Candice Phillips is the Founder and Managing Partner of C/P CFO and has 15 + years industry experience. Prior to founding C/P CFO, Candice was the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Improve Your Tomorrow. A mission driven organization set out to increase the college entry and graduation rate among males from low-socio economic communities. Prior to that, Candice served as a fiscal consultant at a California based back-office consulting firm servicing Charter Schools across California and Nevada. Candice also spent several years running an Accounting and Tax Consultancy she founded in 2009. Candice is a lifetime learner and has a rich mix of advanced education including an MBA from Hope International University along with her most recent acceptance in May 2023 into Columbia University’s rigorous CFO Executive program!

Ify Walker (she/her) is a proud product of Nigerian parents, Wisconsin, and Head Start. A fierce believer in the power of equitable culture and talent practices, Ify’s experience sits at the intersection of law, fundraising, and talent cultivation. She is a steady and courageous advisor whose firm has helped over 200 companies hire top executives from Ofor’s talent network of over 10,000 leaders. As the Founder and CEO of Ofor, Ify leads with her values: she believes that when people’s needs are prioritized, everyone can do their best work. As such, Ofor invests in a paid certified financial planner and mandatory paid six weeks of for all of its employees. When she is not leading a growing national firm and debunking the meritocracy myth, Ify is running Mom’s School of Excellence with her husband—the most important decision she has ever made.

Kathleen “Kathi” J. Burke had a 20-year career in the financial services industry, holding various management and executive positions, including Vice Chair and Director of Corporate Human Resources at BankAmerica Corporation.  She is the former Executive Director of the Stupski Foundation, which worked to foster innovation in K–12 public school systems so that all students graduate ready for college, career, and life. Ms. Burke is currently a community volunteer and serves as a member of the Human Capital and Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of Beneficial State Bank.

Throughout her career, Burke has demonstrated a dedication to women’s education and career development. She has held numerous board memberships and has been the recipient of several distinguished honors and awards.  She served as Chair of the Mills College Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2016 and served as Trustee of Mills College from 1997 to 2022.  She is the former Vice Chair of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, a former member of the United Way Campaign Cabinet, and a former trustee of the Washington State University Foundation.

Kathi lives in Tiburon, California, with her husband Ralph.

Amber has spent the majority of her career in the nonprofit sector, marketing/communications, and local government affairs. Throughout her career, she has advocated for access to quality education regardless of neighborhood and supported organizations/initiatives that help people break cycles of poverty.

She has served on local and statewide associations, including several nonprofit boards: Chabot Space and Science Center, Children Rising and is also currently serving on the Center for Elder Independence Foundation Board. She served as an elected official on the Alameda County Board of Education from 2016 – 2020. Amber is also the parent of an Envision graduate.

Born and raised in Oakland, California, Amber has a deep connection to her community. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time with her family, exploring nature through hiking, writing, and experimenting with new recipes at home.

Grace M. Hoagland is Director of Leadership Programs and is a member of the teaching faculty at the Stanford University School of Education. She completed her graduate education at Oxford, Harvard and Indiana University, where her doctoral thesis was a study of entrepreneurial leadership in public schools. Her work in education has centered on school reform, including service as executive director of regional reform initiatives in Indiana, St. Louis and the Bay Area.

Grace is also the former Executive Director of the Bay Area Coalition of Essential (now Equitable) Schools. She is a recent department chair in the Department of Educational Leadership at Cal State University East Bay. She currently serves on the board of Partners for School Innovation; until recently she served on the Stanford School of Education Advisory Board and chaired the Stanford Associates Board of Governors. She and her husband, Laurance, have four children and eight grandchildren.

A serial entrepreneur, Thomas is the founder and Chairperson of TL Partners—a leadership and inclusion training and consultancy. He also co-founded Trybe, introducing AI to leadership coaching.

Thomas’s career journey includes leadership roles at Turn/River Capital, an SF-based $3B private equity firm, where he spearheaded talent initiatives, ServiceNow, LinkedIn, and Boston Consulting Group.

Actively involved in the start-up ecosystem, Thomas is a Board Member-in-Residence with Musa Capital, a venture capital platform investing in black founding teams, and is an advisor to learning tech startups Hone, Spokn and Valence. And hosts Venture Visionaries with Thomas Igeme, a podcast exploring the stories of diverse, inspiring leaders.

Thomas’s commitment goes beyond the corporate world. He is a board member of FACES SF, championing early education for underserved communities, board elder with City Church of San Francisco and a founding trustee of The Lwai-Lume Legacy Foundation. He also serves as an adjunct professor in business at Stanford University.

Since June, 2015 Bob Lenz has been the Executive Director of the Buck Institute for Education, the leading provider of resources for Project Based Learning. He previously served as Envision Education’s Co-Founder and Chief of Innovation, leading the organization since 2002. Mr. Lenz is recognized nationally as a leader in high school redesign, deeper learning, project-based learning, 21st century skills education, and performance assessment. Under his leadership, Envision Schools prepared students for college success and persistence at rates well above national averages. Bob authored the book Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards.

Previously, Bob founded Academy X, an award-winning leadership and humanities program at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California. In 1999, Drake High was named one of thirteen New American High Schools by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. In 2000, the school was featured on the cover of U.S. News & World Report as an example of successful high school reform. Bob was the first in his family to receive a college degree, obtaining a BA degree from St. Mary’s College and an MA degree in education from San Francisco State University.

Michelle Seijas, Ed.D. is a Latina leader on a mission to support people in living purpose-driven lives. She believes when we are in purpose we find joy, abundance, and connection. Those are the conditions necessary for innovation and social change.

Clarity of purpose and living as her true self has been a lifelong journey. She spent her youth devouring books and often was one of a handful of Latinas in honors classes. Evenings were devoted to watching telenovelas with her grandmother and assisting her mom, who taught English to farmworkers. For years she grappled with an academic existence that felt separate from the rich culture of her home and community.

This led her to become a bilingual education teacher, primarily serving migrant students. Over her 15-year career in K-12 schools, she was also a coach, elementary school vice principal, district coordinator, and high school principal in rural and urban communities. Eventually, she moved into the non-profit world as the Founding Executive Director of the Surge Institute in Oakland. There she established and led a team focused on developing Black, Latinx, and Asian Pacific Islander education leaders to create transformative change for the youth and communities they served.

During her K-12 years, a desire grew to pursue a doctorate. This desire deepened as she learned that less than 1% of Latinas in the United States have completed doctoral studies. She wanted to become a mentor to other Latinas that we are capable and belong in spaces of higher education. She completed her dissertation and earned her doctorate. Her research focused on the systemic devaluation of Latino students, and she offered a framework to rethink education. It was rooted in critical race theory and the theory of care.

After almost two decades as an educator and education leader, she chose to step away from the path that was expected. During a 6-month sabbatical, she focused on rest, reflection, and how she wanted to reemerge. She wrote a dream job description with no title, clear on what she needed to thrive in her professional and personal life. She emerged from the sabbatical to now live the life she dreamed about, wrote about, put action to, and continues to carry out with intention.

As a trauma-informed certified coach, experienced consultant, education leader, and former nonprofit executive, she has learned to be her authentic self in various contexts. She partners with individuals to help them envision how they want to show up in the world and assists organizations with being mission-driven spaces for staff and those they serve to have a healthy environment to be in relationship. She has a special gift of facilitating engaging experiences for people to step into their power and identify how they will live in purpose.

Rhonnel Sotelo is the Executive Director of the Rogers Family Foundation, a private foundation primarily focused on transforming the educational experience and success of Oakland public school students furthest from opportunity. In addition to overseeing the executive management of the Foundation’s grantmaking, operations, and strategy, Rhonnel leads and guides his team in the execution of the Foundation’s key Oakland education initiatives in blended/personalized learning, early literacy, and quality schools development. Rhonnel’s career in philanthropy spans nearly two decades, including serving as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Program & Operations for the Stuart Foundation and leading The San Francisco Foundation’s West Oakland Initiative and Multicultural Fellowship program. An urban planner by profession, Rhonnel previously owned and operated Urban Works, a planning and design firm focused on neighborhood planning and livable communities in the Pacific Northwest and California. Rhonnel holds a Master of Arts in Urban Planning and a Bachelor of Arts in English, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. He lives in Oakland with his wife Chris. Together, they have raised two daughters who are proud graduates of Oakland public charter schools.