Child and Family Well-Being Funders Collaborative Quarterly Meeting

Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath was elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on November 8, 2022 after serving as a West Hollywood City Councilmember and the longest consecutively-serving Mayor. Supervisor Horvath’s career has been defined by tackling the hardest problems, building diverse coalitions, and delivering results for her community.

Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath made history as the youngest woman to ever be elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. She is the first millennial, and currently the only renter to serve on the Board, bringing a much-needed perspective to LA County leadership.

In addition to her work as a Councilwoman and Mayor, Supervisor Horvath previously served in a number of roles, including: President of the California Contract Cities Association (CCCA); Board Member for CalCities (formerly the League of California Cities); Board Member for the National League of Cities (NLC); President of Women in Municipal Government (WIMG) for the National League of Cities; Chair of the Contract Cities Liability Trust Fund Claims Board & Oversight Committee; and Executive Committee Member and Legislative & Regulatory Chair for CleanPower Alliance of Southern California. Supervisor Horvath received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management & Fundraising from UCLA Extension. She resides in West Hollywood with her dog, Winston.

Alex M. Johnson is vice president of public affairs at The California Wellness Foundation. Johnson returned to Cal Wellness in January 2024 after serving as vice president at Bryson Gillette, a strategic communications and public affairs firm where he led efforts to support clients working to create change across multiple sectors, including education, government, philanthropy, and nonprofits. Before his time at Bryson Gillette, Johnson served as a senior leader at Cal Wellness for nearly five years in various grantmaking roles, including Chief of Staff.

In his role as vice president of public affairs, Alex oversees the department’s government relations, community engagement and strategic communications. Before joining Cal Wellness in June 2018, Johnson was managing director for Californians for Safety and Justice in Los Angeles. While at CSJ, Johnson led efforts calling for an end to over-incarceration and a renewed focus on safety priorities rooted in prevention and health. Prior to his role at CSJ, he was executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-California, where he led statewide advocacy, policy, program and organizing efforts to ensure access to quality affordable health coverage and care for children and low-income families, reform the juvenile justice system, promote educational equity, end child poverty, and improve outcomes for children of color. Alex previously led education, youth development, and public safety efforts for a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He began his career in New York City advocating for domestic violence victims as an assistant district attorney in Bronx County and previously clerked at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

Alex serves on the boards of Southern California Grantmakers, Urban Peace Institute, Trust for Public Land, and the UCLA Luskin School Board of Advisors. He previously served on the Los Angeles County Board of Education. A graduate of Morehouse College and American University, Washington College of Law, Alex’s writings have appeared in Huffington Post, The Guardian, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, California Health Report, and Sacramento Bee.

Lisa Small serves as the Director of Youth and Transformative Justice at Liberty Hill Foundation, where she works to execute a shared vision to end youth incarceration and build a positive youth development framework in Los Angeles County through grantmaking, capacity building and policy reform work. Currently, Lisa co-leads the Ready to Rise initiative, a three-year, $38 million public private partnership that has served 25,000 young people through positive youth development and capacity building approaches.

Previously, Lisa served as Senior Manager of Smart Justice at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, where she led efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline through program development, policy reform and systems change approaches. In addition, she worked to build the capacity of local private sector business leaders and chambers of commerce around the country to engage in fair chance hiring and criminal justice reform initiatives. She also worked to develop education policy and advocacy campaigns on behalf of foster youth and other underserved populations during her time at the Advancement Project, and provided therapeutic interventions to adolescents and adults through her work at Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center.

Lisa earned her Master of Social Work and Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California, and holds a bachelor’s in sociology and a bachelor’s in Chicano studies from the University of California, Davis. She is an alumna of the Justice Policy Network Fellowship and a mentor for USC’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellowship in Government Service.

Winnie Wechsler is executive director of the Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation (www.ajpff.org), which for over a decade has been investing in strengthening many of the unique institutions that define Los Angeles. The Foundation aims to enrich our community not just for the present, but for generations to come, with particular focus on medicine, higher education, the environment, and the arts. In 2014, the foundation launched Pritzker Foster Care Initiative to highlight its commitment to supporting transition age foster youth and the families that care for them.

Winnie’s interest in the potential of technology to improve child welfare stems from her decades of experience in both the public and private sectors. Before joining the Foundation in 2012, Ms. Wechsler served as executive director of Phoenix Houses of California, a substance abuse treatment and mental health services organization, for nine years. Before working in non-profit management, Ms. Wechsler worked for twenty years in media and communications, including serving as a senior executive at The Walt Disney Company for 14 years. While at Disney, she headed up new business development for the Disney Channel and started up and managed Disney.com. In 1999, she left Disney to launch Lightspan, an education technology start-up that she helped take public in 2000.

Ms. Wechsler is a board member of Foster Care Counts, a non-profit started by Jeanne Pritzker, which helps raise awareness and serve the needs of foster youth and families in Los Angeles. She has lived with her family for over 20 years in Santa Monica, where she is a commissioner on the City of Santa Monica’s Social Service Commission and a member of the Executive Steering Committee of Community for Excellent Public Schools. She holds a BA from Wellesley College in Russian Studies and an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania.