Current members of the Board of Directors can visit the Virtual Board Room for access to important documentation.
Executive Committee
Leticia is a mom, wife, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, born and raised in East Los Angeles. She has built a career developing programs and guiding public policy that connects the dots between historically under-resourced communities and the arts. Leticia is Chief Executive Officer of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a museum and cultural center dedicated to centering the history of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, and collecting, preserving, and sharing the stories, accomplishments, and experiences of Latinx people and Latino culture.
She is an LA County Arts Commissioner, representing the First District, Board Chair of the Arts for Healing and Justice Network, and Board President for Californians for the Arts. Leticia also serves as a board member for Downtown Works Los Angeles, California Arts Advocates, the Music Man Foundation, and the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. A former adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Business and Management of the Arts, Leticia holds a degree in political science from Loyola Marymount University and received the 2019 Alumni Role Model Award from the LMU Latino Alumni Association. She is an urban dweller raising two children and two cats in downtown Los Angeles with her composer husband.
Shelby williams-Gonzalez
President & CEO, Inner City Arts
Vice Chair
With 20 years of experience in the arts education field and 22 years as a professional dancer, Shelby Williams-González has a career made up of overlapping networks. Artist, educator, and leader pushing for social change. As the CEO + President if Inner-City Arts, Shelby dedicates her work ensuring access and opportunities for LA’s youth with sustained arts exposure and immersion. She believes that investing human and financial resources around our young people is necessary for LA’s youth to evolve as unique individuals and flourish as creative adults. As a professional dancer, Shelby has been a member of the national touring and critically acclaimed Afro-Brazilian dance company Viver Brasil since 2006 as a dancer and choreographer for the company. Viver Brasil is a community of professional artists dedicated to honoring the African legacy through contemporary dance theater, utilizing Afro-Brazilian dance and music in performance, arts education, and community and cultural exchange programs. Her most recent work with the company, “Revealed,” explored the intersection of traditional Orixa (Afro-Brazilian Deities) dance and current racial and social inequities resulting in over-policed communities and mass killings of black bodies both in the United States and Brazil. Shelby is honored to serve on the Board of Directors for the Arts for Healing and Justice Network. In addition, she also serves on the Board of Suarez Dance Theater and NationImagined.
Scott Ward
CONSULTANT And MANAGER
Treasurer
Now focused on independent projects, after 17 years Scott retired from his position as Executive Director of the Armory Center for the Arts, and remains engaged today. The Armory is committed to creating, teaching and presenting the arts for all ages and backgrounds and has numerous programs including exhibition, sequential education, residencies, and professional development. During his tenure as ED, it received the prestigious National Arts and Humanities Award from Michelle Obama at the White House. Previously, Scott was Executive Director of the Palos Verdes Art Center, the ED of Downey Museum of Art, and University Gallery Director at CSU San Bernardino. Scott has served as a grants panelist, including many times for the National Endowment for the Arts, Institute of Museum and Library Services, California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Wallace Foundation. Scott is also a longtime curator and educator, having taught extensively at Loyola Marymount University, CSU San Bernardino, and Chaffey College. He has an MFA in photography from CalArts and a BA in Aesthetic Studies from UC Santa Cruz. Scott currently consults on a range of issues related to art, community, and development. He lives in Pasadena with his talented wife, and enjoys time with his kids and grandkids who live nearby.
Sofia Klatzker
Executive Director, Roman Mars Foundation
Secretary
Sofia Klatzker is the President of the newly formed Roman Mars Foundation, as well as Vice President of Strategic Development for 99% Invisible. Previously she served as the executive director of Arts for LA, the Director of Grants and Professional Development at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and key staff member and architect of the County's public arts education initiative, Arts for All. She has served as a consultant for the City of Los Angeles, City of Santa Monica, Alameda County Arts Commission, and Californians for the Arts, and a committee member of the California Alliance for Arts Education Policy Council, strategic advisor to the Cultural Data Project, and Co-chair of the LA Arts Funders group. She was a teaching artist at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the J. Paul Getty Center, and Community Arts Resources. Sofia is the Advocacy Committee Board Chair for Californians for the Arts, Treasurer for the Board of the Arts for Healing and Justice Network, and a founding board member of the Culver City Cultural Foundation. She was a 2013 Leadership LA Fellow, and is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and the Goucher Masters in Arts Administration.
Board at Large
Adé Jackson
Staff Attorney, Public Counsel
Adé Jackson, Esq., is a smart, resilient, and dynamic Black scholar who has always challenged himself by setting the highest goals while making time to inspire and engage the youth of his community. His exponential intellectual curiosity has lead him to become an honors graduate from UC Davis with his BA in Anthropology and a graduate of UCLA Law’s prestigious Critical Race Studies Program. A talented writer, his articles, poems, and public speaking often contextualize critiques of meritocracy, exceptionalism, rugged individualism, white supremacy, and collective inaction. Now as a California-licensed attorney he seeks to continue to use his skills to be a critical resource for his community and challenge the status quo for more substantive transformation. As a growing abolitionist and community organizer his daily work centers putting Sankofa into action. He emphasizes that Black liberation requires more than survival.
Allegra Mercedes Brown
Allegra Mercedes Brown works at the intersection of the fields of Learning & Development and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. She consults with nonprofits, startups, and educational organizations working toward racial equity by bringing a culturally responsive lens to executive coaching and professional learning facilitation and design. She is also currently on faculty at California State University Dominguez Hills, where she teaches courses on the design thinking curriculum from Stanford d.school and courses on how identity, culture and social constructs influence our development and play out in our schools.Allegra has over 16 years of experience working with low-income public schools – as a classroom teacher in inner-city Miami, Harlem, NY, and Huntington Park, Los Angeles and as a professional development leader in school districts across LA County. She has always been particularly dedicated to arts education and has worked as a strategic planning coach with the Arts Ed Collective at the L.A. County Department of Arts and Culture, as Associate Director of Professional Development at the Armory Center for the Arts, as an arts integration consultant with artworxLA, and as a peer reviewer for federal arts education grants from the U.S. Department of Education.
Allegra holds a B.A. in African Studies from Columbia University and an Ed.M. in Arts Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied the nurturing of creative thinking. She also holds CA administrative and multiple/single subject teaching credentials and is an ACC certified coach with the International Coaching Federation.
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Elida Ledesma
Executive Director, Arts for Healing and Justice Network
Ex Oficio
Elida is a Southern California native, she received a Bachelor’s of Arts in Communications and Spanish from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Master’s of Public Health, with a concentration in Community Health Sciences, from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Prior to working with the Arts for Healing and Justice Network she worked as a research assistant for the UCLA Department of Medicine on the RISE project, which examined adolescent risky behavior. Currently, Elida serves as the Associate Director of the Arts for Healing and Justice Network overseeing program evaluations, the creation of a shared theory of practice, on-going trainings for members and county agencies, in addition to managing daily operations. Elida was also selected as a 2016-2017 Arts for LA Activate fellow, completing the Arts Education track. Her passion lies in helping and advocating for underrepresented and vulnerable populations.
Rena Karefa-Johnson
Rena Karefa-Johnson is an attorney, organizer, policy expert and political strategist working to advance and protect legislation and campaigns to end mass incarceration. Prior to working as the VP of National Initiatives at FWD.us, Rena organized women with incarcerated loved ones across the country towards transformative policy campaigns as the Director of Campaigns and Advocacy for Essie Justice Group. A former juvenile justice attorney that provided criminal defense and reentry support for teenagers locked on Rikers Island, Rena has worked closely to pass historic bail reform legislation in New York State, written testimony for the United State Commission on Human Rights and co-authored the Lives on the Line: Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones and the Impact of COVID-19 Behind Bars report. Her analysis on the American criminal legal system has been featured in NPR, Teen Vogue, Rolling Stone, MSNBC, The Intercept and The Appeal. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.