Sam Beard
Mr. Beard has had the privilege of creating, marketing and then chairing programs for each of the last seven Presidents of the United States – Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. In 1969, Mr. Beard founded and remains Chairman of the National Development Council (NDC), a national non-profit organization dedicated to redeveloping urban and rural low-income communities. In 1972, along with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and U.S. Senator Robert Taft, Jr., Mr. Beard co-founded the Jefferson Awards for Public Service to create a Nobel Prize for public service. For Mr. Beard’s full bio, click here
Steven D. Biedermann
Steven joined the board when he was investment portfolio manager for Chicago Public Schools. Biedermann’s commitment to community service work has made a difference both locally and overseas. He currently serves as the President of the Chicago Peace Corps Association. Steven served two years as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Kiribati as a mathematics instructor at Teabike College. More recently, he spent several months volunteering with the United Nations in southern Sudan on The Global Fund project, and is currently teaching in Palestine.
Grace Tsiang
Dr. Tsiang is the former Director of Undergraduate Economics at the University of Chicago. She has volunteered much of her spare time to increasing financial literacy. Her economics research focuses on human capital utilization and distribution in Malaysia and Taiwan.
Douglas Geib II
Mr. Geib is a financial literacy guru. He is the author of Getting to 30, Financial Advice for My Three Sons. Geib was a Partner with Ernst & Young and a Board Member and CFO of FirstCom, Bloomberg’s #1 fastest growing U.S. publicly traded technology company in 1999.
Timothy Knowles
Mr. Knowles is the Director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, an organization dedicated to improving inner-city education. Previously, Knowles served as deputy superintendent for Teaching and Learning at Boston Public Schools. While in Boston he created two organizations devoted to building the pipeline of high quality teachers and school leaders for Boston Public Schools and served as co-director of the Boston Annenberg Challenge, a nationally recognized effort to improve literacy instruction. He also served as the founding director of Teach for America in New York City. For Mr. Knowles’ full bio, click here.
Donna Gaines
Donna Gaines is the President and CEO of The Alliance of Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs (ABLE). ABLE was founded in 1992 and is comprised of a select group of leading African American CEOs in Chicago that provide proactive mentoring and outreach. Donna served on President Obama’s Transition Team and as a director of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Andrea Moran
Andrea Moran is Managing Director of Marengo Hampshire Partners and has placed executives, built boards, and developed and led teams for clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to emerging venture-backed companies globally. Andrea has over 17 years of Executive search and management experience. She spent her earlier career at DHR International Executive Search as a Director, then joined the start-up team of Parson Group, where she built a full-scale recruiting practice that soon became a profit-center. During her tenure at Parson Group it became Inc. Magazine’s fastest growing private company in 2000 and achieved a phenomenal 27,992% growth over five years. She was recruited to A.T. Kearney as the Director of Global Operations to engineer and implement a business turnaround.
Wendy Irwin
Wendy has been a successful synergist in the profit and non-profit world for over 20 years. As a consultant in launch and roll out strategies, she specializes in creating win-win partnerships and programs. She designs and oversees long term, effective messaging for all parties. Utilizing a customized, community-building approach, she has created development relationships with and for The American Cancer Society, The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, Parkways Foundation (philanthropic arm of the Chicago Park District) NorthShore University HealthSystem and United Way. She consults with and serves on the Board of Directors for Educational Foundations, Health, Arts and Charitable organizations. She leads the development of a parent education series model tapping globally recognized researchers and lecturers in education, physical and mental health and well being. Wendy co-founded Yellow Tractor Program and has helped position the national not for profit as a thought leader in the nutrition, health and wellness, education and self-reliance spaces.
Charisse Conanan, CFA
Charisse is CEO and Founder of Smarteys. Prior to Smarteys, Charisse was a Vice President at JPMorgan Asset Management, where she conducted specialized research and made buy/sell investment decisions for the $10 billion JPMorgan Mid Cap Value Fund (FLMVX). She also created MyFi, the division’s first personal finance series. Charisse teaches online financial classes, blogs about personal financial, and speaks regularly at industry events. Charisse received her MBA from Chicago Booth and BA from Yale University. She is a bid whist enthusiast, NY sports fan, and a professional foodie.
Tony Wilkins
Tony is a passionate believer in mentorship, education and perspective as the keys to helping people achieve their full potential as individuals and improve their ability to contribute to society…locally and globally. Senior Vice President at Northern Trust, President of the Association of Investment Sales Executives, angel investor, member of Hyde Park Angels, cycling enthusiast and MoneyThink fan, Tony relishes oportunities to advise, refer or support organizations and individuals with a plan to make something good happen.
Karen Gordon
Karen is dedicated to ensuring that our next generation of innovators have the skills to be globally competitive and to drive the our future economic growth. Her passion for supporting intellectual advancements has inspired her to launch and support many educational efforts, from early childhood to the university level. Karen sits on a number of state education advisory boards, including the Illinois P-20 Council for Career and College Readiness. She also launched the Illinois Technology Foundation and an annual competition called “50 For the Future”to select the state’s top IT university students. She has worked with Chicago Public Schools to develop innovative programming. Karen has spent her career working to be a change agent within forward-thinking companies; she pioneered online travel for American Express, has moved 140 newspapers real estate classified advertising online for Classified Ventures, and has been very active with companie in the Internet startup community. She is currently the Chief Product Officer at Apparel Media, a company that matches sponsors to local NFP’s.