Blue Compass represents the convergence of Sharon’s values and professional path—a space where Jewish identity, service, and systems-level change intersect.
Before launching Blue Compass, Sharon held leadership roles at the intersection of health, equity, and community building. She worked in Humanitarian Health research through the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, and founded and ran several initiatives, including the Cancer Rehabilitation Program at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Survivorship Partners, and Vaxvolunteers.org. In addition to her role at Blue Compass, she acts as a strategic nonprofit consultant, specializing in building mission-driven organizations and driving impactful change. She serves as a Trustee of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and is an advocate for cross-sector collaboration rooted in Jewish values.
Sharon holds a BA from the University of Rochester, a Master of Science in Physical Therapy and Doctor of Physical Therapy from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Kathy Reich
Advisor
Kathy Reich is a leader, thinker, and writer on issues related to philanthropy and systems change. She is currently the Executive Director of a private foundation. She recently completed eight years as the founding director of the Ford Foundation’s BUILD initiative, a 12-year, $2 billion effort to strengthen key institutions around the world that fight inequality. To date, the BUILD program has supported more than 500 organizations in 40 countries.
Before joining Ford in 2016, Kathy worked for 15 years at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in a number of different roles, including as organizational effectiveness and philanthropy director, where she led a cross-cutting program to help grantees around the world strengthen their strategy, leadership and impact. Prior to that, she served as a policy director of a non-profit, a legislative assistant for a United States Senator, and an aide to state and local elected officials in California.
Kathy has advised philanthropic foundations around the world on how to advance systems change through grantmaking practices that emphasize flexibility, long-term commitments, institutional strengthening, and equitable partnerships between donors and grantee partners. Her work has been published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Alliance, among others. She currently serves on the board of Repair the World and advisory councils for the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the Shifting Systems Initiative, and TEN – Together Ending Need.
Kathy holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is a lifelong Californian who currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Jill Blair
Advisor
Jill spent her career bridging the worlds of the public, private and independent sectors with a dedicated focus on nonprofits and philanthropy. In 1998, she and her wife, Fay Twersky, founded BTW Informing Change, a Berkeley-based consulting firm providing information-based consulting and planning services to nonprofits and philanthropy. At the same time, Jill founded the Grantmaker Forum on Community & National Service – a trade association of philanthropy working to advance the ethic of service and service-learning.
Driven by deep devotion to democratic practice and recognizing the relationship between service and civic participation, Jill converted the Grantmaker Forum into PACE – Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement in 2006. In 2007, she and Fay sold Informing Change, and since then, Jill has served as an independent consultant providing coaching, support, technical assistance, and facilitation to organizational leaders and their teams. In 2021, Jill and Fay relocated to Atlanta, GA, where Jill now serves as an advisor on a pro bono basis to leaders of both national and local nonprofits with a special emphasis on Jewish communal institutions.
Jill serves on the national board of Repair the World and as an advisor to Project Shema. She has authored numerous papers, including *New Leader, Endless Possibility* (2019). Other works include *21st Century Civic Infrastructure: Under Construction* and *The Nature of Leadership: Lessons from an Exemplary Statesman*.
When not pursuing her passion for democracy, nonprofit excellence, and golf, Jill and Fay share adventures with their children, David-Nathan and Jaz.
Aliza Kline
Advisor
Aliza is a dynamic leader and social entrepreneur. She served as the founding CEO of OneTable from 2014 to 2024, building it into a powerful, tech-enabled platform for young adults to engage in Jewish life, practice, and community. OneTable has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, ABC, and dozens of local news outlets.
Aliza also served as the founding executive director of Mayyim Hayyim Community Mikveh and Education Center in Boston. A trained coach and design thinking facilitator, she has worked with clients throughout North America and Israel. She earned her BA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MPA from New York University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.
Steph Herold, MPH
Advisor
Steph Herold, MPH, is a researcher with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), where she directs the Abortion Onscreen program studying the portrayal of abortion on television and in film. She has co-authored over a dozen peer-reviewed papers on abortion stigma, abortion storytelling, and abortion in popular culture.
Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The American Prospect, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and numerous other outlets. She previously served on the boards of All-Options, ReproAction, ACCESS: Women’s Health Justice, and the New York Abortion Access Fund. She is the co-lead of Jews in Repro, a grassroots organization that supports Jews working in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement.
Maya Cohen
Program Director
Kate O’Bannon
Advisor
Kate O’Bannon serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Repair the World, guiding strategy, development, communications, and organizational learning. Previously, she worked at Schusterman Family Philanthropies and began her career as a JDC Global Service Corps Fellow in Buenos Aires. Kate is a graduate of the University of Virginia and serves on the Board of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, on the National Review Committee for the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards, and co-chairs the Tzedek Collective at Congregation Emanu-El. She received the JPRO Network Young Professional Award. Kate lives in San Francisco with her husband and children.
Past Advisors
Naamah Paley Rose, Philanthropy Consultant
Robb Friedlander, Nonprofit Professional and Advocacy Strategist
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