RiseEast: The $100M plan to make East Oakland a place where Black children and families thrive

Noha Aboelata, MD, Founder/CEO, Roots Community Health Center has devoted her career to eliminating health disparities and improving the health of marginalized communities. Dr. Noha, recipient of the 2022 James Irvine Leadership Award, is the founding CEO of Roots Community Health Center, where she has pioneered the provision of a community-based, community-driven and community empowering model for improving wellness that Roots calls “Whole Health.” As part of this model, she designed culturally responsive, wrap-around medical, social, employment, nutritional and educational services, and community-led public policy engagement. By delivering Whole Health, Dr. Noha empowers Roots members to address and to change the conditions that impact the well-being of individuals, families, and the communities in which they live and work.

Geoffrey Canada is President of the Harlem Children’s Zone and Founder of the William Julius Wilson Institute, and he serves as a Special Advisor to Blue Meridian Partners.

Geoff is nationally recognized for his pioneering work helping children and families in Harlem and his passionate advocacy of education reform. Joining Rheedlen Centers in 1983, he became its president and chief executive officer in 1990. The organization launched the Harlem Children’s Zone Project in 1997 to provide Central Harlem with a comprehensive network of education, social-service and community-building programs. Today the Zone Project covers 100 blocks and serves more than 13,000 children from birth through college. Geoff stepped down as CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone in 2014. In 2020, Geoff founded the William Julius Wilson Institute at Harlem Children’s Zone, a national resource for place-based, people-focused solutions that open pathways to social and economic mobility.

Geoff grew up in the South Bronx and earned a BA from Bowdoin College and a master’s in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard University, Bowdoin College, the University of Pennsylvania, Williams College, John Jay College and Bank Street College, the Heroes of the Year Award from the Robin Hood Foundation, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Spirit of the City Award from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Brennan Legacy Award from New York University, and the Common Good Award from Bowdoin College.

In 2006, Geoff was named co-chair of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Commission on Economic Opportunity, and in 2011 he was appointed to the New York State Governor’s Council of Economic and Fiscal Advisors. He also advises and serves on the boards of several nonprofits.

Brandi Howard is the president and CEO of East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF). Howard is a collaborative and compassionate leader who brings deep experience as an equity and justice strategist rooted in community to the Foundation’s vision and framework for A Just East Bay.

Before EBCF, Howard led strategic planning and the development of the equity learning infrastructure as chief of staff and interim vice president of programs at San Francisco Foundation. Her leadership was critical in advancing the equity-centered grantmaking policy and systems change in the region. When she began there, she worked with the The Daniel E. Koshland Civic Unity Program, a community leadership program that works with grassroots risk- takers and makes a five-year investment in their community. Prior to that, Howard worked for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where she oversaw two city-wide initiatives to reduce infant mortality and chronic disease and led the development of a division-wide framework to streamline implementation, staffing, and quality improvement processes for Neighborhood Health Action Centers.

Howard is a third-generation Oaklander who grew up in multicultural communities throughout the city, in a family with a heritage of Pan-Africanism and a global worldview. Conscious of the complexities of race, racism, and racial injustice, Howard began her career recognizing the linkage of all oppressions in the shared fight for liberation. She was drawn to advocacy and health equity work during her nineteen years as a doula working with Black and Latinx women. Decades-stagnant health outcomes for Black and Latinx mothers led her to speak out for systems change and her career shifted. As maternal child health subcommittee chair for the Alameda County Public Health Commission, she served as a liaison between public and nonprofit agencies, community members and the county board of supervisors to provide recommendations to support optimal maternal and child health in Alameda County. Howard also worked for First 5 Alameda County, and has advised a number of nonprofit organizations on strategy, sustainability, and equity as a consultant.

Howard is a member of Chief, a network of senior women leaders built to strengthen their leadership journey, cross-pollinate ideas across industries, and affect change from the top- down. Howard is a lecturer for equity in practice at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also an advisory committee member. Howard is principal consultant at Beyond the Curve, a consulting firm providing organizational development, business strategy, and talent and crisis management.

Howard started her career transition journey at Merritt College after ten years in the workforce as a mother of three children. She transferred to the University of California, Berkeley where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies and a Master of Social Work. Now a mother of four, Howard is constantly inspired by her children’s creativity and relentless energy. Her children are her motivation to advance racial equity, and transform political, social, and economic outcomes for all who call the East Bay home.

Gregory Hodge is a social change activist and organizational development consultant with Khepera Consulting. Working as a strategist, meeting designer, racial equity trainer, facilitator and coach, Gregory works with a range of groups from small non-profits and foundations to public agencies, particularly school districts and foundations. Greg served as the Executive Director for the Executives’ Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and currently as the Chief Executive Officer for the Oakland-based Brotherhood of Elders Network. He is a coordinating partner in designing the Healing Generations Institute with the National Compadres Network.

His clients include the Association of Black Foundation Executives, The California Endowment and Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. As a leader in his community, Gregory served two four-year terms as a member of the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education beginning in January 2000, including a year as president of the board. Greg is a Fulbright-Hayes Fellow, recipient of the Gerbode Fellowship and board chair of the Rockwood Leadership Institute. He is a proud father of five, active gardener and lives in Oakland, California. 

C.J. joined the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative in 2019 as its first Executive Director and became the founding CEO of the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation, which was formed by the Collaborative, in 2020. She has more than thirty years of experience in entrepreneurship and business management, non-profit operations, finance, and commercial real estate including development, financing, and brokerage. She is a native of Oakland, California, and a proud graduate of Castlemont High School. She brings to the Black Cultural Zone her homegrown knowledge of East Oakland, where she was born and raised, and her entrepreneurial, management, and transactional experience garnered within the Bay Area. Currently, in addition to her role with the Black Cultural Zone, she is a tenured Professor at the College of Alameda in the Business Department and has launched the Peralta Community College District's first fully online Entrepreneurship Certificate Program.

C.J. has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a specialization in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles; a Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Administration from the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley; a Master of Business Administration (with Honors - Beta Gamma Sigma) in Marketing, Corporate Finance, and Real Estate Finance from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; and her Doctorate (EdD) in Educational Leadership from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell has led Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) as Superintendent since July 2017. OUSD is where she has spent most of her 22+ years working in education, and where she received her own primary education.

Johnson-Trammell grew up in East Oakland and attended OSUD through middle school. She attended a private high school on scholarship, before heading to the University of Pennsylvania where her career in education began. She considered a career in law, but tried her hand as a student-teacher, and her future was sealed.

After graduating college and obtaining her teaching credential, Johnson-Trammell taught in Oakland for five years. That led to her first job as an administrator, serving as an Assistant Principal in the Mount Diablo Unified School District. She worked there for two years before returning to Oakland as a principal. She quickly rose through the ranks of District leadership as Administrator on Special Assignment, Associate Superintendent of Leadership, Curriculum and Instruction, Lead Network Superintendent and Interim Deputy Superintendent.

Johnson-Trammell’s awards and honors include being recognized as Outstanding Principal of Alameda County. She also received the Outstanding District Leadership Award. Johnson-Trammell served as keynote speaker at an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference on Urban District Reform and has participated on numerous panels.

Johnson-Trammell has a B.A. in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, a teaching credential from California State University, Hayward, an administrative credential (M.A.) and her Ed.D in Educational Leadership from the University of California, Berkeley.

Melanie Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Oakland Thrives Melanie Moore is Chief Executive Officer of Oakland Thrives. An experienced, strategic social sector leader specializing in innovation, collaboration, and collective impact in public-private partnerships, she was a professional evaluator for over 15 years, leading projects assessing the impact of youth development, school reform, community development programs, capacity- building initiatives, and funder networks. As a strategic leader in the social sector for over 10 years, she has created strategies for achieving community and population-level results in governmental, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations. Dr. Moore was the lead evaluator for the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and Families first comprehensive outcomes- based evaluation, and also led the Department’s citywide strategic planning efforts for the Mayor’s Children’s Cabinet.

Dr. Moore founded See Change, Inc., an evaluation and strategic consulting firm with the goal of improving critical thinking in organizations working to make social change. After eight years leading the company, she joined the Family Independence Initiative as Managing Partner to promote economic and social mobility for families. In this role, she was a founding partner of ALL IN Alameda County, an initiative to bring an innovative approach to the county’s poverty alleviation efforts, and ultimately she led ALL IN for five years as Director.

Most recently, Dr. Moore served two seasons as the Executive Director of the Golden State Warriors Community Foundation. She lives in Oakland with her two daughters and many pets.

Selena Wilson currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). Having grown up in East Oakland as an EOYDC alumni, Selena initially developed her love of working with young people through EOYDC’s youth leadership program and her involvement in the California Association of Student Councils.

Selena is deeply proud of her East Oakland roots, having attended schools in East Oakland from Burbank Elementary and Havenscourt Middle School to Castlemont High School, and Oakland’s own Holy Names University, where she received her BA in Human Services. She then went on to spend several years leading elementary school enrichment programming with the City of Piedmont before transitioning to Northwestern University. At Northwestern, Selena earned a Master of Science in Learning and Organizational Change.

After completing her graduate studies, Selena served as a management consultant for the Organization Transformation and Talent division of Deloitte Consulting, where she worked with private and government sector clients to deliver large-scale change management solutions. Selena returned to EOYDC as the Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness in 2015. In this role, Selena leveraged her multifaceted skillset to streamline operations across the organization and enhance program effectiveness through evidenced-based practices, with a focus on trauma-informed, healing-centered care for systematically marginalized youth.

In addition to her work with EOYDC, Selena advocates for systemic change based on the foundational principles of belonging, dignity, justice, and joy through her work with Decolonize Design--a global organization leading the movement to envision a more just and joyful world.

In her spare time, Selena enjoys watching films, hiking, painting, and spending quality time with her family, friends, and puppy, Cairo.