Staff

Our Team

Glenisse Pagan

Executive Director

Rebeca Vicens

Strategic Initiatives Director

Anjanette Paonessa

Operations Oficial

AD HOC Team

Joel Franqui

Action Dialogue Coordinator

Richard Cordova

Operations Intern

Carli Dávila

Creative Strategist

Board

Beatriz Polhamus

President 2019-2021
Fundación Banco Popular

Alexandra Hertell

Vice President 2019-2021
Fundación Segarra Boerman e Hijos

Carlos Rodríguez

Treasurer 2019-2021
Flamboyan Foundation

Sofía Martínez-Álvarez

Secretary 2019-2021
Fundación Titín

Laura López Torres

Director 2019-2021
Fundación Angel Ramos

Mary Ann Gabino

Jerry Maldonado

Director 2019-2021
Ford Foundation 

Glenisse Pagan

Executive Director

Glenisse was born, raised and lives in Puerto Rico where she leads a multi-passionate life learning, teaching, challenging others and being challenged. She also loves technology, nature, adventure, but above all, she lives to inspire people to take action and to help them find their purpose.
 
Upon graduating from Electrical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus (UPRM), Glenisse began working with Kodak and later with Motorola, who granted her a scholarship for a Master’s degree at Georgia Tech. For the next 17 years, Ms. Pagán worked at Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems in a career that started as Systems Engineer and ended as a Business Developer Manager in charge of teams throughout all of Latin America. During this tenure Glenisse proved her impeccable integrity, leadership, analytical prowess and ability to work in a matrix organizational structure.
 
In 2011 Glenisse refocused her energy by offering personal and business consulting for clients in the construction, legal, retail and philanthropy sectors.  She is the co-founder of Harimau Conservation, a nonprofit focused on empowering communities through conservation and education programs in Indonesia and Puerto Rico. Harimau won the Innovation prize at Fundación Banco Popular’s hackathon for developing a tool that calculates the contribution made by natural resources to an economy. Of note is Harimau’s significant contribution to Puerto Rican communities devastated by Hurricane María in 2017 through the installation of 41 water purification towers.
 
Glenisse has been a consultant to NetHope, a humanitarian organization working with the community-based initiative of Information as Aid. In 2018, she began working as Chief Operating Officer for Filantropía Puerto Rico (then called Foundation Network of Puerto Rico) and in 2019 she was named its Executive Director.

Rebeca Vicens

Strategic Initiatives Director

Rebeca Vicens is a registered architect with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design from the University of Puerto Rico and a master’s degree in Architecture from Virginia Tech. Her professional practice has ranged from residential renovations, low-income housing and participatory design processes, to cultural and educational projects centered on the arts and the physical environment. She has worked with numerous nonprofits as project architect, manager and coordinator on initiatives such as art and educational exhibitions, community organizing around public space conservation, and low-income housing construction. 
 
In 2009, she founded the nonprofit organization Transformando Nuestro Entorno, a platform to raise awareness about topics related to the preservation and responsible development of Puerto Rico’s physical environment. 
 
As Strategic Initiatives Director for Filantropía Puerto Rico, Rebeca identifies, strategizes and puts into operations initiatives that advance the organization’s mission of increasing and expanding philanthropic efforts in Puerto Rico to achieve greater impact. Key projects under her leadership include the FORWARD Puerto Rico Fund, a pooled fund that supports nonprofit organizations that advocate for an equitable recovery of the layered crises facing the island; and the Housing Action Dialogue, a working group for funders to learn together, strategize, and align efforts around issues of housing and land security.

Anjanette Paonessa

Operations Oficial

Anjanette began her professional career at Pao’s Carpet & Furniture, a family-owned purveyor of luxury furniture, and rose through the organization to become its General Manager in charge of operations, budgets and sales teams, and of developing marketing and sales strategies. 
 
With a background in Business Administration and Interior Design, Anja spent time in Miami working with Aquazzura Firenze, an Italian luxury shoe retailer, who in 2015 promoted Anja to the retail manager position of its New York City flagship store where she managed sales teams, was responsible for store performance, and identified opportunities for brand awareness and positioning.
 
In 2017, Anja felt the need to be part of Puerto Rico’s recovery and returned to the island to work with Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency & Financial Advisory Authority. This experience made her aware of the nonprofit sector’s crucial role in the betterment of social and economic conditions and, soon after, she became Filantropia Puerto Rico’s Operation Officer.

Keep track of our moves