President Emerita, Child Trends

Carol Emig has spent her career advancing the well-being of children and youth, with particular focus on reducing child poverty, expanding and strengthening early care and education, improving child welfare services, and promoting racial equity.

From 2006 until her retirement in 2023, Carol served as President & CEO of Child Trends, the nation’s leading research center on children and youth. Under her leadership, Child Trends added robust research areas in child welfare, poverty, and trauma-informed care; launched the Child Trends Hispanic Institute, now the nation’s leading research center on Latino children; created new research areas on Black and Indigenous children; expanded its capacity to support policymakers with data and research; and grew its communications function. During her tenure, the number of staff grew more than fivefold, from 50 to more than 250.

From 2002 to 2006, Carol was Executive Director of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, a blue-ribbon panel of child welfare experts. Many of the Commission’s recommendations were enacted by Congress or adopted by state agencies and state Supreme Courts. Her other professional experiences include Deputy Director of the National Commission on Children, a bipartisan Congressional-Presidential panel; Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy; director of a state children’s advocacy organization; and, early in her career, research assistant to First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

In addition to serving as chair of the Board of Raising a Reader, Carol is president of the Board of the Children’s Chorus of Washington. In the past, she has served on the Boards of the Stoneleigh Foundation and Reach Out and Read, and as an advisor to the Board of Venture Philanthropy Partners.

Carol has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Erica Wood is the president and CEO of the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce which has been building community since 1939. Wood brings to the position more than 25 years of experience in the social sector as well as active business and community involvement in San Mateo County.

Wood has held executive level positions in nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, including Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), the nation’s largest community foundation. While there she was a driving force behind the organization’s growth and success during an unparalleled merger. Wood led major grantmaking programs and award-winning strategic initiatives focused on jobs and the economy, housing and transportation, education, and immigration.

Wood is also the principal of her own consulting firm and worked with the City of Half Moon Bay on a comprehensive regional economic development effort—the Coastside Recovery Initiative— that in a few short months resulted in more than $5 million in public and private investments to support implementation projects.

She graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a senior fellow with the American Leadership Forum and is proud to serve on the national board of Raising a Reader. She is passionate about serving her local community of Half Moon Bay and enjoys hiking on nearby trails with her husband, daughter, and dog.

Michelle Torgerson is dedicated to ensuring education equity for children and families, so that all children have access to the high-quality resources critical to their lifelong success and wellbeing. She has spent 20+ years leading organizations across the country and working alongside communities.

Her approach is equal parts creative, visionary social entrepreneur, and technical turn around executive. Michelle’s career has been focused on creating, growing, and sustaining award winning nonprofit organizations, ensuring measurable impact and long-term viability. She is seasoned in revenue generation including securing startup funding, building boards, creating long range philanthropy and sales engines.

Throughout her career, her focus on radical collaboration through conversations and movements that cross issue areas and sectors has been integral to her success.

Michelle is known for building strong teams with an emphasis on managing for measurable results, fostering team relationships, and creating a culture that develops hard skills and knowledge sharing.

Michelle joined Raising a Reader in June of 2018 as President and CEO and led the organization through one its largest shifts forward in the organization to date. Significantly, this included pivoting the organization’s approach to serving community amid the Covid-19 pandemic by launching two new program offerings which led to increasing the organization’s annual impact reach by nearly 50%. Michelle is proud to be a returning member to Raising a Reader, she previously served the organization, earlier in her career, as an outreach and development manager and was thrilled to come back to a mission that she loves.

Previously, Michelle was senior executive director of Reading Partners, a San Francisco-based literacy intervention organization. There she led the strategic regional growth in the Bay Area, St. Paul, MN and Tulsa, OK.

She also held executive positions at College Possible, a St. Paul based, national nonprofit that makes college admission and success possible for low-income students. She led the organization’s strategic replication, fundraising, and growth into new sites including Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Omaha.

As a management consultant to nonprofits and foundations in Los Angeles, Michelle served as the Vice President at Draper Consulting Group. She worked with over 40 clients in her five-year tenure during the 2008 recession covering a broad range of important issues areas including education, the arts, social services, and health care.

Michelle’s dedication to equity is in part informed by her experience as a National Urban Fellow where she currently serves as founding co-chair of the Alumni Advisory Board. She also serves on the San Francisco Bay Area Advisory Boards of Reach Out and Read, and Parent Child +.

Michelle graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science and received her Master of Public Administration from Bernard M. Baruch College as a National Urban Fellow.

Michelle is honored to have been recognized for her contributions, as the recipient of the State Farm and Golden State Warriors 2017 Community Achievement Award for her service in the San Francisco Bay Area and Emerging Philanthropy Leader of the Year awarded by EPIP for her service in Los Angeles in 2012.

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Michelle now lives in Marin County, just beyond the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, with her partner, Kabra and incredible stepdaughter, Lily. Together, they love to travel the world with friends and family, devour books and delicious food, and sing every lyric of Lin-Manuel Miranda musicals.

Favorite Book from the RAR Collection:
My Friends by Taro Gomi

President and CEO, StriveTogether

Jennifer Blatz is the president and CEO of StriveTogether, a national nonprofit working in 70 communities across the United States to enable nearly 13 million young people to succeed in school and life.

Jennifer is a nationally recognized leader and expert in building place-based partnerships. For two decades, she has designed, developed and implemented strategies that drive large-scale community improvement through partnership with local leaders and organizations.

Prior to taking the helm of StriveTogether, Jennifer served in leadership roles, including Deputy Director and the Senior Director of Operations. She was instrumental in launching the national Cradle to Career Network and creating the StriveTogether Theory of Action™. She also developed a bold plan for 24 communities across the country to reach systems-level transformation by 2023.

Before leading StriveTogether, Jennifer was a founding member of StrivePartnership, serving Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Through her contributions, StrivePartnership became one of the most notable collective impact initiatives in the country.

Jennifer began her career in the education sector. As executive director of Ohio College Access Network, she led a network of community-based programs focused on improving access to and attainment of postsecondary education.

Jennifer serves as a PolicyLink Ambassador for Health Equity and as a LEAP Ambassador. She was also invited to help launch the Weave Movement at the Aspen Institute.

Jennifer has been named a YWCA of Greater Cincinnati Rising Star and a Cincinnati Business Courier Forty Under 40. She is a graduate of United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Volunteer Leadership Development Program, the Billions Institute Skid Row School for Large-Scale Change and the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Women Excel Leadership Program.

Senior Vice President Engineering, Salesforce

Kirk is Senior Vice President of Engineering. Salesforce is the world’s leading customer relationship management (CRM) technology company. It pioneered cloud-based CRM and is helping organizations of all sizes to re-imagine their business in the world of AI to build and improve customer relationships.

In his 30+ years of experience, Kirk has led development teams in both startups and larger corporations. At Salesforce, Kirk leads engineering for several AI enabled cloud products including Non-Profit Cloud, Education Cloud, and Consumer Goods Cloud.

Kirk has held several senior leadership roles at notable Silicon Valley tech companies. Kirk has been the Chief Development Officer for Cohesity (AI-powered data security company), Senior Vice President of Engineering at Tableau (Data Analytics company acquired by Salesforce), Primary Data (intelligent automation software for enterprise data management), and Vice President of Engineering at SanDisk. He also spent over 12 years at NetApp in several engineering leadership roles, and more than 14 years at Silicon Graphics.

Kirk is on the Board of Directors for the national non-profit organization Raising A Reader, and holds memberships with the following organizations: the Executive Leadership Council, Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Eta Kappa Nu, the Purdue EE Honor Society.

Kirk holds both a BSEE and MSEE degree from Purdue University. He has been honored as one of the 2024 Purdue Distinguished Engineering Alumni, and as a 2012 Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering recipient. He has been recognized by World Leaders Magazine: Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America in 2022 and Savoy Magazine: World’s Most Successful Black Corporate Leaders to Watch in 2022.

Kris Perry, Executive Director of Children and Screens, most recently served as Senior Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Deputy Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency where she led the development of the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care and the expansion of access to high-quality early childhood programs. She led systems change efforts at the local, state, and national levels in her role as executive director of First 5 San Mateo, First 5 California, and of the First Five Years Fund. Through it all, Perry has fought to protect children, improve and expand early learning programs, and increase investments in low-income children. Perry was instrumental in returning marriage equality to California after the landmark 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Hollingsworth v. Perry, which she wrote about in her book Love on Trial (Roaring Forties Press, 2017).

Meredith Crooks, Director of Sales Training

Meredith joined Yelp 12 years ago and has grown her career in sales from entry-level to AE to front-line Manager to Director leading sales orgs in New York, Phoenix, and Chicago. She currently leads the Learning and Development team who is responsible for all L&D programming across Yelp’s 2,000 strong local revenue engine including Sales, Customer Success, and Cross-sell/Upsell teams. Meredith has experience and specialty in scaling organizations, accelerating revenue performance, working cross-functionally, coaching, and leadership development. Meredith graduated as a Senior Fellow in the College of Communication from The University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Chicago with husband Liam and two daughters, Poppy (4) and Phoebe (2).

Karen Calloo is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Calloo Consulting Services LLC. Her career spans more than 20 years of solid experience and expertise in building and managing successful accounting and finance functions, including internal controls, accounting processes and policies, financial projections, budgeting, and reporting. She has a track record of leading teams to consistently execute strategies.

Karen was the Chief Financial Officer of Child Trends Incorporated, the nation’s largest research center focused exclusively on improving the lives and prospects of children and youth. In that leadership role, she managed the strategic growth, financial stability of the organization, and served as a key thought partner on its expansion of fund raising.

She built and maintained the organization’s financial function, and trained and mentored an exceptional team of accounting professionals, to deliver clean external financial audits throughout her tenure. She created and managed the organization’s financial budgets that grew from $10 million in revenue and 80 employees, to $30 million in revenue and over 200 employees. She was a strategic partner with the President, Chief Operations Officer, and the Board of Directors, as the team worked to manage growth, and sustain a motivated workforce.

Karen also led the management of the Information Technology function of Child Trends, where she provided leadership and oversight of a team of Technology experts, ensuring that data was rapidly accessible and secure. Through her leadership and vision, the IT infrastructure of the organization had the capability to pivot to remote work, which proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to joining Child Trends, Karen successfully led various accounting departments in multi-million-dollar for-profit companies for 10 years. She directly managed budgets of up to $650 million in revenue, including consolidations of financial statements of up to 45 worldwide subsidiaries. Early in her career, she worked for three years in direct auditing with Arthur Andersen, one of the top six audit firms at that time.

She holds a Master of Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Howard University.

Director/Consultant, Thriving Families Thriving Children

Portia Kennel is a veteran leader in the early childhood field Portia has been a champion for quality early learning focused on closing the opportunity gap for our youngest children. After years of partnering with philanthropic organizations to build and launch innovative early childhood programs, Portia Kennel joined the Buffett Early Childhood Fund in 2015 to serve as a senior advisor to the foundation. During her tenure at the foundation Portia led efforts to develop family engagement program models that empower parents as a force for change in their families, schools, and communities. Before joining the foundation in 2015, she worked as the Senior Vice President for Program Innovation at Start Early (formerly, Ounce of Prevention Fund) in Chicago. Portia has more than 30 years of experience designing, implementing, and scaling effective, evidence-based early childhood education and family support program models for children and their families In 2000, she developed and led the implementation of the first Educare School, (early learning and care program) serving Chicago’s south side. As the founding Executive Director of the Educare Learning Network, Portia led the national expansion of Educare to a diverse range of communities across America. Portia also directed the team that created the program framework and components of the Educare model of intensive family engagement (IFE). The IFE training and professional development builds professionals’ capacity to employ intentional practices that support building strong relationships with families. Her work is grounded in an understanding of early childhood development, teaching practices, family systems and clinical issues related to working with families in under resourced communities. Portia holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois and is a Zero to Three Fellow. In addition, Portia is the 2020 recipient of the Global MindED Inclusive Leader Award in Early Childhood. She serves on a variety of boards and task forces. Portia lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Gihani is a Partner based in Bridgespan’s San Francisco office and serves as Bridgespan’s Head of Strategic Planning and Operations. She returned to Bridgespan in October 2023 having previously spent almost a decade in Bridgespan’s Advisory practice (2006-2014) leading strategic planning engagements for several mission-driven organizations and foundations with a focus on education and youth development. During this time, she also co-led the firm’s 2014 knowledge campaign around social and emotional learning and served as Bridgespan’s first Talent Manager in 2013.

Prior to rejoining Bridgespan, Gihani was the Vice President of Strategy and Board Affairs at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). In this capacity, she supported strategy development and implementation across the organization in addition to managing board engagement efforts. Before that, Gihani was part of the executive team at Playworks where she focused on developing and executing a partnerships strategy to help a range of organizations integrate practices and mindsets to support safe and healthy play for all children.

Gihani started her full-time career in public finance investment banking and has also worked as a consultant to the World Bank. She holds a B.A. from Stanford University with a major in Economics and a minor in Management Science and Engineering as well as an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California in Berkeley.

Gihani is a co-author of two publications which were featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled “Rethinking How Students Succeed” (February 2015) and “High Stakes Donor Collaborations” (Spring 2013). She also co-authored a piece on offshoring of professional services to Sri Lanka as a development opportunity during her consultancy at the World Bank.

She lives in Oakland with her husband and son and was a founding member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee at her son’s school in Oakland Unified School District. She has served on the board of ARISE High School in Oakland and is currently on the national board of Raising A Reader in addition to being a program advisor to Reading Partners and Niroga Institute.