Archives: Leadership Team

Wendy Wolf

Wendy C. Wolf, Ph.D. is a social policy analyst and philanthropist who organizes women and the men in their lives in support of progressive social change. She is a member of the Women Donors Network, has spearheaded their work on reproductive health and justice,  and their work on gender justice and safety in the work force. She has been the Treasurer of that board and was a board member for six years.

She was also on the board of Living Beyond Breast Cancer for over ten years and served as their Treasurer and head of programs. She has been on the board of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth as well as Protect our Defenders.

She is an adolescent, children’s, and reproductive rights advocate, and a social policy analyst and evaluator. She founded the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD), which she led from 1987 to 1999. Prior to founding CAPD, she was the Director of Research at Public/Private Ventures for seven years. She has taught at the University of Arizona. She received a Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. from Brown University.

Alicia Jay

Alicia Jay is a certified coach and multifaceted consultant who has spent the last 15 years driving change on behalf of social justice activists and organizations, with a focus on helping women and young people to reach their highest levels of leadership and impact. As a part of the team who launched The League, a new cultural engagement collective, Alicia was most recently working with some of the progressive movement’s leading activists to integrate creative communications, cultural organizing, and narrative shift strategies into their work.

Alicia has supported individuals and organizations to better align their behavior with their values to achieve greater impact. She has done this by mobilizing millions of women through intersectional campaigns and events like Make It Work, the We Won’t Wait coalition, and the United State of Women Summit; building the capacity of grassroots organizations through grantmaking at the Atlantic Philanthropies; and helping to train the current and next generation of social change leaders through Young People For, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and as a coach working with hundreds of emerging leaders.

Maureen Pelton

Maureen is a social scientist with 30 years of professional experience as an Integrative Psychotherapist, Executive Coach, Organizational Consultant, Adjunct Faculty, and Group Facilitator. In addition, she has served as host of the Edge Learning Well Talk Radio Show and has taught courses at the Integrative Health Education Center and the Institute for Health & Healing.

Currently, Maureen serves on the Advisory Council of The Representation Project and is Associate Producer of the documentary film, The Mask You Live In, which explores how society is failing our boys. She serves on the Board of Visitors for the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and on the Boards of the Penny George Institute Foundation and The Search Institute, as well as being a Trustee of The Eagle & the Hawk Foundation.

Karen Finney

Karen Finney is an independent consultant working with political and corporate clients in the United States and globally on message development, crisis communications, branding, public affairs and strategy. She is currently a Senior Advisor to Abrams for Governor, the Democratic National Committee and AL Media. Finney served as Senior Advisor for Communications and Political Outreach and Senior Spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

From her experience working in media, national politics, political and communications strategy in both the public and private sectors, Finney brings a unique perspective to her work. She was a political analyst and hosted her own show on MSNBC, “Disrupt with Karen Finney,”.  Her experience includes work on four presidential campaigns, the Clinton Administration, and she was the Democratic National Committee’s first African American spokeswoman, helping to lead the DNC’s communications strategy for the “50 State Strategy,” successful 2006 Congressional elections and 2008 presidential campaign.  A regular commentator on national television, Finney serves on the boards of NARAL pro-choice America, Power Rising and the Civic Engagement Fund.

Arisha Hatch

Arisha Michelle Hatch serves as the Managing Director of Campaigns at ColorOfChange.org and leads the organization’s civic engagement, voting rights, criminal justice, corporate accountability and media work. Prior to joining Color Of Change in 2012, Arisha left behind a legal career to organize for the Obama Campaign in 2008, and later served as National Organizing Director of the Courage Campaign. She earned degrees in Economics, Creative Writing and Feminist Studies from Stanford and her juris doctorate from Santa Clara University.

Charlene Carruthers

Charlene Carruthers is a strategist, author and a leading organizer in today’s Black liberation movement.  As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national base of activist member-led organizations of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. 

Charlene is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and founder of the Chicago Center for Leadership and Transformation, a locally rooted and nationally connected learning community for political education, grassroots organizing, language and strategic communications capacity building. Find her online at www.charlenecarruthers.com.

Nita Chaudhary

Nita Chaudhary is a co-founder of UltraViolet. Before founding UltraViolet, Nita was the National Campaigns and Organizing Director at MoveOn.org Political Action. As a part of that role she oversaw and managed MoveOn’s national campaigns department, including the organization’s work on health care reform, the economy and Social Security, and she supervised MoveOn’s team of Campaign Directors. During her tenure at MoveOn, Nita oversaw the fundraising program for the 2008 election, and led some of the organization’s largest campaigns including MoveOn’s work to end the Iraq war, protect constitutional liberties, and address climate change. Prior to that she was the Democratic National Committee’s first Director of Online during the 2004 cycle. She started her career at People for the American Way where she held several positions, including Media Research Analyst, Web Editor, and Online Organizer. Nita’s a native New Yorker who loves the Yankees, the Knicks and cooking Indian food.

Shaunna Thomas

Shaunna Thomas is co-founder and Executive Director of UltraViolet. Shaunna has had a fifteen year career in progressive organizing, building progressive infrastructure projects and winning critical policy fights at the national level. Shaunna has appeared numerous times on network and cable TV including NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC as a political commentator. Before founding UltraViolet, Shaunna was the Executive Director of the P Street Project, a 501c4 nonprofit dedicated to organizing progressive members of Congress and connecting federal legislative strategy with online grassroots mobilization efforts. Prior to that, Shaunna was the COO of Progressive Congress, a nonprofit supporting the policy and organizing work of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Shaunna was introduced to organizing and advocacy through the 2004 presidential election, which inspired the next five years of her work at Young People For, a Project of People For the American Way Foundation dedicated to identifying, engaging and empowering the next generation of progressive leaders. Shaunna–originally from Los Angeles–is a resident of Washington, D.C. You can find Shaunna on Twitter @SLThomas.