Foundation Board Growth

Macaulay Honors College Foundation Board proudly announces the addition of two new members. Penny Phillips ’10 and Zack Rosenburg were vetted by the board’s Nominating & Governance Committe and join the board at a critical time in the college’s history. In addition, the board has unanimously voted to recognize former Dean Ann Kirschner with emerita status.

Penny has already demonstrated a strong philanthropic commitment to the college, making her first donation within months of graduation. Her philanthropic leadership has been matched by her service as a spokesperson for Macaulay.

After a decade of working with financial advisors and institutions on practice management, Penny launched Thrivos Consulting with a vision of building a firm that would transcend the traditional norms of industry consulting.

Penny has worked with countless advisory teams and broker dealers on issues ranging from managing profitability compression to integration of next generation talent to succession planning. She previously ran a quarterly business-building workshop series for financial advisors. She has authored multiple practice management programs and is a featured keynote speaker at conferences and events across the industry. She was recently featured on Dynasty Financial Partners’ “Powering Independence” podcast.

Prior to founding Thrivos, Penny was a Vice President of Strategic Consulting for Envestnet, a wealth management technology firm, and ran practice management for Eagle Strategies, a wealth management subsidiary of New York Life. Penny has dual degrees in Corporate Finance and Economics from Macaulay, and has completed a certification in financial advisor coaching. Penny also has a certification in Advanced Behavioral Analysis.

Zack co-founded SBP in 2006 after spending two weeks volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The brief trip led to a passion for direct impact and system change.

Zack’s realization that a delayed recovery causes extensive human impact and that too many survivors suffer unnecessarily, drove SBP’s mission of shrinking time between disaster and recovery. Today, Zack directs the strategic vision, marketing, partnership development, and fundraising for SBP.

Zack plays a direct role in the advisement of local and state government officials, and has worked closely with elected officials from South Carolina, New York and West Virginia, as well as with appointed officials at HUD, helping them to craft effective long-term recovery programs. Among the innovative SBP programs that Zack has designed include: Opportunity Housing, an innovative blight eradicating/affordable housing program that turns blighted properties into well-built affordable housing; and Disaster Resilience and Recovery Lab, which among other things, shares SBP’s learnings and model with at-risk and disaster impacted communities.

Zack speaks nationally on a broad array of topics including disaster resilience and recovery policy, organizational culture development, high-impact innovation and leadership. His work has been featured in Newsweek, US News and World Report, Politico, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

Before founding SBP, Zack was an E. Barrett Prettyman Teaching Fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center and he ran an indigent criminal defense practice in Washington, DC. One of Zack’s most meaningful victories was freeing a man who served 23 years for a murder that he did not commit.

For his work, Zack has been recognized as one the 2018 Social Entrepreneurs of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, New Orleanian of the Year and Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project Champion of Justice, and he has received the Manhattan Institute Social Innovation Award.

Zack received a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University and a J.D. from the American University Washington School of Law. He has also received an Honorary Doctorate from Muhlenberg College, and a distinguished alumnus award from Washington College of Law.

Ann Kirschner served as Dean of Macaulay from 2006 until 2016, guiding the college through a period of academic and reputational growth.