Senior Staff

Sharon Greenberger

President & CEO

Sharon Greenberger is the 10th President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York, New York City’s leading health and wellness nonprofit organization. Annually, the Y serves a diverse population of more than half a million children, adults, and seniors through programs and services that empower youth, improve health, and strengthen community. With 24 branches throughout the five boroughs, the Y connects active, engaged New Yorkers to build stronger communities. 

Under her leadership, the Y has focused on reimagining programs and services to meet communities’ most pressing and ever-changing needs. Recent initiatives include expanding teen programming, addressing citywide aquatics safety, and providing greater access and assistance to all New Yorkers seeking to improve their personal health.

Prior to joining the YMCA, Sharon spent more than 20 years in the private and public sectors working to improve New Yorkers’ health and livelihood and promote the development of New York City. She has served as Senior Vice President, Facilities and Real Estate at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, COO of the NYC Department of Education, and President of NYC’s School Construction Authority.

Sharon received her bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and holds a master’s degree in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mel Tse

Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer

As the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Mel Tse provides strategic leadership to the operations of 24 YMCA of Greater New York branches serving children, adults, and seniors through programs and services focused on empowering youth, improving health and strengthening community. Mel has devoted his career to strengthening the diverse and multicultural communities of New York City and as a lifelong resident, he understands the importance of responding to local community needs with an unwavering commitment to quality and excellence.

Mel began his Y career in 2002 as a Senior Program Director and has had the privilege of leading the organization in the roles of Associate Executive Director, Executive Director, Senior Executive Director, Vice President of Operations and Interim Chief Operating Officer. Throughout his Y career, he has been responsible for program development and evaluation, board and staff development, fundraising, financial management, and capital development. Among his accomplishments, Mel provided leadership to the design and opening of a new Aquatics center at the Prospect Park YMCA as well as the Coney Island YMCA, Northeast Bronx and La Central branches.

Prior to the YMCA, Mel spent 10 years in various leadership positions with Hudson Guild, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the City of New York Parks and Recreation. Mel has a Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education from Hunter College and is a proud husband and father to three of his own Y kids.

Michael Guarino

Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer/Treasurer

Michael Guarino provides administrative and operational leadership to the YMCA of Greater New York. Prior to his current position, Michael was the Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee. Previously, Michael has served as Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. A career YMCA professional, Michael has held numerous high-level leadership positions and has served as a member of each organization’s management team.

Michael holds a BS in Financial Accounting and an MBA, both from the University of New Haven. He is a member of No Bats Baseball, a charitable organization that promotes sports to underprivileged children worldwide.

Elizabeth Bergin

Senior Vice President, Research, Evaluation, & Strategy

Elizabeth joined the YMCA in 2016, bringing with her extensive experience in data analysis, the creation of efficient processes, and the identification of industry best practices. She previously worked with New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Elizabeth has also held various leadership roles with the New York City School Construction Authority and the New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation.

Elizabeth received her B.A. from Texas A&M University and earned her M.P.A from George Washington University.

Joseph Chan

Senior Vice President, Real Estate & Property Management

Joseph has over two decades of experience in community and economic development. Joseph has served for five years as Executive Vice President, Real Estate and Public/Private Partnerships at Empire State Development (ESD), New York State’s chief economic development agency. During his tenure, he oversaw the agency’s large-scale public/private development projects and priorities.

From 2006 to 2011, Joseph was the founding president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a nonprofit local development corporation. Under his leadership, the company promoted and advanced the growth of downtown Brooklyn, New York City’s third largest central business district. Previously, Joseph served for four years as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development in the New York City’s Mayor Office during the Bloomberg administration. He also has held leadership positions in the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Local Development Corporation of East New York.

In 2008, Joseph was named one of Crain’s New York Business’ "40 Under 40." The following year, he received the NYU Wagner School of Public Service Torch Award for Distinguished Young Alumni.

Anthony Escobar

Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer

As the Chief Development Officer, Anthony Escobar provides leadership of all fundraising initiatives and activities tailored to engaging the YMCA’s individual, corporate, and foundation donors.

Anthony previously spent more than 20 years as a fundraising professional at universities and non-profit organizations in New York and Los Angeles. Most recently, Anthony served as Associate Dean of External Affairs for the UCLA School of Law where he led the school in achieving a record-breaking fundraising year in FY19 with close to $33 million in funds raised and surpassing their overall campaign goal of $150 million six months early (part of the university’s $4.2 billion campaign). Before joining UCLA, Anthony served as executive director of development and interim chief development officer at WNET, the flagship PBS station in New York. In those roles, Anthony co-led a team of more 70 development, marketing, and communications professionals, playing a vital role in the organization's success in raising more than $175 million over two years.

He previously served as a major gift officer at Cornell University's College of Engineering, helping to raise more than $30 million annually as part of university’s historic $5 billion comprehensive campaign. Earlier in his career, he was director of development, planning, and administration for NYU's Polytechnic Institute and assistant director of alumni relations at NYU's Steinhardt School of Education. His broad experience has included fundraising work with individual donors, corporations and institutions; development of advisory boards; designing and launching alumni relations and alumni outreach initiatives; creating new awards programs and alumni-related events; and overseeing marketing and communications staff. He earned his bachelor's degree from NYU.

Ronnie Tucker

Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

Veronica “Ronnie” Tucker joined the YMCA of Greater New York in June 2019 and is responsible for building and leading YNYC’s Marketing and Communications team. She has a 25-year plus track record of integrating marketing strategy into digital content, traditional and social media, creative and partnerships.

Prior to joining the Y, Ronnie was the Senior Vice President, Marketing and Digital, at New York Road Runners (NYRR) where she was responsible for managing all branding, communications and revenue generating initiatives around NYRR’s 50+ annual events, including the TCS New York City Marathon, as well as digital products and youth and community programs. She established NYRR’s first ever brand strategy and led the creation of the new TCS New York City Marathon brand identity and multiple marathon advertising campaigns, resulting in year over year brand growth. Her team launched NYRR’s youth brand identity, Rising New York Road Runners, impacting over 250,000 kids nationwide and handled all marketing and branding duties around the NYRR RunCenter, a community running center located in mid-town, New York City. As the leader of NYRR’s content team, Ronnie built out the digital and social media team; created a content marketing strategy; and prioritized communications across the key channels of web, social, mobile, and email, bringing social media to the forefront of NYRR’s community driven communications strategy.

Before NYRR, Ronnie worked on the agency side of the business where she managed client account teams and delivered strategic planning and integrated programming for client businesses. Additionally, she was senior director of partnership marketing at the USTA, managing annual partnership marketing activity for all professional tennis events in the United States, including the US Open and US Open Series. Prior to that, she was the director of brand marketing at InBev USA, where she oversaw the development of national marketing strategies for such brands as Rolling Rock, Labatt Blue and Beck’s. She has also managed marketing planning and activations for other large client accounts such as IBM, Pepsi and Chase Bank.

Ronnie and her husband, Kirk, live in Connecticut and have two children. She is a long time hockey mom and can be frequently found at a college hockey rink on the weekend.

Jim Trocchia

Senior Vice President, Human Resources

Jim Trocchia oversees benefits, compensation, HRIS, employee relations, recruitment, staff development and compliance for the Association.

Jim began his career with the YMCA in October 2006 as Director of Benefits & Compensation. He managed the Association’s employee benefits and compensation programs while ensuring compliance with the Department of Labor, IRS and ERISA regulations. During this time Jim coordinated the implementation of the HR and the benefit self-service modules in CONNECT. Also under Jim’s leadership, a new transit benefit, supplemental short term disability plan and full-service Employee Assistance Program (EAP) were introduced Association wide. In July 2010, Jim was promoted to Senior Executive, Benefits & Compensation.

Prior to joining the YMCA, Jim was employed as a Consultant with Unique Management Solutions (UMS) and provided guidance to organizations with their benefits and compensation programs. In addition, Jim was employed with Atlantic Bank of New York as an Assistant Vice President, managing the Bank’s benefits, variable compensation and executive compensation programs. Jim has additional leadership experience in the benefits and compensation field while working with About.com and Doubleday Direct, Inc. Earlier in his career, Jim was a Defined Contribution Plan Administrator specializing in pension plans, with William Mercer, Inc.

Jim holds a BS in Economics, with a concentration in Marketing, from Siena College.

Sharon Levy

Senior Vice President, Public Affairs

Sharon Levy is the Vice President for Public Affairs and assists in the oversight of all aspects of public affairs and public policy, including government relations and government funding.

Sharon began her career at the YMCA as the Associate Director of Government Relations in January of 2000 and was promoted to Director within one year. She left the YMCA in 2003 to become chief of staff for Parks, Public Works and Partnerships for the Nassau County Executive and returned to the YMCA as a public affairs consultant in 2005. Prior to joining the YMCA, Sharon held staff positions within all three levels of government: U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the New York State Governor and the New York City Council.

Sharon has a BA in political science and communications from the City University of New York at Queens College and a Masters in Public Administration from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.

Michael Palladino

Chief Information & Technology Officer

As the Chief Information & Technology Officer, Michael Palladino provides vision, leadership and support for the development and implementation of information technology initiatives and solutions for the Association. Michael has more than 13 years of progressive experience in the technology field, most recently with Prepaid Ventures, LTD.  As the Information Technology Director at Prepaid Ventures, LTD, he was responsible for driving the transformation of a startup marketing company with 8 employees to an 80-plus employee, well-recognized, multimillion dollar Fintech company with PCI Level 1 status, while spearheading the development of approximately 100 new software applications.