Maria & Bret – Class of 2025
Maria Lizardo and Bret Collazzi – Class of 2025 – came into the Greater NY Partnership as leaders working in related aspects of community development. Through sharing perspectives, they found that their different leadership positions had a powerful impact on how they thought what makes difference for communities.
Lizardo, Executive Director of NMIC, came to the Partnership with deep experience leading a multiservice nonprofit in Northern Manhattan. NMIC serves over 14,000 New Yorkers annually through a comprehensive range of services, including housing stability, adult education, workforce development, and immigration legal services. Collazzi, a Partner at HR&A Advisors, brought advisory experience with government, nonprofit, and private-sector clients on economic development strategy across New York City.
Together, they shared a passion for how systems shape communities. Their monthly conversations covered everything from workforce strategy to leadership motivation. “At first, I thought Greater NY was a mentorship,” says Lizardo. “But we were more peers and colleagues and friends. The conversations I have with Bret, I can’t have with other people.”
Collazzi agrees, “Literally every time we meet, the world’s changed a little bit,” he says. “Maria and I are often working with the same people, just in different ways. So, we can always trade notes.” Some of these notes included questions about public systems, shifting political currents, and leadership stamina.
Lizardo appreciated the unstructured nature of the conversations. “Greater NY wasn’t focused on deliverables,” she says. “It recognizes that the world is moving so fast. It allows us to meet and say: Where are we now? How can I be useful to you now?” She says this informal framework had real impact and supported key organizational shifts at NMIC—including renewed investment in workforce programming and greater emphasis on senior leadership development. “I might be looking at our budgets and thinking there isn't enough investment in workforce to have true impact,” says Lizardo. “Then I’d talk to Bret and he’d bring a perspective that would make me double down on my commitment to this work.”
Trust was foundational to their dynamic. “I knew it was going to be a safe space, and he wasn’t going to judge me. That was super important,” says Lizardo.
“Maria jumped right in. I didn’t have to wonder if this was going to be an open, honest conversation. That made it easy for me to do the same.” Collazzi says.
Though the official two years of their Greater NY Partnership has ended, Lizardo and Collazzi plan to continue their conversations. “We catch up, we eat, we gossip, we keep each other in the loop,” says Collazzi. “We plan to keep meeting. Greater NY brought us together, but the relationship will keep going.”
Greater NY connects leaders in strategic service to the people of New York City. For Lizardo and Collazzi, that meant building a trusted relationship across sectors— one grounded in shared purpose, honest dialogue, and a mutual commitment to New York City’s evolving needs.