American Express Leadership Academy 2.0: Emerging Nonprofit Leaders – 2014 Fellowship Class

Scott Beale is the Founder and CEO of Atlas Corps, a leadership program for the world’s best nonprofit professionals. Sometimes called a “reverse Peace Corps,” Atlas Corps brings leaders from around the world to serve in cities across the United States. Atlas Corps has supported more than 250 leaders from nearly 60 different countries in one-year placements at nonprofits such as Ashoka, Grameen Foundation, McKinsey, UNICEF, and the US Peace Corps. Prior to launching Atlas Corps, Scott was a U.S. Diplomat who served in New Delhi fighting human trafficking in India and in Bosnia organizing elections in the late 1990s. He also worked at Ashoka’s Youth Venture program and in the Clinton White House. He is the author of the first book on the politics of the Millenial Generation (Millenial Manifesto: A Youth Activist handbook) and in 2004 the Youth Vote Coalition named Scott one of 30 people under 30 changing politics in America. Among Scott’s numerous accolades include being named one of the top three nonprofit CEOs in Washington, DC; “The Nonprofit Entrepreneur” by the Washington Post; and the National Award for Citizen Diplomacy.

Erin Bradshaw is the Senior Director for Strategic Impact for Save the Children’s US Programs. In this capacity Erin is leading efforts to mobilize 500 communities across the United States to better meet the needs of children in emergencies and disasters. In previous roles, Erin expanded Save the Children’s hallmark child sponsorship program by advancing and sustaining global systems and helped ensure the timely accurate transition of over $600M in grants as part of our global merger. Notably, in 2012, she led the development of Save the Children’s latest 3-year strategic plan. Prior to joining Save the Children, Erin worked as Education Director at a small non-profit focused on improving access to quality education for poor and underserved youth and as an administrator at Lafayette College. She began her career at Deloitte Consulting where she honed her skills as an analyst and became passionate about the importance of thoughtful process to achieve results. Applying these skills to the non-profit sector, Erin is helping Save the Children in its mission to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve real and lasting change in their lives. Erin has a BA in English from Colgate University and two young children who inspire her.

Araceli Campos was recently selected to serve as Executive Director of the Miguel Conteras Foundation (MCF), a non-profit organization founded out of the Los Angeles labor movement to honor union leader Miguel Conteras. MCF continues his and the legacy of organized labor by supporting local communities, focused on engaging students and parents in workers’ rights advancement. Araceli also serves the Administration of Mayor Eric Garcetti as President of the City of Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). In this role, she supports the Administration’s efforts to improve the life outcomes of women and girls in Los Angeles. She is also Vice President of the Association of California Commissions for Women (ACCW), the umbrella organization for all women’s commissions in California. Araceli previously served as Corporate Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), where she supported the organization’s National Headquarters in the President and General Counsel’s Office. She began her legal career at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and went on to work with clients in the areas of intellectual property, entertainment/media, and general corporate governance. Araceli is a first-generation American with parents from rural Mexico and Cuba. The product of Los Angeles-area public schools, she is a graduate of Yale University, where she was a co-founder of the major, Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and a graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was a co-founder of the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights/Cvil Liberties.

Gonzalo Casals, an aspiring neighborhoodist, has been exploring cultural production as a vehicle to foster empowerment, social capital, civic participation and community development. Through his work at El Museo del Barrio, and now at Friends of The High Line and The Naturally Occuring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY), he joins the leadership of a generation of cultural workers that are redefining the role of cultural organizations and their relationship with communities, neighborhoods and cities. Gonzalo’s experience ranges from innovative programming design, authentic engagement strategies and progressive cultural policy.

David Coffman has committed his career to fighting hunger through partnerships and collaborations. He works with the five Feeding America member food banks in Louisiana to raise awareness of the challenge of hunger in Louisiana and develop long-term solutions to end hunger throughout the state. David has worked in Louisiana as Community Food Security Manager for Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana. In this role he published From the Bayou to the Boucherie, a multi-year regional study designed to understand food systems in coastal Louisiana following the Hurricanes of 2005 and 2008. David, originally from the mountains of Appalachia, has also worked as the Vice President of Programs for Feeding America Southwest Virginia. In 2006, David was a Bill Emerson Congressional Hunger Fellow working in New Orleans on disaster recovery and Wahsington DC with the National Coalition for the Homeless on civil rights issues. David graduated from Berea College in central Kentucky where he studied sustainable development. He is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Master of Public Administration program. In his spare time, David likes to learn how to make a roux among other Louisiana fare so he can continue the fight against hunger at home with friends and family.

Shruti Dalmia leads communications and advocacy at Central Square Foundation. CSF is a philanthropy fund and policy think tank focused on improving learning outcomes for children from low-income communities, with focus on school education. Trained in statistics and marketing, Shruti has over 12 years of experience in handling functions such as marketing, web product development, qualitative and quantitative research with various media companies and non-profits. She has worked with Jagori, a women’s training, documentation and communication centre, in campaigning for inclusive cities as part of the ‘Safe Delhi Campaign’ and with Dr. A.K. Jalaluddin on the post evaluation documentation and analysis of the ‘Whole School Transformation’ project in Bluebells and Gryan Bharti schools in Delhi

Traymone Deadwyler’s current project is the Veteran Leader Corps (VLC)- a team of 75 national service members providing employment services and volunteer opportunities to members of the military and their families. In addition to his role at Points of Light, the Atlanta native supports the strategic direction and service of One World Link and the New Leaders Council-Atlanta Chapter as Service Leader and Board Member, respectively. Tray’s civic transcript further spans such organizations as the American Red Cross, Atlanta Police Department, Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, HandsOn Georgia, the San Francisco Food Bank, and the Green Berets of Community Service-AmeriCorps*NCCC. Affectionately nicknamedService Nerd by his teammates and sector colleagues, Tray focuses on supporting cross-sector solutions and training fellow professionals to deploy human-centered design for their programs and interventions.

Ruben J. Gonzales is the Chief Development Officer at United Cerebral Palsy (UCP), which is dedicated to ensuring a life without limits for all people with disabilities. Ruben builds and manages relationships with UCP’s most crucial funders, including foundations, corporations and major donors and oversees all communications and marketing efforts. Prior to joining UCP in October, Ruben spent five years at the National Council of La Raza as the Deputy Vice President for Resource Development where he spearheaded NCLR’s “Campaign for Strong American Communities,” raising over $15M to support nearly 300 of NCLR’s affiliate organizations, increased unrestricted support from corporations and foundations and established the organization’s successful major gifts program. Ruben also previously worked at the Urban Assembly, a school management organization based in New York City where he oversaw all fundraising and commuincations efforts and with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation as Director of Volunteer Management. After 17 years in the nonprofit sector, Ruben has developed extensive experience in corporate parternships, major gifts fundraising, board development, volunteer management, grant writing, event planning, communications, marketing and field organizing. Ruben is also recognized as an expert on the role of Latinos in philanthropy and has been invited by the Association of Fundraising Professionals to present on this topic. In 2010, Ruben was named an American Express NGen Fellow at the Independent Sector and, in 2011, was recognized by MillerCoors’ Lideres program as an outstanding leader within the Hispanic community for his achievement, vision, and commitment. In 2013, Ruben was named byThe Advocate magazine as one of their Top 40 Under 40 for his leadership on behalf of LGBT Latinos. Ruben holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Santa Clara University.

Robert L. Gordon IV is the inaugural Chief Digital Office for America’s Promise Alliance in Washington, D.C. where he oversees all external digital communications strategy and leads APA Digital, the digital communications division of America’s Promise Alliance. His primary role is to utilise digital to better serve and inform the organization’s key audiences through a multitude of digital products. Previously, Rob started his own digital communications consulting company where he led, directed and created digital and social media products for corporate and nonprofit clients including: Black Entertainment Television, NBCUniversal, Oxygen and City Year. He also served as Director of Information Technology for the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia where he managed all digital information systems and developed a three-year digital outreach and new media strategy for the 100+ year-old organization. Rob has a bachelor’s degrees in Political Science & Communications from the college of Arts & Sciences at Villanova University. He is an alumna of the 2013 American Express Leadership Academy, the Web of Change Leadership & Technology program and a member of the International Chief Digital Officer Club. In 2014, he was recognized as one of the top 10 influential global Chief Digital Officers by the International Chief Digital Officer Club. He currently resides in downtown Washington, D.C.

Stephanie Goss, Associate Director of Policy and Commuincations at Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, understands that authentic community engagement is critical to achieving meaningful policy change and health justice for people of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. A&PI Wellness Center–a San Francisco-based health services, education, research, and polic advocacy organization with local, regional, and national programming–transforms lives by advancing health, justice, and equality. Founded in 1987 as a grassroots response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Asian and Pacific Islander communities, the organization has grown to serve the broad health needs of people of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, and immigration statuses. Stephanie came to A&PI Wellness Center in 2006 with ten years in the tech industry and a B.C.S. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. Since then, Stephanie has assisted A&PI Wellness Center in strategic planning, expanding its vision and mission to better serve the needs of the community and reflect the long-term goals of the organization. She has also supported the organization’s national programming by redesigning and launching “Saving Face Can’t Make You Safe  a social marketing campaign to reduce HIV stigma in Asian and Pacific Islander communities across the US and the six US-affiliated Pacific Island Jurisdictions. She also designed and implemented a community-based digital storytelling initiative to train community members to create their own stories about how they are affected by HIV using digital video. To date, she has facilitated workshops in Guam, San Francisco, Honolulu, San Diego, and Ohio. Stephanie’s work continues to support the expansion of A&PI Wellness Center’s community health care clinic and the implementation of a five year multi-million dollar grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to built the HIV treatment and prevention capacity of community-based organizations across the country through an innovative eLearning platform.

Todd C. Litton joined Citizen Schools as Executive Director of Texas in 2009. In this capacity, he works to marshal the people and resources necessary to meaningfully expand the learning day for low-income middle shcool students and clearly connect their educational effort and success to their future college and career opportunities through academic support and hands-on apprenticeships. Prior to Citizen Schools, Todd was a vice president and WealthAdvisor for UBS Financial Services for almost five years. Todd has also directed Preschool for ALL, a joint early childhood-business effort to expand access to high quality preschool in Houston and in Texas, and he has worked as a hedge fund portfolio analyst at Enron and practiced law. Todd has played an active role in the Houston and Texas community for many years, including board leadership on the City of Houston’s Tower Commission, The Immunization Partnership, Small Steps Nurturing Center and the Texas Lyceum association. Todd earned an A.B. in English from Duke University, a J.D. from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Rice University’s Jones School. He resides in central Houston with his wife, Jennifer, and their ten-year-old twin girls, Delia and Kate, and their eight-year-old son, Jack.

Zev Lowe sits on Worldreader’s Senior Management Team, leads impact monitoring, drives strategy as we grow and explore new idas, and serves as lead-problem solver and way-smoother as we tackle a series of “firsts.” Worldreader is on a mission to bring digital books to every child and her family, so that they can improve their lives. In the last four years, we have reached 218,739 people in 27 countries, who have read almost 1.7 million digital books on mobile phones and e-readers. Zev entered the world of social enterprise when he left Goldman Sachs in London to serve as a Kiva Fellow in Indonesia, and has not looked back. He has also worked as an ethnographer, a software architect, and a full-time Aikido apprentice. Zev has computer science and anthropology degrees from Dartmouth College and an MBA from ESADE Business School. He is currently a Ph.D candidate at ESADE in Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation.