Sheltering Arms, Georgia’s largest nonprofit early education and child care organization, is pleased to announce the addition of five new members to its board of directors: Michelle Horstemeyer, Nicole Layne, Andrew McConnell, Ursula L. McNeill and Kshipra Pitre.
 
“It is an honor to welcome such highly accomplished leaders of diverse backgrounds and skill sets to the Sheltering Arms board,” said President and CEO Blythe Keeler Robinson. “As we celebrate 130 years of providing high-quality early childhood education and family support services, it is exciting to know that these very capable individuals will bring a unique ability and expertise that will help advance our work to transform the lives of children, families and communities across metro Atlanta.”
 
· Michelle Horstemeyer is division director of Land Development and Entitlement with the Pulte Group (previously John Wieland Homes), where she designs new communities. Michelle has spent her career in the residential construction industry.  Beginning as a builder for John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, Michelle advanced quickly into management and executive roles.  Driven by a passion for homebuilding and place making, she has expanded her expertise into the land planning and development capacities.
 
· Nicole Layne is the senior manager for Interconnected Experience Strategy at The Home Depot. Prior to her position at The Home Depot, Nicole was the director of strategy at Spanx, where she led the strategic planning process.  Nicole was also a consultant with McKinsey & Company, serving clients across a wide range of industries, including retail, telecom, energy, and high-tech. She also worked across a range of functional areas, including general strategy, marketing, organizational strategy, and pricing. Nicole has served as a mentor for Minds Matter, a non-profit that helps underprivileged students prepare for the SAT, the college application process, and college.  She is currently involved with the Elaine Bryan Foundation as a speaker during their career prep sessions for high school students.
 
· Andrew McConnell is chief executive officer at Rented.com, with extensive experience in technology, strategy and organizational effectiveness. At Rented.com, Andrew works with more than 1,000 professional rental managers to ensure that vacation homeowners and property investors get more from their homes: consistent income, professional care, and guaranteed use.  Prior to Rented.com, Andrew worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and a director of managed services at Axiom Global, Inc.
 
· Ursula L. McNeill is a human resources executive with IBM in its Watson and Cloud Platform Division. Ursula has more than 15 years of diverse leadership experience and more than 20 years of progressive HR experience. In her role at IBM, she provides strategic HR leadership to senior executives and their executive leadership teams. Aside from her corporate responsibilities, Ursula helped establish The Lorde-Rustin Giving Circle, a philanthropic group that has contributed over $150,000 to several organizations in the metro Atlanta area since its inception in 2013. In addition to being a founding and executive board member of the LRGC, Ursula also serves on the Board of Trustees for Annandale Village in Suwanee, GA.  
 
· Kshipra Pitre is chief operating officer and senior vice president of Products at InfoTycoon. She is a strategy and transformation leader recognized for delivering results with more than 14 years of global experience in leading transformations in small and medium-sized companies, including transactions, technology implementations, market expansions and product development. She has significant experience in developing cross-functional relationships to bring complex solutions to meet market needs and to increase wallet share.
 
Returning board members include:
 
·         Jeff Kammerer, PricewaterhouseCoopers - Chair

·         Leona Rapelye, UPS Capital - Vice Chair

·         Helen Cease, SunTrust Bank - Treasurer

·         Martha Abbott-Shim, Georgia State University Professor Emerita - Secretary

·         Michael Smith, The Smith Group LLC - Immediate Past Chair

·         Chad Aron, Porsche Cars North America

·         Leah Austin, Southern Education Foundation

·         Ashley Brightwell, Alston & Bird LLP

·         Mark Dvorak, Golin

·         Steve Floyd, August House Publishing

·         Brian D. Granville, Granville Shy LLC

·         Martha Taylor Greenway, Greenway Strategy Group LLC

·         Kevin Hamada, UPS

·         Lori Kaczynski, Graphic Packaging International, Inc.

·         Jill MacRae, Anisa International, Inc.

·         Pegui Mariduena, StarMar Consulting LLC

·         Canditra McLemore, Center for Disease Control and Prevention

·         Julie McNulty, CohnReznick LLP

·         John Mears, Rivers Residential LLC

·         John C. Pelick, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

·         Grant Rivera, Marietta City Schools

·         Yasmin Tyler-Hill, Morehouse School of Medicine