Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees have backgrounds in education, business, finance, fundraising, and nonprofit management with extensive ties to the Silicon Valley nonprofit industry.

Edward Alvarez

Chair

  • Edward Alvarez has extensive background and experience in the education sector. He was elected to the East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) Board of Trustees and served a seven-year term during which the District constructed eight high schools. He was also a founding member of the board of trustees of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School San Jose. He served a seven-year term on the Board of Trustees of Santa Clara University as well as the Board Real Estate and Finance Committee. He is a Trustee Emeritus of the University as well as a member of the Role Model Board of Trustees, an elementary school mentorship program. His education experience also includes services on various advisory committees, including the California Community Colleges Advisory Committee on Minority Affairs and Cristo Rey High School San Jose.

    During his law practice tenure, he represented the Mission-De Anza Community College District and was instrumental in the information of the formation of the Mission -De Anza Community Foundation, including the creation of enabling legislation required by law. Mr. Alvarez has been recognized as a recipient of the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s first-ever Latino Leadership Awards. Mr. Alvarez is now the President and Chairman of the Latino Education Advancement Foundation (LEAF).

Jose Iglesias

Vice-Chair

  • Jose Iglesias is an experienced executive in the software and services business’ having held a wide variety of positions including general management of an over half a billion dollar business, growing businesses profitably, managed off-shoring initiatives, product and portfolio management, and product & services development among others. Iglesias was an executive at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Software division Consulting & Education Services where he led a team of Chief Technology Officers, Content Developers, and Marketing to develop a winning strategy to successfully turn the business around into profitability while ensuring high customer satisfaction.

    In 1974, John sold Midtown Realty to focus on commercial development for the rapidly emerging high technology industry. The Sobrato Organization has since been responsible for the development and construction of more than 150 office and research & development facilities, totaling more than 15 million square feet and 10,000 apartment units. While a corporate leader, John is a community leader — supporting many organizations in both board leadership and advisor positions, and believing that despite the deep and compelling need, this entire Silicon Valley can thrive.

Ray Ruiz

Secretary

  • Mr. Ruiz is a retired businessman and founder/owner of Community Development Resources, Inc. (CDR) CDR is a commercial construction & development company located in Silicon Valley, California for over 25 years. Mr. Ruiz is the longest seated board member on the Latino Education Advancement Foundation, as a member of the initial founding board of the National Hispanic University (approximately 28 years). His passion and commitment is to provide Latinx high school students with access to a quality high school education, a supported pathway to a college education and access to meaningful careers, in vocational related employment.

Leny Alugas

  • Lenny is responsible for ensuring that Veritas’ customers are successful exceeding the value of their investment in Veritas solutions. This includes Veritas customer support, renewals teams, and coordinating the company focus on the end-to-end customer relationship.

    He is an accomplished operations executive with over 20 years of leadership and management experience at high-tech companies that include Western Union, Symantec, Multitude, Inc. (FireTalk), Excite@Home, and Hewlett-Packard where he successfully met the challenges of new ventures, turnaround businesses, and high-growth expansion to deliver strong and sustainable operating results.

    Lenny’s strengths include identifying and developing new business opportunities, strengthening and restructuring business operations, and building strong, productive, and collaborative organizations. Prior to Veritas, Lenny served as Senior Vice President of Operations at Western Union for three years. Before that, in his 12 years at Symantec, Lenny grew the company’s eCommerce business 21 percent in a highly competitive and commoditized market, growing new online customers by 10 percent annually, leveraging big data for personalization, and expanding organizational and platform capabilities.

    Lenny holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in New York City and a bachelor’s degree in applied physics from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

    Avalos is a member of the Latino Community Foundation Board of Trustees and a founding member of Hermanos Unidos. He earned a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s Degree from UC Berkeley. Avalos has served on the California Community College Board of Governors since 2014.

Dr. Violeta Barroso

  • Dr. Barroso is a community-based physician working in Watsonville California, practicing full spectrum Family Medicine as part of the Permanente Medical Group. She cares for the needs of entire families while daily working to address health disparities in medical care. Because of her work, Dr. Barroso has received the Visión con Pasión physician award from the Kaiser Permanente Latinx Association.

    In her free time, Dr. Barroso volunteers with organizations that support the entry of under-represented students into the physician pipeline. She is a board member of the Santa Cruz County Medical Society and is founder of the Santa Cruz County Medical Society Student Lecture Series. She also works closely with UC Santa Cruz to launch a new Pre-Med Post Baccalaureate Program set to begin in 2023.

    Dr. Barroso was born in Mexico and grew up in King City, California. She received a BS degree in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and again attended Stanford for Medical School. During her medical training, she completed a Fellowship in Leadership in Health Disparities and did additional coursework at the Stanford schools of Business and Law.

John M. Sobrato

Stephanie R. Bravo

  • Stephanie R. Bravo is a social innovator recognized for creating technology-based organizations, scaling transformational programs across the social sector, and impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands through her work. She is currently making a difference in corporate social responsibility where she is one of few women of color in Silicon Valley at leading technology companies making an impact on the community she comes from. Most recently, Bravo was Community Impact Manager at Comcast managing social impact programs, corporate philanthropy, and employee engagement initiatives aimed at advancing digital equity and promoting careers in technology for diverse communities. In her most notable role as Founder & President of StudentMentor.org, Ms. Bravo created the first-ever, social network providing virtual mentoring at scale for college students. She received unprecedented recognition for her work partnering with the Obama White House in 2012 on an education and awareness campaign aimed at empowering the next generation of leaders and sparking a national movement of virtual volunteerism.

    Bravo holds an M.A. in Education from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, a B.A. in Psychology from San José State University, a certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University, and ~2 years of medical training as a medical student focused on serving diverse populations and advancing health equity as a fellow of the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. She was the first in her family to attend a four-year university and graduated cum laude while working part-time in retail, conducting medical research, and volunteering in her community.

John Ottoboni

Tony Gonzalez

  • Tony is the Vice President of Merchant Market Manager - Enterprise Payments for Bank of America. He is an accomplished and experienced sales leader in the finance industry, with a proven track record of developing and leading high-performing teams, and an influential leader who creates an immediate impact through data-driven strategies that produce results and fuel profits.

    Tony is a champion for diversity and inclusion and has exemplified a lifelong commitment to being active within and giving back to the community. He believes it is important to pay it forward and make a positive impact in the lives of others.

Michael R. Walker

  • Michael R. Walker is an executive vice president and head of Commercial Banking at City National Bank. He is also the regional executive of City National’s Northern California region. He is responsible for commercial banking activities throughout City National Bank, and is a member of the bank’s Executive Committee.

    Michael's extensive finance experience includes positions of increasing responsibility in commercial and investment banking, as well as financing for entrepreneurs. He was president of U.S. Bancorp's Northern California region from 2005 until 2013 and was also head of the company's corporate banking business in eight Western states.

    Michael spent 18 years in roles of increasing responsibility at banks that merged into JPMorgan Chase, including Chemical Bank and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. He was also involved in the 1999 acquisition of Hambrecht & Quist in his role with Chase Securities. In addition, Michael spent two years as managing director of San Francisco-based GFP Advisors, a boutique middle-market advisory firm, where he was responsible for business development and transaction execution, with a focus on corporate finance and capital raising.

    A Bay Area resident for 28 years, Michael serves on the board of the California Chamber of Commerce and the board of the Jewish Vocational Services of San Francisco. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Foundation for Hispanic Education in San Jose. Michael holds a bachelor's degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.

Ramon Jimenez, M.D.

  • Dr. Ramon Jimenez is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who for 35 years specialized in total joint replacements and arthroscopic surgery, serving patients in San Jose, the city where he was born and raised. He is the product of Jesuit education having graduated from Bellarmine College Preparatory, Santa Clara University, and the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Locally he served on the Board of Trustees of both Regional Medical Center and O’Connor Hospital. He has held many leadership positions in orthopedic organizations, including the President of the California Orthopedic Association and the Western Orthopaedic Association (14 western states).

    He is currently the President of the Orthopedic Research & Education Foundation, a national organization that raises funds for orthopedic research and education initiatives. The main thrust of his work has been the education of the orthopedic and medical community in diversity and the elimination of musculoskeletal healthcare disparities. He is committed to mentorship at all levels from students of middle school through medical school. His objectives are particularly directed at decreasing barriers in the educational pipeline for Hispanic / Latino and marginalized minority students. He practices and advocates a lifelong commitment to “Give Back”.

Monica Tijerina

  • Successful product launches include Veklury®, Biktarvy®, Vemlidy®, Descovy®, Odefsey®, Genvoya®, and Janumet®. She is recognized as an inclusive thought-leader promoting inclusion and diversity across the business and within local communities. Monica is currently the Vice President of External Manufacturing, Clinical Supply Chain, and Logistics within Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing at Gilead Sciences. In this role, she is responsible for the external manufacture of Gilead medicines and investigational compounds across pharmaceutical modalities with distribution to patients worldwide and in support of global clinical trials. Before joining Gilead Sciences, Monica was a Director in Formulation Sciences at Merck and a Senior Research Scientist at Novartis. While at Merck, Monica held various positions within Pharmaceutical Research and Development, which included formulation lead and co-inventor of Janumet®. At Novartis, Monica developed oral peptide delivery systems. Monica received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in Dr. Jindřich Kopeček’s laboratory, where her research focused on developing novel anticancer polymeric delivery systems. She received her BS in Chemistry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

    In addition to her functional responsibilities, Monica has led and actively supports Gilead’s Latino Employee Resource Group. In this capacity, she works to make an impact across five pillars: business impact, community outreach and engagement, cultural awareness, professional development, and recruitment. Monica is passionate about STEM education and bringing awareness about opportunities within the pharmaceutical industry to discover, develop, and deliver novel medicines to people with life-threatening diseases

André V. Chapman, MA

  • André V. Chapman is a purpose driven executive, founder, and CEO with more than 30 years’ experience in private, public, and non-profit sectors, driving organizational strategy, transformation, impact, and diversified growth. He is a national ESG expert with a deep passion for creating innovative, impactful initiatives, to address complex business challenges.

    Building his early career in high-tech, developing, and leading high-performance teams led to his entrepreneur spirit. As founded, André led The Unity Care Group Inc. through decades of strategic growth providing education, employment, housing, and mental health services to 7500+ clients annually growing revenues from $0 to a budget of $18M. André is an innovator and problem solver having developed a continuum of supportive housing, spearheaded market and revenue diversification completing two acquisitions, and service expansion across Northern California.

    André is a visionary leader with a keen eye for great opportunities disguised as unforeseen risk. André founded the Silicon Valley Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet, a network of community, corporate and government entities to address the economic and social inequalities impacting the Black Community. Leading to the first Black centered Medical Clinic in Silicon Valley.

    André recognized the radical impact of Covid-19 and launched Covid19Black, a California statewide health initiative aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus. André created a network of 1,000+ strategic partners, from the NFL to California’s Surgeon General to decrease the transmission and strengthen the community’s overall health and well-being. The platform was then leveraged nationally.

    André has undertaken his most audacious endeavor by tackling the public health crisis of homelessness among former foster youth. As Founder and CEO of Fostering Promise, his commitment is clear: ensuring no young person ages out of foster care without a safe place to call home and the hope for a promising future. His strategic leadership is evident as he spearheads advocacy and public policy efforts across California.

    André is recognized nationally for his stakeholder advocacy and serves on multiple boards. He is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. Andre’ has received numerous awards honoring his decades of leadership, dedication, and community involvement.

    In 2022, he received the Champion for Youth Award by East Oakland Youth Development Center, The Patricia Gardner Changemaker Award by Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits. In 2023 he received the Greg Ranstrom Network Leadership Award by American Leadership Forum (ALF) Silicon Valley, and selected as One of the 15 Most Influential Black Leaders of Silicon Valley by Spotlight Media. He received the 2023 Community Service Award by the Housing Industry Foundation and was the 2023 Wall of Fame Honorary by the Silicon Valley Capital Club.

    André is a published author releasing his book “Roses in Concrete: Giving Foster Children the Future They Deserve”. André is a husband and proud father of 6 young adults, speaks sign language and in his spare time loves to play golf, travel, and ski.