TEAM
Kabira Stokes holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of Southern California with a focus in Prison Reentry Policy and Environmental Governance. She has consulted for the non-profit Green For All; worked for the City of Los Angeles as Senior Field Deputy for City Council President Eric Garcetti, focusing on Public Safety and Youth Development issues; and was the co-founder and vice-president of the Young Progressive Majority (YPM) of Los Angeles, a 5,000-member organization dedicated to increasing young voter turnout and education around local and state elections. Kabira is a graduate of Vassar College with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Spanish, and in 2010 was the recipient of the “Emerging Giant of Justice” award from CLUE Los Angeles.
Aaron Malloy attended the USC Marshall School of Business and earned an MBA as a Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Fellow. He concentrated in marketing and entrepreneurship. Prior to business school, Aaron was a Research Associate at ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. He earned his Bachelors Degree in economics from UC Berkeley. He is responsible for developing and managing operations, overseeing the training program and providing mentorship and leadership for the trainees.
Lulu is a proud native Los Angelean who moved north to the Bay Area to earn her Bachelors degree in Media Communications at San Francisco State University. Prior to coming to Isidore, Lulu created and implemented curriculum for an intensive Summer Media Arts program for inner-city youth funded by the Pasadena based non-profit New Vision Partners where she also worked as a tutor and mentor. Lulu has also held management positions within a market research company and a media distribution company, as well as currently co-hosting and producing a youth oriented social issues radio program on KPFK Los Angeles. She manages the Isidore office and special projects.
ELVIS - Management Trainee
ERIC - Warehouse Associate
ADVISORS
VAN JONES – President & Co-Founder, Rebuild The Dream
Van Jones is president and co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a pioneering initiative to restore good jobs and economic opportunity. Van has a 15-year track record as a successful, innovative and award-winning social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of three, thriving nonprofit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green For All. He is the author of a New York Times best seller, The Green Collar Economy, the definitive book on green jobs. The World Economic Forum named Van a Young Global Leader in 2005. A Yale-educated attorney, Van worked as the green jobs advisor to the Obama White House in 2009. There, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green recovery spending. During the 2010-11 academic year, Van taught environmental policy and politics at Princeton University. Today, he serves on the boards of several prestigious organizations, including the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund.
OMAR BROWNSON - Executive Director, LA River Revitalization Corporation
Omar Brownson is the first executive director of the LA River Revitalization Corporation. He drives forward innovative projects that enhance the LA River as a unique civic space and the longest urban greenway in the country. He has dedicated his career to improving urban communities, spanning private equity, real estate development, and public policy. He currently serves on advisory board of the venture philanthropy group REDF. He is also former chairman of the Liberty Hill Foundation. Mr. Brownson holds a graduate degree in public policy and urban planning from Harvard University, where he also won the Urban Land Institute’s Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition. At the University of California, Davis, he earned a dual degree in international relations, and nature and culture. Mr. Brownson was a Coro Fellow and served in Public Allies, an Americorps program.
BEN GOLDHIRSH - Co-Founder & CEO, GOOD Worldwide LLC
Benjamin Goldhirsh is the co-founder and CEO of GOOD, an editorially led, member driven community of people, NGOs, and corporations pushing our world forward. Active in both regional and international philanthropic endeavors, Ben is one of the Directors of The Goldhirsh Foundation, which supports dynamic social programs, environmental initiatives, innovative medical research, and leading cultural institutions. Ben serves on the Board of Millennium Promise, an organization guided by the UN’s Millennium Development goals to end extreme global poverty by 2025, as well as the Los Angeles Board of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and the board of City Year Los Angeles.
CARRIE NORTON - Founder & President, Green Business BASECAMP
Carrie Norton’s professional mission is to prove the business case for sustainability, and she has spent over a decade building expertise in sustainable business and entrepreneurship in a broad range of companies, including incubators Garage Technology Ventures and Idealab. Today, Carrie serves as the Founder and President of Green Business BASE CAMP, a global acceleration program and eLearning platform for green entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Prior to founding GBBC, she held a succession of Senior Management roles in Market and Project Development in the commercial solar power industry, serving early-adopting clients such as Google, Sony, British Telecom, Dow Corning and Toyota. Carrie's community leadership includes work with Grid Alternatives, the Clean Economy Network, Net Impact, the Sustainable Business Council of Los Angeles (an organization she co-founded in 2005), and as an Adjunct Faculty member at the Graziadio School of Management at Pepperdine University. She is a member of the 2010 class of Catto Fellows of the Aspen Institute.
CATHERINE GEANURACOS - Founder & Principal at New Economy Campaigns
Catherine Geanuracos leverages technology and media to create global movements that respond to the most urgent social, environmental and political issues of our time. Her firm, New Economy Campaigns, is a digital strategy and social media consultancy founded in 2010. She is currently providing consulting services to Rock the Vote, to IKEA, and to Eric Garcetti’s mayoral campaign. She recently developed campaign strategies for 10x10: Educate Girls, Change the World, and the Energy Foundation. She oversaw multiple components of Live Earth during three years as its General Manager, including program development, interactive strategy, public relations, sponsorship, and nonprofit and promotional partnerships. From 2004-2006, she helped to shape innovative programs for MoveOn.org, using technology to expanded opportunities for political engagement. She was the founding CTO of MomsRising.org and advises Zimride/Carpool on Facebook, Social Media Week, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and CicLAvia.
GREGG KEESLING - Founder & Executive Director, Recycleforce
Gregg Keesling is an Indiana “Hoosier,” with a pronounced streak of Jamaican influence. After twenty years living and working in Jamaica, Gregg returned to Indianapolis in 1996 and created Keys to Work, an alternative-staffing company focused on serving the welfare to work population. In 2005 he left Keys and began the social enterprise, Workforce, Inc., dba RecycleForce, an electronic recycler which employs individuals coming out of incarceration in a service-rich environment. Since inception, he has helped 400 individuals return home and processed over 12 million pounds of materials for re-use in manufacturing. In 2009, Keesling gained the Social Innovation Award from the Social Venture Network (SVN) and was asked to become a member of the National Transitional Jobs Network executive committee. In 2011 RecycleForce was awarded a $5.5M Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration grant from the United States Department of Labor.
LEA ENDRES – Chief of Staff, NationBuilder
Lea Endres is NationBuilder's Chief of Staff. An educator and human rights advocate, Lea has spent the last two decades developing programs, curricula, and media that engage people in the process of social change. While serving as Education Director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, she helped create what became the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign and authored the U.S.’s first curriculum on eco-equity. She was a founding board member of Green For All and later served as the organization’s Chief of Staff.
DAVID JOSHUA LEVY - Innovation Manager, FURTHER by Design
David is multi-industry, high impact pioneer. He led and managed at PAX Scientific as VP of Strategy and Development from September 2010 – May 2012. He brought investors, customers, and partners to PAX Scientific from a wide array of industries and economic centers including Beijing, Silicon Valley, and Nashville. Prior to joining PAX Scientific, while earning his MBA, David worked as an Associate in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. From 2003 - 2008, David served as Founder and President of Threshold Music, a company that produced original music for national and international television advertising campaigns. While launching Threshold, he co-founded the Young Progressive Majority, a non-profit voter outreach, education and engagement network that quickly grew to over 5,000 artists, young professionals and public officials. He holds a BA in History and a BA in Music from Northwestern University (2000) and an MBA from Vanderbilt University (2010).
LEGAL COUNSEL
SUSAN H. MAC CORMAC, J.D. – Partner, Morrison Foerster