Nona Randois, President

Randois is the Southern California director for the Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy Program. She manages the alliance’s Southern California office, providing local nonprofits with legal and practical training to the navigate laws and policies governing advocacy work. She previously worked as an attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where her practice focused primarily on representing nonprofits in community economic development, land use, community benefits agreements, nonprofit tax, real estate, and corporate legal assistance. Randois earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and her undergraduate degree in international relations and French from the University of Southern California.

Jenny Galvez, Vice President

Throughout her career, Galvez has worked in community colleges in New York City and Los Angeles supporting students in their personal, professional, emotional, and academic success. Her academic and professional work focuses on the academic development and success of first-generation, undocumented, low-income, and historically underrepresented students, with an emphasis on student activism and empowerment. She is currently a director/consulting instructor at the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute at Los Angeles Community College District, where she helps students understand labor history, the current labor movement, the impact of unions, and workers’ issues in order to promote critical thinking, enhance career prospects, and encourage civic participation. Galvez holds a BA in history and Chicana/o studies with a minor in political science from UCLA. She earned her MA in higher and postsecondary education from Teachers College–Columbia University, and she is currently earning her doctorate in education at UCLA.

Mike Neely, Treasurer

Neely is commissioner on the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults. In 1988, he founded the Homeless Outreach Program/Integrated Care System as a pilot program with $50,000 and four employees. The program grew under his direction into the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System (HOPICS), the leading homeless service agency in Service Planning Area 6. Neely was a Hesselbein Fellow of the Peter Drucker Foundation (now Leader to Leader Institute), where he was mentored by Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, in leadership and management techniques. Neely served on the State Commission on Homeless Veterans and the State Commission on African American Males and Substance Abuse, and he was Los Angeles County Commissioner on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. He was also a Los Angeles County Commissioner on the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Commission. He is  a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Brain Trust. 

Eric Ares, Secretary

Ares serves as housing and homelessness policy director for Los Angeles Council Member Eunisses Hernandez. He was previously at the United Way, where he worked to improve policies and performance in key systems to end homelessness in Los Angeles County. Ares also spent seven years as a community organizer and deputy director with the Los Angeles Community Action Network, where he worked alongside low-income and unhoused leaders in downtown and South Central Los Angeles to promote social and racial justice through organizing, civic participation, and public policy development. He has degrees in history and theology from Boston College and over 15 years of experience in grassroots policy advocacy, organizing, and direct service in the areas of affordable housing, homelessness, and community food security. Ares was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles and currently resides in the same home his family has lived in for over 75 years.

Francisco Cendejas

Cendejas has been a coordinator with the National Union of Healthcare Workers for more than a decade. Throughout his career, he has focused on organizing teachers, logistics workers, and hospital workers into the labor movement. He graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BS in science, technology, and society and a minor in urban studies.

Victoria Avery-Browder

Avery-Browder is a community innovator focused on improving jobs and social infrastructure in California. She is currently with SEIU 1021 in Northern California. She previously worked for SEIU 721 and for California State Senator Sydney Kamlager. Avery-Browder was the lead organizer for Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy’s Grocery and Retail Campaign, a coalition calling for a fair scheduling policy and higher workplace standards and protections for retail workers. She also served as the civic and community relations coordinator for SEIU-United Long Term Care Workers, liaising between the union and local agencies and helping to develop courses of action to address issues affecting members in their communities. She attended California State University Northridge, where she received a BA in political science with a minor in international relations.

Rev. John Cager

Senior pastor of the Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Central Los Angeles, Rev. Cager began his ministry at First African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he was director of youth ministry for five years. He later served as a visiting pastor at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Baldwin Hills, as a supply pastor at First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Santa Monica, and as pastor of St. Stephens African Methodist Episcopal Church and Second African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fontana. He was formerly the director of the Center for the Study of Black on Black Crime and spent eight years as director of client services and outreach at Streetlights, Hollywood’s premier diversity program. As senior project manager for FAME Renaissance, Rev. Cager developed a taxi voucher program for seniors and disabled persons. He also worked for Tom Hayden’s Campaign in California, and he was elected as a delegate to the 1984 Democratic National Convention.

Jim Mangia

Mangia is the president and CEO of St. John’s Community Health, a network of a dozen nonprofits, federally qualified health centers, and school-based clinics that provide free medical, dental, and mental health services to more than 200,000 patients in South Central Los Angeles. He also serves as a state commissioner on the State of California Workforce Investment Board, as chair of the Public Health and Prevention Task Force for the California Primary Care Organization, and as an expert advisor to the Let’s Get Healthy California Task Force. Mangia is the founder of the South Los Angeles Health & Human Rights Conference, and he has built myriad innovative partnerships with school districts, government agencies, and community-based organizations and schools to increase access to healthcare services and strengthen the safety net for economically disadvantaged children and their families.

Orinio Opinaldo

Born in Los Angeles, Opinaldo attended St. Agnes Elementary and High School, where he is still an active member, helping oversee finances as well as shape social justice programs and liturgy. He has been with the Los Angeles Unified School District for more than 44 years, teaching all elementary grades and serving as a resource teacher in art, drama, math, writing, and reading. Opinaldo was chosen as an outstanding teacher from the Mayor’s Office when he taught at Fifty-Second Street Elementary (1964–1989), was nominated for the Disney Teacher Award when he taught at Forty-Ninth Street Elementary (1989–2004), and was selected as the 2008 Hero for Harmony Elementary School by LAUSD Board of Education. 

Doug Reinart

Reinart serves as COO and America’s Leader for GoDigital Media Group, a Los Angeles–based media and technology company that owns businesses in the recorded music, digital publishing, electronic commerce, and personal fitness industries. He has over 35 years of experience in management consulting and executive management spanning the media and entertainment, consumer products, software, automotive, life sciences, and aerospace industries. Prior to joining GoDigital Media Group, Reinart established Porsche Consulting’s Silicon Valley office and led the automotive concern’s Innovation and Digital Transformation Practice. As vice president global accounts for Technicolor, he managed sales and service delivery for the Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, and Relativity Media. At Paramount Pictures, he was executive vice president worldwide operations for Home Entertainment, where he led a global team that developed, manufactured, and distributed $1.5 billion in media products annually.