Board Of Directors
Tina Admans
Los Angeles Representative
Tina Admans is currently Sr Project Manager for American Public Media’s radio program Marketplace. Previously, Tina was owner and principal consultant at Pindari Associates, a business transformation consulting company. Prior to Pindari Associates, Tina was CIO and SVP Financial Shared Services with Panavision, the market leader and Academy Award winning provider of camera and lighting services for the film and television industry. Before Panavision, she was VP Six Sigma Quality and Digitization at NBC Universal based in Burbank, California where she completed in depth process, risk and cost/benefit analysis on key operational areas. Before moving into Six Sigma, Tina had a variety of Finance positions including VP of Finance/IT and Sales Traffic at NBC Europe in London, UK. She is a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program as well as a former Corporate Auditor with GE’s elite internal management training program. Tina holds a BS degree in Finance from Indiana University. She is the Board Chair and Chapter President of Minds Matter Los Angeles.
Rhonda Bell
Chicago Representative
Rhonda joined the Minds Matter National Board in 2016 and has served on the Chicago Chapter’s board for six years. Rhonda brings fifteen years of college access experience to the organization. She has devoted her professional career to leading programs that close opportunity gaps for youth who are the first in their family and demonstrate financial need. She is an Educational Consultant and School Director for the Schuler Scholars Program. Prior to her current roles, she was the Upward Bound Director at the Gary Comer Youth Center. She also served as the Strategy and Operations Pre-College Experience Manger and Summer Quest Director at Chicago Public Schools and Director of Summer Of A Lifetime (SOAL) at Providence St. Mel School. She is a member of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, serves on the Chicago Park District’s Willye White Advisory Council and volunteers as an ambassador at the Auditorium Theatre.
Rhonda holds a B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the mother of two children and lives in Chicago where they enjoy food, French and film.
Savinay Chandrasekhar
Denver Representative
Savinay Chandrasekhar is founder & change excelerator at focusedesign, a consulting firm that helps education and social impact organizations around the globe tap into their internal energy and creativity by designing and delivering highly engaging, highly innovative workshops. In this work, Savinay has helped create a Human-Centered Design workshop for 2,000+ students around the world at EF’s Global Student Leader Summits in Costa Rica and Switzerland and has led teachers in Douglas County School District to learn design thinking as a tool for effective collaboration. Savinay has also delivered keynote addresses for the Colorado Department of Higher Education and Sterling RE-1 Valley School District, designed a facilitation and influence program for all employees at CableLabs, and guided employees of the United Nations Development Program in Kyrgyzstan to tell the story of their successes to a broad audience.
Savinay became Minds Matter Denver’s chapter president in 2014. In his spare time, Savinay loves reading non-fiction books about human behavior and optimization, figuring out how to play arcane funk songs on the guitar, and laughing gleefully at the latest comedy TV shows on Netflix.
Rachel Cai
San Francisco Representative
Rachel is the CEO of Minds Matter San Francisco and was previously the Chief Programming Officer, where she led curriculum development and program operations. She’s passionate about closing the achievement gap and helping schools to transform and innovate through technology. She currently works for Google for Education, helping to inform its strategy and solutions through data and customer feedback. She also lived and worked in Boston as a consultant for school districts advising on strategic planning, special education, and teacher evaluation, and she brings business and technology experience from Hewlett Packard Corporate Strategy. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Sociology. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and German Shepherd, and enjoys hiking, traveling, eating her way through the best Chinese, Thai, and Japanese restaurants of SF.
Graham Covington
Portland Representative
Graham Covington, along with several others, founded Minds Matter of Portland in 2005 recognizing a need to help highly motivated, economically disadvantaged high school students gain admission and financial aid to four-year colleges and universities. Mr. Covington’s corporate career included the advertising and the paper manufacturing industries where he was VP of Sales and Marketing at Boise Cascade Corporation. He also served as an officer the US Naval Reserve. He is currently the Managing Principal of Grease Consulting LLC, a west coast-based management consultancy. His After Six jazz trio plays regularly in the Northwest. Other non-profit experience includes serving as Co-Board Chair at Portland Baroque Orchestra and on the boards of Outward Bound West, Neskowin Valley School and Portland Racquet Club. Mr. Covington holds an undergraduate degree from Williams College and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley
Courtney Gardner
Boston Representative
Courtney Gardner has been involved with Minds Matter for the past four years, most recently as the Boston representative to the Board of Directors. She started with Minds Matter as a mentor in Boston, served as Director of the Sophomore Program and led the chapter as Co-President from 2012-2013. Courtney is currently an Associate in Strategy & Operations at Omnicom Group, a global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Prior to joining Omnicom Group she worked as an analyst and associate at Audax Group, a middle-market private equity fund. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in International Studies and Management.
Cara Gentile
Philadelphia Representative
Cara Gentile serves on the Board of the Philadelphia chapter of Minds Matter. She has been involved with the organization since 2011, primarily responsible for planning key fund raising events. She is currently a Managing Director at PNC Capital Markets LLC (“PNC”) where she manages a team of bankers in the Financial Institutions Group. Prior to that, Cara worked in the Asset Backed Finance Group at PNC. Before to joining PNC, Cara worked on the fixed income sales and trading desk at UBS. She holds B.A. degrees in both International Relations and Spanish from Bucknell University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Kelly Miller
Twin Cities Representative
Kelly is a Banker at JPMorgan Private Bank, where she provides customized and comprehensive wealth management solutions for high net worth clients. Prior to rejoining JPMorgan in 2013, Kelly was a Senior Equity Portfolio Manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. She began her career with JPMorgan Asset Management in New York, most recently as a Portfolio Manager managing U.S. Large Cap Value and U.S. Large Cap Value 130/30 mandates. Kelly obtained a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Kansas and is a CFA charterholder. She has been involved with Minds Matter since 2003.
Jonathan Schwebel
Washington, D.C. Representative
Jonathan is a senior associate at Institutional Shareholder Services in Rockville, Maryland where he helps publicly-traded companies navigate the complex landscape that is executive compensation and corporate governance. Prior to joining ISS, he spent many years at Bloomberg LP in New York City. Jonathan received his BA in History and Political Science from Syracuse University. Jonathan also serves as the Chapter President for Minds Matter Washington, D.C. This is Jonathan’s fifth year with Minds Matter. After spending four years in the NYC chapter holding various executive committee positions, he is incredibly excited to help build the D.C. and assist incredibly talented students find opportunities through education.
Brent Shelley
Cleveland Representative
Brent Shelley has been involved with Minds Matter for over six years, and currently serves as the President of Minds Matter of Cleveland. Prior to taking on the President role, Brent served a number of roles with Minds Matter of Cleveland, including Executive Vice President, Dean of Academics, writing council coordinator, mentor, and instructor. For the past two years, Brent served as the Director of Sophomore and Junior Programming with the Minds Matter National Executive Committee assisting chapters with coordination of best practices and assisting with the development of shared curriculum and metric measurements and goals. Brent is Senior Legal Counsel for De Nora Tech and De Nora Water Technologies, where he serves as general counsel for all American operations of the rapidly growing multi-national developer and manufacturer of electrodes, electro-chlorination, anodes, coatings, electro-chemical products, and water purification, filtration, and remediation solutions. He was awarded the Ohio Bar Foundation 2013 Community Service Award for Attorneys 40 and Under for his work with Minds Matter. Brent received his B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University – Bloomington and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
Catherine Simonsen
Seattle Representative
Catherine has been involved with Minds Matter since 2004. She started as a mentor in New York City, served for two years as the Director of the Sophomore Program, chaired the board from 2007-2008, served as Director of Programming on the National Executive Committee from 2008-2009, and founded the Seattle chapter of Minds Matter in 2013.
Catherine graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in economics and science, technology, and society. She worked as an analyst and associate in over-the-counter equity derivatives at Goldman Sachs in New York from 2004-2008, graduated from Yale Law School in 2011, clerked in federal circuit and district court in Seattle from 2011-2013, and is now an attorney at Perkins Coie LLP.
Steven Song
New York City Representative
Steven Song serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Minds Matter of NYC. He is also a Managing Principal of Eden Capital Partners LLC, a family office focused on private equity investments. He began his career as an investment banker at JPMorgan in 2001 and was selected as a Training Mentor for the first year JPMorgan IB analyst class of 2003. Steven has been a Board Member with Minds Matter of NYC since 2011. He currently serves or has served on the Board of Directors for Ford Models, AHN International and Sanchez Resources. Steven graduated with a joint Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Mathematics from Columbia University.