Board of Trustees

Chris Murphy is an advertising and marketing professional with almost 20 years of experience working in the field of digital production. Chris is currently the Executive Producer for The Carril Group, a small production studio he founded in 2010 that develops websites, mobile applications, and all types of interface design. Before launching his own studio, Chris led production departments at advertising agencies such as Young & Rubicam, EuroRSCG and Renegade.Chris has a BA in International Affairs from The George Washington University. He and his wife Gennie are active members of Prospect Presbyterian Church in Maplewood and live in South Orange, NJ with their 3 children and 3 dogs.

After learning over 15 years ago of the work that Family Promise Essex does through Wyoming Presbyterian Church in Millburn, Kathy began volunteering as a meal preparer, server and greeter, often with her children in tow. She has been a member of the Family Promise Essex board for seven years, serving as President from 2015-2018. As a mother and Essex County resident, the mission of Family Promise Essex resonated with Kathy and she enjoys working to expand the positive impact that the organization can make on the parents and children in need of the social services that Family Promise Essex provides. She believes that helping families work toward stability benefits not only the family but the larger community as a whole. Kathy lives in Short Hills with her husband and three sons. She has an AB in Economics from Franklin and Marshall College and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gigi Loh became acquainted with Family Promise Essex through volunteering during the hosting weeks at Morrow Memorial Church in Maplewood. With two young children, she thought it would serve the dual purpose of helping others while educating her children. In so doing, she realized there were more similarities than differences between her family and those who were in the program. She believes that Family Promise Essex is a small organization with huge impact, providing services and temporary housing to families during hard times. Assisting families to stay together is vital to a hopeful future.

Sheri Lacy is currently a Real Estate agent, helping people buy and sell homes primarily in Essex, Union and Morris County. She started her career in the advertising business, working for many of the big name advertising firms in Manhattan then transitioning to the client side and working for Anheuser-Busch. In addition to her work, Sheri has held many volunteer positions including PTO Co-President of both the Glenwood Elementary School in Short Hills and the Millburn Middle School. She was also on the Board of Directors at the Cora Hartshorn Arboretum, The Racquets Club of Short Hills and The Millburn School PTO Conference. Sheri was raised in the New York City area, and attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Union College in Schenectady, NY. She currently lives in Millburn, NJ.

Lamont Swittenberg is Vice President, Brand Strategy & Planning at Peacock, a division of NBCUniversal. In this role, Lamont leads a team that develops positioning strategies and shapes multi-platform marketing campaigns, based on consumer data, macro trends and brand & cultural insights.

Before joining NBCUniversal, Lamont worked as VP, Brand Planning at PHD, an Omnicom Media agency. Prior to PHD, Lamont worked in brand management roles for a number of well-known companies, including Coca-Cola, Virgin Mobile and Hewlett-Packard.

Lamont has a BS in Marketing from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an Advisory Board member for the Center For The Study Of The American South (CSAS) at UNC. In his free time, Lamont enjoys listening to music, writing and spending time with his family in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Jane Quinn is a former television producer and writer for social and educational programming in New York City. She hopes to help further enlighten the public on the efforts and accomplishments of Family Promise of Essex County in the coming year.  She has an extensive background in fundraising for schools and charities in New Jersey, California, and Tokyo, Japan.

While co-chairing fundraising events for a local elementary school in Burlingame, California Jane also worked with Art In Action, a non-profit group in northern California. She had the opportunity to not only bring art programming into local elementary schools that had been defunded but also teach art through the program at various underprivileged schools in East Palo Alto, California. In Tokyo, Jane chaired fundraising efforts for The International School of the Sacred Heart and Hands on Tokyo, a non-profit volunteer clearinghouse for orphanages and local environmental efforts. Jane lives in Short Hills with husband Kevin Quinn.

Robert has served as Treasurer of Family Promise Essex since 1999. He has over 40 years of business management experience and retired from AT&T in 1998 to work with nonprofit organizations on improving their work in the community. Since retiring he has helped a homeless shelter launch its program in Passaic County, assisted a low income housing developer implement a new financial system, and helped launch a preschool at his church where he acted as both a teacher and business manager.  Robert has served on The Children’s Corner Board of Trustees board since 2003.

Davianne Harris is Chief Client Officer at Sparks and Honey, a cultural intelligence agency, where she also serves as head of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practice. Davianne is a passionate leader and has expertise in social impact, business transformation, and diversity equity and inclusion strategy. She works on driving organic growth among companies while embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into the way organizational transformation is achieved.

Davianne holds a B.A. in Communication and Consumer Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Media, Culture and Communication from NYU. She lives in South Orange, NJ with her husband and two children.

Abigail Carlton is the Head of Social Impact for Indeed, the world’s top job site. In this role, Abbey leads Indeed’s efforts to democratize opportunity for job seekers around the world, including the 250M job seekers who visit Indeed every month, through product innovation, strategic partnerships and community engagement.

Prior to joining Indeed, Abbey led The Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts on jobs and economic opportunity. Earlier in her career, she held research and program management positions at New York University, the US Department of Labor, and the law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore, LLP. Abbey is a fellow with The Aspen Institute’s First Movers program, a mentor through PhilanthropyNY’s Young Leaders program, and previously served on the board of Start Small Think Big, a national nonprofit focused on supporting low-income entrepreneurs.

Abbey received a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University. She lives in Montclair with her husband and four sons.

Dale Russakoff is a freelance writer who spent 28 years as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering politics, education, social policy, and other topics. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, ProPublica and other publications. She is the author of The Prize, a best-selling book about Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to the Newark schools. Her recent work focuses on education and immigration. She was first drawn to Family Promise more than 25 years ago as a volunteer and then a coordinator at Congregation Shomrei Emunah. She is in awe that FPE, with a tiny paid staff and an army of volunteers, has helped so many parents with young children overcome homelessness for so many years. Dale grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights era and credits her parents with encouraging her to think critically about the world around her, particularly the racial segregation and inequity in her own hometown. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband Matthew Purdy, an editor at The New York Times. They have two grown sons and two grandchildren.