Leadership

Vincent Santilli is currently the CEO/Executive Director of ABRI/Homes for the Brave, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing safe housing, vocational services, mental health treatment and life skills coaching to homeless individuals, almost all of whom are Veterans. ABRI/Homes for the Brave’s Bridgeport, CT Programs include a 42 bed men’s transitional house (Homes for the Brave), a 9 bed permanent house (Waldorf Permanent Supportive Housing), the drop-in/walk-in Tony Cinquanta Veterans Service Center, the Homes for the Brave Clinical Program, the Training for Success Vocational and Educational Program and the PFC Nicholas A. Madaras Home for Women Veterans, Connecticut’s first and only transitional living facility for female veterans experiencing homelessness and their young children (14 beds). In 2022, ABRI/Homes for the Brave opened a (nonresidential) Annex in downtown Bridgeport. 

Previously, he held multiple leadership roles in his 30+ years at People’s United Bank, including First Vice President of the Retail and Business Banking Division and Executive Director of the $51 million People’s United Community Foundation. 

Active in his community, Santilli is a Founding Member of Senator Chris Murphy’s Veterans Advisory Council, and a member of the Economics and Finance Advisory Committee for Sacred Heart University’s John F. Welch College of Business, after previously serving as Chairman of the Welch College’s Advisory Board. He also serves on the Board of the (Bridgeport) South End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone and Bridgeport Re-Entry Collaborative, coaches Special Olympics soccer for SOCT-Fairfield and was the Head Girls Basketball Coach at St. Martin de Porres Academy in New Haven from 2014-2020. He is in his 7th season as an Assistant Coach on the staff of the University of Bridgeport Purple Knights Women’s Basketball Team under Head Coach James Howard. 

Santilli is active with the Knights of Columbus and was Connecticut’s Grand Knight of the Year in 1992 and Connecticut’s 4th Degree Faithful Navigator of the Year in 1995. He is well-known from his 19 season run as co-host of College Hoops Talk on WICC radio in Bridgeport. In May, 2019, Santilli received the Distinguished Citizenship Award from the Bridgeport Elks Lodge No. 36 and in March, 2020 was made a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International and the Rotary Club of Fairfield. 

Santilli holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and public policy from the University of Pennsylvania and also has a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in human resources from Sacred Heart University. He lives in Trumbull with his wife Jeanine and they are the parents of adult children Joseph, Mara, and Thomas.