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Sarah Groh

Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley

Sarah Groh is a progressive strategist with a background in community organizing and coalition building.

As Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Sarah leads policy, strategy and day to day management for the Office. A long time resident of the Massachusetts 7th Sarah is proud to serve her home Congressional district and work for Congresswoman Pressley, a seasoned policy maker and unapologetic advocate committed to advancing justice for all people.

Groh served as Ayanna Pressley's 2018 Campaign Manager. At the helm of Pressley's historic campaign, Sarah led a coalition of staff, activists and volunteers to a historic 17 point primary victory. Pressley is a long-time activist and elected leader. She joined the 116th Congress as the first woman of color ever elected from Massachusetts.

Sarah has held various roles in democratic politics, government, and the non-profit sector including with America Forward, New Profit, and Horizons for Homeless Children in Roxbury, MA. Her policy portfolio includes disability justice, abortion rights, women’s health, student debt cancellation, and labor rights.

Sarah has a Master’s Degree in Education Policy & Management from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Services & Global Studies from Lesley College where she was President of the Student Government.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili

Founder and President, Viridi Edge.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili, is an energy executive with over 25 years of experience in energy infrastructure development, strategic planning, project delivery and organizational transformation. As the founder and president of Viridi Edge, she advises clients on strategic energy access decisions, supports deployment of innovative energy solutions, and helps clients navigate market complexities to build reliable, resilient, clean, and cost-effective energy systems.

Previously, Reihaneh served as Vice President at National Grid a major investor-owned Utility with operations across New York, New England, and the United Kingdom. There, she led the development of multi-billion dollar clean energy investment portfolio, championed transformation programs, and built high-performing teams that deliver results in critical operations. 

Throughout her career, Reihaneh has led complex infrastructure and energy initiatives across North America, consistently delivering safe, sustainable, and profitable outcomes for utilities, energy companies, and now bring those expertise to support C&I clients in cutting energy costs, improving resilience and meeting climate goals.

A recognized industry leader, Reihaneh has spoken at global forums, on topics including electrification, energy access, climate adaptation, and stakeholder engagement. She holds an MBA as well as Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering. Reihaneh serves as an officer of New England – Canada Business Council (NECBC) and is committed to advancing a clean, reliable and optimized energy future.

Michelle Miller

Vice President of Program Operations, Center for Women & Enterprise

Michelle oversees CWE's direct services to entrepreneurs: the six programmatic hubs (five Women's Business Centers and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of New England), and Supplier Engagement. With a background in entrepreneurship and economic development, Michelle previously ran a coffee shop for five years—a social enterprise dedicated to highlighting working conditions in South America and providing vocational training to people with disabilities. She has also managed economic development and rehabilitation programs in Massachusetts, Colombia, Peru, and Nicaragua. These programs supported conflict victims by offering services such as prosthetic donations and fittings, psychosocial rehabilitation, and microfinance.

Michelle’s guiding philosophy is ‘Everything is figureoutable,’ and she believes that when women mobilize, they can move mountains. Her work with CWE provides an incredible opportunity to help lift up the women who lift up the world.

Ashley Reichheld

Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Ashley Reichheld is a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP and a leading authority on trust and organizational performance in the age of AI. Reichheld’s work shows that trust shapes how people behave at work, influencing motivation, technology adoption, and results. To help leaders turn insights into action, she created TrustID®, a measurement system that enables organizations to quantify, predict, and build trust across their workforce and link it directly to business outcomes. Reichheld is the lead author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Four Factors of Trust. Her work and ideas have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Bloomberg TV, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, among others.

Lucia Sanchez

Vice President of Impact & Learning, Center for Women & Enterprise 

Lucia Sanchez leads CWE’s efforts to become a dynamic learning hub that uses data and evidence to increase its impact. With nearly two decades of experience in economic development across public, nonprofit, and academic sectors, she provides strategic leadership in shaping and executing impactful strategies to support women entrepreneurs. Prior to joining CWE, Lucia spent 10 years at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), where she led the Entrepreneurship & Private Sector Development Program, coordinating research networks and agendas to inform development policies and interventions. She holds a Master's in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University.

Diego Ubfal

Senior Economist in the Gender Department, World Bank

Diego Ubfal is a Senior Economist in the World Bank's Gender Department, where he leads a team on Strategic Country Engagement and coordinates the Federation of Gender Innovation Labs, while managing the knowledge agenda on entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and gender. His research spans business training, soft-skills development, access to markets, and financial inclusion, with publications in journals such as the American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Nature, Demography, and the Journal of Development Economics. Prior to joining the World Bank, Diego was an Assistant Professor at Bocconi University and a research affiliate at J-PAL. A Fulbright Scholar, he holds a PhD in Economics from UCLA, a Master's from the University of San Andrés, and a Bachelor's from the University of Buenos Aires. He has taught Impact Evaluation and Development Economics at Bocconi and Columbia University.

Natalia Urtubey

Foundation Fellow, Eastern Bank Foundation

Natalia Urtubey joined the Eastern Bank Foundation in March 2022. As a Foundation Fellow, Natalia is charged with enhancing equity in the region's small-business ecosystem by focusing on growth strategies for underserved business owners. This strategy will ensure that small businesses can access growth opportunities that will build wealth while fully participating and benefiting from the robust economy. 

For years before joining Eastern Bank, Natalia served as the Director of Small Business at the City of Boston, where she worked with the community and City officials to remove any barriers to doing business in the City of Boston.  During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Natalia led Boston’s small business relief efforts, including the distribution of more than $28.6M in direct grants, in addition to direct services to thousands of businesses, and the implementation of new and innovative programming to ensure Boston’s small businesses could survive and stabilize, and grow beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic’s deep economic impact. Additionally, she led the Reimagine Boston Main Streets initiative, a community engagement process to strengthen the future of our neighborhood commercial districts.

Natalia also served as the Director of Engagement and Executive Director for Imagine Boston 2030. These roles included working closely with the Mayor and Cabinet to ensure that the plan would be executed, through the Capital Budget process, which included working closely to monitor the Plan’s goals and metrics. In this capacity, Natalia had the opportunity to travel across the world to showcase Imagine Boston 2030 as a model for community engagement and planning.

Natalia started her career in Boston as an advocate for nonprofit organizations serving the city’s most disengaged young people to drive collaborative action to better serve Boston’s youth in various educational capacities. 

Natalia's professional experience has been spent learning from some of the City’s most dynamic and visionary leaders, including Bob Rivers and U.S. Secretary of Labor and Mayor Marty Walsh. In each of her roles, she has led the tremendous task of bringing community leaders together, finding opportunities for collaboration, and finding creative ways of showcasing the work to the community. Her roles have been instrumental for growth strategies and focusing on building partnerships with other community stakeholders.

Natalia was born in Bogota, Colombia and spent most of her young life in Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated from the University of Arizona with two Bachelor of Arts degrees, in Psychology and Political Science. Natalia moved to Boston in the Winter of 2011 and earned her master’s in public administration from Suffolk University in 2012.  Natalia is a proud homeowner in Dorchester and serves on the board for several local nonprofits; including the LISC MA Advisory Council, Nurtury, Future Chefs, and Hyde Square Task Force.