Gary Mobley (he/him) founded Propel Strategic Solutions, a consulting group, working within both the profit and nonprofit sectors. As a strategist, he has helped businesses chart their direction and performance by deploying successful leadership strategies, tactical decision making, and forward-thinking approaches. Previously, Gary was the Executive Director of Strategy and Analytics for the College Board’s Advanced Placement and Instruction division. He was responsible for building and supporting division-wide and product strategy definition projects; and analyzing strategic issues and opportunities that promoted responsive growth, equity, and access of its programs and services for students and the institutions they served. Gary served on the board of Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts is Americas, a leading advocate for full diversity in front and behind the scenes in American theatre, film, and television as well as Identity House, an all-volunteer community that provides peer counseling services to support and encourage LGBTQ+ adults.
Ashley Blackmon (she/her) is an experienced business leader with a successful track record leading marketing & growth strategy for consumer tech brands. Before starting her own consulting practice, Ashley was CMO of Pathstream, an Ed-Tech start-up focused on improving job prospects for underserved populations by teaching digital skills. Prior to that experience she was VP of Marketing for Zillow Group, where she led the growth strategy for the B2C and B2B sides of Zillow’s marketplace. Over the course of 7 years at Zillow she had the unique experience of building a department from the ground up, while establishing Zillow and its portfolio of brands as household names. She received her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was an adjunct board member at The Equality Forum. She received her B.S. in Psychology at Brown University. Ashley currently lives in Oakland with her family.
Andrea “Andy” Hong Marra (she/ her) is executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF). Prior to TLDEF, she spent five years leading external communications at the Arcus Foundation; managed public relations at GLSEN, a national organization focused on LGBTQ issues in K-12 education; was co-director at Nodutdol for Korean Community Development; and served as a senior media strategist at GLAAD. Andy currently serves as Board Chair of the Freedom for All Americans Education Fund. She has previously served on the boards and advisory councils of Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Funding Exchange, Human Rights Campaign, Just Detention International, and the National Center for Transgender Equality. Andy has been honored by the White House and the City of New York for her contributions to the LGBTQ community, profiled in The Advocate’s “Forty Under 40,” and listed as one of The Huffington Post’s “Most Compelling LGBT People.” She is also a past recipient of the GLSEN Pathfinder Award, the National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change Award, NQAPIA Community Catalyst Award, and the Colin Higgins Foundation Courage Award.
Dr. Chase T. M. Anderson (he/him) is currently a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow at University of California, San Francisco. He graduated from the Adult Psychiatry Residency at The Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital. He completed his bachelor’s in Chemistry and his master’s in Biological Engineering at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a graduate of The Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.
His writing has appeared in WBUR/NPR, Scientific American, STAT News, The New England Journal of Medicine, and other news and journal outlets. Chase’s works have focused on minority stress, mental health in the medical field and beyond, physician advocacy, and the need for our society to foster a truly supportive environment for all.
In his free time, he enjoys going for long walks, listening to K-pop, reading fantasy books, playing soccer, writing fantasy and non-fiction novels, and planning dinners with friends. He recently finished his memoir about being a Black, gay class president in medical school living with depression, tentatively titled Wayward Dreams: A Medical Student’s Musings of Depression and Hope.
Roz Lee (she/her) has dedicated her life to advancing racial, gender, and LGBTQ justice through community organizing, advocacy, political education, and philanthropy. She is the Senior Director of the Amplify Fund at Neighborhood Funders Group, a pooled, place-based racial justice fund. Roz served as the Vice President of Philanthropy at the Equality Fund, a global organization committed to funding feminist futures. She worked at the Ms. Foundation for Women, where she led efforts to support gender and racial justice led by and for women and girls of color, including indigenous and transgender women and girls. As Director of Social Justice Initiatives at the Arcus Foundation, she created innovative global and local philanthropic initiatives at the intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. Roz is the first-ever Professor of Practice at the Center for Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Board President of Lambda Literary, a national organization lifting LGBTQ voices and writing. Roz lives with her spouse and daughter in Harlem.
J. Michael Samuel (he/him) recently retired as Director and Vice-President from a career in internal auditing from a number of large financial institutions. He was a frequent guest speaker, appearing throughout Silicon Valley and San Francisco at numerous conferences for the International Institute of Auditors, Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve Bank System. Also, Michael coordinated internal publications and designed benchmarking and bank operational reporting to corporate Audit Committees and Board of Directors on behalf of Senior Management.
Michael founded and then served on the board of Directors of Golden Gate Performing Arts, the parent organization of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and numerous other San Francisco-based gay musical groups. He has served as a facilitator and group leader for the University of California AIDS Health Project for eighteen years, and was a Shanti volunteer for four years. Michael splits his time between San Francisco and Occidental, California, with his husband, Chris, of fifty years.
Darnell L. Moore (he/him) is the author of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award winning memoir, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America, which was listed as a 2018 NYT Notable Book and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers’ pick. Moore is also a writer-in-residence at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University and a 2019 Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. His writings have appeared in the New York Times Book Review; Playboy; VICE; The Guardian; The Nation; EBONY and other outlets. He is the Director of Inclusion Strategy for Content and Marketing at Netflix. And he is currently at work on his second book, which is tentatively titled, Unbecoming: Visions Beyond the Limits of Manhood.
Kent D. Wolf (he/him) is a Founding Partner at Neon Literary, where he represents a celebrated roster of LGTBQIA+ writers, including National Book Award finalist and Lambda Literary Award winner Carmen Maria Machado, New York Times bestselling essayist Samantha Irby, Lambda Literary finalist Torrey Peters, Lambda Literary Fellow Calvin Kasulke, Daniel Zomparelli, and Paul Dalla Rosa. A regular attendee of writers conferences and literary festivals across the country, he is an active member of The Association of Authors’ Representatives and has been profiled and interviewed by Poets & Writers, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Publishers Weekly, among other publications. Born and raised in rural Illinois, Kent now resides in Manhattan.
Robert Guinsler (he/him) is a senior literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, where he has worked since 2000. With a background in journalism and a passion for championing underrepresented voices, Robert has channeled his eclectic interests to bring distinct and important voices to a wider audience. Always seeking to foster further exposure and representation for the LGBTQ+ community, Robert’s clients have included Lambda-award winner Cleve Jones, Kevin Sessums and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Evan Fallenberg, Hugh Ryan, Peter Staley, as well as the Estate of Gilbert Baker. From the comedic memoirs of pop culture critics Guy Branum and Phoebe Robinson to young adult page turners by Alex London and Kevin Emerson, Robert has always worked to inspire and engage with readers of all ages and backgrounds.
