Staff
Georgianna Meléndez, Executive Director
Robert Turner, Senior Advisor
Georgianna Meléndez, Executive Director
Contact: georgianna.melendez@umb.edu; 617.287.4875
As the executive director of Commonwealth Compact, Georgianna Meléndez is successfully fulfilling its initiative to establish Massachusetts as a world leader in diversity and inclusion. She brings to this position a wealth of leadership experience in nonprofit and public administration positions impacting various Massachusetts communities. She has served as the assistant commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance; the executive director at Casa Myrna Vazquez, New England’s largest domestic violence services agency; the executive director at RESPOND in Somerville, a domestic violence agency serving Metro-Boston; a board member for Citizens for Adequate Housing on the North Shore; the board chair for Harbor COV (Communities Against Violence) in Chelsea. She also has the role of senior fellow for the Emerging Leaders Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Center for Collaborate Leadership. She has served as a member of the fundraising committee for the North Shore Christian School in Lynn, MA. She currently serves on the Finance Committee for Girls, Inc. in Lynn MA and has recently been appointed to the WBUR Community Advisory Board.
Georgianna Meléndez has been recognized several times for her outstanding service and leadership. In 2006, she was named one of the Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40. The following year, she was appointed to Governor Patrick’s anti-crime council. The 2010 Puerto Rican Festival Committee named her one of the 50 most influential Puerto Rican women in Massachusetts. In January 2012, she was named a “Drum Major for Justice” by the Town of Danvers’ Diversity Committee. And, most recently, she was featured in a leadership anthology, Voices of the Future, written by an alumnus of the Emerging Leaders Program.
In 2012, Meléndez completed a master’s degree in public affairs at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies where she also was recognized for Distinguished Public Service. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Bentley College studying English and cultural studies.
Contact: robert.turner@umb.edu; 617.287.5579
Robert Turner joined the McCormack Graduate School community as the Boston Globe Fellow in 2007, the same year he helped launch Commonwealth Compact.
He spent the majority of his career at the Boston Globe serving as State House Bureau chief and assistant city editor, columnist (1979 – 1994), chief editorial writer (1994 – 2000), and deputy editor of the editorial page (2000 – 2007).
Turner has been a visiting professor at Northeastern Graduate School of Journalism and Stonehill College, and served as a study group leader several times at his alma mater, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
He is the author of two books, Dukakis; An American Odyssey (with Charles Kenney) published by Houghton Mifflin in 1987 and I’ll Never Lie to You: Jimmy Carter in his Own Words published by Ballantine Books in 1976.
His commitment to the community is evidenced in his service on many advisory boards and committees over the past three decades. They include the Bench-Bar Committee of the Massachusetts Bar Association, Boston Globe Foundation Advisory Board, Architecture Boston Magazine Advisory Board, Milton (MA) Library Foundation Board, WriteBoston Advisory Board, and We Are Boston Advisory Board.
Turner earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Columbia College and an MPA from Harvard University.
