40 Under 40 Award Winners

Analisa Balares is CEO of Womensphere, and Executive Producer of all Womensphere global summits, including the Womensphere Global Leadership & Innovation Summit, the L.I.V.E. World Summit: Leadership, Innovation & Vision for the Earth, and the Womensphere Institute, the organization’s educational arm. Analisa is formerly Global Marketing Manager for Microsoft’s blogging and social networking service. She launched her career at the Goldman Sachs High Technology Investment Group. Analisa holds an MBA from Harvard Business School; a BA in Economics & Mathematics cum laude from Mount Holyoke College; and an International Baccalaureate from Lester Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Canada.

Kjerstin Erickson is the founder and Executive Director of FORGE. Kjerstin started FORGE in 2003, while a junior at Stanford University. Now 26, she continues to manage FORGE’s operations, growth and development. She has developed partnerships with UN agencies and has worked with multiple African governments to bring FORGE’s work to over 60,000 refugees per year. An avid blogger and pioneer of ‘radical transparency,’ Kjerstin’s social media efforts have been profiled in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle, and in 2009 FORGE was honored with the Jenzabar Foundation’s “Social Media Leadership Award.” Kjerstin has also been named a Haas Public Service Fellow at Stanford University, one of America’s “Top 40 Leaders Under 40” by the New Leaders Council, a “Top 10 College Woman” by Glamour Magazine, and a “Person You Should Know” by CNN. Ms. Erickson holds a degree in Public Policy from Stanford University, with a concentration in Global Development Solutions.

A prominent member of the Chicago City Council, Flores was elected as 1st Ward Alderman in 2003. While on the council he served on numerous committees including Economic, Capital and Technology Development; Energy, Environmental Protection, and Public Utilities; and the Transportation and Public Way.

Previously, Flores served as a Prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. He began his career in public service as an aide to Congressman Luis Guiterrez.

Flores serves on the Illinois Broadband Deployment Council and the Board of Community Health. He has been a tireless advocate for building Chicago’s green economy by pushing for LEED certification in new developments, launching GreenEconomyChicago.com, an online social networking platform to develop policy to promote a green marketplace, and spearheading the Chicago’s Green Exchange development, a green business mall that will be a premier destination for clean technology and energy companies.

He received his undergraduate degree in political science from Dominican University and juris doctorate from George Washington University Law School.

Acting Chairman Flores, who lives in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, is married and has two children. “

Alexi Giannoulias is the Illinois State Treasurer and a candidate for Senate in Illnois. In his first day in office as Treasurer, he signed an executive order to prohibit himself from accepting gifts from parties with which there may be a conflict of interest. Giannoulias served on the board of directors of the Community Banker’s Association of Illinois Legislative Committee, the South Side/Wabash YMCA, and the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce. Giannoulias also founded and chairs the AG Foundation, a not-for-profit charity that donates money to treat child-related illnesses, curb poverty and assist disaster relief organizations.

Raj Goyle is a member of the Kansas House of Representatives, a lecturer at Wichita State University, and a lawyer. Raj moved back to Wichita, KS, after law school to pursue his law career. Raj is currently a running for Congress in his home district in Wichita.

As the Executive Director, Barry Kendall provides leadership, vision, and intellectual guidance to the organization, while serving as its principal spokesperson, fundraiser, and community representative. He brings to the Institute significant experience in non-profit management, along with a deep understanding of the role of religion in American culture and a history of engagement with progressive political causes. As the Managing Director of 7 Stages, he restored the organization to financial health and managed program expansion into China, France, and Mexico. He also worked for the Olympic Arts Festival, Alliance Theatre Company, and Emory University. He has worked in a variety of political roles, including field work for Bill Bradley 2000 and directing media and events for the 2006 Democratic campaign in San Mateo County, California.

Clark Lee, 28, is the Political Director of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, the largest local Democratic Party entity in the U.S. representing over 2.2 million Democrats. He is also an independent public relations consultant specializing in targeted communications, field operations, and voter rights advocacy.

Zach’s deep commitment to expanding national service began during his full-time year of service with City Year (‘02-‘03), a leading AmeriCorps program. As an AmeriCorps alumnus, he has been an advocate for expansion by meeting with congressional offices and speaking at events organized by Voices for National Service. Zach has worked as a part-time Program Assistant for New Leaders for New Schools, a nationally renowned organization that prepares outstanding urban school principals. At George Washington University, he served as a founding member on Service-Learning Advisory Board to create a university Service-Learning department. He graduated from GWU with a bachelor’s degree in English, dually focusing on literature and writing.

Afam Onyema is the Co-Founder and COO of the GEANCO Foundation, an organization building world-class hospitals in Nigeria. Afam works and lives in Los Angeles. Prior to working for GEANCO Foundaton, he attended Stanford Law School.

Congressman Tom Perriello serves on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Born and raised in the 5th district, Congressman Perriello previously served as a national security consultant, working in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Darfur, Kosovo, and Liberia. His work with child soldiers, amputees, and local pro-democracy groups in Sierra Leone played a significant role in the peace and reconciliation process that ended the blood diamonds war in that country. He also served as Special Advisor and court spokesperson in the prosecution of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, peaceably forcing him from power.

He has also founded a number of nonprofit organizations aimed at bringing together faith communities to fight for children’s health care, economic fairness, environmental stewardship, and responsible solutions in Iraq. Mr. Perriello was educated in Albemarle County public schools, St. Anne’s-Belfield, and has his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University.

Mary Rickles is the director of communications and media for Netroots Nation. She previously worked in marketing and branding at the award-winning San Francisco magazine. Since her first job as a reporter, she has worked with agencies, non-profits and corporate companies on projects ranging from brand development to marketing strategy to event production. She grew up in Birmingham, AL, and currently lives in San Francisco.

Tom Serres is an entrepreneur, techie, blogger, and strategist. His goal: to disrupt the online fundraising industry through innovation. In 2009, he teamed up with a few buddies from college to launch the Piryx platform. His company offers advanced technology that makes online fundraising as easy as writing a blog or posting a status update.

A former politico from Texas, Tom traded in his cowboy boots for sambas, and headed to the west coast to build Piryx into the Online Giving Platform for political campaigns, non-profits, and social entrepreneurship. He was named a 2009 rising political star by Politics magazine.

Tom grew up in Austin, TX and is now running Piryx operations in San Francisco. When he’s free, he enjoys practicing yoga, mentoring budding entrepreneurs, and catching the latest flicks on his Netflix account.

Marshall Tuck joined Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s staff in 2007 to help lead the effort to improve public education for all children in Los Angeles. Prior to joining the Mayor’s office, Marshall was President and COO of Green Dot Public Schools, one of the leading operators of charter schools in the country. At Green Dot, Marshall led a team of 250 employees that operated ten charter high schools in some of the most need-based areas of Los Angeles. Under his leadership, students at all Green Dot schools outperformed their peers at comparable schools in both academic achievement and graduation rates. Prior to Green Dot, Marshall acted as General Manager of the Strategic Accounts group at Model N, a successful enterprise software company. Marshall’s background includes work as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers and a volunteer Math and English teacher in Zimbabwe and Thailand. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA and received an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Sam is a Boston City Councilmember elected to one of Boston’s At-Large districts. Sam previously served as the Housing Director at the Asian Community Development Corporation. Sam attended the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and Princeton University for his undergraduate studies.

Chris has seen the education system from a variety of angles and is dedicated to helping students find motivation and inspiration. He has taught with the Breakthrough Collaborative and worked as a National Science Foundation Fellow, developing and teaching new science curricula in the Philadelphia public schools. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business, Chris moved to San Francisco and founded a successful tutoring cooperative, serving youth throughout the Bay Area. In 2004, Chris co-founded Spark with fellow educator (now Spark Board member) Melia Dicker. He was honored in July 2008 with the Bay Area’s Jefferson Award for Public Service and later with the prestigious Draper Richards Fellowship in recognition of Spark’s potential for broad social impact. Most recently, he received the “Forty Under Forty” Leadership Award from the New Leaders Council in July 2009. Through his experience teaching and through numerous research visits to schools around the world, Chris has developed a belief that hands-on, self-motivated learning and community building are keys to educational change.

Abigail has dedicated her professional life to creating new opportunities for young Americans to learn about the world. Through work as an educator across the US and throughout the developing world, Abigail developed a passion for using education to promote global social justice and poverty alleviation.

Her vision for Global Citizen Year grew from over 10 years of experience in education, international development and social enterprise. She spent four years at NetAid where she designed and launched a program which empowers high school students to mobilize their peers in efforts to end global poverty. Today, the program is a flagship initiative of Mercy Corps. A recognized expert in Global Citizenship Education, Abigail has served as a strategic advisor and consultant, and has published in leading journals.

For her work founding Global Citizen Year, in 2009 she was awarded the Draper Richards Fellowship for entrepreneurs who are using innovative solutions to create significant social change. She is also a recipient of the Mind Trust Fellowship for education entrepreneurs who are developing system-changing strategies to tackle education’s greatest challenges. In 2008 she was named a Rainer Arnhold Fellow and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow.

Abigail holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Called “the hardest-working woman in feminism” by Michelle Tea, Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer, and activist. Her writing has been featured in Bitch Magazine, AlterNet, Women’s eNews, PW.org, and PopPolitics. She’s also appeared as a guest blogger on Feministe, and in the Lambda Award nominated anthology Pinned Down By Pronouns. Friedman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College and has received a 2001 Cambridge Poetry Award, a 2004 Somerville Arts Council Artist Grant, and a recent fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center.

Andrew Golis is Editor of Blogging and a Political Editor at Yahoo! News. He’s building a network of news blogs for the site and helps to oversee its political coverage.

Previously, Andrew spent three years at TalkingPointsMemo. For the majority of that time, Andrew was the Deputy Publisher of the site, working on the management team guiding its growth and focusing in particular on audience expansion, design, and business development. Naming TPM one of the best blogs of 2009, Time Magazine called it “the prototype of what a successful Web-based news organization is likely to be in the future.”
Andrew also speaks and consults regularly on digital journalism and business models. Past speaking venues have included: Columbia Journalism School, The Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley, the European NewsXchange conference in Malta, and the Paley Center for Media in New York. Past consulting clients have included Facebook’s Causes application, Greenopia.com, and the Israel Policy Forum.

He graduated with Honors from Harvard University with a degree in American political history. While in college, he worked as a staff grunt on national political campaigns, edited a student blog and wrote columns for The Harvard Crimson.

Ron Huberman is the Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools. Huberman’s appointment to the CPS continues his distinguished career in public service in the City of Chicago. As president of the Chicago Transit Authority from 2007 to 2009, Huberman instituted a company-wide turnaround plan based on performance management principles at the second largest transit agency in the country. During Huberman’s tenure at the CTA, ridership grew 5.4 percent in 2008, its highest level since 1992. From 2004 to 2005, Huberman served as Executive Director of the City of Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Prior to his appointment as Executive Director at OEMC, Huberman served for nine years at the Chicago Police Department, rising from a beat cop to Assistant Deputy Superintendent for Administration. Huberman holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and master’s degrees in Business Administration and Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, where he was both a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and an Albert Schweitzer Fellow.

Oakland Schools Foundation CEO from 2004 to 2006, Mr. Klein is now Chief Program Officer for the Rogers Family Foundation. Formerly he was Special Assistant to the State Administrator of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) as a Broad Fellow. He served as Teach for America’s Bay Area Executive Director from 1999 to 2003, and before that he taught elementary school.

Chris Myers Asch teaches history at the University of the District of Columbia and coordinates UDC’s National Center for Urban Education. A graduate of Duke University with a PhD in American History from the University of North Carolina, he is an alumnus of Teach For America and an Echoing Green Fellow. He co-founded the Sunflower County Freedom Project in 1998 and the U.S. Public Service Academy initiative in 2006, and he is the author of The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer (2008).

Jennifer L. Pozner founded Women In Media & News in 2001 to increase women’s presence and power in the public debate through media analysis, education, advocacy and reform.

A widely published journalist and media critic, Pozner formerly directed the Women’s Desk at the national media watch group FAIR, where she was a staff writer for Extra! magazine and the organizer of the national Feminist Coalition on Public Broadcasting. She also served as Media Watch columnist and contributing media editor for Sojourner: The Women’s Forum, the dearly-departed national women’s newspaper.

Pozner’s freelance work on women, media, politics and pop culture has been published in prominent national and regional print and online publications. She has also been interviewed on news shows from ABC’s Top Priority to The Daily Show. A noted public speaker, Pozner has conducted multi-media presentations and participated in panels and debates at dozens of colleges and conferences across the country. Additionally, she has worked closely with the women’s human rights groups MADRE and Women for Afghan Women, and with a variety of other women-led social justice groups, including the Center for New Words’ WAM (Women, Action & Media) conference, Women Leaders Online and New Yorkers Say No To War.

Paul is the Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Paul served as a First Lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in the Iraq war from 2003-2004. He is also the author of the critically-acclaimed Chasing Ghosts, and a nationally recognized authority on the war in Iraq and issues affecting troops, military families and veterans. Prior to going to Iraq, Paul worked as a high school football coach and an Investment Banking Analyst on Wall Street. He received a BA in Political Science from Amherst College in 1998 and lives in New York City.

Nate Silver has been called a “spreadsheet psychic” and “number-crunching prodigy” by New York Magazine.

Nate comes out of the world of baseball statistics, but during the 2008 presidential election primaries, he turned his sights and his amazing predictive abilities and forecasting models to the game of politics and current events — with incredible results.

He began by predicting 2008 primary election results with stunning accuracy — and often in opposition to the better-known political pollsters. He then moved on to the general election, where he correctly predicted the presidential winner in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Nate has been a contributor to ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated, Slate, The New York Sun, The New York Times. His work has been reported in such publications as Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and Vanity Fair, to name just a few.

Ben Tulchin is the Founder and President of Tulchin Research. Tulchin has provided research and consulting services to a wide range of clients across the country, including government agencies, candidates for elected office, ballot measure campaigns, labor unions, non-profits, corporations, and foundations. His clients have included former DNC Chairman and presidential candidate Howard Dean, former California Governor Gray Davis, U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Harry Reid, and he has helped elect and re-elect several members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to this, Ben worked for Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Shannon is the Executive Director of Spark. Since its founding in 2004, Spark has engaged over 5,000 young professionals in the Bay Area in education, volunteerism and activism as well as raised over $350,000 for grassroots women’s organizations in the Bay Area and around the world. As its first Executive Director, Shannon is tasked with taking Spark to the next level. She is increasing programming and fundraising goals to strengthen Spark’s local and global positioning.

“You can’t look to the stars until you’ve fixed the cracks in the sidewalk,” Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti often says. As the third-term councilmember serving the 13th Council District, Garcetti has shown that a commitment to the street-level health of the community is a necessary first step in creating positive change. His unique combination of pothole politics and vision has won measurable results in the 13th District, showing how local solutions can show the way to make our city safer, create transportation solutions, and ease the city’s housing crisis. Councilmember Garcetti’s work has been recognized in dozens of awards, including the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award for Americans under 40 who are changing their communities with a commitment to public service; the Green Cross Millennium Award from former President Mikhail Gorbachev, for environmental leadership; a “Tiger Award” from the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, for his work on business tax reform; the New Democrat of the Week recognition from the Democratic Leadership Council, for his work on safety in commercial office buildings and security officers’ working conditions; and the first Olson Award from Human Rights Watch for his human rights activism.

Mark is the Founder and CEO of Rogue Global Solutions, a premiere technology strategy firm for political, governmental, and international organizations.

Prior to founding Rogue, Jablonowski was the Chief Technology Officer at the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC), the organization that created the most open and accessible inauguration in American history. At the Inaugural Committee, Mark was responsible for the oversight of all technical, communication, and data matters. With time as the primary obstacle, he employed cutting edge technology to greatly reduce deployment time and cost for an enterprise IT infrastructure. Before the PIC, Mark joined Obama for America at the beginning of the New Hampshire primary. Prior to joining the Obama Campaign, Jablonowski ran his own technical consulting company that catered to local candidates and small businesses. In the 2004 election cycle, Mark was the IT Manager for the Tony Knowles for US Senate campaign.

Carolyn Laub is the Founder and Executive Director of Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Carolyn received a 4-year fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation in 1999 that helped launch GSA Network. In 2000, she was honored as one of the first U.S. recipients of the international Ashoka Fellowship, a 3-year fellowship that supports her work as a social entrepreneur. Carolyn was a leader of the grassroots youth effort to pass the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 (AB 537), an historic law that prohibits discrimination based on actual and perceived sexual orientation and gender identity in California schools. She co-founded the Make It Real Project, a youth-led statewide initiative to implement AB 537. In 2001, Carolyn served on the California Department of Education’s AB 537 Advisory Task Force. In 2002, she co-founded the California Safe Schools Coalition, which is dedicated to the full implementation of AB 537. Carolyn has co-led the coalition since its inception and helped author the coalition’s groundbreaking report, Safe Place to Learn: Consequences of Harassment Based on Actual or Perceived Sexual Orientation and Gender Non-Conformity and Steps for Making Schools Safer. Prior to starting GSA Network, in 1997, Carolyn created Outlet, a support program for LGBTQQ youth living on the San Francisco peninsula. Additionally, Carolyn was the Director of the AIDS Prevention Program at the Mid-Peninsula YWCA where she developed innovative HIV prevention curriculum and published her research documenting the link between gender ideologies and adolescent sexual risk-taking behavior. She currently serves on the Board of the Transgender Law Center. Previously, she has served on the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, KQED’s Community Advisory Panel, and Stanford Pride, the Stanford University LGBTQQI alumni club. Carolyn graduated from Stanford University in 1995 with a BA in Cultural Anthropology with a focus on the social construction of race, gender, and sexual orientation in the U.S.

As a campaign professional, Clark has worked with many nonprofit organizations, government agencies, businesses, and political campaigns at federal, state, and local levels as a staff member, consultant, or advisor since 2001, such as Judy Chu for Congress, John Kerry for President, U.S. Department of Justice, California Secretary of State, and Governor Gray Davis. He currently serves on the board of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters and the California Democratic Party.

A first generation American, Clark graduated from Claremont McKenna College with Honors in Government. He was named a “Rising Star” by Campaigns & Elections’ Politics Magazine. He is a recipient of the California Democratic Party John F. Kennedy Jr. Award for Outstanding Public Service and the Claremont McKenna College Philip Roland Prize for Excellence in Public Affairs.

April Pedersen is the Executive Director of DemocracyInAction, an organization she co-founded in 2003 with the belief that technology has a critical role to play in building a progressive infrastructure both in the U.S. and abroad. Since its inception, DIA has grown to be a major player in the online engagement service industry and is confirming in practice that the resources leveraged in its operations are capable of bringing decisive force to the myriad social movements they support. April is also a founder and Principal of Wired For Change. For the past 12 years April has worked in the nonprofit and Internet sectors as an online campaign strategist, writer, organizer, and social entreprenuer. She launched several new innovative projects for organizing online, created vibrant online communities, and managed online communications and grassroots lobbying for a coalition of 20 national environmental advocacy organizations. April is a devoted human rights and social justice advocate, and serves on the Board of CIVIC, an organization that seeks to mitigate the impact of the war by ensuring that timely and effective assistance is provided to unintended victims of conflict. April is a graduate Friends World College of Long Island University and has lived and worked in several countries in Latin America and Morocco.

Michelle Rhee is the Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. In 1997 she founded the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which works with needy school districts to recruit and train new teachers. In ten years, the New Teacher Project has expanded to forty programs in twenty states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers.

Through the DC Teaching Fellows program, Washington, D.C. participated in the New Teacher Project, and was successful in recruiting highly qualified applicants. On June 12, 2007, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that he had chosen Rhee to replace superintendent of D.C. public schools Clifford Janey and become the schools’ new chancellor. Rhee initially rebuffed Fenty’s offer, but relented when promised wide latitude and significant authority in decision-making as well as strong mayoral support for her proposed initiatives. New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein highly recommended her to Mayor Fenty.

Rhee has served on the advisory boards for the National Council on Teacher Quality, National Center for Alternative Certification, and Project REACH. She was a special guest of First Lady Laura Bush at President George W. Bush’s 2008 State of the Union address.

Edgar Santana is the Deputy Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Committee. He recently served as the Northeast Political Director for the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign and previously served as the Deputy Political Director for the New York State Democratic Committee. He is also a member of the DNC Youth Caucus and as the Campaign & Political Affairs Committee Chair of the Young Democrats of America. Edgar is the graduate of Fordham University.

Brian is one of the leading Democratic strategists and tacticians in Congressional politics. In the 2008 election cycle, he served as the Political Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). He led the Committee’s day-to-day political operations and oversaw more than 75 challenger campaigns and 30 incumbent re-election campaigns.

Under his guidance, 24 new Democratic members were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. This marked the first time that a party, which won a Majority in Congress in one wave election, went on to win a second consecutive wave. Brian also has experience working on Capitol Hill. Brian holds an M.A. in Political Management from George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management and a B.A. in International Politics from American University.

Jessica Valenti is a feminist writer and blogger. She is the founder and editor of the popular blog and online community, Feministing.com, and the author of three books: Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut…and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. She is also editor of the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, which was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 100 Books of 2009 and won a 2010 Amelia Bloomer award.

Jessica’s writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian (UK), The American Prospect, Ms. magazine, Salon.com and Bitch magazine. She has won a Choice USA Generation award, was featured as one of ELLE magazine’s “IntELLEgentsia.”, and was recently named one of the Left’s Top 25 Journalists by The Daily Beast.

Jessica received her Masters degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, where she is now a part-time lecturer. Jessica speaks at universities and organizations across the country on feminism, blogging, and politics. She lives in Sunnyside, Queens with her husband and their very cute cat and dog.