Back, left to right: Bryan Samuels, Janet Chess, David Bley, Stephanie Moore, George F. Spencer, Dr. Hanh Cao Yu
Not pictured: Tom Elden, Marty Rodgers
David Bley, Chair
David Bley is the former director of the Pacific Northwest Initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focusing on homelessness, public education, early childhood education and the COVID pandemic. He also served for 14 months as the interim CEO/President of Seattle Foundation. Earlier in his career, Bley worked in nonprofit housing finance, for-profit banking and housing finance, in the Seattle Mayor Norm Rice administration, eight years on Capitol Hill with the Washington congressional delegation and at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Bley serves on the board of directors of Jewish Family Services of Seattle and the Holocaust Center for Humanity, and is co-chair of a local capital campaign for the African Housing and Community Development organization serving immigrants and refugees from the African diaspora who have settled in Seattle. Bley, who is retired, lives in Seattle with his wife, Jennifer Cargal, and together they raised three sons.
Meet David Bley
Lisa Morrison Butler
Lisa Morrison Butler is Executive Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at Results for America. She previously served as Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family & Support Services in two mayoral administrations. During her tenure, she led organizational transformation aimed at greater overall impact, overhauling the department’s approach to contracting and improving performance, embedding a focus on outcomes across seven program divisions and 60 program models. Morrison Butler holds a B.S. from Indiana University and pursued post-graduate studies at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She was featured in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Government Performance Lab “Innovator Interview” for her efforts to improve outcomes at Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services, Her work at the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) to stand up the City of Chicago government’s first data warehouse was featured in Government Technology.
Meet Lisa Morrison Butler
Prudence Beidler Carr
Prudence Beidler Carr is the Director of the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, where she manages a team that advances access to justice for children, parents, and families. Beidler Carr provides expertise on Center projects related to the history of child welfare law, legal representation, updates in federal legislation, and child welfare and immigration. She has a background in government, nonprofit management, and children’s advocacy. Before joining the ABA, Beidler Carr lived in Mexico City where she worked to provide intensive therapeutic support to help youth living on the street reintegrate with their families and communities. Previously, Prudence worked in the Department of Homeland Security Office of General Counsel. One of her first experiences in child welfare was a summer internship with Chapin Hall. She has a B.A. from Harvard and a J.D. from Northwestern and she lives in Washington, DC with her husband and children.
Meet Prudence Beidler Carr
Janet Chess
Janet Chess is a business and civic leader with 35+ years’ experience delivering profitable revenue growth and stewarding complex relationships to enable shared success. Known to clients and stakeholders as a trusted advisor, Janet’s experience spans multiple functional areas, including product, sales, consulting, talent, operations, and corporate responsibility. Recognized for driving transformational growth for iconic brands, Janet held executive leadership roles and was responsible for enterprise and ecosystem business units; she drove corporate citizenship strategies for Xerox, Microsoft and IBM. Known for her ability to inspire a shared vision, Janet is at her best when connected to a purpose and mission greater than the role in which she serves. Janet received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Joseph E. Pogue Merit Scholar. She has participated in executive education programs, including the London Business School.
Meet Janet Chess
Tom Elden
Tom Elden is the founder of Green Mill Capital, a Chicago-based private equity investment firm. He also serves as the managing partner of Lakeview Capital Management. Elden was the founder and for 10 years the managing partner of Origami Capital Partners, a special situations private equity firm, with approximately $1.3 billion of assets under management. Prior to forming Green Mill and Origami, Elden was a partner with Grosvenor Capital Management, L.P., (now called GCM Grosvenor), a $75 billion multi-manager investment firm, which he joined in 1993. Previously, he held positions at SEI Corporation and Sterling Partners, a leveraged buyout firm. He serves on the investment committee of the Irving Harris Foundation and was previously a director of A Better Chicago, a venture philanthropy fund. Elden has a BA from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Meet Tom Elden
Justin Milner
Justin Milner is the Executive Vice President of Evidence and Evaluation at Arnold Ventures. Milner leads a cross-cutting portfolio focused on evidence-based policy and evaluation. His team oversees research investments to increase the effectiveness of social spending by scaling what works, and working to embed evidence into policymaking processes. Milner has more than 20 years of experience focused on the intersection of research, policy, and impact in the nonprofit, philanthropic, and public sectors. Prior to joining Arnold Ventures, he was Vice President of the Research to Action Lab at the Urban Institute, where he directed a team of 40+ staff and led strategy development and program innovation and design. In previous roles, Milner worked at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and as a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles through Teach For America. Milner holds an M.P.A. from Princeton University and a B.A. from Yale University.
Stephanie Moore
Stephanie Moore is a results-driven cybersecurity executive with more than two decades of experience leading offensive and defensive cyber operations. At Booz Allen Hamilton, she has directed multimillion-dollar programs, advanced risk management and compliance, and integrated AI-driven solutions to strengthen mission-critical systems. Recognized for fostering security-first organizational cultures and delivering more than $140M in successful procurements, she is also deeply committed to equity and inclusion. A first-generation college graduate, Stephanie champions expanding access to STEM education for young women and girls, particularly Black girls and young women, and has been honored nationally for her leadership, including recognition as a Black Engineer of the Year Modern Day Technology Leader. She holds an M.S. in Global Engineering Leadership from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Norfolk State University.
Marty Rodgers
Marty Rodgers leads Accenture’s U.S. Health & Public Service Client Group and serves on the company’s Global Management Committee. He oversees a nationwide team that partners with healthcare and public sector organizations to harness technology to improve policymaking, service delivery, patient outcomes, health equity and operational efficiency. In his 25 years at Accenture, Rodgers has led the company’s Health & Public Service business in the Southeast U.S. and launched the company’s for-profit Nonprofit Practice. Before Accenture, Rodgers worked on Capitol Hill, where he played a key role in drafting the bill that established AmeriCorps. His efforts also led to the recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a National Day of Service. Rodgers also dedicated time to serving the Diocese of Gallup in New Mexico, where he focused on supporting Native American children. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Business School.
Meet Marty Rodgers
Bryan Samuels
Bryan Samuels is the Executive Director at Chapin Hall and an ex-officio member of the Chapin Hall Board of Directors. He has expertise integrating empirical evidence into public policy decision making and into managing government agencies, the design and delivery of programs, and frontline practice. Samuels focuses on identifying and addressing inequities. Today, he leads Chapin Hall’s national efforts to develop and apply evidence to inform effective human service systems. Samuels matches Chapin Hall’s historical reputation for rigorous research with unparalleled in-house policy expertise. Samuels was previously the commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also served as chief of staff at Chicago Public Schools and as director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Samuels holds a Masters of Public Policy from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and a BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.
George F. Spencer
George F. Spencer is the Chief Impact Officer for Thrive Scholars, where he leads high-impact teams and strategies to drive the organization’s mission forward through revenue generation, innovation, and strategic collaboration. Prior to joining Thrive Scholars, Spencer served as Strategic Advisor to the President and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and served as TMCF’s Chief Innovation and Growth Officer. During his tenure, TMCF provided more than $500 million in assistance to its students and member schools and scaled to over $100 million in annual revenue. Spencer holds an MBA from Queens University of Charlotte, a BS in Computer Science from Norfolk State University, and an Executive Certification in International Business Management from Georgetown University.
Meet George F. Spencer
Dr. Hanh Cao Yu
Dr. Hanh Cao Yu is the Executive Director of the Center for Evaluation Innovation, where she leads the organization’s work to provide changemakers the resources needed to advance racial justice and create an equitable future. Previously, Yu was the special issues editor for The Foundation Review, and she served as the Chief Learning Officer at The California Endowment, where she oversaw learning, strategic development, evaluation, and impact activities. Yu’s career spans three decades in the research, evaluation, and philanthropic sectors. She has expertise in culturally responsive, equitable evaluation, in health and racial equity, social change philanthropy, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, policy advocacy evaluation, community organizing, and movement building. As a researcher at Stanford University, Yu authored numerous publications and contributed to The Handbook on Leadership Development Evaluation (Jossey-Bass, 2006). Her recent writings can be found in the Stanford Social Innovation Review Philanthropic Investment in Power and Building People Power Series.
Meet Dr. Hanh Cao Yu
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