Elissa Dennis

Executive Director of Community Economics, Inc

Under Elissa Dennis’s leadership, Community Economics provides technical expertise in the field of nonprofit, community-based affordable housing finance and development. Through direct technical assistance to nonprofit developers and as leaders in local, state, and national housing policy issues, CEI is at the forefront of the affordable housing movement. Elissa is expert in financing, tax credit syndication, and related aspects of affordable housing development. Since joining CEI in 1990, she has assisted with the development of several thousand affordable homes for families, seniors, and special needs populations in rural, suburban, and urban settings in California and Washington.

Elissa is active in local and statewide housing and community development issues. She served on the board of directors of East Bay Housing Organizations, including four years as president. She was a founder and longtime board member of People’s Community Partnership (now Self Help) Federal Credit Union. She served several terms on the Housing California board, including time as treasurer. She is currently serving on the boards of California Coalition for Rural Housing and California Tax Reform Association.

Tom Duryea

Former Community Bank President & CEO

Tom Duryea leadership roles include CEO of Summit Bank (OTC trading symbol: SMAL) for five years succeeding its founder, Shirley Nelson. Summit Bank is the oldest women founded community bank in California and is headquartered in Oakland, CA. Under his leadership, Summit Bank’s market cap grew 70% while keeping the success of its team members, clients and community a top priority. In addition, Tom led Summit State Bank (Nasdaq trading symbol: SSBI) headquartered in Sonoma County as President & CEO for over eight years. Under his direction, the average annual return (stock appreciation plus dividends) was 18.5% versus 10.75% for S&P 500 and 3.95% for community banking industry. During his tenure, the community bank ranked #1 in northern California and #3 in California in shareholder return resulting in many awards including Super Performing Bank, Findley Reports; Top 75 Corporate Philanthropists in the Bay Area, SF Business Times; Best Places to Work, NorthBay Business Journal; and Best Company to do Business with in Sonoma County, NorthBay Biz. Tom received a B.A. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a graduate with honors of Pacific Coast Banking School in Seattle, WA, where he served on its Board of Directors for eight years.

Carroll Fife

Councilmember, City of Oakland

Carroll Fife is the City Councilmember for Oakland’s District 3. After decades of public service as a non-profit director and community organizer, Carroll was called to run for office by the people with whom she organizes every day. One of the founding members of Moms for Housing, Carroll has fought both in the halls of power and in the streets to protect the human right to housing.

Her priorities are to divest from police to invest in community, get every unsheltered person in Oakland into housing as quickly as possible, and create progressive tax structures to correct social and racial inequities. Her historic winning campaign, supported by virtually every endorsing organization in Oakland, was powered by over 1000 active volunteers, and has transitioned into a permanent political organization dedicated to passing transformative legislation and building a progressive majority on the Oakland City Council.

“My goal is not only to cultivate and develop the leadership, the critical thinking skills, and the analysis but also to make the space and give the platform to the people so that they can exercise what they know to be right, to lift up their experiences. Together we can create the strategic points that will help us to victory over injustice.”

—Carroll Fife

Paulina Gonzalez-Brito

Chief Executive Officer of Rise Economy (FORMERLY the California Reinvestment Coalition)

Paulina Gonzalez-Brito (they/them/elle) identifies as Xicane, Purepecha, Mestize. Their great-grandparents were Mexican Arizona copper miners who took part in the historic Metcalf-Greenlee strikes in the early 1900s and whose father was an immigrant union hotel worker. Paulina has dedicated more than 20 years of their life to leading economic justice organizing campaigns to expand worker rights, immigrant rights, and the rights of low-income and underrepresented communities of color. Under their leadership, Rise Economy has expanded its work to directly challenge systemic and structural racism within the U.S. financial system and to focus the organization’s work on building collective political and organizing power amongst and with frontline communities to close the racial wealth gap.

Lauren Leimbach

Founder and former Executive Director of Community Financial Resources

With over 20 years in the financial services industry with Bank of America, the Federal Reserve, and Providian Financial, Lauren Leimbach has a wide-ranging background in new financial product/service development, automation and payment systems, marketing strategy, operational implementation, production management, and organizational planning. Under her direction, CFR worked with community organizations, social service agencies, government entities, and labor to improve the access of low-to-moderate income households to consumer-friendly financial products—including a low-cost prepaid debit card, credit builder products, and alternatives to payday lending. Lauren also provides organizations consulting support on program development and execution including banking platforms to improve organizational performance. Lauren has a BA in Economics and an MBA in Finance from the University of Michigan.

Henry (“Hank”) Levy

Treasurer and Tax Collector, Alameda County

Alameda County Treasurer Henry “Hank” Levy leads his office with integrity, efficiency, and transparency, and brings a vision for social impact investing to his management of your tax dollars.

A practicing Certified Public Accountant since 1987, Hank established an Oakland-based accounting firm specializing in tax compliance and planning, small business accounting, non-profit & labor union accounting work, litigation support, and forensic investigations. Hank is an accredited community college instructor. He has taught accounting, employee benefits, and economics at San Francisco Community College, Laney College and San Francisco State University, as well as teaching through the UC Labor Center and Haas School of Business.

Hank has served either as a member or board member of OCCUR, Machinists Local 64, Plant Closures Project, Oakland School District Budget Advisory Committee, City of Oakland Citizen and Business Budget Advisory Committees, City of Oakland Political Reform Act Advisory Committee, North Atlantic Books, La Pena, Conciliation Forum, Pogo Park, Rockridge Soccer Club and Rockridge District Association, the East Bay Chapter of the California Society of CPAs, among others. He previously served as Board member and President of KPFA Radio, the Alameda County Assessment Appeals board, and PTA president of Peralta Elementary School, and trained income tax preparers for the Income Tax Assistance program at the Hayward Area Recreation District. Hank has recently been appointed to AC Transit’s Parcel Tax Fiscal Oversight Committee, where he will help ensure public transit funds are spent as promised to voters.

Alison Lingane

FOUNDER, OWNERSHIP CAPITAL LAB

Alison Lingane is a nationally recognized employee ownership expert. Her passion for creating an economy that works for everyone was fueled in her early career by her role designing and leading micro-enterprise programs for urban youth. Alison is the Founder of the Ownership Capital Lab, which focuses on capital as a growth and scale lever for employee ownership. The Lab identifies, pilots, and supports the uptake of strategies for financing employee ownership at greater scale. This work builds on her 10+ years as co-founder of Project Equity, a leader in the movement to harness employee ownership to maintain thriving local business communities, honor selling owners’ legacies, and address income and wealth inequality, and on her role as founder and manager of the Employee Ownership Catalyst Fund.

Leading capital initiatives for Project Equity, Alison raised nearly $15M in capital to finance employee ownership transitions. She also launched Project Equity’s work partnering with over a dozen cities, counties and other government agencies throughout California and the U.S. Alison has her B.S. from Harvard and her MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where she is currently a Social Impact Fellow.

Vinod Paniker

Chief Platform Officer at Paceline

At Paceline, Vinod Paniker is building the next generation financial services platform that rewards people for healthy behavior. Before joining Paceline, Vinod was the Head of Product Management, Marketing Platforms at Prudential Financial, a Fortune 50 company. In this key role, he focused on leveraging technology, AI, and ML to help build the next generation digital marketing capabilities for Prudential. Vinod also headed Prudential’s Silicon Valley campus. With over 25 years of professional experience, Vinod is skilled in product management, product development, software engineering, and management leadership in the FinTech and Financial Services domain.Before joining Prudential, Vinod was co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Söoryen Technologies, where he championed the delivery of FinTech products and services to a wide variety of companies, including start-ups and major industry players like MyVest and Cetera. Before Söoryen, Vinod was Vice President of Engineering at Pricelock, focusing on building a revolutionary platform in the energy segment. He also spent over a decade at E*TRADE, where he held various positions of increasing responsibility, most notably leading E*TRADE’s Retail brokerage projects as Director of Software Engineering. Vinod holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Mumbai, India.

Royl Roberts

Chief Assistant District Attorney,

County of Alameda

Royl began his career in finance and property & casualty insurance and has worked for Fortune 500 companies. Royl has held various leadership positions in both the private and public sector, as well as working in an Employment and Civil Rights Law Firm. After law school, he transitioned to the public sector where he has held positions in operations, risk management and employee relations. Most recently, Royl has held executive level positions as Chief of Staff and General Counsel. He graduated with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Our Lady of the Lake University, Doctor of Jurisprudence from Golden Gate University, School of Law with a Specialization Certificate in Business Law with Distinction and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Saint Mary’s College of California. Royl has taught classes as an adjunct instructor in the subjects of business, business law, strategy, and problem-solving. Finally, Royl is an active and/or elected member in other fraternal and civic organizations.