Expansion Helps Ensure the Nation’s Leading Advocate for LGBTQ Families Can Meet Challenges Ahead.
For Immediate Release — January 31, 2016
NEW YORK, N.Y. — The Board and staff of Family Equality Council are delighted to announce five new members of our Board of Directors.
“The months and years ahead are full of both promise and challenges. In order to make sure we are prepared to meet those challenges and reach our potential, our Board completed a comprehensive assessment of our strengths and needs as an organization and selected a ‘class’ of new Board members that helps to fill gaps and increase our expertise,” said Stan J. Sloan, CEO. “I personally am so excited to have each of them ‘on board.’ They are also very aware that in their role they will be representing the sum of our stakeholders and the sum of what is needed for LGBTQ families.”
Please join us in welcoming them, and keep reading to learn more about their background, skills, and enthusiasm.
Andrew Goffe
After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1990, Andrew Goffe moved to New York City where he has resided since. For the past 22 years, Andrew has been working in the money management business, where he is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Overbrook Management Corporation. Overbrook is a family office with 16 employees.
Prior to joining Overbrook, Andrew was a General Partner and Managing Member of OSS Capital Management, a hedge fund that he co-founded in November 2001. For the past eight years he has been a board member of Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC), a leading homeless service organization that assists New York’s neediest residents in achieving health, wellness, and economic self-sufficiency.
Andrew’s partner, Jeff Levin, is a social worker at the LGBT Community Center. Andrew and Jeff have two sons, Justin, who is five, and Zachary, who is seven. They are committed to making positive change for the LGBT community.
Joey Gonzalez
Joey Gonzalez is the CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp, the original cardio and strength interval workout that innovated group fitness and started a global boutique movement. Initially a customer and fan of the brand, he began his tenure first as an instructor, and truly experienced 360 degrees of the business. Gonzalez has helped open locations and foster communities throughout the US, UK, and Scandinavia, and continues to grow the footprint domestically as well as internationally with locations coming soon in Italy, Canada, Mexico, and Dubai.
Gonzalez first met his husband, Jonathan Rollo, in 2005. Marriage equality was a major focus for them and continued to be until the nationwide ruling in June 2015. As they began to make plans to grow their family and learn about the various state laws that threatened to prevent that from becoming a reality, achieving family equality moved to the forefront of Gonzalez’s priorities.
Gonzalez joins the Family Equality Council board with high hopes to not only help protect the rights LGBTQ families have fought hard to attain, but to continue the forward progress in ensuring equality for all alternative families across the country.
Sunnie Kaufmann-Paulman
Sunnie Kaufmann-Paulman is the Senior Director of Operations at BetterLesson, an edtech company proving professional development that empowers teachers to take their learning straight to the classroom. Sunnie is a seasoned business professional, with over 15 years of business, education, sports, and program administration.
Most recently Sunnie volunteered as the Chair of Family Equality Council’s New England Advisory Council, and has also served as President of the Board of Directors for Habitot Children’s Museum and as a Board Member for the Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency, while residing in Northern California. She is thrilled to combine her past board experience, professional acumen, and passion and commitment to the LGBTQ community, with service to Family Equality Council’s board.
Sunnie lives in the Boston metro area with her spouse, Tori, and their daughter, Anika. As a family, they are committed to the mission of Family Equality Council and dedicated attendees at Family Week!
Lauren Marder
Lauren Marder is delighted to join the Family Equality Board. Lauren has been a supporter of the organization for almost 10 years and following the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election is energized and committed to helping Family Equality Council achieve its mission.
Lauren has spent her career working in the financial services industry and currently works as the North American Head of Sales — Buyside Institutions for CreditSights, an independent financial research firm based in New York. She manages a team of sales executives and works with some of the world’s largest asset managers, hedge funds, pension fund managers, insurance companies, and government agencies. Lauren graduated from the Arts & Science School at Cornell University.
Lauren lives in Needham, MA with her wife, Kim, children, Sadie and Alexander, and 2 dogs, Kirby and Baxter. Lauren enjoys coaching soccer, traveling, going to the movies, and eating dark chocolate.
JR McGinnis
JR McGinnis began his legal career with the Los Angeles office of Sidley & Austin specializing in mergers and acquisitions, and corporate litigation. After leaving private practice for the entertainment field, JR held various executive positions at 20thCentury Fox, The Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures, and Sony Pictures Entertainment. JR recently returned to private practice to join the prestigious boutique entertainment law firm of Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson where he handles complex negotiations on behalf of writers, directors, producers and actors in all areas of entertainment and media.
JR is passionate about LGBTQ issues and has volunteered with various organizations over his 27 years in Los Angeles. He most recently served on the Board of Directors of AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) whose mission is to achieve health care equity and promote well-being for the LGBTQ communities and people living with, and affected by, HIV.
JR and his partner of 17 years are the proud parents of five-year-old triplets Campbell, Piper and Travis who were conceived through surrogacy. JR believes that all families deserve love, respect and equality regardless of their structure or form and he is committed to changing hearts and minds and helping to create a world in which all our families are valued.
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About Family Equality Council
Family Equality Council connects, supports, and represents the three million parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer in this country today and their six million children of all ages. We are changing attitudes and policies to ensure that all families are respected, loved, and celebrated — including families with parents who are LGBTQ. We are a community of parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren and unattached youth that reaches across this country. For almost forty years we have raised our children and raised our voices toward fairness for all families. As we look to the next chapter of our work, we are also focused on LGBTQ youth needing families and the two million LGBTQ adults waiting to foster or adopt in our country.