March 4, 2010 — Boston Center for Community and Justice, which helps to foster socially responsible leaders, has named Gisele M. Michel as its executive director, succeeding Todd Fry who will stay on at the nonprofit, returning to his previous position of program director.

Michel brings 20 years of experience in strategic management and communication, organizational development, program promotion, community, and external relations to Boston Center for Community and Justice.

Most recently, she was founder and president of Icatalyst, LLC, a full service coaching and management consulting firm specializing in helping individuals and businesses optimize leadership and peak performance. In that role, she worked with clients, including the Department of Transitional Services in the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services to troubleshoot complex problems and develop visionary plans for their success.

Michel has also served as interim executive director and director of development and external relations for the Irish Immigration Center in Boston. She was also director of the Community Outreach Partnership Center at Florida International University

Michel is a multilingual, multicultural professional with a longstanding commitment to social justice issues as well as expertise in executive and leadership coaching, capacity building, and mediation and conflict resolution. She is a certified coach through the California and NLP Coaching Institute of San Francisco. Twice, Michel was a member of the National Planning Committee for the White House Conference on Small Business in Washington, DC. She also is former co-chair of the City-Wide Dialogues on Boston's Ethnic and Racial Diversity.

Michel has an undergraduate degree in international relations from George Washington University and a master’s degree with a concentration in East European studies and political economy from the University of Pittsburgh. She currently is a graduate lecturer in the graduate program of leadership management at Northeastern University.

Founded in 2005, BCCJ develops and networks socially responsible leaders. BCCJ runs LeadBoston, a leadership development program for adult professionals, InIt, for high school youth, as well as the Business Network for companies interested in advancing their corporate social responsibility strategies.