Staff Leadership
Harry P. Lynch, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Harry P. “Hank” Lynch brings more than 20 years of executive leadership experience in the nonprofit sector to Farm Sanctuary. As a nonprofit leader, Hank has successfully helped organizations fulfill their missions, increase their attendance and supporter bases, expand earned revenue, and make lasting contributions to the constituents they serve.
Hank holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in horticulture and has served as CEO for leading public horticulture institutions, including more than 12 years with Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in northeastern Ohio. Prior to joining Farm Sanctuary, Hank served as the executive director and CEO for The National Maritime Center in Norfolk, VA, where he led nearly 100 staff members, recruited and directed more than 1000 volunteers, managed and promoted a variety of programs related to public spaces, and oversaw annual operating and capital budgets exceeding $10 million dollars.
Hank’s personal and professional life has been deeply informed by his early experiences with farm animals and agriculture. As a young man, Hank grew up working on a variety of farms with and around farm animals and learned of their plight. This instilled in him a lifelong understanding and commitment to supporting change in behaviors and attitudes towards these emotional and intelligent beings. Working on these farms, Hank also developed an abiding love for agriculture and farmland, which inspired his long and successful career in horticulture.
Personally, Hank has been committed to animal protection and compassionate living for more than 20 years. He and his wife, Paula Moran, practice a vegan lifestyle and have rescued or fostered more than 70 dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, and birds including countless songbirds, cockfighting roosters, injured crows, and one very moody macaw. While Paula was a member of the board of directors of Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary in Ohio, Hank worked as a volunteer. Using his executive experience, Harry assisted Happy Trails with their governance, board composition, and strategic planning. He also assisted with external communications by inviting the organization to participate in a host of public events at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, where attendance surpassed 100,000 annual visitors.
At Farm Sanctuary, Hank continues to integrate his excellent leadership skills with his passion for animal protection to improve our operations, further our mission, and maximize our impact for farm animals.
Gene Baur, President and Co-Founder
Gene Baur has been hailed as “the conscience of the food movement” by Time magazine. Since the mid-1980s, he has traveled extensively, campaigning to raise awareness about the abuses of industrialized factory farming and our system of cheap food production.
A pioneer in the field of undercover investigations, Gene has visited hundreds of farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, documenting the deplorable conditions that exist. His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired nationally and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farm animals.
Gene has also testified in courts and before local, state, and federal legislative bodies, advocating for better conditions for farm animals. His most important achievements include winning the first-ever cruelty conviction at a U.S. stockyard and introducing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming confinement methods in Florida, Arizona, and California. His efforts have been covered by top news organizations, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal. Gene has published two bestsellers, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food (Scribner, 2008) and Living the Farm Sanctuary Life (Rodale, 2015), which he co-authored with Forks Over Knives author Gene Stone. Through his writing and his international speaking engagements, Gene provides simple actionable solutions coupled with a compassion-first approach to help us be the change we wish to see in treatment toward animals and in our food system.
Gene began his activist career selling veggie hot dogs out of a VW van at Grateful Dead concerts to fund farm animal rescues. Today, he serves as president of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, with shelters in New York and California. Providing rescue, refuge, and adoption for hundreds of farm animals each year, Farm Sanctuary shelters enable visitors to connect with farm animals as emotional, intelligent individuals. Gene believes these animals stand as ambassadors for the billions of factory farm animals who have no voice, and he has dedicated his career to advocating on their behalf.
Gene holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University, Northridge, and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University. In 2015, Gene was granted an Associate appointment in Health, Behavior, and Society at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this prestigious position, Gene is focused on implementing courses related to evidence-based work on diet and farming as it aligns to Farm Sanctuary’s goals of shedding light on factory farming’s threat to public health, the environment and animal welfare. He was recently named one of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100 Givers.
Susie Coston, National Shelter Director
Susie Coston joined the Farm Sanctuary staff in March 2000 after six years of working for a veterinarian and at a sanctuary in West Virginia. She has been a mentor to many peers who have started their own sanctuaries throughout the United States and leads Farm Sanctuary’s annual Farm Animal Care Conference, which provides valuable resources and hands-on training for people interested in caring for farm animals. She also shares her deep understanding of farm animals with a wider audience by bringing the stories of Farm Sanctuary’s rescued animals to the public. Susie oversees a full department of caregivers, feeders, cleaners, and project workers, ensuring that the hundreds of animals residing at Farm Sanctuary’s New York and California Shelters are given the best possible care throughout every stage of their lives. When she is not at the shelters, she shares her home with nine cats, two dogs, and any number of farm animals who may need special care.
Leila Melody, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer
Leila joined Farm Sanctuary as its chief financial officer in 2012 and took on an expanded role as chief operating officer and chief financial officer in 2014. In this capacity, Leila leads financial planning, analysis, and reporting; manages IT and administrative processes; oversees visitor experience and merchandising; and enhances and initiates new earned income opportunities.
Prior to joining Farm Sanctuary, Leila worked as an independent consultant, advising various for-profit and not-for-profit startups on business plans, growth strategies, and market analyses. Previously, Leila worked in the private sector as director of finance and administration for a financial services startup. She joined the firm as part of its senior leadership team shortly after the business was founded and helped to foster its growth from a regional operation to a national player in the industry, securing the 28th spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in 2006.
Leila earned a bachelor’s degree in statistics and psychology, cum laude, from Northwestern University, and she holds an MBA with distinction from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in management and strategy, social enterprise, international business, and management and organizations.
Leila has volunteered her time to several nonprofit organizations with a wide range of missions but has contributed most extensively to Tree House Humane Society, a cat rescue and rehabilitation center in Chicago, where she worked with the development office and served as special events manager.
In addition to her work as an animal advocate, Leila’s interests include travel, cooking, gardening, and entertaining her two cats, Dracula and Luna.
Matt Ball, Director of Engagement and Outreach
Matt joined the Farm Sanctuary team in 2015 after working within the animal rights community for more than 20 years. Previously, Matt co-founded and led Vegan Outreach and served as Senior Advisor for VegFund. He is the author of dozens of essays, articles, editorials, and book chapters, in addition to two books – The Animal Activist’s Handbook, which he co-authored with Bruce Friedrich in 2007 and The Accidental Activist, published in 2014. His unwavering commitment to farm animal issues earned him a spot in the Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2005.
Matt’s journey to veganism and animal advocacy got its humble beginnings at the University of Cincinnati – from which he received a degree in aerospace engineering – after his freshman roommate inspired him to go vegetarian. In the years following Matt received a master’s degree in forest ecology from the University of Illinois and a master’s in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.
Matt resides in Tucson, AZ with his wife Anne Green, a fellow activist and Director of Operations for Our Hen House and their daughter Ellen, a lifelong vegan who recently graduated from Pomona University with a degree in molecular biology.
Kera Melrose, General Counsel
Prior to joining Farm Sanctuary in 2016, Kera was Counsel at PETA Foundation. Before that, she was an associate at litigation boutique Brune & Richard LLP, where her practice focused on white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement actions, and securities and complex commercial litigation. Kera was also an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, where she litigated pro bono cases on behalf of animal protection groups.
Kera holds an A.B. from Princeton University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she graduated a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. At Columbia Law, Kera co-founded the school’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter and led it as President for two years. She has been vegan for over a decade and a vegetarian for much longer. She lives in Manhattan with her family.
Sylvia Moskovitz, Chief Development and Communications Officer
Sylvia joined Farm Sanctuary in 2014. As Chief Development and Communications Officer, she is creating and implementing an innovative philanthropic development program to support and further Farm Sanctuary’s mission as well as leading marketing and communications initiatives that support Farm Sanctuary’s strategic goals.
Over the course of her 20-plus years in the nonprofit world, Sylvia has worked in organizational management, marketing, and communications as well as all aspects of development. Her career has included positions at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services; the Jewish Federations of Greater Los Angeles and Greater Dallas; and other community organizations, religious institutions, and international agencies. From 2010 to 2012, she was the national major and planned gifts officer for the West Division of JDRF (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). Prior to assuming her role at Farm Sanctuary, she served as director of development for the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation.
Additionally, Sylvia has been involved with two companion animal nonprofits: K9 Connection, which pairs shelter animals with youth in foster care in order to train the dogs, so they are more “adoptable”; and CageFree K-9 Rescue Foundation, which rescues, fosters, and places injured and difficult-to-place dogs.
Sylvia credits her success in part to her multidisciplinary education, which includes a B.A. from the University of Southern California in social welfare, with an emphasis on community organizations, and a J.D. from Whittier Law School, where she was research editor of the Whittier Law Review.
Sylvia has two children: Joshua, a math teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District and on-set teacher in the entertainment industry, and Jessica, who does project development and international sales for a movie production company in Beverly Hills, CA. Sylvia spends a great deal of her free time with her granddaughters, Olivia and Addison, and grandpuppies, Frank and Beastie. Her hobbies include knitting and jewelry making. She loves to hike and spend time at the beach.
Samantha Pachirat, National Director of Education and Strategic Initiatives
Samantha joined Farm Sanctuary in 2000 after visiting an organic, “humane” dairy farm and witnessing firsthand the plight of the farm animals there. During her 16 years with Farm Sanctuary, she has directed both the Development and Education departments and now combines her expertise in these two areas as Farm Sanctuary’s national director of education and strategic initiatives.
While Samantha’s work involves a range of responsibilities, she is most passionate about bringing the transformative experience of meeting and forming relationships with farm animals to broad audiences, humane education, and raising awareness about the ethical, health, and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet. Samantha also seeks to inspire individual and institutional partners to join Farm Sanctuary in creating a more compassionate and just world for all beings.
Originally from St. Louis, MO, Samantha holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, Timothy, as well as 17-year-old Parker, 13-year-old Mia, her newborn son Po, and a quintet of rescued felines named Neko, Chaang, Rusty, Mango, and Arrow, and two rescued fish named Bob and Dan.