Board and Staff
RYP is led by an all-volunteer team of dedicated staff and board members.
While RYP looks to pay some staff in the future, the organization has been fortunate to grow since 2016 with the shared commitment of
so many fantastic volunteers!
Todd Fry, Executive Director
Todd has served as a teacher and social entrepreneur for over 30 years, dedicated to creating spaces for innovative education and civic engagement. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1986 with a degree in communication education. He has worked at Milton Academy, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Boston Center for Community and Justice, and the Deshpande Foundation. Over his career, Todd has started community programs including Youth Outreach Weekends, The City School, the Merrimack Valley Sandbox, and Mill Cities Leadership Institute. He began to visit Rwanda in 2006 and over the years has worked with organizations including the Rwanda Youth Healing Center, Bright Future Cornerstone, the Business Professionals Network, and now Rungano-Ndota Initiative. He currently balances his volunteer commitment to Rwanda Youth Partnership with freelance consulting as a presentation and communication coach for leaders.
Dominique Alvarado, Graphic Designer
Dominique is a 2023 MFA Graduate Candidate at Northeastern University for Information Design and Data Visualization. She holds a Graduate Teaching Fellowship in the College of Arts, Media, and Design of Northeastern, where she teaches Type Tools to undergraduates. She likes to connect, guide, and share her design knowledge and language with students and help them discover their craft as designers too. She graduated with a Graphic Design BFA and a background in Photography and Illustration. She finds herself to be a human-centered and multidisciplinary graphic and information designer. Her Ecuadorian culture influences her creativity and design work. She has a cross-cultural perspective and loves to place herself in other people’s shoes. She finds traces of these home connections in being part of RYP since 2019.
Emma Chichester, UX Designer
Emma is a second-year business and design student at Northeastern University. She has interests in marketing, technology, and the overlap between them. She is working with RYP to improve the user experience of the organization’s website to support growth.
Charles Madden, UX Designer
Charles is a candidate for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Northeastern University, he is working towards a major in Design and a minor in Mechanical Engineering. He is from Washington DC where he spent most of his time playing competitive basketball and growing as a photographer. Charles works for RYP to improve his web design skills and to aid the expansion of the partnership's online presence.
Christian North, Technology Designer
and Coach
Christian is an entrepreneurially minded individual with interests in business, psychology, philosophy, and technology. He graduated from Tufts University in 2021 with a both a BA in cognitive brain science and an MS in innovation management. After graduating, he will be working in Atlanta as a strategy consultant for EY Parthenon. He is also CEO of Aether Nootropics, a startup focused on an innovative healthy beverage. He is working with RYP to strengthen the organization's business infrastructure to support growth.
Rosemary Agbede, Board Member
Rosemary is a single mother who has raised four wonderful children in Lowell, Massachusetts. Originally from Uzebba/Ora in Edo State of Nigeria, she became an entrepreneur in the USA. She graduated from Benin Technical College in Nigeria and Blaine School of Cosmetology in Massachusetts. In 1997 she founded Unique You Salon and then Rima’s Catering Service. She is also co-authoring a memoir/cookbook with two of her daughters.
Past President of the Nigerian Association of the Merrimack Valley, she is also a passionate public speaker. She has traveled to Uganda as a missionary and more recently to Rwanda to engage with the youth and leaders of Rungano-Ndota Initiative. She believes in the power of beauty, nourishment, faith and, above all, love.
Mike Christian, Board Member
Mike is the Board President of Someone Else’s Child and is responsible for strategy and overall leadership of the foundation. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Risk Strategies, a leading national insurance brokerage firm. Mike was the Chief Executive Officer of Risk Strategies from 1997 to 2019. He led the company from its start-up beginnings into a prominent specialty risk advisor/broker with annual revenues of over $1 Billion. He was responsible for the development and execution of the company’s business/growth strategy, recruiting, client service approach, and mergers & acquisitions. Prior to Risk Strategies, Mike held leadership positions with Jardine Insurance Brokers, including serving on the U.S. Board of Directors, AON and Alexander & Alexander.
Mike is also the Managing Partner at Community Impact Ventures, an impact venture capital fund focused on providing start-up funding for social entrepreneurs.
A long-time Boston-area resident, Mike works with several non-profits focused on youth education, the arts, children living with disabilities, and economic justice. He is currently on the board of the Boch Center/Wang Theater, a leading arts, entertainment, and education center. He is the treasurer and a board member for Boston Explorers, a non-profit serving kids and teens in the Boston area. Mike is also on the board of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, the leading national advocate for property & casualty and health insurance issues.
Mike majored in Philosophy at the University of California in Santa Barbara.
Toku Chen, Board Member
Toku is a strategic advisor working with mission-driven founders, companies, investors and organizations that are solving venture scale problems related to children's education and health.
In his current work, he combines the lens of impact investing, venture philanthropy and private capital investing. He leverages his 20 years of cross asset fundamental investment experience in the US and in Asia as an investor for hedge funds such as Citadel, Highbridge and principal desks of global investment banks such as Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and & Morgan Stanley. He is a veteran at dissecting the fundamentals of complex businesses and advising stakeholders through periods of significant change.
He has applied the same passion to guide individuals and teenagers to more fulfillment in their lives via decades of volunteer work and community service. He is excited to bring his strategic lens to RYP's future and to work with the Rungano-Ndota team and youth, especially in the areas of building sustainable businesses, inclusive financial capabilities and education access. He graduated from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and speaks Japanese & Mandarin.
Jon Kanter, Board Member
Jon has worked as a finance professional in professional services organizations for over 30 years and is currently the CFO at a consulting company that focuses on serving its public sector clients. Prior to that Jon worked as CFO at one of the largest law firms in the world and as Head of Consulting Commercial Finance at a global management consulting company. Jon’s career started in London, but he has also spent time living and working in Sydney and Washington D.C. before settling in Boston where he and his wife have raised their two sons.
Jon has been actively involved in organizations that seek to empower youth for almost four decades: planning, leading and facilitating domestic and international youth camps through high school and college; being a Big Brother for an 8 year old and sustaining the relationship for twenty years through his brother’s high school, college and now a professional career; sitting on the Boston Advisory Board, leading the Boston Finance Committee and sitting on the National Finance Committee for BUILD, an entrepreneurship program for underserved high school students that teaches them how to build their own business while becoming the CEO of their own lives.
Amy Kazakoff, Board Secretary
Amy is a retired engineer and program manager who spent her career in the semiconductor manufacturing and design industry. She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nebraska, and the Project Management Professional certification from the Project Management Institute. Her interest in travel has brought her in contact with the Rwanda Youth Partnership, and she joined the board because of the importance and promise of its mission.
Thitu Muiruri, Board Member
Sally is a filmmaker who produces documentaries about human stories and short films that seek to address social issues. Originally from Kenya, she has over five years’ experience in the film
industry, working under various film producers and directors in the Greater Boston area. Some of her major productions include Black, Red N Green and 15 Years Later. Other productions that she had been involved in are Black N Black, and Memoirs of a Black Girl.
Currently, she works as a video producer of OSHA safety training for a small manufacturing company in Rockland, Massachusetts. She holds B.A. in communication with a concentration in Film, Video and Media Studies, from Bridgewater State University, and a Diploma in Public Relations from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Francoise Niyigena, Board Member
Francoise is a recent first-generation Middlebury College graduate where she double majored in Neuroscience and Psychology with a minor in Education studies. As someone who grew up in extreme poverty in rural Rwanda herself, Francoise is deeply passionate about tackling issues impacting people in poverty and empowering young people to break out of those cycles. She's been involved in a wide range of education reform and youth empowerment initiatives in Haiti, Jamaica, the U.S and Rwanda. Most recently she served as a Teaching fellow at the Epiphany School in Boston as well as a Research Assistant at the Harvard Graduate School of Education' s Making Caring Common Program. Francoise is committed to a career in Strategic Advisory on various economic development initiatives, education transformation and scaling the work of impact driven organizations to address global issues that most impact the poorest people particularly on the African continent.
Jacqueline Rwibasira, Board Member
Jackie is an entrepreneur who has started and run several businesses through her career. A Rwandan who grew up initially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, she worked at Accons Accounting Services in Mbabane, Swaziland as personal assistant to the CPA and also office manager. After coming to the Boston area, she worked for H&R Block and then decided to train as a nursing assistant. She has worked for a home health care agency for the past 6 years, and she is now the president of her own home care company. She has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Anil Thomas, Board Member
Principal at Kalypso, A Rockwell Automation Business.
Monica L. Zeno-Martin, Board Chair
Monica L. Zeno-Martin is committed to collaborating with individuals, communities, NGOs and businesses in developing solutions to challenges facing marginalized groups and communities. She partners on efforts ranging from social justice to trauma-centered care, education, and workforce development. In her role with Rwanda Youth Partnership, Monica is grateful to learn from and share with the Rungano-Ndota team in building “a united community of diverse youth working together to improve their future as holistic leaders.”
Monica is Executive Director at Parenting Journey, a nonprofit training institute serving social services agencies and clinicians nationally and globally by helping parents build stronger, more resilient families. She also acts as a consultant in the social
impact sector.
Monica holds an Ed.M. from Harvard University and a B.S. in Business Administration from Florida A&M University. She serves as a volunteer with organizations focused on youth and community education, leadership, and development and is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She and her husband have two adult children and reside in Boston, MA.