It’s all in the (Harris) family

Board member Hadley Harris has a vested interest in Cardinal Cushing Centers, having watched his younger brother, Traves, thrive with the organization for 30 years. 

Traves, who turns 46 in May, enrolled at Cushing as a student at age 16 and has since transitioned to the adult residential program. He lives in a newly renovated Washington Street house. 

“For Traves, Cushing has been the place where he’s created a home and where he’s made friendships,” said Harris. “Seeing him and his housemates together, it’s like watching an old married couple. And he does it all, whether it’s soccer or bowling or biking. He likes all the activities. We’re just so thankful for everything Cushing has done for Traves and our family, and for the thoughtfulness of the staff over the years.” 

Harris is a co-founder and general partner at Eniac Ventures, based in New York City. He focuses on AI-native companies, including the agent layer, tooling, data infrastructure and foundation-level technologies. He also leads the firm’s strategic direction, and has tried to bring his knowledge over to the Cushing board. 

“Where I’ve tried to help out is with leveraging technology,” he said. “I’m confident AI will become more important in the years to come. Plus, I can bring a perspective from start-up boards. Ultimately though, I’ve learned a lot more from all of them, especially just seeing what’s possible when people are passionate about their lives’ work. Michelle [Markowitz] has really taken the organization to new heights.” 

Before becoming a venture capitalist himself, Harris built two successful, VC-backed startups. He joined Vlingo in 2007, working with talented AI founders out of MIT to manage aspects of the business across product, strategy and marketing, until the company was sold to Nuance. He then became chief business officer at Thumb, a real-time recommendation app that was ultimately acquired by YPulse. 

Harris, who grew up in Beacon Hill, earned his bachelor’s in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Wharton. He began his career as a developer and engineering team lead at Pegasystems, later taking on roles as a product manager at Microsoft and strategist at Samsung. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Anna, and their two sons.