MINNEAPOLIS , MN – Scholarship America®, the nation’s leading nonprofit scholarship and educational support organization, is pleased to announce Hazel McNeilage, Mark Madrid and M. Salmon Ravala, Esq. have been elected to its Board of Trustees. 

Hazel McNeilage, Austin, Texas, retired in 2018 after a 30-plus year executive career in financial services, including serving as head of funds management for a large sovereign wealth fund, head of a major investment consulting business and several senior investment management/actuarial roles. She currently serves as a non-executive director of NYSE listed Reinsurance Group of America Inc.  Hazel is an actuary and as a Board Leadership Fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors. She brings a truly global perspective, drawing on executive roles in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, South Africa and Australia. 

Mark Madrid, Redwood City, Calif., is CEO of the Latino Business Action Network (LBAN), which collaborates with Stanford Graduate School of Business to champion the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. Named one of the top Latino leaders in the U.S. by the National Diversity Council in 2018, he previously served as president and CEO of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and as chief operating officer of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  Madrid created the Mark L. Madrid Scholarships, awarded to Latina and Latino business majors at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Notre Dame and Texas State University. He has received numerous awards from the University of Texas at Austin and Notre Dame, as well as the prestigious Jefferson Award recognizing community and public service.

M. Salman Ravala, Esq. is an attorney, arbitrator and mediator at Criscione Ravala, LLP; and an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School.  He is the founder of Dollar-a-Day Scholarship Fund, a member of the Board of Advisors of Islamic Scholarship Fund and chair of the Young Lawyers Friends of the New York Bar Foundation.  He most recently served as the Ariane De Rothschild Fellow for Dialogue and Social Entrepreneurship, a program held in partnership with Columbia Business School and Cambridge University.  Ravala’s civic engagement and community service has been recognized with the American Red Cross Distinguished Service Award, the President’s Call to Service Award and an invitation to speak at the White House.  Believing that education leads to change, hope, progress and opportunity, Ravala is passionate about decreasing the illiteracy rate in Muslim majority countries and throughout America.

 “We are so pleased to have these three outstanding individuals join our board,” said Robert C. Ballard, president and CEO of Scholarship America.  “They each bring a wealth of professional and volunteer experience in the business and nonprofit sectors, as well as a strong personal interest in supporting students in achieving their educational dreams.”