Meet the faces of the 2020-2021 cohort
Contacts
Hector Gutierrez
Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects Director, Kern County Children and Families Commission (DBA First 5 Kern)
As Strategic Initiatives Specialist, Hector Gutierrez oversees all of First 5 Kerns early childhood system change work in Kern County and the greater San Joaquin Valley. He supports robust partnerships with public, private, and philanthropic partners to advance the healthy development of children prenatal to five. He is an experienced policy strategist with a demonstrated history of working to advance policy and system change efforts that catalyze the health and economic vitality of families across California. Over the last decade, he has supported and advanced policies that increase access to safe and affordable food for low-income Californians. He also supported research and initiatives to improve safe drinking water for disadvantaged communities. As a former Program Officer for First 5 Los Angeles, Hector’s key area of responsibility included coordination and management of multi-million-dollar investments that advance First 5 LA’s systems change and nonprofit capacity building work across Los Angeles County. He also worked to advance the First 5 LA’s built environment portfolio which catalyzed key advocacy efforts that support community investments and active transportation for under-resourced communities across its place-based investment, Best Start. Hector received his Master in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and BA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. In his spare time, he serves as a national board member for Kaiser Permanente Research Bank. Hector also enjoys cooking and working to develop the next generation of youth advocates to help engage them in the political process.
Qunsia Daniel
Director, Middle & Early High School, Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano
Qunsia Daniel is the Director of Middle & Early High School for Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano, a college-access non-profit that supports motivated students in South Orange County whose backgrounds are underrepresented in higher education by providing tuition-free academic programming and guidance from middle school through college graduation. She oversees programming for the 7th – 10th-grade students of the organization ranging from training college teaching fellows that plan enrichment for their six-week middle school summer program, holding monthly meetings with the newly transitioned high schoolers, to engaging students and families in their journey to be the first in their family to graduate from college. She earned her Bachelors in Secondary Education from Northwestern University and spent the early years of her career as a classroom teacher teaching high school English. She has also served as staff with Teach for America’s Florida Regional Institute as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Facilitator. She is excited to learn, grow, and more with the Racial Equity Action Institute.
Rajib Guha SCG Member
Director of Program Development, The James Irvine Foundation
Rajib Guha joined the Irvine Foundation as Director of Program Development in November 2019. His role includes identifying and assessing new opportunities for impact, building cross-sector relationships and partnerships, and engaging internal and external stakeholders on the design and execution of pilot projects and potential new initiatives. Rajib is currently managing the foundation's Racial Equity Project (which launched in July 2020) as well as the strategy for a new grantmaking initiative focused on statewide policy and systems change. Prior to Irvine, Rajib spent six years at the Monitor Institute by Deloitte, where he served as a strategic advisor to a wide range of grantmakers and nonprofits, including New Profit, United Way of New York City, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, ArtPlace America, and City Year. Rajib began his career as a college counselor at Prep for Prep and a program specialist at the Breakthrough Collaborative. He then joined The Opportunity Network as the organization’s first Director of College Initiatives. Born and raised in Southern California, Rajib holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, a master’s in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Chikako Yamauchi SCG Member
Community Partners
Chikako Yamauchi Ph.D. is on the steering committee of the Los Angeles chapter of EPIP. EPIP LA serves a network of early- to mid-career professionals committed to a more equitable and inclusive philanthropic sector. Chikako has served as EPIP LA’s Skill-Building Series Co-Chair, Evaluation Chair, and while participating in REAI will be EPIP LA’s Equity in Action Chair. Chikako has a professional background in the arts, an academic journey through a terminal degree, and more than 15 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, working both in programs and evaluation. During her doctoral studies In New Zealand, Chikako first encountered formal training with so-called cultural competence. In 2016 she participated in her first Undoing Racism workshop with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB). She continues to practice PISAB principles with ACRE (Artist Co-creating Real Equity) and continues to learn about and unlearn entrenched oppressive patterns through workshops with RaceForward, Racial Equity Institute, and others. Chikako is participating in REAI as a steering committee member of EPIP LA. She is also a senior manager at Community Partners, where she is leading a Learning Consortium in partnership with a Southern California funder for stakeholders supporting community capacity strengthening.
Seema Bhakta Shah
DEI Program Coordinator, OC Human Relations
Seema Bhakta Shah (she/her/hers), Training Specialist, OC Human Relations. Seema has been associated with OC Human Relations for over 25 years. She first became involved as a student facilitator in her high school’s human relations program and her lifelong passion and dedication to social justice, youth empowerment and community engagement began. Seema has been on staff since 2001 working with Orange County schools and communities on anti-racist, anti-oppression and restorative justice learning and practices. As a Training Specialist, Seema’s work focuses on partnering with individuals, organizations and communities to support the planning, implementation and support of human relations workshops, presentations, and trainings to build stronger, connected and more inclusive communities throughout Orange County.
Julie Vue
Director of Youth & Education Programs, OC Human Relations
Julie is a Central Valley transplant, having spent the last 10 years living, working, and organizing in Orange County. They help lead a team to work with students, parents, teachers, administrators and community members in schools across Orange County, to improve school climate and create safe, inclusive, equitable, and restorative schools. They graduated from UC Irvine with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and minors in Gender & Sexuality Studies and Civic & Community Engagement and earned a Master of Arts in Education with emphasis on Social and Cultural Analysis from Cal State Long Beach.
Lisa Parson SCG Member
Special Assistant to the City Manager for Equity and Community Recovery, City of Santa Monica
Lisa Parson has close to a decade of experience working as a lead on high-impact inter-sectoral projects in the public sector. Prior to becoming the City's Special Assistant for Equity and Community Recovery, Parson was the project manager for Santa Monica's Wellbeing Index, a data driven tool that measures how communities are really doing and where equity gaps exist. Parson began her career in public service as the district liaison to a State Assemblymember in New York City where Parson worked on issues ranging from an outbreak of youth violence, the reconstruction of the World Trade Center, and the closing of a level 1 trauma center, before moving on to be a writer for the 72 Democratic members of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and also worked in homeland security and emergency management in Los Angeles. Throughout her career, Parson has placed an emphasis on developing data-driven, innovative solutions to public challenges, and the Wellbeing Index and her work in Equity and Community Recovery is the culmination of those efforts.
Jason Dawson SCG Member
Health Equity Strategist, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Jason Dawson is a Heath Equity Strategist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Center for Health Equity. As a strategist for the Partnership and Collaboration Unit, he works to build community partnerships that advice racial, social, economic, and environmental justice, and amplify community voices to drive decision-making and ensure accountability. He also advises on applying best health equity practices and strategies both proven effective and innovative to strengthen community efforts. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jason has been in the field of public health for the past 21 years, addressing health disparities in communities of color. He began his career with an emphasis on community health education and health promotion, addressing the disproportionate health outcomes impacting communities of color, ranging from HIV, STDs, teen pregnancy, heart disease, diabetes, and childhood obesity through the coordination and management of school and community-based health education programs. Jason earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Morehouse College and Master of Public Health from San Diego State University.
Zita Davis SCG Member
Executive Officer, City of Los Angeles, Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity
Zita Davis is the Executive Officer the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, whose mission is the prevention of homelessness and poverty, with compassion and inclusion, through education, training, employment and community development. Under the leadership of Mayor Eric Garcetti and Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive Officer Brenda Shockley, Zita oversees creative initiatives that seek to provide equitable access to prosperity of all L.A. residents and their communities. Prior to joining Mayor Garcetti’s team, Zita was the Budget Director for the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department, responsible for administering the department’s multi-million operational budget. Zita had the privilege of serving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Mayor James Hahn as Associate Director of Budget Policy and as Project Manager for Workforce Development. Currently, Zita is a board member for the Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women and Children. She is an active member of her community and has served on the Board of the Industrial Education Fund, A Better L.A., and was an officer for her church’s Pastoral Council. Zita lives in L.A. with her husband Marshall, their three adult children, daughters Veronique and Chanel, and son Marshall III who attends college at her Alma Mater, the University of Southern California.
Cindy Pánuco
Vice President and Chief Program Officer, Public Counsel
Cindy Pánuco joined Public Counsel as Directing Attorney of the Consumer Rights and Economic Project in 2019, spearheading its litigation efforts in the areas of predatory “PACE” home loans, bail reform, civil rights, and criminal justice debt in LA County. She has served as a litigation resource for attorneys across the organization, and was named a 2019 Rising Star in civil rights. In May 2020, she was named as the organization's Vice President and Chief Program Officer. Before joining Public Counsel, Pánuco was a partner at Hadsell Stormer & Renick LLP – a renowned civil rights firm based in Pasadena, California. She specialized in complex civil rights and employment cases involving law enforcement misconduct, unjustified deadly police force, unconstitutional conditions of confinement in jails, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblowers, and other constitutional and international human rights.
Cristina Magana
Partner, Harder+Company Community Research
Cristina Magaña is a Partner at Harder+Company, where she provides evaluation, facilitation, and planning support for a broad range of clients and their stakeholders. In her organizational leadership role, Cristina supports the attraction and retention of staff; leads the integration of culturally responsive approaches to evaluation and research practice; and is taking a leading role in advancing Harder+Company is committed to becoming an anti-racist organization. This organizational commitment requires a deeper exploration of the root causes and manifestations of racism in our organization and practice, identifying the organizational, social, and problems in place, and taking action to change our structures and practice. Cristina’s applied research career began nearly 25 years ago while working on a community-wide initiative to assess and address the health and mental health disparities experienced by Latinx populations rural and suburban communities in California. She is adept at applying mixed methods approaches to evaluation projects across a broad range of content areas. In addition, her career has been dedicated to applying an equity lens to consulting, research, and facilitation approaches to build assets and address the needs of under-resourced communities. Cristina is a bilingual/bi cultural researcher and a trained facilitator.
Angela Sanchez
Program Officer, College Success, ECMC Foundation
Angela Sanchez is a program officer on the College Success team at ECMC Foundation, a national funder focused in postsecondary degree attainment. In her role, Angela oversees grants that increase college persistence, two-year transfer, and bachelor degree completion for students from marginalized backgrounds (e.g. first-generation, low-income, and students of color). Angela is also the co-chair for Grantmakers for Education’s Postsecondary Access and Attainment (PSA2) Group, which provides collaborative learning opportunities for funders in postsecondary education nationwide. Outside of ECMC Foundation, Angela is the Scholarship Chair for the UCLA Latino Alumni Association and serves on the board of directors for the Los Angeles-based nonprofit School on Wheels, Inc., which provides academic support to K-12 students experiencing homelessness. On the subject of family homelessness, Angela has guest lectured at USC’s Price School of Public Policy and also written a children’s picture book series. Angela earned her master's in education with a focus in student affairs and a bachelor's degree in history from the University of California, Los Angeles.
April Harris Akinloye
DEI Senior Consultant, Social Good Solutions
April Harris Akinloye, Ph.D., is the Senior Consultant of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Social Good Solutions. She leads institutional culture change by bridging intercultural and intergenerational perspectives through critical analysis, organizational accountability and collaboration. Through an anti-racist lens, she facilitates strategic analysis of practices, policies and communication. She is known for her emotional intelligence that cultivates trust and influence across all organizational roles and functions. At the start of her higher education career, April’s passion for diversity, equity and inclusion was awakened. As a former chief diversity officer, she collaborated with executive leadership to create a clear vision toward inclusive excellence. In addition, she provided counsel to the presidential cabinet on strategic implementation of intercultural competence development techniques and the institutional structure required to best serve a diverse community. Her current professional focus with public and private organizations highlights her commitment to cultural competency development, anti-racism, shared power and the elevation of lived experience as an asset rather than a deficit. Dr. Harris Akinloye completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Pepperdine University and earned her Ph.D. in Education with a focus on Cultural Perspectives from UC, Santa Barbara. A life-long Lakers and Dodgers fan; April is a native of Inglewood, CA, where she resides with her husband and two sons.
Francisco Curiel
Project Coordinator, HCIDLA
Francisco Curiel (Frank) is a Project Coordinator with the Los Angeles Housing + Community Investment Department. Frank specializes in Financial Empowerment work and is responsible for launching and managing several programs, including new child savings account program launching in early 2021 in partnership with LAUSD and LA County. Frank has over eight years of strategic planning experience supporting low and moderate-income communities to build assets and foundations for themselves and their families. He was recently assigned to support the HCIDLA Racial Equity Action Plan, which will incorporate a racial equity lens to the Department's work, including it's workforce, operations and services. Together, with other City Departments and external partners, the Action Plan will incorporate best practices, common goals, and metrics to help the city's efforts to reduce poverty and support marginalized communities. Frank is passionate about breaking the cycle of poverty. He is keenly aware that poverty is connected to institutional racism and the lack of racial equity work. He is an empath and brings a plethora of knowledge in the workplace. Frank uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to take on heavy lifts and build collaborations across all sectors so that together can help fight the war on poverty. Frank is inspired by the diversity that is reflective of his community, and he wishes to be a leader in the field of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion work. His lived experience dealing with critical poverty components has allowed him to think outside the box and genuinely support residents and programs. Frank likes to hike in his free time, play golf, and spend time with his loved ones.
James Kyle SCG Member
Medical Director Quality Improvement, LA Care
Medical Director Quality Improvement at LA Care. Graduate of UCLA School of Medicine and Andrews Theological Seminary. Former CMO at Tuba City Arizona on the Navajo Nation. Former Dean of Loma Linda School of Public Health and previous Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science.
Anastasia Lester
Program Officer, First 5 Kern
Anastasia Lester has worked in the public sector for more than 20 years. Anastasia has trained nearly a hundred organizations on how to provide strategic planning and parenting to their local communities. She has volunteered as the chair for the annual Good Neighbor Festival event for over 10 years. Anastasia received her Master’s Degree from National University in Special Education, Human Development, and Public Administration, with an emphasis in Organizational Leadership. Most importantly, Anastasia is a proud mom of her daughter, Shyann.