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Meet the LeadersTrust Team
Chana Fitton
Senior Program Director
Chana dreams of a world that is loving and just. She loves connecting with people through deep listening. She is always laughing, especially at the silliest jokes and loves to swing dance.
Read Chana’s BioChana believes that it takes well-supported and liberated leaders to create a world that is loving, sustainable, and just and that vulnerability and healing are key ingredients. She has been a Program Director at the LeadersTrust for five years and is part of a team that delivers a time-tested, responsive, high-touch organizational strengthening program that includes skilled accompaniment by a capacity consultant. It offers leaders the space to dream boldly, to create the plans and capacity to get there, and to ultimately thrive.She honors the inherent wisdom of the nonprofit partners themselves and knows that a deep focus on relationships is the heart of building the trust needed for transformation.
Chana has 25+ years of experience working with human services, human rights, and health-oriented nonprofits through program development and management, capacity building, and philanthropy. She started her career as a consultant with a NYC focused advisory firm, supporting change management, culture building, and strategy with large nonprofits in the region. Chana subsequently joined the staff of the New Jersey-based Fannie E. Rippel Foundation, serving as chief operating officer focused on organizational development, culture, finance, and operations. While working at the foundation, she helped develop the vision and strategy for its signature ReThink Health initiative, which works with regional leaders to transform health care systems in ways that foster equity, healthy people and thriving communities.
Upon moving to the Bay Area in 2016, Chana managed grant programs in youth organizing, democracy, and environmental justice. She serves on the California Council for IGNITE, a movement of young women ready and eager to become the next generation of political leaders. Chana just finished her third year with Education for Racial Equity’s Somatic Abolitionism program for White Bodies. She enjoys paddleboarding, taking long walks, doing crossword puzzles with her family and just breathing in the fresh air and beauty of the unceded Coast Miwok Lands on which she resides.
Chana has a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Illinois.
Luigi Fu
Project Director
Luigi is a talented problem-solver and community builder who recently ran his first marathon and enjoys long road trips.
Sidney Hargro
Executive Director
I have an active imagination that led to a career in design engineering before pivoting toward purpose in the social impact sector. This imagination is my superpower and drives my capacity to imagine a liberatory world for future generations. I often dream of traveling the world and lifting up the beauty, struggle, and genius of humanity through documentary photography, particularly the stories of those who share a pursuit of liberation and overcoming sytemic oppression.
Read Sidney’s BioSidney Hargro is a social impact strategist, leadership coach, speaker, and documentary photographer. In addition to his role as Executive Director of the LeadersTrust, Sidney is also a Lecturer in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching equity-informed social impact measurement.Prior to the LeadersTrust, Hargro was the Executive Director of Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, a hub for foundation leaders seeking to learn, engage with one another, and share knowledge as well as collaborate on critical initiatives. During his tenure, the Philanthropy Network helped foundations in the region evolve their philanthropic practices - governance, strategy, grantmaking, endowment investment, procurement, etc. - to lead with intersectional racial equity and trust.
Prior to Philanthropy Network, he led the Community Foundation of South Jersey, a startup foundation seeded by the Ford Foundation which grew from $400,000 to over $21 million in assets in seven years. He has also served as the Senior Officer of Strategy and Organizational Learning at The Columbus Foundation, the nation’s 7th largest community foundation.
Hargro currently serves on boards of international and regional organizations, including World Education Services (US/CAN), Faith in Public Life, National Art Strategies, Independence Public Media Foundation, Independence Blue Cross Foundation, and Symphony in C.
He earned a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University, Master of Divinity degree from United Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University.
You can follow Sidney on LinkedIn @srhargro.
Justine Ingram
Program 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.
Bonnie Mazza
Program 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.
Ishva Mehta
Capacity Strengthening Intern
Ishva (she/her) is a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey and was a Summer 2024 PPIA Junior Summer Institute Fellow at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. As an Economics student, she firmly believes that her success is directly proportional to the number of lives she touches for better.
Katelyn Montalvo
Operations 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.
Maria Rogers Pascual
Program Director
Maria is a program director at the LeadersTrust and enjoys having her hands in many different pots – program design, coaching and mentorship, stratey and organization culture building. Maria is a dedicated mindfulness practitioner in the Vipassan tradition. More than anything, she loves curating creative and contemplative spaces where leaders can discover their brilliance and connect across difference in new ways that build the kind of worlds we all want to live in. Maria is bilingual and bicultural and speaks English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. She loves to engage friends and family in collage-making and mosaic murals and music.Â
Read Maria’s BioMultilingual and multicultural, Maria (she/ella) is passionate about helping others unlock their brilliance. By centering love and the power of deep listening, she nurtures leaders and inspires them to courageously step into their light. Guided by a profound belief in our interconnectedness, Maria embodies the conviction that we all belong to each other.Since joining LeadersTrust in August 2022 as the director of the Fair Work Leadership Fund, Maria has ignited a wave of transformation. She has been pivotal in shaping an inspiring new vision for the organization, secured new funding partners, and expanded its portfolio of organizations. Maria is committed to driving change across the broader capacity-building ecosystem, ensuring that grassroots leaders feel seen, heard, and truly supported.
Fueled by immigrant grit and fierce determination, Maria has been instrumental in creating organizations and initiatives that build grassroots power and revolutionize our economy. Her entrepreneurial journey includes launching five Greenpeace offices across Latin America and co-founding two powerful immigrant rights organizations: Prospera, which champions Latina entrepreneurs, and Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action (PILA), which is now Power California, a movement that is building a multi-racial democracy. Additionally, Maria has managed her own coaching and consulting business, guiding social justice leaders and entrepreneurs on their dreaming journeys.
Maria brings her full self to work– drawing from her rich life experiences, creative talents, and spiritual practices. Rooted in the Vipassana tradition, she is deeply committed to her mindfulness practice. One of her most exciting projects is a healing justice program that she is developing in collaboration with the Resilience Initiative, Freedom Land, and the Ho Family Foundation. Maria finds greatest joy in curating inspiring and reflective gatherings where leaders have time and space to dream up a radically new world.
Based in unceded Ohlone territory (San Francisco, CA), Maria is an amateur mosaic muralist, collage artist, and enjoys playing guitar and singing with her two daughters. She is fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English.
Aerial Reese
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.
Melissa Toala
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.
Ashlee Wimberly
Program Manager
Read Ashlee’s BioAshlee Wimberly is a program manager at The LeadersTrust, where she provides support for the Haas Jr Fund portfolio, the Fund for Liberatory Practice, and the capacity coach Community of Practice. She brings experience designing and managing innovative programs focused on integrated HIV screening, prevention, and care services. Previously, she led She Comes First, an initiative aimed at increasing access to HIV prevention education and services for Black and Latinx women and gender-expansive people in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The initiative was one of the first and largest programmatic efforts focused on HIV prevention for women in the US and was a project of the Washington AIDS Partnership, which was the largest public-private LGBTQ- and HIV funder in the Greater Washington region.
Ashlee has a passion for investing in communities historically excluded from resources and opportunities to support the achievement of optimal health and wellness. Her superpower is combining data with lived experience to create powerful, relatable storytelling narratives.
Ashlee has a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Public Health degree from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. She is based in her hometown of Atlanta, GA. Ashlee is a proud auntie, who in her free time, enjoys deep conversations over coffee, supporting independent bookstores, and traveling to new places.
Meet our Advisory Board
Linda Wood
Advisory Board Chair
As former Program Director at the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Linda founded the Flexible Leadership Awards in 2004 and led the Haas Leadership Initiatives for 18 years.
Linda Baker
Advisory Board Member
Linda is the Director of Organizational Effectiveness and Directed Grantmaking at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Marcus Walton
Advisory Board Member
Marcus is the President and CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.
Meet our Capacity Coaches
Maura Bairley
San Francisco, CA
Natalie Bamdad
Washington, D.C.
Michael Bell
Oakland, CA
Viveka Chen
San Francisco, CA
Susan Colson
Oakland, CA
Raquel Donoso
Berkeley, CA
Aja Couchois-Duncan
Woodacre
Brett Dupuy
Brooklyn, NY
Ian Esquibel
New Mexico
Tannia Esparza
New Mexico
LaTanya Flix
Houston, TX
Davian Gagne
Bay Area, CA
Christina Garcia
Berkeley, CA
Stephanie Ghoston Paul
Dallas, TX
Deepti Gudipati
Washinton, DC
Shaena Johnson
Baton Rouge, LA
Esther Kim
San Francisco, CA
Helen Kim
Brooklyn, NY
Kelli King-Jackson
Houston, TX
Andrea Lee
Oakland, CA
Diana Marie Lee
Miami, FL
Rosemary Linares
Ann Arbor, MI
Wazi Maret
Brooklyn, NY
Janet McIntyre
Los Angeles, CA
Lindsay Miller
Hood River, OR
Susan Misra
Bronx, NY
Inca Mohamed
Brooklyn, NY
Makiyah Moody
Boston, MA
Tamara Moore
Oakland, CA
LaToya Morgan
Detroit, MI
Paula Morris
Sausalito, CA
Dyan Oldenburg
Santa Fe, NM
Vickie Oldman
Albuquerque, NM
Queen Victoria Ortega
Los Angeles, CA
Maria Ramos-Chertok
Mill Valley
Mari Ryono
Los Angeles, CA
Bridget Samuel
Houston, TX
Mohan Sikka
Brooklyn, NY
Sarah Silva
Las Cruces, NM
Latonya Slack
Los Angeles, CA
Elizabeth Tan
Oakland, CA
Kenita Williams
Atlanta, GA
Heidi Williamson
Commerce, CA