Previously, Rachel served in program leadership roles at the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, where she worked to advance economic opportunity, mobility, and equity. Earlier, she was vice president of a boutique investment firm and a global development and humanitarian aid worker serving communities coping with disasters.

Her commentary has appeared in, or her work has been profiled by, the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Fortune, TechCrunch, and Stanford Social Innovation Review. She has been a featured speaker at the Federal Reserve, United Nations, National League of Cities, Aspen Institute, and many universities. Rachel was named a 2023 Presidential Leadership Scholar and New York Times DealBook 2022 Groundbreaker. She also received Crain’s New York’s recognition for notable leaders in philanthropy for her service during the COVID-19 pandemic and a 2021 “Stevie Award” for female nonprofit executive of the year.

Rachel serves as President of the Board at the Stonewall Community Foundation, one of the largest funders of LGBTQIA+ causes. She has a Master of Public Policy from Yale University and executive training in human-centered design from Stanford Graduate School of Business. In her life, Rachel has witnessed loved ones navigating the inadequate public benefits system and a job market that too often writes off those who don’t hold college degrees. She is also a working parent and a survivor of workplace sexual harassment. This lived experience shapes and informs Rachel’s work.

Tyonka has a track record leading innovative philanthropic initiatives focused on economic security, including a public-private partnership that launched the first fully funded Mayors for a Guaranteed Income pilot in the nation and an emergency cash assistance fund that supported over 2,600 families at the onset of the pandemic. She also led economic opportunity initiatives at Goodwill Industries International, including a sector-based initiative to advance qualified yet often overlooked frontline employees into leadership positions and a program to increase the accessibility of market-valued credentials for youth and adults. Earlier, she served in communications, research, and programmatic roles at the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning, ultimately leading a statewide initiative that reduced the time and cost of postsecondary education for high school students, particularly students who were most likely to be left behind.

Tyonka currently serves on the Grants Committee of SisterFund and is a member of the Guaranteed Income Community of Practice. She previously served on the Richmond Resilience Initiative Economic Security Task Force and regularly speaks and writes about issues of economic security, including with Nonprofit Quarterly and Virginia Public Media, among other outlets. She earned a BA in Journalism from Butler University and an MBA in Supply Chain Management from the University of Indianapolis.

Jenny brings more than a decade of experience advancing policies and practices to strengthen economic mobility. Most recently, she was the Associate Director of the Workforce Strategies Initiative at the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, where she led applied research and capacity building projects to improve job quality, in partnership with public agencies, workforce development nonprofits, community lenders, employers, and workers.

Previously, Jenny built the capacity of nonprofit and public agencies to scale their impact. At The Food Trust, Jenny guided the development of food access initiatives, including a small business marketing program that created 100 jobs and $11M in economic impact, and a public/private partnership to increase SNAP utilization. Early in her career, Jenny was a consultant to nonprofit and public agencies at Fairmount Ventures.

Jenny holds a BA from Brown, an MBA from MIT, and an MPA from Harvard, where she was a Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership and editor of the LGBTQ Policy Journal. As a graduate student, Jenny worked with MIT’s Institute for Work and Employment Research to study strategies to increase worker voice, and served as a Dukakis Policy Fellow for Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo.

Jenny is a regular public speaker and writer on workforce issues. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Federal Reserve’s Invested Magazine, and other outlets. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner Mariele and their dog Frank.

Christian joins the Fund after working at the Coastal Community Foundation in South Carolina, supporting grantees in achieving meaningful wins to benefit the Lowcountry community through relationship management, capacity building efforts, and informing strategic grantmaking direction as a Lowcountry native herself. Previously, Christian served at the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault as a Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation intern, where she supported more than 200 Black youth from across NC in sexual assault prevention and intervention education through the organization’s annual Young Advocates Institute.

Christian holds a BA in Sociology from North Carolina State University, where she graduated summa cum laude and became a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Christian is also a family caregiver, advocating for the support of care workers and a strong care economy. She brings an appetite for community centered grantmaking and knowledge on place-based impact to the team.

In addition to collaborative initiatives, Nefeli has deep expertise in operationalizing a variety of grantmaking programs, recruiting staff and vendors, and building internal systems and processes.

Born and raised in Greece, Nefeli started her career as an account manager at DeonPR, a Greek marketing and communications agency, where she supported clients’ needs by developing key communications materials and building their presence at trade shows, among others. Nefeli has served as the curator of the Providence Global Shapers chapter under the auspices of the World Economic Forum.

Nefeli earned a Bachelor of Laws from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and a Masters of Business Administration from the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College at the City University of New York (CUNY).

Samiya has a profound commitment to driving positive change and brings a wealth of experience to her role. Drawing from a diverse career spanning workforce development initiatives for formerly incarcerated individuals to direct service delivery with underserved youth, Samiya has actively worked to bridge gaps in opportunity and representation within these fields. She also brings a strong research background, contributing to studies on advancing gender equity in employment, increasing minority access to STEM careers, and improving the outcomes of foster youth. Through her extensive research, Samiya has played a significant role in multiple publications and provided valuable insights by contributing to 4 research publications and 3 research studies.

Samiya holds a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Social Work from the University of Chicago. Samiya is also a cat mom, kitten foster parent, and pet advocate.

Prior to joining Schmidt Futures, Liz was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she advised leading private, public and not-for-profit sector clients and served as Global Partner Lead for McKinsey Academy, a client facing entity of McKinsey & Company focused on capability building and leadership development. Her responsibilities included overseeing the development and deployment of new proprietary offerings focusing on building individual and organizational skills in digital, leadership, transformation, business growth and operations.

Liz was an officer in the US Army for eight years with two year-long tours in Iraq, where she served on the senior staff of General David Petraeus as his speechwriter. She was also a presidential appointee to the US Military Academy Board of Visitors.

During her tenure at Jobs With Justice, Sarita led a network of 30+ labor and community coalitions that anchored campaigns, changed the conversation, and moved labor, community, student, and faith voices into action. Jobs With Justice has been on the frontlines of successful organizing and policy campaigns to boost wages and working conditions for all working people, ensure worker voice and dignity in workplaces, and improve labor and civil rights protections for immigrant men and women. Sarita played a key role in seeding numerous campaigns and efforts, like the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, which is a global coalition of trade unions, workers’ rights, and human rights organizations that is actively innovating regional initiatives for higher wages in the global garment industry; the United Workers Congress, bringing together workers centers and organizations focused on raising labor standards and protections for low-wage workers across industries; and Caring Across Generations, a national movement of families, caregivers, people with disabilities, and aging Americans, working to transform the way we care in this country so that all families can live well and age with dignity.

As co-director of Caring Across Generations, Sarita spearheaded the campaign calling for policy solutions that create a much-needed care infrastructure that provides high-quality, affordable options for people who need care, support for family caregivers, and that strengthens the care workforce. Caring Across Generations was instrumental in paving the way for the Home Care Rule, the effort to provide minimum wage and overtime protections for two million home care workers. The campaign was also successful in winning state funding for the Kupuna Caregivers Program in Hawaii, which provides a financial benefit to working family caregivers. And, most recently, it shepherded the Washington Long-Term Care Trust Act into law, establishing the first state-based, public, long-term care program in the nation.

She is a Hunt Alternatives Fund Prime Movers Fellow as well as a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Training Program. Among the awards Sarita has received are the National Women’s Law Center Annual Leadership Award, the Frances Perkins Open Door Award, a Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Achievement Award, and Corporate Ethics International’s BENNY Award.

Before Pymetrics, Joni held operations and product roles at the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), a civic tech startup headquartered at The White House that leverages technology to deliver critical government services such as healthcare, veterans’ benefits and student loans. During her time at the USDS, she specifically partnered with Health & Human Services (HHS) on launching products that improve how Medicare patients receive care.

Joni earned her B.A. in Political Science and International Studies from Northwestern University.

Most recently, Danielle was responsible for a philanthropic grant portfolio at the Walmart Foundation that focused on issues of employment technology, place-based systems change and employer practice change and served as an internal advisor to Walmart U.S’s People team. Danielle was an appointee of the Obama Administration where she led strategic partnerships for the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. In this role, she worked with stakeholders in the corporate, labor and philanthropic sectors on behalf of the US Department of Education. She was also led the Clinton Global Initiative’s domestic education and skills development team with responsibilities that included managing the CGI U.S. Youth Employment Action Network in partnership with the Office of Secretary Clinton’s JobOne program, overseeing the strategy of CGI America’s education and skills Working Groups, and leading the growth of the workforce development portfolio of Commitments to Action. She received h er MSc in IR from LSE and her undergraduate degree in American Studies summa cum laude from Dickinson College where she was a Posse Foundation Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She was also a Fulbright Scholar to Italy. Danielle sits on the Humanity in Action Board of Directors and American Planning Board. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.