Who We Are

Jessica Pride is a partner at The Pride Law Firm. She has dedicated her entire legal career to the representation of victims of sexual assault, catastrophic injuries and wrongful death. She has garnered numerous successes. Ms. Pride has settled several high-profile confidential sexual assault cases. She was selected from over a hundred applicants to speak at the upcoming International Violence Against Women conference about the civil remedies available to sexual assault victims. When she’s not working to improve her community in a courtroom, Ms. Pride is active with legal bar associations and volunteer organizations. Ms. Pride believes community service is the duty and privilege of every attorney, and she’s proud to do her part. Ms. Pride serves on the CCS Executive Committee.

Seasoned Executive Global Commercial Leader with experience in business development, strategic planning, team leadership, and driving revenue growth in both corporate environments and startup organizations. Demonstrated ability to drive key vendor, distributor, and customer collaborations. Strong business acumen and people management skills.

Katie Sullivan has been actively involved in the volunteer community of San Diego for the past 25 years. Her library affiliations include the presidency of the Scripps Ranch Friends of the Library and that of the city-wide Friends of the San Diego Public Library. Ms. Sullivan served as Executive Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the San Diego Public Library Foundation (2012-2014) and served on the City of San Diego, Board of Library Commissioners, having chaired that commission for four years. She is a founding member of Hidden Valley House Auxiliary, one of Center for Community Solutions’ domestic violence shelters. She has been honored by the San Diego Public Library as Volunteer of the Year and by the community of Scripps Ranch as their Citizen of the Year. The San Diego-Imperial Council of Girl Scouts has conferred upon her their highest honors, the Promise Circle Award and the Thanks Award. In 2004 the Association of Fundraising Professionals honored Katie as San Diego’s Organizational Volunteer of the Year. In 2006 Ms. Sullivan was named one of San Diego’s 10 Cool Women and in 2008 the Salvation Army honored her as a woman of dedication. In 2013 she received the prestigious LEAD Visionary Award for her work on the new Central Library. Ms. Sullivan serves on the CCS Governance Committee.

Dr. Jan Andersen came to SDSU in 1981 and served on the faculty for 26 years before retiring from SDSU and receiving Emeritus Professor Status. During that time she also served as a department chair, as chair of the SDSU Senate, and as interim Dean of the Imperial Valley Campus and SDSU Graduate Dean. She spent three years as a special Academic Consultant to the Chancellor and was an Associate Vice President at SDSU for Community Academic Partnerships. She received the Monty award for outstanding faculty contributions and the Western States Communication Association Distinguished Service award, the highest honor of that association. She was an elected President of the Western States Communication Association and served on the governing boards of both the National Communication Association as well as the International Communication Association. She continues to serve as an external consultant to departments undergoing program reviews, having done over 20 departmental reviews. She was recognized as an outstanding teacher having received several teaching awards from her students and her professional colleagues. She taught nonverbal communication, interpersonal communication, communication theory, instructional communication, communication research methods, and directed the basic communication course. She was part of the team that initiated the freshman experience at SDSU. Her research in teacher immediacy is the reason why she remains one of the top 25 cited authors in the field of communication. With over 100 conference presentations and 50 publications she is an accomplished researcher. She has also served on more than 10 editorial boards and continues to do occasional reviewing for journals. After retiring from SDSU, she accepted the position of Dean of the School of Communication at Emerson College in Boston, the only higher education institution in the US devoted exclusively to Communication and the Arts. After six years at Emerson, having served a full term as Dean, she retired back to San Diego. She is still active in professional organizations, currently serving on the WSCA executive council and President of the WSCA Executives Club. On occasion she guest lectures, accepts consulting invitations, and shares her professional expertise through mentoring or review processes. She continues to do considerable travel and outdoor activity, as well enjoying friends, family, reading, and seeing movies. But most of her extra time these days is spent with her young granddaughter helping her to develop excellent communication skills.

As Senior Policy Administrator at the Port of San Diego, Christine’s portfolio includes both government relations and public affairs. She advocates for sponsored bills with legislators, business and community leaders, and increases public outreach efforts in underserved San Diego County communities by cultivating relationships, identifying partnership opportunities, and elevating mutual goals. She is a nominee for San Diego Business Journal’s 2022 Black Leaders of Influence award.

Strong human resources professional with a MBA focused in Business from Nova Southeastern University. Adriana sits on the Board of Father Joe's Village, as well as the California Diversity Council.  

I am driven daily to make an impact. As CEO of Targe River, our mission is simple: to delight our clients. This is accomplished through on point marketing with pinpoint targeting. Our #WhoHowWhat methodology allows us to deliver successful campaigns for organizations of all sizes, in all industries (as exemplified by our growing clientele). As a small business owner, I am passionate about helping the SMB's (1 to 499 employees) succeed. One of those efforts has been the creation and launch of The Great American Buy Local Day, whose message has reached over 20 million people and counting. www.targetriver.com www.greatamericanbuylocal.com www.brianepperson.com

Ron Giannotti has been an entrepreneur and founder throughout his career. Ron currently serves as Co-Founder and CEO of We Can Rise, Inc., a B-corporation committed to inspiring high potential career women to confidently reach their potential while collaborating to build healthier companies that change the world. Prior to joining We Can Rise, Ron was CEO of Toft Group, Inc, an executive search firm committed to changing the future of medicine, one relationship at a time. Ron was instrumental in the sale of Toft Group to ZRG Partners in 2019. Previously, Ron served as CEO of medical device company Trinity Orthopedics. He also founded KFx Medical, LLC in the San Francisco Bay area and built the organization over twelve years. Earlier in his career, Ron served as VP of Global Marketing and Sales for Guidant Corporation (now Boston Scientific), and as the VP of Global Marketing in the Edwards Critical Care division at Baxter International Inc. Ron has served on boards including Chairman Axiom Cybersecurity and currently the Girl Scouts of San Diego.

As an entrepreneur and family CFO for the last twenty years, Elaine uses a unique approach in managing wealth. She is passionate about working with clients to help them understand what they have and how their assets can serve a purpose. Elaine helps clients build a roadmap to efficiently use those assets to achieve goals over their lifetime and create a legacy.

Anita Mahaffey is the owner of Cool-jams, an ecommerce business which designs, manufactures and distributes temperature regulating sleep products. Previously, Ms. Mahaffey owned and operated Lesanne, a business which sourced hand knitted sweaters from Turkey to provide impoverished village women with income earning opportunities. Ms. Mahaffey’s current volunteer work includes Children’s Hospital Auxiliary, Voices for Children, San Diego Library Foundation, San Diego Community College Advisory Board, and University of San Diego’s Entrepreneurship Program. Ms. Mahaffey serves on the CCS VIP’s and Visionaries Committee and the CCS 50th Anniversary Committee.

Karen is a retired educator and longtime San Diego resident. Karen has chaired Center for Community Solutions Project Safe House Shelter Auxiliary for over 15 years and has volunteered with CCS in numerous capacities.  Karen has passion for ending violence that started early in her career in witnessing parents of the children she worked with suffering from violent relationships.  Karen enjoys spending her retirement volunteering, chairing Project Safe House Auxiliary, participating in the Mission Beach Women’s Club, and spending time with her young granddaughter.  

Dung Ngo is Business Relationship Manager at First Citizens Bank.  Mr. Ngo’s skills include small business lending, commercial lending, lines of credit, commercial banking, loans, finance, banking, credit analysis, consumer lending, mortgage lending, commercial mortgages, loan origination, asset based lending, cross selling, and credit. Previously, Dung served as a multicultural member for the Community Healthcare Alliance Committee. Mr. Ngo serves on the Corporate Partner Initiative Committee.

Saundra Pelletier

CEO of Evofem Biosciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing and commercializing innovative products to address unmet needs in women’s sexual and reproductive health. The company is developing EVO100, which is currently in a Phase 3 clinical trial for prevention of chlamydia and gonorrhea. In September 2020, Evofem launched Phexxi - the first and only, non-hormonal, on-demand, prescription birth control for women. 

Jay Silverman, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (UCSD) School of Medicine. Dr. Silverman is a leading global health researcher on understanding and preventing gender-based violence against adolescent and adult women (e.g., intimate partner violence, sexual violence and sex trafficking), including development and testing of community and health service-based interventions to reduce gender-based violence and improve sexual, reproductive, maternal and child health. He has led multiple major federally, foundation and UN-funded studies on these topics, and has published over 220 peer-reviewed papers, including many in top-tier scientific journals (e.g., JAMA, Lancet). Dr. Silverman has also co-authored an award-winning practitioner guidebook book on these issues (The Batterer as Parent, Sage; 2002,2004). Dr. Silverman’s current major projects include a CDC-funded evaluation of state-wide rape prevention education programs across 33 California communities in partnership with CA DPH, and two Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded grants, a) an evaluation of an adaptation of ARCHES (an intervention to reduce reproductive coercion and IPV) on women and girls attending reproductive health clinics in Nairobi, Kenya and; b) a cluster RCT to assess effects of multiple community-based programs to promote contraceptive use among married adolescent girls and their husbands living in the Dosso region of Niger..

Jennifer has spent the last 25 years dedicated to helping organizations and individuals achieve excellence and breakthrough results. With an extensive business background working with leaders on critical strategic and people issues as an advisor and consultant, she now focuses her work on coaching leaders and teams as they tackle navigating the complexity of their roles or charters. Before starting The Tankersley Group, Jennifer worked for The Boston Consulting Group and cofounded NP Strategies, a recognized leader of nonprofit strategy consulting in Southern California.

Jennifer is passionate about creating positive social impact and has founded and served on several nonprofit boards. She is on a broader mission to “change the world through work” believing in the profound possibility of stronger leadership and corporate cultures for creating societal change. Jennifer is based in San Diego, California.