By Alyssa Giacobbe
Mission Driven
Remarkable times call for remarkable leaders, and this year Suffolk can boast three exceptional alumni board presidents. For the first time in University history, each board is led by a woman of color, each of whom brings a high level of professional experience to their role, as well as a zeal for energizing and expanding connections between alumni. Get to know them here.
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Photography by Michael J. Clarke
President, Sawyer Business School Alumni Board of Directors
Linda Jones, MBA ’02
Linda Jones saw joining the Sawyer Business School Alumni Board of Directors as a way to repay—and pay forward—the success she’d enjoyed as a Suffolk graduate.
“The minute I got my MBA from Suffolk, it seemed like the world opened up to me,” she says. “I wanted to give back.”
She’d spent several successful years climbing the ranks at companies like State Street Corporation, SunLife Financial, Bank of America, and Santander Bank before joining MIT as the University’s vendor program manager for information systems and technology; she knew she was capable of being a good leader and contributor. From the start, she’s brought her expertise in managing an organization to determine ways to better support current students as well as to help advance the careers of other alumni.
“My work in technology project management and banking is about asking, ‘What can we do to better serve the customers?’” she says. “I want to do the same thing for Suffolk. And as a Black woman, I thought it was important that people see diversity in leadership, too.”
After three years serving on the Business School’s alumni board, she ran for and was elected president on a platform of diversity and inclusion. That has meant making sure the board itself is as diverse and inclusive as possible and that it is constantly looking at “ways to make the message clear to students and alumni that this school is for everybody,” she says.
One of the first things Jones did as president was to ask her committee chairs to choose their successors. “Before, we weren’t looking at who we could help mentor and coach,” she says. “We were just seeing how things went. I wanted it to be a thoughtful process: Who are we empowering to move to the next level?”
In addition to encouraging a 100% giving rate from the board, she’s also brought in speakers to talk about diversity and inclusion, including Suffolk’s executive director of the Center for Career Equity, Development & Success.
“The pandemic has created some limitations in how we meet and collaborate, and so I’ve worked hard to mix it up,” she says. “I believe our message should come through loud and clear: It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. You are being well served at this school.”
Rachel Deleveaux has, in the words of a colleague, “dedicated her life to breaking class ceilings.”
A career diversity, equity, and inclusion strategist, she currently serves as assistant vice president for organizational culture, inclusion, and equity at Simmons University and has been a member of the College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Board of Directors since 2019.
“I was initially interested in joining the board because I felt like I had a different perspective,” she says. “I come from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background, and I’m a Black woman. But what caused me to stay involved is that the board has really responded, respected, and made room for me.”
Last summer, she was elected to the role of CAS board president, the first-ever Black woman to hold the role—and precisely why she was inspired to run for it. “Historically, boards have been predominantly white,” she says. “They’ve been male-driven. I thought it was important for alumni to see not only diversity in the board but also a board that supports diverse leadership.”
As president, one of her goals is to increase alumni giving. That begins, she says, by encouraging board members themselves to give more, and to give earlier (Deleveaux is herself a member of Suffolk’s Summa Society of leadership donors), “because I don’t think you can ask anything of anyone that you’re not doing yourself,” she says. By January, more than 90% of board members had already given for the year.
She also hopes to use her term to help expand the school’s outreach to include more and different students and to reconnect with inactive alumni. To that end, she has facilitated the CAS Board partnering with the other alumni boards.
“Together we’re thinking about the work we can do to support diversity and inclusion, and ensuring that we’re keeping a finger on the pulse of ever-changing needs,” Deleveaux says. “And, perhaps most importantly, to make sure that we have solid systems in place when we leave.”
President, College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Board of Directors
Rachel Deleveaux, MEd ’07
Unlike many of her fellow members of the Suffolk University Law School Alumni Board of Directors, Dahlia Ali—an associate in the Chicago office of Paul Hastings, focusing on tax law—is not based in the Northeast. That’s why she decided to get involved in the first place.
“I wanted to bring a geographical diversity, especially as someone who moved to the Midwest with zero connection to the Midwest,” she says. “I thought being on the board might help open doors to Suffolk students and alumni here and elsewhere, and offer an example to other alumni of how you can be very involved from a distance.”
After a year spent as the board’s clerk, she found she’d grown extremely invested in the work, particularly in establishing a scholarship for first-generation students. She decided to run for president to provide continuity among a group that had made great strides, and to make sure the scholarship was successfully endowed.
“As a first-generation graduate student, seeing that through was really important to me,” she says.
As president, she wants to highlight the idea that the board serves not only alumni but also current and prospective students—that its work is for everyone. “One of my favorite stories is when one of our current board members called a student to congratulate her on her acceptance,” Ali says. “The prospective student hadn’t actually read her acceptance email yet! That’s how active and involved we are.”
She also works with different student organizations across the Law School to be a resource for speakers, volunteers, and professional connections.
“If we don’t have someone within the actual board to meet their needs, we utilize our network to get them what they’re looking for,” she says. The idea: Make students and alumni very aware of the power of the Suffolk network into which they can tap.
“I went to Dubai for a summer internship and I was so pleasantly surprised to meet four or five working attorneys from Suffolk,” she says. “The Suffolk network is just so expansive.”
President, Law School Alumni Board of Directors
Dahlia Ali, JD ’15
Suffolk University’s GOLD (Graduates Of The Last Decade) Council comprises undergraduate alumni of the last decade to serve young alumni and student communities through involvement with Undergraduate Admissions, Career Services, the Alumni Association, and the Annual Fund.
Beyond the boards
Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Council
In addition to the three school-based alumni boards, dedicated alumni volunteers are leading alumni affinity groups.
The Suffolk University Black Alumni Network (SUBAN) celebrates and serves current and future Black alumni through mentoring, philanthropy, volunteerism, and events
Suffolk University Black Alumni Network
The Suffolk Women in Leadership (WIL) Alumnae Network advocates for the professional and personal development of Suffolk’s women graduates. WIL provides resources and programming for both graduates and current students.
Women in Leadership Alumnae Network
The Suffolk University Veteran Alumni Committee (SUVAC) celebrates and serves student and alumni veterans through events, mentoring, philanthropy, and volunteerism.
Suffolk University Veteran Alumni Committee
For more information on how to get involved with alumni boards and affinity groups, please email alumni@suffolk.edu.
The Suffolk PRIDE (LGBTQ+) Alumni Network will launch in 2023