Event Details
- Thank you for joining us on Friday, January 31, as we hosted our 2025 Pinnacle Awards Luncheon.
- The Pinnacle Awards are a highly anticipated celebration of the powerful women who are changing Greater Boston through leadership excellence in entrepreneurship, management, and lifetime achievement.
Tickets
- See pricing below.
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About the Event
The Pinnacle Awards has been an unprecedented, premier event, championing and honoring Greater Boston’s dynamic female leaders for their contributions to the workplace and their commitment to community. Greater Boston’s women in business are leading the region and world forward – with their influence and impact, they are building the industries and places that fortify the pillars of commerce. Every year, more than 1,200 attendees, including elected officials, business innovators, and next-gen leaders, convene to recognize and celebrate the achievements of our honorees.
ABOUT THE WOMEN’S NETWORK
In our Women’s Network, you’ll find a diverse group of more than 3,000 (and growing) women and male allies at all levels of their careers, from all backgrounds, sectors, and industries, and professions, with energy for ensuring that Greater Boston becomes the best place for professional women to thrive.
For 30 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
ABOUT THE WOMEN’S NETWORK
In our Women’s Network, you’ll find a diverse group of more than 3,000 (and growing) women and male allies at all levels of their careers, from all backgrounds, sectors, and industries, and professions, with energy for ensuring that Greater Boston becomes the best place for professional women to thrive.
For 30 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
Questions? Contact us.
Danielle Dorey
Senior Director, Programs
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
2025 Pinnacle Honorees
Grace Cotter Regan
President, Boston College High School
Achievement in Arts & Education –
Grace Cotter Regan is a mission-driven leader dedicated to advancing Jesuit, Catholic education. Since 2017, she…Read more
Achievement in Arts & Education –
Grace Cotter Regan is a mission-driven leader dedicated to advancing Jesuit, Catholic education. Since 2017, she has served as the first female President of Boston College High School, a Jesuit, Catholic institution for boys in grades 7-12. Grace brings extensive expertise in education, leadership, and philanthropy. Guided by Ignatian values, her tenure has focused on strategic growth, financial sustainability, academic excellence, pastoral care, and fostering a community rooted in diversity and belonging. Her leadership has propelled the historic 125 million Illuminating Excellence Campaign, ensuring BC High’s mission endures for generations. Grace’s career began as a Jesuit Volunteer teaching in Belize, reflecting her lifelong commitment to service and the Society of Jesus. Before joining BC High, she served as Head of School at St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, MA, where she successfully increased enrollment and led a successful strategic Building Futures capital campaign. Her experience includes advancement and alumni leadership roles at Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, and the NE Jesuit Province. Grace is actively engaged in the broader educational community, serving on the National Board of the Jesuit Schools Network, AISNE, The Valedictorian Project, and as Vice Chair of America Media’s Board of Directors.
Grace Cotter Regan is a mission-driven leader dedicated to advancing Jesuit, Catholic education. Since 2017, she has served as the first female President of Boston College High School, a Jesuit, Catholic institution for boys in grades 7-12. Grace brings extensive expertise in education, leadership, and philanthropy. Guided by Ignatian values, her tenure has focused on strategic growth, financial sustainability, academic excellence, pastoral care, and fostering a community rooted in diversity and belonging. Her leadership has propelled the historic 125 million Illuminating Excellence Campaign, ensuring BC High’s mission endures for generations. Grace’s career began as a Jesuit Volunteer teaching in Belize, reflecting her lifelong commitment to service and the Society of Jesus. Before joining BC High, she served as Head of School at St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, MA, where she successfully increased enrollment and led a successful strategic Building Futures capital campaign. Her experience includes advancement and alumni leadership roles at Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, and the NE Jesuit Province. Grace is actively engaged in the broader educational community, serving on the National Board of the Jesuit Schools Network, AISNE, The Valedictorian Project, and as Vice Chair of America Media’s Board of Directors.
Kim Driscoll
Lieutenant Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Achievement in Management – Government –
Kim Driscoll is the 73rd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was sworn in on January…Read more
Achievement in Management – Government –
Kim Driscoll is the 73rd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was sworn in on January 5, 2023, joining Governor Maura Healey in an historic series of firsts: Governor Healey is the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person elected Governor of Massachusetts, and together, Healey and Driscoll are the first all-women executive team to lead Massachusetts. Driscoll was elected the City of Salem’s first woman Mayor in 2006, taking office at a time when the community was struggling with record deficits, poor financial management, and a declining bond rating. As Mayor, she turned deficits into record surpluses and saved taxpayers’ money by strengthening city services, revitalizing Salem’s downtown, leading a vast improvement in Salem’s k-12 schools, reforming city pensions and health insurance programs to protect employee benefits, bidding public contracts, and bringing transparency to City Hall. Working collaboratively with state officials and local partners, Driscoll secured sizable public and private investments, including a new MBTA train station, a state courts complex, senior center, ferry and waterfront port at Salem Wharf, and positioned Salem as the primary marshaling port for the forthcoming Commonwealth Wind project that will serve residents across Massachusetts and New England, establishing the City as a national leader in the offshore wind sector. From passing one of the first fully-inclusive LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinances in Massachusetts, to securing major investments in veterans’ benefits, standing up for immigrants’ rights, and enacting one of the first age-friendly action plans certified in the Commonwealth, Salem under Driscoll’s leadership has been – first and foremost – an inclusive community that welcomes everyone. A proud mother of three children who attended Salem Public Schools, Driscoll chaired the Salem School Committee as Mayor. She helped push for collaboration and strategies to improve Salem’s schools and for added investments to support teachers and students. Under her leadership, Salem became one of the first communities in Massachusetts to adopt the expansion of free, high-quality early education opportunities starting at age four. The daughter of a Navy chef from Lynn and an accountant’s assistant from Trinidad, Driscoll spent her childhood in a number of states, before attending Salem State University where she studied government and became a stand-out athlete on the women’s basketball team. Like so many Salem State students, she fell in love with Salem and made it her home after graduation, pursuing a career in municipal government, and married her college sweetheart, a second-generation union bricklayer. Beginning with a position as the City of Beverly’s Community Development Director after college, Driscoll embarked on her long career of service to municipalities and went on to earn her law degree from the Massachusetts School of Law. Before becoming the Mayor of Salem, Driscoll served as the City of Chelsea’s Chief Legal Counsel and Deputy City Manager, and also served on the Salem City Council. Exemplified by her extensive and successful career in local government, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll is focused on working with Governor Healey to create a forward-looking Commonwealth and communities that work for, empower, and include all who call Massachusetts home, as well as those who aspire to do so.
Kim Driscoll is the 73rd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was sworn in on January 5, 2023, joining Governor Maura Healey in an historic series of firsts: Governor Healey is the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person elected Governor of Massachusetts, and together, Healey and Driscoll are the first all-women executive team to lead Massachusetts. Driscoll was elected the City of Salem’s first woman Mayor in 2006, taking office at a time when the community was struggling with record deficits, poor financial management, and a declining bond rating. As Mayor, she turned deficits into record surpluses and saved taxpayers’ money by strengthening city services, revitalizing Salem’s downtown, leading a vast improvement in Salem’s k-12 schools, reforming city pensions and health insurance programs to protect employee benefits, bidding public contracts, and bringing transparency to City Hall. Working collaboratively with state officials and local partners, Driscoll secured sizable public and private investments, including a new MBTA train station, a state courts complex, senior center, ferry and waterfront port at Salem Wharf, and positioned Salem as the primary marshaling port for the forthcoming Commonwealth Wind project that will serve residents across Massachusetts and New England, establishing the City as a national leader in the offshore wind sector. From passing one of the first fully-inclusive LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinances in Massachusetts, to securing major investments in veterans’ benefits, standing up for immigrants’ rights, and enacting one of the first age-friendly action plans certified in the Commonwealth, Salem under Driscoll’s leadership has been – first and foremost – an inclusive community that welcomes everyone. A proud mother of three children who attended Salem Public Schools, Driscoll chaired the Salem School Committee as Mayor. She helped push for collaboration and strategies to improve Salem’s schools and for added investments to support teachers and students. Under her leadership, Salem became one of the first communities in Massachusetts to adopt the expansion of free, high-quality early education opportunities starting at age four. The daughter of a Navy chef from Lynn and an accountant’s assistant from Trinidad, Driscoll spent her childhood in a number of states, before attending Salem State University where she studied government and became a stand-out athlete on the women’s basketball team. Like so many Salem State students, she fell in love with Salem and made it her home after graduation, pursuing a career in municipal government, and married her college sweetheart, a second-generation union bricklayer. Beginning with a position as the City of Beverly’s Community Development Director after college, Driscoll embarked on her long career of service to municipalities and went on to earn her law degree from the Massachusetts School of Law. Before becoming the Mayor of Salem, Driscoll served as the City of Chelsea’s Chief Legal Counsel and Deputy City Manager, and also served on the Salem City Council. Exemplified by her extensive and successful career in local government, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll is focused on working with Governor Healey to create a forward-looking Commonwealth and communities that work for, empower, and include all who call Massachusetts home, as well as those who aspire to do so.
Avana Epperson-Temple
President, Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association
Emerging Executive –
Avana Epperson-Temple serves as the President of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA), a non-profit organization dedicated…Read more
Emerging Executive –
Avana Epperson-Temple serves as the President of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within the legal field while advocating for systemic change to promote justice and equality in our communities. In addition to her role as MBLA President, Avana is a litigation and trial attorney focusing her practice on business litigation, professional liability, and insurance coverage disputes. She has successfully defended cases through trial and verdict in state court and has argued cases before the Massachusetts Appeals Court. In 2022, she was appointed to the Business Litigation Session Advisory Committee by the Massachusetts Superior Court. Avana also serves as faculty for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. Her additional appointments include serving on the boards of Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest homeless services organization, and the Anti-Defamation League New England Regional Board, a civil rights organization focused on combating antisemitism and all other forms of hate. She also provides pro bono counsel through the Women’s Bar Foundation’s Family Law Project, representing survivors of domestic violence.
Avana Epperson-Temple serves as the President of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within the legal field while advocating for systemic change to promote justice and equality in our communities. In addition to her role as MBLA President, Avana is a litigation and trial attorney focusing her practice on business litigation, professional liability, and insurance coverage disputes. She has successfully defended cases through trial and verdict in state court and has argued cases before the Massachusetts Appeals Court. In 2022, she was appointed to the Business Litigation Session Advisory Committee by the Massachusetts Superior Court. Avana also serves as faculty for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. Her additional appointments include serving on the boards of Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest homeless services organization, and the Anti-Defamation League New England Regional Board, a civil rights organization focused on combating antisemitism and all other forms of hate. She also provides pro bono counsel through the Women’s Bar Foundation’s Family Law Project, representing survivors of domestic violence.
Rachel Felix
SVP, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer, Boston Medical Center Health System
Achievement in Health Care –
Rachel Felix has spent her twenty-five year career as a brand strategist across various roles in healthcare, media, and…Read more
Achievement in Health Care –
Rachel Felix has spent her twenty-five year career as a brand strategist across various roles in healthcare, media, and consumer packaged goods. Rachel currently serves as the first SVP and Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at Boston Medical Center Health System, where she is focused on growth across all audiences from patients to community partners to donors, which all intersect at BMC’s equity mission. Rachel works to more holistically understand and communicate with these audiences, strategically build deeper relationships and advance critical initiatives such as the Health Equity Accelerator, and ultimately deliver greater impact, access, and outcomes to patients. She brings expertise from her previous role as the Vice President and Head of Brand Management at Mass General Brigham where she led integration, rebrand, and awareness efforts across the largest healthcare system in New England. Informed by her marketing insights research, Rachel launched MGB’s first global and local brand awareness and service line campaigns to position the new brand. Rachel led the visual identity roll out across all fifteen hospitals, entities, and additional outpatient centers, and spearheaded brand architecture and policy work to further define and protect the system brand. She also led enterprise-wide marketing solutions and creative services supporting the 80K employee system and largest private employer in the state of Massachusetts. Prior to healthcare, Rachel was Senior Vice President, Marketing, Content Distribution & Business Development at ViacomCBS (now Paramount). In this role, Rachel was responsible for ViacomCBS’s portfolio strategy and messaging, new business, communications, client experience, internal culture, post-merger operations, and DEI. In her fifteen-year career at ViacomCBS, Rachel marketed brands with a broad spectrum of audiences including Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, and CBS, and navigated an ever-evolving content distribution landscape consisting of traditional, virtual, digital, social, mobile and direct-to-consumer platforms. Rachel spent her early career in consumer packaged goods for both Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble where she held various roles in brand management and sales. Throughout her experiences, Rachel has proven to be an agent of change, leading visionary transformation at large scale. She takes a consumer-first approach and is passionate about serving diverse audiences in particular. Rachel received a B.B.A. from the University of Michigan and her M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is also an alumni of NAMIC’s Executive Leadership Development program at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. An NYC transplant, Rachel is on the Board of Directors at The New Commonwealth Fund, PRX, and Women’s Lunch Place, and she co-founded Boston’s most diverse, and Dorchester’s first porch music festival, Dorchfest. She resides in Dorchester, Boston, with her husband, two children, and father.
Rachel Felix has spent her twenty-five year career as a brand strategist across various roles in healthcare, media, and consumer packaged goods. Rachel currently serves as the first SVP and Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at Boston Medical Center Health System, where she is focused on growth across all audiences from patients to community partners to donors, which all intersect at BMC’s equity mission. Rachel works to more holistically understand and communicate with these audiences, strategically build deeper relationships and advance critical initiatives such as the Health Equity Accelerator, and ultimately deliver greater impact, access, and outcomes to patients. She brings expertise from her previous role as the Vice President and Head of Brand Management at Mass General Brigham where she led integration, rebrand, and awareness efforts across the largest healthcare system in New England. Informed by her marketing insights research, Rachel launched MGB’s first global and local brand awareness and service line campaigns to position the new brand. Rachel led the visual identity roll out across all fifteen hospitals, entities, and additional outpatient centers, and spearheaded brand architecture and policy work to further define and protect the system brand. She also led enterprise-wide marketing solutions and creative services supporting the 80K employee system and largest private employer in the state of Massachusetts. Prior to healthcare, Rachel was Senior Vice President, Marketing, Content Distribution & Business Development at ViacomCBS (now Paramount). In this role, Rachel was responsible for ViacomCBS’s portfolio strategy and messaging, new business, communications, client experience, internal culture, post-merger operations, and DEI. In her fifteen-year career at ViacomCBS, Rachel marketed brands with a broad spectrum of audiences including Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, and CBS, and navigated an ever-evolving content distribution landscape consisting of traditional, virtual, digital, social, mobile and direct-to-consumer platforms. Rachel spent her early career in consumer packaged goods for both Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble where she held various roles in brand management and sales. Throughout her experiences, Rachel has proven to be an agent of change, leading visionary transformation at large scale. She takes a consumer-first approach and is passionate about serving diverse audiences in particular. Rachel received a B.B.A. from the University of Michigan and her M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is also an alumni of NAMIC’s Executive Leadership Development program at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. An NYC transplant, Rachel is on the Board of Directors at The New Commonwealth Fund, PRX, and Women’s Lunch Place, and she co-founded Boston’s most diverse, and Dorchester’s first porch music festival, Dorchfest. She resides in Dorchester, Boston, with her husband, two children, and father.
The Criteria for Nominations
- Demonstrated leadership that has made a tangible, positive difference within her organization
- Demonstrated a commitment to enhance the quality of life in her community
- Nominee’s company must be a current member of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce (with exception of the Government category)
- Nominations for the 2025 Pinnacle Awards are now closed
Agenda
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11:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. | Registration & Networking
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12:00 p.m.- 1:30 p.m. | 2025 Pinnacle Awards
Award Categories
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Achievement in Entrepreneurship
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Achievement in Management (3 Awards)
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Achievement in the Professions
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Achievement in Health Care
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Achievement in Arts and Education
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Emerging Executive
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Lifetime Achievement
A Look Back At Last Year – 2024 Pinnacle Awards
The 30th annual Pinnacle Awards in-person ceremony at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport on January 26th, 2024.
Sponsors
Presenting Sponsors
Supporting Sponsors
Past Honoree Sponsors
Media Partner
Event Host
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Press and Media
Accessibility
The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce encourages persons with disabilities to participate, and engage fully, in its programs and events. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation, including but not limited to, listening devices, closed captioning, large print, wheelchair access, allergies and environmental sensitivities, please let us know so that we can accommodate. If you have any questions about the venues, event formats, or virtual platform, please contact us at chamberprograms@bostonchamber.com.