About Us.
Alex J. Jones
founder + ceo
Alex has led and worked on projects at the intersection of the Arts, creativity, and innovation across the social and private sector and in in higher education with partners ranging from the City and County of San Francisco annd San Francisco Unified School District to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where he led innovation efforts as their Experience Design Specialist. He has taught design at Streetcode Academy and worked as an Adjunct Lecturer in the Collaborative Arts MFA program at CIIS, Guest taught and facilitated for the University of San Francisco o’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program, and served as an Advisor for Notey, Inc., a music EdTech startup. He is a Juilliard dance graduate and was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Design Research where he developed the foundations for Margin Design Studio.
Advisors
Bob Roe
Advisor
Bob Roe is the VP of Narrative Development at Sozo Ventures. He is an experienced journalist and editor who has worked for some of the biggest media companies in the U.S. He started in magazines, but also ran a large, news-based website, and has edited both fiction and non-fiction books for several major publishers.
Neeraj Sonalkar
Advisor
Neeraj co-founded the human capital formation program at Stanford University, where he is an Adjunct Lecturer. Previously, Neeraj was the Executive Director of Human Innovation Design in the DesignX group at Stanford University, where he led research funded by the National Science Foundation on high-performance teams. Based on his research at Stanford, Neeraj co-founded Flourish, a leadership-tech startup. As the Head of Product at Flourish, he led the development of a diagnostic platform for scaling companies to highlight organizational priorities and evaluate executive performance. He also co-founded accelerators for high-potential founders in Nigeria and India.
Thought Partners
Whitney Schmanski
Whitney is a multidisciplinary artist who works on collaborative projects across the realms of dance, photography, research, education, and storytelling. Whitney is a graduate of The Juilliard School (BFA) and UC Irvine (MFA). Whitney is particularly drawn to projects encompassing design, creative direction, individual and collective wellness, image making, and systems thinking. www.synchronizestudios.com
Jason Blackwell
Jason is currently the Director of Community Investments at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and was formerly Acting Director of Grants for the Arts for the City and County of San Francisco.
Moscelyne ParkeHarrison
Moscelyne ParkeHarrison is a bicoastal dance artist. She is the Associate Artistic Director of Post:ballet, and Director of BODYSONNET. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School (Dance ‘19) with the Joseph W. Polisi Artist as Citizen Award. She received additional training at Hubbard Street Pro, Walnut Hill, BANFF, and Jacob’s Pillow.
She has performed works by Crystal Pite, Martha Graham, José Limón, Nacho Duato, Bill T Jones, Johannes Wieland, Roy Assaf, Ihsan Rustem, Chuck Wilt, Robin Dekkers and more.
Moscelyne has received support from Anthony Quinn Foundation, MassCultural Council, NEFA, and commissions from Metropolis Ensemble, LINES Training Program, Post:ballet and The Juilliard School.
Moscelyne is a faculty member at Berkeley Ballet Theater and LINES. She has taught workshops at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Yale University.
Presently, she is choreographing Magma, an immersive dance theater experience produced by Post:ballet at The Midway, a multi-room nightclub in San Francisco.
Penelope Douglas
Penelope currently works with social change movement builders, organizations and collaborators across sectors including health, arts and culture, and regenerative capital.
Recently, she was the Chief of Strategy for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where she guided a multifaceted approach encompassing artist centered investment programs, art and health partnerships, philanthropy, technology, and measurement of impact. She was deeply focused on organizational culture. Along with the leadership team, she played a key role in implementing YBCA’s engagement strategy. Douglas is the founding Director of CultureBank, incubated at YBCA, a national pilot program that positions artists as central actors in community investment strategies.
She served as the co-founder and CEO of Pacific Community Ventures, a community investment organization supporting small businesses to create good jobs in low income communities. She was a senior executive and Chair of the largest impact investing conference, SOCAP.
She served as a Director and headed the Governance Committee for New Resource Bank (acquired by Amalgamated Bank), and as a director of the Opportunity Finance Network. Currently she serves as Chair of Aeris www.aerisinsight.org. She is an artist.
