Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 2
CB Rank (Person) 311,849
  • Gender Female

Elyse Cherry is Chief Executive Officer of Boston Community Capital, and President of its affiliates, Boston Venture Fund, Aura Mortgage Advisors and NSP Residential. Ms. Cherry helped found Boston Community Capital in 1984 as a member of its original Board of Directors. Since then, Ms. Cherry has been integrally involved in the development and

growth of Boston Community Capital from a start-up organization to what is, today, a national model for community investment.

During Ms. Cherry’s fourteen-year tenure as CEO, she has spearheaded two successful rounds of aggressively implemented strategic planning and has grown assets under management by a factor of more than thirty-five. Under her leadership, Boston Community Capital has grown from a single, debt-based business line to a multi-tiered organization that includes two double bottom-line venture funds, a national tax credit program, a mortgage brokerage, a mortgage lender aimed at stabilizing urban neighborhoods, a real estate acquisition entity, and an alternative energy initiative focused on controlling utility costs in multi-family affordable housing developments. Among other activities, BCC now has invested more than $900 million in low-income communities, has financed more than 14,800 affordable housing units and 1.5 million square feet of commercial real estate in distressed communities, has invested in more than twenty companies, and has created or preserved more than 4,000 jobs.

Since 1992, Ms. Cherry has served on the boards of directors of more than a dozen privately held companies including Pilgrim Insurance Company, Zipcar, and Acelero Learning. In addition, Ms. Cherry is an active civic leader. She is a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Foreclosure Impacts Task Force, appointed by Governor Deval Patrick, and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. She serves on the Board of The Forsyth Institute, the Dean’s Council of Northeastern University Law School, the Mission Driven Investment Committee of the Kellogg Foundation, and the external Board of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University.

She served as a member of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s nineteen-member statewide transition team. She is a recent past Chair of both the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Mass Equality, an organization dedicated to the establishment and protection of civil marriage for the GLBT community. She has also served as Vice Chair of Opportunity Finance Network, a national organization of community development financial institutions. Ms. Cherry is a frequent panelist and speaker at national conferences. She is also an avid traveler, particularly in the developing world.

Ms. Cherry is an attorney and a former partner at the law firm of Hale and Dorr, now known as Wilmer Hale, where her transactional practice focused on commercial real estate finance and development. In 1992, Ms. Cherry left Hale and Dorr to become Vice President and Counsel of SRB Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation. She subsequently served as CEO of Earthwide Products Corporation, an investment fund targeting environmental businesses. Early in her career, Ms. Cherry served as a field examiner at the New England region of the National Labor Relations Board and as a VISTA volunteer in rural Tennessee. Ms. Cherry is a graduate of Wellesley College (1975) and the Northeastern University School of Law where she delivered the student commencement address. MA Licensed Loan Officer (NMLS # 649173).

Number of Current Jobs 5
Number of Past Jobs 1
Elyse D. Cherry has 5 current jobs including Chair of the Board at The Forsyth Institute, Director at Selectech, and Chief Executive Officer at Boston Community Capital. Additionally, Elyse D. Cherry has had 1 past job as the Director at Zipcar.
Organization Name  
Title At Company  
Start Date  
End Date  
Zipcar
Director20012005
Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 2
Elyse D. Cherry holds 2 board and advisor roles as Member, Board of Directors at The Boston Foundation and Board Member at The Forsyth Institute.
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