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Make It Fair: Policy Change for an Equitable California
Friday, October 16, 2015 – 9:00AM to 1:00PM
San Francisco Foundation, One Embarcadero Center, Suite 1400 San Francisco, CA
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Francesca Vietor, Program Director, Environment, Public Policy, and Civic Engagement,
The San Francisco Foundation
Francesca focuses on efforts to improve the environmental health of vulnerable communities,
build resilience in the face of the changing climate, and tackle economic inequality and wealth
disparity in the Bay Area. Francesca is also a Commissioner on the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission, where she leads policymaking for the City and County of San Francisco’s
water, wastewater, and municipal power services. Before that, she was Executive Director of
the Chez Panisse Foundation, where she advanced nutrition education and food justice issues.
Previously, she was President of the Urban Forest Council, President of the Commission on the
Environment, and the Chair of Mayor Newsom’s Environmental Transition Team. She has
worked for several non-profits, including Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace, and she
serves on the boards of SPUR and Environmental Working Group. Francesca holds a Bachelor
of Sciences degree from Georgetown University and she pens a blog for The Huffington Post.
Fred Blackwell, CEO, The San Francisco Foundation
Fred is a visionary leader working to ensure shared prosperity, innovation, and equity in the Bay
Area. As CEO of The San Francisco Foundation, he leads one of the largest community
foundations in the country, working hand-in-hand with donors, nonprofits, community leaders,
business, and government partners in philanthropy to identify, influence, and leverage best
practices and long-term solutions to make a greater impact in our community.
Blackwell, an Oakland native, is a nationally recognized community leader with a longstanding
career in the Bay Area. Prior to joining the Foundation, he 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 San Francisco 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 in the Lower San Antonio
neighborhood of Oakland; was a Multicultural Fellow in Neighborhood and Community
Development at The San Francisco Foundation; and subsequently managed a multi-year
comprehensive community initiative for TSFF in West Oakland.
Blackwell currently serves on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Super Bowl 50 Legacy
Fund, UC Berkeley’s College of Environment Dean’s Advisory Council, and as an advisor for
Google Impact Challenge: Bay Area. He previously served on the boards of California
Redevelopment Association, Urban Habitat Program, LeaderSpring, SPUR and Leadership
Excellence. He holds a Master’s degree in City Planning from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor’s
degree in Urban Studies from Morehouse College.
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Judith Bell, Vice President of Programs, The San Francisco Foundation
Judith brings extensive experience in strategic planning and policy development, with a focus on
economic and social equity to the Foundation. Previous to joining the Foundation, Judith was
the President of PolicyLink where she had been since its inception, becoming President in
2004. As President, Judith worked to develop the organization into a national leader on a range
of equity issues, with her particular focus being policy development and campaign strategy at
the local, state, and national levels. Her leadership helped ignite a new national narrative
around access and opportunity for all people with a focus on improving health and
infrastructure, including increasing access to healthy foods.
Judith contributed to the successful establishment of the national Healthy Food Financing
Initiative and the Convergence Partnership, which brings together some of the nation’s largest
foundations to collectively advance healthy people and healthy places through the many
touchstones of health and equity, including the food system, community economic development,
and prevention. She also played a leadership role in launching and advancing the federal
Promise Neighborhoods program and by helping to create the Promise Neighborhoods Institute
at PolicyLink.
Before PolicyLink, Judith directed the West Coast Regional Office of Consumers Union where
she engaged in efforts to improve the quality of life for all consumers, particularly in access to
health care. She spearheaded a campaign to preserve more than $14 billion in charitable
assets, resulting in the creation of several foundations in California and across the country. She
is a regular writer for news outlets and academic publications and has authored several studies
including, Why Place and Race Matter: Impacting Health through a Focus on Race and Place.
She is a frequent speaker, trainer, and consultant on advocacy strategy. She holds an
undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master’s of public
administration from Harvard University where she was a Lucius Littauer fellow.
Robert Friedman, Founder and General Counsel, Corporation for Enterprise Development
Robert (Bob) Friedman founded CFED in 1979 and continues as General Counsel. Bob’s most
recent initiatives are launching the 1:1 Fund, the Initiative to Balance America’s Asset Budget
and the New Entrepreneur Tax Credit Initiative. In the recent past, Bob was an instrumental
leader in the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment (SEED) program, an
initiative to create an inclusive system of children’s saving accounts in the United States. He
continues to contribute to numerous efforts to develop the asset-building movements, as well as
advising on new strategies to bring excluded communities into the economic mainstream as
entrepreneurs, savers, investors, and skilled employees.
A recognized leader in economic development innovation, Bob has contributed to the
development of the U.S. microenterprise field, flexible business networks, state and federal
entrepreneurial policy, innovative benchmarking tools, like CFED’s Assets and Opportunity
Scorecard and asset building. He helped found the Association of Economic Opportunity (AEO).
Based in San Francisco, Mr. Friedman also serves on the Boards of Ecotrust, the Rosenberg
Foundation, the Friedman Family Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and is a former
board member of Levi Strauss & Co. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.
He is author of The Safety Net as Ladder: Transfer Payments and Economic Development and
a contributor to numerous CFED and outside publications.
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Steven Bliss, Director of Strategic Communications, California Budget & Policy Center
Steven Bliss joined the Budget Center in 2011, bringing to the organization 20 years of
experience in strategic communications, policy research, and advocacy. Prior to joining the
Budget Center, he was executive director of Renew Lehigh Valley, which works to promote
urban revitalization and regional equity in eastern Pennsylvania. He previously worked for
several years as a San Francisco-based consultant specializing in policy research and analysis
on housing, welfare, education, workforce development, public health, transportation, and
regional economic development. Steven is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and a graduate of
Northwestern University.
Anthony Thigpenn, President, California Calls
Anthony Thigpenn, a Los Angeles-based community organizer for more than 30 years, heads
California Calls, a powerful alliance of 31 organizations in 12 counties around the state. The
centerpiece of California Calls is to achieve progressive, long-term tax and fiscal policy reform
by engaging underrepresented, low-income voters in state public policy decision-making.
Mr. Thigpenn is widely recognized as a leading expert in grassroots, civic engagement
technology and programs. He ran successful field campaigns for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa, Congresswoman Karen Bass, State Senator Kevin de León, and former City
Councilmember Martin Ludlow, among others.
Mr. Thigpenn is also the founder and president of Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy
Education (SCOPE), a grassroots organization formed in South Los Angeles shortly after the
1992 uprising in the city. It was formerly known as AGENDA.
Aparna Shah, Executive Director, Mobilize the Immigrant Vote
Aparna has worked for social change and expanded democracy with immigrant and low-income
communities for over 20 years. Under her leadership, MIV has organized statewide campaigns
directly reaching 175,000+ immigrant and refugee New American voters, built the long-term
infrastructure and capacity of grassroots immigrant organizations across the state to run
electoral and issue campaigns, and established a sister organization, the MIV Action Fund. Prior
to joining MIV in 2009, Aparna worked to advance the self-determination and reproductive
justice of women, people of color, and queer communities and spent several years working to
transform a public middle school into a vibrant youth and community center in San Francisco’s
Mission District. Aparna sits on the Board of the Brown Boi Project and the East Oakland
Community Playdate, and holds a Masters of Health Sciences from Johns Hopkins School of
Public Health. She was born in Manila, grew up in Mumbai, and now lives with her family in
Oakland, CA.
Alex Tom, Executive Director, Chinese Progressive Association and Leadership
Alex T. Tom is Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). With over
fifteen years of experience organizing for social and economic justice, Alex has played a
leadership role in building CPA’s service, organizing, and civic engagement programs. Before
becoming CPA’s Executive Director, Alex served as the Campaign Coordinator where he built
the CPA Worker Organizing Center and led campaigns to organize workers in the garment and
restaurant industries, winning millions of dollars in back wages. Alex has also played a key role
in local, state, and national movement building. On a local level, Alex was a Co-founding
Executive Director of the San Francisco Rising Alliance, a nine-member grassroots multiracial
electoral alliance and regional anchor of California Calls. He serves on the Steering Committee
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of AAPIs for Civic Empowerment, a new statewide initiative to build grassroots civic
engagement infrastructure. CPA is also a member of Moblize the Immigrant Vote’s Strategy
Council. Last summer, CPA launched Seeding Change - a Center for Asian American
Movement Building, CPA's national project that includes building a national pipeline for the next
generation of AAPI organizers; creating an infrastructure for AAPI grassroots organizing; and
experimenting with building power and scale for our movements toward a vibrant social and
economic justice movement.
Alex has a BA in Political Science and Ethnic studies with a minor in Education from the
University of California, San Diego. Alex T. Tom is the Executive Director of the Chinese
Progressive Association (CPA) in San Francisco, California.