Elyse Cherry

Cherry began her career as a VISTA volunteer in Tennessee. She spent the next several years as a field examiner in the New England region of the National Labor Relations Board.^[1]

After earning a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, she joined the law firm of Hale and Dorr (now WilmerHale). For eight years, she focused on commercial real-estate finance and development, for which she was named a partner.^[2]: 114

In 1992, Cherry joined the Plymouth Rock family of insurance companies, where she served as a vice president and counsel of SRB, an investment-management subsidiary of Plymouth Rock Assurance.^[1]

In 1997, she became the CEO of BlueHub Capital,^[3] which she co-founded in 1984.^[4]

Under Cherry's tenure, BlueHub Capital (formerly Boston Community Capital^[5]) has invested more than $2 billion in low-income communities.^[6]

Of note is BlueHub's foreclosure-prevention program, SUN,^[7][8] which Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve, cited as “innovative.”^[9]

Cherry is a member of the Wellesley College Board of Trustees,^[10] the Board of Advisors of Eastern Bank,^[11] Chair of the Board of the Forsyth Institute,^[12] and the Board of Directors of The Boston Foundation.^[13]

Cherry is a former or present member of several privately held company boards, including include Zipcar,^{[citation needed]} Pilgrim Insurance,^[14] Acelero Learning,^[15] Selectech,^[16] and WegoWise,.^[17]

For government agencies, Cherry was the Chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council^[18] and the Foreclosure Impacts Task Force,^[19] to which she was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.^[20]

She previously served on the boards of the nonprofits Opportunity Finance Network,^[21] the Center for New Words, and the Alliance for Business Leadership.^[22]

Cherry is a prominent LGBTQ activist. She has served on the boards of directors and advisory boards of various groups, including GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD),^[4] MassEquality during the organization's successful campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in Massachusetts,^[23] the political action committee LPAC,^[24] and the Boston Foundation’s Equality Fund.^[25] She also co-chaired GLAD’s capital campaign, One Justice Fund,^[26] which raised $1.7 million.^[27]

Cherry is a 1975 graduate of Wellesley College, where she studied political science and from which she received the 2017 Alumnae Achievement Award.^[28] She is also a 1983 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law,^[29] where she delivered the student commencement address.^[30]