Introducing our Board of Directors
We are pleased to announce our founding Board of Directors! Bringing diverse leadership skills, valuable experiences, and perspectives, the board joins out team to amplify Aliento’s mission of transforming trauma into hope & action for undocumented, DACAmented, and mixed-status immigration families! We are very excited about our founding board members and we couldn’t wait to share this milestone with you!
Please help us welcome our Board of Directors!
Vanessa Valenzuela Erickson is a people operations and talent management consultant and advisor. Most recently, she served as Chief People Officer at Culdesac - a first-of-its-kind car-free real estate developer. Prior to this, she worked in human resources, business operations, and finance at Salt River Project and Opendoor. She started her career teaching elementary school through the Teach For America program. Vanessa holds a Master’s degree in Elementary Education from Arizona State University and a degree in Economics and International Studies from the University of Arizona. She is a proud native Phoenician, wife, and mother of four. Vanessa is passionate about equity in education, dignity and opportunity for all members of our community, and the destigmatization of seeking mental health care.
Felix is a Senior Manager of Tax and Accounting Compliance and Reporting with Ernst & Young LLP (EY), a professional services firm with more than 300,000 people in 150 countries. EY provides service to more than 200,000 clients, from start-ups to multinationals across all sectors, through four service lines: Assurance, Consulting, Strategy and Transactions, and Tax.
For the last twelve years, Felix has served both public and non-public clients in a variety of industries, including mining, diversified industrial products and power and utilities. He has significant experience in complex global audit engagements, and various technical accounting and financial reporting matters. He has worked extensively with engagement teams in South America, Europe and Asia.
Felix was born in Torreon, Mexico and temporarily moved to Phoenix, Arizona in late 2012 as part of EY’s Global Exchange Program. He spent two years in Monterrey, Mexico, after his 18-month rotation in the US, and permanently transferred to Phoenix in mid-2016.
Interested in coaching and mentoring other Latinx professionals, Felix served as the Executive Sponsor and Chair of EY Phoenix Latino Professional Network for four years. In addition, he also served as Board Member in the Phoenix Chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals for America for two years. Through both assignments, Felix worked with Latinx students and young professionals to identify career opportunities, promote professional development and volunteer for community outreach programs and charities.
Felix earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Public Accounting from Tec de Monterrey. He is a certified public accountant in Arizona and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Reyna Montoya is a 2016 Soros Justice Fellow, a 2017 Echoing Green Fellow , a Forbes: 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, and an ATHENA 2019 recipient by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce among many other awards.
Reyna was born in Tijuana, Mexico and migrated to Arizona in 2003 fleeing violence. She is an undocumented/DACAmented social entrepreneur, community organizer, educator, and dancer. She is a 2016 Soros Justice Fellow, which enable her to start Aliento. She is also a founding member of the first Teach For America DACA Advisory Board. Reyna holds bachelor degrees in Political Science and Transborder Studies and a Dance minor from Arizona State University; she also holds a M.Ed in Secondary Education from Grand Canyon University. She recently completed an executive education program from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has engaged in local, statewide and national platforms to advance justice for immigrant communities. In 2013, she was the lead organizer, who prevented an immigration bus of undocumented immigrants from deportation in Phoenix, AZ for the first time in the nation’s history. In the same year, with the help of the community, she stopped her father’s deportation. She was also recognized as 2017 #NBCLatino20 and the Muhammad Ali Center as the 2018 Humanitarian Recipient for Spirituality. She hopes to share her talents and skills with the community to co-create healing spaces, political change, and leadership development of our immigrant youth and migrant families.
Pearl Chang Esau is a non-profit executive, education & public policy expert, and advocate for greater opportunity for all. Beginning her career as a 5th grade teacher of English Language Learners in east Los Angeles and as a first generation Chinese American, Pearl believes that access to an excellent education is transformational for individuals, families and communities. Deeply committed to improving life prospects for all, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity or disability, Pearl champions educators, students and disadvantaged populations so that they can reach their full potential.
Over the last decade, Pearl held the chief executive roles for the education non-profits Teach For America Phoenix and Expect More Arizona, helping to establish education as the #1 priority for Arizona voters and raising over $40 million from public and private sources. Under her leadership, Expect More Arizona became a leading voice on education issues and played an integral role in raising expectations for Arizona students and the passage of Proposition 123, which resulted in $3.5 billion for K-12 public schools.
Passionate about collaboration, Pearl has been instrumental in the start-up of several cross-sector initiatives such as the Sanford Inspire Project at ASU, Arizona Aims Higher, the Arizona Education Progress Meter and Achieve60AZ. Pearl currently serves as a board member for Teach For America Phoenix, ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, and in 2016 was appointed by the governor as an Arizona education commissioner.
Pearl holds degrees in Communications, Public Policy, Spanish, and elementary teaching credentials from University of California Los Angeles and an executive certification from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is married to Mac, a public-school principal and has three young children.
Gabriela Muñoz is an interdisciplinary arts administrator, educator and artist. She is the Senior Program Coordinator for ASU’s National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation. Muñoz manages the Projecting All Voices initiative, which provides opportunities for designers and artists to advance ideas and projects that investigate identity, cultural heritage, power, race, policy, ability and/or place and community. Serving artists and designers from underrepresented groups, the initiative supports civic and social practices in design and arts that create equitable communities.
Previously Muñoz served as Artist Programs Manager at the Arizona Commission on the Arts, leading the AZ ArtWorker initiative, which facilitates dialogue and knowledge-sharing between Arizona artists, their national and international artist peers and residents of Arizona communities. During her tenure at Phoenix Art Museum from 2011 to 2015, Muñoz worked in the Curatorial Departments of Modern & Contemporary Art and Latin American Art. Her collaborations with local, national and international colleagues, museums and cultural organizations have allowed her to support the development of artists and culture bearers in the Southwest region through the development of public programs, artist grants and creative partnerships. Muñoz is a fellow of artEquity’s 2020 BIPOC Leadership Circle, the 2017-2018 Intercultural Leadership Institute and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture’s (NALAC) Leadership Institute. She is a 2020-2021 NALAC Catalyst for Change Award recipient and a 2019-2020 Mellon-Fronteridades Creative Scholar. Her professional expertise includes binational arts production, equitable program design, curation, exhibition management, grantmaking, and private-public partnership development.
Janice Palmer is the Senior Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy at Helios Education Foundation. Ms. Palmer is responsible for identifying Arizona policy and investment opportunities that leverage and/or positively impact the Foundation’s current investments and ensure current policy and advocacy activities inform and direct the Foundation’s future work.
Prior to joining Helios, Ms. Palmer was the Director of Governmental Relations & Public Affairs for the Arizona School Boards Association and was with the Association for over 15 years. She has previously served as Communications Director for the Proposition 200: Healthy Children Healthy Families campaign and was an Arizona Senate Policy Advisor, working in the areas of tax and fiscal policy, commerce and economic development, bilingual education, civil rights issues, and redistricting.
Ms. Palmer graduated Arizona State University magna cum laude with degrees in English and Political Science.
Justin is a project manager with Sunbelt Holdings, an Arizona-based real estate development firm that recently celebrated 40 years of work in Arizona and beyond. He is responsible for managing the multi-year development of a number of the company’s urban projects ranging from residential towers to mixed-use communities. He is currently primarily engaged in a large multifamily development in Tempe. Primary roles include working with municipal councils and staff, investors, and contractors and consultants toward successful execution.
Justin formerly practiced as a real estate lawyer with Lewis Roca for several years before joining Sunbelt in 2018. He earned his JD and MBA degrees from Arizona State University, and attended Boston College as an undergraduate, during which time he also attended the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico in connection with his undergraduate degree.
Along with his wife Mary (and new daughter Eleanor), Justin is a proud ASU Sun Devil and is fortunate to serve on the ASU Foundation’s Next Generation Council, in addition to the ASU Art Museum’s Creative Impact Board. Outside of work, Justin spends as much time as he can enjoying Phoenix’s great trails and running paths, and when not frustrated by a global pandemic, concerts whenever he can.
Manuel Espinoza graduated cum laude from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in Justice Studies that he obtained in three years. As a first-generation immigrant himself, he is intimately familiar with the struggles mixed-status families face. His lived experiences instilled a strong desire to attempt to help guide and uplift others wishing to better themselves. Notably, Manuel worked with CADENA (Comité de Apoyo para el Desarollo Estudiantil de la Nación Americana), an Arizona grassroots organization dedicated to advocating for DREAMers and the passage of the DREAM Act. That same desire led to a prolonged stay in the four corners area of the southwest, predominately volunteering in the Navajo Nation. Manuel ultimately established himself as a grants manager for St. Michael Indian School, a non-profit k-12 mission school established in 1902. Upon returning to the valley, Manuel obtained employment with the State Bar of Arizona, where he currently serves as a Trust Account Examiner/Investigator in the Lawyer Regulation Office.