Janice is Corporate Vice President of Human Resources of Diversified Communications, a global media solutions company headquartered in Portland. Janice is responsible for establishing the strategic direction and growth of the global Human Resources operation. Under Janice’s direction, Diversified has developed a unique employee-centric culture that fosters a challenging, rewarding work environment where people succeed while having fun along the way. Prior to Diversified Communications, Janice worked as a Human Resources Manager at Maine Medical Center, and as a Human Resources generalist at MiTech, an engineering firm in Washington, DC. A 1989 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, Janice earned her B.A. in French Language and Literature, and has pursued advanced studies in Human Resources Strategy and Leadership. She is certified by the Human Resources Certification Institute as a Global Professional in Human Resources.
Board and Committees
Maine Women's Fund Board of Directors
Board and committee members of the Maine Women’s Fund donate invaluable time, expertise and financial resources to our mission and represent communities throughout Maine.
Janice Rogers
Co-President
Gabrielle Gallucci
Co-President
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.
Noreen Alvarado Patient, Esq.
Vice President
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.
Renée Smyth
Secretary
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.
Frances Hutchinson
Treasurer
Frances Hutchinson, CFA, is a finance and investment management professional with 30 years of experience in leadership roles across technology, insurance, international banking and investment management. Most recently she led her firm, a London-based global investment company with $30 billion of assets under management, in a comprehensive business restructuring following the 2008 financial crisis. She previously she served as Head of Investment Research for the firm, after holding a similar role for HSBC’s European Investment Banking group in London. Prior to her move to London in 1999 she was a member of the investment research and treasury teams at UNUM in Portland. She began her career in international finance at Data General Corporation.
Fran, a native of Aroostook County, returned to Maine in January 2020. She previously served as a volunteer and board member for Dress for Success Greater London. In addition to the Maine Women’s Fund, she is now a volunteer for Partners for World Health and will serve as a Leaders Advisor for the Olympia Snowe Leadership Institute from fall 2020. Fran earned her MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and her A.B. from Bowdoin College. She is a CFA charterholder.
Devin Cook
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.
Dani M. Scherer
Dani M. Scherer is committed to creating equitable access to opportunity through education. She works as the Curriculum and Professional Development specialist at World Education, Inc. Dani brings years of experience developing curriculum, providing professional development, and teaching in Adult Education. She has developed workforce training curriculum, coordinated a national curriculum project for immigrant and refugee farmers, and authored guides and reports to support foreign-trained professionals as they navigate credentialing and licensing requirements to re-enter their professional field. She taught English at Lewiston Adult Education for many years and has recently worked to design an Educator Diversity Initiative. Dani has a B.A in English and American Cultural Studies from Bates College and a M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts’s Teacher Education and Curriculum Development program. She lives in Bowdoinham with her partner and dog.
Shay Stewart-Bouley
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.
Katherine Whitehead
Katy Whitehead is a business valuation analyst for BerryDunn’s Valuation Services Group. Her practice group provides business valuation, forensic accounting, consulting, and expert witness services to clients in New England and beyond. In this capacity she has worked on valuation assignments in a variety of industries. She supports the Valuation Services Group with analysis for valuations including gifting, estate planning, litigation support, ESOP’s, and transaction support. Prior to joining BerryDunn, she was a senior tax accountant at a Portland-based CPA firm, preparing tax returns for corporations, partnerships, individuals and non-profits, and performed tax research and planning for clients.
Katy has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Rhode Island and holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. She also holds the Certified Valuation Analyst designation by the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts and is a candidate for the prestigious ASA designation by the American Society of Appraisers. Katy is a member of the New England Chapter of the ESOP Association, the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts, and the American Society of Appraisers. Katy resides in Yarmouth with her two sons.
