Board of Directors

Sushil K. Tuli has been one of the leading figures in financial services throughout Massachusetts for nearly thirty-five years. Mr. Tuli founded Leader Bank in May of 2002, opening a single branch in East Arlington with seven team members and $6.5 million in assets. Mr. Tuli has guided Leader Bank to become one of the top community banks in the country, with 415 team members across six full service branches and eleven loan production centers, and over $4.6 billion in assets. Since its founding, Mr. Tuli has grown all facets of Leader Bank’s business, with a particular focus on retail banking, residential mortgages and both commercial and small business lending.

Mr. Tuli and Leader Bank have been repeatedly honored for their success over the last decade. Under Mr. Tuli’s leadership, Leader Bank has received both a 5-Star Superior Rating from Bauer Financial in every quarter since 2010 and an “A” or “Excellent” rating from Weiss Ratings every year since 2009. Mr. Tuli also received a New England Choice Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 for his successes in the financial services industry.

Mr. Tuli’s leadership extends beyond his work with Leader Bank, having served in 1999 as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association, the largest mortgage banking industry association in New England. Mr. Tuli is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation and the Board of Trustees for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Mr. Tuli also recently served on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency and was a member of both the Massachusetts Home Ownership Advisory Committee and Fannie Mae’s Affordable Housing Advisory Council. Mr. Tuli is regularly interviewed and quoted regarding his experience in and knowledge of lending and banking in Massachusetts and nationwide, and has been the subject of personal profiles in publications such as the Boston Globe and Banker and Tradesman.

Mr. Tuli received a master’s of public administration in 1975 from Punjab University in India and graduated from the Harvard Business School’s Owner, President and Management Program in 2010. Mr. Tuli was also recognized by Franklin Pierce University in 2018 with an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters for his contributions to the banking industry.

Jay Tuli is President of Leader Bank. Mr. Tuli joined the Bank in 2006, in its 4th year of operations. In the last decade, Leader Bank has become one of the largest residential lenders in Massachusetts, originating $1.75 billion in annual loan volume in 2023. Currently, Leader Bank has grown more than $4.4 billion in assets.

Mr. Tuli focuses on new product development, growth strategy, recruiting, and overall operations of Leader Bank. Through his leadership, he has introduced several successful programs that have helped fuel the Bank’s growth in Residential Lending and Retail Banking including the creation of ZRent and ZDeposit for landlords and property managers, and the spin-out of ZSuite Technologies as an independent fintech. Mr. Tuli has also spearheaded the expansion of the Bank’s footprint into the Boston Seaport area.

Previously, he worked at Revolution Partners, a Boston-based boutique M&A advisory firm, and also at JP Morgan in New York as a member of the Private Bank Structured Investments group. Jay Tuli graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University with a double major in Finance and Technology Management and a minor in Economics. Mr. Tuli earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 2011.

Heather Carrillo is a Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Fidelity Investments. In this role, she is responsible for working with various Fidelity business units to help develop their strategy and to source partnership and acquisition opportunities.

Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Carrillo was dedicated to Equity Capital Markets research and was responsible for analyzing Fidelity’s private company investments. Prior to that role, Ms. Carrillo was a portfolio manager, responsible for managing the Fidelity Export and Multinational Fund. Previously, she served as an analyst, covering technology, banks, and transportation stocks.

Before joining Fidelity full time in 2001, Ms. Carrillo was a sell-side research associate at Morgan Stanley, a private equity associate at Westbrook Partners, and an investment banking analyst at Alex. Brown & Sons. She has been in the investments industry since 1994.

Ms. Carrillo earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the Wharton School and her Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School.

Mr. Conrad is the retired President and CEO of The Cooperative Central Bank in Boston where he served for fifteen years. Mr. Conrad also was an adjunct professor of finance at Bentley University for ten years, with a focus on commercial real estate and secondary mortgage markets.

As part of his leadership of The Cooperative Central Bank, Mr. Conrad oversaw the insuring of state chartered cooperative banks above FDIC limits, and he worked closely with many regulatory agencies, including the FDIC, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Division of Banks. In particular, Mr. Conrad was responsible for monitoring many local banks in times of financial crisis, and he ultimately managed six Massachusetts cooperative banks in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to ensure their continued viability.

Mr. Conrad has also served as a director of the National Cooperative Bank in Washington DC, an OCC regulated institution, where he chaired the audit committee.

Priscilla H. Douglas is the founder and principal of PHDouglas & Associates, a consulting firm that coaches individuals and executive teams to be more skillful at working collaboratively and strategically.

Her professional career includes key executive positions in government, academics, and business, where she was often the first woman and the first African American. Dr. Douglas served as a White House Fellow as a Special Assistant to William H. Webster, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She also served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the Assistant Secretary for Public Safety and the Secretary of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulations. Dr. Douglas held two innovative positions at Xerox Corporation. She led the education and government value marketing team, and also was the principal for Knowledge Sharing Competency, designing and developing a knowledge-sharing curriculum for worldwide implementation that led to ASQC, KM Magazine recognition in this emerging area. At General Motors she worked closely with the originator of the quality movement, Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

Dr. Douglas taught courses in management, leadership, and organizational behavior as an instructor for the master’s program for Harvard University Radcliffe Seminars. She received a Doctor of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Master of Education and Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University. She has published two articles on knowledge sharing and is currently working on an article entitled: “Leadership is a Conversation.”

Dr. Douglas previously served on Leader Bank’s Advisory Board, which was formed in 2004 to review operations and strategic planning for the Bank.

In his most recent role, Mr. Morrison oversaw Fidelity’s investment divisions that collectively managed $2.1 trillion in retail and institutional assets on behalf of individual investors, intermediaries, and institutions worldwide. In addition to overseeing Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMRCo) and the Asset Allocation teams, Mr. Morrison was also responsible for Asset Management’s functional support areas, including operations, product, compliance, technology, investment business development, human resources, marketing, and finance.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Morrison served as president of Asset Management’s Fixed-Income division, a role he held since 2011. Prior to that, Mr. Morrison was in a senior role at Fidelity overseeing several strategic projects for the company. From 2004 to 2009, he served as president of Fidelity’s Money Market division and, from 2002 to 2004, he served as head of Fidelity’s Bond division.

Mr. Morrison joined Fidelity as a corporate bond analyst in 1987. He began managing Trust accounts in 1990 and was promoted to a vice president of Fidelity Management Trust Company in 1992. During this time, he was responsible for managing a variety of short-term, as well as broad-market, bond portfolios. From 1995 to 1997, he managed Fidelity Short-Term Bond Fund, Spartan Short-Term Bond Fund, and Fidelity Advisor Short Fixed Income Fund. Mr. Morrison managed the fixed-income investments for Fidelity Asset Manager, Fidelity Asset Manager: Income, Fidelity Asset Manager: Aggressive, Fidelity Asset Manager: Growth, Fidelity Advisor Asset Allocation, and Fidelity Global Asset Allocation portfolios from 1996 until 2002.

Before joining Fidelity Investments, Mr. Morrison was a bond analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds in New York from 1983 to 1985.

Mr. Morrison earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Dartmouth College in 1983 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1987.

V.G. Narayanan is the Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in Boston, MA. His research interests are mainly in managerial accounting, with an emphasis on control issues in inter-organizational settings and aligning incentives in supply chains. Since Dr. Narayanan’s teaching career began at the Harvard Business School in 1994, he has taught a variety of courses, including Financial Reporting, Measuring and Driving Corporate Performance, Management Control and Performance Measurement. Though Dr. Narayanan studies a range of topics, he brings to Leader Bank his expertise in the study of customer profitability measurements and customer relationship management within the retail banking industry.

Peter Palandjian is the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, overseeing the affiliated operating companies with primary responsibility for Investment Strategy and Institutional Relationships. Prior to joining Intercontinental in 1993, Mr. Palandjian worked as the assistant to the CEO of Staples, Inc. Before joining Staples, Mr. Palandjian was an associate with Bain & Company, an international management consulting firm.

Mr. Silverman is an active entrepreneur and investor in a number of businesses. He is a Founder and General Partner of Eastham Capital, a private real estate investment business based in Newton, MA. He is also a Founder and Partner of Transitions Capital, LLC, a Cambridge, MA-based investment firm with a focus on investments in out-sourced services businesses. Mr. Silverman is also a Principal and Founder of St. James Capital, LLC, a FHA-approved lender specializing in multi-family residential housing financial services. For three years (January 2004 to January 2007) he owned MCMUSA, Inc., a national design/build construction company. And from 1998 through 2001, Mr. Silverman was the President of Aspen Investment Group, Inc. (“Aspen”) working out of Boston, MA. Aspen is a private investment company based in London, England.

Mr. Silverman is also the non-executive chairman of RentGrow, Inc., a company where he served as President from 1995 to 1998. RentGrow provides resident screening tools to the multifamily housing industry. Before joining RentGrow, Mr. Silverman was a Founder and Principal in St. James Mortgage Company, a Fannie Mae-approved residential mortgage banker. From 1991 to 1994, he directed and implemented the company’s retail expansion into Massachusetts and New Hampshire and managed operations in those states. St. James has since spawned Triumph Title, a real estate closing agency in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

In 1986, Mr. Silverman co-founded St. James Financial Corporation, the predecessor and parent of St. James Mortgage Company. At St. James Financial, he advised real estate developers on interest rate risk management. He also worked as a consultant with Recapitalization Advisors, Inc., in Boston, MA, advising real estate developers and owners on the preservation of lower income housing properties through HUD’s LIHPRHA program. Mr. Silverman is also a Vice President of Holtzman and Silverman Construction and Realty, based in Southfield, MI, which is an asset manager of apartment and retail properties. In 2002, he became a founding non-executive director of Leader Bank.

Mr. Silverman graduated from Bowdoin College in 1985 with an AB in Mathematics. In 1991, he earned the degree of Master of Science in Management, with a concentration in Finance, from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is an active alumnus of MIT, where he served as a judge in the $100K entrepreneurship competition for seven years. He is also an active angel investor in a number of businesses and a member of the Hub Angels, LLC investment group. Mr. Silverman is also on the Board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Boston, The Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network, Partners Continuing Care and Julie’s Fund.

Shawn Tuli currently serves as the Chief Investment Officer and Chief Financial Officer of HHM Hotels, a private equity-backed hotel operator with over 200 hotels across North America. Since joining the company in 2010, Mr. Tuli has been instrumental in HHM Hotels' transformation from a family business into a professional services company that caters to global institutions and capital allocators.

In his role at HHM Hotels, Mr. Tuli oversees investment and acquisition strategies, capital raising, business growth initiatives, and finance.  He also serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, contributing seven years of service to the community.