Linda Saris
Linda E. Saris is the Executive Director and Founder of LEAP for Education, Inc.,which started in 2002 as Salem CyberSpace, part of North Shore Community Action Programs. In 2015, its name changed to LEAP, and it separated from NSCAP. Since that time, Linda and her talented staff have tripled LEAP’s revenues and quintupled the number of students served.
Prior to LEAP (1989-2001), Linda held several senior management positions at RSA Security, including Senior Vice President of New Emerging Security Technologies, Senior Vice President of Operations, IT and Technical Services and Chief Financial Officer. As Chief Financial Officer, she managed RSA’s initial public offering of stock in 1994. At the time of her departure in 2001, RSA was a $250 million publicly-held cybersecurity company.
Linda has a long history of community engagement as a member of several boards, committees and task forces in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. Some of these include, founding member of the Salem Community Charter School (now New Liberty Innovation School), member of Board of Directors, Root NS, former board member and audit chair of Beverly Bank and former board member and President of North Shore Technology Council. Selected by Governor Deval Patrick, Linda sat on the Commonwealth’s After-School and Out of School Time Advisory Board.
She received her BA in economics and urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA in finance and accounting from the University of Chicago. In 2015, Linda received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Salem State University.
Outside of work, she enjoys travel, tennis, hiking and reading.
