Watertown’s Phyllis Barajas has become a member of the Trustee Advisory Board of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Barajas was appointed as a trustee at BIDMC’s Annual Meeting.
Trustee Advisory Board members serve as advisors to the Board of Directors and officers of BIDMC. Trustee advisors serve on committees of the Board of Directors and identify and involve potential supporters and resources for programs and facilities of the medical center, among other responsibilities, according to an announcement from the medical center.
Barajas founded and serves as chief executive officer of Conexión, a 10-month leadership and executive mentoring experience for mid-career Hispanic-Latino professionals, according to the announcement. In Conexión’s program, executives volunteer to mentor an accomplished midcareer Hispanic-Latino professional one-on-one.
In 1994, she was also appointed by President Clinton as deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education offices of elementary, secondary, and bilingual education. Before her appointment, she served as the first Hispanic-Latino assistant dean for human resources at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the announcement reads.
When she returned to Boston she became national director of human resources at Houghton Mifflin Publishing. More recently, she was a core instructor for the 2012–13 academic year at Boston University School of Management Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
The BIDMC board is just one of many boards on which Barajas serves. Her other roles include:
- a trustee of Eastern Bank
- she previously an overseer and recently became chair of the BIDMC Community Benefits Committee
- she serves on the Board of Overseers of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston
- a member of the Board of Directors of Jobs for the Future
- a member of the boards of the United Way, Boston and Merrimack Valley
Born and raised in Omaha, Neb., the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Barajas now lives in Watertown. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.