Mac Admins Foundation Announces Four New Board Members
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC
8 December 2022
The Mac Admins Foundation is proud to announce the addition of four new members of the Board of Directors. After a search process featuring more than 50 applicants, the Board of Directors voted to expand the number of seats available from two to four new seats given the quality of the applicants.
“After interviewing our finalists, we felt that we had too many great interviews to limit ourselves to just two of our finalists,” Co-Chair Tom Bridge said, “and we voted to increase the number of board seats from seven to nine to accommodate all the outstanding finalists we spoke with.”
Joining the board for a three year term ending December 31, 2025 are:
Erin Merchant, Head of IT, Sidecar Health
Jennifer Unger, Sr. Software Engineer
Gerard Massey, Senior Systems Engineer, Bezos Academy
Diego Iaconelli, EMEA Regional Support Manager, Github
“We’re gearing up to build on our progress from 2022, with so much work we want to accomplish in 2023,” said Co-Chair Emily Kausalik-Whittle, “and adding more board members will help us build on our momentum without over-burdening any one board member. We have a conference scholarship program to launch, a mentorship program to formalize, and enhanced reporting efforts regarding the future of the Mac Admins Foundation to build. Our new board members have substantial experience in these areas, as well as long histories within the Mac Admins community.”
Biographies of our new members follow:
Erin Merchant is a human with teeth, killer fashion, and no time for BS. She works with professionals and organizations in honing IT business partnership, strategy, and operational development. Her focus is in building sustainable, healthy teams and positive IT culture as a force multiplier for business. Her tenacity comes from leadership work in the film, finance, healthcare, and tech industries. You’ll find her content in multiple mediums, her quotes quotable, and her passion for others’ success in the industry indomitable.
Jennifer Unger leads through community. She is a regular face at the Jamf Nation User Conference, MacAdmins Conference Penn State, and MacDMV sharing her expertise in IT and security to build a better future in technology. Her Mac engineering work in the financial industry emphasizes a fair balance between workforce user accessibility and company stewardship. She resides in Virginia where she attends as many musical theatre performances as she can find tickets for.
Gerard Massey – based in the DC Metro Area – is currently a Senior Systems Engineer at Bezos Academy, the philanthropy of Jeff Bezos building Montessori-inspired preschools throughout the United States where he is responsible for their technology systems and infrastructure. Before Bezos Academy, he served as a technology leader and Apple engineer in several sectors: fintech, the federal government, geospatial intelligence, law, public relations, and advertising. In addition, he provides consulting services nationwide, specializing in cyber security, IoT automation, and career/professional coaching. He received his bachelor’s degree in Information Communication Technology from Florida State University. Outside the office, Gerard can be found traveling with his wife, hosting trivia game shows in DC/Maryland/Virginia, creating technology content online, or riding his Boosted Board down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Diego Iaconelli likes people more than he likes machines. His work is dedicated to developing people who care, with technology as the method they use to enable it. He’s worked in words, visuals, and culture at publishing houses, startups, and tech companies, demonstrating that Anthropology and humanist approaches have a place in IT. He loves his wife Alice, his two small children, and all things orange, in that order. His current day-job is enabling things and people in IT at GitHub.
About the Mac Admins Foundation
The Mac Admins Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that exists in order to advance the global community of people who manage Apple devices at large and small scales. Launched in May of 2022, based on a community begun in 2015, the Mac Admins Foundation runs conference and training scholarships for Mac Admins all over the world, in addition to running the Mac Admins Slack, a free collaboration platform of more than 50,000 Mac Admins.
