Chief Executive Officer

Markita Morris-Louis (Lou-wee), Esq. proudly serves as Chief Executive Officer for Compass Working Capital, a national nonprofit engaging in systems change through policy advocacy, direct service by pairing asset building opportunities with financial coaching, and capacity building for other asset building organizations; all to end asset poverty for families with low-incomes and to narrow the racial and gender wealth divides. Markita’s leadership is focused on centering equity in every aspect of Compass’ work, leveraging asset building as a pathway out of poverty, and amplifying the voices of those Compass serves to shift narratives about communities experiencing poverty. Prior to becoming CEO, Markita was Compass’ founding Chief Strategy Officer, leading the organization’s national strategy for scale and impact.

Before Compass, Markita served as Interim Executive Director of the Arts + Business Council for Greater Philadelphia where she brought a data and outcomes-driven framework to the organization’s work connecting Philadelphia’s business and arts communities to grow the region’s creative economy. Markita gained significant financial capability experience while serving as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Clarifi, a nonprofit housing and financial counseling agency. At Clarifi, Markita led a team of financial and housing counselors serving 15,000 clients annually and built and managed multiple strategic alliances and partnerships.

Before Clarifi, Markita spent a dozen years in roles related to real estate law, economic justice, impact litigation and community development, including several years advocating for fair lending, housing and employment practices and supporting affordable housing transactions. Markita has served on numerous nonprofit and community-based boards. Markita was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to serve as Vice Chair of the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts Board which funds organizations providing free civil legal services to Pennsylvanians. She previously chaired the Affordable Housing Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh and is currently on the Board of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, serving as Chair of the Policy Committee. In 2023, Markita was appointed to serve on the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Markita has been featured in local and national media and has spoken at national conferences on issues ranging from racial disparities in homeownership to social determinants of health. For her service to the Greater Philadelphia community, Markita was honored as a Woman of Distinction by the Philadelphia Business Journal and has been named a Social Mobility Innovator by the Social Innovations Journal. She was also honored by Lutheran Settlement House with its Women of Courage Visionary Leader Award and received the Advancing the Field Award by Regional Housing Legal Services for her work in affordable housing. Markita was most recently named to the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Power 100 list. 

A proud native of North Philadelphia and raised in subsidized rental housing, Markita is a daughter, wife, mother of Black sons, and mentor, and holds degrees from Brown University and New York University School of Law and studied at the University of Natal in Durban, Republic of South Africa. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Markita believes that “the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

Chief Strategy and Impact Officer

Christy Garcia joined Compass in July 2024 as the Chief Strategy and Impact Officer. She has over two decades of experience driving business growth and enhancing innovation capabilities across various sectors. Christy has a proven track record in strategizing and implementing high-impact projects, designing transformative programs, and leading successful innovation initiatives. Her extensive experience includes roles as a Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, Director at Framingham State University Entrepreneur Innovation Center, Founder, and Executive Director of Catalyze Innovations (NGO), and CEO and Founder of ABGI Brasil, the most renowned Innovation Consulting firm in Latin America. Christy holds a degree from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (BRAZIL) and an MBA from FDC (BRAZIL). In 2020, she completed her Fellowship at the renowned Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation (USA).

Chief Program Officer

Moriah joined the Compass team in January 2016 and assumed the role of Chief Program Officer in August 2023, overseeing the strategy, execution, and long-term planning for Compass' financial coaching and asset-building programs nationwide. Previously, she served as Director of Programs, Multifamily, in which she directed Compass’ strategy to scale partnerships with multifamily housing providers in order to increase access to our programs. Her professional experience includes direct client service and legal advocacy for low-income families in housing and family law matters. She has done advocacy on a state and national level to increase access to the justice system and social services for limited English proficient individuals. Moriah’s volunteer experience includes tax return preparation with Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and youth development work.

Moriah speaks Spanish and is learning Haitian Creole. She received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Loyola University Chicago and a Master of Business Administration from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. Moriah is an Accredited Financial Counselor. She is passionate about social justice issues and the role of the private sector in creating positive social change.

Chief Financial & Administrative Officer

JaLynne joined Compass in June 2022 as Chief Financial & Administrative Officer. JaLynne first became a CFO in 2016. JaLynne has had a life-long love affair with finance after reading a general business and accounting book she found in her grandmother’s house at the age of 9. She has spent the majority of her 20-year career in non-profits with increasing responsibility including overseeing the accounting function, human resources, business planning, grants management and IT.

JaLynne has also been a champion for equity and a culture builder in her previous organizations. Moreover, JaLynne sees herself as someone who “thinks outside the box” and she is looking to support Compass in our scale objectives and to serve as an enterprise leader.

In her spare time, JaLynne is either walking around Kirkland's Home Store. Or hosting brunch for family and friends.

Chief External Affairs Officer

Jimmy Stuart is the Chief External Affairs Officer at Compass Working Capital, a nonprofit engaging in policy advocacy, direct service, and capacity building to end asset poverty for families with low incomes and narrow the racial and gender wealth divides. He has spent most of his career with Compass, helping to grow the organization from a local provider of savings and financial coaching programs in Greater Boston to a national leader in the asset-building field, particularly for families living in HUD-assisted housing. In his role, Jimmy oversees the organization’s fundraising, marketing and communications, and policy efforts.

Jimmy started his career in education, including time as a community organizer in Baltimore where he worked with the local affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation to win groundbreaking public investments to update the city’s public school facilities. He earned a B.A. with a concentration in History from the College of the Holy Cross.

He lives near Boston with his husband and two sons. His parents live next door - it’s a great situation. Housing is (too!) expensive, so Jimmy spends a lot of time at home to maximize his investment, where he can mostly be found lounging, cooking, and gardening.

MD, MBA

Affiliation: Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer, Boston Medical Center
Current term: Sep. 2023 - Aug. 2026
Board member since: 2020

Thea James, MD, is Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer at Boston Medical Center, and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine. She also serves as the Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Mission, and Director of the Violence Intervention Advocacy Program (VIAP) at Boston Medical Center. Thea is a founding member of the National Network of Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Advocacy Programs (NNHVIP). In 2011 she was appointed to Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence.

As Vice President of Mission, Thea works with caregivers throughout BMC. Additionally, she has primary responsibility for coordinating and maximizing BMC’s relationships and strategic alliances with a wide range of local, state, and national organizations including community agencies, housing advocates, and others that partner with BMC to meet the full spectrum of patients’ needs. The goal is to foster innovative and effective new models of care that are essential for patients and communities to thrive. Integrating upstream interventions into BMC’s clinical care models are critical to achieving equity and health in the broadest sense.

Thea has chaired and served on national committees within the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), served as a moderator, and has given public lectures and talks. She was appointed to the SAEM Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Task Force, is a member of the Boston University School of Medicine Admissions Committee, and in 2009, Thea was appointed to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, where she presently serves as Chair of the Licensing Committee. She is the 2008 awardee of the Boston Public Health Commission’s Mulligan Award for public service, and a 2012 recipient of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Role Model Award. She received The Boston Business Journal Healthcare Hero award in 2012 & 2015. She was 2014 recipient of the Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Award. The Boston Chamber of Commerce awarded Thea with the Pinnacle Award in 2015, which honors women in business and the professions.

Thea’s passion is in public health, both domestically and globally. She is a Supervising Medical Officer on the Boston Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MA-1 DMAT), under the Department of Health and Human Services. She has deployed to post 9/11 in NYC, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, Bam, Iran after the 2003 earthquake, and Port-Au-Prince, Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. Thea travelled to Haiti with MA-1 DMAT one day after the 2010 earthquake.

A graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine, Thea trained in Emergency Medicine at Boston City Hospital, where she was a chief resident.

MD, MBA

Affiliation: Vice President of Affordable Housing and Consumer Empowerment, Housing Partnership Network
Current term: Sep. 2022 – Aug. 2025
Board member since: 2016

Meaghan McCarthy is Vice President of Affordable Housing and Consumer Empowerment at the Housing Partnership Network (HPN) where she oversees HPN’s work on homeownership and economic empowerment, including housing counseling, homeownership development and finance, and economic empowerment and mobility.

Meaghan joined HPN in 2019 after four years at MassHousing, where she worked in Rental Business Development originating loans and on design and implementation of a subordinate debt program. Before joining MassHousing, Meaghan was a budget and policy analyst on the Senate Appropriations Committee overseeing a variety of federal housing and community development programs. Meaghan started her career at the Children Defense Fund.

Chief Executive Officer

Markita Morris-Louis (Lou-wee), Esq. proudly serves as Chief Executive Officer for Compass Working Capital, a national nonprofit engaging in systems change through policy advocacy, direct service by pairing asset building opportunities with financial coaching, and capacity building for other asset building organizations; all to end asset poverty for families with low-incomes and to narrow the racial and gender wealth divides. Markita’s leadership is focused on centering equity in every aspect of Compass’ work, leveraging asset building as a pathway out of poverty, and amplifying the voices of those Compass serves to shift narratives about communities experiencing poverty. Prior to becoming CEO, Markita was Compass’ founding Chief Strategy Officer, leading the organization’s national strategy for scale and impact.

Before Compass, Markita served as Interim Executive Director of the Arts + Business Council for Greater Philadelphia where she brought a data and outcomes-driven framework to the organization’s work connecting Philadelphia’s business and arts communities to grow the region’s creative economy. Markita gained significant financial capability experience while serving as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Clarifi, a nonprofit housing and financial counseling agency. At Clarifi, Markita led a team of financial and housing counselors serving 15,000 clients annually and built and managed multiple strategic alliances and partnerships.

Before Clarifi, Markita spent a dozen years in roles related to real estate law, economic justice, impact litigation and community development, including several years advocating for fair lending, housing and employment practices and supporting affordable housing transactions. Markita has served on numerous nonprofit and community-based boards. Markita was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to serve as Vice Chair of the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts Board which funds organizations providing free civil legal services to Pennsylvanians. She previously chaired the Affordable Housing Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh and is currently on the Board of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, serving as Chair of the Policy Committee. In 2023, Markita was appointed to serve on the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Markita has been featured in local and national media and has spoken at national conferences on issues ranging from racial disparities in homeownership to social determinants of health. For her service to the Greater Philadelphia community, Markita was honored as a Woman of Distinction by the Philadelphia Business Journal and has been named a Social Mobility Innovator by the Social Innovations Journal. She was also honored by Lutheran Settlement House with its Women of Courage Visionary Leader Award and received the Advancing the Field Award by Regional Housing Legal Services for her work in affordable housing. Markita was most recently named to the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Power 100 list.

A proud native of North Philadelphia and raised in subsidized rental housing, Markita is a daughter, wife, mother of Black sons, and mentor, and holds degrees from Brown University and New York University School of Law and studied at the University of Natal in Durban, Republic of South Africa. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Markita believes that “the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

Affiliation: Senior Advisor for Economic Mobility and Opportunity, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell Founder, Compass Working Capital
Current term: Jan. 2023 – Aug. 2026
Board member since: 2023

Sherry is a Senior Advisor for Economic Mobility and Opportunity to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. In this capacity, she is responsible for supporting the development of a coordinated strategy to leverage the tools of the office to advance economic mobility for residents across the Commonwealth, especially for families and communities at the intersection of poverty and structural racism.

Prior to joining Attorney General Campbell’s office, Sherry founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer for 17 years of Compass Working Capital (“Compass”). In 2005, she launched Compass with an initial cohort of ten families in Roxbury, MA and grew the organization to become a national nonprofit organization that is working to end asset poverty for families with low incomes and to narrow the racial and gender wealth divides.

Under Sherry's leadership, Compass launched and expanded an innovative asset-building model for the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, an employment and savings program for families who receive federal housing assistance. The first model of its kind in the country, the Compass FSS program has attracted national attention as a scalable, evidence-based model to promote economic mobility and financial security for families with low incomes.

Sherry founded Compass after more than a decade working with various direct service organizations, including several years as the Executive Director of a transitional housing shelter for women in Seattle, WA. During this time, Sherry observed first-hand the cycle of poverty that traps many women and their families. These experiences shaped Sherry’s vision for and commitment to building an organization that invests in and partners with families to build assets as a pathway out of poverty.

Sherry received an A.B. from Princeton University, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Master's in Philosophy (Ecumenics) from Trinity College Dublin.

Affiliation: Executive Vice President of Marketing, Associated Industries of Massachusetts
Current term: Sep. 2023 - Aug. 2026
Board member since: 2023

Karen Wallace is an accomplished strategic business leader with experience in the financial services, higher education, arts, and non-profit sectors. She is currently the Executive Vice President of Marketing for Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), the Commonwealths’ premiere business trade organization.  

Prior to her role at AIM, Karen ran her own marketing consulting firm where she worked with such clients as Northeastern University and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She also spent 20+ years leading highly effective teams at Fidelity Investments in B2B, B2C, and corporate marketing environments developing business strategy, and executing award winning campaigns. Her last role was Senior Vice President of Communications and Branding. 

Karen is personally passionate about all things related to economic inclusion and financial literacy. As a result, in addition to leading AIM’s marketing function, she has a primary role in the operations of AIM’s supplier diversity initiative; AIM Business Connect. She also has run financial literacy programs in the Boston faith-based community. 

Karen holds a BS, and MBA, from Simmons University, as well as certificates from Tuck School of Business and MIT Sloan School of Management. She is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Boston Children’s Chorus, an organization that leverages the power of music to connect diverse communities and inspire social inquiry. She is also a member of the National Black MBA Association and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.

Affiliation: Vice President, Development, FD Stonewater
Current term: Sep. 2023 - Aug. 2026
Board member since: 2023

Mrs. Heather Wellington is Vice President, Development at FD Stonewater, a boutique real estate brokerage investment, development, and asset management firm. In this role, she provides project management leadership and oversight for development projects nationally.

Mrs. Wellington is an institutional commercial real estate professional with over 15 years of extensive development experience in commercial real estate development and asset management. Her extensive development experience includes overseeing all aspects of the development process, including acquisition, entitlement, design, and construction management, for mixed-use, residential, office, retail, and hotel projects in urban environments. She has managed new construction, base building renovations, and tenant improvements of more than 3 million square feet of space in excess of $750 million.

Mrs. Wellington earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Marketing from The George Washington University and a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from The Colvin Institute of Real Estate Development at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Vice Chairwoman of the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency, President of the African American Real Estate Professionals of D.C., and an active member of the Urban Land Institute.