People
At Starboard Leadership Consulting, we recognize that our true strength lies in the collective talent and dedication of our team members.
We firmly believe that fostering a collaborative and supportive team culture is essential for delivering exceptional client service and driving success. We invite you to meet the individuals who embody our values of integrity, collaboration, and innovation. Each face you encounter represents a commitment to excellence and a passion for making a positive impact within organizations.
Mary Budd
President
Mary Budd
President
Mary Aselton Budd joined Starboard Leadership Consulting as managing director in 2018 and has served as president since 2022. Known for her energetic and insightful approach, Mary has successfully spearheaded numerous executive searches, cementing her reputation as a highly effective consulting partner for nonprofit organizations in leadership transitions. Her expertise extends to strategic planning, culture building and communications, and board and staff training; and she is a certified facilitator in the Everything DiSC® leadership development model. Mary approaches every project with curiosity, listening between the lines to help identify the core issues and support sustainable growth.
Prior to joining Starboard, Mary led Penobscot Theatre Company in Bangor for seven years, first as Board President and then as Executive Director. In these roles, she developed and executed a bold strategic plan that revitalized the nonprofit regional theatre. Her leadership was instrumental in achieving financial stability, programmatic growth, expanding audience reach, and implementing significant capital improvements. Mary’s earlier career was rooted in the education reform sector. She consulted with organizations nationwide working to support teachers and close the achievement gap, including EdisonLearning, Ascend Learning, Leeds Global Partners and the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Mary began her journey as a political appointee in the U.S. Department of Education in Washington and later served as a senior aide for Massachusetts Governor William Weld.
A dedicated community advocate, Mary contributed five years to the City of Bangor Commission on Cultural Development, including two years as its chair, and she was previously elected to the Bangor School Committee. Mary grew up in Downeast Maine and graduated from Dartmouth College. She is an avid reader, enthusiastic skier, and slow runner. She feels lucky to be living in the Golden Age of Television and still thinks dinner and a movie is a great date night. She and her husband love to travel and they have three interesting adult children.
Paul Howe
Vice President
Paul Howe
Vice President
Paul joined Starboard Leadership as Vice President in January 2024. He is a Maine lawyer with 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience and a master’s focused on organizational resilience and risk management. Paul’s areas of expertise include fundraising, nonprofit management, human resources and labor relations, business development, strategic planning, board relations, government affairs and global humanitarian programs and strategy.
Community is important to Paul. He currently serves as President Elect for the Maine Planned Giving Council, Board President for the Maine Multicultural Center and Board Chair for North Star Christian School. Paul enjoys supporting various community-based organizations and is also a member of the Maine Advisory Committee for the US Global Leadership Coalition.
Paul served as CEO of a US-operated hospital in Ethiopia, led an international humanitarian organization in Sudan and represented all 51 of the international humanitarian organizations then operating in Sudan, with a total of more than 3,000 staff and more than $300 million in annual operations. Along the way he negotiated with striking employees, mediated legal disputes between religious groups, led lifesaving programs in the middle of a civil war and helped nonprofits and their populations of concern navigate armed conflict, mass displacement and climate change.
Paul did strategic planning and business development for Florida Hospital (now Advent Health) during a period of rapid expansion. Most recently, he served as Director of Planned Giving for the Northern Light Health Foundation, co-leading a strategic planning process and building a multimillion dollar planned giving program. Paul also led the Resilience and Sustainability workgroup of Northern Light Health’s Climate Health Team.
Maine is Paul’s home. He grew up in Freeport and lives in Hampden with his wife and four young children. Paul is a mediocre violist, an optimistic whitewater canoeist and enjoys exploring Maine’s untrammeled wilderness with family and friends.
Mike Hyde
Consulting Partner
Mike Hyde
Consulting Partner
Mike Hyde offers more than 40 years’ experience in nonprofit management to clients of Starboard Leadership Consulting. Mike’s expertise includes board relations, strategic planning, fundraising, communications, and government affairs. He has assisted boards to restructure themselves and to adopt best governance practices. He has guided organizations, large and small, through the strategic planning process, and along the way he has raised more than $350 million in support of those plans for the institutions he has represented.
Mike came to Starboard from The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he served as Vice President for External Affairs and Strategic partnerships. In this role he helped to build an understanding of the Laboratory and its programs among key constituencies and represented the organization in policy discussions at various levels of government. He secured the approval of the Connecticut legislature for a $291 million expansion of the Laboratory into that state. He also managed the reorganization of the board of trustees and reshaped the Lab’s branding and communications programs.
Before joining the Laboratory in 2006, Mike served in senior management positions at Oberlin College, Allegheny College, and Alfred University. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Missouri, Columbia.
Mike has served as a member of the Board of the Maine Biomedical Research Coalition and as a member of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. He is currently a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Southern Maine. He and his wife Vivian live in Trenton, Maine. They have three grown children.
Keri
Lyle
Consulting Partner
Keri Lyle
Consulting Partner
Keri joined Starboard in 2022 and brings a decade of coaching experience alongside 15 years in corporate HR. She is a native Mainer and University of Maine at Orono alumna, and “boomeranged” back after a long stint in the Bay Area.
Keri spent the majority of her corporate career at Google where she led large-scale change management and strategic initiatives including the company’s global location strategy and return-to-office. She also advised executives as an HR business partner where she gained direct experience in talent acquisition, organizational design and change, learning and development, diversity and inclusion, and performance management.
In addition to her corporate HR roles, Keri has also been a coach for the last decade serving clients across various levels, functions, and industries – from startup incubator CEOs to emerging and new leaders to women working in environmental and social impact. She also ran Google’s best-in-class executive coaching program and delivered coaching skills training to the company’s new managers and internal coaches.
Keri is a certified coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and serves on the executive committee of the Maine Coaches Network. She lives in Portland where she is an active member of the community as a volunteer and mentor, and is an avid explorer or Maine’s mountains and trails.
Scott Schnapp
Consulting Partner
Scott Schnapp
Consulting Partner
Scott brings to Starboard Leadership Consulting more than 30 years of nonprofit management experience. Having served in staff and board leadership positions for much of his career, Scott particularly enjoys working closely with leaders driving transformational change through their organizations.
Most recently he served as Executive Director of the Maine Association of Nonprofits (MANP) for 14 years. In that position, Scott led the development of a major expansion of professional and organizational development resources for Maine’s nonprofit leaders, including a comprehensive management training program, leadership development programs, capacity building services, assessment tools, management resources, and a technical assistance program. Prior to his work at MANP, Scott served successively as Executive Director of Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility (MEBSR), Camp Sunshine, and Big Brother-Big Sister of Greater Lowell (MA), and before that as Director of Development at the Portland Museum of Art and North Yarmouth Academy.
As a volunteer, Scott has served on the boards of the Maine Development Foundation, Maine Initiatives, and the Children’s Theatre of Maine, and served as Board President of the Falmouth Memorial Library. He has also coached several Odyssey of the Mind teams and local youth sports teams.
A 1978 graduate of Colgate University, Scott lives in Old Orchard Beach with his wife Heidi and a menagerie of pets, and has two grown children.
