The Project Place community welcomes Joyce Lee as our newest member of the Board of Directors. Joyce was raised in Toronto and has been a resident of the South End for many years. She has a deep and long held passion for addressing issues of poverty and homelessness.
Joyce is excited to be joining Project Place’s board to further advance positive change in her community. She says, “I am impressed with the dedication and impact that the Project Place team has had on the lives of individuals and the community and I am honored to leverage my skills and experience to help support and further drive Project Place’s mission.”
Joyce was trained with BoardServeNYC, a highly regarded United Way program that promotes civic engagement and trains professionals to serve on nonprofit boards. In Toronto, she served on the board of Fort York Food Bank. For the past 5+ years, Joyce has been a very active member on the board of the United South End Settlements. During her service, she helped develop USES’ recent five-year strategic plan. In addition to her regular board duties, Joyce has led two comprehensive CEO evaluations, chaired the Development Committee, served on the Executive Committee and continues to actively support and drive USES’ marketing initiatives.
Professionally, Joyce is an entrepreneur, where she is leveraging her strong consumer marketing and finance backgrounds. She is currently working on a start-up company focused on improving water quality in low-income regions. She previously founded Nibble, which supported emerging, better-for-you snack brands. Prior to the startup world, she ran Marketing and Culinary at Cosi, a restaurant chain; spearheaded the consumer experience program at Unidine, a senior-care focused food service company; and was part of the marketing team that rebranded Bertucci’s, another restaurant chain. She has experience in the consumer products goods industry managing brands for both Welch’s and Colgate Palmolive. Joyce started her career in finance, and for six years, was a trader of complex derivative instruments at firms in Toronto and New York.
Joyce has an undergraduate business and psychology degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago. She also holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Joyce and her husband have three young daughters, who keep them really busy. Joyce enjoys running, biking, hiking and exploring the outdoors with her family. She is also an avid traveler and cannot wait to resume that soon!