Our Board

Leadership is provided to our organization by an engaged and active Advisory Board. Learn more about Board Roles & Responsibilities

About the Board Members

Cynthia Chavez • Executive Director, LeaderSpring

Ms. Chavez brings 21 years of experience in public policy development, management, and community building. Previously, she was a respected organizational development and diversity consultant, specializing in planning and governance for nonprofits and foundations (1996–99). Ms. Chavez was a member of the professional staff of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (1990-96), where she helped launch a collaborative among three national foundations to promote giving and volunteerism in communities of color. She also served as executive director of an international nonprofit organization and was responsible for generating $4 million in scholarships for low-income students (1991-95). She was awarded a Warren Weaver Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (1989), and a Jesse Unruh State Assembly Fellowship from the California State Assembly (1981). In the early 80’s Ms. Chavez achieved consensus on statewide policies in youth employment, K-12 education, affordable housing, and consumer protection - while working on behalf of lawmakers of the San Francisco Bay Area. She was then appointed to the Governor’s Subcommittee on Youth Employment. Ms. Chavez is a volunteer member of a grant making committee of the United Way of Alameda County, and a board member to both the National Hispana Leadership Institute and the San Francisco Bay Girl Scout Council. 

Carla Dartis  Senior Vice President, Tides and Managing Director, Tides Center

Carla Dartis is part of the executive team at Tides responsible for the integrated management of the Tides organizations.  As Managing Director of Tides Center, Carlas directs its operations, including fiscal sponsorship services, for more than 200 Tides Center projects.  She has spent over 25 years in nonprofit management and economic development, providing support to vital nonprofit efforts.  Before joining Tides, Carla was Vice President of Community Investment for the East Bay Community Foundation, and she has a list of other stellar accomplishments: Program Officer for Children, Families, and Communities at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Families Leadership Fellow; Vice President for the Bank of America Community Development Bank; President of the Drew Economic Development Corporation; and Principal Loan Officer for the Mayor's Office of Economic Development in Los Angeles.  Carla is a member of First 5 California Commission and serves on the boards of the Zions Bank Community Investment Corporation and the Mercy Housing Loan Fund.  She holds a B.S. in Public Administration from the University of Southern California.

Rick Foster  Vice President for Programs, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Dr. Foster is Vice President for Programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan.  His programming duties include guilding Foundation efforts in food systems, rural development and leadership.  Dr. Foster also serve on the Executive Team that provides overall direction and leadership for the Foundation.  Specific programming initiatives for which he is responsible include: Integrated Farming Systems, Food Systems Professions Education, Managing Information with Rural America, Mid South Delta Initiative, People and Land, and the Kellogg National Leadership Program.

Kelly Hannum • Manager of Research, EMEA Region, Center for Creative Leadership

Kelly is an Enterprise Associate in the Global Leadership and Diversity and Design and Evaluation groups at the Center for Creative Leadership. She conducts research and evaluation on leadership development concepts and initiatives. In addition to her work at CCL, Kelly has been involved in research and evaluation projects with organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, and the Bowman Gray School of Medicine. She has presented her work at a number of conferences such as those sponsored by the American Evaluation Association, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Psychometric Society. She holds a bachelor's degree in history and German area studies from Guilford College and a Ph.D. in educational research, measurement and evaluation from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

LaDon James  former National Field Manager, Center for Progressive Leadership

Eugene Eric Kim • Founder and Executive Director, Blue Oxen Associates

Blue Oxen is a think tank devoted to improving collaboration and knowledge management. I have written for a number of publications, including Scientific American, PricewaterhouseCoopers's Technology Forecast, and Encyclopedia of Computers and Computer History (Fitzroy Dearborn 2001), and am working on my second book, a history of free software entitled, Software, Money, and Liberty: How Source Code Became Free. I am currently the Guide for the Web Services DevChannel, a community for software developers interested in Web Services. I wrote the Bookmarks column for Web Techniques (now New Architect) from March 2000 to February 2002, and am the author of the book, CGI Developer's Guide (Sams.net 1996). I worked as an independent consultant from July 1999 to December 2002, specializing in software development, project management, strategic analysis, and knowledge management. From July 1996 to July 1999, I served as the Senior Technical Editor at Dr. Dobb's Journal. I received an A.B. in History and Science from Harvard University in 1996, and graduated from Polytechnic School in 1992.

Don Lauro • former Senior Program Manager, David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Don Lauro has been with the Packard Foundation Population Program since 1998. Within the Population Program, Don serves as the team leader for India and co–team leader for Domestic Reproductive Rights. He developed and provided program officer support for grantmaking in Nigeria from 1998 to 2004. For Future Leaders, he identified and supported population and family planning leaders in each of the program's focus countries. Don also oversaw the development and phaseout of the Population-Environment grantmaking initiative. Prior to joining the Foundation, Don lived and worked in Liberia, Thailand, Australia, Hawaii, Cote d'Ivoire, and Morocco, as well as on the East Coast. Throughout the 1980s, Don was on the faculty of Columbia University at the Center for Population and Family Health, and in the 1990s he worked for John Snow, Inc. Don has a B.A. in history and an M.A. in demography from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in demography/anthropology from the Australian National University. Don sits on the executive steering committee of the African Grantmakers Affinity Group and speaks French and Thai. Don has authored several articles including most recently, Future Leaders for Reproductive Health: Approaches and Experiences within Developing Countries (coauthored with grantees for leadership programs) Building Leadership Bridges; International Leadership Association, 2004 and Quality of Care in Family Planning Services in Morocco (coauthored with Lisanne Brown, Mustafa Tyane, Jane Bertrand, et al). Article in Studies in Family Planning, vol. 26, No. 3, May/June 1995.

Philip Li • Chief Operating Officer, Brooklyn Community Foundation

Philip Li, Chief Operating Officer at the Brooklyn Community Foundation helps keep the foundation running by overseeing finance, human resources, technology, public education and administration.  He draws on his experiences working with nonprofit organizations and foundations as a philanthropic services consultant at Changing Our World, as the Executive Director of the Coro New York Leadership Center where he trained and developed a new generation of civic leaders and a dozen years on Wall Street starting at Merrill Lynch and finishing at Moody's Investors Service as a junk bond analyst.  A recipient of a United Way of New York City award for community service, Phil serves on a number of nonprofit boards and is a trustee of a family foundation.  A resident of Park Slope for more than a quarter of a century, Phil has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Grady McGonagill  Principal, McGonagill Associates

Grady McGonagill is Principla of McGonagill Associates, an organizational consulting and management development firm which since 1983 has specialized in building capacity for learning and change.  He has distinctive expertise in leadership development, developing a culture supportive of leadership and learning, and executive coaching.  He has a master's degree from Stanford University and a doctorate from Harvard University.  Grady is a contributor to the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, edited by Peter Senge et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1994) and the author of a chapter in Executive Coaching, edited by C. Fitzgerald and J. Berger (San Francisco: Davies Black Publishing, 2002).

Sonia Ospina • Associate Professor and Faculty Director, Research Center for Leadership in Action, New York University

Sonia Ospina is Associate Professor of Public Management and Policy and Faculty Director of the Research Center for Leadership in Action at NYU. She has taught foundations of nonprofit management, managing public service organizations, qualitative research methods, the theoretical foundations of applied research, women in management and human resources management. Her work is grounded on institutional analysis and organizational theory and spans both the US and Latin America. Her research explores how responsibility is negotiated and distributed among stakeholders participating in collective problem-solving in society and in organizations and its impact on democracy. Her current interests include social change leadership as public leadership; the dynamics of collaboration across sectors, organizations and communities of practice (i.e labor/management; academics/practitioners); the role of civil society, community participation and nonprofits in governance; and evaluation of public sector performance (governmental and social accountability initiatives). Professor Ospina currently directs a Ford Foundation sponsored multi-year, national research project on social change leadership in the United States. Her 1996 book Illusions of Opportunity: Employee Expectations and Work Place Inequality (Cornell University Press) explores how public employees make meaning out of the experience of inequality and the implications for organization and management. Her co-edited books on public management reform in Latin America (2003 and 2004) focus on the changing relations of accountability for governmental performance, given large-scale reform in the region. Professor Ospina earned her Ph.D. in Sociology and a Masters in Public Policy and Management from the State University of New York at Stonybrook.

Ashok Regmi • Global Director, International Youth Foundation

A Nepali native, Mr. Regmi joined the International Youth Foundation as Program Manager for Youth Action Net in 2002. Prior to working at IYF, he was the Research Assistant at the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University. In Nepal, Regmi worked with members of the Nepalese Parliament in addressing youth issues in his country, and pioneered Kathmandu FM, where he conducted radio programs on social issues. A leader in youth leadership and engagement, Regmi has spoken and led sessions at such venues as the Pan European World Summit on Information System meeting in Romania, USAID/EGAT conference in Washington DC, the United Nations, and the CIVICUS World Assembly. Regmi, who is fluent in English, Nepali, Hindi and Urdu, earned his Masters in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University, where he founded the Cooperative Learning Exchange Group. 

Cecila Roddy  Vice President of Development and External Affairs, Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps

Cecilia Roddy joined the Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps in January 2009.  Previously, she worked as a Senior Consultant for Development Guild/DDI, a consulting firm working with not-for-profit leaders to build organizational capacity and strengthen philanthropic support.  Cecilia also worked for Palladia, Inc., a New York City based multi-service agency serving families in need, and offering temporary and permanent, substance abuse services, and domestic violence shelter.  She holds an M.S.W. from the Columbia University School of Social Work.

Donna Stark • Vice President for Human Development, Annie E. Casey Foundation

As Vice President for Human Development and Operations, Donna is responsible for leading the Foundation's internal and external leadership development programs.  This includes managing the Human Resources and Operations departments and the Leadership Development Unit.  She also work on embedding a culture of results in all of the foundation's work.   Before joining the Foundation in 1993, Donna was the first State Director of the Children and Family Systems Reform Initiative for the State of Maryland. Her primary responsibility was to direct Maryland's interagency effort to restructure the service delivery systems of all state departments serving children and families. She also directed the development of local governance models implementing reformed service delivery systems. Prior to her position with the State of Maryland, Donna taught at the Ohio State University and the University of Maryland and directed several private, non-profit organizations that provided both community based and residential services to children and adults. Donna Stark received her Ph.D. in Counseling and Human Development from the Ohio State University.