Board Bios

James Head
Board Chair

James W. Head is currently Director of Programs at The San Francisco Foundation and has over 25 years of experience in the field of community and economic development. Previously, Mr. Head served as President of the National Economic Development and Law Center for 18 years. A lawyer by training, Mr. Head has significant nonprofit management, programmatic and legal experience and has worked on nonprofit legal and finance issues as a consultant to foundations, businesses and government agencies, and as a professor of law.

His community service work has included serving on the Community Advisory Board of Union Bank of California, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (where he was Board President), the National Center for Youth Law, the Neighborhood Funders Group, and on the board of Northern California Grantmakers, which he currently chairs. He has also been an Adjunct Professor of Law at U.C. Hastings, U.C. Berkeley (Boalt) and Santa Clara University Law Schools in the Bay Area.

Additionally, Mr. Head was recently appointed Commissioner for the Port of Oakland and serves on the Aviation and Commercial Real Estate Committees. He formerly served as an advisor to the 2001 Race Commission in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a member and Chair of the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board and was a founding board member of the California Community Economic Development Lending Initiative. Mr. Head holds a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a law degree from the University of Georgia, School of Law. He holds state bar memberships in Georgia, Florida and California.

Fatima Angeles
Board Member

Fatima Angeles joined the Foundation in 1998 as a program director, where she managed the Foundation's Children and Youth Community Health Initiative and oversaw grantmaking in two issues: environmental health and work and health. As director of organizational learning, she directs the Foundation's program assessment and evaluation functions, provides consultation to program staff on evaluation issues and develops programs to promote learning in those areas. Prior to joining TCWF, Angeles was a program associate at The Hasbro Children's Foundation in New York City. Prior to that, she was director of the South of Market Teen Center in San Francisco and project coordinator for Asian American Communities Against AIDS.

Angeles is a 1992 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and received her master of public health degree from Columbia University in 1997. Angeles is a board member of the Asian and Pacific Islander Health Forum, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She has also served as a board member of the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center and Funders Concerned About AIDS.

Emmett Carson
Board Member

Emmett D. Carson is internationally recognized as a catalyst for progressive social change. A renowned speaker, he has published over 75 works on philanthropy and social justice.

Prior to his appointment as CEO and president of Silicon Valley Community Foundation in August 2006, Emmett served for 12 years as president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, where he pioneered several community initiatives and increased assets from $186 million to over $600 million. Previously, Emmett served as the first manager of the Ford Foundation's worldwide grantmaking program on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. He also has worked for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Congressional Research Service.

Emmett serves on several nonprofit boards including the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Southern Education Foundation and the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Policy. He is the recipient of several nonprofit leadership awards and has been recognized several times by The Nonprofit Times as one of the 50 most influential nonprofit leaders in the United States.

Emmett received his Ph.D. and a master in public administration in public and international affairs from Princeton University and a bachelor's degree in economics, Phi Beta Kappa, from Morehouse College. He is married to Jacqueline Copeland-Carson, Ph.D., and together they have the privilege, pleasure and occasional challenge of raising a teenage daughter.

Pamela H. David
Vice Chair at Large

Pam David has served as the Executive Director of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund since 2002. The Fund's mission is to help build a healthy, just, and vibrant society in which people feel connected to and responsible for their community. The Fund seeks to build meaningful community engagement through its work in the arts, economic development, public education, and Jewish life.

Prior to joining the Haas Fund, Pam headed San Francisco's Mayor's Office of Community Development. She also played an instrumental role in formulating and implementing San Francisco's progressive welfare reform programs and strategies, and addressing the non-profit space crisis during the dot com boom. Pam has had a long career as a community organizer on a range of issues, including advising Reverend Jesse Jackson on lesbian/gay and women's issues during the 1988 presidential campaign. She currently serves on several philanthropic boards, including Northern California Grantmakers and PACE (Philanthropists for Active Civic Engagement).

Chris DeCardy
Board Member

Chris DeCardy joined the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 2002 and is vice president and director of communications. Chris manages the integration of the Foundation's communications, evaluation, organizational effectiveness and local grantmaking, grants management, and program-related investments. He leads annual cross-Foundation initiatives to improve program impact and works closely with the president and CEO on day-to-day operations. He is also responsible for developing and implementing external affairs strategies across the Foundation and provides counsel in developing program-specific communications efforts, including those designed to build communications capacity of Foundation grantees.

Before joining the Foundation, Chris worked for seven years at Environmental Media Services (EMS), first as associate director and then as executive director from 1998 to 2002. At EMS, he designed and implemented campaigns to improve and expand media coverage of environmental issues.

Chris holds a degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He received the Silver Anvil Award for his role in designing and implementing the "Give Swordfish a Break" campaign with SeaWeb and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is a founder and serves on the board of the Green Media Toolshed.

Christine Elbel
Secretary

Christine Elbel has been the Executive Director of the Fleishhacker Foundation since 1990. Established in 1947, the Fleishhacker Foundation is a family foundation which funds Arts & Culture and Precollegiate Education in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Prior to her position with the Fleishhacker Foundation, Ms. Elbel was a consultant to the nonprofit sector, specializing in strategic planning and fundraising. She also conducted grant monitoring and evaluation for public and private funding agencies. Past arts management positions included serving as Executive Director of Dance Bay Area, a regional dance service organization. She also has a background in institutional advancement for schools and colleges. Her B.A. in Fine Arts and M.S. in Education are both from Indiana University at Bloomington.

Ms. Elbel is an active member of Northern California Grantmakers, and sits on its Board of Directors, as well as the steering committees of the Family Philanthropy Exchange and Arts Loan Fund. She is currently part of the Council on Foundations' 2006 Conference program committee, and is on the Family Foundation Services' publications advisory committee.

Her community service has included several terms as President of both the Joe Goode Performance Group and Presidio Hill School in San Francisco. She is currently on the Board of Trustees of Drew High School.

Tessie Guillermo
Board Member

Tessie Guillermo is President and CEO of the ZeroDivide. Ms. Guillermo is a co-founder and former Chair of the ZeroDivide Board of Directors. Prior to this, she served for 15 years as CEO of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, a leading national health policy organization. Throughout her career as an advocate for underserved communities, she has promoted issues of health and technology access, services and equity. Ms. Guillermo co-founded many nonprofit organizations, including the California Pan Ethnic Health Network, the Community Technology Policy Council and the National Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans. She has received numerous community leadership awards. In 2000, she was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to serve as an inaugural member of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Ms. Guillermo currently serves on Boards of Directors of The California Endowment, a $3 billion philanthropy in California and Catholic Healthcare West, the largest hospital system in the state.

Ms. Guillermo is a published author and a frequent keynote speaker on non-profit leadership and public policy issues. She is an alumnus of California State University, Hayward, a graduate of the Gallup Leadership Institute and was a 1997 Fellow of the Asian Pacific American Women's Leadership Institute. She is a native San Franciscan, where she and her husband raise their three children.

Carla Javits
Treasurer

As REDF's President Carla sets organizational strategy in partnership with the Board of Directors and oversees its operations. Under her leadership, REDF helps to create and grow new businesses to employ very poor people who otherwise are not likely to find or keep a job. She also oversees REDF's efforts to build the field by broadly sharing the results of its extensive, multi-year effort to measure outcomes that demonstrate the effectiveness of social enterprise in helping people with multiple barriers move into the workforce.

Prior to joining REDF, Carla was with the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) for fifteen years, leading it for the last six. By the end of her tenure, CSH had committed nearly $124 million in loans and grants to support the creation of more than 16,000 units of supportive housing that were operational, with 10,500 more units in the pipeline. She has also worked as a policy and budget analyst for the State of California and as Director of Policy and Planning for the San Francisco Department of Social Services. Carla is currently serving on the Boards of Directors of The Philanthropic Initiative and the California Housing Finance Agency. She holds both a Masters of Public Policy and B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lise Maisano
Vice Chair

Lise Maisano has been with the S.H. Cowell Foundation since 1990, and has served as the Vice President, Grant Programs since January 2006. In that capacity, Ms. Maisano manages all grantmaking functions of the Foundation and currently oversees the Foundation's Family Resource Centers and Affordable Housing interests.

During her early years as a program officer with the Foundation, Ms. Maisano was responsible for grantmaking in youth development, child care, disability assistance, domestic violence, child abuse and alcohol prevention.

Prior to her work with the Cowell Foundation, Ms. Maisano was the Development Director for the Giarretto Institute and a consultant with the Peninsula Community Foundation. She is currently Vice Chair of the Northern California Grantmakers Board of Directors.

Raised in San Francisco, Ms. Maisano attended city public schools. She earned her B.A. in Social Relations from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, and a M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Dean Osaki
Board Member

Dean Osaki's professional insights and perspective come from over 20 years of experience within the non-profit, foundation and community relations fields.

Since joining Target in 2007, Mr. Osaki has managed their community relations program in Northern California, Arizona and New Mexico, which supports arts, education and social service institutions. Previously, he was the Director of Marketing at The Examiner, where he managed its sports marketing programs, community affairs initiatives and overall branding of the product.

He was an active member with NCG when he worked with Olympic Gold Medalist Kristi Yamaguchi for ten years, helping to create and launch her Always Dream Foundation, which received national recognition for its innovative programs and cause-related marketing initiatives. Previously, he was the Campaign Director at United Way of Silicon Valley, where he was responsible for raising $15 million annually and focused on their strategic planning.

He has served on Advisory Boards including the nonprofit Support Center, Japanese Community Youth Council and United Way of America.

Judy Patrick
Board Member

Prior to assuming her current position in September 2008, Ms. Patrick held the post of Executive Vice President of Programs for nine years. In that role, she led the Foundation's advocacy and policy change work, including the development of the groundbreaking Women's Policy Institute. She also developed programs to strengthen grant partners' organizational capacity and to evaluate the impact of their work.

Prior to coming to the Foundation, Ms. Patrick directed the work of several nonprofits. She was Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Women's Philharmonic and Director of Girls Count, a Colorado initiative to change systems that impact girls' educational achievement and career planning. She also led Mi Casa Resource Center for Women, a Denver organization that advances self-sufficiency primarily for low-income Latinas and youth. She taught program development and evaluation at the University of Colorado at Denver and Regis University, and was a researcher and program evaluator in both the public and private sectors. Her current volunteer work includes serving on the boards of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, La Cocina in San Francisco and the National Institute of Sexuality Research at UCSF, as well as the Advisory Board of the California Office of Women's Health. She is active with the Policy Committee of Northern California Grantmakers, the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health and Rights and the Neighborhood Funders Group.

June Sugiyama
Board Member

June Sugiyama is the Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation. She has over 10 years of experience in the corporate foundation field and over 20 years of experience in the international telecommunications field. The Vodafone Americas Foundation is located in Walnut Creek, California; the Foundation supports programs mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area and Denver, Colorado, with priorities focused on families, children & youth, leadership development, civic participation & urban issues, the arts and special projects. The Foundation recently launched a specialized program in wireless technology called the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project. The Project is competition-based and designed to seek out the best wireless innovations for social good from universities and NGO's across the nation.

Vodafone Americas Foundation is affiliated with Vodafone Americas Inc., part of the international British wireless telecommunications company, Vodafone Group Plc. Headquartered in the U.K., Vodafone is considered one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. It has always been the company's policy to open foundations where it has operations; currently there are 24 foundations forming the Vodafone family of foundations worldwide.

Ms. Sugiyama received her B.A. from San Francisco State University in Liberal Studies with a Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential, and a M.A. from the University of San Francisco in Special Education. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Foundation Center in San Francisco, and on Northern California Grantmakers' Board of Directors and the steering committees for its Arts Loan Fund and Emergency Loan Fund.

Stephen Toben
Board Member

Steve Toben is the president of the Flora Family Foundation in Menlo Park, which supports the philanthropic activities of the descendants of Bill Hewlett, co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Company. Interests of the Flora Family Foundation include international development, the environment, K-12 education, and arts, culture and humanities. Before coming to the Flora Family Foundation in 2000, Mr. Toben served nine years as a program officer at the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation where he directed the Foundation's programs on environment and conflict resolution. In 2001 he received a Peacemaker/Peacebuilder Award from the National Peace Foundation in Washington for his decade of work in international conflict resolution. He is a past chair of the Management Committee of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and a founding member of the Peace and Security Funders Group.

Mr. Toben serves on several nonprofit boards of directors and advisory councils, including the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation in New York, Legacy Works in Palo Alto, and the Great Valley Center in Modesto. He is a former member of the Portola Valley Planning Commission and was elected to the Portola Valley Town Council in November 2003. In 2005, Mr. Toben was elected as Mayor of Portola Valley and will begin his term in 2006. Mr. Toben is a graduate of the Yale Law School and the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar. His wife Janice is the Coordinator for Social and Emotional Learning at the Nueva School in Hillsborough. He has two sons, ages 19 and 15.

Bob Uyeki
Executive Director

Bob Uyeki was appointed the Executive Director of the Y & H Soda Foundation in 2007. With 20 years of experience working in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors in the Bay Area, Bob has previously served as Senior Program Officer at the Y & H Soda Foundation, Program Officer at the East Bay Community Foundation, Program Coordinator at The San Francisco Foundation, and Director of the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival.

He has served on the Boards of Directors of the East Bay Community Foundation, the Foundation Consortium for California's Children and Youth, the Family Independence Initiative, and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. Bob has also served as Chair of Northern California Grantmakers' Emergency Loan Fund and Co-Chair of the Northern California Chapter of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. He holds a Masters in Public Administration, with an emphasis in strategic planning and management of public and nonprofit organizations, from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A. in English from Amherst College.

Sylvia Yee
Board Member

Sylvia Yee, vice president of programs at the Haas, Jr. Fund, oversees the Fund’s grantmaking and development of program strategy. Her work at the Fund is driven by a long-standing commitment to serving children, families, and communities, and it is deeply linked to her many community and nonprofit leadership roles.

In the course of her work at the Fund, Sylvia has helped spark several major local initiatives. For example, she played a lead role in establishing the San Francisco Beacon Initiative, a public-private collaboration to turn schools into community centers for youth development. A founding board member of the Oakland-based Team-Up for Youth, she led the early development of this organization that aims to level the playing field in sports opportunities for girls and low-income youth.

Sylvia has also served as board chair—and, in many cases, co-founder—of numerous national, state, and local organizations, including Asian Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, the Foundation Consortium, Family Support America, and the Bernal Heights Community Foundation.

Before joining the Fund, Sylvia was a program executive in education and health at the San Francisco Foundation. Having begun her career as a high school teacher, she taught and administered programs for more than a decade at the elementary, secondary, and university levels, both in the U.S. and in the People’s Republic of China. She also directed a community-based nonprofit agency providing educational services to immigrant and low-income youth in San Francisco's Mission District.

Sylvia earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Policy from Stanford University, her Masters in Teaching at Reed College and a B.A. in History at Stanford University. Her publications include “Careers in the Classroom,” published by Teachers College Press, and “Got Me a Story to Tell: Five Children Tell About Their Lives,” which she co-authored.