Our People

Ken Ikeda brings an extensive background in management and media to CAST. He has led a range of organizations, including BAVC Media, The Association of Independents in Radio, the International Documentary Association, Public Radio Capital, and Public Media Company. Organizations under Ikeda’s direction have leveraged private equity for nonprofit capital, managed loan funds, and navigated mergers and acquisitions to sustain and grow the reach of arts and media. Ikeda is also a co-founder of Oakland-based media strategy and production studio StudioToBe and co-authored the National Public Lightpath white paper as a blueprint for a public service internet for public media. He also co-architected the video streaming service, Vuhaus that is now NPR Live Sessions.

Carolyn has over twenty years of experience working in real estate development and finance for nonprofit mission-driven organizations, first in affordable housing in the Bay Area, in non-profit charter school finance and development across the United States, and since 2020, at CAST. With her personal background as a musician and dancer, coupled with her real estate and community development experience, she has continued her work of translating programmatic needs to physical space requirements, mastering complex public financing programs, and bridging between programmatic experts and the real estate development process. The throughline of all her work has been a belief in the importance of improving experiences, outcomes, and life options for historically underserved communities.

Carolyn has a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and a Master in City Planning and M.S. in Real Estate Development from MIT, where her thesis focused on the role that state arts agencies play in the development of cultural facilities, and ultimately, the health and well-being of the arts organizations that bear the benefits and the costs of these capital assets.

Louise brings 19 years of nonprofit arts and culture experience with a focus on building infrastructures of support to stabilize artists careers. Prior to joining the CAST team, Louise served 14 years as the Executive & Artistic Director of RedLine Contemporary Art Center, a non-profit contemporary art center and artist residency located in Denver, Colorado. In this position, Louise developed the Artist-in-Residence program, oversaw the installation of over 300 exhibitions, launched both regranting and fiscal sponsorship programs to make philanthropic funds more accessible to artists and community organizations, and launched a Satellite Studio initiative to negotiate affordable studio, commercial and live/work spaces for artists and arts and culture organizations. From 2019 – 2025, the Satellite initiative resulted in adding 79 affordable artists studios into the Denver Metro Area, 4 new live/work housing developments, and negotiated 8 new locations for arts & culture nonprofits that previously did not have their own space. In 2017, she was awarded a Livingston Fellowship for leadership from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. Louise holds a M.H. from the University of Colorado at Denver with a focus in Contemporary Art History & Music. She is a Trustee for the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Board Chair for the Harmony Hammond Trust, Board Treasurer for the National Performance Network and the Denver Center for African Art.

Catherine brings over 15 years of experience to CAST working in nonprofit arts administration, finance, and operations. The underlying values of her work have always been to promote equity, increase access for under-represented communities, and center artists’ stories. Before CAST, Catherine provided workforce development services for refugees at the International Rescue Committee and served as Gallery and Exhibitions Manager at Oakland’s Creative Growth Art Center, the world’s oldest and largest art studio for adults with disabilities. In her six years there, she stewarded acquisitions to the Brooklyn Museum, the MoMA, and the Smithsonian. Catherine received her BFA from New York University in Studio Art and Journalism, where she first established a niche for working in arts nonprofits; the most notable being White Columns, where she oversaw the finance, operations, and development of New York’s oldest alternative art space. Though her first role at CAST similarly focused in finance and operations, Catherine is excited to bring her background in fine arts, design, and curation to help shape CAST’s narrative this time around. An East Bay native and a trained painter/printmaker, Catherine channels her creativity these days into baking and random DIYs.

David provides over a decade of grassroots experience in the community development and preservation of economically-accessible cultural spaces that generations of low-income artists in the Bay Area have relied upon to affordably live, work, and gather.

From 2016-2023, David’s nonprofit work at Safer DIY Spaces prioritized assisting artists through the code enforcement challenges and safety concerns that have long placed tenuous artist housing and production spaces at risk. As Executive Director, David oversaw the production, entitlements, and construction project management necessary to bring numerous artist spaces into regulatory compliance with cities, lenders, and insurers while preserving tenancies. On policy, David worked closely with local and state authorities to amend regulations that negatively impacted low-income artist community spaces, while collaborating with CDFI lenders on friendly construction loan offerings tailored to distressed artist buildings.

Prior to Safer DIY, David co-founded a multi-tenant arts and social justice community center, as well as a worker-owned cooperative restaurant. Before focusing full-time on mission-driven projects, David supported himself as a DevOps engineer. He received a B.A. in Sociology from UC Berkeley, and is originally from England.

For over a decade, Matthew’s work has been fueled by a desire to be of service to others through a lens of creativity and leadership. Working in training and development for retail artists with MAC cosmetics, he successfully centered client and community needs for budding and senior make-up artists while supporting prestigious cosmetic events in Northern California. Inspired by community impact through artistry and intergenerational engagement at these events, Matthew would make a career shift to more mission-centered work that addressed the needs of older adults (Institute on Aging), the LGBTQIA+ community (Openhouse), as well as communities facing space insecurity. Using knowledge from his time in client experience and administrative support, Matthew has developed organizational-specific fundraising opportunities and events with unique touch points that bridge real-life community needs to institutional and community engagement. Matthew’s approach to working within the nonprofit sector pulls from his admiration for self-expression through art and fashion, his appetite for travel, and lastly, a desire to uplift others.

Ellen Leslie is a San Francisco native and an active member of the Bay Area arts community as both a performer and a fundraiser. She is passionate about the long-term health of the region’s vibrant cultural fabric, as well as about developing solutions at scale that can strengthen arts organizations across California and the country. As Development Officer, she has played a direct role in raising more than $15 million in philanthropic gifts to support CAST’s work in the Bay Area, Colorado, and beyond. Alongside and informing her work at CAST, Ellen is an acclaimed classical soprano, and maintains a busy performance schedule with various orchestras and opera companies across the United States and Europe. As in music, she uses storytelling to create connection, uplifting the real-life experiences of the artists and organizations CAST serves and bringing to life the human impact of philanthropic support.

Ellen was raised as a liveaboard on an Irwin 37 sailboat and spent four years circumnavigating the globe with her family. She holds Bachelor’s degrees in Voice and French from the University of Denver, and Master’s and postgraduate degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Hochschule für Musik Leipzig.

With a robust background of over six years in operations management, team leadership, and community engagement, Jared is excited to bring his diverse skill set to CAST. Originally from Waukegan, Illinois, Jared began working in the Bay Area while attending Saint Mary’s College of California. There he joined Jumpstart as a Corps Member and was part of a teaching team promoting childhood literacy at preschools in Oakland. Jared honed his drive for social change working as a Community Organizer for the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center leading classes on Civil Rights and Civic Engagement while implementing a coaching methodology to assist youth in finding their voice. In his most recent role, Jared orchestrated daily operations at the African American Art and Culture Complex, ensuring a positive guest experience through effective communication. Being a responsible key holder, Jared supported the opening and closing Operations for various galleries and spaces. Jared recognizes the importance of art and artists not only at a level to be enjoyed, but as a vessel for its positive social impacts throughout communities.

Jevon Taylor is a Denver-based community development leader bringing almost a decade of experience of cultural programming and has helped launch 15 small-business locations and expand access to prominent retail opportunities for local entrepreneurs and creatives. Jevon has also lead public-private collaborations that connect green infrastructure, creative placemaking, and workforce development in historically disinvested neighborhoods, including an EPA-funded initiative. At CAST, Jevon supports the Denver-area strategy and partnerships to stabilize and activate affordable cultural and creative spaces, helping translate complex, multi-stakeholder efforts into clear roadmaps and measurable outcomes. He currently serves on the Downtown Denver Partnership Board of Governors and the RiNo Business Improvement District board, and brings an equity-centered, builder’s mindset focused on practical pathways that increase opportunity and economic mobility for artists, culture-bearers, and small businesses.

Luis has 20 years of experience working as an attorney, policy advisor and educator in the areas of affordable housing and community economic development. He began his legal career at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles in their community economic development unit. Luis later transitioned to the law firm of Goldfarb & Lipman LLP working on affordable housing and community development transactions. During his 15 years at Goldfarb, he expanded the firm’s New Markets Tax Credit practice with his work on community facilities, nonprofit office buildings and mixed-use projects throughout California. In 2021, Luis joined the Treasury Department as a senior policy advisor where he worked on the design and implementation of economic recovery programs that would benefit low-income communities and communities of color severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to his work with CAST, Luis co-teaches a course on Social Enterprise and EconomicEmpowerment at  UC Law SF (formerly Hastings). He also serves as a board member for Public Advocates and Community Vision. Luis received his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, his M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and his B.A. in Sociology from UCLA. Luis is an East Bay resident who keeps busy raising his two kids, hiking Bay Area trails and enjoys going to the movies.

Mauricio is originally from Peru and has 5 years of experience working in finance. While working at Arup, he was involved in financial consulting for infrastructure development projects in Latin America which were worth more than $2.6Bn and also held a finance management position at JLL supporting the Leasing and Capital Markets groups. Additionally, he has extracurricular work experience in community development projects in Nicaragua and King City, California. Mauricio recognizes the power of art to build and thrive communities which is his main motivation to join CAST. He obtained a B.A. in Economics from UC Davis.

Maya Berry (she/her) is a content creator with a passion for the arts and creating social change. A graduate of the University of San Francisco’s School of Management, she focused her degree on digital and multicultural marketing. She began her career at POPSUGAR as a social media marketing intern and quickly climbed to the role of Senior Consumer Marketing Coordinator. In March of 2021, she began working as the Assistant Social Media Manager for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, creating social media content for both the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. In her current role as Digital Content Manager at the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, she supports CAST’s storytelling efforts across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Through partnership and representation, Maya has worked to push the historically gate-kept arts and museum space towards a more inclusive future filled with diverse perspectives.

Sarah brings 13 years of experience as a trusted real estate advisor to nonprofits and creatives in the Denver metro area. With a background as an artist and educator, she approaches real estate through a lens of stewardship and reciprocity, promoting thoughtful ownership that supports both community and environment. She co-founded Tank Studios and BassLine LLC, cooperative, artist-run workspaces providing affordable professional studios for visual artists. An award-winning Realtor and active member of the National Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals, Sarah is a Colorado native, certified community naturalist, and practicing visual artist who creates handmade paper from plants grown in her garden, as well as sculptures, installations, and performances from her Denver studio.

Taylor has worked across various sectors championing equity, empowerment and community. Since moving to the Bay Area in 2021, she has contributed to student and educational support services at San Francisco State University, transitional housing and reentry programs for the City of San Francisco, as well as supporting affordable housing development and property operations at organizations with portfolios spanning California and the Pacific Northwest.

Taylor is also a lifelong lover of the visual arts, and has featured and vendored her work in local exhibitions and galleries. She approaches her work at CAST as a meaningful integration of both her creative passions and values.

Yi has more than seven years of design and construction experience within retail, hospitality, offices, campuses, and more. Yi has an education in Architecture and City Planning from UC Berkeley and is also a visual artist with a studio in West Oakland, where he paints, sculpts, and contemplates our environment while reusing often-wasted materials. Having lived in China, Maryland, and LA, Yi has found a home and community here in the beautiful and vibrant Bay Area.

Joshua is dedicated to building vibrant, affordable, healthy neighborhoods. He serves as Senior Advisor for Community Arts Stabilization Trust. For 20 of the last 40 years, Joshua worked for East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, culminating as Executive Director. He directed EBALDC’s Real Estate Development Department from 1994–2006, overseeing the development of mixed-use complexes that combine affordable rental apartments with community and retail complexes. He also spent seven years as Director of Real Estate Consulting at the organization now known as Community Vision, where he helped nonprofits to plan and finance their facilities. For 10 years before EBALDC, he worked for a variety of nonprofit affordable housing organizations including Project Artaud, Chinatown Community Development Corporation, Resources for Community Development, among others. Throughout his career, Joshua has been an active civic leader, serving 13 years as an elected School Board member for Emeryville Unified School District. He served on many nonprofit boards and civic committees to address education, affordable housing and urban policy, including SPUR and Northern California Non Profit Housing Association. He now serves on the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council. Joshua holds a B.A. in Architecture from UC Berkeley and M.S. in Real Estate Development from MIT.

Daniel Hernandez is a real estate developer, planner, project manager, and founder of PROYECTO. With over 25 years of experience, Daniel’s portfolio includes a broad range of project types in urban places – from San Francisco to New York – in for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors. He has been in leadership positions throughout his career, and managed all phases of project development, from programming, planning, analysis and financing, through construction and asset management.

Daniel returned home to California in the Spring of 2017, after a successful 18 year career in New York City, to be near his family in the Santa Barbara area, and continues his work as a dedicated urban development practitioner in San Francisco and Santa Fe, NM.

As the founder of Proyecto, Daniel is more than a project manager. He works closely with his clients to understand their goals so that, together, they create a viable vision and feasible development strategy. He becomes a partner and close colleague with his clients to establish a clear pathway and governance structure for progressing a project to a successful completion.

Daniel is committed to building the civic buildings and places in cities that strengthen neighborhoods and stabilize communities. His work builds on place-based assets to create value and place-making solutions.  Daniel has a solid background in affordable housing development, public-private partnerships, and large-scale mixed-use development, and applies these skills to manage the development of arts and education facilities.

Ernesto Vilchis has nearly two decades of experience working at the intersection of real estate, impact finance, community development, and public policy. His work centers on supporting mission-driven organizations—especially those rooted in communities historically excluded from capital markets—to bring their visions to life through thoughtful, values-aligned capital strategies.

As an advisor, Ernesto partners with organizations to strengthen and advance their capital projects, from early feasibility and financial modeling to investment tracking, market research, and investor communications. Previously, as a Community Real Estate Consultant at Community Vision, he worked closely with community-based organizations to translate programmatic goals into executable capital projects and to build the internal capacity needed for long-term sustainability.

Earlier in his career, Ernesto provided real estate and urban economics consulting focused on affordable housing, transit-oriented development, and neighborhood revitalization, and began his professional path in affordable housing development in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Across all of his work, Ernesto is guided by a commitment to reducing social and economic insecurity by strengthening the financial tools, systems, and relationships available to communities on the margins of opportunity. He holds a Master of Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently based in Rapperswil SG, Switzerland, while remaining deeply connected—personally and professionally—to California.

Ventura Partners has decades of experience developing and managing nonprofit commercial properties. Drawing on its broad background in real estate development, the firm offers expertise in the financing, construction, renovation and conversion of retail, office and special use properties. Its ability to develop and implement unique management and tenant support structures has allowed Ventura Partners to successfully address the challenges of redevelopment projects and those catering to arts groups, nonprofits and small businesses. Its strategy focuses on long-term financial health based on a strong tenant mix, sustainable lease structures, and professional systems to control capital and operating budgets. Ventura Partners has brought its expertise to a number of projects for arts organizations and venues within the context of urban economic development. In addition to its work with CAST, Ventura Partners has been providing real estate development, leasing and operations consulting for the City of San Francisco’s work with Lennar Urban on the Hunters Point Shipyard Artists’ Studios and MACLA’s (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana) acquisition and development of its facility for artists and creative entrepreneurs in downtown San Jose. Kim Frentz Edmonds is the Principal and Founder of Ventura Partners, which established its San Francisco office in 2003.

Shelley Trott is Executive Director of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, effective September 1, 2024. She works closely with the CEO to implement the Foundation’s vision and lead the organization in fulfilling its mission.

Since joining the Foundation in 2009 as one of its first employees, she has held multiple leadership roles, playing an integral role in its evolution. Shelley was Chief Program Officer from 2021-2024, overseeing program areas, grants management, and communications. She fostered collaboration throughout the organization, led its evaluation and learning initiative, and worked with Rainin Foundation leaders to create its first Program-Related Investment Fund to further leverage the Foundation’s resources for public good.

Before holding this position, Shelley was Director, Arts Strategy & Ventures, leading the Foundation’s strategic direction for the arts. Her past work as a dance and media artist has informed her entrepreneurial and collaborative approach. Under Shelley’s leadership, the Rainin Foundation’s Arts program established a reputation for taking smart risks and gained national recognition for its visionary work. She regularly speaks about the important role the arts play in innovative place-based approaches to enriching neighborhoods and communities.

Shelley was named a 2023 Change Leaders in Philanthropy Fellow and received the prestigious Robert W. Scrivner Award from the Council on Foundations in 2014 for outstanding creativity in grantmaking for her work with CAST. Shelley earned a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She is the Founding Board President of Immersive Arts Alliance and co-produces the annual Bay Area International Children’s Film Festival.

Brady Forrest runs Highway1, a hardware accelerator in San Francisco. He also co-founded Ignite, a global talk series that has spread to over 200 cities around the world. Thousands of Ignite talks can be found online on just as many topics, and Ignite holds quarterly events in San Francisco. Previously, Brady chaired 20-plus events in the United States and Europe at O’Reilly Media. He’s been attending Burning Man since 2000 and has been a part of several large art projects such as the Heart Phoenix, the Temple of Shame and the Gravity Bowl. He speaks at events around the world on hardware, the Ignite community, and big art at Burning Man. He has a B.S. in Industrial Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Deborah Cullinan is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the pivotal role artists and arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape, and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and culture. She joined Stanford University in early 2022 as the first full-time vice president for the arts. Previously, she was CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she launched several bold new programs, engagement strategies, and civic coalitions. Prior to joining YBCA in 2013, she was the executive director of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. She is a co-founder of CultureBank, and recently served as co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance, vice chair of the Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy, and secretary of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. She was the inaugural National Field Leader in Residence at Arizona State University’s National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation and a former innovator-in-residence at the Kauffman Foundation. She served on Mayor London Breed’s San Francisco Economic Recovery Task Force and also on Governor Gavin Newsom’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. Her passion for using art and creativity to shift culture and advance equity and justice has made her a sought-after speaker at events and conferences around the world.

By day, Imaan is an engineer at Arup where he contributes his thought leadership to the design of complex buildings and infrastructure. By night, he is the founder and Executive Director of The Omni Movement, an endeavor to make social partner dance accessible to all. At CAST, he eagerly brings both professions together to support space-making for artists in the Bay Area.

Steven H. Oliver is President of the award-winning construction and development firm Oliver & Company based in Richmond, CA, which has built over a thousand buildings in the Bay Area, including the California College of the Arts in Oakland and San Francisco, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. A well-known arts philanthropist, advocate, and civic leader in the Bay Area, Mr. Oliver is the former Chairman of the Board of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Currently, he is serving as Chairman of the Board for the United States Artists. Mr. Oliver has also served as chairman of a division of the National Endowment for the Arts and has served on the boards of numerous arts organizations, including the California College of the Arts, Mills College Art Museum, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Artists’ Legacy Foundation, and Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST). Oliver and his wife, Nancy, are respected collectors of contemporary art. They display one of the nation’s most renowned private collections of site-specific art at their northern California home, Oliver Ranch.

Tim Van Loan is an entrepreneur and technologist who loves to create stories that inspire people to action. Through his time at companies like Salesforce and the startups he’s created, Tim has worked to support the growth and success of colleagues, community and customers alike. Being a passionate San Franciscan, painter and dancer he cares deeply about actively supporting local artists and helping them thrive here in the Bay Area. Beyond his work at CAST he has also helped contribute to the community through his time on the Commonwealth Club INFORUM’s board of directors.