Carol Novello is the creator of Mutual Rescue and author of Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too (Grand Central Publishing). She received her Bachelor’s degree in Economics and English from Dickinson College and her MBA from Harvard Business School. Carol held several senior executive positions at Intuit before shifting her focus to animal welfare, serving as the president of Humane Society Silicon Valley for nearly a decade. She is currently on the board of directors at CUDDLY, Inc. Her family includes three rescues: cats Herbie and Porchini and mixed-breed mutt Daisy.

Mutual Rescue’s executive producer, David Whitman, is known as a wandering spirit. After an adventurous year as an AFS exchange student in Belgium, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, volunteered for three years with the Peace Corps in Saint Lucia, managed Berkeley’s famed Hertz Concert Hall for 14 years, then pursued arts interests for a decade in Florida and Brazil. He has worked with many notable figures in the performing, visual, and literary arts and received several awards for his creative work—including from the University of California and National Geographic Traveler. In 2008, Silicon Valley’s Tech Museum tapped him to coordinate its monumental, transatlantic exhibition on Leonardo in partnership with Italy’s Ministry for Cultural Heritage, Opera Laboratori, and the storied Uffizi Gallery. For the next eight years, he designed and directed the museum’s resplendent, global Tech Awards galas before joining forces with Carol Novello to create a new global initiative called Mutual Rescue. 

Finnegan Dowling is Mutual Rescue’s shelter engagement manager and a regular contributor to the Mutual Rescue blog. She has been poking around animal welfare for more than 25 years and has worked in shelters in Washington, Colorado, California, and Nicaragua. Prior to Mutual Rescue, she was the social-media manager for Humane Society Silicon Valley, where her work was honored with Shorty and Communicator Awards. Finnegan’s writing has been published in The Bark, Bay Woof, and Huffington Post. She lives in coastal Texas with an opinionated dog and her husband. When not working, you can usually find her reading, writing, or running around Latin America.

Nina Elcao is Mutual Rescue’s Senior Marketing Manager and newest member. After graduating from SUNY Fredonia as a film production major in 2010, Nina moved to Los Angeles where she quickly fell down the digital media rabbit hole as a video producer/director for The Walt Disney Company. In 2017, she moved to Nashville with her adopted chihuahua, Zeppelin. She hoped to find accessible parking spaces and a slower life, but instead found another passion. Her first exposure to volunteer work was with Animal Rescue Corps in 2018 where she spent every weekend, for a year, caring for neglected puppy mill animals. “CUT TO” present day, she continues to volunteer in Middle Tennessee and is a trusted contact in the local rescue circles. Nina has helped hundreds of animals find homes and adopted six as her own. She is overjoyed to be applying her career strengths to a cause she gets out of bed for at Mutual Rescue.

Kurt Krukenberg leads the Mutual Rescue initiative in his role as the president of Humane Society Silicon Valley, where he is also a longtime Doggy Day Out volunteer. Previously, he spent 20 years helping companies and nonprofit organizations create sustainable growth in a variety of operating and advisory roles. Kurt received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University and MBA from Harvard Business School. He is eternally grateful to have been rescued by his wife, Charu, and their dogs.

Blythe Jack—a lifelong animal lover and a proud pet parent to her dogs Roxie, Oakley, and JosieBelle—is Mutual Rescue’s strategic adviser. As a board member at Humane Society Silicon Valley, she fell in love with Mutual Rescue and its mission at first meeting in 2017. Her support is reflected in every facet of the initiative. Blythe has been an active private-equity investor in the consumer sector for nearly 25 years, having been a managing director at TSG Consumer Partners for over 11 years, where she led investments in consumer brands such as BrewDog, Backcountry, Dutch Bros, IT Cosmetics, and Canyon Bicycles, among others. She counts a great husband of over 20 years and teenage daughter amongst her pack, along with their three beloved hounds.