Andy Mercy ’85
Luis A. Ubiñas ’78
“Angel Points gives corporations the opportunity to give back through community service.”
“All of us need to understand that graduating from AllenStevenson brings responsibility.”
Andrew S. Mercy graduated from Allen-Stevenson in 1985. His family was engaged in many philanthropic endeavors and giving back to the community was very much a part of his early years. Andy learned the same lesson about giving back at school, feeling that there was always a real sense of caring at Allen-Stevenson which has followed him through his life. He graduated from Phillips Andover Academy and Macalester College, holds an M.A. from the University of Colorado, and received a doctoral fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley. After a number of years in the investment banking and business development worlds, he founded Angel Points in 2001, thus combining his commitment to helping others with his expertise in the business and software markets. Angel Points is a volunteer management software product that gives companies the ability to increase and track employee volunteerism and community engagement. It enables employees, as well as employers, to learn new skills, work with a collaborative model, and provide significant corporate exposure in the community. It also allows corporate managers, employees and executives to improve their volunteer impact and increase corporate responsibility - thus having an enormous positive effect on society. By serving the community, Angel Points gives a corporation the opportunity to create value for the business and its stakeholders. With web-based CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) solutions, companies can expand their capacity to make social investments. Angel Points has helped companies improve their CSR initiatives in a way that makes business sense. Beginning in his living room, Andy's vision is now a thirty person business serving 3,000,000 employees at over 100 companies around the world. Last year, Angel Points clients tracked over $85 million in services. Andy has clearly created a unique model that helps volunteers address major issues that are best served by the private sector. Andy's varied experiences include living in Senegal, Africa, studying rural farming practices, teaching skiing in Colorado, and spending 40 nights on an Alaskan glacier. His dedication to community service includes leading adventure-based wilderness trips for high-risk youth and sponsoring a student at University of California, San Francisco. Andy, his wife Molly, and their three children live in Mill Valley, California.
These words from Luis Antonio Ubinas '78, the 2008 graduation speaker, mirror the path that he has chosen in life. After graduating from Allen-Stevenson, Luis went on to study at the Collegiate School. He earned an AB (magna cum laude) at Harvard College where he was named a Harry S. Truman Scholar and a John Winthrop Scholar. As an undergraduate, he also studied at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and earned a certificate in Latin American Studies from Harvard. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. Early on in his career, he also interned as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. Luis spent 18 years at the global management consulting firm of McKinsey and Company, both in Boston and San Francisco where he advised Fortune 500 media, telecommunications and technology companies on major strategic and operating challenges. He also founded McKinsey's Latino group to recruit, mentor, and enhance diverse talent at the firm. In California, he was active with the United Way of the Bay Area in San Francisco. His other pro-bono efforts included work with the After-School for All Partnership in Boston and Family Services of Greater Boston. Luis, the son of a Puerto Rican family that had immigrated to New York before he was born, came to Allen-Stevenson from the South Bronx. He was able to gain many scholarships and loans that made his extraordinary education possible. As he said to The New York Times, “Access to educational opportunities changed my life.” And, in talking to our graduates, he stated, “…this School invested in me, invested time, money and patience in helping me get up to speed.” Clearly, this investment has had a far-reaching effect. In January of 2008, Luis Ubinas became the President of the Ford Foundation, overseeing $13 billion in assets. He says of his new career, “Moving my family back here to New York and leaving my 20-year career in business was a hard decision. Yet, in the end, I decided to come here and to the job at Ford because I felt I had a responsibility to use the power that Allen-Stevenson built in me and to fight injustices.” Luis and his wife, the former Deborah L. Tolman, live in New York City with their sons, Max and Ben. His speech to the Allen-Stevenson graduating class of 2008 can be found on page 30.
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