Young Involved Philadelphia is guided by a board that makes strategic decisions about the direction of the organization and allocation of resources. Members of the board are chosen from among the most active YIP members and serve two-year terms.
Josh McNeil – Chairman
As Executive Director of Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania (CVPA), Josh works to promote 
environmental legislation at the state level, to engage voters through education and outreach, and to elect pro-environment politicians to office. He has worked as the National Press Secretary of the League of Conservation Voters, as a speechwriter and Communications Director for the presidential campaign of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, as an improv comedian, and as a teaching assistant at the University of Cape Town. He staunchly supports the Oxford comma.
Josh was a 2010 fellow of the PA Center for Progressive Leadership, an executive committee member of the Yale Club of Philadelphia and a founder of the Philly Progressive Thinkers Forum. He’s a member of the Athenaeum and the Franklin Inn Club.
Josh earned his first dollar outside Huntsville, Alabama, keeping rogue chickens away from funerals with a pellet gun. Primates have attacked him on four continents. Josh has lived in ten cities in eight states. Philly is his favorite.
Susanna Greenberg - Secretary
Susanna is a proud native of Philadelphia, where she happily returned in 2007 after hopping around the East Coast for a decade. She teaches at University of Pennsylvania Law School in the Civil Practice Clinic, where she supervises students representing low-income Philadelphians in a wide range of legal matters. Previously, she worked as a lawyer at Ballard Spahr LLP, with a practice focused on antitrust litigation. Before law school, she served on a gubernatorial campaign staff in Pennsylvania and as a teacher in public and charter schools in Washington D.C. Susanna has an undergraduate degree in Ethics, Politics & Economics from Yale and a law degree from New York University. She was a 2010 fellow with the Center for Progressive Leadership in Pennsylvania, and she currently also serves on the Board of Trustees of Independence Charter School in Philadelphia.
Sophie Hwang – Vice-Chair for Outreach
Sophie Hwang was born and raised in New York and moved to California to study the Mental and Public Health of Underserved Communities at Stanford University. After graduating, she moved to Philadelphia to teach high school science through Teach For America and simultaneously earned her Masters in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Sophie’s students inspired her to plant roots in Philadelphia and make a commitment to improving experiences for youth. After teaching, Sophie was awarded a Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellowship and worked at the Health Federation of Philadelphia. Currently, she works as a research associate at PolicyLab, a research institute at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In addition to being the Vice Chair of YIP, she is a part of PhillyCORE Leaders, the advisory board of Sunday Suppers, steering committee for Multiplying Connections, and The Food For All Collective. She is passionate about racial health and educational equality, urban food access, and art as a means of social justice.
Jason Wolfson – Vice-Chair for Programming
Jason Wolfson is a home grown Philadelphian, constantly sharing his dying love for his city with residents both new and old. After graduating from Penn State University, with a degree in Telecommunications, he came back to the city he knows best. Jason works in the marketing department at Comcast in Philadelphia, where he manages all marketing channels for subscribers throughout the country. He has also assisted in the development a subscriber-based Cable TV marketing platform for Hispanic households across the United States, along with collaborating with networks such as Golf Channel and NBCSports on expansive marketing partnerships.
In addition to being a YIP board member, Jason volunteers on grassroots political campaigns, manages Free Agents DJs and has served as a Big Brother.
Dasanj Aberdeen – Treasurer
Dasanj’s Big 4 public accounting experience has provided her with the opportunity to understand clients’ businesses, identify best practices and learn what affects a business’ top and bottom lines in industries ranging from not-for-profit to financial services and including Fortune 100 companies. Dasanj has taken her expertise to the community, participating in focus groups and on panels with industry leaders as well as presenting to high school and college students.
She founded TheAfter5Edge blog as a platform for encouraging others to optimize their potential by discovering and leveraging their strengths to obtain their competitive edge in business and life. In addition to TheAfter5Edge, Dasanj shares her thought leadership on various blogs, covering topics such as business principles, financial management, marketing and creative strategies for fostering innovation. She is an advocate for adding value to life via the arts and culturally rich environments and focuses her volunteer efforts entrepreneurship, financial literacy and the arts. She fosters her own creativity by drawing and painting and loves taking advantage of the city’s vibrant art scene. Dasanj is a graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Christina Arlt – State of Young Philly Co-Chair
Christina Arlt is a creative problem-solver who works as a planner at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC). She holds a bachelors in Urban & Environmental Studies from Franklin & Marshall College and a Masters in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Christina moved to Philadelphia in 2007, a year after serving as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Hamburg, Germany.
Christina completed YIP’s Board Prep program in 2011, and also serves on the board of the Society of Women Environmental Professionals (SWEP) of Greater Philadelphia.
J Rudy Flesher – Philanthropy Chair
J. Rudy Flesher is an actor, activist, author, and artist, as well as a user of gender neutral pronouns. (For the uninitiated, the pronouns “ze” and “hir,” pronounced “zee” and “here” replace he/she and his/her, respectively.) A native New Jerseyan, Rudy moved to Philadelphia in 2007, having started a career with Penn Medicine in 2006. However, it has been Philadelphia’s dynamic and tight-knit communities that have kept hir in the City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection).
In November 2009, Rudy transitioned out of a career in the medical field to complete hir BA in Women’s and Gender Studies at The College of New Jersey. Hir time there included an internship with PhinLi Bookings, which represents LGBT and sex-positive talent, and writing a thesis on drag king communities which took top prize for undergraduate writing at the NJ Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium. Notable contributions to the Philadelphia LGBTQ community have included booking Kate Bornstein to perform at a Giovanni’s Room fundraiser, co-developing and emceeing Homecoming at The William Way Community Center, and producing an evening of queer storytelling for an Equality Pennsylvania fundraiser. Ze currently lends hir time and talents to WWCC, Equlity Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.
Rudy is also a recent graduate of The Center for Progressive Leadership’s New Leader program, having won the award for “Best Messaging” in hir class. Ze was recently elevated to serve as the Co-Chair of the Board of the Spruce Foundation.
Mike Kaiser – Events Chair
Mike is the Community Outreach Director at Generocity.org, a nonprofit organization with the mission to help people stay informed, connected, and involved in their communities. At Generocity.org, Mike oversees the content and social media strategy and assists on community outreach efforts to connect nonprofit and community based organizations to businesses and the broader Philadelphia community.
Prior to joining Generocity.org, Mike was the Communications Liaison at Gift of Life Donor Program where his work was featured by Facebook for Nonprofits and PRSA Philadelphia. Mike holds a B.A. in media studies from Penn State University.
Maura Kennedy – Communications Chair
Maura Kennedy currently serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) where she is responsible for the Department’s communications, community outreach, and blight reduction efforts, called the Vacant Property Strategy. The Strategy seeks to reduce the number of vacant, abandoned structures in Philadelphia by improving private property maintenance standards. American City and County Magazine named the initiative one of the most innovative government programs of 2011. L&I provides the business licensing, code enforcement, and construction permitting functions for the City of Philadelphia.
Maura began working for the City of Philadelphia in 2008, first serving as Deputy Press Secretary for Mayor Nutter. Previously, she worked on several federal and state campaigns across the country where she focused on research and communications. Maura graduated from Cornell University in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in Government.
Lea Kleinman – Board Prep Chair
Lea Kleinman is originally from Havertown, a suburb outside of Philadelphia. She is currently working as a Development Associate at Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, a non-profit that provides scholarship dollars for low-income K-8th graders to go to tuition based schools in Philadelphia. In the past, she has worked at Philadelphia Futures, Bread and Roses Community Fund, and the Philadelphia Freedom Schools. In addition, Lea completed the six-month New Leaders Program with Center for Progressive Leadership. She also completed the Non-Profit Board-Prep program with the former Young Non-Profit Leaders.
For the past two years, Lea has led the Board Prep Program as part of Young Involved Philadelphia. This has included everything including selecting the class, managing the curriculum and partner outreach for the program. Lea has been living in Philadelphia since attending Temple University, where she graduated with a B.A. in Sociology in 2008.
Meghan Mallouk – Membership Chair
Meghan Mallouk serves as the Marketing & Membership Manager at the Fairmount Park Conservancy, the private non-profit that exists to lead and support programs and projects throughout Philadelphia’s vast park system. Her role at the Conservancy includes overseeing the agency’s new membership program, writing and coordinating communications, social media and online content, managing individual giving campaigns and promoting the Conservancy’s signature programs, projects and events.
Prior to joining the Fairmount Park Conservancy, Meghan worked in fundraising, advocacy, and operations optimization at Planned Parenthood of Bucks County, where she managed the volunteer program, conducted grassroots organizing efforts around various issues important to the agency’s mission and implemented several projects to improve and streamline the agency’s operations.
Meghan graduated from Cornell University with a degree in International Agriculture & Rural Development and a certificate in Business Management. In addition to serving on YIP’s board, Meghan is also a member of the Emerging Leaders Work Group, captains and plays ultimate Frisbee with the Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance, enjoys cooking, and reads The Economist (nerd out!).
Bruce Marable – Marketing Chair
Bruce Marable is currently Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer for the design and technology firm “Defined Clarity”. His role includes being responsible for overseeing and managing all internal and external sales, market research, strategic marketing, public relations, communications and strategic partnership efforts. He makes it his business to “live” in the tech community, as he markets the company as a thought leader and trendsetter within the content management industry.
Prior to co-founding Defined Clarity, Bruce founded a tech startup and performed search engine marketing for Fortune 100 companies at interactive marketing agency Razorfish.Bruce is an avid chess player and holds a degree in Communication Studies from West Chester University.
Nick Marzano – Partnerships Chair
Nick Marzano considers himself a “new native” of Philadelphia, and the city has only grown on him since moving here in 2008. Nick currently leads eLearning strategy and infrastructure development for the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), a professional medical society dedicated to promoting quality care for hospital patients. There he also established the proposal review guidelines and procedures for the Certificate of Leadership in Hospital Medicine, a project-based extension of SHM’s Leadership Academies. Locally, Nick is a member of the Emerging Leaders Work Group, serves on the fund development committee for Rebuilding Together Philadelphia, and runs an annual scavenger hunt to benefit the Philadelphia Chapter of Penn State Alumni scholarship committee. He holds an MEd from Penn State, and stays connected to his teaching days as member of PhillyCORE Leaders. Distance running keeps him feeling young (and old), and you can read about his adventures in cooking and hosting on his blog, Them Dinners With Nick.
Jim Saksa – Governance Chair
Jim fell madly in love with Philadelphia as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from Penn in ’08, Jim moved to Washington DC to attend Georgetown Law. A few years in the District confirmed his belief that Philadelphia is the best city on Earth (Jim has also lived in Vienna, London and New Jersey, and has traveled to 40 states and over 30 countries, so it’s not like his opinion was born out of ignorance, either). Jim works at Fox Rothschild LLP, focusing his practice on corporate and non-profit law – if you need anything mergered or acquisitioned, he’s your guy.
Outside the office, Jim dabbles as a freelance writer, plays rugby, and organizes impromptu bar crawls. In addition to YIP, Jim also serves as co-chair of the Penn Rugby Alumni Board.
Josh Warner – State of Young Philly Co-Chair
Josh Warner has lived and worked in Philadelphia for 10 years. In that time, he has been a student, a teacher, a city planner, a dance instructor, a workshop facilitator, a civic do-gooder, and a business owner. Today, he’s a Doctoral Student in City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a Masters degree in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and spent the last 7 years at the Camden Redevelopment Agency working in one of America’s most troubled cities. Josh was instrumental in organizing and implementing State of Young Philly 2012, and is looking forward to many events and civic victories with his fellow YIPsters. In his spare time, he facilitates community forums with the Penn Project for Civic Engagement and can be seen on stage drumming with PhillyBloco.
