Our People

Leslie Bernard is a senior director in Arabella’s Washington, DC office. She leads a team of specialists who strategically partner with foundation, corporate, family, and individual clients to achieve their social impact and equity goals across a range of issues. Leslie oversees Arabella’s Strategy and Strategic Implementation Services team, which applies our experience in strategy, grant making, donor collaboration, impact investing, and advocacy to design, plan, launch, implement, and scale innovative initiatives and programs that strategically address social-sector issues with a focus on maximizing both impact and equity.

Prior to joining Arabella, Leslie worked for over 15 years in the field of philanthropy to design and implement strategies and initiatives to achieve impact at the local, national, and international level. In her work with Johns Hopkins University, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and other Baltimore-area grant makers and nonprofits, she has managed cross-sector donor collaboratives, bringing together local foundations, public- and private-sector partners, and community members to address issues of health equity and community revitalization. As a program officer with the Kresge Foundation, she has supported the capacity-building needs of organizations across the social sector at a national level. In her most recent role as senior associate director of corporate and foundation relations for Johns Hopkins University, she worked with clinicians and funders to develop and implement strategies, initiatives, and innovations to improve health outcomes in communities at a national and global level. Leslie began her career in the field of international development working with Oxfam America to fund, monitor, and evaluate small-scale development projects in West Africa.

Leslie holds a bachelor of science from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she majored in international politics, and a master of arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Liz Birnbaum is senior counsel and director of advocacy at Arabella. She works with the general counsel to ensure legal compliance and provide expert guidance to the firm and the nonprofit organizations it manages on a broad cross-section of tax, legislative, and regulatory issues. With more than three decades of experience in public policy litigation and advocacy, Liz specializes in lobbying and political compliance and reporting matters, but she also has a range of expertise in legal issues surrounding corporate management.

Liz came to Arabella from the law firm Klamp & Associates, P.C., a boutique practice supporting the legal needs of the nonprofit community. There, she provided legal advice to a broad range of nonprofits of all sizes and types, including local charities, international multi-chapter advocacy organizations, trade associations, and academic societies. In that work, Liz is proud to have assisted with the founding of several new nonprofits. In her spare time, she serves as the president of one of those new nonprofits, Alexandria Harmonizers Inc., a corporation supporting the community work of a 70-year-old men’s barbershop chorus.

Much of Liz’s career has focused on natural resources law and policy, including several years as vice president for government affairs and general counsel at American Rivers. She also spent 10 years working for House committees on Capitol Hill and had two stints in senior positions at the US Department of the Interior. She holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Liz is a member of the DC and Colorado bars, as well as the bars of several federal courts.

Bruce Boyd joined Arabella Advisors in 2007 as a Principal and Senior Managing Director after spending 20 years building and leading for-profit and nonprofit ventures. Bruce is based in Chicago and has worked with Arabella’s individual, family, foundation, and corporate clients, helping them to effectively and efficiently deploy philanthropic and investment capital for good. Those engagements have focused on organizational development, strategic planning, due diligence, program implementation, and evaluation of impact. Bruce has worked across a range of issues, including community development, human rights, education, and the environment.

In addition to his work at Arabella, Bruce serves on the board of the Windward Fund—a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor and grant-making intermediary, the Morrison Family Foundation, and the Lilly School of Philanthropy. He is a former member of the board of Forefront, the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Opportunity International, and the Merit School of Music.

Prior to joining Arabella, Bruce served for 13 years as a senior manager at The Nature Conservancy where he led the Illinois Program, the Upper Mississippi River Project, and the four-continent Great Rivers Partnership. Bruce started his career in law but left legal practice to buy a manufacturing company out of bankruptcy, which he ran and later sold to a Fortune 500 company.

Bruce graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College, earned his law degree from the University of Chicago, and studied business at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Rod Broady is the senior director of finance on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He is responsible for maintaining the general ledger, overseeing the financial reporting process for the nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages, supporting financial audits, preparing Form-990s, and ensuring compliance with federal grant reporting requirements. Rod provides technical accounting and operational guidance to a portfolio of public interest projects. Rod also looks for ways to make his team more efficient and streamline processes to enhance internal controls, as well as ensure the quality and accuracy of financial data.

During his tenure at Arabella, Rod has assisted in the coordination and ongoing management of the monthly financial close process and has led the planning and preparation of financial statement audits for the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. He also helped to clarify and improve his team’s policies and procedures in order to streamline internal controls and improve operational efficiency. Rod is particularly interested in helping Arabella become a model for other fiscal sponsors looking to establish sound financial practices.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Rod worked for six years for two public accounting firms. Throughout his public accounting career, Rod managed, planned, and supervised financial statement audits several industries, including the nonprofit sector and health care. He has also developed significant expertise in auditing organizations that receive federal funds. In addition, Rod served as a career coach and mentor while leading internal office trainings for colleagues on various topics such as audit planning, testing internal controls, utilizing substantive procedures, and testing journal entries.

Rod has an MS and a BS in accounting from the University of South Carolina. He is a certified public accountant in South Carolina and Virginia.

As Arabella’s first chief strategy and impact officer, Hilary leads the development and implementation of firmwide strategy and is launching a new function to drive and measure Arabella’s impact. In this role, Hilary oversees Arabella’s advisory practice and champions its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. She is a silo-buster and dot-connecter committed to ensuring Arabella’s strategy, work with partners, and internal practices are all impact-oriented and centered in equity.

Hilary joined Arabella as its fifth employee and has worn many hats to shepherd it from startup to leader in the social sector. Prior to her current role, she oversaw Arabella’s client services, including its advisory and fiscal sponsorship practices. During her tenure, she has led philanthropic strategy development, impact evaluation, and implementation of multiple grant-making funds on issues including global health and development, education, conservation, and women’s equality. Hilary has steered her teams through growth in the number and diversity of projects, as well as through the acquisition of Blueprint Research + Design Inc. A self-described philanthropy geek, Hilary has a passion for effective giving and, in particular, deploying equitable practices, advocacy, and cross-sector partnerships to achieve greater good.

Hilary spent the decade prior to Arabella working in the nonprofit and public sectors. This included serving as an Emerging Leader Fellow for the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she developed evaluation measures for the Community Food and Nutrition Program, managed grant reviews for the Administration of Children and Families, and conducted monitoring and evaluation for Head Start grantees. Hilary holds a BA in sociology from the University of Colorado and an MA in public affairs with a concentration in nonprofit and public management from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hilary lives in Seattle with her husband and rescue dog.

Sharyn Church is Arabella Advisors’ Los Angeles-based managing director. She leads the firm’s work with philanthropists, impact investors, and social entrepreneurs across a broad range of issues—from education to health care to the environment to social justice. Sharyn is particularly interested in advancing juvenile justice reform and tackling gender inequality.

A seasoned executive in social impact, Sharyn has more than 20 years of management and cross-sector experience leading nonprofits and businesses in implementing policies, programs, and partnerships to improve educational, economic, social, and health outcomes for vulnerable communities. A determined advocate, she has established pioneering stewardship and partnership programs for nonprofits, government agencies, large corporations, large philanthropies, and donors of color.

Sharyn has led and managed the successful launch and growth of several nonprofits, including overseeing the construction and re-branding of the renowned LA-based arts center Inner-City Arts, which received the prestigious Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. Sharyn also served as the founding Southern California director of Children Now, helping the organization achieve statewide prominence in its effort to transform advocacy and policymaking to improve children’s health and wellbeing. In that role, she led the strategic growth of the organization in the region and advocated to change public policy and shift investments to support better outcomes for California’s children and youth.

In addition, Sharyn has served on several city and county policy councils focused on early childhood, trauma-informed systems, and the arts. She was appointed as a member of the California state superintendent’s statewide Arts Education Task Force, and she currently serves on the boards of P.S. ARTS, a nonprofit committed to making the arts a civil right in underserved public schools, and Our Children LA, a nonprofit focused on leveraging technology to support the needs of homeless youth.

A native Angelino, Sharyn earned a master’s degree in art history and museum studies from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Southern California. She also completed the Executive Education Program at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Rick is Arabella Advisors’ chief revenue officer. In this capacity, he oversees all communications, marketing, and client development efforts, helping to grow the organization’s reach and impact. He brings to the firm 25 years of experience in the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors—with deep expertise in partnership development, strategic planning, program leadership, and external relations.

Over the last decade, Rick has served in a variety of senior roles at leading social sector education and youth development enterprises, including College Board, America’s Promise Alliance, FSG, Teach For America, and DC Prep Public Charter Schools.

Rick began his career in the professional services sector, working at the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) in Washington, DC and London for more than a decade, where he assumed successive leadership roles building teams that supported global corporations’ development of their strategic planning, finance, risk management, and governance capabilities.

Rick is deeply committed to advancing equity in education, and currently serves as chair of the DC Public Charter School Board, which provides oversight to 66 nonprofit organizations operating 126 public charter schools in the District of Columbia. He is a frequent panelist and speaker about public education and reform efforts. Rick also holds board positions at several local and national nonprofits, including Instruction Partners and the Washington International School. Rick is a member of the Pahara-Aspen Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Rick earned a BA in philosophy from Yale University. He resides in Washington, DC with his wife and two children.

Rachel EB-Walton is a senior director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which manages several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund and Windward Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Rachel leads the Managed Organizations team in San Francisco, helping donors and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by incubating nonprofits and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, advocacy campaigns, and grant-making initiatives. Rachel also leads the technology strategy on the Managed Organizations team. 

Prior to working at Arabella, Rachel worked in strategy and operations in the educational and social justice space. At the Education Trust-West, Rachel managed a budget and supporting grant portfolio as it increased from $2 million to more than $4 million over two years, including the design and implementation of subgrant programs. As the organization doubled in size, Rachel led system and process improvements within strategic planning, human resources, and general administration with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Rachel also worked at Teach For America for over eight years, in team leadership, knowledge management, process improvements and innovation, finance, compliance, communications, and stakeholder management.  

Rachel started her career in college admissions and financial aid. The inequities she observed, some of which reflected her lived experience, fueled her passion to devote her professional life to fighting for educational equity and social change at large. Rachel has a BA from Bennington College. 

Betsy Erickson leads Arabella’s work with family and individual clients, supporting them to further their learning, collaboration, and philanthropic goals. During her 10 years at Arabella, Betsy has helped dozens of clients design and launch strategies and run grant-making programs on issues ranging from conservation to experiential education. Betsy draws on her study and practical experience in systems and family dynamics to facilitate groups to make decisions and work together effectively. Applying her expertise in enabling learning and collaboration, Betsy has significant experience working with multi-generational families.

Prior to joining Arabella, Betsy worked for eight years in the nonprofit sector with groups focused on cancer research. She provided independent consulting services to national and regional nonprofit organizations such as CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She helped these organizations develop corporate partnerships, garner support from family foundations and major donors, and establish and grow their workplace giving campaigns.

Betsy is active in her community, volunteering with a local service organization and advocating and fundraising for cancer research organizations. She has a BA from Colgate University, from which she graduated with honors in two programs: philosophy and religion, and art and art history. Betsy also completed a three-year post-graduate program at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family at Georgetown Family Center.

Sampriti Ganguli is Arabella Advisors’ chief executive officer. She oversees all aspects of the firm’s performance, including revenue, operations, strategic growth, marketing, and client services. Sampriti drives and executes Arabella’s business strategy, sets operational priorities, and manages senior staff. She is also responsible for enhancing systems and policies that enable Arabella to deliver on its mission—to help foundations, philanthropists, and investors who are serious about impact achieve the greatest good with their resources.

Sampriti joined Arabella after 14 years at Corporate Executive Board (CEB). As executive director of CEB’s legal, risk, and compliance practice, she focused on operations, strategy, marketing, and new business development, and managed the firm’s subscription-based research programs for internal auditors, general counsel, chief risk officers, and chief compliance officers. She also spent three years as managing director of CEB’s government practice and, before that, eight years as managing director of the company’s finance practice. She has authored more than 25 major papers on topics ranging from risk and talent management to collaboration, benchmarking, and technology adoption.

Earlier in her career, Sampriti worked at JPMorgan Chase’s Emerging Markets Research division in Singapore and as a consultant for the World Bank’s East Asia Environment and Social Development Unit. She also sits on the board of InsideNGO, an association dedicated to strengthening operations and leadership capabilities of international non-governmental organizations.

Sampriti is the recipient of the Corporate Trailblazer Award from the National Black MBA Association in recognition of her focus on increasing diversity in the workplace, and she received a 2016 Brava Award from SmartCEO magazine for her focus on women and leadership in the charitable sector.

Sampriti received a BA with distinction in economics and political science from Swarthmore College. She was awarded a full-tuition Freeman Fellowship to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she earned an MA with distinction in international affairs. She then received her MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

A mother of two, Sampriti speaks five languages and enjoys Latin dancing, Zumba, historical fiction, and Asian cooking.

Jessica Gingerich is a senior director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which oversees several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3). Jessica helps donors and social entrepreneurs implement innovative donor collaboratives, campaigns, and grant-making initiatives to realize their philanthropic goals. Jessica oversees a diverse portfolio of domestic and international grant-making projects focused on education, global health, and development.

Jessica brings 14 years of nonprofit and foundation experience dedicated to building successful organizations and programs that advance social change. Prior to joining Arabella, Jessica served as a senior development officer with the International Crisis Group, where she managed a global portfolio of private-sector supporters and led innovative fundraising, outreach, and cultivation events to elevate Crisis Group’s conflict prevention mission. From 2006 to 2011, she was a program officer for South and Southeast Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Jessica traveled widely in Asia to monitor, evaluate, and develop NED’s grant programs in the region, which focused on providing targeted support for grassroots organizations seeking to advance human rights and strengthen democratic institutions.

Earlier in her career, Jessica worked at The Century Foundation (TCF), a public policy think tank, where she worked both in New York City and Washington, DC. At TCF, she provided research and analysis on US foreign policy and conflict prevention as well as administrative support for all aspects of the foundation’s operations. From 2002 to 2003, she helped develop Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution’s Afghanistan program, including leading a fact-finding mission to Kabul during the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002.

Jessica graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Reed College with a BA in history.

Anne Green is a managing director at Arabella Advisors. She leads the firm’s West Coast practice with institutional foundations, guiding them to successfully translate their strategies into action and ensure their resources provide the greatest possible benefit to the people and causes they hope to serve. 

Anne brings more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, most recently at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she held several leadership roles. She joined the foundation’s Postsecondary Success leadership team and served as advisor to the director, managing the team’s operations as well as special projects and grants that required cross-team coordination or investment from other funders. Most recently, she served as the foundation’s senior officer of risk, supporting the Executive Leadership team to identify and manage foundation-wide risks.  

Before joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Anne worked as a consultant and supported leading, national corporate and private foundations and several family foundations in the Pacific Northwest. Her support ranged from designing and launching national grant–making programs and developing communications strategies for specific projects to providing interim staffing support. Her clients included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, AOL-Time Warner, REI, Safeco Insurance, the Packard Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and the Russell Family Foundation.  

Previously, as the director of grant making at the Benton Foundation in Washington, DC, Anne launched several funder collaboratives and grant–making initiatives aimed at influencing national communications policies to support access, equity, and a diversity of voices. These initiatives employed several tools, including grants, partnerships, and advocacy and communications strategies. Before joining the Benton Foundation, Anne served as legislative counsel at People for the American Way, where she built coalitions and organized national grassroots campaigns to support a strong national commitment to culture and freedom of expression.  

Anne has served as a review panelist for US Department of Commerce’s Telecommunications Opportunity Program and on the board and executive committee of Groundwire (formerly OneNW)—an environmental nonprofit organization focused on building the communications capacity of conservation organizations.  

Anne resides in Seattle, where she is a member of Seattle’s Social Venture Partners and the Washington Women’s Foundation. She received her JD from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she was the recipient of the Albert Ellis Scholarship for Recognition in Public Service. She received her BA with honors from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. 

As Arabella’s Dallas-based managing director, Jeremy Gregg works to connect ambitious and innovative changemakers in Texas with the full Arabella platform of services to guide them in moving from idea to impact. Gregg serves as a trusted partner to philanthropists, impact investors, and social entrepreneurs of all kinds across the region and throughout the country, and is passionate about collaborating closely to bring their charitable initiatives and programs to life.

Gregg has 19 years of experience working with various organizations in Texas to help advance social impact and strengthen the practice of philanthropy. A three-time TEDx speaker who was previously named the Nonprofit Communicator of the Year by the Center for Nonprofit Management, Jeremy spent the first half of his career raising over $40 million for nonprofits that provide social services for communities in need. As a social entrepreneur, Jeremy co-founded several successful nonprofits and mission-driven businesses, one of which was named the Success Story of the Year by SCORE, a business mentorship association. Recognized as a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy in 2019, Gregg shifted his career from fundraising to serving as a trusted advisor to several prominent changemakers.

Prior to joining Arabella, Gregg served as the president and founder of Gregg Partners, an impact advisory firm that developed revenue strategies for nonprofits; and Mission Allies Publishing, a mission marketing agency. A passionate advocate for those affected by mass incarceration, Gregg authored and produced a children’s book called “Daddy’s Time Out,” which uses the metaphor of a time-out to explain incarceration to young people who have a parent in prison.

Gregg also previously held leadership positions (including two CEO positions) at a number of charities and social impact ventures, including the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, an internationally recognized leader in prison rehabilitation; CNM, a management support organization that delivered training and consulting to other nonprofits, and CitySquare, a community development organization that improved the lives of over 50,000 low-income families per year. During the economic downturn of 2008–2009, he also served as the founding executive director of Executives in Action, a nonprofit that tapped into the talents of transitioning corporate leaders to build and strengthen the capacity of hundreds of nonprofits that could never have otherwise accessed such talent.

Gregg has been featured by the BBC, NPR, the Financial Times, Texas Tribune, the New York Times, Forbes, and more. His published work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and in cover articles for an industry magazine.

Jeremy earned an Executive MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas and holds degrees in both advertising and English from Southern Methodist University. He is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy via the American College of Financial Services and a certified mindfulness teacher from the Dallas Yoga Center. He previously earned his CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive). Gregg serves as a strategic advisor to the Pat & Emmitt Smith Charities, a board member of the My Possibilities Foundation, a guest lecturer for The Warden Exchange, a mentor to several fundraising leaders via AFP Dallas, mentor in the Team 22 program, a hospice volunteer with the Visiting Nurses Association, and a volunteer advisor to the student newspaper at Cistercian Prep School.

Jeremy is also a passionate advocate for poetry (which he has taught everywhere from a prep school to a public school to a prison).

Saurabh Gupta is Arabella’s general counsel. He sets the vision and strategy for the legal team to ensure strong legal compliance and risk mitigation policies are in place so that the firm may achieve its vision and mission. In addition, Saurabh provides executive-level legal guidance to the independent nonprofit organizations that Arabella helps to support, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor that hosts charitable projects. Saurabh provides substantive advice on corporate governance, employment law, organizational risk assessment and mitigation, audits, litigation, contracts administration, insurance policies, and compliance with political and lobbying laws.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Saurabh spent 13 years developing expertise in public education and public-sector labor organizations. He has worked on behalf of public educators in several roles: as the deputy general counsel for the Massachusetts Teachers Association, as staff counsel for the Maryland State Education Association, and as assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). Saurabh has extensive experience providing legal counsel on corporate governance issues to boards of directors and drafting legal opinions on issues such as political and lobbying compliance, conflict of interest policy, HR employee handbooks, and state ethics rules. He has deep experience with negotiating collective bargaining agreements, policymaking, state-wide ballot initiatives, and legislative analysis. Saurabh has represented the interests of his clients before arbitrators, local and state administrative agencies, and in state court. Saurabh’s work with DCPS involved advising the senior leadership team on compliance with laws and policies governing K-12 policy and specifically special education compliance procedures.

Saurabh graduated law school from Thomas Jefferson School of Law and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Wesleyan University. Saurabh enjoys spending time with his family, going on hikes, listening to music, discovering new cuisines to attempt to cook, and—unfortunately—rooting for all Cleveland professional sports teams.

Lydia Guterman oversees Arabella’s Advisory team, which works with institutional, corporate, family, and individual clients to design, implement, assess, and learn from effective, equity-focused philanthropic initiatives. This includes grant making as well as efforts that go beyond grant making to achieve our clients’ philanthropic goals, such as impact investing, programmatic strategy, advocacy advising, evaluation and learning, donor collaboration, and organization design and launch services. Arabella’s Advisory practice welcomes the opportunity to work with clients at all stages of their philanthropic journey.

At Arabella, Lydia has led a range of strategy, grant-making, and donor collaboration projects for a variety of clients, helping them achieve impact in early education, affordable housing, and health and human rights. Prior to joining Arabella, Lydia worked at The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Open Society Foundations, where she developed and implemented global and domestic grant-making and advocacy strategies to increase access to quality health care for underserved populations. In these roles, she managed capacity-building initiatives for emerging nonprofit organizations and oversaw funding for innovative training programs for health professionals. At the Open Society Foundations, Lydia led the Campaign to Stop Torture in Health Care, a multi-year global effort to end severe rights abuses against marginalized populations in health settings. Her other professional experience includes conducting research and strategy reviews for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Treatment Action Group and overseeing evaluation for a women-focused business development organization.

Lydia holds a BA in journalism and social and economic justice from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an MPH from the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Diana Tyler Heath leads people, operations, and learning for Arabella’s Managed Organizations team—the firm’s largest department, with more than 120 people. She ensures the team has the talent, skills, and capacity to service a growing portfolio of over 250 fiscally sponsored projects hosted by the nonprofit intermediaries that Arabella manages. Her work includes embedding DEI principles into the team’s hiring and performance management practices and focusing on equity in compensation, growth opportunities, and workload. Additionally, she oversees staff specializing in compliance, financial services, learning, and knowledge management.

Diana spent her first eight years with Arabella in the family and individual practice. She led the practice area for two and a half years and continues to oversee a handful of engagements with Arabella’s family and individual clients. An expert in governance and strategic planning, Diana has helped clients, including a $1 billion foundation, structure their governance and staffing, build grant processes, and establish foundations from the ground up. She has also helped family foundations successfully integrate next generations onto boards, navigate leadership transitions, prepare for an influx of assets and growth in grant making, and refine strategy as their work evolves.

Previously, Diana worked as both a government consultant and a nonprofit fundraiser. As a strategy and organization consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, she provided project management and process efficiency expertise for Department of Homeland Security clients. She spent six years with the US Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation, the national governing body for Olympic skiing and snowboarding. She served primarily as a major gifts manager and was instrumental in the development and growth of the major gifts program. While with the Ski Team, she gained additional experience in direct marketing, event planning, and scholarship grant administration.

Diana holds a BA in economics from Cornell University and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Chris Hobbs has been with Arabella since 2010. As chief operating officer, Chris oversees the culture and talent, real estate, and technology functions. Working closely with the organization’s leadership team, Chris also sets and implements Arabella’s strategy. He is focused on creating an operating environment that allows Arabella to effectively help its clients achieve the ambitious social impact they seek. Chris is a natural problem-solver and efficiency-seeker with years of experience leading diverse teams. His expertise spans organizational capacity and infrastructure, talent development and retention, strategy implementation, and risk management.

Prior to becoming COO, Chris led Arabella’s management of several nonprofit organizations: the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund, and the Hopewell Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Under Chris’s leadership, Arabella moved the philanthropic field forward in establishing the practice of fiscal sponsorship and the use of intermediaries as an industry standard for innovation, advocacy, and donor collaboration.

Earlier in his career, Chris worked for the global health organization PSI, where he developed and implemented HIV and family planning programs in southern Africa. Before joining PSI, Chris managed grants and programs for the National Park Foundation. He holds a BS in business administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso. Chris and his husband live in Los Angeles with their daughter.

Adam Hoffman is the director of finance on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He is responsible for maintaining the general ledger, managing the financial reporting process, and supporting the financial audits for the nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages. Adam is also responsible for providing support services through technical accounting and operational guidance.

Adam became interested in nonprofit accounting after an internship at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, where he realized he could apply his accounting expertise toward assisting organizations in their effort to create positive social impact. Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Adam specialized in nonprofit auditing as a senior associate at the public accounting firm CohnReznick LLP. During his time as an auditor, Adam was exposed to a variety of nonprofit organizations and developed deep knowledge of internal controls, financial reporting, Form-990 preparation, and best practices.

Adam is a certified public accountant, and he has a BS in accounting from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s in accounting from George Washington University.

Falona Joy is a senior advisor at Arabella, where she works with foundations, corporations, and families to design, launch, advance, and assess ambitious philanthropic initiatives.

Falona channels her passion for social justice into supporting philanthropy that drives a wide range of innovative partnerships and projects. Recent examples include developing a strategy for a unique public-private partnership, the Millennium Park Foundation, and providing strategic facilitation and evaluation support to new pilot initiatives with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Prior to joining Arabella, Falona founded SNP Strategies, a consulting practice designed to build the vitality of nonprofit institutions, support philanthropy to measure impact, and increase the ability of nonprofit leaders to achieve their missions and visions. In this role, she has guided organizations of all sizes through the challenges of raising capital, ensuring organizational relevance, developing strategies to sustain impact, and realizing the potential of new initiatives. Falona is also an impact investor and advisor to startup social enterprises.

Falona began her career with the National Park Foundation, where she was the founding executive director of the African American Experience Fund. She continues to have a passion for parks, public lands, and conservation initiatives. She serves as the founding garden leader for the 42nd Street Garden in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

Falona also serves as a life trustee of the Chicago History Museum, was an officer and board member of the Illinois Humanities Council from 2006 to 2015, and was named a Chicago Cultural Champion by the Chicago Cultural Alliance.

Falona is a certified fundraising executive (CFRE). She received her BA with honors from Stanford University.

Robin Keithley is the director of sales enablement, providing the firm’s client development team with the right support, insights, information, and tools to win new and continued business. With a background in nonprofit management and fundraising, Robin works with clients to develop, structure, and maximize the impact of public interest programs. She also partners with Arabella’s leadership to further engage clients across our suite of services.

Prior to joining Arabella, Robin was the director of development and communications for Worldfund, a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of education and boosting learning outcomes for students in Latin America. She directed all revenue-generating strategies and cultivated relationships with donors to ensure long-term, sustainable support for the organization’s teacher- and principal-training programs. Before that, she was the senior center manager at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. While there, she developed and implemented the Echidna Global Scholars Program, a research initiative focused on girls’ education.

Robin holds a BA in international communication from Texas Christian University and an MA in international communication from American University. She also has an executive certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University.

Eric is a serial entrepreneur who has started, led, and advised organizations pursuing social change across the country and around the globe. As founder of Arabella Advisors, Eric has been at the forefront of innovation and impact in the philanthropic sector during one of its greatest historical expansions.

While guiding Arabella from a small startup to a company with more than 160 employees that advises on several billion dollars of philanthropic resources annually, Eric has focused on helping clients achieve their philanthropic goals by devising grant-making strategies, mounting effective advocacy campaigns, evaluating impact, and managing their foundation’s operations. In addition to serving a broad range of family, institutional, and corporate clients, Eric leads the firm’s work with clients who are working to improve our food system through policies and business investments that promote nutritious, sustainable, and affordable food.

Eric’s interest in the food sector extends well beyond his work at Arabella. He chairs the committee at the James Beard Foundation that oversees efforts to engage the culinary community in advocacy on food policy, and he created the foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change. Eric also co-founded the Chef Action Network and has a personal private equity portfolio invested in businesses at the forefront of improving our food system.

In addition, Eric co-founded the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, and earlier in his career, he served as the national field director for the League of Conservation Voters. Then, as a White House appointee, he helped manage conservation issues during the Clinton administration. Before that, Eric spent six years with the National Democratic Institute, which sent him to the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and throughout the Middle East to train civic and political leaders on strategies to encourage democratic change.

Eric is on the boards of the James Beard Foundation and the National Democratic Institute. He is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and Summit Series.

Eric holds an Executive MBA from Georgetown University and a BA from the University of Colorado.

Cyrus Kharas is a director on Arabella’s Advisory team and the co-head of the Impact Investing team. He works across a broad range of Arabella’s individual, institutional, and corporate clients, and contributes to the firm’s analysis of trends and opportunities in the impact investing field. He has substantial experience in economics, international development, capital markets, and social impact, and brings this expertise to support projects across Arabella. In his time with the firm, Cyrus has managed several projects ranging in focus from climate change initiatives to capital market dynamics for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) entrepreneurs, the latter of which was featured in Arabella’s Economy for All report. Cyrus is driven to find creative ways to unlock philanthropic and private capital to solve global challenges.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Cyrus spent several years at Goldman Sachs in the investment management division, where he focused on cross-asset class allocation and portfolio strategy. His team focused on institutions and the current and retired partners of Goldman Sachs. Previously, he was an analyst at Calvert Impact Capital, where he designed and managed portfolios of impact investments for institutional clients with specific impact goals. He participated in the underwriting and presenting of investments to the clients, as well as ongoing financial and impact monitoring of the portfolio. Cyrus began his career at the US Treasury Department in the Office of International Affairs.

Cyrus has a BA from Tufts University in psychology and economics and an MBA with a concentration in economics from NYU Stern School of Business. Cyrus is an avid soccer player and fan. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two daughters.

Debbie Kobak is a managing director at Arabella. She works to develop a network of individual, institutional, and corporate clients throughout the Midwest region who drive impact on the causes important to them by using the firm’s full platform of advisory and fiscal sponsorship services.   

Debbie has extensive issue expertise in community and economic development, education, and impact investing. She was a banker for 16 years, providing investment, treasury management, and credit products to charitable foundations and institutional asset owners that delivered financial and social returns. She also led the corporate foundation of a Chicago-based bank, where she was the principal architect of the bank’s signature community investment that helped more than 2,000 young people get on a path to living wage employment by attending college and/or industry-recognized work certification programs. 

In her early career, Debbie worked in the nonprofit sector for various public policy research and advocacy organizations in Washington, DC and Chicago focused on women’s reproductive rights, free and fair multi-party elections in the developing world, and the environment. 

Debbie is an enthusiastic community volunteer, with a particular passion for refugee and immigrant rights organizations. She is currently on the board of GirlForward, an organization that provides comprehensive supports to refugee teen girls, and is the past board treasurer of RefugeeOne, the Midwest’s largest resettlement agency. She also serves on the advisory boards of several education-related nonprofit organizations in Chicago. Debbie has a BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in political science (with honors) and French, and an MA in international development from the American University in Washington, DC. 

Alexandra LaForge is a director on Arabella’s Advisory team. Working out of the firm’s San Francisco office, Alexandra works with foundations, families, and individuals who are interested in creatively deploying capital to achieve social and environmental impact as well as financial return. Alexandra works with Arabella clients on both impact investment portfolio strategy as well as the investment process and individual investments, bringing a decade of knowledge in early-stage impact investing to the Arabella team.

Previously, Alexandra served as interim executive director of Investors’ Circle – Social Venture Network (IC-SVN), a community of more than 550 impact investors and business leaders creating social, economic, and environmental change. Before orchestrating the IC-SVN merger, Alexandra spent 10 years at Investors’ Circle designing and managing programs focused on energizing, educating, and engaging impact investors and entrepreneurs. While at IC, Alexandra oversaw the sourcing, screening, and review of over 5,000 investment opportunities and more than $30 million invested. Her work has been both local and global: she oversaw the growth of local impact investing ecosystems across six US markets while also leading entrepreneur development and investor capacity building in the global health sector. Closer to home, Alexandra serves as a portfolio strategy facilitator for Pipeline Angels and volunteers for the Young Women Social Entrepreneurs’ San Francisco Chapter.

Alexandra graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied English and international peace studies, and where her interest in social change sparked her fascination with social enterprise.

Jessica Robinson Love is a managing director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where she partners with foundations, corporations, families, and individuals to advance social change. Jessica helps donors, investors, and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by designing and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, campaigns, and grant-making initiatives. At Arabella, she has overseen the launch of a $50 million grant-making initiative to transform international seafood markets; helped to rapidly scale a campaign to eliminate barriers to women obtaining contraception; and developed a strategy for a national parent education initiative to advance student success.

Jessica brings nearly two decades of experience with the practice of fiscal sponsorship, as well as deep expertise in organizational development and capacity building. Previously, as a strategic philanthropy advisor and social impact consultant, Jessica helped individual philanthropists design and launch new foundations, supported established foundations in implementing capacity-building programs for grantees, and advised social-sector leaders on organizational strategy.

As a social entrepreneur, Jessica was the founding executive and artistic director of CounterPulse. Over 14 years, she led the organization through a merger, relocation, and 10-fold expansion, establishing it as a national model in the field of arts for social justice. She designed and led a statewide initiative to build equity in the performing arts, and helped launch a major public-private partnership to preserve cultural spaces. Earlier in her career, Jessica was an adjunct faculty member at the New College of California, where she designed and taught undergraduate courses on arts, nonprofit management, and social justice. She served on the board of the grant-making organization Alternate ROOTS, and on numerous selection panels for private and public grant makers, both in California and nationally.

Jessica was selected by National Arts Strategies as one of the nation’s top 50 arts CEOs, tasked with re-imagining how cultural institutions contribute to society. She was the inaugural recipient of the Bay Area Dancers’ Choice Award for her leadership of the dance community, and she has received additional awards from Dance/USA and the Bill T. Shannon Leadership Institute. Jessica holds a BA in the humanities from the New College of California and a certificate in nonprofit leadership from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Molly Lyons leads Arabella’s Creative and Editorial Services team, overseeing the firm’s editorial style, publishing practices, and design. She also works closely with Arabella client service teams to help create compelling and clear content, advising and supporting them throughout the deliverable creation process. In addition, she helps clients tell their stories by producing their legacy statements, donor intent letters, annual reports, presentations, and other materials.

Molly has edited for and has overseen special projects at Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, Time Inc., Meredith, Hachette Filipacchi, and Gannett properties. Her writing has appeared in multiple national publications, including USA Today. She was a founding editor of Lifetime Magazine, a joint venture of Hearst and Lifetime Television. She’s also ghostwritten books and book proposals. As a literary agent, she’s worked with authors to conceptualize and sell fiction and non-fiction projects. Her client list includes two New York Times bestselling authors. She’s been a publishing consultant for SheWrites.com and has spoken frequently at writers’ conferences and seminars.

Molly has served on the board of the Women’s Media Group and is a graduate of Amherst College.

Christy Mahan joined Arabella in May 2015 and serves as the deputy chief financial officer. She is responsible for overseeing all financial, accounting, and reporting activities for the firm. Christy directs the budgeting process, prepares financial forecasts, manages audits, and monitors tax compliance. In addition, she supervises the accounting and reporting services provided to Arabella’s foundation clients.

Prior to joining Arabella, Christy was a vice president and accounting manager with GMMB, a subsidiary of public relations firm FleishmanHillard and part of Omnicom Group. In that role, she oversaw the daily operations of the accounting department, directed activities related to corporate compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and managed the election-cycle media reconciliation process.

A certified public accountant, Christy holds a BS in business administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a master of accountancy from George Washington University.

Outside the office, Christy is an avid runner, fair-weather cyclist, and proud aunt to six future philanthropists.

Ben Mangan is a managing director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where he leads the West Coast practice in helping family offices and individuals deepen their impact through their philanthropy and impact investing.

Ben previously served as the executive director of the Center for Social Sector Leadership at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where he remains a member of the teaching faculty. At BerkeleyHaas, Ben founded and co-led The Social Impact Collective, which provided insight and community for family philanthropy and impact investing. He also co-led UC Berkeley’s Global Social Venture Competition.

Ben is a nationally recognized leader in economic mobility and financial security. He was co-founder and CEO of SaverLife (formerly EARN), which is on track to help one million workers in all 50 US states by 2022 to save and invest in their futures. While at EARN, he partnered with governments, funders, and community groups to create groundbreaking initiatives to help families and individuals save for college and access financial services.  He was appointed by Fed Chair Janet Yellen to the Federal Reserve Board Community Advisory Council and remains a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program.

Ben has written for the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, TED Ideas, and the Huffington Post. His work has been recognized through the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award and Fast Company’s Social Capitalist of the Year Award.

Ben serves as an advisor to the DEI-focused startup Kanarys and to NPX Advisors, which is pioneering new approaches to philanthropy and impact investing. He is also a trustee at the San Francisco School. Ben holds an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BA from Vassar College. Ben resides in San Francisco with his wife and son.

Lida Masoudpour is a senior director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which oversees several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund and Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Lida leads the Managed Organizations team in New York City, helping donors and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by incubating nonprofits and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, advocacy campaigns, and grant-making initiatives.

Lida specializes in launching and scaling nonprofit advocacy organizations and has overseen all aspects of organizational growth, from developing strategic plans and performance metrics to building the systems, processes, and structures necessary for efficient and effective operations. Prior to joining Arabella, Lida helped found a high-impact New Venture Fund project that provides research, communications, and strategy support to issue campaigns focusing on the environment, reproductive rights and access, and economic security. She also has held key positions at nonprofit organizations, including Media Matters for America, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Democracy Alliance, during periods of early growth and expansion. In addition to her nonprofit experience, Lida has worked on several political campaigns and causes, including Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president and a national campaign to combat online child sex trafficking.

Lida holds a BA in government from Georgetown University and is currently pursuing an MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Loren McArthur is a senior director on Arabella’s Advisory team. He works on a range of strategy, evaluation, and donor collaboration projects with institutional, corporate, and family clients, with a focus on helping donors develop and execute high-impact advocacy strategies.

Loren has more than 15 years of experience in advocacy campaigns, electoral organizing, strategic communications, and policy development. Prior to joining Arabella, Loren was the deputy director of civic engagement at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the country, where he directed state and national policy campaigns and oversaw the organization’s national Latino voter mobilization program. Previously, Loren served as director of the Merrimack Valley Project, a faith- and labor-based organization in Massachusetts, where he advanced pioneering campaigns for affordable housing, workers’ rights, and immigrant justice.

Loren graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he was a recipient of the Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship in Democracy.

Monique Mehta is a senior director at Arabella. She leads the firm’s ChangeWorks service area, which includes organizational design and development, operational planning, change management, and implementation strategies for a variety of philanthropic and nonprofit initiatives and vehicles. Monique works across the spectrum of Arabella’s individual, institutional, and corporate clients, drawing upon her more than 20 years of experience managing, building, and advising nonprofits and foundations.

Prior to joining Arabella, Monique spent almost 10 years managing her own consulting practice focused on a broad range of issues, including reproductive justice, immigrant rights, domestic violence, gender justice, and worker rights. Most recently during her practice, she served as the project director for a two-year initiative for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to that engagement, she worked with the California Criminal Justice Funders Group, Safe Return Project, ReThink Media, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, LIVE FREE Campaign/Faith in Action, and other nonprofit groups. As a consultant, Monique also spent four years helping to establish the LIFT Fund as a collaborative fund at the Solidago Foundation. She also worked with the National Guestworker Alliance, CoreAlign, the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice, UCLA Labor Center, Open Society Institute, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

In addition to her consulting work, Monique was a program officer supporting national racial justice movement-building with the Akonadi Foundation and spent four transformative years as the executive director of the Third Wave Foundation.

Monique was the recipient of the New Voices Fellowship in 2000, when she served as the development director for Sakhi for South Asian Women. During her tenure at Third Wave, Monique sat on the boards of directors of the Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing, Resource Generation, and the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health & Rights.

Monique holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Colgate University and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.

John-Anthony Meza is the head of Arabella Advisors’ Culture and Talent team. In this role, he leads the vision and day-to-day operations of the company’s human resources team, including total rewards, talent acquisition, and employee engagement and retention. As a member of the senior leadership team, John-Anthony helps develop a firmwide strategy for supporting Arabella’s people and cultivating an innovative, inclusive culture.

John-Anthony brings over 20 years of leadership in human resources; employee relations; change management; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and corporate social responsibility. He has served in HR and operations leadership roles in multiple settings—from private industry to larger and mid-sized nonprofits—and various sectors, including social services, health care, information technology, and professional services. Most recently, John-Anthony served as the vice president of talent, diversity, equity, and inclusion at KABOOM!, an organization that partners with communities to build safe, inspiring playgrounds and other public play spaces. In that role, he spearheaded a review of the organization’s performance management structure, revised its core competencies, oversaw a racial equity-focused salary assessment, and revised the organization’s compensation strategy to better center equity.

Previously, John-Anthony served as the senior director of human resources and office administration for the Raffa Companies, and as the chief of human resources and administration at the Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP).

John-Anthony is a SHRM-certified senior HR professional, a published author, and a frequent presenter on progressive HR topics. In a book focused on common elements of successful organizations, he wrote a chapter about the need for American companies to collaborate with schools and community colleges to support employees. He also co-authored several reports, including an examination of companies’ “grow your own” talent development models. John-Anthony received the University of Cambridge Programme certificate for sustainable leadership through the Prince of Wales Business and Environment Programme; studied industrial/organizational psychology at California State University, Long Beach; and has a degree in psychology from California State University, Northridge.

He is active in his community and has served on many nonprofit boards. He lives in the nation’s capital with his three kids, husband, two dogs, and their menagerie of other pets.

Lamia Mezouar is an assistant controller on Arabella Advisors’ finance team. She is responsible for overseeing accounting operations and detailed reporting for Arabella and the nonprofits it helps manage.

Lamia has more than seven years of accounting and finance experience. Prior to joining Arabella, she worked at a public accounting firm in northern Virginia, where she provided assurance and tax services to individuals and for-profit companies in various industries, including professional services, retail, information technology, consulting, real estate, and construction. Lamia assisted her clients with tax and financial planning and federal and state tax compliance and filings. She also helped develop and maintain accounting practices and procedures to ensure accurate and timely financial reporting, and she helped train and mentor entry-level staff accountants.

Lamia has a BS in accounting from George Mason University. She is a certified public accountant and a chartered global management accountant.

As a founding Arabella employee, Graham Murphy leads programs that guide the firm’s design, implementation, and adoption of strategic transformational changes. As the head of organizational development and change management, Graham works closely with executives and senior management to ensure the organization is prepared to achieve its strategic goals. Graham also oversees leadership development, succession planning, and firmwide learning and development programs.

Prior to his current role, Graham led Arabella’s Culture and Talent team and HR function for more than a decade. As head of the Culture and Talent team, he focused on developing HR strategies that ensured strategic alignment, continuous organizational learning, and increased impact for clients as the firm grew. Graham started out managing Arabella’s business operations, finances, and human resources in 2007. During his tenure, he has advanced the firm’s operational capacity, overseen the organization’s finances, managed its real estate portfolio, developed its contracting processes, established new human resources capabilities, provided outsourced HR services to clients, and overseen staff integration during the firm’s first acquisition. Graham previously oversaw Arabella’s managed nonprofit organizations—including setting up an affiliated 501(c)(4)—and served its family foundation clients. He also oversaw Arabella’s diversity and inclusion work.

Prior to coming to Arabella, Graham supported the executive director’s office and board of directors of a national child care association and managed operations for Teach For America’s Washington, DC office. He also served as an officer for SMYAL, DC’s largest organization serving LGBTQ youth. He has been recognized by George Washington University and DC’s Youth Pride Alliance for his work on behalf of LGBTQ youth.

Graham holds an MS in learning and organizational change from Northwestern University. His master’s capstone study examined the effectiveness of MBA programs in preparing the next generation of nonprofit leaders. Graham also holds a BA in human services from George Washington University, where he graduated summa cum laude, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He holds a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the HR Certification Institute.

Radhika Nayar is a director in Arabella’s New York office, where she works closely with individuals and families to help them achieve their philanthropic goals. Radhika thrives on meeting clients wherever they are in their philanthropic journeys and translating their visions into concrete action plans that improve people’s lives.

Prior to Arabella, Radhika worked at Dasra, India’s leading strategic philanthropy foundation. She partnered with donors within India and the United States to take meaningful action on India’s most complex and urgent development challenges. In Mumbai, she guided local donors to improve the lives of adolescent girls and break the inter-generational cycle of poverty by making multi-year, collaborative grants to scale India’s highest-impact nonprofits working in partnership with the government. In 2014, Radhika launched Dasra’s US presence, encouraging greater and more thoughtful global attention and funding to accelerate progress in India.

Before pursuing a career in philanthropy, Radhika worked at AllianceBernstein, interned at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and served as a fellow at Wellesley Centers for Women.  Radhika has a BA from Wellesley College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Scott Nielsen joined Arabella Advisors in 2015 as the firm’s first managing director of advocacy, bringing decades of experience designing, executing, and evaluating strategies for achieving policy reform and social change. He leads Arabella’s advocacy team in helping foundation, family, and individual clients use their resources to effectively pursue the social and political goals that matter to them. His areas of expertise include civic engagement, issue advocacy, public policy, and infrastructure development and field building.

Prior to joining Arabella, Scott founded Alexander Nielsen Consulting (ANC), a firm that partnered with foundations and individual donors to conduct research and evaluation, design and implement grant-making programs, and develop communications strategies and infrastructure. As principal of ANC, Scott worked with a range of leading donor institutions, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Democracy Alliance, the State Infrastructure Fund, and the Open Society Foundations.

Before founding his own firm, Scott spent 13 years as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, including seven years in the MacArthur Fellows Program. He designed, managed, and assessed major foundation initiatives in issues such as campaign finance reform and citizen participation, Native American education and culture, international human rights, economic globalization, and racial and ethnic pluralism in the United States.

Scott has written widely on philanthropy and the independent sector, and he serves as an advisor and board member to several national nonprofits, including State Voices, Boston Review, Faith in Public Life, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a regular panel contributor and speaker to groups working with or within the nonprofit and civic engagement sectors.

Scott holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a BA from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Wil Priester joined Arabella in August 2013 as chief financial officer. Wil is a certified public accountant (CPA) and has more than 25 years of dynamic financial management experience at both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Wil leads Arabella’s finance, accounting, and human resources teams and helps guide the firm’s strategy. He focuses on aligning our financial systems and operational policies to more effectively and efficiently serve our clients.

Prior to joining Arabella, Wil spent five years as the senior vice president and chief financial officer of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), a $90 million nonprofit biological resource center and research organization. At ATCC, Wil led and oversaw a number of critical advances, including implementing a new reporting structure, increasing the company’s commercial capabilities through key hires, and driving operational efficiency via automation and process refinement. Wil also restructured the finance and accounting team and helped to launch an entity focused on new product development.

Wil has honed his finance expertise during his more than two decades in the financial industry. He served as the chief financial officer and managing director of Blue Water Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm whose investments targeted the information technology sector. While at Blue Water Capital, Wil advised and worked with growth-stage enterprises on business strategy and operational matters. He has also held management positions at MedImmune and Coopers & Lybrand.

Wil has served on the board of directors for several private companies and is a co-founder and former board member of Lorien Wood, a K-8 school. Wil has a BS in commerce with distinction from the University of Virginia and an MBA with a concentration in finance from Georgetown University

Steve oversees Arabella’s marketing, communications, and content development efforts, working with teams across the firm to to plan, create, produce, monitor, and evaluate a wide range of materials in multiple channels–from research reports and thought leadership to marketing campaigns, press releases, web properties, and proposals. He and his team specialize in helping philanthropists and impact investors amplify their impact through effective communications.

Prior to joining Arabella, Steve worked for more than a decade as an online entrepreneur, editor, publisher, and marketing communications professional. He co-founded Every Learner, Inc. and built its flagship publication, Knowledge News. Before that, he led a group of writers, editors, and internet producers at LifeMinders, Inc., delivering customized email newsletters to more than a million users per day. He also ran the team that published the official electronic newsletter of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Earlier in his career, Steve worked in academia, both as a researcher at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and as an adjunct faculty member in the writing program at George Washington University, where he also did his graduate work.

Julie Slay leads Arabella’s evaluation practice, employing a range of methodologies and tools to help clients understand the effectiveness of their grants and other investments—and ultimately determine how they can best use their resources to achieve the outcomes they seek. She directs teams using both qualitative and quantitative evaluation approaches to conduct developmental, formative, and retrospective evaluations, as well as to develop evaluation frameworks, tools, and instruments that enable ongoing learning, effective monitoring, and practical program management. Julie has over 20 years of experience conducting multi-year, multi-site research and evaluation projects in government, for-profit, and nonprofit settings.

Prior to joining Arabella, Julie directed the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Department for Children’s Health Council, a nonprofit children’s behavioral health agency. Her work included leading outcome evaluation and improvement projects, designing and implementing evaluation instruments, and cultivating relationships promoting cross-functional collaboration.

Prior to joining Children’s Health Council, she conducted research and program evaluation in both the public and private sectors as a senior research associate at Lodestar Management Research, Inc., now Harder + Company.

Julie graduated with honors from the University of California, Irvine with a BA in psychology, and holds an MA and PhD in clinical psychology from University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Gideon Steinberg joined Arabella in 2014 as the director of human resources for the Managed Organizations team. In this role, he oversees all human resources responsibilities for several nonprofits that Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Gideon provides general oversight and direction for the Managed Organizations team’s human resources initiatives, as well as strategic guidance to clients. This includes talent management, executive coaching, organizational development, compliance and risk mitigation, and general human resources administration.

Gideon has worked in human resources at social-sector organizations for more than 10 years. Prior to joining Arabella, Gideon was the director of operations for Community Wealth Partners, where he directed human resources, finance and accounting, information systems, internal capacity building efforts, and resource deployment. He has worked in the areas of human rights, social justice, the environment, social science, and public policy research. Gideon previously worked at the Pew Research Center, a public policy and social science think tank, International Justice Mission, a worldwide social justice nonprofit, and the Center for Public Environmental Oversight.

Gideon is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and is a certified senior professional in human resources. Gideon holds a BA in political theory from the University of Dallas.

Liz Sweet is a senior director in the San Francisco office, where she works closely with Arabella’s individual and family clients to achieve their social impact goals. Liz draws from her extensive experience in the philanthropic sector to help clients understand the root causes of complex social challenges, identify long-term solutions, and effectively measure their impact.

Previously, Liz guided members of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW), a global network of over 400 philanthropists, in designing strategies that best leveraged their passions, talents, and assets. Over her four years as a senior officer with TPW, Liz helped lead the network’s flagship cohort program—a year-long course on strategic philanthropy—along with deep dives on human rights, food systems reform, criminal justice, and a range of social justice issues.

Liz believes strongly in the power of collaboration. While working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), she coordinated a collective impact effort to improve education in emergency contexts. In this role, Liz consulted with local stakeholders across five continents to improve educational outcomes while engaging in joint advocacy at the United Nations to increase funding for the field. Liz brings this experience working on both grassroots and policy change to help clients invest in solutions that lead to lasting impact.

Deeply committed to advancing the rights and lives of women and girls, Liz serves on the advisory board of the Alliance for Girls, the largest regional network of girl-serving organizations in the United States. She has consulted on grant making with the Global Fund for Women and worked with a small nonprofit to end violence against women in Bogotá, Colombia.

Liz holds a BA in economics from the University of California at San Diego and a master’s in international development with a concentration in social and economic development from The New School. Liz is a certified yoga instructor and lover of all racquet sports—from racquetball and badminton to paddle tennis, ping pong, and pickleball. She lives with her two daughters and husband in the Bay Area.

Ryan Ulbrich is a director on Arabella’s Advisory team. He works with various philanthropies to develop grant-making strategies; design, launch, and implement new initiatives and organizations; convene learning and working groups; and oversee donor collaboratives to advance common goals. He manages projects and advises clients on a variety of issues, including food and nutrition, education, community and economic development, social entrepreneurship, and public health.

Prior to joining Arabella, Ryan was an executive advisor to chief ethics officers at the business consulting firm CEB (now Gartner). There, he managed a portfolio of Fortune 500 companies in the technology, consumer products, health care, and retail industries, and advised on functional issues such as corporate integrity, corruption, data privacy, risk management, and governance. Ryan also worked for Podesta Group, a public and government relations firm in Washington, DC, and was a member of the business development, marketing, and communications team at Dickstein Shapiro LLP. Additionally, he spent several years as a consultant to the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities and Miriam’s Kitchen.

Ryan currently serves as a board member of Unicorn Children’s Foundation, a nonprofit serving neurodiverse children and young adults with developmental or learning challenges and helping families to navigate their journeys. Previously, he was a board member of City Blossoms, a community development nonprofit that fosters well-being at the nexus of urban gardening, the arts, and healthy living, and a community board member of Enstitute, the first national apprenticeship program for 21st-Century careers in business, technology, and entrepreneurship. In 2012, he founded Raise Your City, a social enterprise and fundraising group that produced music- and arts-based benefit events and ran digital advocacy campaigns for a portfolio of nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC.

Ryan earned a BA in philosophy with minors in art history and non-violence studies from Elon University. He resides in Delray Beach, Florida.

Padma Vanka is the senior director of implementation and improvement for Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which manages several nonprofit organizations that serve as fiscal sponsors to charitable initiatives. In this role, Padma is responsible for identifying and making systems improvements and standing up new business systems to enable Arabella to more effectively serve its clients. She also helps launch, scale, and manage operations for a variety of initiatives, including donor collaboratives, advocacy campaigns, and new nonprofit organizations.

Before joining Arabella, Padma worked for Raytheon for 17 years. At Raytheon, Padma held several leadership positions in the Engineering, Mission Assurance, and Operations departments. She led multiple cross-functional improvements with a focus on change management. In her last role at Raytheon, Padma was the program manager for multiple automation projects in the Global Trade department. Padma’s special interests include digital transformation using technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Padma is passionate about contributing to the social sector. She has been an active volunteer with Compass, providing pro bono consulting services to nonprofits in the Washington, DC metro area. She has also been an active board member of the MIT Sloan DC Alumni association since its inception in 2014.

Padma is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Leaders for Global Operations program with an MBA and an MS in mechanical engineering. Padma also holds an ME in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

Gwen Walden is a senior managing director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where she leads the firm’s West Coast practice. In this capacity, she engages with a range of clients on strategy, evaluation, and impact investing work, implementing programs and projects and managing donor collaboratives. She has expertise in the arts, health, early childhood, and education, and works to meet the needs of a range of philanthropic organizations, from small family foundations to large institutional donors.

Gwen has more than 25 years of leadership experience in the nonprofit sector. Her career encompasses major programmatic, management, and executive leadership roles and is marked both by her encyclopedic knowledge of the history and practice of philanthropy and her hands-on experience managing major foundation initiatives and functions. Gwen joined Arabella after managing her own firm, Walden Philanthropy Advisors Inc., for four years. Prior to that, she held executive leadership assignments at the J. Paul Getty Trust and the California Endowment.

Gwen has received national recognition for her numerous articles on current issues in philanthropy. She has written for all of the major trade publications, including Foundation News & Commentary, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, as well as in special editions of the annual State of Philanthropy and New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising.

Gwen has been an active member of the field of philanthropy for many years, serving on numerous professional boards and committees. Currently, she is one of only three outside directors of the Surdna Foundation, a five-generation family foundation founded by John E. Andrus with $1 billion in assets. Gwen also sits on the board of the East Bay Community Foundation representing Contra Costa County, and she volunteers her time as a board member of the Breast Cancer Fund, focused on eliminating environmental toxins and radiation that cause cancer.

Gwen earned a bachelor’s degree from the George Washington University and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

Kim Walker is a senior director and the head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Arabella. She is responsible for co-creating and managing the firm’s DEI strategy, coordinating efforts across teams to reach both company-wide and team-specific DEI goals, and strengthening the capacity of Arabella employees and teams to engage in equity-related work both internally and with clients. For example, Kim guides project teams on partnering with clients to embed DEI principles into their processes, structures, and decisions, such as through participatory grant making and equitable evaluation. Previously, Kim served Arabella as the leader of the firm’s internal learning and development practice. In that role, she developed, facilitated, and evaluated learning opportunities for client-facing staff. She also developed onboarding programs, led continuing staff development opportunities, planned for retreats, and generated learning content for team events.

Prior to Arabella, Kim was the senior manager of learning and development at FSG, a social impact consulting firm. In addition to her career in internal capacity building, Kim spent several years providing and managing technical assistance initiatives with communities through the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, and the Urban Institute. She also served as a leadership development faculty member for ProInspire, a nonprofit dedicated to building leaders in the social sector. Additionally, Kim served as the national board co-chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network from 2017–2018.

In addition to her work at Arabella, Kim serves as adjunct faculty at Georgetown University, teaching and advising students in the Master of Human Resources Management program. She holds a BA in psychology and Hispanic studies from William and Mary, an MA from UCLA in urban planning, a master’s in organization development from Bowling Green State University, and a master’s and PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University, where her dissertation focused on power dynamics in cross-sector partnerships.

Shelley Whelpton is a senior managing director in Arabella’s Washington, DC office. Shelley partners with foundations, social entrepreneurs, corporations, families, and high-net-worth individuals to catalyze change on a range of social and environmental issues. Shelley believes that social-sector actors can effect sustained change by going beyond grant making to strategically use the range of innovative tools and approaches available to them. She has helped philanthropists develop advocacy and impact investing strategies, launch and incubate new social change initiatives, convene marginalized and influential voices, and collaborate with partners across sectors. Projects she oversees include involving formerly incarcerated people in criminal justice reform efforts, advocating for state policy changes to promote children’s nutrition, and ensuring that women’s voices are equitably represented in public dialogue.

Prior to joining Arabella, Shelley was the vice president of business development and strategy at the Sheridan Group, a Washington, DC-based policy firm dedicated to public interest causes. In this role, Shelley developed the firm’s social entrepreneurship consulting practice, working with grant makers and other clients to identify creative strategies and build cross-sector collaborations for broad-scale social change. She led the team that successfully advocated for a slate of policy initiatives in the 2008 presidential election to catalyze greater cross-section collaboration and accountability in public problem solving. Shelley’s development work with the Sheridan Group spanned a wide range of issues, including new social financing mechanisms, open access, education, youth development, child welfare, and health.

Shelley is a seasoned nonprofit executive with national recognition in the field of international youth exchange. For 10 years, she managed AYUSA International, a nonprofit high school exchange program serving 2,000 high school students from 80 countries around the world. Shelley led the organization during a period of significant growth and program diversification, including a post-9/11 exchange initiative with the Middle East sponsored by the US Department of State.

Shelley is a founding board member of Running Start, a nonprofit dedicated to providing political leadership training for girls and young women. She serves on the advisory boards of the Women’s Equality Center and the Amazon Headwaters Conservation Initiative.

Shelley graduated with honors from Williams College with a BA in political science, earning the Richard Krouse Political Science Award, and completed an MA in education from Boston University. She lives in Washington, DC with her partner and two children.

Jenny Wittner leads Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which partners with donors and social entrepreneurs to develop, launch, and manage a wide range of charitable initiatives. She oversees a team that provides full-service operations to over 300 nonprofit projects across the globe. She joined Arabella in 2016.

Throughout her career, Jenny has played many roles at nonprofits, and she brings this operational, management, and programmatic experience to Arabella. Jenny was the associate director at Women Employed, where she developed and oversaw the organization’s advocacy, policy, and program work to promote the economic advancement of women. She had a particular interest in ensuring that policies and programs in community colleges effectively helped low-income women and non-traditional students to advance to better employment. Additionally, Jenny was one of the founders of Chicago Commons Employment Training Center, which provided comprehensive support services and education and training to women on welfare. She started her career in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms, teaching adults to speak English, training teachers, developing programs, and creating curricula.

Jenny holds a BA in social studies from Harvard College and an MA in linguistics and ESL teaching from Northeastern Illinois University. She lives in Chicago with her partner, Aaron.