Our Supporters

Board Chair

Joslyn Osborn is a partner with Vaco Los Angeles and is responsible for expanding, leading, and training the executive search team. She has more than ten years of client service and recruiting expertise for finance and accounting professional roles. Joslyn has expanded the Vaco Financial team, driven internal process improvement, and increased revenue and EBITDA by 200 percent.

Joslyn is active in the community, launching The Grid in LA, an informal networking group for emerging CPAs. She also serves as a mentor for middle school girls through her work with EmpowHer Institute.

Secretary

Claudia Alleyne, M.D., is a neonatologist and Medical Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) located at Kaiser Permanente’s Anaheim Medical Center. Dr. Alleyne provides medical care to newborns that are born prematurely, critically ill, or in need of surgery. Her medical career began as a graduate of Harvard Medical School with her residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She served on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles for six years, motivated by the belief that women deserve access to comprehensive health care and accurate education regarding contraception and reproductive choices. Claudia has been an active member of the Association of Black Women Physicians (a Southern California-based organization), serving as president, vice president, treasurer, and chair of several committees.

Vice President

Cecilia Owens is the Chief Financial Officer at industry-leading music licenser APM Music, where she oversees accounting, finance, human resources, and legal affairs. With balanced career growth in various industries, including entertainment, social media, advertising, technology, television services, and financial services, Cecilia thrives in changing environments. Her storied career has included deep, functional experience in cash management, financial reporting, budgeting/forecasting, strategic planning, payroll, 401K administration, benefits administration, taxes, business insurance, and banking relationship management.

Before accepting her current role, Cecilia held progressively emergent positions at worldwide leader of satellite television DIRECTV and entertainment giant FOX, where she was responsible for the consolidated SEC financial reporting of websites such as MySpace, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, and PhotoBucket.

A native of Southern California, Cecilia attended Junipero Serra High School where her admiration for academics flourished. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Loyola Marymount University, and an MBA from the University of Southern California. Outside of work, Cecilia is a proud wife, mother, and experienced world traveler.

Treasurer

Jacqueline Davis is the COO and CFO of rapidly growing 24 Hour Home Care, a 5,000-employee provider of non-medical home care to clients in California, Texas, and Arizona. She oversees all aspects of operations, business intelligence, finance and accounting, people operations, real estate and insurance. She is also the executive sponsor of the company’s Diversity and Inclusion committee.

Jacqueline has more than 24 years of experience in business leadership, financial management, process transformation, global system implementations and operations excellence. She has established a reputation for building world-class teams, as well as aligning business and financial metrics to support company strategy and rapid growth.

Prior to joining 24 Hour Home Care, she spent several years leading finance, accounting, and technology implementation teams for start-ups, global and Fortune 500 companies, such as Snapchat, MySpace, Mattel, Toyota Financial Services, and KPMG.

Jacqueline is a CPA and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Loyola Marymount University.

Director

Velonne Atkins is currently the News Business Manager for KCBS/KCAL, the largest local station duopoly in the country. She has held positions at ABC Network News and ABC 20/20. As an entrepreneur, Velonne and a partner, established Cahuenga Coffeehouse, converting an old check cashing space to a hip-happening alternative to the Starbucks coffee experience.

The coffeehouse business was sold and now operates as Caffée Etc in Hollywood, but Velonne relishes in the fact that she was at the helm of what is now a thriving comer/corridor with burgeoning businesses that used many of her plans for redevelopment of the area. In addition to her entrepreneurial ventures, Velonne enjoys travel, particularly to jazz festivals both domestic and international, event planning, and real estate activities. Velonne is originally from Fort Worth, Texas. She relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she completed her Bachelor’s degree at Pepperdine University.

Director

Tony Baylis is the director of the Office of Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Programs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Tony is a senior manager who serves as a champion, ambassador, and advocate for diversity and inclusion at LLNL. He manages the Laboratory’s interactions and successful execution in building, partnering, and collaborating with governmental, educational, industrial, community, and multiple stakeholders to assist the laboratory in striving to build an inclusive workforce to meet LLNL’s national security mission. He represents the Laboratory on the topics of diversity and inclusion, STEM, outreach, workforce initiatives, and student programs.

Tony serves as LLNL’s compliance point of contact for equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programs. He also encourages and manages the engagement of the laboratory’s 10 employee resource groups that contribute to the LLNL’s workforce, inclusion, and outreach efforts. He has also mentored students and staff on navigating their studies and careers in science, engineering and technology.

Lastly, Tony serves as an advisor, consultant, and champion to the Department of Energy, minority-serving institutions, diversity organizations and universities, and serves as a co-principal investigator, an advisory board member, and a board member for institutions and projects that promote the advancement of women and people of color in science and technology careers. In 2018, he became the inaugural chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. He aims to carry out the committee’s goal of creating a welcoming and nurturing community for everyone working in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Tony’s passion is advocating for access, equity, and opportunity for the underserved and underrepresented communities in science and technology. Tony is a member of SHRM, ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH.

Emeritus Director

Ruth M. Simeon is Principal Consultant for Improvement Technologies and has years of experience as a consultant, senior corporate manager, and nonprofit executive. Her human resources, organizational development and business management expertise has assisted companies in making major shifts in business strategies and practices. Those shifts have positively affected the capability and diversity of leadership, the visibility and career development of underrepresented employees, as well as the improved performance of managers and teams.

Improvement Technologies helps companies design and implement mentoring programs which help achieve business outcomes and strengthen leadership. Ruth wants to share this expertise within the community to help build future leaders at the earliest opportunity. She has a Master’s in Psychology from Pepperdine University. As a Hoosier Scholar, she earned a B.A. from Indiana University and completed executive coursework in finance at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Ruth is a certified senior professional in Human Resources. She was recognized by the City of Los Angeles for her work as Workforce Investment Board Commissioner. She is a former president of the California Diversity Council, an adjunct professor at Butler University, and guest lecturer at the USC Graduate School of Social Work.

Director

Diedra Porché is the Senior Vice President, Government and Non-profit Banking Manager covering the western region at JPMorgan Chase & Co. She is responsible for the banking and finance needs of municipal and not-for-profit clients.

Most recently, Diedra served as the Market Manager for Los Angeles Business Banking (2012-2017), overseeing the financial needs for clients up to $20 million in annual revenue. Prior to that, she was Division Manager in Houston Texas for the Government Banking Team in the commercial banking group (2007-2012). Having been with JPMorgan Chase & Co for 23 years, her prior positions include various leadership and management roles in retail, business banking and commercial banking.

A Houston native, Diedra earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master’s in Public Administration from Texas A&M University. Diedra’s affiliations in Houston included serving as board member of the Houston Downtown Management District, education committee member for the Greater Houston Partnership, Director of the executive committee for the City of Houston Bank on Houston program, as well as a graduate of Leadership Houston Class XXVII.

Diedra is currently an active board member for the California Bankers Association representing JP Morgan Chase & Co. She is also a former board member for the YWCA GLA. Additionally Diedra co-chairs the Los Angeles Chase Market Leadership Team.

Diedra is married to Kerry Porché and they have two children, Rachel and Jonathan. Diedra is also a member of Faithful Central Baptist Church where she participates in various church and community activities.

EmpowHer School Instructor

Wendy Fierro is the Social Studies Lead teacher at the UCLA Community School, where she has been teaching history for 5 years. In addition to teaching history, Wendy is the EmpowHer Instructor for 8th grade girls. She graduated from UC Irvine with a degree in Political Science and received her Master’s in teaching from UCLA. Wendy’s interests involve traveling and doing outdoor activities such as camping and hiking. She is also passionate about empowering youth to be agents of change.

Development Director

Angela received a BA in History and Criticism of Art from Florida State University in 2014. As an undergraduate, Angela interned at the FSU Museum of Fine Arts as a curatorial and education assistant. She played a vital role in the strategic development of the Tampa Museum of Art and the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, in Florida. She’s professionally certified in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge, and extends her expertise in optimizing fundraising CRMs and databases. With over six years of fundraising experience in non-profits, Angela is dedicated to executing the goals of a mission-driven organization; motivated by a passion for advancing diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion.

Angela is a Tampa Bay native, she also enjoys weekend excursions to the beach, any genre of live music, and her strong morning coffee.

Academy Instructor

Ana began studying at Cerritos College where she earned her Associate in Arts degree in Geography. She later transferred to UC Santa Barbara and earned a BA in Geography in March 2019. While attending UC Santa Barbara, Ana lived in a predominantly affluent community, giving her access to healthier air quality. During that time, freeways and railroads were at a distance, Anna didn’t live near industrial sites, and brown smog was not on the horizon. This experience was quite different from her upbringing in Southeast Los Angeles and helped Ana to recognize the disparities marginalized communities endure. Ana realized she wants to use her voice to represent BIPOC residents in marginalized communities and fight for environmental and social justice rights. Ana hopes to utilize her passion for environmental and social justice issues to encourage and empower youth to use their voices to advocate for equity and social change in their communities.

Academy Instructor

TaSh has a passion for the arts and empowering youth in marginalized communities. When she attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, she served as the youth lead for the Lynwood Youth Commission. This experience allowed her to see that she had the ability to make meaningful change. While pursuing her degree at Loyola Marymount University, she volunteered as a math tutor for youth in foster care in LAUSD. TaSh became a substitute teacher with the Long Beach Unified School District because of her love for children.

TaSh strives to make the youth she meets feel seen and heard. It is her hope that she can inspire our EmpowHer Girls to believe that they can also make meaningful change.

Program Director

Keyonna Keith is committed to serving underserved and marginalized youth through mentoring and educational programs. As an undergraduate, Keyonna worked with the UCLA Urban Collaborative P.A.L.S. Program to provide high school students in Watts mentorship and guidance with college preparation. Prior to joining EmpowHer, Keyonna has worked in the nonprofit sector managing and developing engaging after-school programs that provide tutoring and enrichment activities to students in Inglewood and Compton Unified School Districts.

Keyonna earned a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies and Political Science from Loyola Marymount University, and a Juris Doctor from UC Hastings College of the Law.