Malissa Feruzzi Shriver, Chair
Malissa Feruzzi Shriver is the strategic philanthropy and arts education advocacy advisor for Architect Frank Gehry, and together they co-founded Turnaround Arts: California. Malissa was the founding Executive Director of TA:CA, and currently serves as the board chair. She has served as First Vice President of the board for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) and Chair of the NASAA Arts Learning Advisory Committee; the governing board for the Western States Arts Federation; and the advisory board for the Center for Research on Creativity. She was appointed by California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to co-chair a task force on creative education after chairing the California team for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Education Leaders Institute. The task force was charged with writing A Blueprint for Creative Schools, which was released in 2015. Shriver co-founded CREATE CA (Core Reforms Engaging Arts to Educate in California), a statewide initiative to address the erosion of arts education in public schools. She was appointed to the California Arts Council by Governor Schwarzenegger, serving two terms, with four years as Chair. Malissa has served as a trustee for the California Institute for the Arts (Cal Arts College), The Actors Gang Theater, and was named to the Advisory Board of Get Lit and the California Alliance for Arts Education Policy Board. Malissa is currently involved with the Arts, Humanities and Civic Engagement Lab. In 2014, Shriver received the National Arts Education Award from Americans for the Arts. She majored in women’s studies at UCLA and attended the state and local government program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She received an honorary doctorate from the Laguna College of Art and Design and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Joni Binder, Vice Chair
Joni Binder has been on the Board of Directors of TA:CA since 2018; in the same year she began her term as founding director of the California Lieutenant Governor Arts Project. She formerly served as the Education Chair for the Fine Arts Committee for the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State. Ms Binder was president of the Modern Art Council of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where she also served as a trustee, and is currently on the museum’s Education Committee. She has served on the boards of SFFILM and the World Affairs Council of Northern California, on the CREATE CA task force, and as an advisor to various political candidates and causes. She studied architecture at Columbia University, then received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from California Institute of the Arts, where she later also served as a trustee. Joni Binder is the bestselling author and photographer of Mile 46: Face to Face in Maasailand, and is currently working on another literary project. She is married and has two grown children.
Marc Symons, Treasurer
Marc Symons is a Retired Partner at Ernst & Young LLP – M&A Leader Americas Banking & Capital Markets and FinTech. Marc provides M&A strategy and advisory services to Corporations, Private Equity, Venture Capital, FinTech, Governments, Regulators and International Financial Institutions (IFI’s). His practical expertise lies in complex global operations, CFO role, finance and accounting, restructuring, Private Equity, Venture Capital, asset management, global and domestic tax, treasury, litigation, M&A, IPO, capital raises, government, regulator and media relations, Board Member, Audit Committee Chair and Compensation Committee Member.
Lisa Field, Secretary
Lisa Field received her BA from Brandeis University with a major in theater. She parlayed that background into a 30-year career in Catering and Event Management in Los Angeles, 28 years as the owner of Catering by Field and Events by Field. In 2015, she segued into a second career in her family Real Estate business, NSB Associates, founded by her father, Larry Field, which she co-owns with her sister. She also serves on the Board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Baruch College Foundation, and the Brandeis University Arts Council, among others.
David Ford, Board Member
David A. Ford has an extensive background in government relations, civic service, and energy with extensive utility experience in transmission and distribution operations systems. He is an innovative and resourceful leader with a proven track record of identifying and seizing opportunities to exceed business objectives in highly competitive markets. He orchestrates comprehensive strategies to leverage engagement with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles City Council, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to ensure that SCE safely delivers affordable, reliable, and functional electric services. David graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. With a passion for community impact and outreach, David has a drive to excel in every endeavor he takes on. An accomplished administrator with an excellent track record in positions of increasing responsibility, David is a visionary strategist with a demonstrated ability to deliver corporate objectives and empower community engagement. He is known and is recognized for delivering personalized client services. David has been a leading voice for compassion, health equity, empathy, and trust in the true spirit of DE&I principles. His passion is his purpose.
Berta Gehry, Board Member
Born in Panama City, Republic of Panama, Berta Gehry’s extensive background in business operations and finance has brought her to her current role as Partner of Finance at Gehry Partners, LLP, overseeing the Finance Department and all office operations. During her 30-year tenure with the firm she has supported its sustainable and prosperous growth from a staff of five to now over 200 employees. Berta has degrees in Business from Aloysius Junior College and Anthropology from Cal State Northridge.
Frank Gehry, Board Member
Frank Owen Gehry is one of the most inventive and pioneering architects working today. Based in Los Angeles—where he relocated with his family in 1947—he has developed a unique vocabulary that reflects both the urban vernacular and his long association with contemporary artists. In 1954, he received his undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Southern California and in the years immediately following, worked in a number of firms including Victor Gruen Associates and Pereira and Luckman Associates. After brief studies in urban planning at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a year in Paris working for André Rémondet, Gehry returned to California and opened a small office in Santa Monica in 1962. His earliest work evolved from a Modernist idiom suggesting the varied influences of such pioneers as Harwell Hamilton Harris, Richard Neutra, and Frank Lloyd Wright. His distinctive formal vocabulary developed in early residential commissions in which he explored the expressive potential of humble materials and infused the architectural envelope with a sense of movement. As his practice expanded, the scope of his commissions grew to include exhibition design, furniture, libraries, office buildings, restaurants, schools, and visual and performing arts venues. The award of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989 brought increased recognition, and the years following have been among the most productive and rewarding of Gehry’s career. The introduction of sophisticated computer software in the early 1990s has facilitated the construction and engineering of complex building systems and successfully translated the gestural quality of his work from model to built form. Frank O. Gehry & Associates has grown to over 140 employees, and the geographic terrain covered by the firm’s work includes the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.
Mark Howell, Board Member
Mark Howell received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and was honored with induction into both Phi Eta Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa. Upon graduation, he began a career in motion picture advertising and quickly rose from executive assistant to copywriter to creative director, ultimately partnering with Brad Kurtz to launch Industrial Creative, a boutique advertising agency specializing in entertainment marketing. Since its founding almost 15 years ago, Industrial Creative has contributed to the launch and annual season re-launch campaigns of some of television’s most successful series, including “Married… With Children,” “The Simpsons,” “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Melrose Place,” “The X-Files,” “24,” “House,” “Family Guy,” and countless others, including the decade’s only genuine television phenomenon, “American Idol.” With a variety of clients in sectors outside of entertainment, Industrial Creative is known for strategic branding and smart conceptual work, and has been recognized with a variety of awards and honors, most notably the Promax/BDA Gold Award. Since losing scores of his contemporaries in the 1980’s, Mark Howell has been a tireless advocate for many causes, especially HIV/AIDS awareness. He has developed marketing campaigns for AIDS vaccine events, AIDS Walks, AIDS Ride, The Revlon Breast Cancer 3-Day, the Big Ride Across America, the Common Threads AIDS memorial quilt and many others. His fundraising efforts for the Los Angeles AIDS Walk were recognized for eight consecutive years by the Mayor of Los Angeles. He was a founding member of the advocacy group AIDS Community Donor Action. He is currently developing a “safe sex / get tested” campaign for the Center, Southern California’s most important gay advocacy organization. Mark Howell is also currently leading Industrial Creative’s creative marketing campaign for the California Art Council’s Million Plates campaign, an innovative public/private partnership charged with raising $40 million annually to replace public funding of arts education and local arts programs in the state of California. The second wave of this campaign is set to launch next month all across the state.
Terry Lenihan, Board Member
Terry Lenihan is a Los Angeles artist and educator. Professor Lenihan directs Loyola Marymount University’s art education credential program, as well as ARTsmart, a community service program of the Department of Art and Art History, which serves hundreds of local elementary students with fine art lessons taught by volunteer LMU students. She is an advocate for arts education and a believer in the power of art as a catalyst for social change. In March 2010, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Lenihan to the California Arts Council, and Governor Brown reappointed her in February 2011. Her research interests include: K–12 and post-secondary art education, service learning, collaborative art, and social justice arts education. Lenihan is a founding member and on the Leadership Team of the CREATE (Core Reforms Engaging Arts to Educate) CA, a broad-based, statewide coalition of agencies, educators, business leaders, and organizational partners building an education reform movement that views arts and creative education as a central part of the solution to the crisis in California schools. In spring 2012, State Superintendent Torlakson appointed her to the Joint Arts Education Task Force, charged with writing The Blueprint for Creative Schools: How the Arts and Creative Education Can Transform California’s Classrooms. The blueprint was published in May 2013. Terry Lenihan is also a sculptor and installation artist who is known for her monumental figurative sculptures that reference the individual’s struggle against constraints, and the power of celebration in the human gesture. Her artwork has been featured in numerous gallery and museum venues both locally and internationally, including the Irvine Fine Art Center, Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Brand Art Gallery, Galerie Califia in Prague, Czech Republic, Seojong Center in Seoul, Korea, and the Museum of Modern Fine Art, Minsk, Belarus. Lenihan received her MFA in Sculpture from Claremont Graduate University.
Meaghan Lloyd, Board Member
Meaghan Lloyd is the chief of staff and partner at Gehry Partners, LLP a full service architectural firm with extensive international experience in the design and construction of academic, museum, theater, performance, and commercial projects. Founded in 1962 in Los Angeles, California, Gehry Partners’ mission is to raise architecture to the level of art, while creating buildings that meet the project’s functional and budgetary needs. She has held this position since 2009. Prior to this, she was a designer working with Frank Gehry in the firm. In addition to her duties at Gehry Partners, she served as chief executive officer of Gehry Technologies, Inc., a cloud-based software and service company for the architectural, engineering and construction sectors, from 2012-2014. In 2014, she presided over the merger of Gehry Technologies with Trimble Inc. and was elected to their board of directors in 2015. Ms. Lloyd received her Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and her Masters of Architecture from Yale University. She is a Board Member of Turnaround Arts California.
Lisa Moxley, Board Member
Lisa is a versatile and trusted entertainment executive with over two decades of experience at major studios and networks. Currently, Lisa is Senior Counsel, Business and Legal Affairs overseeing those functions for Universal 1440 Entertainment. In addition to her career in entertainment, Lisa is an expert advisor and ambassador, retained by high visibility individuals and corporate executives for her guidance in strategic messaging, philanthropic and political fundraising and event planning, litigation prevention, and personal branding. She has also worked on both local and national political campaigns, including Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, serving as Communications Director and Press Secretary in Kentucky, National Finance Associate and Director of Constituent Outreach in Chicago and Ohio. Lisa has served on the boards of non-profit organizations and is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary School of Law.
Nan Peletz, Board Member
Nan Peletz brings decades of experience as an artist and architect. As head of an architectural practice she designed the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford along with many residences. She also founded and funds the FAIRSTART program at Stanford University which enables community college students who go to their student health centers with mental health issues to be diagnosed and treated by Stanford psychiatrists free of charge. She believes that because mental health problems often appear in the 18-25 year old population, that early, correct diagnosis and treatment can make the difference between a normal life and one of devastating and ongoing setbacks. Nan has also served on boards and committees for notable cultural institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as the Architecture and Design Committee at SFMOMA. More recently she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting.
Matt Rodriguez, Board Member
Matt Rodriguez is the founder and President of Rodriguez Strategies. A veteran Democratic strategist with more than 25 years of experience working for candidates and causes across the nation, Matt focuses on designing and leading grassroots and grasstops campaigns for diverse entities ranging from emerging nonprofits to Fortune 500 corporations. Matt employs his knowledge of the public and private sectors to implement winning strategies for clients at local and statewide levels. He runs the American Beverage Association’s coalition-building efforts in California and leads their advocacy campaign to educate local elected officials about the beverage industry. Matt has also worked with clients including The Pew Charitable Trusts, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Door Dash, and former California First Lady Maria Shriver. Matt’s campaign management experience ranges from local and state legislative races to U.S. presidential campaigns. In 2008, Matt served as the Western States Regional Director for Obama for America, where he managed campaign operatives and executed strategy throughout the Western United States. Prior to the general election, he served as the New Hampshire State Director for the Obama campaign during the 2008 presidential primary. Matt’s experience in politics dates back to 1997 when he was a press aide to House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt. He later served as Congressman Gephardt’s Political Action Committee Director in 2002 and the Deputy Political Director on his 2004 presidential campaign. Matt also worked for Senator Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign in 2000, managed Senator Chris Dodd’s reelection effort in 2004, and successfully guided California State Senator Kevin de Leon’s first campaign for the State Assembly in 2006. In addition to his work at Rodriguez Strategies, Matt is a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics and serves on the board of directors of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund. Matt is also a frequent political contributor on AirTalk on 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio. Prior to his work in the political arena, Matt was a teacher at a small Jesuit school in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He lives with his wife Renee in Santa Barbara, California.
Natalie Tran, Board Member
Natalie Tran serves as the Executive Director of the CAA Foundation at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The CAA Foundation mission is to activate popular culture to create sustainable social change. Based in the Los Angeles office, Ms. Tran consults clients and executives on their philanthropic and pro-social initiatives. Most recently, Natalie led the formation of the Civic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of businesses working together to build a future where everyone participates in shaping our country. The Civic Alliance has over 1,040+ member companies with a reach of 5.3 million employees. In 2018, Natalie co-founded I am a voter., a nonpartisan awareness campaign that aims to create a cultural shift around voting and civic engagement. Since its launch, the campaign has generated over 2 billion social media impressions, activated over 100 hundred brand partners and helped get out the vote in every state through its text platform. She also serves on the Board of The Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) and Advisory Board of the Black Economic Alliance (BEA). She is a native of Los Angeles, and is a graduate of the University of Redlands with a degree in Business Management, Creative Writing, and Art History. She loves to tie-dye and go on hikes with her dog Hunter.