Nancy L. Maron
Founder
Nancy has over 20 years of experience working at the nexus of publishing, higher education and technology. Her work with the not-for-profit organization Ithaka S+R helped to advance the need for digital initiatives to adopt business practice in order to become sustainable. Today, Nancy works with publishers, librarians and other innovative project leaders to define, test and refine assumptions about new and existing programs and products.
While at Ithaka S+R, Nancy’s team developed provocative and insightful studies on funding models and sustainability strategies for digital initiatives, including dozens of case studies in sustainability, spanning US, Canada, UK and beyond. Her consulting clients have included academic libraries, publishers, library leaders of digital initiatives and digital preservation services. Looking for a way to more widely share these important analytical tools, Nancy and her colleagues developed the acclaimed course Sustaining Digital Resources, an immersive experience that offers business strategy training to leaders of digital initiatives.
Nancy serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the Yonkers Public Library, a three-branch system serving a city of 200,000. She holds a BA cum laude from Yale University and an MA in French Studies from NYU where she was a McCracken Fellow.
Benjamin Young
Senior Associate
Benjamin Young is an analyst, strategist and program manager who works in nonprofit, public, private and academic settings to help solve strategic, programmatic and engagement challenges. With a proven track record in data analytics and new media strategy, his portfolio includes program and project leadership positions at organizations including the National Humanities Alliance, JSTOR, the US Department of State, The Princeton Review, and The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Benjamin has served on the faculty of Princeton, Columbia, and the École Normale Supérieure (France). He earned a joint MA-BA from UCLA, and a PhD from Columbia. For more information, visit his website: https://www.benjaminyoung.com
Kim Schmelzinger
Senior Associate
Kimberly’s practice brings deep experience offering customized business intelligence to scholarly publishers. She has worked with not-for-profit organizations and publishers, including the Association of American University Presses, the Book Industry Study Group, ITHAKA S+R, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her areas of expertise include business analysis, best practices reviews, statistical analysis and benchmark reporting, budget development and reporting, and strategic planning.
In addition to running her consulting practice, Kimberly is adjunct faculty at George Washington University, where she teaches courses in management, organization, and strategy as part of their Publishing Studies program.
Jennifer Solomon
Senior Advisor
Jennifer Solomon is a financial expert, entrepreneur, and former Wall Street analyst who has deep experience using her private sector skills to support the work of not-for-profits. She is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the Art Students’ League of New York. Prior to that, she served as Chief Financial Officer of Greyston in Yonkers, a $17 million, nationally-recognized social enterprise and non-profit organization providing employment, skills and resources to low-income individuals to lift them out of poverty. For her work at Greyston, she was recognized in October 2014 as “CFO of the Year” for midsize companies by Westchester Business Journal. Ms. Solomon serves on the board of two non-profit organizations, Westchester Philharmonic and Careers Through Culinary Arts Programs (C-CAP), a national organization dedicated to providing restaurant and hospitality careers to underserved youth.
Ms. Solomon received an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Carolyn Schwartz
Senior Advisor
Carolyn Schwartz is Development Director for the innovative Bronx Children’s Museum, where her over three decades of experience as a marketing, branding, and development professional has helped lead them through a period of major growth. Prior to joining the Museum, Carolyn’s career spanned both book publishing and the nonprofit sector. As Vice President, Director of Advertising and Promotion for the Random House Publishing Group, she developed and implemented strategy for fourteen imprints and their bestselling authors, including Dean Koontz, Lee Child, George R.R. Martin, Danielle Steel, and Dr. Christiane Northrup.
Recently she led marketing and development for World Book Night US, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to promoting reading by engaging 25,000 volunteers to distribute 500,000 free, specially-selected, specially-printed books to teens and adults nationwide. She worked closely with the Board of Trustees, made of industry leaders including those from publishing houses, the American Bookseller Association, and the American Library Association.
Carolyn gives back by assisting numerous nonprofits through her work with the Taproot Foundation. She is a Past President of the Dobbs Ferry Public Library. She received her BA from The Johns Hopkins University.