Co-Chairs
Gary Gero
Chief Sustainability Officer
Cinny Kennard
Executive Director The Annenberg Foundation
Chief Sustainability Officer
Gary Gero
Gary Gero was recently appointed to be the first Chief Sustainability Officer for the County of Los Angeles where his duties will include creating a countywide sustainability plan that addresses regional environmental, economic, and social justice issues. Gary stepped down from his role as President of the Climate Action Reserve in January 2016 after having served in the position for nearly nine years. Gary led the organization through its transition from the California Climate Action Registry and then drove the launch and growth of the Climate Action Reserve into the leading offset project registry in North America. He now serves on the Board of Directors for the organization.
Gary’s career includes nearly 20 years of work in local government, primarily in the City of Los Angeles where he served as Air Quality Director and subsequently Assistant General Manager for the Environmental Affairs Department focusing on climate change, sustainable development, energy policy, and alternative fuel vehicles. Gary serves on the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters and serves on the Steering Committee of the California Sustainability Alliance. He was a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee and served for six years on the City of Glendale Planning Commission.
Executive Director The Annenberg Foundation
Cinny Kennard
Cinny Kennard, Executive Director at The Annenberg Foundation, has decades of award-winning leadership and Executive Management in the non-profit sector with established national brands including National Public Radio, Smithsonian Institution, Pew Charitable Trusts and The Federal Communications Commission. Cinny is also is an award-winning broadcast journalist who currently serves on several boards including the Los Angeles Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) at Pepperdine School of Public Policy, The Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism and is a longtime member of the Trusteeship of the International Women’s Forum.
At the Annenberg Foundation, Cinny has worked with the chairman Wallis Annenberg and the board on local, national and global grantmaking in education, in arts and culture, health care and underserved communities. She has also launched several impactful projects including, AnnenbergTech, the Wallis Annenberg GenSpace scheduled to open in 2021 in Los Angeles, the Wallis Annenberg PetSpace, has a key board governance seat on the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts and has worked to craft a public/private partnership to construct permanent supportive housing for the homeless in South Los Angeles. Kennard has bolstered the Foundation management team and presided over an organization which has now given away over 5 billion dollars across Los Angeles, the nation and the globe over 30-years.
Before joining the Annenberg Foundation in January 2015, she was the Senior Vice President of Programming at the Smithsonian Institution and served as a Senior Advisor to the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands creating and driving the outreach plan to bring top Washington D.C. elected officials to Sunnylands, including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi JinPing for the Sunnylands Summit.
Prior to that, she served as managing director/managing editor of NPR West from 2003 to 2009. During her tenure, NPR West expanded from 20 to nearly 90 full-time employees. Previously, she served as an executive project director and journalism professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Before that, she was a CBS News correspondent based at various times in Los Angeles, London and Moscow covering battlefield front lines, and before that a local television news reporter at WFAA-TV in Dallas, KHOU-TV in Houston and WANE TV.
Kennard has launched several projects aimed at improving broadcast journalism, including Reliable Resources, the $1.5 million Pew Charitable Trust/USC Annenberg project to improve broadcast television political coverage. She is a co-founder and executive board member of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism, and for nine-years, she served as a jury member for the 2015 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcast journalism.
She has been recognized with the DuPont Columbia University Award for coverage of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and has also been awarded a CINE Golden Eagle among other various awards as an Executive Producer for filmmaking. An accomplished writer, Kennard helped write Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age by G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; co-authored a piece for The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation; co-authored “Characteristics of War Coverage by Female Correspondents” in Media and Conflict in the 21st Century; and authored numerous articles for The Huffington Post.
Roundtable Members
Swati Chandra
Director of Food Equity Roundtable
Paula Daniels
Center for Good Food Purchasing
Efrain Escobedo
California Community Foundation
Jamie Fanous
Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF)
Kathy Finn
Secretary-Treasurer, UFCW 770
Janette Robinson Flint
Black Women for Wellness
Michael Flood
LA Regional Food Bank
Amb. Michael Lawson
Urban League
Antonia Jimenez
Los Angeles County (DPSS)
John Kim
Advancement Project California
Dr.Tony Kuo
Los Angeles County (DPH)
Abigail R. Marquez
City of Los Angeles
Rick Nahmias
Food Forward
Vy T. Nguyen
Weingart Foundation
Kiran Saluja
PHFE WIC , Heluna Health
Maryam Shayegh
LA County Office of Education
Lena Silver
LA Libre
Frank Tamborello
Hunger Action Los Angeles (HALA)
Christine Tran
Food Policy Council
John Wagner
First 5 LA
Director of Food Equity Roundtable
Swati Chandra
Swati Chandra is the Director of Food Equity Roundtable. She is a seasoned general management, strategy, and marketing professional who comes with over 20 years of cross-sector work experience in private and public sector organizations. She has held senior executive-level positions in high growth and innovative media, technology, and start-up companies including Dow Jones (The Wall Street Journal), Scholastic, ZS Associate, and NZXT Inc.
In the last few years, she has committed herself to public service and making a tangible impact on society. Prior to joining as Director of Food Equity Roundtable, she was working with the Workforce Development, Aging, and Community Services Department (WDACS) at Los Angeles County as a FUSE Executive Advisor. She worked in close collaboration with the WDACS County team on several strategic initiatives to ensure effective service delivery to the target audience. She is also an instrumental part of the team that successfully launched the Great Plates Delivered Nutrition Program for older adults in response to the COVID-19 crisis. She is very passionate about the subject of food equity and its impact on society.
She is a results-oriented professional with a strong focus on data-driven quantitative analysis. She has an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in International Marketing, and a B.Sc. in Statistics from the Delhi University.
Center for Good Food Purchasing
Paula Daniels
Paula Daniels is Co-founder, Chief of What's Next, and Chair of the Board of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. The Center for Good Food Purchasing uses the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system that prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment, through the nationally-networked adoption and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program by large institutions. There are now 32 institutions in 15 cities across the US enrolled in this Program, which received a 2018 Future Policy award from the World Future Council, UN FAO and IFOAM Organics International.
Paula is a lawyer, and has held a number of senior positions in government in California and Los Angeles, including as Senior Advisor on Food Policy to Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles. She has also taught food policy at UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC and Vermont Law School, and is an Ashoka Fellow and a Stanton Fellow of the Durfee Foundation.
California Community Foundation
Efrain Escobedo
Efrain Escobedo is recognized statewide as a leading executive strategist dedicated to increasing the civic engagement of historically underserved and marginalized communities. For nearly two decades, he has worked within the philanthropic, government, and nonprofit sectors. This cross-sectoral experience –combined with Efrain's commitment to empowering local communities – allows him to bring partners together to make a meaningful impact in his work across California.
Presently Efrain serves as Vice President of Public Policy and Civic Engagement at the California Community Foundation (CCF), one of the state’s leading philanthropies with more than $2.6 billion in assets. In this role, Efrain manages senior staff, develops cross-sector partnerships, oversees several multimillion-dollar grantmaking portfolios, and leads the design and implementation of innovative public-private partnerships with Los Angeles County and the State of California.
Before joining CCF, Efrain held leadership positions at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. There he led three divisions essential to advancing the mission and strategic initiatives of the department, and spearheaded historic projects like the Voting Systems Assessment Project, which modernized the County’s voting systems. Efrain also held management positions at NALEO Educational Fund, where he played a key leadership role as the Senior Director of Civic Engagement in the historic Ya Es Hora campaign, which helped to naturalize more than one million immigrants in the U.S. and contributed to historic Latino voter turnout in 2008.
Efrain is Chair of the Board of Directors for Hispanics in Philanthropy, member of the Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Directors for Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, and a member of the Policy Advisory Committee for Southern California Grantmakers. He was also a Speaker Appointee of the CA Census Complete Count Committee in 2020.
Efrain earned his bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California and is a recent graduate of the Los Angeles County Executive Leadership Program. He is currently an advanced candidate for an Executive master’s degree in Business Administration at the University of La Verne.
Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF)
Jamie Fanous
Jamie works to advance policies rooted in farmer needs and engage farmers in developing those policies. Jamie has committed nearly 10 years to sustainable food and agriculture systems ranging from on-farm technical assistance, soil health and agriculture policy, to on-farm research and data management. She holds a MS in Agriculture, Food, and Environment, and a MA in Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University. Jamie is committed to developing sustainable agriculture policy rooted in social justice and equity
Secretary-Treasurer, UFCW 770
Kathy Finn
Before she even stepped out of law school, Kathy Finn began fighting for the rights of working people. Since 1990, she’s brought that grit and dedication to UFCW 770 workers. With a passion for protecting the health and pension benefits of our members, she currently serves as a trustee on the Southern California UFCW Health & Welfare Fund and the Pension Fund. Kathy also sits at the bargaining table during contract negations to ensure our members get the benefits we deserve.
Black Women for Wellness
Janette Robinson Flint
Janette Robinson Flint holds the executive director position of Black Women for Wellness, a woman-centered community-based organization working on reproductive justice issues as they impact Black women & girls. Ms. Robinson Flint is also part of the Los Angeles Coalition for Reproductive Justice, California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom and In Our Own Voice; National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda with the intention of lifting the experiences and voices of Black women in pursuit of health and well-being.
My work in the health field began as an advocate during my pregnancy, seeking a holistic practitioner to work with my concept of gentle birth. and It gives me great pleasure to imagine a world with powerful women, at optimum physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and financial health leading us to justice and peace.
Over the course of the years, my journey has included The Birthing Project USA, Great Beginnings for Black Babies, National Health Foundation, March of Dimes, California Primary Care Association, Inglewood Healthy Mothers & Babies, South Los Angeles Health Project, and Women Infant & Children (South Los Angeles advisory board) Programs as well with a member of the community faculty with Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science.
Travel is a love I combine with my work, attending the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing China inspired the creation of Black Women for Wellness. As a researcher in Cuba, I witness the reality of what political will accomplishes with health for all. Great food, a good story (either book or movie), spoken word, live music, salsa dancing, and a scenic walk make my day in Los Angeles. A victory that encourages health for women and girls grounds me through the challenges, traffic, and the struggle for freedom.
LA Regional Food Bank
Michael Flood
Michael Flood has served as the Chief Executive of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank since 2000. During his tenure, the Food Bank has started new programs to increase food distribution and launched new nutrition and public policy initiatives. A Los Angeles native, Michael has been in food banking since 1990 working previously for the Redwood Empire Food Bank and the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.
Michael serves on the Board of Directors of several organizations including as Board Chair of Nourish California, Board Chair of Emergency Network Los Angeles and Treasurer of the LA Food Policy Council. In 2016, Michael was appointed by the LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis to serve on the Public Social Services Commission. Michael is also a member of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall and LA-5 Rotary Club.
Michael earned his MBA and BA degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
Urban League
Amb. Michael Lawson
In 2013, President Obama nominated Ambassador Michael Lawson to be the US Representative to the 36-member Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN specialized agency. ICAO was established in 1944 to develop Standards and Recommended Practices and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible international civil aviation sector.
Ambassador Lawson also served on the Board of Airport Commissioners (BOAC) for Los Angeles World Airports from 2005 through 2011and as President of the BOAC from 2008 – 2011. The Board is responsible for the overall management of the system of airports under its control, including Los Angeles International Airport, LA/Ontario International Airport, and Van Nuys Airport.
Ambassador Lawson also served as a Partner at the prestigious international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in their New York and Los Angeles offices until he retired in 2011. Skadden is one of the largest law firms in the world with approximately 1,700 attorneys in 22 offices around the world. The firm specializes in mergers and acquisitions, litigation, and other practice areas. The M&A Journal named Skadden "Law Firm of the Year" in its April 2010 issue. Skadden also received the magazine's top recognition in 2009. Ambassador Lawson led the Executive Compensation and Benefits Group in the Los Angeles office; worked in all facets of executive compensation and benefits matters, including stock options and other equity-based compensation arrangements, tax- qualified and non-qualified pension plans, fiduciary responsibility, structured finance transactions, bankruptcy proceedings, and proxy contests. Chambers USA consistently recognized Ambassador Lawson as one of America's Leading Lawyers for Business. Ambassador Lawson received his Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School in 1978 and his BA in Political Science and Economics from Loyola Marymount University in 1975. Bar Admissions: New York; District of Columbia; and California
Ambassador Lawson has also held positions of significant responsibility on several charitable, educational and administrative boards, and committees including:
The Board of Trustees of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (the second largest public pension fund in the United States with assets totaling approximately $192.9 Billion (as of 11/30/2016); appointed by the Governor of California from 2011 – 2014);
Chair of the Oversight Board for the Community Redevelopment Agency for the City of Los Angeles, which was responsible for overseeing the dissolution of the Community Redevelopment Activities of the Successor Governing Board of Community Redevelopment Agency for the City of Los Angeles (2012 – 2014);
The Board of Trustees, Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA (2010 – 2014);
The Board of Trustees, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA (2009 – 2014); Chair/Member, Constitutional Rights Foundation (2003 – 2010);
Vice Chair/Member, Board of Directors, Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County/The Music Center (2004 – 2014);
Member, Board of Directors, Music Center Foundation (2010 – 2014);
Member, Western Regional Selection Panel for the White House Fellows Program (2010 – 2011); and
Member, Board of Directors, The Advancement Project (2002 – 2014).
Los Angeles County (DPSS)
Antonia Jimenez
Antonia Jiménez was appointed on September 25, 2018, to serve as Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS). With nearly 14,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $4 billion, DPSS is the largest social services agency in the nation, providing services to over 3.7 million low-income residents. Antonia also served as the Chief Deputy for DPSS, and Deputy Chief Executive Officer for the Children and Families’ Well-Being Cluster.
She has over 30 years of extensive experience as a senior executive in the private and public sector, specifically within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She served as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services for Massachusetts where she designed and directed a $2.4 billion reform effort. She served as the Special Assistant to the Governor of Massachusetts and Chief Financial Officer for Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Education.
She also worked as a Senior Manager for Deloitte Consulting, undertaking major projects in New York City, Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare, and Solano County’s Health and Human Services Department.
Antonia earned a Bachelor of Science from Emmanuel College and has attended Senior Executive Programs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Massachusetts Technical Institute (MIT)
Advancement Project California
John Kim
John Kim is the Executive Director of Advancement Project California. He has a long track record as a coalition-builder and facilitator of multi-stakeholder collaborations. He has established a wide range of partnerships with community-based organizations, elected officials, governmental agencies, academic researchers, and foundations across the state. Recently, John's leadership, as part of the RACE COUNTS initiative, and with partners, was pivotal to inform the rapid response to the needs of low-income and people of color impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles and across the state of California.
Learn more about John Kim and his racial justice movement work, here.
Los Angeles County (DPH)
Dr.Tony Kuo
Dr. Kuo is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health and Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Family Medicine in the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He is also Co-Program Leader for the Population Health Program at the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute. In the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Dr. Kuo directs the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention and the Office of Senior Health. In addition to his experience as an executive in the public sector, Dr. Kuo is a physician researcher who has worked extensively in population health, including interventions that affect special populations (e.g., older adults, justice involved youth, food insecure families). These and other work have included projects in tobacco control; cardiovascular health; clinical and preventive services, including the National Diabetes Prevention Program; nutrition and physical activity promotion; injury prevention; and social conditions that affect health.
City of Los Angeles
Abigail R. Marquez
Abigail R. Marquez – General Manager
City of Los Angeles, Community Investment for Families Department
Abigail Marquez has spent 17 years working for the City of Los Angeles advancing anti-poverty programs and policies. She was recently appointed by the Mayor and the City Council to serve as the General Manager of the newly created Community Investment for Families Department. Prior to this appointment, Marquez served as Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department (HCIDLA), overseeing the Community Services and Development Bureau. In that role, she was responsible for the planning and administration of the City's Consolidated Plan, which includes $120 million in federal funds to support capital projects and neighborhood improvement programs, and the implementation of the department’s social service delivery systems; FamilySource, Domestic Violence/Human Trafficking Shelter Operations, and Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV/AIDS (HOPWA). In this role, she also worked with staff to provide strategic direction to the bureau’s four commissions: Commission on Community & Family Services; Community Action Board; Domestic Violence Alliance; and Affordable Housing Commission. During her tenure, she played a significant role in helping to increase the Domestic Violence/Human Trafficking Shelter budget, implemented several key COVID-response programs, and managed the allocation of increased federal funding allocated through the CARES ACT.
As General Manager of Community Investment for Families Department (CIFD), Marquez will work closely with the Mayor and City Council to establish poverty-reduction goals for the City; play an active role in implementing homelessness prevention programs; oversee the implementation of L.A.’s Guaranteed Basic Income pilot, the largest in the nation; and implement the Children’s Savings Account program, Opportunity LA, which will support 35,000 first-graders annually across the region.
Food Forward
Rick Nahmias
Before founding Food Forward in 2009, Rick was an award-winning photographer and writer who focused on the faces and stories of marginalized communities. His formal training as a cook, along with his exploration of California’s agricultural workforce in his body of work entitled “The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers” gave him a deep appreciation of and involvement in both the gourmet cooking and food justice worlds. These varied interests, along with his conviction that access to healthy, fresh, nutritious food is a human right, culminated in him coming aboard as full-time Executive Director of Food Forward in 2011.He’s spoken internationally on food justice and social innovation issues, and his work has been profiled in dozens of media outlets including The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, The Guardian, Sunset Magazine, NPR, and The Los Angeles Times. Rick has served as a regional delegate to the Slow Food/Terra Madre Conference in Torino and as a Ralph M. Parsons Fellow, and won Fast Pitch competitions for Food Forward in California and Texas. He received an inaugural Trailblazer Award by the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 2016, and the TIAA Difference Maker award in 2018. He was named a Food Champion by LA City Council, a 2017-18 Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Policy, one of 40 Inspiring Leaders by the Center for Nonprofit Management, and a 2020 Impact-Maker to Watch by Los Angeles City Council & Board of Supervisors. Rick serves on the Leadership Circle of the LA Food Policy Council.
Weingart Foundation
Vy T. Nguyen
Vy Nguyen joined Weingart Foundation in 2008 as Program Associate, and currently serves as Senior Director of Special Projects and Communications, working on initiatives and other projects that fall outside of the Foundation’s typical responsive grantmaking. Before entering philanthropy, she worked for more than a decade in the nonprofit and public sectors, most recently for the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and, prior to that, for the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance. Vy holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from University of California, Los Angeles.
PHFE WIC , Heluna Health
Kiran Saluja
Kiran Saluja is the Executive Director of the PHFE WIC, a program of Heluna Health. WIC is a special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. PHFR runs the largest local WIC agency in the country, serving approximately 200,000 participants every month in the Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties in California. WIC services are provided by 575 plus staff working at 46 WIC sites. Ms. Saluja is a Registered Dietitian. She obtained her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the UCLA School of Public Health. She also holds a Masters and Bachelor's degree from the University of Delhi, India. Ms. Saluja is a passionate supporter of breastfeeding and has participated in numerous breastfeeding coalitions, task forces and special committees at the local, state and federal levels. She served on the Board of the National WIC Association for seven years and was Board Chair in 2012. WIC is not a profession, it is her vocation.
She has spoken at National, State and local conferences about WIC, breastfeeding and nutrition education, including before the U.S. Congress in 2010 and at the Institute of Medicine in 2011.
LA County Office of Education
Maryam Shayegh
Maryam Shayegh is a registered dietitian, health and wellness advocate and educator. She works as a Nutrition and Wellness Coordinator for LACOE, where she provides technical assistance, support and capacity building to improve the implementation of nutrition and wellness promotion strategies and programs. Shayegh has been appointed as a consultant member of the CDE Child Nutrition Advisory Council, which provides proactive leadership to enhance health and nutrition education for California's youth.
LA Libre
Lena Silver
Lena Silver is the Associate Director of Litigation and Policy Advocacy at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, where she has worked since 2015. Her focus is on access to public benefits, including Department of Public Social Services benefits, and Social Security benefits. Recently, Lena became the lead for a two-year pilot project to increase immigrant access to and enrollment in public benefits through a closed-loop referral network between benefit enrollers, legal aid, and outreach workers. Lena came to NLSLA after completing a fellowship at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, and a clerkship at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Ms. Silver received her bachelor’s degree with honors from UC Berkeley in 2008, and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2013.
Hunger Action Los Angeles (HALA)
Frank Tamborello
Frank Tamborello, originally from Texas, spent several years in the printing trade before becoming involved in advocacy to assist low-income people.
In the 1990s he worked with Texans United on a successful campaign to prevent a utility rate hike in Houston .He spent nine months in Angola with Development Aid from People to People developing a school for street children (1991). From 1992 through 2006 he worked on issues including low income home ownership, homelessness and child nutrition.
In 2006 Frank was the principal co-founder of Hunger Action L.A. which expanded work on ending hunger and promoting healthy eating. His current food and nutrition related work includes:
Development of the Market Match program, which provides up to 40 bonus dollars per month for low income families, seniors and disabled persons at 21 farmers markets in Los Angeles County. Over 10,000 persons have been served in 2019.
Organizing and educating groups and individuals on advocacy around issues affecting income and access to food, including improving CalFresh by ending the restriction on drug felonies and expanding the program to SSI recipients.
Editing and publishing the “Peoples Guide to Welfare Health and Other Services” publication, outlining resources available to low income persons in Los Angeles County.
Food Policy Council
Christine Tran
Christine Tran is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC), the largest food policy council in the country. LAFPC is a cross-sector non-profit with a mission to make food healthy, affordable, sustainable, and fair for all. LAFPC convenes working groups to develop community-driven policies, supports corner stores to provide fresh produce within half a mile of residences, leads innovative research projects, and provides leadership development training.
Prior to this role, she worked on multi-year grants as a Family Supports Program Officer at First 5 LA. Her previous work includes teaching for the Los Angeles Unified School District as well as developing policies and programs across the United States in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York City, and Seattle. She has a diverse background in food justice, education, nonprofit, philanthropy, and community development..
Christine is an Angelena from South El Monte. She operates through the lens of lived experiences. Christine is the daughter of refugees. Her mother worked in sweatshops, her father worked as a day laborer. She grew up in a CalFresh household, was a former WIC baby, and free lunch student. She is committed to increasing healthy food access, expanding local opportunities, and building healthy communities through inclusive policies and programs. .
Christine has written for KCET, PBS, Boom California, and Life & Thyme. She is a graduate of UCLA, Columbia University, and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Washington. Christine is also an alumna of the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship.
First 5 LA
John Wagner
John A. Wagner is the Executive Vice President of First 5 LA’s Center for Child and Family Impact (CCFI). In this role, John is responsible for leading the CCFI’s systems change efforts to change policy and practice and build public will to prioritize and improve outcomes for young children in Los Angeles County.
John first joined the early childhood advocacy and public grantmaking organization as Chief Operating Officer in December 2012, building on his nearly two decades of experience in running a number of state departments in the health and human services arena. In August 2016, John was promoted to the position of Executive Vice President. Prior to joining First 5 LA, John served as Director of the California Department of Community Services and Development from 2011-2012, and Director of the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) from 2007-2011. At CDSS, he oversaw a budget of over $20 billion and programs affecting California’s most vulnerable residents including foster children and youth; children and families receiving aid through the California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs); and children and adults in state-licensed community care facilities.
John has served as senior policymaker and advisor to both Republican and Democratic administrations in Wisconsin, Massachusetts and California. Prior to coming to California, he served as the Assistant Secretary for Children, Youth and Families for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, where he coordinated policies and programs across many state agencies. Additionally, John served as the state’s Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, overseeing the state welfare agency from 2002 to 2007.
John earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from Marquette University.
Technical Advisory Team
Alison Frazzini
Chief Sustainability Office LA County
Jeremy Goldberg
Microsoft
Dr. Tamara Hunter
LA County Commission for Children and Families
Dipa Shah-Patel
Department of Public Health LA County
Lisa Cleri Reale
Reale Associates
Dr. May Wang
UCLA
Natasha Wasim
Program Manager Food Equity Roundtable
Chief Sustainability Office LA County
Alison Frazzini
Ali Frazzini is a policy advisor in the LA County Chief Sustainability Office, where she promotes health equity through the OurCounty sustainability plan and related projects. She previously served as Director of Take Care New York at the New York City Health Department, where she oversaw stakeholder engagement and capacity-building for the city's health equity agenda, and held a fellowship at the United States Office of the Surgeon General. Prior to her government service, she worked in the community setting with people experiencing barriers to housing and employment. She has been a food justice proponent since working at an urban farm in 2006, and has engaged in several community food projects across the country. She received her Masters degree in Public Health Nutrition from the University of North Carolina and her undergraduate degree in Linguistics from Yale University.
Microsoft
Jeremy Goldberg
Jeremy M. Goldberg is the Worldwide Public Sector Director of Critical Infrastructure at Microsoft. Prior to Microsoft, Jeremy served as the Interim-CIO at the State of New York and also the Deputy Secretary for Technology and Innovation where he led the state’s IT organization through the first wave of the COVID19 pandemic. Prior to New York State, Jeremy served in technology leadership roles in the Mayor’s Office’s in New York City, San Francisco and San Jose California. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal’s CIO journal, published columns on the topics of Digital Transformation, Strategic Investments in Technology in NextGov, Government Technology and State Scoop and is the recipient of several public sector fellowships and is currently a Senior Innovation Fellow in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center. In 2020 he was recognized as #2 in City and State New York’s Government Technology 50. He is a graduate of the University of Texas-Austin, and received his Masters from the University of San Francisco.
USC
Dr. Kayla de la Haye
Dr. de la Haye works to address key public health issues by integrating behavioral science, network science, and systems science. Her work focuses on family and community social networks and the environments in which people live, to promote healthy eating and food security, and to prevent diet-related disease and health disparities. Her research also explores the role of social networks in how families, teams, and coalitions solve complex problems and address health risks. Dr. de la Haye has been awarded research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Army Research Office. She serves on the Executive Committee of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA), and in 2018, she received the INSNA Freeman Award for significant contributions to the study of social structure. She previously worked as an Associate Behavioral/Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, and she holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Adelaide, Australia.
LA County Commission for Children and Families
Dr. Tamara Hunter
Dr. Tamara N. Hunter has worked to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families for more than fifteen years. She is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families, an advisory body to the County’s Board of Supervisors on matters impacting systems-involved children, youth, and families. Dr. Hunter, a macro practitioner, has extensive experience and expertise in public child welfare; having designed, implemented, and managed programs, administered internal operations, and led cross-sector collaborative teams. She has published, presented, and lectured on these topics.
Dr. Hunter also leads the Southern California Grantmakers + Los Angeles County Child and Family Well-Being Funders Collaborative. The Child and Family Well-Being Funders Collaborative brings together philanthropy and the public sector for shared learning, relationship building, and identification of opportunities for systems-level collective impact to advance child and family well-being. Dr. Hunter is also a Strategic Liaison with the Center for Strategic Partnerships and leads the Child and Family Well-Being Funders Collaborative.
Department of Public Health LA County
Dipa Shah-Patel
Dipa Shah-Patel directs the Los Angeles County Public Health Department’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Program, and has nearly twenty years of experience implementing federally funded and state administered nutrition programs to improve the health of low-income and vulnerable communities. Under her leadership, the Nutrition and Physical Activity Program has shifted its focus to addressing upstream factors that impact diet-related diseases, including food insecurity and poverty. She has served on numerous task forces and presented to a variety of audiences on food insecurity and its relationship to diet-related chronic diseases. Dipa was instrumental in the development of several Board motions adopted by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors focused on screening for food insecurity in County clinics and reducing food waste and food insecurity. Ms. Shah-Patel served on LA County’s Food Security Branch, established by the Office of Emergency Management to respond to the growing prevalence of food insecurity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dipa is also a board member of the national nonprofit organization Wholesome Wave, which has been a leader in developing produce prescription programs across the United States. Dipa received her both her B.A. in History with a minor in Education and M.P.H. in Community Health Sciences from UCLA. She is also a Registered Dietitian.
Reale Associates
Lisa Cleri Reale
Lisa Cleri Reale is principal of Lisa Cleri Reale & Associates. She provides consulting to multiple sectors including corporations, government and academia, but has built a 40+ year specialty in the non-profit and philanthropic fields. Cleri Reale considers herself a generalist, advisor and implementation strategist. Her client work involves a variety of services from strategic grant making, fund development, executive and board coaching and development, marketing, communications, events, organizational capacity to strategic planning.
Cleri Reale spent 11 years with The Times Mirror Corporation and the Los Angeles Times directing their community affairs efforts. She served in a number of capacities, including Vice President of The Times Mirror Foundation and Director of Community Affairs for the Los Angeles Times. As head of community affairs at The Times, she launched several initiatives, including the Times in Education Partners in Education program, 1-800-877-READ, a literacy referral hotline and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. As co-founder of the Festival, Lisa also co-chaired the Festival Planning Committee for the first several years, building the Festival and providing oversight and guidance on all aspects of the event.
During her 20 plus years of consulting, she has served as an advisor to a diverse group of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders assisting them on a range of programs and operations from grant making policies and community engagement, to internal staffing, operational structures, and interface across other sectors of the philanthropic community.
Cleri Reale is an active, passionate community leader. For years she has served as a standing member of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ corporate board. She was one of the architects of United Way’s Pathways out of Poverty Plan and is the “godmother” of HomeWalk which she helped start. She currently serves as chair of its Community Impact Cabinet. She also rejoined the board of Community Partners where she had served as the organization’s first woman board chair back in 2009.
In addition, Supervisor Sheila Kuehl appointed Cleri Reale to the Board of the LA County Library Commission. She is a member of the LA Community Leaders, a group of corporate social responsibility professionals. Cleri Reale has championed a number of events and community initiatives, including the Measure L campaign for the Los Angeles Public Library where she served as a member of the Campaign Strategy Committee, the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights Celebration, the Olympic Torch Relay Events in LA, Literacy@Work, the LA County City Leaders Summit: Building Blocks for Cities’ Economic Success, the Asian Pacific Book Festival among others. Some past board affiliations include Arts for LA, Watts/Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club, LA County Children’s Planning Council and Council Foundation, Shakespeare Festival LA, Para los Ninos, Chrysalis, LA36, the Center for Non-Profit Management, and Our Children LA. In addition, she served as the President of the Carthay Center Elementary School PTA and Hamilton High School PTA.
In 2014, Lisa received an award from SBCC Thrive LA for her work in the community. In 2012, State Senator Curren Price named Lisa a “SHero” and in 2009 she was one of 30 nonprofit leaders in LA to be honored by the Center for Nonprofit Management with its Nonprofit Excellence Award on the occasion of the Center’s 30th Anniversary in 2009.
A 35-year resident of Los Angeles, she remains proudly connected across generations through her son, age 31, who is a graphic designer and daughter, age 27, who is an actress.
UCLA
Dr. May Wang
May Wang is Professor of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in Los Angeles. She teaches courses in program planning and evaluation, food assistance programs and policies, and social determinants of nutrition and health, and is a member of the Steering Committee for UCLA’s Semel Healthy Campus Initiative which is leading efforts to address food insecurity on college campuses. She has conducted evaluation studies of community-based childhood obesity interventions which involve multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral collaborations and the application of implementation science frameworks and systems science methods, including the NIH-funded interdisciplinary study, The Early Childhood Obesity Systems Science Study (ECOSyS). Recently, she has been engaged in the analysis of the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey to examine regional differences in responses to pandemic-related food insecurity, and in developing interventions with community-based organizations to address food insecurity among older adult Asian Americans.
Program Manager Food Equity Roundtable
Natasha Wasim
Natasha Wasim is the Program of Food Equity Roundtable. She is a public health professional with experience in private and public sector organizations. She served as an Environmental Data Associate for The Walt Disney Company Enterprise Social Responsibility Team. She maintained their carbon offset portfolio, water stewardship grants, community stakeholder relations, and supply chain metrics. Natasha also worked at Riverside County as an Environmental Specialist working on food recovery and climate community action projects with the California Volunteers Program.
Natasha holds three degrees in Public Health and graduated from Yale University with her Master of Public Health in Environmental Sciences. There is where she explored her passion for environmental and urban health initiatives. She worked as a Climate Change and Health Student Associate, a writer for the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication think tank, and a lead researcher for Yale Office of Sustainability.