Our Team

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Meet the LeadersTrust Team

Aerial Reese

Senior Program Manager

Aerial is a loud and proud Black queer survivor who leads with authenticity and resilience. Their collaborative approach fosters trust and support while centering identity and intersectionality to create a more equitable world. Aerial finds joy and purpose in art and texture therapy, moments by the water, cuddles with their pup, and belly-aching laughs.

Read Aerial’s BioAerial (she/they) has nearly a decade of experience in high-quality peer learning, program design, facilitation, and evaluation. Most notable programs include a 10-month peer cohort program for senior leaders in philanthropy to learn about and improve change management skills and a racial equity learning series for philanthropic CEOs and vice presidents. Aerial brings to the LeadersTrust a background in public policy with the American Association of University Women, legislative advocacy with Voices for Georgia's Children, judicial advocacy with Alliance for Justice, and community and union organizing with the Fight for $15 campaign.
As a first-generation college graduate, Aerial received her MS in Organizational Leadership with a transformative leadership concentration from the University of Colorado Boulder. They obtained their BA in Philosophy and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Agnes Scott College, where they also led successful worker’s rights campaigns. Aerial finds joy and purpose in art and texture therapy, moments by the water, cuddles with her pup, and belly-aching laughs.

Ashlee Wimberly

Senior Program Manager

Ashlee Wimberly is great at combining data with lived experience to create powerful, relatable storytelling narratives. She is a proud auntie who enjoys deep conversations over coffee, supporting independent bookstores, and traveling to new places.

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Bonnie Mazza

Interim Co-Director

Bonnie commits her skills as a coach, strategist, and facilitator to advancing equity and justice. She spends her time supporting social justice movement leaders and dreaming and co-creating with values-aligned communities. She finds joy in the outdoors—particularly in the forest or on the beach—and in the company of her family. Bonnie is routinely awed by the beauty around her—both big and small.

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Justine Ingram

Interim Co-Director

Justine utilizes her lived experiences and love of connecting people to foster hope for those who want to create intentional change in their own way. Justine’s favorite things are cooking traditional southern dishes, thrift shopping, and understanding her own historical family ties through generational storytelling.

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Katelyn Montalvo

Senior Operations & Finance Manager

Katelyn strives to push her communities for social change and continuous improvement. If Katelyn isn’t working hard at breaking social norms and fighting against injustices, she is traveling the world or finding new restaurants to explore. She is an avid food connoisseur who loves to connect with people over breaking bread. Katelyn received her BA from Tufts University in Community Health and American Studies.

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Melissa Toala

Senior Program Manager

Melissa is a proud Nuyorican who loves being from the Bronx and connecting with people through food and music. She takes pleasure in co-creating spaces that allow people to show up fully, feeling affirmed, respected, and safer to just exist as well as radically imagine new possibilities together. Fresh sofrito and sazón sizzling in a pan is one of her favorite smells.
Read Melissa’s BioMelissa Toala (she, her) is a Program Manager at the LeadersTrust. Currently suppprting the Fair Work Leadership Fund through the James Irvine Foundation, as well as the advancement of language justice care work at the LeadersTrust, she brings over a decade of experience working in grassroots organizing, supporting leaders, amplifying the voices of historically marginalized peoples and co-conspiring pathways towards liberation with some of the fiercest young people across NYC and beyond. An unapologetically queer Nuyorican from the Bronx, she began her career as a sexuality educator and community organizer and served as the Associate Director of Youth Initiatives at the National Institute for Reproductive Health for 8 years. She also served as the Deputy Director for Brown Girl Recovery, a Black and queer-led organization founded in 2017 that created grassroots healing spaces for Black and Brown community members living in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. She has developed and facilitated workshops focused on Sexual Reproductive Justice and its intersection with other justice issues, comprehensive sexuality education, coalition building, healing justice, youth organizing and more. She is committed to creating spaces that center healing and joy, as well as spaces where folks feel supported and trusted.

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Meet our Advisory Board

Linda Wood

Advisory Board Chair

As former Program Director at the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Linda founded the Multiyear Accompaniment (formerly FLA) in 2004 and led the Haas Leadership Initiatives for 18 years.