Foundation Board

Jill Batty

Jill Batty joined CHA as Chief Financial Officer in January 2014. With more than 20 years of experience as a strategist, financial executive, and health care consultant, Ms. Batty has worked with a wide variety of providers, hospitals, and physician practices, including those in safety net and integrated health systems.

Prior to joining CHA, Ms. Batty served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene in Keene, New Hampshire. Her work there helped the organization transition from fee-for-service care to population health management, effectively adapting to state and federal reimbursement shifts while generating significant operating margin improvements.

Ms. Batty’s mission-driven values extend beyond the workplace. She serves as a volunteer for several organizations including Monadnock Family Services and New Hampshire Voices for Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Illinois and a master's degree in hospital and health administration from the University of Iowa. She has been a certified public accountant since 1989 and is a fellow in the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
Peter Bryant
Peter Bryant served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and previously as the Museum’s Chief Financial Officer. He was responsible for managing museum operations and the initiation and implementation of museum-wide initiatives. He has 35 years of nonprofit leadership with expertise in financial management and institutional planning and operations. His previous experiences include leadership positions at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, Harvard University, and the Outward Bound Schools in North Carolina and New Hampshire. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Dartmouth College.
Jyothsna Buddharaju
With nearly 20 years in the nonprofit sector, Jyothsna Buddharaju has extensive experience in higher education, medical research, STEM, arts, and human services. As the former Senior Director of Special Initiatives at Boston University, she established a principal gifts team to support major university projects, like the Center for Computing & Data Sciences.

Jyothsna has contributed to major philanthropic evaluations, including MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change, McKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Open Call, and the XPrize Foundation’s AI for Good Brain Trust. She holds BoardSource certification as a Nonprofit Board Consultant and trains fundraisers through the
Association of Fundraising Professionals in Massachusetts.

Her academic background includes an MBA and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, and Masters degrees in Public Policy and Asian Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Steve Callahan, Jr.

As VP of Business Development, Steve is responsible for managing Callahan Construction Managers’ partnerships with existing clients while at the same time building new relationships. He works with senior leadership on strategic company planning and oversees all sales and marketing efforts.

Mr. Callahan holds a B.A. in economics from Trinity College and a construction supervisor license from the state of Massachusetts. He is a LEED® Green Associate and a member of the Young Contractors Council. Mr. Callahan has completed OSHA safety trainings and is certified by the Red Cross in Adult First Aid/CPR/AED.
Mary Cassesso
Mary Cassesso is a lifelong resident of Somerville with a personal commitment and professional dedication to advancing social justice and to making the community a better place to live.

Mary has worked since she was 14 years old. As a teenager, she worked in the Somerville library. She was a social worker in the Somerville school system. She directed the Somerville Council on Aging and 60+ Health Center and was the City Auditor in the Brune administration.

Mary served in the Dukakis administration as financial head of the Executive Office of Housing and Community Development and later in the Patrick administration as an Assistant Secretary in the Executive Office of Health and Human services. Between those positions, she was the Administrative Dean at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine and co-chaired the Joint Commission on the Status of Women at Harvard Medical School. She served as the Chief Community Officer and President of the Cambridge Health Alliance’s(CHA)Foundation enterprise.

Mary serves on numerous boards dedicated to safety net services including theSomerville Affordable HousingTrust Fund, Food for Free, CHA Foundation Board, Massachusetts Association of Mental Health and Preservation of Affordable Housing’s community board.

In addition she is a champion of the art community and small local businesses. She is committed to mentoring and networking to advance folks professional development.
Dennis R. Cataldo

Mr. Cataldo is VP of Cataldo Ambulance Service, Inc. The company employs more than 750 staff, operates a fleet of more than 150 vehicles and provides more than 160,000 medical transports per year.

Mr. Cataldo is active in countless community based initiatives and industry-related organizations. As an active volunteer for the American Cancer Society, he has served as income development chairman, president and executive board member to the New England Division of the American Cancer Society. He is presently serving as the Chairman of the ACS Laureate Society and in 2014 he was awarded the prestigious St. George National Award. Additionally, Dennis serves as the guest auctioneer for Hallmark Health VNA and Hospice, Chairperson of the Melrose-Wakefield Annual Golf Classic and the Co-Chairperson for the Cambridge Health Alliance Golf Tournament. In 2009, Dennis was awarded the EMS Leader Award by the Metropolitan Boston Emergency Medical Services Council. Dennis presently serving as President of the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce and remains active with many other municipal and community based initiatives.

He earned a B.A. in business management with a minor in marketing from Suffolk University.
RoAnn Costin

RoAnn Costin is the founder and president of Wilderness Point Investments, a private equity company that focuses on investing in early and expansion stage consumer non-durable product and retailing companies. Ventures in which Ms. Costin has invested and sits or has sat on the board of directors include Lululemon Athletica, Genuine Health International, City Sports, Olly Shoes, 2020 Onsite Optometry and Sarah Flint, Inc.

Ms. Costin began her career in 1981 working for State Street Research and Management, Co. She was the first woman investment analyst, portfolio manager and partner in the firm. She then joined the Putnam Companies as a member of the Quality Growth group with joint account responsibility for equity portfolios of assets over $1.5 billion and where she co-managed the US equity portion of the Putnam International Fund. She then founded and was president of Reservoir Capital Management, a firm specializing in quality growth equities investments.

Ms. Costin has worked in government at the federal and local levels. She received an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. in government, cum laude, from Harvard University, where she was an All-American in swimming and rowing. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Stanford University, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Perkins School for the Blind, the American Repertory Theater and the Codman Academy Charter School.
Claudia Davidoff

Ms. Davidoff was born in Mexico City and came to the US to study mathematics at MIT, receiving her B.S. degree in 1976. After receiving an M.S. in education from Wheelock College, she trained to be a Montessori teacher, taught for 10 years and acted as interim head of school.

Currently, Ms. Davidoff serves on the Executive Board of the Friends of the Israel Museum, and on the International Board of the Rabin Medical Center in Israel. She sits also on the Board of the Jewish Community Day School in Waltham, and the Board of Visitors of the Summit Montessori School

Ms. Davidoff has had a lifelong interest in art, earning a Diploma from the School of the MFA and she continues to paint. She is married to CHA Foundation board member Dr. Joseph Kahan.
Jonathan Fleming
Jonathan J. Fleming has been founding, financing and operating breakthrough life science companies for over 30 years, raising more than $1 billion for early stage investment funds that made more than 200 investments resulting in over 20 IPOs and 40 M&A events. Jonathan has been the CEO of a neuroscience company, the chairman of the board of numerous companies, and a director of many public and private companies.

Since 1999, Jonathan has been the Managing Partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners and he is a past President of the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit, non-partisan health policy institute. Jonathan is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he has co-taught a class on business strategy for life science managers since 2002. Mr. Fleming holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Joseph Kahan

Dr. Kahan grew up in London, England where he studied mathematical economics at Leicester University and mathematical statistics at University College London. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in engineering. His main areas of interest were in probabilistic modeling, statistical analysis and operations research.

Dr. Kahan is married to CHA board member Claudia Davidoff. Since retirement, Dr. Kahan and Ms. Davidoff have been involved in charitable concerns including sitting on the International Board of the Rabin Medical Center in Israel. At the end of 2014, he raised money for Israel-Arab communication by traveling through Israel on bicycle.
William (Bill) Lahey

Mr. Lahey is a partner at Anderson & Kreiger LLP in Boston, MA where he focuses on environmental, energy, and municipal law. Bill has over 35 years of experience handling complex environmental, energy and land use matters for clients throughout the U.S. and internationally, He is recognized by Chambers USA and Massachusetts Super Lawyers as a leading environmental lawyer. Prior to joining Anderson & Kreiger in 2006, he was a partner at Palmer & Dodge where he was chair of its litigation department. Mr. Lahey's clients include energy utilities, universities and major airports across the country.

His international work includes drafting environmental laws for the Royal Government of Bhutan and coordinating the litigation that successfully stopped offshore oil development in Belize on behalf of Oceana, Inc.

Mr. Lahey served as chairman of the founding board of Smith Leadership Academy Charter School in Dorchester and on the board of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, MA. He received his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1982 and B.S. from the University of Wisconsin.
Christopher (Chris) McTague

Mr. McTague is Transamerica’s senior director of client engagement for the mega/large market segments. His team owns all aspects of the client relationship inclusive of setting and executing short and long-term client goals, project milestones, adherence to service level metrics, product development and an understanding of Transamerica’s full spectrum of capabilities.

Chris joined Transamerica in 2008 with the acquisition of Mercer HR Services, LLC’s defined contribution business, bringing extensive benefits administration, implementation, and relationship management experience. He began his career in the defined contribution industry in 1996. Chris received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and he holds the FINRA series 6 and 63 registrations.
Amy Molten, MD, FAAP
Dr. Molten is a board-certified pediatrician with twenty years of clinical, operational and
leadership experience in a wide range of healthcare environments. Guided by a sharply focused ethical compass, she has a special interest in working with others to drive innovation in healthcare, and leveraging technology to improve population health through creative, sustainable, affordable, and evidence-based approaches that work to resolve complex health issues and advance health equity and outcomes.

She began her career in the National Health Service Corps, serving structurally marginalized communities as general pediatrician at federally qualified community health centers in Texas and Connecticut. She then moved into community hospital medicine at Tufts, leading growth and quality improvement for the pediatric hospitalist program at Lowell General Hospital. Motivated by how data and technology can be used to empower and improve the health of diverse populations at scale, she now works to innovate through the advancement of health technology. She most recently served as the Chief Medical Officer for Well, a consumer-focused health engagement platform. She is a contributor to MassChallenge zero-equity startup accelerator, active in clinical teaching at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and an elected Executive Committee Member for the Section on Advances in Therapeutics and Technology at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

She completed her general pediatrics residency at Yale, and holds a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and anthropology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Josh Posner
Joshua Posner has developed affordable housing over the last 45 years in a wide variety of settings in New England and other parts of the United States, playing a significant role in the planning and development of over 2000 housing units. He founded Rising Tide Development LLC in 2001 to focus on the creation of new, small-scale, mixed-income residential communities in some of the most exclusive towns in Massachusetts including Nantucket, Lexington and Sherborn. Prior to Rising Tide Development, he played senior management roles over 12 years at The Community Builders (1984-96), a leading regional and national nonprofit developer of affordable housing. He has specialized in the construction and rehabilitation of community-based housing, the preservation of affordable housing nearing the end of its regulatory period, and the redevelopment of large-scale dilapidated public housing projects in various locations around the country. One of his most recognized projects is Tent City, with 269 unit mixed income residential units, a 698 underground parking garage and associated neighborhood retail space and on a 3.3 acre site at the intersection of Boston’s South End and Back Bay neighborhoods. Tent City has won numerous awards including the Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence. In 1998, he served as President of Cornerstone Housing, a private development firm focused on public housing revitalization, and from 1999 through 2000, he served as Vice President of Development for Trinity Financial, Inc. in Boston. Earlier in his career he founded and led a community development corporation in Brockton, Massachusetts (1972-77) and played a senior role in the growth and operation of Massachusetts Fair Share, a statewide community organization focused on economic justice and community improvement (1978-83.)

Posner has been engaged in a variety of community activities, including serving on the Board of Cambridge Health Alliance, an award-winning integrated healthcare system with three hospitals and 10 neighborhood clinics that serves Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston’s metro-north communities; past Board President and Director of The Guidance Center, the largest mental health and family support social service organization in Cambridge and Somerville; Founding Board Member and Treasurer of Shining Hope for Communities (2009-2012), a NGO combating gender inequality and extreme poverty by running a school for girls, a health clinic, a clean water program and other enterprises in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya; Board member of Shared Interest, uses loan guarantees to bridge the gap between South African banks and marginalized people, previously considered “un-bankable” during apartheid; Board member Treasurer of Sconset Beach Preservation Fund, dedicated to protecting and preserving the historic Sconset Bluff on the eastern shoreline of Nantucket Island; and past Board President and Overseer of Shady Hill School in Cambridge.

He holds degrees from Brown University (BA) and the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University (MPA). He is an avid skier, tennis player and music lover. He is married to Eileen Rudden and lives in Cambridge, MA. They have 3 grown sons and 5 grandchildren.
Cristiana Salgado-Braga
Cristiana Salgado-Braga is a senior global executive known for emerging and Fortune 500/Top 20 Biotech and Biopharma companies, where she has managed €2.5B P&Ls, managed critical pipelines, and is a member of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Board Fellowship.

With education and experience that spans both the science and the business of drug and therapy development and marketing, Cristiana is uniquely positioned to help emerging companies gain access, compete effectively, and succeed in new and established markets. In her most recent experience prior to establishing her own consultancy, Cristiana served as Global VP, Head of Rare Hematologic Diseases, for Sanofi Specialty Care, Cambridge, where she rebuilt the Global Rare Hematology team, serving as business lead for pipeline assets and strategic alliances. She also led the strategic overhaul of the mature Gaucher Disease Portfolio to deliver four years of double-digit growth.

As the Founder of CS&Bio Consulting, she now serves the biotech industry by advising pre-commercial companies on the critical levers for their launch initiatives, evaluating pipeline strategy, and performing risk assessments.
Assaad Sayah, MD, FACEP

Assaad Sayah, MD, FACEP was named CHA's Chief Executive Officer in January 2020. Dr. Sayah, the health system's chief medical officer, served as the interim CEO since June 2019. He previously served as Chief Medical Officer since 2013 and was Chief of Emergency Medicine and Senior Vice President of Primary Care at CHA

Dr. Sayah's leadership has been a critical component of CHA's growth and success over the past decade. Before being named the chief medical officer, he served as the chief of emergency medicine and senior vice president of primary care. In the Emergency Department, Dr. Sayah led tremendous advancements at all three CHA hospitals, resulting in enhanced efficiency, quality, volume and patient satisfaction. He spearheaded primary care growth by more than 50 percent, expanding CHA's access in underserved communities and integrating primary care and behavioral health services and systems to address social determinants of health. He also plays a key role in CHA's commitment to the communities it serves, including his tenure as the co-chair of the Cambridge City Manager's Opioid Working Group established in 2018 to develop recommendations for strengthening the city's response to the opioid epidemic.

Additionally, Dr. Sayah served as chairman of CHA's Chiefs Council and president of the CHA Medical Staff, and he continues to serve on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. His research and publications focus on Emergency Department operation and emergency medical services, including design of the EMS system, continuous quality improvement, advanced directives, violence and weapons, disaster planning and pre-hospital thrombolytics.

Prior to joining CHA, Dr. Sayah held leadership roles at several area hospitals, including director of EMS for Brigham and Women's Hospital, associate chief for the Department of Emergency Medicine at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center. He received his medical doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and completed his residency in emergency medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan.
Lia Taniguchi
Lia Taniguchi is a health technology and public health professional committed to health equity and
social justice. Professional experience also includes finance and marketing in various industries. Previous board work includes the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center and Fayerweather Street School, both of which focus on educational equity and social justice. Lia lives in Cambridge with her two children, Darla and Huck, and her dog, Sawyer. She holds a Bachelor degree from Amherst
College, MBA from Simmons College, and is currently completing her Master’s in Public Health at
Boston University.

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