Cynthia A - LeaderSpring

“A Bolder Form of Leadership”
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
(Networking 11 to 11:30 a.m.)
Berkeley City Club
Courageous  Provocative  Risk-taking
Join our dynamic and diverse network of Bay Area social sector leaders, board members,
funding partners, and social change agents. We will be exploring bold leadership at work
for our communities – leaders who dare to be courageous, provocative, and risk-taking
toward a healthy and equitable society.
Panelists
Christina Bui
Vice President
Robert Half
José A. Quiñonez
Founder and CEO
Mission Asset Fund
Lateefah Simon
Program Director
Rosenberg
Foundation
Leadership Event Committee Co-Chairs
Fred Blackwell
CEO
The San Francisco
Foundation
Jenny Flores
Senior Vice President
Bank of the West
James W. Head
President & CEO
East Bay Community
Foundation
Fred Mendez
Managing Director
MUFG Union Bank
Panelist Bios
Christina Bui is Vice President of Enterprise Solutions for Robert Half. She develops business consulting
and project staffing engagements, leveraging the depth and breadth of Robert Half’s staffing
capabilities, and Protiviti’s (Robert Half’s wholly-owned subsidiary) consulting methodologies and
thought leadership. Prior to Robert Half, Christina was Associate Managing Partner of Tatum, a
national interim CFO firm; Vice President of Parsons Corporation, one of the world’s largest
engineering and construction firms; Associate at Encore Capital Management, a private investment
company and venture capital firm; and on the Corporate Government Affairs team of Johnson &
Johnson, representing it on Capitol Hill. She is President Emeritus and Executive Board Member of the
Association of Corporate Growth (ACG) – San Francisco; Co-Chaired the ACG M&A West Coast
Conference in 2013, 2014, and 2015; Board Member of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates; Advisory
Board Member of the Asian Pacific Fund; and Community Board Member of St. Brendan Parish in San
Francisco.
José A. Quiñonez is the founding CEO of Mission Asset Fund (MAF), an award-winning nonprofit with
an innovative, nationwide model for integrating financially excluded, low-income communities into the
financial mainstream. He is a passionate advocate for social justice and visionary leader, highly
regarded in the consumer finance field. José was appointed by the Director for the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau as the inaugural Chair of the Consumer Advisory Board. He was elected into the
Ashoka Fellowship; selected to the Aspen Institute Fellowship for Emerging Nonprofit Leaders; and
given both the James Irvine Leadership Award and Latino Leader Magazine SF Maestro Award. He is a
member of the Board of Directors for Credit Builders Alliance; Experian’s Consumer Advisory Council;
and the California State Controller’s Financial Literacy Advisory Committee. A former legislative
assistant for Congressman Ruben Hinojosa and a nonprofit lobbyist in Washington, D.C., José
advocated for federal policy change regarding immigration, hunger, and welfare reform.
Lateefah Simon is Program Director for the Rosenberg Foundation, which seeks to change the odds for
Californians through statewide grantmaking to support policy change. She is an advocate for lowincome young women and girls, and for juvenile and criminal justice reform. At 19, Lateefah was
appointed executive director of the Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD). She then led the
creation of San Francisco’s first reentry services division, launching the flagship program Back on Track,
now replicated across the country and selected as a national model. Prior to that, she served as
executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the SF Bay Area. Lateefah has served
on numerous boards and has received: the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, inclusion in O Magazine’s
first “Power List,” Ford Foundation’s Leadership for A Changing World, the Remarkable Woman Award
from Lifetime Television, the Levi Straus Pioneer Activist Fellowship, and the New Frontier Award from
the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. She was also Winter 2014 Social Entrepreneurs-in-Residence
(SEERS) Fellow at Stanford University.
Leadership Event Committee Co-Chair Bios
Fred Blackwell is CEO of The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF), one of the largest community
foundations in the country. An Oakland native, Fred is a nationally recognized community leader with a
longstanding career in the Bay Area. He has served as Interim City Administrator for the City of Oakland
where he previously served as the Assistant City Administrator. He was the Executive Director of the SF
Redevelopment Agency and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Development in San
Francisco; served as the Director of the Making Connections Initiative for the Annie E. Casey
Foundation; was a Multicultural Fellow in Neighborhood and Community Development at TSFF; and
subsequently managed a multi-year comprehensive community initiative for TSFF in West Oakland.
Fred serves on the board of the SF Bay Area Super Bowl 50 Legacy Fund and UC Berkeley’s College of
Environment Design’s Advisory Council. He was also one of LeaderSpring’s founding board members.
Jenny Flores is Senior Vice President and Head of Community Affairs and Corporate Social
Responsibility for Bank of the West, a leading regional financial services company based in California
since 1874. She oversees the Bank’s Community Affairs Department and Philanthropic Investments,
and manages a national team dedicated to ensuring that the bank effectively meets the financial and
credit needs of low-to-moderate income consumers in its 19-state footprint. Jenny previously served
as the Community Development Director for Citi in Northern California. Prior to that, she was Executive
Director of the Congress of California Seniors, a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting
seniors and low-income families. She also has extensive experience in legislative affairs through
previous positions with the Greenlining Institute and the California State Legislature. Among her
numerous community and nonprofit affiliations, Jenny serves on the board of the Mission Economic
Development Agency (MEDA) in SF and on the Operation HOPE Northern California Regional Board.
James W. Head is President & Chief Executive Officer of the East Bay Community Foundation. Before
joining the Foundation in 2014, he served for 10 years as Vice President for Programs at The San
Francisco Foundation, where he spearheaded initiatives on race, equity, poverty, housing, economic
development, and youth development. James has more than 30 years of experience in philanthropy,
nonprofit management, and technical assistance; community and economic development; and public
interest law. He served as president of the National Economic Development and Law Center for 18
years. Additionally, he served as legal counsel to the California Community Economic Development
Association and has been a member of foundation advisory boards, including the Open Society
Foundation of New York and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation of Michigan. He has served on the
Oakland Port Commission since 2009. He is an adjunct professor at University of California at
Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law, University of California at San Francisco’s Hastings School of Law, and
University of Santa Clara’s School of Law. He has been an Oakland resident for more than 25 years.
Horacio “Fred” Mendez is a Managing Director for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the
Americas for MUFG Union Bank. He is responsible for the bank’s outreach strategy for CSR, including
connection with: Community Reinvestment Act requirements, supplier diversity, philanthropy,
sustainable finance, and creating a network by which MUFG’s broad suite of products and services are
made available to underserved populations from Canada to Argentina. Previously, Fred was Rabobank,
N.A.’s Chief Sustainability Officer, overseeing its CSR and Community Reinvestment Programs with an
emphasis on food, agriculture, and rural economic development. He was a Senior Fellow at the Aspen
Institute, a director at SVB Financial Group, and a senior investment specialist at the Federal Reserve
Bank of SF. He worked on the options floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, ran the fixed income desk for
Continental Savings of America, and was a financial industry specialist for Dow Jones/Telerate. He is on
the board of Valley Vision, a founding board member of MUST!Charities, and a former board member
of the California Association for Local Economic Development and the Crocker Art Museum.