Advisory Board

Nick Maschari is director of global business development with APCO Worldwide, and based in the company's corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C.

His responsibilities include developing and executing APCO’s global growth strategy, coordinating with APCO’s global network of offices, strategic partners and affiliates and working closely with global practice groups on client opportunities. While with APCO he has spent considerable time working in the Middle East and Arabian Gulf region, with country-level experience in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman.

Prior to joining APCO, Nick led business development and corporate marketing for Publicis Groupe’s flagship PR agency MSLGROUP, in Washington, D.C., and spent three years with DFS Group Limited, a holding of global luxury retail conglomerate LVMH. While with DFS Group, Nick was based in Hong Kong and responsible for developing and implementing market-entry and corporate development strategies for Mainland China, India, Southeast Asia, Oceania, Japan and the Middle East. He started his career in Cleveland, Ohio with Smart Business Network, a regionally-focused monthly business magazine, where he authored articles on executive management and entrepreneurship.

Bryan Bernys is currently the Vice President for the Campus Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute. The Leadership Institute's mission is to identify, recruit, train and place conservative minded individuals in political, governmental and media positions throughout the country. Before this venture, Bryan served as the New Hampshire Field Director for the McCain 2008 campaign. As one of the first people hired onto the McCain campaign in September of 2006 Bryan worked to re-establish Sen. McCain's presence among New Hampshire voters, hired and trained campaign staff, located and opened a campaign headquarters, and ran the day to day ground operations for the campaign.

In addition to his work with the McCain campaign Bryan also comes to LI with a wealth of campaign experience. He has served as the Field Director for the Tarrant for Senate campaign in Vermont, Campaign Manager for Robinson for Delegate in Virginia, consultant for the Ball for Delegate special election in Virginia, and field staff for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign in Michigan.

While in college Bryan worked for the Carlyle Gregory Company, a political consulting firm in northern Virginia. Working for the Carlyle Gregory Company, Bryan assisted on several campaigns around the country for all levels of public office. He graduated from American University with a bachelors degree in Communications, Law, Economics, and Government.

Ashley has been working with Leadership Initiatives since May 2009. She has spearheaded Leadership Initiatives online educational initiatives creating online training materials for community leaders within the United States, Namibia, Nigeria and the Philippines, SAT training courses for hundreds of US based students and all LI communication and meeting systems. This project has connected US Ambassadors, leaders from Exxon, Darden, PwC, Booze Allen Hamilton, Johnson and Johnson, Wells Fargo and the Pentagon with community leaders across the developing world and created mentor partnership between these highly skilled individuals and high school students across the US.

As Director of Operations for OmniLearn LLC, Ashley has created numerous online tools to drive sustainable success organizationally and individually by managing and measuring tasks, projects, and goals to provide consistent, measurable, predictable performance for prestigious and multi-million dollar organizations such as the Wharton Business School and Sunrise Senior Living.

Ashley hopes to continue to assist Leadership Initiatives in changing lives, developing community leaders across the globe and creating America's future leaders for years to come.

Since 2009, Diana Meacham has served as the Vice President of Verizon's Global Alliance in Reston, Virginia, with Siemens Enterprise Communications. As part of a private firm, she manages 10,000 plus employees in the telecommunications industry. Her experience as a Senior Sales Executive provides her with an extensive experience in global enterprise sales, sales management, global strategic alliances, operations management, strategic planning and business development.

Diana's strengths include the ability to manage complex global customers and partner relationships with a record of consistently exceeding corporate and personal goals. Much of her career allows her to demonstrate an ability to deliver technology solutions and services to multi-national customers, government agencies and global partners. Diana has been helping Leadership Initiatives plan the Gala with Lynsie since its inception and has been able to bring in $2500 Siemans sponsorship for the Gala and over $1000 in gifts for our VIPs from Siemans.

Bill Reese brings more than thirty years of experience in the international development sector to Leadership Initiatives. A graduate of Stanford, and a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow, he has worked for the Peace Corps in such capacities as Director of Brazil operations and Deputy Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Region. Bill also served as President and CEO of Partners of the Americas, promoting international economic and social development for twelve years. Currently Bill has a seat on the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, and is serving as President and CEO of the International Youth Foundation, supporting positive youth development in more than 70 countries and territories.

Professor Stiles currently teaches "Social Entrepreneurship: Leading Social Change" in the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University. She is Executive Director of the CORAL Network, a consortium of local universities in equal partnership with the nonprofits and the city government to direct the wealth of resources of the universities into our community. Stiles also directs DC Youth & Government, a program of the YMCA where college students go into participating high schools, teach civics, and lead a weekend youth simulation of DC government.

Sarah Stiles is a native Washingtonian, studied Spanish at Southern Methodist University, did a master's degree in Spanish literature at New York University in Madrid, completed a master's and PhD in political science at Boston University, and received a law degree from Northeastern University. Before teaching at Georgetown, Stiles was Director of the Leadership Program in the School of Public Affairs at American University.