Board and Committees

Gabrielle is the Director of Mission Impact at Spurwink, where she develops, funds, and raises visibility for behavioral health programs. She has provided strategic program and fund development for nonprofits for more than 20 years, raising nearly $35M for health, women and girls, economic development, racial justice, and youth. While at the YWCA USA, Gabrielle co-created YWCA TechGYRLS, a STEM program for girls in over 65 locations, and co-convened the First National Girls Conference at the UN. A graduate of Oberlin College, she is committed to social change efforts that address gender equity, racial justice, and the arts. She is currently on the board of Engine, an arts and creative economy organization in Biddeford, and served as Board Chair of Platform Shoes Forum, a nonprofit that developed online learning platforms and communities for girls. When she moved to Maine 15 years ago she found a community of women that inspired her in the New Girls Network at the Maine Women’s Fund. She lives in Saco with her husband and son.

Candace is a retired nephrologist. She received her AB summa cum laude from Smith College and her medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is past president of the Maine Nephrology Society, and former board member of the Renal Physicians Association. She served as Chief of Medicine at Central Maine Medical Center from 1992-1996. This spring, Candace was blessed with her first 2 grandchildren (Mainers-girl and boy). This is her best job ever.

When I was a child, I started spending time in the Blue Hill area, and permanently moving to Maine quickly became my dream.  I deeply love this state and feel fortunate to now call it my home.  While I live in Maine, I work remotely for MIT, where I co-founded and lead the Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC), the flagship program at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.  The IIC is a global award program for entrepreneurial organizations that use technology to increase economic opportunity for workers around the world and reinvent the future of work.  My job enables me to positively impact mission-driven organizations around the world and to ensure that fewer people are left behind economically as digital technology races ahead. 

I feel particularly strongly about the Maine Women’s Fund’s mission to transform the lives of women and girls.  My feminist parents brought my two sisters and me up to be resilient and independent.  While I was taught that I could do “anything a boy can do”, we still have a long way to go before all girls know this to be true and before it is indeed possible.  

Noreen holds a B.A. from Haverford College and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  She is currently General Counsel at Darling’s Auto Group.  Prior to joining Darling’s, Noreen was a partner at a large Maine law firm.  Noreen has been a member of the Maine Women’s Fund Board since 2014, and is also a member of the Fund’s Governance and Grants Committees.  She resides in Brunswick with her husband and two young daughters.

Megan earned an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health.  She is currently the Chief of Staff in the Maine State House of Representatives for the House Majority office. She served as an elected member of the Maine Legislature during the 125th and 126th Legislatures, representing downtown Biddeford, and was appointed to the Judiciary and Appropriations and Financial Affairs committees. Before working in the legislature Megan worked as the Director of Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition at the University of New England.  She lives in Biddeford with her partner Gabriel Sutton.

Ms. Smyth is the Chief Experience and Marketing Officer of Camden National Bank. She joined as Chief Marketing Officer upon completion of the merger of Camden National Corporation and SBM Financial, the parent company of The Bank of Maine, on October 16, 2015. She was promoted to Executive Vice President (“EVP”), Chief Experience and Marketing Officer in May 2017. Ms. Smyth oversees the company’s customer experience and marketing strategies while ensuring they support the overall objectives of the organization. Additionally, she is responsible for the company’s digital transformations, and the customer assistance center. Previously, Ms. Smyth served as Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing for The Bank of Maine, since 2010. Smyth has a Master of Business Administration from The University of Hartford’s Barney School of Management and a bachelor’s of science from Ithaca College. Smyth is married and has two daughters and a son.

A Chicago native born on the crossroads of working-class, Black and female, Shay Stewart-Bouley’s career since 1997 has focused on weaving these intersections into her daily life and professional work. Since the mid-1990s, Shay has worked in the non-profit sector, during the earlier years working primarily with marginalized groups in Chicago, including the homeless and women being exploited in sex work. In the early-2000s, Shay moved from her native Chicago to Maine and, as a Black woman living in one of the least diverse spaces in the United States, found herself writing regularly about race relations, social justice, and white supremacy in such publications at the Portland Phoenix (where she had a month column, “Diverse City” for more than a decade), the Portland Press Herald, the Journal Tribune, and DigPortland. It was also in Maine that her work shifted to non-profit administration, working both as an executive director at a small faith-based non-profit in Southern Maine and non-profit consultant/grant-writer to other organizations, then later becoming executive director of the oldest continuously operating anti-racism organization in the nation, Community Change Inc. (based in Boston), where she still works today, though she continues to reside in Maine.

Shay is a prolific blogger at her award-winning website/blog Black Girl in Maine Media, where race is a major theme but also other social and political issues, as well as sometimes just commentary on daily life as a Black, middle-aged woman in a world where these traits frequently are not valued. Shay’s writing also has been featured in a variety of national publications as well as several anthologies. In November 2016, she gave a TEDx talked entitled “Inequity, Injustice… Infection.”

Shay holds an undergraduate degree from DePaul University, where she self-designed a program to focus on African-American Health and Wellness and health disparities; she also holds masters of education degree in Administration and Supervision from Antioch University New England.