Zach Iscol

Zach Iscol is a multi-generational New Yorker and a business, non-profit and combat-tested
leader who loves this city. His grandfather worked for the Department of Sanitation and his
mother was one of the only white teachers to cross the picket line during the 1968 teacher’s
strike in NYC.

The founder and chairman of the Grid North Group, a collection of double bottom line
businesses, Zach previously served in the Marines in the infantry and special operations,
building and leading military units around the globe and during some of the heaviest combat of
the Iraq war. In 2007, he testified on active duty before the United States Senate to expand a
special immigrant visa that has helped close to one hundred thousand Iraq and Afghan refugees
who served alongside US troops immigrate to the United States.

Years later, when he began to lose more of fellow Marines to suicide than he did in combat,
Zach founded Headstrong, one of the largest and leading providers of mental healthcare in the
United States. Zach also founded Hirepurpose, a tech and hiring platform that has helped countless veterans and Gold Star families find employment, and Task & Purpose, an outlet dedicated to investigating issues in military and veteran communities from sexual harassment in the ranks to V.A. shortcomings in New York City.

When NYC was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, he led clean up crews in the
Rockaways. And when this city found itself at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zach
led 30 Federal, State, and City agencies and orchestrated the turnaround of Javits Medical
Center into one of the only successful COVID-19 field hospitals in the country

Zach lives in downtown Manhattan with his wife, Meredith, their four children, and three rescue dogs.