The California Board of Advisors brings together a diverse group of leaders to help make Citizen Schools more visible, engage more citizens in education and mobilize more volunteers to teach apprenticeships.  This peer group of can-do connectors are vital to making Citizen Schools an effective and sustainable program that will have a big impact on California's youth.  Members of the Board are cheerleaders, fundraisers, and heroes.

Christy Chin, Draper Richards Foundation

Christy Chin is the Portfolio Director for the Draper Richards Foundation. Before joining Draper Richards, Christy was the Deputy Director of The Philanthropy Workshop West at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she led the alumni program and contributed to strategic planning. Christy led donor sessions that featured social entrepreneurs domestically and internationally in Guatemala, India, Rwanda and Uganda. Christy has experience in venture capital, as a principal with Bedrock Capital Partners, a director of business development for The Frontier Group, and an investment analyst with Norwest Venture Capital.

Christy currently serves on the board of Benetech. Christy received her Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School and holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Colgate University.

Maria Drake, Nonprofit Consultant

After many years of working in the field of medicine, and four children later, Maria and her husband, Robert, followed a dream and purchased and operated a restaurant/bakery in the Russian Hill neighborhood.Being the consummate volunteer for her local public schools and community organizations and searching for yet another challenge, Maria decided to further her education and received a Masters degree in Non-Profit Management with an emphasis on organizational development from the University of San Francisco.She spent 10 years working for the YMCA of San Francisco and the YMCA of Silicon Valley holding positions of Community Relations Director to Executive Director.It was here that Maria honed her grant writing, board development and community building skills. Maria resides in San Francisco with her husband.

Frank Ghali, Goldman Sachs

Denise Griffin

A California native, Denise graduated with honors from UC Berkeley with a degree in American Studies. With grandmothers, aunts, parents and siblings engaged in the teaching profession, Denise initially set out to teach special education at the junior high level. She moved into the non-profit sector in 1998, becoming a Program Coordinator for Kids in Common, a San Jose based non-profit focused on both advocacy for children’s issues as well as local program development.

In 2000, Denise joined a then little known internet start-up, Google, as a User Support Coordinator. Hired originally as the single individual responsible for corresponding with end users, Denise’s role expanded exponentially over the ensuing years. She founded and managed a global team on three continents of more than 200 people to support all of Google’s free products over the course of 8 years, expanding support from one product to over 30, from one language to forty-four languages and from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand inquiries per day. Additionally, Denise managed the launch and expansion of one of Google’s charitable giving programs providing free online advertising to non-profits. In the years the program was under her management it expanded to include more one thousand organizations in eleven countries and exceeded $40 million in donations.

On a personal note, Denise is passionate about her three nieces and nephews who live locally and visit frequently and is looking forward to welcoming her first child, a daughter, in September of this year. She and her husband Sean are in the process of building a home together in San Jose and are actually enjoying the process!

Nader Mousavi, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Mr. Mousavi recently joined the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Nader received his B.A. from the University of California Los Angeles and his J.D. from Stanford Law School. In 2007, Mr. Mousavi was named by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal as one of the top "40 under 40" business professionals in Silicon Valley.

Mr. Mousavi is a member of the Advisory Board for Stanford Law School's Program in Law, Science & Technology, as well as teh Silicon Valley Chapter of the Licensing Executive Society. Mr. Mousavi serves as Co-Chair of the firm's Diversity Committee, is a member of the firm's Pro Bono and Public Service Committee, Senior Associates Committee, and Pro Bono and Business Intake Approval Committees, and a member of the Hiring Committee for the Palo Alto office. He is also a founding member of the Northern California Chapter of the Iranian-American Bar Association.

Kelly Pope, Entrepreneur

Kelly Pope is an experienced entrepreneur with a background in educational technology and interactive software design. In 2004, Kelly co-founded Interschola, a company providing online auction services to the education market. Kelly has held executive management positions at several interactive software companies including Electronic Arts, Sun and Borland. While serving as the VP of Engineering at Classroom Connect she managed the technology team that developed one of the first online interactive curriculum programs for the K-12 marketplace.

Kelly participated in the early funding of the Girls Middle School in Mountain View, CA, and has previously held board positions at the University of the Pacific and the Montalvo Arts Center. She attended the US Air Force Academy and UC Davis where she earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. Kelly's other interests include tennis, playing the piano, food and wine, travel, and spending quality time with her husband and 2 dogs.

Matthew Schreiber, Educational Promise Foundation