Executive Leadership
Tony Hillery, CEO
Tony Hillery is the Founder and CEO of Harlem Grown. Tony founded Harlem Grown to address the health and academic challenges facing public elementary school students in Harlem. In 2011, Tony began volunteering with a local elementary school and was witnessing first-hand the lack of resources allocated to the schools and the poor nutrition of students. He noticed an abandoned and overrun community garden across the street from the school. Tony rallied volunteers and raised the funds needed to transform the lot into a thriving urban farm, kicking off Harlem Grown’s first-ever growing season. The first year, Tony worked with 400 students to plant 400 seedlings. He watched as students transformed their eating habits and learned skills like patience, teamwork, and responsibility. The first season, they grew 38 lbs of produce. Six years later, in 2017, Harlem Grown has expanded to partner with five local Harlem schools, reached over 4,900 youth, composted over 20,000 lbs of food scraps and grew over 5,400 pounds of fruits and vegetables that are then distributed to families-in-need throughout the community. His work in the community has impacted more than just the youth, Tony has done his part to help transform Harlem community through the power of growing food and building healthy relationships.
Nicole Engel, Executive Director
Nicole Engel is the Executive Director at Harlem Grown and is responsible for leading the development of Harlem Grown’s vision and strategic goals. She was hired to the organization in 2021 by the Board of Directors and since then, has been proud to work in partnership with the Harlem Grown team to grow the organization’s reach by 12x to serve over 12,000 youth annually, through HG’s seven streams of programming and 13 urban farms.
Nicole began her career in the classroom, teaching kindergarten students in Harlem as a Teach for America Corps Member. She went on to join the team at Harlem Villages Academies, a high-performing K-12 public charter school network, as the Director of Education Data and Operations, where she was responsible for developing network-wide systems for collecting, analyzing, and activating internal data to drive academic results. She ultimately served as the organization’s Chief of Staff for five years, where she oversaw the annual budgeting process, working to maximize dollars, talent, and educational programming to deliver network-wide academic performance across the six schools and over 2,000 students. She also currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Guttman College Foundation.
Nicole received her BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and her MS in Childhood Education from Fordham University. She is currently working towards an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School. Nicole lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. She loves to bring her passion for food education home by testing Harlem Grown recipes with her family!
Board of DIRECTORS
Joshua Strugatz, Board Chair, Chief Campus Transformation Officer, White Plains Hospital
Tony Hillery, CEO and Founder, Harlem Grown
Mari Arnaud, MS ED, Bank Street College of Education, MS OT, Columbia University
Andres Casas, Manager WMG Rockies Market, Bank of the West
Adama Diggs, Vice President, Investment Advisor, JP Morgan Chase Private Bank and Wealth Management
Nicole Engel, Executive Director, Harlem Grown
Jenny Flores, Head of Small Business Growth Philanthropy, Wells Fargo Foundation
Jeffrey Iverson, Operating Partner, Eldridge
Edward Norton, Actor & Social Entrepreneur
Eric Anthony Wells, Principal Architect, Warburg Pincus
Yvette Young, Vice President Clinical Operations, PM Pediatrics
have questions? Connect with us
127th West 127th Street, Annex, New York, NY 10027
E: info@harlemgrown.org
P: 212.870.0113