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Richard Faulds (Shobhan), Chief Executive Officer
Richard Faulds (Shobhan), MA, JD, has practiced yoga and meditation for more than 30 years in close association with Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. A chance encounter with Swami Kripalu in 1981 profoundly shifted the trajectory of Shobhan’s life. He joined Kripalu’s residential ashram staff after several years of working as a Legal Aid attorney, and became Kripalu’s legal counsel in 1989. As President of Kripalu from 1998 to 2001, Shobhan was one of many dedicated staff members who helped the organization start its national retreat center business and move beyond the traditional guru-disciple paradigm. He served as chair of Kripalu’s Board of Trustees from 2001–2010.
A certified, professional-level Kripalu Yoga teacher, Shobhan is a member of the Kripalu faculty and regularly teaches programs to guests and staff. He is the author of Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat, and three other books on the Kripalu tradition: Sayings of Swami Kripalu; Swimming with Krishna: Teaching Stories from the Kripalu Yoga Tradition; and The Enlightenment Teachings of Yogeshwar Muni: Self-Inquiry and Surrender Meditation in the Kripalu Yoga Tradition. When he isn’t working, practicing yoga, or teaching, Shobhan is an avid gardener, woodworker, and rail-trail bicycle enthusiast.
David Lipsius, Chief Operating Officer
David Lipsius, JD, RYT-500, is a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultant, and a licensed attorney. He joined Kripalu in 2012 to pursue his personal dharma: using the professional skills he developed in the entertainment and news business to promote and advance yoga and Ayurveda. Prior to joining Kripalu, David served in various leadership positions for more than 15 years at NBC Universal in New York City, including roles as the vice president of operations for the NBC Agency East Coast and vice president of creative services for NBC News Marketing and Communications. David now blends his passion for yoga with right livelihood in his role as COO at Kripalu, providing an operational foundation for the advancement of Kripalu’s mission.
Jill Sasso Curtis, Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Jill Sasso Curtis (Daya Kaur) brings to Kripalu a unique blend of professional experience in global business and higher education, and a devoted yoga practice that’s informed her belief in the power of yoga and meditation to transform individuals, organizations, and society as a whole.
Jill has more than 20 years of consumer marketing, branding and outreach experience. Her specific areas of expertise include strategic planning, new business development, market research, and the development and launch of educational programs and products.
Jill began her career in the private sector, holding global marketing management roles at Colgate-Palmolive, Polaroid Corporation, and The First Years, Inc. A quest for more meaningful work led her to higher education, where she served as a member of the senior management team of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at Tufts, and Vice President of Babson Global at Babson College.
Jill holds a bachelor’s from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master’s of business administration in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is a KRI-certified Kundalini yoga instructor, trained by Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa in Rishikesh, India.
Karen Doyle Grossman, Vice President of Institutional Advancement
Karen Doyle Grossman is helping scale the impact of Kripalu beyond the borders of its highly successful retreat center in the Berkshires. Over her 17-year career, Karen has designed and/or raised $45 million toward social solutions that have generated positive change for people in 28 countries. Recently, she was Vice President of Social Innovations at Mercy Corps, a $300 million international organization.
Karen has also worked as a program director at the Aspen Institute where she managed the Socrates Society, a Silicon Valley-based seminar and policy program geared toward technology sector and social entrepreneurs. As associate director for the Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program, she led initiatives to evaluate and fund innovative anti-poverty strategies.
Karen has published extensively on social-value creation, microfinance, performance measurement, and enterprise development. She has spoken on social innovations at Harvard Business School, Social Capital Markets, Yale University, Mobile Active, NetImpact, the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network, and more.
Karen holds a B.A. in government from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in education policy studies from George Washington University, and she has completed executive education at Harvard and Stanford universities. Karen has been studying yoga since 1995 and is a certified yoga teacher through the Institute of the Himalayan Tradition. She especially loves teaching beginners, children, and children with autism. Karen lives in New York City and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, with her husband, Brian, and their three children.
John O’Neill, Vice President of Finance
John O’Neill was a long-term resident of the Kripalu ashram until 1994, during which time he worked at all levels of the finance and accounting departments. He then held financial controller positions in several retailing businesses in New Mexico before returning to Kripalu in 2001. As Director of Finance, John oversees all aspects of the organization’s financial areas, manages the Finance Department’s staff, and has developed substantial improvements in Kripalu’s budget system as well as in the quality and timeliness of accounting reports and financial statements. John has a deep respect for the work that Kripalu performs in the world and is deeply committed to the success of its mission.
Denise Barack, Director of Program Development
Denise Barack has been involved with Kripalu since 1985. She holds a degree in communications and was the advertising director at East West Journal in Boston before moving to the Berkshires to serve the Kripalu community. As Kripalu’s Director of Program Development since 2004, she uses her gift for networking people and ideas in overseeing the planning and development of all of Kripalu’s invited national presenter programs. Denise is the mother of two young adults, and is a 200-hour certified Kripalu Yoga teacher and a student of Continuum.
Stephen Cope, Director, Institute for Extraordinary Living
Stephen Cope, MSW, is a psychotherapist, a national best-selling author, and a senior instructor of Kripalu Yoga with more than 15 years of experience as a yoga teacher. During the summer of 2005, he launched a pioneering music and consciousness program in conjunction with the Tanglewood Institute to study the effects of yoga and meditation on performance anxiety, physical health, and states of optimal performance. The senior Scholar-in-Residence at Kripalu Center, Stephen is the author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life?, and The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living. Stephen was named by Yoga Journal as one of the top 25 innovators in yoga in America in the last quarter of a century.
Kelly Baxter Spitz, Director of Development
Kelly joined Kripalu in 2006 as the Associate Director of Development and moved into the position of Director in 2008. In her role, Kelly oversees and manages all aspects of Kripalu’s philanthropic activities. She has wealth of experience in fundraising, having been a member of the development teams at Boston Medical Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, and Albany Medical Center. In the Berkshires, she served as Director of Development for Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and Community Health Programs before coming to Kripalu. Kelly lives with her husband and daughter in Sheffield, MA.
