As the former Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco, Alex has played a leadership role in building CPA’s service, organizing, and civic engagement programs. Through the CPA Action Fund, Alex has nearly a decade of experience leading integrated Chinese field and communications for a range of political issues. Alex’s research on the Chinese Right Wing has served as a critical resource for the stakeholders, funders and the field. Through the Open Society Foundations Racial Equity Fellowship, he will be developing an organizing toolkit on confronting the Chinese Right Wing. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Common Counsel Foundation and Board of Directors of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE). Alex is born and raised in the Bay area.

Le Tim Ly is the CEO of Resilient Strategies LLC and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Empowered Politics Education Fund (CEPEF).  In these roles, He also currently serves as the Director of the Everyday People PAC which includes Seed the Vote.  Le has spent the last 20 years working for racial, environmental, and economic justice with grassroots community organizations, including Youth United for Community Action (YUCA), the Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action (PILA) and the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco.  

J is a fourth generation, Hawaii rooted, Japanese-American organizer, partner, and parent who centers their values of play and interdependence at the core of their work. They draw on 20 years of organizing experience with Californians for Justice, Youth Organize! California, and the Center for Empowered Politics Education Fund. Their deep background in BIPOC youth organizing and capacity building brings expertise in campaign strategy, base-building & leadership development, organizational development & change management, and strategic planning. J has designed and guided leadership transitions, organizational assessments, and program redesign processes to build organizations that are sustainable, effective, and accountable to its values and membership. J currently lives in San Jose, California with their partner, two kids, and two cats.

For the past 20 years, Priscilla has been an organizer at the intersection of racial, economic, and gender justice. Rooted in diverse working-class communities of color, Priscilla has worked in and alongside grassroots organizations and community leaders to execute mass organizing and advocacy strategies. As the daughter of a domestic worker, she is especially proud of her work in helping to pass the nation’s first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York State. As a native New Yorker, she also helped to lead the largest unprecedented campaign and coalition against policing abuse in NYC, securing significant legislative, legal, and movement-building wins. Most recently, she was Campaigns Director at Mijente, the leading digital and grassroots hub for Latinx and Chicanx organizing and movement building in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. She is currently based in Texas.

Vanessa is a Program Director at the Center for Empowered Politics Education Fund. Formerly the Executive Director at Causa Justa :: Just Cause, she brings the lessons learned from two decades of building and leading racial and economic justice organizing efforts. She now supports power building organizations in evolving their infrastructure and organizational culture to support a thriving movement ecosystem. Vanessa found her calling after moving to the Bay and working with brilliant organizers on youth development, police accountability, transformative justice and being trained at the Labor Community Strategy Center in LA. She currently serves as a National Organizer with LeftRoots, a national formation of social movement organizers and activists who want to connect grassroots struggles to a strategy to win liberation for all people and the planet. Her other (& favorite) source of growth and inspiration is her second grader.

In addition to being the Program Director at CEPEF, Geordee is also a coach, organizer, and facilitator in the Bay Area. Geordee brings with her a decade of experience in grassroots organizing and capacity building, and deeply understands what is being demanded of leaders who are fighting for liberation for Black and Brown working-class communities. She also serves as the Board Chair for Filipino Advocates for Justice. When she’s not doing movement work, Geordee Mae loves to enjoy basketball (especially her team the Warriors), being in nature, and being a dog mama to Izzy.

Carolyn is a Vietnamese American child of refugees from Orange County, CA. She has an almost decade-long history and passion for youth organizing, including lead organizing with the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco, and student organizing at UC Berkeley. Carolyn also earned her Master of Social work in 2024, and is currently an Associate Clinical Social Worker seeking an LCSW to practice therapeutic mental health interventions with staff and community leaders in our movement. In her free time, Carolyn enjoys jogging, watching bad reality TV, and spending time with family and friends.

Katia moved from Morelia, Michoacan to San Jose at the age of three and first stepped into organizing as a freshman in high school. She comes from a family made up of strong women who helped center social justice in her life. She joined Californians for Justice in high school, and while at CFJ she honed her organizing, canvassing, fundraising, event planning, and leadership skills holding various roles, the most current being the Partnerships & Project Director. When she’s not transforming the world around her, she enjoys reading or coloring with a nice cup of coffee to relax or even, better binge watching Netflix (purely for sociological analysis of how television and cinema reflect our current zeitgeist). When tired of being inside she enjoys being outdoors with her 2 fur babies Cerberus and Fenrir.

Movement comms by way of community media; Karina has supported organizations in building programs that develop collective and individual leadership while aligning their media with their values, capacity and political strategy. This has taken the shape of cultivating spaces where young people have the support to lead place-based journalism programs, coalition-based multilingual productions, and intergenerational media institutes. They have worked in a leadership capacity in public television and movement organizations.

May is a movement-rooted researcher and educator with 10 years of experience around collaboratively leveraging the power of data and storytelling to bolster movement building. She has co-led documentation of impacts and lessons of organizing and campaigns with Californians for Justice, YO! Cali, Gender and Sexualities Alliance Network, and other movement groups. Equipped with a PhD in Sociology, May has published on the power and needs of youth and community organizing groups in several peer-reviewed academic journals and public reports co-authored with USC’s Equity Research Institute. May is deeply informed by organizing experiences around issues such as gentrification, divesting from policing, and queer anti-imperialist perspectives. As an Ethnic Studies educator, she seeks to bridge classrooms with local movements, cultivate student power, and transform academic labor conditions.