News  •

Welcoming our new board members!

We’re thrilled to welcome three new board members to our family! Keep reading to learn more about them.

826 Valencia’s Board of Directors is quite the crew of dedicated, passionate, talented folks. In the past few years, the board has been instrumental in significantly growing our reach—building two new writing centers in addition to our original location in the Mission District. To match this growth, we’ve added three dynamic new board members each of whom brings specific skills and networks to help us maximize our impact.

Our three new members, Carolyn Feinstein Edwards, Julia Matsudaira, and Enikia Ford Morthel come to us from backgrounds in education, finance, technology, and the nonprofit sector. Board Chairman Jim Lesser said, “As we work to further develop a tight-knit, strategic, and high-functioning Board, we are so excited to have Carolyn, Julia and Nikki join our ranks. Each brings dynamism, very specific experience, and skills as well as networks that will help us maximize our impact for students in San Francisco.”

A creative pioneer, Carolyn Feinstein has over 20 years of experience leading marketing teams and building creative and effective marketing strategies for high-profile companies. Most recently, she was Dropbox’s Chief Marketing Officer. She led Dropbox’s global marketing organization, driving initiatives to develop the company’s iconic and enduring brand, engaging and acquiring customers, and building lasting relationships that help Dropbox users around the world unleash their creative energy.

Before joining Dropbox, Carolyn spent time advising emerging brands from tech to beauty—including Pure Storage, where she was responsible for building the company’s digital marketing strategy and developing their brand and messaging architecture. For over a decade, Carolyn ran Global Consumer Marketing at Electronic Arts, helping to define the strength and personality of EA SPORTS and developing high impact campaigns for franchises from Madden Football to FIFA to Battlefield. She also led the company’s digital transformation across its marketing effort.

Carolyn has a degree in Political Science from Union College and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is a former board member of GirlVentures and a former advisory board member of Common Sense. She currently serves on the boards of the San Francisco Parks Alliance and 826 Valencia. Carolyn lives in San Francisco with her husband, three kids, and her dog, Steeler.

Julia Matsudaira leads the Impact Advisory practice at Jordan Park, a multi-family office based in San Francisco, whose mission is to help clients enhance their lives and legacies. Prior to joining Jordan Park, Julia was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where she worked from 2014 to 2017. Previously, Julia spent a decade in the nonprofit sector where she developed expertise in strategic planning, program evaluation, human capital management, and fundraising through her work at several leading organizations, including Summer Search and Citizen Schools. Julia currently serves on the board of 826 Valencia because she believes in the power of mentoring and self-expression as ways to cultivate young leaders.

She also volunteers on advisory councils for several community foundations in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a mentor at Rewriting the Code. Julia received her BA with High Honors from Wesleyan University and her MBA from Cornell University, where she was a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow and an Environmental Finance and Impact Investing Fellow.

 

 

Enikia Ford Morthel is an urban educator with over 15 years of experience serving the Bay Area’s most historically underserved communities. She is currently the Asst. Superintendent for the San Francisco Unified School District’s Bayview/Potrero Hill communities, as part of a collaborative team created to transform San Francisco’s lowest-performing schools. Prior to this appointment, she facilitated the turnaround of underperforming schools and incubation of new schools in some of the Bay Area’s highest-need neighborhoods. Enikia sees education as an act of social justice and is committed to the transformation of our educational system to be more responsive, relevant, and revolutionary in the lives of the children who need it most.

Outside of her day job, Enikia continues to engage and empower communities of color. She advances these efforts in her role as Professor/Senior Lecturer of Urban Education at Loyola Marymount University. She has consulted for companies like ETS, LeapFrog, and a number of Bay Area CBOs, and partnered with Seneca Family of Agencies as a lead developer of the All-In Partnership, which has transformed Special Education and Response to Intervention in many schools serving communities of increased trauma. She serves on many boards and is excited to share her passion and experience in support of 826 Valencia’s vision. Originally from Los Angeles, Enikia is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a Master’s degree in Education. Although she enjoys the “heart work” that consumes much of her days, her most rewarding role has been that of mother and wife. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, William, and two children, Jayvyn (an 826 student!) and Samaiya.

 

Welcome aboard, Carolyn, Julia, and Enikia! We’re thrilled to have your passion, knowledge, and experience on the team. And as we expand our services by opening a third center in Mission Bay early next year, your support will be crucial in helping us serve even more students across the city.