Foundation Board

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Susie came to CHA in 2022 from the University of Vermont Health Network, where she served as the network director of philanthropy and population health. She began there as a major gift officer and was promoted to senior development officer and then director of development before entering her latest role in 2019. Susie planned, built, and implemented a central team and a data and metrics reporting process while managing a 16-person team across Vermont and New York with an annual fundraising goal of $14M (as part of a $35M Academic Health Sciences goal). Prior to this role, she was the community impact director at the United Way of NW Vermont.

As chief development officer, Susie is a member of CHA's senior leadership team and works closely with CEO Assaad Sayah, MD, other senior leaders, the CHA Foundation Board, and clinical leadership to meet development goals. She provides leadership for a growing development department and works on fundraising strategies to support CHA's plan to improve population health, aid facilities development, and expand its academic and clinical programs.

Susie earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Northern Vermont University and a master's degree in healthcare administration with a focus on population health management from Champlain College. She holds certifications in healthcare management and facilitative leadership and has two decades of experience addressing social determinants of health for the communities she has served.

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.

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.