Will Swaim

Will Swaim is president of the California Policy Center, a nonprofit educational organization working to help all Californians prosper. Swaim began his journalism career as a business reporter in 1990, as managing editor and ultimately editor and publisher of the international business magazine, World Trade. In 1995, Village Voice Media Read more…

Angelica Salas

Angelica Salas is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), and is widely regarded as one of the most gifted activist/organizers in the country today.Since becoming CHIRLA’s director in 1999, Salas has spearheaded and won several ambitious campaigns. She helped win in-state tuition Read more…

Janice Rutherford

Janice’s passion for community service started when her Girl Scout troop did watershed clean-ups and worked with children with developmental delays. By high school, she was organizing fellow students to lobby the legislature for education funding, and in college, she worked for a local Assemblyman on alternative fuel vehicles and Read more…

Dr. Robert Ross

Dr. Bob Ross is the President & CEO of The California Endowment, our state’s largest private health foundation. During his leadership tenure, the foundation has focused on the vision of health coverage for every Californian, as well as health improvement in under-resourced and marginalized communities. During the past decade, the Read more…

Dowell Myers

Dowell Myers is a professor of policy, planning, and demography in the Sol Price School of Public Policy at USC.  He is a leading expert on California’s changing demographics that lead the nation’s.  Dr. Myers specializes in demographic narrative that combines elements in a fusion of policy, planning and demography, termed “integrated demography,” Read more…

Jeff Montejano

Jeff Montejano serves as CEO of the Building Industry Association of Southern California, a leading advocate for thousands of building industry leaders who are committed to a better future for California by building communities, creating jobs and ensuring housing opportunities for everyone. BIASC is one of the largest building industry Read more…

Carrie McKellogg

REDF Chief Program Officer Carrie McKellogg joined the organization in 2015, and is responsible for implementing the venture philanthropy’s strategic plan to significantly grow and support the social enterprise sector to employ 50,000 people facing the most significant barriers to employment nationwide by 2020. Prior to her role at REDF, Read more…

Manjusha Kulkarni

Manjusha P. Kulkarni (Manju) is Executive Director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), a coalition of over forty community-based organizations that serves and represents the 1.5 million Asian Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County. Manju also serves as a Lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department of UCLA, Read more…

Joel Kotkin

Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. He authored THE HUMAN CITY: Urbanism for the Rest of Us (Agate Press) in 2016 and co-edited, with MIT’s Alan Berger, the 2018 collection INFINITE SUBURBIA (Princeton University Press). Mr. Read more…

Tracy Hernandez

Tracy Hernandez is the Founding CEO of the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed), which is a massive grassroots alliance of more than 180 diverse business associations, representing 400,000 businesses that employ 3.5 million people. BizFed advocates for positive public policy, manageable regulations, taxes and fees, while educating and empowering Read more…

Alan Greenlee

Alan Greenlee is the Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing (SCANPH). He has served in this capacity since October 2012. Over his 25-year professional career, he has demonstrated a commitment to helping low-income families join the economic mainstream by supporting beneficial public policy at the Read more…

Michelle Decker

Decker currently serves as CEO of Rural Action, a regional sustainable development nonprofit working to build a new, more just economy in Appalachian Ohio through leadership development, social enterprises, and environmental restoration.  For the last 27 years Decker has held leadership positions in community economic development and has specialized in rebuilding Read more…

Cynthia Buiza

Cynthia Buiza is the Executive Director of the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC) where she provides the vision for the mission of California’s leading immigrant rights organization. Cynthia has over two decades of experience in nonprofit management and human rights advocacy. She worked on international refugee, migration, human rights and Read more…

Gregory Bradbard

Gregory (Greg) Bradbard, President of the Hope through Housing Foundation and National CORE’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships has spent the past two decades as a community champion and nonprofit leader throughout Southern California. Greg is a passionate advocate for moving individuals from poverty to self-sufficiency. Under his leadership, Read more…

Evelyn Blumenberg

Evelyn Blumenberg’s research examines the effects of urban structure—the spatial location of residents, employment, and services—on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities. Her recent projects include analyses of trends in transit ridership, residential location and travel Read more…

Rick Bishop

Rick Bishop is the Executive Director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG), a joint powers authority consisting of 18 cities, the County of Riverside, the Eastern and Western Municipal Water Districts, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, and the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. Mr. Bishop is responsible Read more…