Alissa M. Ahlman
Former Chief Merchandising Officer and Former Chief Design Officer at At Home Group Inc.

Alissa M. Ahlman has served as a Director of The Half Percent Project since September 2020.  Ms. Ahlman also currently serves on the Board of Directors for Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a national publicly traded retailer.

Ms. Ahlman was most recently the Chief Merchandising Officer and Chief Design Officer for At Home Group Inc., a high growth, national big box value retailer specializing in home décor, furniture and seasonal products.  Ms. Ahlman joined Garden Ridge in March 2008, prior to its rebranding to At Home in 2014.  Ms. Ahlman was responsible for the merchandise transformation at At Home and was part of the executive leadership team that rebranded Garden Ridge to At Home, including its IPO in 2016.  Ms. Ahlman held various progressive roles in Merchandising & Merchandise Planning until her retirement from At Home in December 2018. 

Prior to At Home, Ms. Ahlman was the VP of Planning & Allocation for 99¢ Only Stores, a publicly traded off-price grocery and general merchandise retail chain.  Prior to that, Ms. Ahlman held various roles in discount and off-price retail, including Financial Planning, Buying, Merchandising, Marketing, Transportation and IT.

Ms. Ahlman was selected to serve on our Board due to her 20-year experience retail, her extensive Merchandising, Marketing and Strategic Planning knowledge, as well as her strong overall financial business acumen.

Joelle M. Denham
Chief Financial Officer, Bulfinch

Joelle brings 20 years of commercial real estate experience and prior to joining Bulfinch was a Vice President at AEW Capital Management L.P. overseeing accounting, performance measurement and reporting for retail, multifamily, office and industrial/development accounts worth $4.3 billion in gross property value. During her tenure at AEW, Joelle held an array of financial and leadership responsibilities working with various groups including acquisitions, asset management, treasury, accounting and financial reporting, to name a few.

Prior to joining AEW in 2008, she held positions at DiCicco, Gulman & Company, Deloitte and Arthur Andersen, all public accounting firms providing audit and tax services, where she was responsible for overseeing financial audits and tax returns of real estate clients. She is a graduate of Bentley University (B.S.) in Accounting and a minor in Computer Science. 

Joelle has always been an animal welfare advocate and has been volunteering with Little Paws Dachshund Rescue since 2015. She lives just north of Boston with her husband and three mini long-haired dachshunds. During her spare time, she enjoys retro arcade games, golfing, skiing, gardening, cooking and watching the Patriots.

Robert Hetu
Head of US Private Debt, CDPQ US Inc.

Robert Hetu is Head of US Private Debt, at CDPQ’s New York office. In his role, he is responsible for the execution of the US Private Debt strategy of CDPQ, which includes the origination, structuring, negotiation and monitoring of leveraged transactions with key partners and market participants. Before joining CDPQ in June 2017, Mr. Hetu spent 20 years with Credit Suisse in New York where he served as Managing Director in the Investment Banking Department, leading a team in the Corporate Lending group that focused on executing leveraged loan transactions. Prior to that, he was Senior Manager, Structured Finance at Société Generale Canada in Montreal, and began his career in commercial banking at RBC in Quebec. Mr. Hetu has a Bachelor of Laws degree from Université de Montréal, as well as an MBA from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.

Robert has been active for years in various non-profit organizations. Most recently, he was a board member and Chair of the Finance Committee for the New York Common Pantry, a food pantry and soup kitchen based in New York City. He was also a volunteer mentor for American Corporate Partners, an organization dedicated to assist veterans in improving their careers after their military service.

Lenwood Ross
Founder and CEO, Accelery

Lenwood is the founder and CEO of Accelery, an agility and workplace innovation platform helping CEOs of small and medium sized businesses accelerate business transformation through digital. For over 20 years, Lenwood has helped CEOs and their leadership teams manage during transformational organizational challenges whether caused by management decision-making, business cycle, innovation, regulation, or crisis.

Most recently, Lenwood earned a postgraduate degree in digital business with distinction from the Emeritus Institute of Management, a partnership of MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia Business School Executive Education, and the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth.

Lenwood also graduated the Strategic Steps for Growth Streetwise MBA program in entrepreneurial and small business operations through W.R. Berkley Innovation Lab at the NYU Stern School of Business.

He also earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University.

Upon graduating, Yale awarded Lenwood the distinguished Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize for his commitment to the Yale community. In special recognition of his commitment to the African American community at Yale, the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale awarded Lenwood a special commendation.

Lenwood is a member of the Founding Chapter of the One Hundred Black Men, a national social and civic organization that provides scholarships, educational support, economic empowerment, mentoring, health, and wellness initiatives, and serves as a leading voice of the African American community. The Founding Chapter of the One Hundred Black Men was established in 1963 by the Honorable David N. Dinkins, Robert Mangum, Jackie Robinson, J. Bruce Llewelyn, and Cyril deGrasse Tyson. It has grown to include chapters in cities across the United States and abroad. Through membership with the One Hundred Black Men, Lenwood volunteers as a guest speaker to underserved high school students inspiring future leaders to pursue education, entrepreneurship, wealth building and community development.

Lenwood is also a member of Pinnacle Forum America, a national network of Christian CEOs and marketplace leaders dedicated to helping influential leaders execute their God-given purpose and foster a flourishing God-honoring culture.

For almost 20 years, Lenwood has also served on the Yale Alumni Schools Committee as an interviewer, interviewing high school students for admission to Yale.

Federico Tolvar
Founder and Chief Financial Officer, Sedona Capital Advisors

Federico Tovar is an experienced CFO, Board of Directors member, senior executive, and tech entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in corporate governance, public accounting, corporate finance, strategy, technology, and M&A. Federico is an avid animal lover who is incredibly passionate about the well-being of nonhuman animals. Federico firmly believes that the lifespan and wellbeing of animals can be extended through facilitating the proper funding, medical care, nutrition, and wellness programs to ultimately enhance and protect the lives of these animals that bring so much joy into our lives.

He started his career in strategy and management consulting at notable firms such as Booz-Allen Hamilton, before spending time in Capital Markets at the World Bank in Washington D.C. Later he chose to join Ernst & Young’s Corporate Finance Unit in New York, where he focused on M&A, valuation, and corporate restructurings for leading technology and financial services firms throughout the world. After several years in Corporate Finance, he held roles in public accounting with other notable audit advisory firms before launching his own firm Sedona Capital Advisors, focused on providing financial and transaction advisory services for high growth tech companies.

Recently, he also launched two technology companies, as a Founding Member and CFO, where he was an integral part of not only scaling the companies through periods of high growth and profitability, but ultimately having a successful Exit. His exit came with his first tech company which focused on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. In this capacity, Federico was an integral part of driving the company’s fundraising efforts, growth, strategy, and establishing the appropriate oversight and corporate governance across the organization and for the Board of Directors. Federico has also served on the Board of Directors of other technology companies and has established various oversight initiatives and appropriate governance committees at the Board of Director level.

Federico is a graduate of the University of Maryland, with a degree in Economics and additional course work in accounting, mathematics, and engineering. He is actively involved in the arts in New York City. In his spare time, you will find him playing soccer, tennis, and fetch with his favorite teammate, Bodhi the MaltiPoo.

Dan Zelem
Former Chief Technology Officer, Johnson & Johnson

For over twenty-five years Dan Zelem has been a transformational leader in Health Care Technology.  Dan was most recently with Johnson & Johnson where he served as Global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) until July 2018.  As CTO, he had responsibility for Infrastructure Services and Application Development.  He was instrumental in leading many large-scale breakthrough technology initiatives, including delivering one of the most significant Digital and Cloud transformations ever performed in life sciences.

At Medco, an industry leading Pharmacy Benefit Manager, he held positions of increasing responsibilities, culminating in being named CIO.  During his tenure he delivered analytic products and platforms that were marketplace disruptors and differentiators for Medco.  He was also led the build and deployment of medco.com, a $6B channel for on-line prescription ordering, and an industry first.

Dan is currently providing technology advisory services to corporations, technology vendors and service providers with focus on digital and cloud transformations.  In April 2019, he was retained by McKinsey and Company as a Sr. Advisor in support of Digital and Cloud transformation engagements.

He is a past board member of National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) and Mercy College and joined the board of Volunteer New York in June of this year.  Dan is also an avid supporter of numerous Animal Welfare organizations.

Dan resides in Suffern, New York with his wife Nancy and their two rescue dogs, Rudy and Effie.