About the GLIDE Legacy Committee
The GLIDE Legacy Committee inspires the next generation of Bay Area young professionals to engage in the life-changing and life-saving work of GLIDE. GLIDE is a radically inclusive organization that is dedicated to alleviating suffering, loving unconditionally and breaking down cycles of poverty and marginalization.
While members of the Legacy Committee have diverse cultural, racial and ethnic, sexual orientation, spiritual, socioeconomic and professional backgrounds, every member of the Legacy Committee brings a shared commitment and passion for social justice and change.
Learn more: youngprofessionals@glide.org
Follow us: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
Emily Cohen is the Executive Vice President of Government Affairs for United Contractors. She serves as key advisor to the CEO and Board of Directors and is responsible for all legislative, grass roots and political action strategies. In this regard she has emerged as one of the most influential next generation leaders in the industry.
Before working for United Contractors, Emily was a Jesse M. Unruh Fellow in the office of Kevin de León, the current Pro-Tempore of California’s State Senate.
Emily has lived in San Francisco for eight years. She has been an active volunteer at GLIDE for six years, serving in their meals program, harm reduction, and annual toy-drive and is a member of the GLIDE church, regularly attending celebrations.
It is her love of the city itself combined with her passion for social consciousness, equality and justice that motivates her to give back through GLIDE and promote their mission to build a radically inclusive, just and loving community mobilized to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization.
Emily is a Bay Area native, raised in Petaluma. She is an alumni of Chico State with degrees in both Political Science and International Relations.
Born and raised in the boogie-down Bronx, Paloma Figueroa came to San Francisco in 2009 looking for a short break from her fast-paced East Coast life. Instead she fell in love with the city, its endless quirks, and its inspiring residents.
With a Bachelors in Social Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University, and a life-long fascination with how people work best, she's dedicated her professional life to creating more equitable and meaningful workplaces at early stage tech companies in the Bay Area.
Her work in People Operations has her collaborating closely with leadership teams to build and develop thoughtful People programs, helping to spearhead forward-thinking diversity and inclusion initiatives, and stewarding cultural structures that encourage values-driven environments at fast growing tech companies in San Francisco.
When she's not working, she spends a good portion of her time chasing after unique and unusual experiences across the globe, sharing a good meal with friends, or geeking out over her favorite nerdy fandoms.
She continues to be involved in the local community through organizations like No Kid Hungry, SMART, and Compass Family Services. After having admired the passionate and inspired work of GLIDE for many years, joining the Legacy Committee has been a dream come true. She hopes to match that passion in spades in the work that they will do together.
Brittnay, a Bay Area native who started out in the South Bay, quickly realized upon adulthood that she needed a more inclusive atmosphere. Enter: San Francisco!
After moving to San Francisco in 2009 to pursue a career in finance the city stole her heart and she became invested in its future.
A "Jill-of-all-trades", she has successfully navigated the industries of finance, technology, real estate, and cosmetology, before realizing her passion lied within producing nonprofit events from conception to execution.
Now an Associate Producer at White Rain Productions/Winslow & Associates, working within the nonprofit niche, Brittnay is dedicated to the success of the nonprofit sector via her work and personal time.
Originally drawn into GLIDE as their event producer in 2016, she immediately fell in love with GLIDE's mission to serve the marginalized of the local community. Utilizing the various networks she has amassed with her wide range of experience, Brittnay hopes to create fruitful new relationships and resources for GLIDE and the community it serves. Brittnay graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelors of Arts in Liberal Studies and a Minor in International Relations.
Chris was raised in San Francisco and first volunteered for GLIDE in middle school. He has been attending Celebrations ever since.
His interests at the crossroads of design, technology, and geopolitics have sent him on a global journey. From a blockchain startup within the Royal Academy of Arts in London, to leading design-thinking workshops at a boarding school in Jordan, to an internship at the White House during the Obama administration. He now works on the legal team at Google.
Chris studied at Oxford University and graduated from Tufts University in May 2017 with a degree in Economics and International Security. Chris is excited to work with the Legacy Committee to create moments that engage and inspire young people.
Genay is a proud Bay Area native and a passionate activist with over 10 years of experience working with non-profits around civic engagement, racial justice, education, and affordable housing.
She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Community and Regional Development from UC Davis.
She is currently an Urban Habitat’s Boards and Commission Leadership Institute Fellow. Genay works with low-income communities of color teaching leadership and campaign development skills as a lead community organizer at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation.
Prior to working for TNDC, she founded a reading program for low-income youth in Davis CA called Children Harmony Independent Reading Program (CHIRPS) , interned at the Department of Education, mentored teenage youth in East Oakland, served as a Resident Services Coordinator for three affordable-housing buildings, and worked in Community Relations.
She has received the Betitia C. Memorial Community Service Award, Leslie Campbell Community Outreach Award from UC Davis and, has a Certificate of Recognition from the Partnership for Children and Youth. Because of her passion for the Tenderloin community, Genay is excited to promote GLIDE’s efforts to serve the community in a radically inclusive way and influence young professionals to become involved with GLIDE. She is thrilled to use her skills to continue to serve the community she has come to know and love.
A Bay Area native, Kevin is proud that he's always lived on the BART map: growing up in Pleasanton, studying at UC Berkeley, and thriving in San Francisco.
He is currently working at Ken Fulk, a multi-disciplinary design firm with projects in residential, commercial, and event design. He has served on the SECA Council, an ancillary art group within SFMoMA, focused on furthering local, emerging artists.
He is passionate about environments, how they affect people, and the communities they engender, and is excited to join the Legacy Committee to further embrace the spirit of San Francisco and GLIDE.
When not with clients, you can find Kevin at the theatre, touring artist studios, or perfecting that pickle recipe.
Originally a SF native, Kiyana Merritt has spent 4-plus years flourishing personally and professionally with the Glide community. Growing up, she was inspired by her Aunt Deborah Whittle; Executive Director of the Glide Community Housing branch for 30-plus years, helping establish three affordable-housing buildings for homeless and low-income individuals and families.
Inheriting values of service and compassion Ms. Merritt decided to obtain her education in Social Work, recently receiving her Masters of Social Work from Washington University in Saint Louis in December 2016.
Throughout her matriculation of higher learning she has been a part of the Emerging Leaders intern program at Glide since 2014 working in the Women’s Center and Walk-In Center.
Kiyana currently works at Booker T Washington Community Service Center. Her unique position dually serves as the High School Coordinator for at risk teens in SF and Assistant Property Manager managing 50 units of affordable housing dedicated to former foster care and transitional youth.
At the young age of 25, Kiyana hopes to continue to serve her community creating healthy and equitable resources for people of color here in San Francisco.
KJ settled into Bay Area life when he came for his first visit one summer and never left. The strangely beautiful, vibrant, colorful souls of San Francisco have kept him in the city since 2010.
Because of his passion for the community which fully embraced him, KJ is thrilled to promote GLIDE's efforts to ensure all walks of life - no matter their journey - are shown the radically inclusive love they deserve.
After growing up in Seattle and graduating from University of Washington with a Marketing and International Business degree, he spent nearly a decade in management consulting roles.
KJ then ditched cubicle life for more creative pursuits. He committed the next few years to becoming an independent Event Manager/Producer and is currently working for the experiential marketing and consulting company Tencue.
During his time with GLIDE's events liaison White Rain Productions, he was a Lead Producer for several of the organization's major events including their annual Legacy Gala.
His love for GLIDE's Legacy crew since 2015 eventually led him to an official spot on the committee.
KJ's first name is Kwaku, a popular Ashanti name chosen by his Ghanaian parents for males born on a Wednesday. His West African roots inspired his own nonprofit efforts to establish the North Mo Foundation raising scholarship funds for junior secondary school children of the Bamboi region.
After spending her whole life in North Carolina, Lauren Jamiolkowski arrived in San Francisco in 2013, eager to grow her career in such a progressive and vibrant city. It wasn’t long until she realized that her long hours as an investment banker left something to be desired.
Lauren found GLIDE as she was searching for both perspective and community. Six years later, she continues to be involved with the meals program, annual toy-drive and Legacy Gala. She has decided to make San Francisco her home and is invested in seeing it become a more inclusive, just and loving place.
Today, Lauren works as a Strategy & Finance Leader at Intuit and spends her free time playing ‘cars’ with her nephew, drinking wine with her feminist book club and planning weekend getaways with her fiance.
Lauren graduated from Duke University as a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar with degrees in Psychology and History.
Lucy specializes in the overlap of tech and social enterprise, with a particular focus on marketing and strategy.
She is presently the VP, Strategy at TubeScience and Marketing Advisor to the Social Enterprise, Elefant.
She gained her PhD at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Her thesis research focused on how people create, authenticate, market and trade on terms like "ethical" and "sustainable". She is an experienced research, communications, PR, events, and marketing consultant, advising entities who strive to define themselves in the ethical-consumption industry.
Her event-production experience has helped bring to life the Skoll World Forum and TEDx Oxbridge.
Lucy holds a BA Hons in Human Sciences and an MSc in Management Research from the University of Oxford. She is proudly from Yorkshire and also a keen traveler, exerciser, and socializer, who runs on disco and liberally supplements life with fizz and sparkle.
Margaret is digital and social strategist focused on synthesizing emerging technology, consumer behavior and business trends into tactics to increase visibility, engagement and traffic.
As a digital strategy consultant, Margaret has been responsible for integrating social into business strategies, from research to ideation to strategic recommendations to execution.
She’s guided companies like Nespresso, Ross Stores Inc, Salesforce, Blue Shield and MTV/Viacom in their quest to stay relevant and evolve in todays always connected world.
Prior to her role at SocioFabrica, Margaret led a cross-platform digital campaign that secured a first-of-its-kind investment from Google. The same year she oversaw the rebrand, redesign and revised content strategy for an award-winning online publication, leading to a 200% increase in audience and acquisition offers by major lifestyle magazines.
Before that, Margaret co-founded and successfully raised capital to launch an online publication that mapped and highlighted innovative companies led by minorities and women.
In addition to her digital strategy expertise, Margaret is an accomplished content creator, contributing to MTV, Huffington Post, G4TV and much more.
She graduated with honorable mention from San Francisco State’s School of Behavioral and Social Sciences with a degree in Psychology and in 2007 presented research findings to the American Psychological Association.
Mia is an analyst in Finance and Strategy at Zendesk, a company that drew her in with their focus on customer service and proud ties to the Tenderloin community.
Recently, she founded Women at Zendesk, an employee-run resource group to support, inspire, and develop female employees in SF and around the globe.
A California native, she attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and holds an MBA from Mills College.
She began by volunteering with Glide’s Meals Program and is excited to be more involved in joining the Legacy Committee. Inspired by Glide's dedication to radical inclusion, she is driven to introduce more young professionals to the organization, in particular bridging the gap between the tech community and our most vulnerable neighbors.
In her free time, you can find Mia at SoulCycle or Barry’s Bootcamp, volunteering with the Spinsters of San Francisco, or exploring craft breweries.
Nicole is a Creative Director who works with with clients that range from mission-based startups and nonprofits to corporations on storytelling, branding, design, and video. She believes that crafting a great story is the most important part of creating a memorable message.
For a time, she dreamed of becoming an Anthropology professor as a way to uncover tales of people and cultures. Applying theory to anything and everything, however, didn’t feel right. After deciding the ivory tower wasn’t for her, she pursued visual communication through branding, design, and filmmaking.
Along the way, Nicole opened Quiet Mind Yoga in Washington, DC. in 2008, which still exists today. While running the studio was an incredibly rewarding experience, San Francisco was calling her name.
In 2010, she made this lovely city her home, and was able to shift her focus back to brand and filmmaking. Currently, she is working on a documentary short about an unhoused woman in the Mission who provides medical services on the street. Other interests include travel, surfing, film festivals, dance, reading, and pretty much any outdoor activity.
Sam is a Bay Area native whose family first attended GLIDE Celebrations in the early 1970’s. For his grandparents, the organizations radically inclusive spirit was a clear affirmation that their choice in moving to the Bay Area was a wise one. This admiration for GLIDE was passed down generationally, and brings Sam to the Legacy Committee today.
Sam currently works in the Partnerships department at VMware, and previously worked in Marketing at Townsquared with fellow Legacy Committee member Lucy Bartlett.
Sam graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy, an interdisciplinary major at the intersection of Economics, Sociology and Political Science.
At Cal, he was involved with several volunteering initiatives, including the Teach in Prison program. When not working, you can find Sam surfing and producing videos along the California coastline and beyond.
Sarah Stroe is a proud second-generation San Francisco native, back in her hometown after undergraduate and graduate schooling. Sarah graduated from Bard College with a BA in Languages and Literature, and obtained her Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania.
Sarah works for the City & County of San Francisco at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and strives to live GLIDE’s mission of unconditional love with the patients she serves daily.
When not working, Sarah loves to cook, be with family and friends, practice yoga, and spend as much time as possible with her dog in Golden Gate Park.