Laurie Sprayregen, President
Laurie Sprayregen is President of Thanks To Scandinavia. Laurie is the daughter of Richard Netter, who along with Victor Borge, founded TTS in 1963.
Laurie Sprayregen is actively involved with several philanthropic organizations in New York. She is a Vice President at the Jewish Board, one of the largest nonprofit mental health and social service agencies in the US. She has been a Jewish Board trustee for over 30 years, and has actually been involved with the agency since 1980. Within the Jewish Board, Laurie is the chairman of the Community Cares Committee which provides direct mental health services to many of New York’s most vulnerable New Yorkers.
Laurie also serves on the Board of Trustees of Guild Hall of East Hampton, a museum, performing arts, and education center. She is a founding member, and recent co-chair, of the Advisory Board of WFUV.org. WFUV is the noncommercial, member-supported public media service of Fordham University. She recently joined the board of The Shield Institute. The Shield Institute enables children and adults with intellectual and developmental challenges to lead full, meaningful lives. Laurie is also a member of the Directors Circle of ISCP, an artist residency program in Brooklyn.
A graduate of Cornell University, Laurie lives in New York and East Hampton with her husband, Phil Sprayregen. Laurie and Phil have two grown children, and a grandchild who also live in New York.
Kim Larson, Vice President
Kim Larson has dedicated her career to promoting healthy lifestyles through a variety of organizations from safer farm practices (Board Director, Rodale Institute) to school lunchrooms (Founding Board Member of the Coalition for Better School Food) to promoting more access for urban children to outdoor places (Special Advisor to Children and Nature Network). She also serves as Vice President of the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation dedicated to educating visiting international journalists about conflict resolution across racial and ethnic divides.
A graduate of UC Berkeley with Honors in Urban Studies focusing on Urban Agriculture, she holds a master’s degree from the Elliot School of Public and International Affairs at George Washington University in Science, Technology and Public Policy.
An outdoor enthusiast, Kim has cycled across America, summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, hiked across England and led numerous cycling and hiking trips to Europe and Latin America.
She lives in DC with her husband Gary Knell and together they have 4 grown children.
Ellen Rachlin, Treasurer
Ellen Rachlin is a partner at Blue Leaf Ventures. Prior to joining Blue Leaf, Ellen was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Before joining JPM in 2012, Ellen worked for 10 years at Mariner Investment Group, LLC as the lead Portfolio Manager for their Fund of Funds products. In that role, Ellen oversaw the investment and risk management processes and also served on the firm’s Investment Committee. Previously, Ellen worked in a variety of different capacities at several Wall Street firms, including Citibank, where she traded fixed income arbitrage, and SG Warburg, where she managed fixed income sales into the Americas. She has written several chapters for financial textbooks edited by Frank J. Fabozzi on economics and investment management, as well as other articles for finance journals, including The Journal of Investing. She holds an A.B. economics degree from Cornell University, an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University.
Ronda Lubin, Secretary
Ronda Lubin is a Chief Financial Officer at XO Capital LLC, which is based in Los Angeles and New York City. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and graduated from Brooklyn College with a BS in accounting. After earning her CPA certificate while at an accounting firm specializing in high net worth individuals, Ronda went on to pursue an MBA in finance from The Wharton School.
Ronda is married and lives in New York City. She is the proud mother of three accomplished sons – Miles, Eric & Todd – who live in the New York City area.
David J. Bloch
David Bloch is a strategic and experienced executive dedicated to growing the returns and impact and stewarding the operations, governance, and legal affairs of alternative investment platforms, family offices, operating companies, and charitable institutions. He has served as a general partner, general counsel, and investment committee member of Valedor Partners, a private equity and growth equity firm, and at a family office investing across public and private markets. He was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Apart from his work for Thanks To Scandinavia, David is a Foundation Fellow at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, whose endowment investment committee he chairs, and is a trustee of Future, a UK educational charity. He holds an AB from Amherst College, an MPhil from the University of Oxford, and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Anbjorg Knutsson
Anbjorg Knutsson is currently working as a consular officer at a foreign mission in New York City. Most recently, she worked as the interim general manager/director of hospitality at the Norwegian Church and Cultural Center in New York. Before moving to New York from Norway in 2016, she worked with refugee resettlement.
In 2018, she received her MPA from New York University where she focused on international policy and management. Previously, she studied political science with a concentration in Middle East politics at the American University in Cairo and SOAS, University of London.
Anbjorg is very excited to serve as the Alumni Ambassador on the TTS Board of Directors, having received a TTS scholarship for the 2017-18 academic year. She resides in Murray Hill where she lives with her husband. In her spare time, Anbjorg loves to explore New York City, travel, read, hike and volunteer.
Rebecca Neuwirth
Rebecca Neuwirth is Executive Director of Define American, where she is committed to humanizing immigrant narratives in our culture as part of building strong communities across lines of difference and expanding democratic agency. With a career spanning leadership roles at Upwardly Global, the Center for Popular Democracy, JDC, and AJC, she has a track record of creating innovative campaigns and programs and deep partnerships that support equitable growth. Currently serving on the Board of Thanks To Scandinavia and the Advisory Board of the Jewish Studies program at Baruch College, Rebecca also volunteers in New York to ensure the arts are available to all students and to foster connection in her neighborhood through community dinners, intergenerational chess programs, and a new garden. She has been trained through Rockwood, Resetting the Table, 2164, and through a DAAD-Fulbright scholarship. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her family in New York and Berlin, hiking, biking, and reading with friends.
Nancy Petschek-Kohn
Nancy is an experienced Holocaust and Anti-Bias Educator/Facilitator and Human Rights advocate. She has been the director of the Louise and Arde Bulova Juvenile Anti-Bias Education Project in Westchester County, NY, a collaboration of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and the Anti-Defamation League. She was also a trainer for American Jewish Committee’s “Hands Across the Campus” curriculum, helping to bring the program and train teachers in the US and Germany; and has also been a trainer for the ADL’s “A World of Difference” program. Nancy designs and facilitates workshops to fit the needs of schools and other community or corporate settings.
With a Czech partner, Nancy conducted interviews of Czech survivors of Theresienstadt and created an educational project called “Children & Artists of Terezin”.
Ms. Petschek-Kohn holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from American University. She also sits on the Boards of American Jewish Committee (for which she is a team leader for the Czech Republic Diplomatic Outreach team); and the Anti-Racist Alliance. She was on the Board of Westchester Jewish Community Services for 20 years.
She is married to Stephen Kohn, and has three adult children: Rebecca, Julia, and David.
Amir Shaviv
Amir Shaviv is the Assistant Executive Vice-President for Special Operations of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the Rescue and Relief Arm of the American Jewish community. Established in 1914, JDC now operates in some seventy countries, originating and managing humanitarian programs helping Jews and non-sectarian populations.
Shaviv is a 35- year veteran of JDC, he participated in the planning and execution of major Rescue operations of JDC (Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Sarajevo, Kosovo). He traveled extensively visiting and working with Jewish communities across the JDC-world.
Through his global rescue work, he came to appreciate historic circumstance that drove ordinary people to rescue Jews in danger. He joined Thanks To Scandinavia 20 years ago to help its mission to commemorate and reward those extraordinary acts of courage.
Shaviv graduated cum laude from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Political Science and International Relations). Prior to joining JDC, he had a distinguished career as a TV News journalist and editor for Israel Television.
Edward M. Berman, Emeritus
Edward M. Berman is a practicing attorney-at-law, whose firm is Singer Netter Dowd & Berman PLLC, located in White Plains, New York. He was a law partner of Richard Netter for decades, and has been a Director of TTS for more than forty years. He is admitted to practice in New York, and before the Tax Court of the United States, the United States Court of International Trade, the Supreme Court of the United States, and other courts.
Ed has been married to his wife, Barbara, for more than 62 years. They have three children (six, including their spouses), as well as 9 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren, all of whom reside in the area. After living in Bedford, New York, for 42 years, they moved to Stamford, Connecticut in 2013 where Ed also serves as a Member of the Board of Trustees of Temple Beth El, and is otherwise active in other organizations.
Ralph M. Freydberg, Emeritus
Ralph M. Freydberg was born and raised in New York City. His parents and Richard Netter enjoyed a warm friendship that began when Ralph was an adolescent. It was from Mr. Netter that Ralph learned of Thanks To Scandinavia, and Ralph has been a “modest contributor” in his own words, over the years.
Ralph went to Horace Mann, Perkiomen Prep, and the University of Virginia. Immediately after college, he joined the family business, which manufactured flexible packaging, and, in 1969, he entered the Financial Services industry and enjoyed a managerial career until his retirement in 2004.
Ralph has been married more than fifty years, and has two children and four grandchildren. He lives in Stamford and Morris, Connecticut, and is a long-time member of The Fairview Country Club in Greenwich.
Kelly Ramot, Executive Director
Kelly Ramot is the Executive Director of Thanks To Scandinavia, a position she has held since 2013. Prior to this, Kelly was with AJC for 12 years in a variety of roles, including the Associate Director of the AJC San Francisco office and the National Program Director of ACCESS, AJC’s new generation program, in AJC’s New York headquarters. Kelly has been committed to serving in the non-profit world for as long as she can remember, both personally and professionally. She is an active volunteer in a number of organizations, including West Side Soccer League and PS 87, and she recently completed a term as Co-chair of the Board of Trustees of The Brownstone School, an independent pre-school in New York City.
Kelly received an MSc from The New School in Nonprofit Management in 2010 and a BA from Colby College in in 1999. A native Texan, Kelly has traveled extensively around the world and lived in Israel for four years. She is married with three children and lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.