forward.

Dr. Leisey (she/her) is an executive leader with vision, integrity, and compassion. Her career includes over three decades of service to the State of Maryland in higher education, most recently as the Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at UMBC. Other higher education experience includes Butler University and The University of Maryland, College Park. Additionally, Kim has served on the Board for Kidpower International (Vice President) and currently serves on the Board for Coastal Concerts (Secretary) in Lewes, De.  Kim is a graduate of The Leadership Program in Baltimore and served as a member of the Greater Baltimore Committee Public Safety task force.

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As a champion for all things that help humans to thrive throughout their lifespan, Kim works to create strong, healthy, and inclusive communities. Whether it is teaching safety and self-protection skills, founding the LGBT faculty staff association at UMBC, designing and renovating University facilities, facilitating community development, providing health programs and services, supporting older adults in the later stages of life, or advocating for those who are marginalized and vulnerable, Kim strives to be real and thoughtful in her relationships with others. Humor and fun are a must!

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Kim is blessed with wonderful friends and family, including her spouse, Kathy, and Labrador retriever, Carly. The outdoors is Kim’s playground, and she appreciates the wind in her face along with a good sunset and starry night. Kim is a cellist with the Southern Delaware Orchestra (SODELO).  

Savita Raj is an exceptional nonprofit leader with deep experience in expanding access to STEM
education programs, with a special emphasis on girls and underrepresented communities, at the
local, state, and national levels.

Savita previously served as the Chief Program Officer for Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA). In
this role, she was responsible for defining and executing the organization’s program strategy and driving the development of inclusive, innovative, and relevant national programs that fulfill the Girl Scout mission.

Prior to joining GSUSA, Savita served as the Executive Director for the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering. In this role, she led the development of creative STEM initiatives including the publication of bilingual comic books, the design and operation of mobile museums filled with hands-on activities, and annual STEM competitions.

An engineer by training, Savita has worked with nonprofits that support youth empowerment and engagement in STEM for almost 20 years, beginning at Girl Scouts of Central Texas, where she established innovative STEM programs that included Techbridge Girls, an afterschool STEM
program, and one of the first Girl Scout robotics teams.

Savita is excited to “return to her roots” to advance BootUp’s mission of empowering elementary
teachers and students through computer science and creating equitable computer science programs in underrepresented and underserved communities.

Jennifer Bledsoe is a non-profit fundraising professional living and working in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. 

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Jennifer works to bring over 13 years of experience from various non-profit organizations in the Washington, DC area, including Capital Area Food Bank, United Planning Organization, ASALH, ProInspire, National Children’s Center (NCC), Metro TeenAIDS, National 4-H Council, and various consulting projects. Through these opportunities, she raised millions of dollars in support through individual, corporate, foundation, government, board, and event fundraising. 

Jennifer received a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University and completed her Master of Science in Administration in Organizational Management at Trinity Washington University. 

She has contributed to her community locally and nationally for many years, including areas of racial equity and injustice, natural disaster relief projects, HIV/AIDS education, teaching career-building skills, and serving as a youth mentor. Jennifer also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.

Crystal Costello (they/them) is an experienced nonprofit human resources executive, most recently serving the AIDS Foundation Chicago as VP of Human Resources and Talent Management. Prior to the AIDS Foundation, they led human resources for the University of Chicago Law School and the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. Crystal's passion for ethical, compassionate, and creative human resources has spanned over 10 years in nonprofit human resources leadership across organizations in Chicago. Through their time in this work, they have developed considerable experience in building, scaling, and modernizing human resources systems.

They received their MBA with concentrations in human resources management and training + development from Roosevelt University, and they are PHR and SHRM-CP certified. Additionally, they are a certified mediator and career coach. Beyond human resources, Crystal is a passionate sexual assault advocate and certified crisis responder, having previously worked on-call and in emergency rooms with UChicago, YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, and Resiliance.

Crystal will be located in St. Louis with their wife, two young children, and chatty Siamese. In their free time, they enjoy hiking through national parks and renovating historic homes.

Mr. Kiley has over thirty years of professional experience working in Washington, DC. An established leader in operational management for progressive causes, Kiley played key operational leadership roles for the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as well as for the Democratic National Committee during much of the 1990s. Kiley was appointed Deputy Assistant to the President for Management and Administration at the White House during the second term of the Clinton Administration and was instrumental to the early and successful growth of the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington, DC.

Kiley’s experience and strong management skills were recognized when he was asked to help lead the incoming transition team for then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008. It was during the presidential transition that the incoming President asked Kiley to join his Administration as the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration at the White House, where he served from January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2013. 

As the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration, Kiley was in charge of overseeing all day-to-day operations of the White House, including finance and budget, facilities management, information technology, human resources, security, management oversight of the Executive Residence, and oversight of the Office of Administration, which provides enterprise services to all eleven components of the Executive Office of the President.  

Following his service during the first term of the Obama Administration, Kiley served as Chief Operating Officer for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, where he managed the end-to-end finances, human resources, and field operations for the $200 million organization from January 2013 to 2020. Kiley most recently served as Chief Operating Officer for Radio Free Asia. Beginning in January 2023, Kiley will serve as the new Vice President + COO for AIDS United.

A proud graduate of Texas Christian University (TCU), Kiley resides with his husband, Jamie Coley, in Chevy Chase, MD.

Dr. Cardoso has 15 years of experience leading research on interpersonal violence, community safety, and health equity. Her work is conducted in partnership with global institutions, state agencies, and community-based organizations in an effort to generate evidence that informs equity-focused public health programming and policy. She brings this experience to her new role as Managing Director of Capacity Building at the HAVI.

Prior to joining the HAVI, Dr. Cardoso was a Deputy Director of the Office of Statistics and Evaluation at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). There she oversaw epidemiological work on a range of critical health topics and led initiatives with far-reaching impacts, including the Covid Community Impact Survey (CCIS) – MA’s first statewide research assessing the impact of the pandemic on marginalized communities. CCIS enabled not only a more equitable pandemic response but a more sustained focus on building equity into state data systems, an effort that will generate lasting improvements in health equity across Massachusetts.

Dr. Cardoso holds a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Brown University.

A Bay Area native and longtime Oakland resident, Terrence Riley is excited to join Hack the Hood as their next Executive Director. As a nonprofit leader, Terrence brings nearly two decades of experience working to advance the promise and potential of youth of color. He is excited to continue this work, reaffirming his commitment to education and social justice. As Executive Director, Terrence will bring a lens of innovation and collaboration to this work, partnering with the incredible Hack the Hood team to continue to be a resource for youth and young adults of color looking to enter the tech field.

Before joining Hack the Hood, Terrence served as Vice President of Programs for Aim High, the largest tuition-free academic enrichment summer program in Northern California. Aim High holds a special place in Terrence's heart as he was a student in the program in middle school. He later received his bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Southern California, and his master's degree in Educational Administration and Leadership from the University of the Pacific.

An avid and lifelong learner, Terrence participated in the sixth cohort of the prestigious Allstate Foundation's Non-Profit Executive Leadership Program at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and received a DEI certificate from the University of South Florida. Terrence was also a member of the inaugural cohort of Bridging the Bay, a cohort-based executive leadership fellowship for c-level nonprofit leaders in the Bay Area sponsored by the Golden State Warriors, Generation Thrive, and Coro Northern California.

Outside of work, Terrence enjoys woodworking, playing guitar, and spending time with his wife and two children at their home in Oakland, CA.

Samiya Bashir, called a “dynamic, shape-shifting machine of perpetual motion,” by Diego Báez, writing for Booklist, is a poet, writer, librettist, performer, and multi-media poetry maker whose work, both solo and collaborative, has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, experienced, and Oxford comma’d from Berlin to Düsseldorf, Amsterdam to Accra, Florence to Rome and across the United States. Bashir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Field Theories, winner of the 2018 Oregon Book Award’s Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry.  

Samiya’s honors include the Rome Prize in Literature, the Pushcart Prize, Oregon’s Arts & Culture Council Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature, and two Michigan’s Hopwood Poetry Awards among numerous other awards, grants, fellowships, and residencies. In addition to her books, Bashir has served as editor to national magazines and anthologies of literature and artwork. In 2002 she was co-founder of Fire & Ink, an advocacy organization and writer’s festival for LGBT writers of African descent with whom she worked through 2015. 

Formerly an Associate Professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Bashir worked to create, employ, and teach—both within and outside of traditional academic settings—a restorative poetics which can acknowledge the despair often bred by isolation and turn it toward a poetics of light and its potential for witness, for healing, and for change. Bashir, who took the helm as Executive Director of Lambda Literary in 2022, lives on the road in Harlem.

Gillian Power is an accomplished executive and legal technologist. Prior to joining us she served for over a decade as the CIO of an AM Law 200 firm. She has over 20 years in legal technology experience at four different firms ranging from a global firm, two regional firms, and a national firm. Prior to her career in legal technology, Gillian was a Doctor of Homeopathic and Naturopathic medicine in South Africa, the country where she was born and grew up.

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She is an active member in the legal technology community, having served for five years as a committee member—including two as a thought leader—for the annual International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) conference. Gillian was a recipient of an ILTA Distinguished Peer Award in 2011 for the area of server/operations, and was a shortlist nominee for the ILTA Distinguished Peer Award for IT Professional of the Year award in 2013 and the ILTA Distinguished Peer Award for Leadership award in 2014 and ILTA Contributor of the Year in 2020. She helped to chair and establish the ILTA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force in 2019.

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Gillian is a passionate advocate for DEIB and does regular public speaking on panels and individually where she tells her story of coming out as a trans woman in the C-Suite. She served on the board of the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, the UMKC Chancellor’s LGBT Council, as a mentor for the Stephen Metzler Mentorship program of the Mid-America LGBT Chamber of Commerce. She also helped found Transfinity KC—a chorus for trans people and allies.

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Gillian received a master’s degree in technology from the Durban University of Technology in South Africa and an Executive MBA from the Henry W. Bloch School of Business at University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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Gillian lives with her wife, two daughters and mother-in-law just outside Kansas City. They live on some farmland, with four cats, one dog, and 16 chickens. Gillian and her wife are passionate about sustainable agriculture and are avid market gardeners, growing organic vegetables that they sell at a local farmer’s market on the weekend.

John Roane is an accomplished nonprofit executive who specializes in building and continually improving organizational operations.

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After graduating from James Madison University, John transitioned to the Santander campus of Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo in Spain for intensive language study. He returned to his hometown of Richmond, VA, to launch a professional career at the Children’s Fund, where he began his specialization in nonprofit management, enterprise system development and implementation, and staff development. This experience led to an officer role with Suntrust Bank, having the responsibility of transferring traditional banking services to electronic delivering platforms, including ATMs, 24/7 call centers, and online banking. When John relocated to Washington, DC, he joined the staff of Councilmember Jack Evans and oversaw operations for the council office and mayoral campaign. John transitioned to the DC association community and served 17 years at the executive level, primarily in the role of Chief Operating Officer, for three associations:  Association of American Medical Colleges, Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. John most recently served five years as the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of AIDS United.

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John enjoys leveraging his professional expertise within mission-driven organizations. He identifies leading the implementation of the Veterinary Medical College Application Service (VMCAS) for US veterinary colleges and transitioning AIDS United to a primarily virtual office with tremendous cost reductions as top professional achievements.

John has extensive volunteer experience that includes serving on three boards: Fan Free Health Clinic in Richmond, VA, and Us Helping Us and the Financial and Administrators Roundtable in DC, in addition to volunteer service to Food and Friends and Dog World Rescue.

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John resides in DC with his husband, two kids, and two dogs.

Lupe Jimenez-Pinto is a mission-driven, solution-oriented strategist, and nonprofit expert with a proven record of creating innovative educational experiences. In her previous role as Senior Director of External Affairs, Lupe returned to her alma mater, Perspectives Charter Schools, where, for a decade, she cultivated an organization-wide passion for social-emotional wellbeing and advancement. She worked diligently as an adept brand and marketing strategist while crafting thoughtful messaging and communications and was instrumental in the successful planning and execution of fundraising activities and community events.  She effectively built relationships with community partners, funders, city leaders, and elected officials to further advance the organization’s mission. She is skilled at navigating the political and philanthropic landscapes of the city, never hesitating to leverage her relationships to positively impact Chicago students.

As Ingenuity’s newest hire, Lupe brings her passion for equity in education, strategic thinking,  and a fresh perspective to continue advancing their mission. She will develop and support the organization’s strategic priorities, and above all, she will empower and expand the groundbreaking opportunities that they offer to schools and youth across the thriving city of Chicago.

Lupe graduated with a BA in Marketing Communications with an emphasis on Public Relations from Columbia College Chicago in 2006. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband and children, and remarkably, she emerged from years of pandemic parenting even stronger and saner than before. When she isn’t developing cutting-edge partnerships or creating inventive educational experiences, you can find her with her family or enjoying a walk through our city’s many incredible museums.

Marco Chan (he/him) is a leader in strategic planning and project management – he has worked with cabinet-level officials, Fortune 500 executives, and nonprofit leaders in the U.S. and Canada to turn visions into strategies and concrete results.

 
Most recently, Marco advised Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry on the economic recovery and the greening of industry, including the design and investments of a multi-billion-dollar fund to green industry. His previous roles include advising mining and retail executives while at Bain + Company as well as leading on international LGBTI rights for the Canadian Prime Minister's Special Advisor on LGBTQ2 Issues. He holds a bachelor's in Romance Studies from Harvard College, an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Marco is excited to use his management background and lean into his long-time passion for LGBTQ issues at Lambda Legal. A newly minted New Yorker, he is excited to discover the city’s dining (spicier the better), coffee, visual/performing arts, and queer life. He loves to chat about francophone culture, travel, and good reads (especially queer, immigrant, and/or French works).

Kate Schroder is a healthcare leader with 15+ years of experience in both public and private sectors. She has served on the Cincinnati Board of Health since 2016, and in 2021, she led vaccine coordination efforts for the Greater Cincinnati region as the Interim Chief Strategy Officer with The Health Collaborative in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Kate received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Indiana University and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She has spent 12 years leading global public health projects, including two years living in Lusaka, Zambia. She served as Vice President at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), where she led an $80M program that reduced the cost of pediatric drugs by 40% nationally across India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda and increased treatment rates for tens of millions of children.

In 2020, Kate was the Democratic nominee for Congress in Ohio’s first district, running on a platform to expand access to affordable healthcare and to invest in jobs and the economy. As a survivor of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Kate knows personally what it is like when one’s survival is dependent on access to healthcare. Kate and her husband, John Juech, currently live in Cincinnati with their two children.