The VegFund Team
Board of Directors
Darina Smith
President
back to topDarina brings to VegFund valuable strategic and leadership experience. Based in Chicago, she works in a senior management role at a Fortune 500 company. Alongside her career, she volunteers her time to vegan/animal advocacy. She was named Mercy for Animals' Grassroots Activist of the Year in 2009. She is also among the top leafleters in Vegan Outreach's college outreach program. Presently, she is a Vice President of Justice For Animals, a young Northern Illinois non-profit focused on grassroots outreach as well as a global social media campaign targeting Chinese, Hindi, and Russian speaking users. Darina has been a VegFund Board member since 2009. She is from Slovakia, and speaks multiple languages. She holds an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Matthew Goodwin
Vice President
Matthew, a recent vegan, is working to create more vegan food options in the Boston area and is a co- founder of Peace o' Pie, an all vegan gourmet pizzeria. He toured North America as a member of the documentary film crew for "I'm Vegan". He partnered with Mercy for Animals to launch a successful campaign on Boston’s public transit system. Matthew is the founder and CEO of Ver-Tex CSI, a Boston-based construction company. Matthew is the proud father of a vegan daughter and a regular volunteer at a school in a poverty stricken area of Rio de Janeiro.
back to top
Zia Terhune
Treasurer and Co-Founder
Zia retired at an early age to become a full-time advocate for animals. Although warned that it couldn't be done, Zia has helped over 50 local rescue orgs, sanctuaries, and animal rights groups form an umbrella coalition. She is the founder of Veg4Life Potlucks Gainesville, FL. Under Zia's guidance, she and dedicated volunteers at Veg4Life have been distributing free food at events since 2007.
back to top
Barbara Bingnear
Secretary
Barbara has a degree in business administration and is a longtime vegan. She has managed a deli, given vegan cooking classes, and co-founded the first animal rights organization in Brevard County. Barbara was also president of the Board of Directors of a local community health food store. She resides in Melbourne, FL and is currently Dining Out Coordinator for Healthy Planet of Brevard, organizing vegan dinners with local restaurants throughout the county.
back to top
Miguel Danielson
Board Member
Miguel is an intellectual property attorney, entrepreneur, and long-time vegan with roots in Boston and the Midwest. Miguel co-founded the gourmet vegan pizzeria, Peace o' Pie, and was president of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund while a student at Harvard Law School. Today he represents a multitude of successful technology clients across the country, as well as the occasional vegan food company and non-profit animal sanctuary.
back to top
Ginny Messina
Board Member
Ginny is a dietitian, animal advocate and long-time vegan. She is the author of Vegan for Life and Vegan for Her, as well as author of the first textbook on vegetarian nutrition for health professionals and students. She writes about vegan nutrition on her blog, The Vegan RD, is a frequent speaker at both vegan events and scientific conferences, and has published papers on vegetarian and soy nutrition in medical journals. Ginny taught nutrition to dietetics students at Central Michigan University, was a dietitian for PCRM, and was director of nutrition services for a large medical center in Washington, DC. She lives in Port Townsend, Washington with her husband and an ever-changing population of rescued cats. When she’s not researching and writing about vegan nutrition, Ginny volunteers for her local animal shelter and spay/neuter group, practices piano, gardens, collects vintage kitchen linens and is learning to knit with plant fibers.
back to top
Jody Rasch
Board Member
Jody heads the Social Performance Group at Moody’s Corporation working on projects including microfinance and social investing. He also serves on various advisory boards including the Global Impact Investing Rating Service (GIIRS), Women’s World Banking’s Gender Performance Initiative, the SMART Campaign’s Certification Task Force and Grameen Foundation’s Social Performance Advisory Committee. Prior to this, Jody worked at Moody’s Risk Management Services as part of the training group heading up product training for derivatives and corporate finance and as project manager for RiskCalc a corporate risk modeling product. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2002, Jody owned, for 15 years, a training company that conducted financial training programs for international commercial and investment banks. He also headed the New York derivatives sales desk of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and has worked in the corporate treasury departments of two Fortune 500 companies. Jody has a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and holds an MBA in Finance from New York University. In addition to VegFund, Jody serves on the board of Battery Dance Company. back to top Jody is a long-time vegan and animal advocate.
Staff
Jeff Lydon
Executive Director
Jeff has advocated for animals in personal and professional capacities for twenty-five years. As the former executive director of the Tompkins County SPCA and former executive director of Farm Sanctuary, he brings a strong mix of passion and strategic savvy to VegFund. Jeff focused his post-graduate studies on humane education and earned his MA in Teaching from Smith College. He has published dozens of articles and book chapters on animal rights and other social justice causes, which have appeared in journals such as Satya and The Animals' Agenda. Fluent in sign language, Jeff is also a licensed massage therapist and certified mediator in alternative dispute resolution. Based in Trumansburg, New York, Jeff lives with his family and six companion animals.
back to top
Kimberly Dreher
Programs Director
Kimberly has a M.S. in clinical psychology. When she adopted a vegan lifestyle in 2009, she decided to apply her skills to animal advocacy. She volunteers with a number of animal rights organizations including the Beagle Freedom Project, Vegan Outreach, and Mercy for Animals; has organized multiple feed-ins and vegan outreach events; runs three successful online video outreach campaigns that reach millions of people around the globe; and helped with the Fur Free West Hollywood campaign. Kimberly currently resides in Southern California and is the proud guardian of Pixie, Juniper, Sophie, and Zoey (formerly homeless cats), as well as Freedom and Libby, two beagles who were rescued from an animal testing facility.
back to top
Adam Orand
Visual Media and Technology Director
A life-long entrepreneur, Adam was co-founder of a successful web development firm in the midwest for 8 years prior to settling in the Bay Area to work on behalf of animals. Taking advantage of his business experience and MBA, Adam mentors vegan start-ups, helping them with various operational and marketing goals. In addition to working with numerous non-profits, he has personally rescued dozens of injured animals. His other interests include creating new vegan recipes, travel and outdoor adventures.
back to topAdvisors
Lisa Shapiro
For over 25 years, Lisa Shapiro has been a passionate vegan and animal rights activist. She has been intimately involved with the Natural Products Industry for over two decades. From various positions, she's played an integral role in helping small and start-up companies expand into multimillion dollar enterprises. She's recently launched All Things Vegan to advise vegan businesses on retail and financial issues, including purchasing and manufacturing, marketing and branding, and operations management. Lisa works within profit and non-profits arenas.
back to top
Holly Sternberg
Holly has a B.A. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University, where meeting a friendly baby goat inspired her to go vegan in 1980. She has organized many events promoting kindness and respect for all animals and is co-founder of the Northern-Virginia-based nonprofit group Compassion For Animals. Holly is a supervisor at the National Captioning Institute, providing closed-captioned TV shows for hearing-impaired viewers.
back to top
