Fred Blackwell

Fred Blackwell is the CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, one of the largest community foundations in the country. The San Francisco Foundation works hand-in-hand with donors, community leaders, and both public and private partners to create thriving communities throughout the Bay Area. Since joining the foundation in 2014, Blackwell has led it in a renewed commitment to social justice through an equity agenda focused on racial and economic inclusion.

Blackwell, an Oakland native, is a nationally recognized community leader with a longstanding career in the Bay Area. Prior to joining the foundation, he served as interim city administrator for the city of Oakland, where he previously served as the assistant city administrator. He was the executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Development in San Francisco; he served as the director of the Making Connections Initiative for the Annie E. Casey Foundation in the Lower San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland; he was a Multicultural Fellow in Neighborhood and Community Development at San Francisco Foundation; and he subsequently managed a multiyear comprehensive community initiative for San Francisco Foundation in West Oakland.

Blackwell serves on the boards of the Independent Sector, Northern California Grantmakers, Bridgespan Group, League of California Community Foundations, and the community advisory council of the San Francisco Federal Reserve. He previously served on the boards of the California Redevelopment Association, Urban Habitat Program, LeaderSpring and Leadership Excellence. He is a visiting professor in the department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Blackwell holds a master’s degree in city planning from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Morehouse College.

Henry Cisneros

Helene D. Gayle

Helene D. Gayle has been president and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations, since October 2017. Under her leadership, the Trust has adopted a new strategic focus on closing the racial and ethnic wealth gap in the Chicago region.

For almost a decade, Dr. Gayle was president and CEO of CARE, a leading international humanitarian organization. An expert on global development, humanitarian and health issues, she spent 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control, working primarily on HIV/AIDS. She worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, directing programs on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues. She also launched the McKinsey Social Initiative, a nonprofit that builds partnerships for social impact.

Dr. Gayle was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. She earned a B.A. in psychology at Barnard College, an M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and an M.P.H. at Johns Hopkins University. She has received 18 honorary degrees and holds faculty appointments at the University of Washington and Emory University.  She serves on public company and nonprofit boards, including The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Go Health, Brookings Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America, ONE Campaign, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Economic Club of Chicago. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Council on Foreign Relations, American Public Health Association, National Academy of Medicine, National Medical Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics. She has authored numerous articles on global and domestic public health issues, poverty alleviation, gender equality, and social justice.

Antonia Hernández

Nationally regarded for her expertise in immigration, civil rights and philanthropy, Antonia Hernández has spent more than four decades advocating for social justice and improving the lives of underserved communities in Los Angeles County and beyond.

Since 2004, she has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of California Community Foundation, one of Southern California’s largest and most active philanthropic organizations, which has served Angelenos for over a century. The Foundation partners with more than 1,600 individual, family and corporate donors and holds assets of more than $1.7 billion. During her tenure, California Community Foundation has granted nearly $2 billion, with a focus on health, housing, education, immigration programs.

Previously, Hernández was president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national nonprofit litigation and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of the nation’s Latinos through the legal system, community education and research and policy initiatives.

Hernández began her legal career as a staff attorney with the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice and worked as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary before joining MALDEF in 1981 as regional counsel in Washington, D.C.

Hernández is a member of the board of directors of the Automobile Club of Southern California, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association, Grameen America, and Urban Institute. She currently serves on advisory boards and committees including the Commission on Presidential Debates, Healthy California for All Commission, and UCLA Board of Advisors among others. Hernández is a frequent public speaker and has been awarded several honorary degrees and awards.

Hernández is a member of the State Bar of California, United States Supreme Court, District of Columbia Bar, American Bar Association and the Mexican American Bar Association of Los Angeles. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute.

Hernández earned her B.A. in History at UCLA in 1970 and J.D. at the UCLA School of Law in 1974.

Terri Ludwig

Terri Ludwig leads Ballmer Group Philanthropy, directing resources and civic activism to improve economic mobility for children and families in the United States, especially those who have been pushed furthest from opportunity. During Terri’s tenure as President, Ballmer Group has become a leading national funder for strong community partnerships among public, private, and nonprofit organizations that use data to better support American families. Ballmer Group has also made significant investments to catalyze change in areas that affect economic mobility – such as early learning, youth justice, and supporting communities of color.

Terri has three decades of experience leading cross-sector solutions that tackle some of society’s toughest challenges. In her previous role as chief executive officer of Enterprise Community Partners, Terri focused on increasing Enterprise’s impact exponentially through the development of critical cross-sector partnerships, integrating housing services with health care, transit, education, and other areas that can improve lives. Terri also served as Chair of the Board of Enterprise Community Investments, which is a national leader in impact investing, and she held global executive positions at Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse. Terri was also the CEO of ACCION New York.

Terri is recognized nationally as a visionary leader, included in Forbes Magazine’s Impact 30 List of the world’s top social entrepreneurs, named as a David Rockefeller Fellow, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Terri has served on numerous executive and advisory boards, including as a presidential appointee to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Advisory Board. Terri holds a Bachelor of Science in industrial psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Rip Rapson

Rip Rapson is president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation, a private, national foundation dedicated to expanding opportunities in America’s cities through grantmaking and social investing.

Since his appointment in 2006, Rapson has led the 95- year-old foundation to adopt an array of grantmaking and investing tools to improve the economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions of urban life through six defined programs: arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development in Kresge’s hometown of Detroit. Using a full array of grant, loan and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. Nationally, Rapson has strengthened the philanthropic sector’s role through convening, collaborating and supplementing community development activities in cities across the country.

Rapson earned a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College (Claremont, Calif.) and a juris doctorate from Columbia University Law School. He is the recipient of dozens of philanthropic and civic honors and accolades, including a 2017 induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been named Michiganian of the Year by The Detroit News, a Power and Influence Top 50 executive by The NonProfit Times and a Michigan Changemaker by Crain’s Detroit Business. He has co-authored two books: “Troubled Waters,” an account of the Boundary Waters legislative battle in Minnesota, and “Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design,” a biography of his father, a globally renowned architect.

Robert K. Ross

Robert K. Ross, M.D., is president and chief executive officer for The California Endowment, a health foundation established in 1996 to address the health needs of Californians. Prior to his appointment in July 2000, Dr. Ross served as director of the Health and Human Services Agency for the County of San Diego from 1993 to 2000, and Commissioner of Public Health for the City of Philadelphia from 1990 to 1993. Dr. Ross has an extensive background in health philanthropy, as a public health executive, and as a clinician.

Dr. Ross received his undergraduate, Masters in Public Administration and medical degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Ross was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar from 1988 to 1990, focusing on urban child health issues. Dr. Ross has been actively involved in community and professional activities at both the regional and national level.

During his tenure at The California Endowment, the foundation has focused on the health needs of underserved Californians by championing the cause of health coverage for all children, reducing childhood obesity, strengthening the capacity of community health centers, improving health services for farm worker and ex offender populations, and strengthening the pipeline for bringing racial and ethnic diversity to the health professions. In the Los Angeles region, he has provided leadership to support the re opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center and the revitalization of Charles Drew University.

Jim Shelton

James “Jim” Shelton is Chief Investment and Impact Officer at Blue Meridian Partners. In this role, Jim leads Blue Meridian’s efforts to continuously increase the impact, reach, and influence of our investees and investments. This includes driving the evolution, expansion, and ongoing implementation of Blue Meridian’s regional investment strategy — integrating the work of expanding effective solutions nationwide with developing regional and local strategies that capture the compounding benefits of continuums of services — to produce the strongest possible outcomes for children and families and achieve community-wide impact.

Jim also oversees Blue Meridian’s efforts to investigate new areas where significant focused capital can help solve problems at scale. Areas Jim will explore include new approaches to economic and social mobility and racial equity; supporting comprehensive place-based and regional strategies; the roles of for-profits, policy and advocacy; and the potential to leverage targeted universalism to have broad impacts.

Before becoming Chief Investment and Impact Officer, he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the organization, bringing to Blue Meridian deep multi-sector experience and expertise on the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and systems change. Jim is currently a Senior Social Impact Advisor to KKR and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Prior to joining Blue Meridian, he founded Amandla Enterprises, an impact investment and advisory firm, and was President of Education for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, President and Chief Impact Officer at 2U, and Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education.

Shamina Singh

For more than 20 years, Shamina Singh has been on the frontlines of developing and implementing solutions to make the global economy work for everyone, everywhere.

Shamina is the Founder and President of the Center for Inclusive Growth, the philanthropic hub of Mastercard. She also serves as Executive Vice President of Corporate Sustainability.

Since 2014, she has led the Center with a remit to leverage Mastercard’s data, technology, capital and expertise for social impact. In her role as EVP for Sustainability, she is responsible for the development and implementation of the environmental, social and governance strategy across the company.

In 2018, Mastercard pledged $500 million to advance inclusive growth around the world. Shamina was named President of the Mastercard Impact Fund and charged with activating those philanthropic dollars to advance inclusive growth and financial inclusion around the world.

Currently, Shamina sits on the Boards of Data & Society and ADL, a leading anti-hate organization. In addition, she serves as a Board Member of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders and the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University. Shamina co-chairs the Ad Council’s Advisory Committee on Public Issues and serves on the Advisory Boards of social enterprise Women Reignite and The Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship. She is also a Henry Crown Fellow with The Aspen Institute.

Deeply committed to public service, Shamina has held senior positions in the White House and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2015, Shamina was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a six-year term on the Board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. She is a graduate of the Presidential Leadership Fellows program and an alum of the Young Global Leaders program of the World Economic Forum.

Lata Reddy

Lata N. Reddy is senior vice president of Inclusive Solutions at Prudential Financial and chair of The Prudential Foundation.

In these roles, Reddy harnesses the power of capital markets to drive financial and social mobility. By combining diversity strategies, impact investments, philanthropy, corporate contributions and employee engagement with Prudential’s full business capabilities, she helps position the company to promote inclusive economic opportunity and sustainable growth.

Under Reddy’s leadership, Prudential became one of the first institutional investors to grow and manage an impact investing portfolio with $1 billion in assets under management. Additionally, she oversees a yearly grant-making budget of $40 million through The Prudential Foundation, and a $20 million corporate contributions budget.

Reddy originally joined Prudential in 1997. Prior to joining Prudential, she was a civil rights attorney with the U.S. Department of Education. Her dedication to promoting equity has spanned her career in the nonprofit, public and private sectors.

In addition to serving as chair of The Prudential Foundation and of the Newark Alliance, Reddy currently serves on the boards of several local and national organizations including Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation and Living Cities. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board for the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a program of the Obama Foundation, and is a fellow of the Aspen Global Leaders Network. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reddy was named to Mayor Ras Baraka’s Newark Reopening and Recovery Strikeforce in 2020, leading the Economic Recovery Committee.

Reddy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Emory University School of Law.

Elwood Hopkins

Elwood Hopkins is Presidential Fellow of the Kresge Foundation and Founder and Managing Director of Emerging Markets, Inc. a consulting firm that has worked with major financial institutions and supermarket operators to profitably expand their retail operations into low-income neighborhoods nationwide. Clients have included Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Capital One, HSBC, Sun Trust, Washington Mutual, Wachovia, and US Bank as well as Supervalu, Kroger, Superior Markets, and Unified Grocers.

He is the former Executive Director of Los Angeles Urban Funders, a consortium of 21 foundations and corporations investing in neighborhoods impacted by the 1992 Civil Unrest, and he was a Trustee of the Los Angeles Reinvestment Committee. He has helped to form or advise more than a dozen funder collaboratives in cities nationwide, and is the author of Collaborative Philanthropies (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). Elwood remains a Senior Advisor to the USC Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy where he has directed multi-year inquiries, such as “Prioritizing Place,” and “Drawing on Detroit,” among others. He has also been enlisted by the Kresge Foundation to facilitate its national partnership on economic inclusion, called the Shared Prosperity Partnership, with the Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution, Living Cities, and the Urban Institute.

Previously, he was a Research Scientist at the New York University Urban Research Center with visiting appointments at universities and research centers in Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Beijing, Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. He has advised the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT), Organization of American States, the German Marshal Fund, and the World Bank.

He holds a BA from Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and an MA in Urban Planning from the UCLA School of Public Affairs, where he was valedictorian and now serves as a Senior Fellow. He is currently studying in the Real Estate Investment Programme at the Said School of Business at Oxford University.

James M. Ferris

James M. Ferris holds the Emery Evans Olson Chair in Nonprofit Entrepreneurship and Public Policy in the Sol Price School of Public Policy at USC and is the founding Director of The Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy. He specializes in the economics of the public and nonprofit sectors, public finance and public policy. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Dr. Ferris’ research focuses on the shifting roles of the public, nonprofit and for-profit sectors in governance and the economy. He is currently investigating the changing landscape of philanthropy; roles and strategies for foundation engagement in public policymaking; philanthropic-government partnerships; place-based philanthropy; and philanthropic leadership as reflected in the shared governance between boards of trustees and CEOs of philanthropic foundations.

Dr. Ferris serves as a member of the editorial boards of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and the Nonprofit Policy Forum. He has served as a member of the Independent Sector’s Programs and Practice Committee, the Philanthropy and Partnerships Committee of the National Park Service and the editorial board of the Journal of Public Administration and Theory, including a stint as a founding Associate Editor. In addition, he is a former Vice President of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, and was a member of the Grants Advisory Committee of the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Research Fund, the academic council of the National Center on Nonprofit Enterprise, and Independent Sector’s John Gardner Award Selection Committee.

Dr. Ferris has served as Vice Dean (1995-97) of the Price School and as the founding Director of its Program in Public Policy (1989-93) where he was responsible for initiating, building and developing the Master in Public Policy (MPP) degree program. More recently, he spearheaded the development of the Master’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership and Management (MNLM) at the Price School which launched in June 2015. Professor Ferris teaches courses in public policy, philanthropy and nonprofits, public finance, and political economy of institutions at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.