Five new members were elected in 2024 to Trees Atlanta Board of Directors, a non-profit community group that aims to protect and improve the area’s urban forest.
These new representatives are part of an active board of directors who represent businesses and organizations that serve metro Atlanta, which include Veritiv, Atlanta Beltline, Smurfit Westrock, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, and Capgemini.
Joining in April was Martha Issa, Lynnette Reid in July, and Mandy Burnette, Dan Englander, and Claire Gotham in November.
In 2025, Trees Atlanta’s Board will be going into its 40th year of environmental conservation and community forestry in metro Atlanta, with the mission of protecting and improving the area’s urban forest.
Their first tree was planted in 1985 on Carnegie Way in Downtown Atlanta. Since then, over 170,000 trees have been planted.
But planting trees isn’t the only thing the non-profit does.
Every year, staff and volunteers have been restoring and improving hundreds of acres of forested areas, educating students and adults to be active stewards of the city’s trees, and leading workforce development programs to invest in the community foresters of future generations.
In 2025, the board and staff of Trees Atlanta will be hosting multiple events to celebrate four decades of service in metro Atlanta with lots of volunteers and supporters.
The elected members
Burnette is director of Corporate Giving for Smurfit Westrock, who is a global leader in sustainable, fiber-based packaging solutions.
The director at Smurfit Westrock has taken a focus on strategic partnerships that support the organization’s sustainability goals and business objectives related to workforce development for advanced manufacturing and protecting forests and urban tree canopies in her role for North America. She also manages strategic sponsorships in Smurfit Westrock’s North American headquarters community of Atlanta and oversees the company’s Employee Relief Fund, as well as it’s Matching Gifts and Grants for Volunteers employee engagement programs.
Burnette is also an alumni network co-lead for the Atlanta Women’s Foundation Inspire Atlanta leadership program.
Englander is a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, where he is a trademark lawyer for international brands.
In his role, he helps brands choose trademarks, manages their international trademark portfolios, and oversees a large docket of trademark disputes for top brands, all while supervising a team of attorneys that assesses the availability of entertainment titles intended for use on movie, TV, and music streaming services.
Englander moved to Atlanta in 2009 to attend Emory Law School, where he was elected editor-in-chief of the Emory International Law Review. Being a Phoenix native, he is continuously amazed at how green Atlanta is and lives in Peachtree Heights East with his husband and three-year-old twins.
Gotham is a vice president at Capgemini focused on Utilities and Renewables in the Resources and Energy Transition business unit. She is a leader in retail/wholesale energy, trading and risk management. Gotham’s skill set comprises over 25 years of experience in consulting and business development and she has led major strategy and technology transformations at Fortune 500 companies both in the U.S. and globally.
Growing up in Atlanta, she returned in 2006 to raise her family, which includes four children, after a decade in California. Goth is also a member of the Alliance Theatre Board.
Issa serves as the senior director of Sustainability at Veritiv, a leader in specialty packaging distribution, headquartered in Atlanta.
Sustainability is a core responsibility in all that Issa and Veritiv do in delivering products and solutions for their customers, suppliers, communities, and the planet.
Issa previously served as Veritiv’s director of Cleaning and Protection, Facility Solutions, and Director of Business Development and Marketing. She is bilingual in English and Spanish, holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Centroamericana in El Salvador and is a graduate of Instituto Superior De Economia y Administracion De Empresas where she secured a Master in Business Administration (MBA).
Reid is the vice president of Planning, Engagement and Art at Atlanta Beltline and has been with the company for 13 years, originally joining as the community engagement advocate and also serving as the senior community planner.
She has roughly 20 years of public sector experience, including at the Fulton County Department of Environment & Community Development and brings knowledge of community planning and engagement, land use, zoning, and regulatory development.
Reid holds a B.A. in Public Administration from Trenton State College and Master of City and Regional Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a proponent of inclusive and equitable communities.
