Current Board of Trustee Members
Mei-Lee Ney (Chair)
Diane Ziering (Vice Chair)
Diane Delpit Ziering joined the Otis Board of Trustees in 2012 and serves as Chair of the Audit Committee. She earned a BA from UCLA in Political Science with a minor in Art History, and a JD from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Although the legal field was an interesting profession, raising a family shifted her attention toward charitable causes that can better the standard of living for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Education, housing, and healthcare are at the forefront of Ziering's volunteer and fundraising efforts. She supports several organizations, including Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), CARE, Saban Free Clinic, and L.A. Family Housing. Her interest in the arts remains strong, and she and husband Michael support the L.A. Opera and have hosted the Pacific Palisades Film Festival. She is currently a member of MOCA's Drawings Committee and commits her time to the Otis College Board.
Leslie Belzberg (Treasurer)
James Hyman (Secretary)
James Hyman, a Los Angeles native and graduate of Princeton University is the CEO and Chairman of Hyman Inc., his family's multi-generational enterprise, that started over 3 generations ago by his great-grandfather. Today, Hyman Inc., is a multi-pronged global marketing and distribution company. Since 2009, the company has secured the exclusive worldwide license for Honeywell Home Security products and now distributes goods in over 90 countries world-wide. His passion for growth through collaboration and value creation continues to drive business expansion across enterprises. Mr. Hyman remains closely involved in the creative process including product development, global e-commerce, and platform expansion. His successful experience reinventing and rebranding the company, building a second company, and founding additional concerns has led to a passion for investment in series of start-ups, such as the nationally recognized, Ring/Amazon transaction.
James's philanthropy includes the GOFARR Charity - Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and City of Hope - Hardware/Home Improvement Division. He and his wife Leslie Weisberg are proud parents of twin sons.
James joined the Otis College Board of Trustees in 2021 and became the Secretary and Chair of Board Affairs in July 2024.
Dawn Baillie
Dawn Baillie (BFA '86) is a co-founding partner of BLT Communications, an entertainment advertising design agency employing over 200 passionate artists, strategists, and technologists. Since 1992, BLT has created award-winning campaigns for hundreds of film, television, streaming, and Broadway productions. In addition to numerous Clio Entertainment and Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards (including Best Poster of the Past 35 Years for Silence of the Lambs), Dawn was also honored with the inaugural Saul Bass Award, which recognizes talented creatives who demonstrate iconic and influential style.
In 2009, Dawn developed BLT Helps, a nonprofit arm dedicated to sharing BLT's wealth of experience and creative resources with organizations making a difference in their communities. BLT Helps was inspired by her humanitarian and spiritual visits to India, where she was taught the value of selfless service. Dawn is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where she serves as a judge for the annual Student Academy Awards and as a mentor in the Academy Gold Mentorship program. Dawn joined the Otis College Board of Trustees in August 2020.
Scott Brown
Scott Brown was introduced to Otis College through the Board of Governors and became a member of the Board of Trustees in July 2024.
Scott is the founder of New Energy Capital Partners, an investor in clean energy infrastructure projects and developers. In 1988, Scott helped start the company which is now First Solar, the largest solar manufacturing company in the United States. From 1989-1992, he ran Glasstech Solar, Inc., a solar research and development company that held several records for thin film solar cell efficiency. From 1999-2005, Mr. Brown was a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NECP was acquired by Victory Capital Management in 2021.
In addition to his work in the renewable energy sector, Scott was a founding member of the Harvard Negotiation Project and President of Conflict Management Group, a non-profit international negotiation consulting company. HNP and CMG worked with leaders from Iran, South Africa, Sudan, El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and the former Soviet Union, among others, to facilitate peaceful management of conflict. CMG was acquired by Mercy Corps in 2001.
Scott is the current Co-Chair of the Board of Mercy Corps, an international relief and development NGO that operates in more than 40 countries, and is on the boards of several privately held clean energy companies and local New Hampshire non-profits. Scott is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
Roger Brown
Roger H. Brown became President Emeritus of Berklee in 2021. He served as president from 2004-2021 and led Berklee during a period of unparalleled expansion that has included the launch of several pioneering institutes, such as the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, Berklee India Exchange, the Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship, and the Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice; overseen the creation of the world's largest online music education system; created an international campus in Valencia, Spain; the construction of the Boston campus's first, custom-built building; and the acquisition of New York's iconic Power Station studio to create BerkleeNYC, a state-of-the-art recording facility and a hub of education and creativity. He also completed a merger with the Boston Conservatory to establish the world's most comprehensive training ground for global careers in music, dance, and theater.
Brown is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Davidson College and a graduate of the Yale School of Management. He cofounded Bright Horizons Family Solutions in 1986 with his wife, Linda Mason, and served as chief executive officer until January 2002.
A former codirector of the Save the Children relief and development effort in Sudan, he and Mason coauthored the book Rice, Rivalry, and Politics, which examines the management of emergency relief efforts. He has served as a management consultant for Bain and Company, was one of the founders of the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, and a cofounder of Horizons for Homeless Children, which serves the needs of homeless children throughout the Boston area.
Brown has been recognized for his humanitarian, educational, and entrepreneurial achievements by the government of Valencia, Spain with the Cruz de Honor; by the March of Dimes Franklin Delano Roosevelt Humanitarian Award; and by being named, along with his wife, as a Visionary Social Entrepreneur at the 2012 Social Venture Network's Hall of Fame Celebration. In 2019, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Williams College and was honored at the Boston Arts Academy Foundation annual celebration to support BAA. He joined the Otis College Board of Trustees in June 2020 and is Co-Chair of the Educational Planning Committee.
Leo Yu-Ming Chu
Leo Yu-Ming Chu became an Otis Trustee in 2021. A Hong Kong native, he is a General Partner of the Bicycle Casino and Hotel and the Crystal Casino and Hotel. He graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic College (now University) and is a trained textile fashion industry engineer. Leo had a successful 30-year career in the fashion industry before turning to the hospitality industry. He has an intimate knowledge of the food and restaurant businesses in Los Angeles.
Leo serves on the boards of the Southern California Special Olympics, the Cal State Dominguez Hills Business School, and the Morning Light Foundation. He also serves on the USC Boards of Councilors of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the Viterbi School of Engineering, and the Norris Cancer Hospital. He is a member of USC Keck Health Leadership.
Leo enjoys collecting cars and reading and is a world-class foodie.
Clifford Einstein
Cliff Einstein has spent more than 50 years in the advertising business, having been a founding partner of Dailey and Associates, an international advertising agency headquartered in West Hollywood, California. Over the years his agency produced memorable campaigns for Honda Motorcycles, The Southern California Ford Dealers, Nestle Foods, Gallo Winery, Unilever, Countrywide Financial, Great Western Savings, Western Airlines, Hunt Wesson, Australian Tourism, Safeway Stores, Weyerhaeuser Forest Products, White Stag Skiwear and Callaway Golf. Currently Cliff is Director of Strategic Planning for wHY Architecture, an international architectural firm headquartered in Culver City, California.
Cliff has been celebrated as one of his industry's more awarded advertising figures, winning several international Broadcasting Awards, Clios, and The AAF award for Best Advertising Campaign in America. Art and Antiques Magazine has listed The Einstein Collection as one of America's top 100, and the collection has been profiled in HG, Australian Vogue, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Art News, Great Britain's Art Review, and most recently, Vogue Korea. Cliff has also been featured in Time magazine in an essay on collecting contemporary art. Cliff is Chair Emeritus of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles where he previously served as Chair of their Board of Trustees. He is joyfully married to Mandy. The Einsteins are truly fortunate to have two married children and four grandchildren.
Cliff rejoined the Otis College Board of Trustees in 2016 and serves as Chair of the Advancement & Marketing Committee.
Laura Fox
Laura is currently an Adjunct Professor in the field of social entrepreneurship at USC Marshall and President of the Fox Foundation. Previously, she worked in the entertainment industry, where she was responsible for overseeing business and legal affairs for the DreamWorks SKG movie division and was Vice President of Legal Affairs for Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures. She serves on a number of nonprofit Boards including P.S. Arts, Cedars-Sinai, City Year Los Angeles, Civicas and Visionary Women, and advisory councils including the USC Marshall Board of Leaders and UCLA Dean’s Advisory Board.
She received a B.A. in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Bronya Pereira Galef
Edward HanEdward Han was introduced to Otis College through the Board of Governors and became a member of the Board of Trustees in July 2024.
Ed Han is a private investor based in Los Angeles. Previously, Ed worked in private equity at Bain Capital, a global investment firm that partners with management teams to build, transform, and grow great companies. Ed joined Bain Capital in 1998, and prior to his retirement in 2019, he helped build Bain Capital’s private equity businesses in North America, Europe, and Pacific. He has sourced, executed, overseen, and harvested private equity investments across a broad range of sectors in multiple geographies. Before Bain Capital, Ed was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, a leading international strategy consulting firm. Ed received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, and his A.B. from Harvard College, summa cum laude in Computer Science, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He also serves as co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Campbell Hall School, a K-12 independent school in Studio City, CA.
Leonardo Lawson
As the founder and CEO of BOND Creative MGMT, Leonardo has built and run brands in the US, Europe and Asia. He is the founder of BOND Creative Search, the premier search firm specialized in design led businesses. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, BOND partners with industry leaders including Airbnb, Alexander Wang, Amazon, Apple, Chanel, Coach, Estee Lauder, Gucci, Kate Spade, LVMH, Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Starbucks, and Tiffany & Co. BOND represents and manages groundbreaking talent across creative, digital, strategy and executive leadership.
Leonardo's draw to storytelling led him to establish BOND Motion Pictures, a film production company with a focus on bringing under-represented stories to the world. His role as Executive Producer ranges from financial investments to hands-on producing for narrative film, television projects and documentaries. He is a partner of the luxury cruelty free shoe brand Vetir Vert. A US-based, Italian manufactured shoe with a mission of creating a sustainable cruelty free option for luxury customers.
Leonardo began his career in the arts working as the Artistic Director for an internationally respected art gallery in SoHo where he discovered, nurtured, and managed artists. Having lived in Europe, the United States and Asia, he is widely recognized as a global talent spotter and trend forecaster. He has the unique ability to "get inside" a company's culture, identify and communicate with all levels of creative talent, and analyze the intricacies of brand building. His diverse range of client experiences and partnerships with industry leaders has educated him in the many paths to success and what to steer away from. He brings this unique perspective and knowledge to everything he works on. He joined the Board of Trustees in October 2021.
Leonardo is globally renowned in fashion and luxury brand building, management consulting, structural organization, and executive search. Leonardo is the CEO of the luxury brand The Vampire's Wife leading teams in the UK and US.
Enrique Martínez CelayaEnrique Martínez Celaya was introduced to Otis College through the Board of Governors and became a member of the Board of Trustees in July 2024.
Enrique Martínez Celaya is an artist, author, and former physicist whose work has been exhibited and collected by major institutions worldwide. He is Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts at the University of Southern California, and a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College. His notable projects and exhibitions include the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., the Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy, the Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba, and the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany, among many others. His work is held in 57 public collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Martínez Celaya is the author of nine books, including two volumes of his Collected Writings and Interviews, 2010-2017 and 1990-2010, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020 and 2011; and The Nebraska Lectures, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. His work has been the subject of several monographic publications including Martínez Celaya, SEA SKY LAND: towards a map of everything, Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2021, Enrique Martínez Celaya and Käthe Kollwitz: Von den ersten und den letzten Dingen, Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2021, Martínez Celaya, Work and Documents 1990-2015, Santa Fe: Radius Books, 2016, and Enrique Martínez Celaya: Working Methods, Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2012.
Martínez Celaya was born in Cuba and raised in Spain and Puerto Rico. He initiated his formal artistic training as an apprentice to a painter at the age of 12. He received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics with minors in Electrical Engineering and Spanish Literature from Cornell University, and a Master of Science with a specialization in Quantum Electronics from the University of California, Berkeley. He conducted part of his graduate physics research at Brookhaven National Laboratory and holds several patents in laser devices. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and earned an MFA with the department's highest distinction from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was also a Regents Fellow and Junior Fellow of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. In 1998, Martínez Celaya created Whale & Star as an evolving idea of social interaction and responsibility, whose imprint is internationally recognized for its books in art, poetry, art practice, and critical theory. He has offered lectures at venues worldwide, including the American Academy in Berlin, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Royal Drawing School in London, and the Aspen Institute.
He is the Distinguished Mentor for the MFA in Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design, and before his current academic posts, he held the positions of Roth Family Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College, Presidential Professor at the University of Nebraska, Associate Professor at Pomona College, and Associate Professor at the Claremont Graduate University. Martínez Celaya is a Fellow of the Huntington
Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, a Fellow of Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and a Fellow of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation. He is a Governor on the Board of Otis College of Art and Design, a member of the International Advisory Council of the Hispanic Society of America, and he was the artist advisor to the Anderson Ranch Arts Center from 2018-2021, where he was also the 2007 recipient of its National Artist Award. He received a Doctor Honoris Causa from Otis College of Art and Design in 2020 and delivered its commencement address.
Jennifer McCormick
Jennifer McCormick came to the United States in 1997 with only her suitcase. She was born in Tianjin in northern China and graduated with an International Business degree from Tianjin Hexi District University. In China she had worked for Sealand Service, Inc. (Maersk Line) as a Sales Representative in the ocean shipping industry. Upon her arrival to the US, she continued her work in the shipping Industry working for Evertop Freight, Inc. from 1997 to 1999 in Los Angeles. Her success led her to become Vice President of Sales of the busy West Coast region for the Hong Kong firm Jardine Logistics, Inc. of which she worked until 2003 when she became Vice President of Sales for Dart Express, Inc.
In 2005, Jennifer made the decision to start her own freight logistics company, American Freight Logistics, Inc., of which she is still the CEO and owner. American Freight handles shipping of ocean and air cargo from all corners of the world.
In 2019, Jennifer was chosen to attend the Women Entrepreneurs Program through BNP Paribas at Stanford University.
She serves as a Board Member of American Red Cross Los Angeles Regional and she is also a member of the Los Angeles Red Cross Tiffany Circle, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Asian Council, is a member of JAAG, and joined the Otis College Board of Trustees in 2020.
Jennifer enjoys charity work, painting, photography, playing her GuQin (an ancient Chinese zither), travelling, history, and spending time with her husband Mark and son Robert where they reside in Walnut, California.
Luka OreškovićLuka Orešković was introduced to Otis College through the Board of Governors and became a member of the Board of Trustees in July 2024.
Luka is a partner at Prosperus Private Equity and Chairman of M+ Group. At Prosperus, the largest private equity in Adria region, he grew assets under management to over $200m. As Chairman of the Board of M+ Group, the largest CX company in Central Europe he grew from 200 employees to a European leader with over 11,000 employees and over $200m in sales and led it to IPO + SPO in 2019, since then quadrupling the share price.
Concurrently, at Harvard University he is an associate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He served on the Advisory Board of Rutgers University and RTL Digital Advisory Board.
Luka previously co-chaired Harvard University’s Business and Government in Emerging Europe Seminar as the youngest ever program head of Harvard’s Center for European Studies, during which he co-authored two books, published by Springer and Lynne Riener Publishers and his research was cited by Brookings Institution, Center for European Policy Analysis, Oxford University Press etc.
He was the youngest member in history of the economic council of the President of Croatia, where among others he led the President’s collaborations with Al Gore, Elon Musk, and the Wall Street Journal.
While an undergraduate at Harvard he wrote regular articles and op-eds for The Economist, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy Magazine and Huffington Post. He regularly provides commentary for the Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The New York Times, Politico, Forbes, South China Morning Post, CNBC, Reuters and others.
Luka graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in History and Central and Eastern European studies
Jeffrey Shames
Jeffrey Shames is an Executive in Residence at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he lectures in Finance, Leadership and Global Health Management. He is the retired CEO and Chairman of MFS Investment Management® and the Board of Trustees of the MFS Funds. He joined MFS in 1983 as an Industry Analyst and was named a Portfolio Manager in 1985, Chief Equity Officer in 1987, President in 1993 and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 1998. In September 2002 he retired as CEO and retained the Chairman title until his retirement in February 2004. Presently, he is the Senior Strategy Advisor to Rockefeller Capital Management where he advises the CEO on Corporate Strategy, Organizational Structure and Acquisitions.
From 2010-2013 he was a Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley where he advised the President of Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Wealth Management.
He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the X Prize Foundation, City Year, Summer Search, Tufts Medical Center, the Berklee College of Music, and joined the Otis College Board of Trustees in June 2020. He serves as a member of the Advisory Boards of the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Masters of Finance Program. He is, also, on the Board of several recent start-up companies.
He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1977 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management in 1983. In between college and graduate school he served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
Debra Wong Yang