2024 Corporate Philanthropy Institute

Caroline is the CEO and founder of Platypus Advisors, a social impact consulting firm she launched in March 2020 after a decade leading impact programs at top technology companies and 20 years in social good across the nonprofit and for-profit realms. She serves as an advisor, thought partner, and impact whisperer to CEOs and other C-suite leaders at organizations everywhere from pre-IPO to Fortune 50.

Wherever she goes, Caroline brings a platypus mindset to her work, helping stakeholders across sectors adapt and collaborate for maximum impact.

She has served as Global Head of Social Innovation at Eventbrite; Global Head of Philanthropy and Community Outreach at Twitter; and Senior Director of Corporate Affairs and Director of Global Employee Community Engagement, Office of Sustainability and Social Innovation, at Hewlett-Packard.

Caroline was an Aspen Institute First Mover Fellow and currently sits on the board of Global Fund for Women as Vice Chair.

She received her BA from Vassar College and was a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University Business School.

Ayo Brame is a 16-year-old up and coming tenor saxophone jazz musician out of Oakland, California. He is a student at Oakland School for the Arts. He is trained by jazz great Richard Howell. He considers himself a purist when it comes to jazz as he channels late greats such as John Coltrane, and Wayne Shorter. Embraced by the jazz community, he has been very lucky in acquiring additional mentors that he has played with with such as Kev Choice, Howard Wiley and Marcus Shelby. In the last year, Ayo has toured in the Continental United States, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Brazil and Cuba. In addition to the tenor saxophone, he also plays the soprano saxophone & alto saxophones, clarinet, EWI, bass guitar and drums. He composes and arranges music and is currently recording his debut album entitle "Oakland in My Soul!" He plans to study music in New York after high school graduation. 

Ayobrame.com

Kavell currently serves as a Senior Manager, Social Impact Strategic Partnerships on the LinkedIn Social Impact team, where he leads the social justice participatory grant-making portfolio known as the LinkedIn Social Impact Global Root Causes Fund. This initiative is focused on mitigating the impacts of racism, patriarchy, classism, and other societal ills. His role also entails overseeing LinkedIn's comprehensive strategy to support the justice-impacted population, both within and beyond correctional facilities, at scale. Furthermore, he is responsible for managing nonprofit and charitable partnerships spanning across North America while also supervising the global philanthropic processes of his team.

Born and raised in the projects of New York City and a graduate of Syracuse University, Kavell is a dedicated social impact practitioner. He has had the privilege of contributing his expertise to the Social Impact teams at HBO and Paramount, gaining valuable insight that underscores the importance of paying it forward. Kavell emphasizes that it's not about how much you can take, but rather how much you can give.
 

Julián Castro serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Latino Community Foundation, the nation’s largest Latino-serving foundation.

Julián’s deep commitment to the future of this nation is woven into his DNA. Raised by his mother Rosie Castro, a civil rights and Chicana activist, and his grandmother, Victoria Castro, on the westside of San Antonio, Texas, Julian grew up with a profound understanding of what it meant to love and serve community. Inspired by a legacy of leaders working to safeguard our democracy and strengthen community, Julian has dedicated his life to public service.

Julián was elected to the San Antonio City Council in 2001 at age 26, then was elected Mayor of San Antonio in 2009. The youngest mayor of a Top 50 American city at the time, Julian revitalized and transformed San Antonio into one of the country’s leading economies. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Julián U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he served until the end of the Obama administration.

In 2020, Julián ran for the Democratic nomination for President.

Julián earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. His memoir, An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up From My American Dream, was published by Little Brown in 2018.

Julian is the proud father of a daughter, Carina, and a son, Cristián. Julián’s brother Joaquin currently represents Texas’ 20th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. In his free time, Julian loves spending time and traveling with his family.

Janiece Evans-Page is a social scientist and social impact leader whose 20 years of experience in the tech sector and social impact ecosystem inform her innovative approach to driving social change. As chief executive officer of Tides, Janiece leads Tides’ work with doers and donors to center the leadership of changemakers from communities historically denied power, connecting them to operational and advisory services, capacity building, and resources to amplify their impact. Janiece serves on the boards of Tides, Tides Advocacy (a 501(c)(4)), Beneficial State Foundation, and Echoing Green, the board of trustees of both Southern New Hampshire University and St. Mary’s College, as well as numerous advisory councils.

DJ FUZE is an Oakland California based DJ and record producer, who is most known for his work in the 1990s with the multi-platinum, P-Funk-inspired rap group “Digital Underground”. Fuze co-produced several songs on Digital Underground’s Grammy-nominated and multi-platinum debut album “Sex Packets”, including the Bay Area radio and club classic “Freaks of the Industry”. He toured with D.U. internationally from 1990 to 1993, supporting the group's hit singles “Doowutchyalike”, “The Humpty Dance”, “Same Song”, and “Kiss You Back”. Fuze went on to perform with the group for over a decade at countless historic and internationally known venues, from Harlem’s Apollo Theatre, to the iconic Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Fuze also performed with Digital Underground during the group’s many nationally televised performances, including Showtime At The Apollo, Yo MTV Raps, and The Arsenio Hall Show. The group was also featured in the 1991 Hollywood cult film “Nothing But Trouble”, which starred Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore.

DJ Fuze also collaborated with the young emerging star Tupac Shakur, on his debut album “2Pacalypse Now”. In addition to naming the album, Fuze produced the controversial tune "Violent", a politically charged song that recently featured prominently in the critically acclaimed FX television special “Dear Mama”, a documentary series focusing on the lives and political activism of Tupac and his mother, Afeni Shakur. DJ Fuze also appeared with Tupac in the Oscar-nominated, MTV produced documentary film “Tupac Resurrection”, and made cameo appearances in Tupac's first two music videos, "Trapped" and "Brenda’s Got A Baby".

In 1994, Fuze began working with the legendary Oakland Rap duo “The Luniz”, and he produced three songs on their debut multi-platinum release “Operation Stackola”. Fuze also toured internationally with Luniz during their platinum period, supporting their hit “I Got Five On It”. Fuze also produced the Bay Area classic street hit “Can You Feel Me” for Oakland rapper Dru Down in 1996.

DJ Fuze returned to college in 2003, and received a B.A. of International Development in 2007 from the University of California, Berkeley. Between local gigs and national tour dates, Fuze has consistently made time to work with community based organizations in Oakland, interning at Ella Baker Center, hosting DJ classes at Youth Radio, and conducting policy research at Urban Peace Movement . He still performs at various nightclubs, festivals, and community events throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

DJ FUZE Website and Social Media Links
https://www.djfuze.com/
https://www.instagram.com/djfuze_du/?hl=en

Lili Gangas is the Chief Technology Community Officer at the Kapor Foundation, an operating foundation at the intersection of technology and racial justice, providing research and thought leadership, operating programs, supporting strategic partnerships and investments to increase diversity across the tech ecosystem--from K-12 education through entrepreneurship and venture capital - aiming to level the playing field in tech.  Lili co-leads the Kapor Center’s Equitable Tech Policy Initiative with a focus on inclusive technology policy with special interests in closing digital divide, scaling new tech workforce models,  advocating for responsible emerging technology as well as providing foundational support across civic engagement issues and tech enablement of civic organizations.

Mahlet Getachew, Managing Director of Corporate Racial Equity, works to ignite new norms in corporate America that value people and our planet just as much as the bottom line. She leads a portfolio of strategic initiatives, including the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance and its groundbreaking new performance standards — the Business Standards for 21st Century Leadership — advancing equity, inclusion, and the best of socially responsible business. As a former corporate lawyer, she comes to PolicyLink with extensive experience advising public and private corporations across various industries as external legal counsel and in-house counsel. Prior to joining PolicyLink, Mahlet was General Counsel, Head of HR and Business Operations at Suki AI, Inc., and previous to that, she was Associate General Counsel & Assistant Secretary at GoPro, Inc. Mahlet started her career as a corporate attorney at an international law firm, where she represented large and small tech companies on a broad range of corporate and commercial matters in the software, internet, renewable energy, media, education, and semiconductor industries. She also serves on the B Lab Company board of directors and is a member of the B Lab Standards Advisory Council. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Lewis & Clark College and received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Angela Glover Blackwell is Founder in Residence at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity for all. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink gained national prominence in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. Angela is also the host of the Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life podcast and the Radical Imagination podcast and Professor of Practice at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.

A lawyer by training, Angela gained national recognition as founder of the Urban Strategies Council. From 1977 to 1987, Angela was a partner at Public Advocates. Angela is also the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, and the author of The Curb Cut Effect (2017) and How We Achieve a Multiracial Democracy (2023) published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

As a leading voice in the movement for equity in America, Angela serves on numerous boards. She advised the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve as one of 15 members of its inaugural Community Advisory Council, and in 2020 was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the state Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. She is the 2018 recipient of the John W. Gardner Leadership Award, presented by the Independent Sector, and in 2017, she received the Peter E. Haas Public Service Award from the University of California, Berkeley.

Elizabeth leads Genentech’s charitable investments in health equity, oversees the measurement of Genentech’s charitable giving strategy, and drives enterprise-wide engagement and activation on our external partnerships.  Genentech’s charitable giving and social impact programs are focused on advancing health equity, supporting patient needs, building a more diverse STEM and medical workforce, and partnering with local communities. Elizabeth has been instrumental in embedding health equity Genentech’s charitable giving portfolio, resulting in over $230M in investments towards equity since 2017. She leads Genentech’s Health Equity Innovation Fund, which has catalyzed over $50M in investment enabling  community, patient, clinical, and healthcare leaders to advance new ways of working and drive institutional and systems-level impact across the US healthcare system. Her team oversees all of Genentech’s hometown investments. Prior to Genentech, Elizabeth advised large philanthropic organizations and companies on their giving strategies and programs. Elizabeth holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Connecticut College, and resides in San Francisco with her family.

Lakshmi Iyer is a Managing Director at FSG with a 14-year track record of driving social impact strategies for multinational corporations -- through Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Philanthropy efforts, as well as inclusive business models.

At FSG, Lakshmi helps lead our corporate practice where she advises companies on ways to achieve their purpose by strengthening their competitive positioning while addressing societal issues. She has helped companies like Abbott, Intuit, Truist, and Toyota develop business strategies to drive social impact, design Corporate Social Responsibility and shared value strategies, identify priority metrics, and evaluate them and accelerate purpose.

She brings broad industry experience across geographies, having worked with companies in technology, healthcare, oil and gas, retail and manufacturing across Asia, the Americas, and Europe. She brings deep social sector experience in racial equity, gender equity, and global health.

Lakshmi was a core member of FSG's consulting team from 2012 - 2021 and rejoined FSG in 2023 as a Managing Director. Between 2021-2023, Lakshmi spent two years at Salesforce, as the Director for Strategy and Business Operations for Salesforce.org. Early in her career, Lakshmi managed CSR for the Mahindra Group, an Indian multinational company where she implemented community development projects and managed a successful employee engagement program for 40,000 employees. Lakshmi has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Committed to proving the business case for societal and environmental impact, Oliva Khalili brings 20 years of experience as a senior practitioner and thought leader in sustainability. She was named one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council in 2021, and received the Stevie Award for Woman of the Year in Technology, 2021. As the inaugural head of PagerDuty.org, she established and scaled the company’s global impact strategy, comprising ESG & sustainability, revenue-generating nonprofit sales, impact capital, and employee experience.


Before joining PagerDuty, Olivia built Yahoo’s global corporate responsibility program, Yahoo for Good, to mobilize the company's technology and employee talent to positively benefit society. Prior to Yahoo, she worked with Ashoka, creating innovative social impact programs that supported social entrepreneurs and enhanced brand equity for a portfolio of companies that included American Express and Ben & Jerry’s. In 2008, Olivia launched CauseCapitalism.com, an online resource to help businesses grow by embedding social purpose. Her approach stems from cross-sector experience working with the public sector, tech companies and nonprofits, and in international development in Micronesia.


Olivia holds a B.A. Cum Laude in International Relations and Diplomatic History from the University of Pennsylvania, and served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for GreatNonprofits and CommunityConnect Labs for half a decade. Chiefly, she’s a nature mama to three spirited sons on the outskirts of Austin.

Alexis Madrigal is a journalist in Oakland, California. He's the co-host of KQED’s current affairs show, Forum, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, where he co-founded The COVID Tracking Project. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Fusion and and a staff writer at Wired.

His new book, The Pacific Circuit, is coming out in March 2025 from MCD x FSG.

He is the proprietor of the Oakland Garden Club, a newsletter for people who like to think about plants.

Vera Moore-Shaheen is the West Region Leader for U.S. Community Relations at Citi. She brings an equity focused lens to how the voices and perspectives of nonprofit leaders and the communities they serve are reflected as Citi makes decisions about its products, services, and philanthropy. Prior to Citi, Vera helped spearhead JPMorgan Chase’s commitment to invest $75 million in the Bay Area through its AdvancingCities initiative — a five-year, $500 million effort to create greater economic opportunity nationwide.

Vera’s career in wealth creation began in the nonprofit sector. She has held leadership roles at national nonprofit organizations, such as the National Urban League, where she brought evidence-based restorative justice principles and innovation to employment training programs for young adults with prior justice system involvement. At SEEDCO, Vera provided consulting services to government agencies and philanthropic organizations, in the U.S. and abroad, that wanted to increase their grantees’ capacity to implement high impact workforce development programs.

Vera serves on the Coro Northern California Board of Directors and the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center’s Women’s Leadership Council. She is also an appointed member of the Entrepreneurship and Economic Mobility Task Force formed by the California Office of the Small Business Advocate, a division of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development and was recognized on the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 List in 2021.

Vera has a Master of Urban Planning degree from NYU and a Bachelor of Arts from UCLA. Vera transferred to UCLA from Diablo Valley College.

Clare Schroder, Director at FSG, is a social impact leader and strategist with over 10 years of experience in global and US health, equity, and systems change. She is experienced in strategy development and execution, change management, strategic partnership and collaboration, and strategic learning and evaluation. She has worked with corporate, philanthropic, government, and non-profit clients and partners closely with clients to collaboratively achieve outcomes. Clare leverages creative facilitation techniques, a humble learner mindset, and components of adult learning theory to support her clients and team members alike to be social impact and systems change leaders.

As a Director in FSG’s health practice, she brings deep expertise in the health space across sectors (e.g., pharma/biotech, philanthropy, health systems) and topic areas (e.g., behavioral health, women’s health, oncology, climate and health). Clare has successfully led engagements with clients such as Katz Amsterdam Foundation, Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health, Natrona Collective Health Trust, and numerous multinational corporations.

Clare boomeranged back to FSG. Clare was a member of FSG’s consulting team between 2018-2022. From 2022-2023, Clare joined Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and helped to advance their social impact, public sector, and healthcare practice areas. She also worked at John Snow, Inc., a global health management consulting firm implementing programs around the world.

Clare earned an MBA/MPH from the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business and School of Public Health. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in international studies in public health from Washington University in St. Louis.

As managing director, Kimberly oversees Talent Rewire’s efforts to innovate new approaches, tools, and research to drive employer systems transformation, and subsequently to scale the team’s learnings to the broader workforce field. She has supported a diverse range of employers—from Fortune 100 companies to small and medium-sized businesses—to adopt new HR practices and policies that improve the economic mobility of their frontline.

Prior to joining FSG, Kimberly worked at Teach For America, where she spent 8 years in a variety of roles to expand educational opportunity for children and families including acting as the interim executive director of Teach for America in Washington, leading the region’s 50 corps members and 800 alumni.

Kimberly frequently speaks to employers and workforce organizations on the topics of job quality, economic mobility, and systems change. She was a member of the Aspen Institute’s Job Quality Fellowship Class of 2022-23.

Amy Skeeters-Behrens is a social
Impact and sustainability executive known for mobilizing diverse stakeholders to create innovative philanthropy and sustainability initiatives with measurable impacts.

Amy has held various leadership roles in philanthropy, sustainability and ESG across the tech sector, including leading eBay’s Social Ventures team, serving as the founding Executive Director of DocuSign Impact and most recently serving as the inaugural Vice President for Social Impact and Sustainability at Toast, the restaurant POS used by over 120,000 restaurants.

Amy currently serves on the board of the Pacifica Education Foundation and was a founding board member of the PayPal Giving Fund. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Oklahoma, earned a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University, and was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Spain.

Justin Steele is a Director at Google.org, where he leads Google’s philanthropic grantmaking in the Americas. Prior to joining Google.org, Justin held several executive roles at Year Up, a job training nonprofit, and began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Co. and The Bridgespan Group. He earned an undergraduate degree in engineering from the University of Virginia and a dual MBA/MPA from Harvard, with a focus on nonprofit management and urban social policy. Justin resides in Oakland with his wife and four daughters, serves as a trustee of the San Francisco Foundation, and co-founded Outdoorithm, a social enterprise dedicated to making camping more inclusive and accessible.

Wilma Wallace is a board member and strategic advisor with over 25 years of broad base experience in retail, consumer products, services, and wellness. 

Most recently, Wilma was the Chief Legal Officer and Chief Diversity & Social Impact Officer for REI.  Wilma  was the founding Board chair of the REI Cooperative Action Fund, a 501© (3) organization. Her leadership at REI contributed to the company being recognized as the top brand for social impact by Forbes in 2023.
Prior to her time at REI, Wilma served as the Chief Legal Counsel for Enveritas, an international start-up venture focused on sustainable environmental practices in the coffee industry.

Wilma began her corporate career at Gap Inc., last served as Vice President, Sustainability and Deputy General Counsel.  Wilma serves on the Board of Premera, a healthcare provider, where she is the Chair of the Compensation Committee and is a member of the Audit & Finance and Nominations & Governance Committee. She also serves as Vice-Chair on the Board of Landesa, an organization dedicated to poverty elimination and climate justice through land rights. In addition to serving on the Audit & Finance Committee at Landesa, Wilma chairs the Board's DEI task force.

Wilma earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University. She began her career as a commercial litigator at Orrick Harrington and Sutcliffe, and Folger, Levin & Kahn in San Francisco, California. Wilma and her family are proud residents of Oakland, California.

Jessica Weare is Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, partnering with corporations across the region to help address community challenges and advance strategic corporate philanthropy. Previously, Weare directed Microsoft’s philanthropic work in Silicon Valley, supporting nonprofits working in education, workforce development, and civic technology. At United Way Bay Area’s public policy committee, Weare successfully advocated in Sacramento and Washington D.C. for legislation strengthening public education, healthcare, economic mobility, and charitable giving. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, and a doctorate from Stanford University