Mukhtar Ibrahim

Mukhtar M. Ibrahim is the founder, editor and executive director of Sahan Journal, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to chronicling the struggles, successes and transformations of Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities.

He previously worked as a staff writer for the Star Tribune, where he covered Minneapolis city government and local affairs; and Minnesota Public Radio News, where he wrote about national security matters and immigration.

Wendy Lewis Jackson

Wendy Lewis Jackson is managing director for the Detroit Program. She leads The Kresge Foundation’s efforts to revitalize Detroit and to strengthen its social and economic fabric. Her work supports organizations providing economic opportunity for low-income people and addresses the needs of vulnerable children and families.

Prior to joining Kresge in 2008, Wendy was a program director for Children and Family Initiatives and executive director for education initiatives at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation in Grand Rapids, Mich. She taught at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., and has coauthored and assisted in the publication of several reports and publications that address community needs and problem solving.

Wendy is an American Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States; the Association of Black Foundation Executives named her an Emerging Leader in 2008. Wendy earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and communications from the University of Michigan. She also holds a master’s degree in social work from U-M, with a concentration in community organization and social policy and planning.

Cinny Kennard

Cinny Kennard serves as the Executive Director of the Annenberg Foundation, one of the largest family foundations in the United States.

Prior to joining the Annenberg Foundation in January 2015, Cinny was the Senior Vice President in charge of Programming at the Smithsonian Institution. In that role, she created partnerships with the Smithsonian involving national and international partners for special educational and media initiatives; managed the programming relationships in the joint venture between the Smithsonian and Showtime/CBS known as the Smithsonian Networks; and brought President Obama for a first-ever interview on Smithsonian Channel. Before Smithsonian, Cinny was the first Managing Director of National Public Radio’s West Coast Production Center – NPR West – in Culver City, with executive responsibility for operational and editorial oversight.

Cinny co-founded the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism, the Walter Cronkite Awards and the Reliable Resources for Broadcast Political Coverage. She serves on the editorial advisory board of Global Post, an online international newsgathering operation; the DuPont Columbia University Jury; and is a longtime member of the Trusteeship of the International Women’s Forum. Cinny is also a Senior Fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism.

Mary Lee

Mary M. Lee consults with community-based organizations, public officials, government agencies and philanthropy to dismantle racially biased systems and structures and build just and equitable neighborhoods. She is a former Deputy Director of PolicyLink, a national advocacy organization working to advance racial equity and social justice. She has co-authored reports and journal articles on health equity, access to healthy food, the built environment, and the impact of place and race on health. A practicing attorney for over 25 years, Lee has experience using civil rights, land use and economic development strategies to revitalize neighborhoods and enhance public participation in the policy arena, with an emphasis on the legal rights of low-income people. She has been an adjunct professor of law and has developed and taught courses at the undergraduate and community college level on community development and civil rights. Lee has served as a Transportation Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles and is currently a member of the Leadership Circle of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, and a board member of the Community Coalition. She recently completed a term on the Los Angeles County Community Prevention and Population Health Task Force. In 2016 she was named by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles County Commission for Women as one of the “Women of the Year”. A native of Los Angeles, Lee holds a BA in Political Studies from Pitzer College in Claremont, California and a JD from U. C. Berkeley School of Law.

Amy Liu

Amy Liu is vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and the Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy. She is a national expert on cities and metropolitan areas adept at translating research and insights into action on the ground. As director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, which Liu co-founded in 1996, she pioneered the program’s signature approach to state and local engagements, which uses rigorous research to inform strategies for economic growth and opportunity. Liu has worked directly on such strategies with scores of public, private, and philanthropic sector leaders in regions around the country, including Chicago, Detroit, Louisville, San Diego, and Birmingham.

Liu frequently writes about inclusive economic growth, the fortunes of mid-sized cities and small towns, and the intersection of economic, workforce, and community development policies, and is frequently cited in top media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She has extensive experience working with states and the federal government to develop policies and strategies to support cities and metropolitan areas. In 2013, Liu served as a special advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, guiding policy priorities related to trade, innovation, and data. Prior to her work at Brookings, Liu was Special Assistant to HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and staffed the U.S. Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on housing and urban affairs. Liu serves on the board of Equal Measure, a nonprofit that helps local and national organizations advance social change and for ACT of Alexandria, a local community foundation.

Monica Lozano

Monica joined the Foundation in December 2017. As president and CEO she works in partnership with organizations and leaders around the state to ensure education pathways are aligned seamlessly for college attainment. She is committed to the vision that California’s low-income students and students of color should have equitable access to bachelor’s degrees and a better life.

Before coming to College Futures, Monica spent thirty years in media as editor and publisher of La Opinión, the largest Spanish language newspaper in the country, and then as chairman and CEO of the parent company, ImpreMedia. Monica has been very active in education, especially at the institutional governance level. She served as chair of the California State Board of Education and the Board of Regents of the University of California, spent more than 20 years as a trustee of the University of Southern California, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education. She is on the Advisory Council of the Public Policy Insitute of California’s Higher Education Center.

Monica has also been active in philanthropy and the non-profit sector, including as chair of the Weingart Foundation Board of Trustees, a former member the board of the Rockefeller Foundation, and co-founder of the Aspen Institute Latinos and Society Program.

Terri Ludwig

Terri Ludwig leads Ballmer Group’s philanthropic operations, directing resources and civic activism to improve economic mobility for children and families in the United States who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty. Ludwig has three decades of experience leading cross-sector solutions that tackle some of society’s toughest challenges. In her role as chief executive officer of Enterprise Community Partners, she focused on improving communities and people’s lives nationwide by making well-designed homes affordable. By developing impact measures and scaling results, she helped to ensure that Enterprise’s best programs, capital, and policy solutions reach the communities that need them most. Ludwig grew Enterprise to a 1,200-person national organization with 11 regional offices and a presence in every state. Under her leadership, Enterprise’s impact increased exponentially through the development of critical cross-sector partnerships, integrating housing services with health care, transit, education, and other efforts that can improve lives.

Jennifer Preston

Before joining the Knight Foundation in October 2014, Jennifer Preston was an award-winning journalist for The New York Times for almost 19 years. In 2009 she became the company’s first social media editor. In 2011 she returned to a reporting role where she focused on the impact of social media in politics, government, business and real life. Her most recent work as an editor focused on extending digital media and social media storytelling and curation across the newsroom. Before becoming social media editor, Preston edited four Sunday weekend sections for the Metropolitan Desk, leading several innovative data projects, including a five-year analysis of the impact of mortgage foreclosures in the New York area. She also spent nearly seven years as a senior editor in the Office of the Executive Editor, working across the newsroom on budget, career development, diversity, newsroom policies and staffing. Earlier in her career, Preston worked as an editor and circulation marketing manager at New York Newsday, where she won numerous awards for an investigative reporting project, and as a reporter for The Bulletin and The Philadelphia Daily News. Since 2007 she has taught journalism, primarily at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.

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.

John Thornton

In 1991, John joined Austin Ventures, which became the largest regional capital firm in the US. He served for four years as the firm’s managing partner and led nearly 50 investments in young software companies that created more than $2 billion in value for AV investors. In 2017, he co-founded Elsewhere Partners, a boutique software investment firm focused on bootstrapped companies in non-coastal markets.

In 2008, John founded the Texas Tribune, one of the largest local news organizations established anywhere in the world during the 21^stcentury. In 2018, John co-founded the American Journalism Project, a first-of-its-kind venture philanthropy firm dedicated to starting and growing local news organizations. AJP has received over $46 million in commitments from the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Emerson Collective, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Christopher Buck, Facebook, and the Democracy Fund.

John serves on the boards of several private software companies as well as The Texas Tribune and The City, a nonprofit news startup in New York.  He also serves as a senior advisor to CAVU Venture Partners, an investment firm focused on consumer-packaged goods. He is a graduate of both the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Trinity University, where he graduated first in his class, was named Distinguished Alumnus of 2015, and is a former trustee. He lives in Austin with his wife Erin and their boys Wade and Wyatt.

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.

Charles Sennott

Charles Sennott is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Editor of The GroundTruth Project. He is an award-winning correspondent, best-selling author and editor with 30 years of experience in international, national and local journalism. A leading social entrepreneur in new media, Sennott started GroundTruth in 2014 and in 2017 launched the nonprofit organization’s new, local reporting initiative, Report for America.

Reporting on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in at least 20 countries, including the post 9-11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 Arab Spring, Sennott began his career in local news covering cops, courts and municipal government. Sennott’s deep experience reporting led him to dedicate himself to supporting and training the next generation of journalists to tell the most important stories of our time.

Sennott is also the co-founder of GlobalPost, an acclaimed international news website. Previously, Sennott worked for many years as a reporter at the New York Daily News and then the Boston Globe, where he became Bureau Chief for the Middle East and Europe, and a leader of the paper’s international coverage from 1997 to 2005. Sennott has also served as a correspondent for PBS FRONTLINE and the PBS NewsHour. He has contributed news analysis to the BBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and others. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Aaron Seybert

Aaron Seybert is managing director of the Social Investment Practice at The Kresge Foundation. He previously served as a social investment officer supporting the American Cities and Detroit Programs at Kresge. He joined the foundation in 2016. Prior to Kresge, he served as executive director at JPMorgan Chase Bank, where he was involved with community development banking focused on New Markets Tax Credits and Historic Tax Credit investing.

He started his career in impact investing at Cinnaire (formerly the Great Lakes Capital Fund) addressing affordable housing, and previously worked with Legal Aid of Central Michigan. He has served on the board of directors for the Michigan Magnet Fund, Lake Trust Credit Union and the Core Cities Strategic Fund advisory board.

A native of Michigan, Aaron earned a bachelor in business administration in corporate finance and accounting from Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., and a juris doctorate from the Michigan State University College of Law.

Roxann Stafford

Roxann Stafford is the managing director of the Knight- Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, a $20-million initiative that works to empower local news organizations to build trust with their audiences while producing outstanding journalism and developing new revenue streams that can enable them to reach longterm business sustainability.

Stafford most recently served as Director of Program for Matter in New York, a startup accelerator and venture capital firm grounded in the principles of design thinking that supported early-stage media entrepreneurs. There, she oversaw all aspects of the fund’s accelerator program for early-stage media entrepreneurs. She has worked with local news organizations around the United States and Asia as well as with national outlets such as The New York Times and The Associated Press.

Prior to her time at Matter, Stafford was SecondMuse’s director of design & learning, where she worked on a variety of innovative collaborations including LAUNCH, National Day of Civic Hacking, New York’s Next Top Makers (now Futureworks), Internet Freedom and strategic guidance for developing a sustainable apparel and footwear industry. Before joining SecondMuse, she was a consultant at FSG where she developed strategies, evaluation plans, and implementation plans in Shared Value and Collective Impact. As a Senior Associate at Jump Associates, an innovation and growth strategy firm that specializes in helping businesses discover new opportunities for progress. She worked with visionary organizations, including HP, Target, and the Kellogg Foundation, to identify new markets, reinvent existing categories, and develop new sources of revenue. Stafford continues to be a Guest Lecturer at the Stanford University School of Engineering and d.school. She earned a bachelor of science degree in product design from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Duke University, with concentrations in social entrepreneurship and strategy.

Ashley Swearengin

Oversees the overall management and direction of the Central Valley Community Foundation, ensuring that CVCF makes progress every day towards accomplishing our mission: to cultivate smart philanthropy, lead, and invest in solutions that build stronger communities.

Ashley Swearengin is president and CEO of the Central Valley Community Foundation, a charitable foundation serving the six counties of Central California and providing over $100 million in funding to over 650 community benefit organizations over the last decade. Prior to joining CVCF, she served as Mayor of the City of Fresno from 2009 through 2016. As mayor, she implemented substantial changes to improve the delivery of city services, revitalize the downtown and urban core, promote business and job growth, address chronic homelessness, and stabilize the city’s financial position. Before becoming mayor, Ashley led a number of economic development initiatives in the Fresno region, including the Central Valley Business Incubator, Fresno State’s Office of Community and Economic Development, and the Regional Jobs Initiative. She holds MBA and BS degrees from California State University, Fresno.

Aaron Thomas

Aaron is the Director of Economic Development at Accelerator for America, a nonprofit organization focused on scaling and replicating local solutions to matters of economic insecurity. In this role, he assists communities all over the country in attracting and leveraging local governance and private capital in ways that serve those most in need. The Accelerator provides said communities a set of tools, organizing mechanisms and technical assistance to level the playing field between the public and private sectors with the ultimate goal of fostering wealth creation for communities traditionally precluded.

He’s spent the majority of his career in investment banking, where he facilitated equity transactions. More recently, he worked in middle-market private equity before pivoting into the public sector, first as a legislative fellow in the California Senate (focusing on fair business practices and criminal justice) and now with the Accelerator. He’s a graduate of Harvard College and received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.