Board of Directors

Eunice Azzani is the Chair of the Board, Feed The Hunger Foundation.  She is the Founder and Partner, Azzani Search Consultants.  Previously, Eunice was a Senior Client Partner in the San Francisco office of Korn/Ferry International.  She serves on the boards of City College Foundation, SFWorks, and YMCA of San Francisco. Eunice has been the Chair of numerous boards including, San Francisco Chamber of  Commerce, Women’s Foundation of California, and Planned Parenthood Golden Gate.  In 1997, she was awarded the Eleanor Reynolds Award from the Association for Executive Search Consultants, for combining excellence in search with commitment to volunteerism. In 1995, she also received the “Women Who Make A Difference Award” from the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. Ms. Azzani earned an MLS from Texas Woman's University and a BA from Texas Tech University.

Jonathan C. Lewis is the founder and CEO of the Opportunity Collaboration -- a learning, teaching and networking summit of 300 senior antipoverty leaders which occurs every year on World Poverty Day.  Jonathan is the founder and board chair of MicroCredit Enterprises – an innovative social venture which leverages private capital to make tiny business loans to deeply impoverished people, mostly women, in developing countries. MicroCredit Enterprises is operationally sustainable without donations or grants.

In his eclectic career, Jonathan was the founder of a business knowledge company addressing the role of American healthcare companies in the global health economy, CEO of the California Association of Health Maintenance Organizations, the Chief Budget Advisor to the President of the California State Senate, and the founder/CEO of an urban real estate investment company and a contemporary art gallery.  He is the Former Managing Chair, Ambassadors Council, Freedom from Hunger; Former President, Academy for International Health Studies; Founder, International Health Summit; Member, Advisory Boards, Global Philanthropy Forum, International Center for Corporate Accountability and the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Davis, California. Lewis is a recipient of both a Social Venture Network Innovation Award and a World Affairs Council Award. . He blogs regularly at the Skoll Foundation's Social Edge and the Huffington Post. He is a frequent public speaker on economic development issues, social entrepreneurship and social change.

Brett Melone is the Executive Director Agricultural Land Based Training Association providing educational and business opportunities for farm workers and aspiring farmers to grow and sell crops grown on two organic farms in Monterrey County, California.   Brett was the executive director of an organization in Chile dedicated to promoting citizen participation and leadership development in limited-resource communities. Brett co-coordinated the global Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Program, as well as the Chile-based Transition to Sustainable Cities program, which focuses on building community capacity and leadership around the issue of recycling and microenterprise development. Brett is a graduate of the University of San Diego with a degree in International Relations, Business Administration and Spanish, and holds a Masters Degree in International Environmental Policy and Spanish from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Mark Murakami is a partner in Carlsmith Ball LLP’s Honolulu office and is a member of the Real Estate, Land Use & Hospitality Practice Group. He concentrates his practice on complex real estate transactions, commercial real estate development and operations with an emphasis on purchases and sales of property, retail and office lease negotiation and administration, multi-party development agreements, dedication of infrastructure projects to governmental authorities, real estate subdivisions, and easements. He has extensive experience in Land Court (Torrens System) matters. Mark was a clerk with Chief Justice Herman T.F. Lum of the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii.  He is a board member of the Better Business Bureau Foundation of Hawaii, and a member of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association.  Mark received a B.B.A. from the University of Hawaii and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C.

Helen Zia, Author and Activist, is the former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine. Her award-winning articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Ms., New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Essence, The Advocate, and OUT. She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (2000); and is coauthor, with Wen Ho Lee, of My Country Versus Me (2002), the story of the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of being a spy for China.  Her work on the landmark civil rights case of anti-Asian violence is documented in the Academy Award nominated film, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" She is a Board member of The Women’s Media Center and an Expert Fellow with University of Southern California's Justice and Journalism program of the Annenberg School of Journalism. She received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Law School of the City University of New York and was the first recipient of the Suzanne Ahn Journalism Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice. She is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar and a member of the university's first graduating class of women.

Patti Chang, CEO is the former President and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California which funded over 1100 organizations throughout California as well as internationally.  Patti has served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and the San Francisco Commission on the Environment.  She was the President of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women where she chaired taskforces on Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, and Domestic Violence.  She served as the board chair of the Women’s Funding Network and the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development working on human rights.  She currently serves on the boards of the Women’s Media Center and YES! Magazine.Patti was instrumental in passing the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women, making San Francisco the first city to adopt an international treaty. 

Through her work at the Women’s foundation and through numerous boards on which she has served, Patti has worked to end discrimination based on race, class, gender, national origin and sexual identity.  Her passion lies in finding solutions to the economic, social and political barriers faced by low-income individuals, particularly women and girls.  Patti received her B.A. and J.D. from Stanford.  She is originally from Hawaii.

Denise Albano, President, is the former Executive Director of several nonprofit organizations that provide services to marginalized youth and families.  Her heart, passion and advocacy lie with “at risk” and homeless youth to whom she provided model services through Larkin Street Youth Services and Youth Uprising in California.  She de eloped a continuum of services including housing, medical and mental health services, HIV programs, educational and vocational services and economic development programs for youth.  Denise was the Executive Director of the Richmond YMCA in San Francisco and was also with the San Francisco Children and Families Commission.  Prior to that she developed and ran residential services for youth transitioning out of the juvenile justice system and with youth in the mental health system in Hawaii.  She also developed and implemented counseling and substance abuse prevention programs for at risk youth in the New York City public schools system.

Denise has served on several Boards in San Francisco including: the Mayor’s Office Task Force on Ending the Sexual Exploitation of Youth and Edgewood Center for Families, Youth and Children. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.A. in Psychology from New York University.  A native of Hawaii, Denise is a triathlete and a USA Triathlon certified coach.