Staff
Jessica Coronel
As the center for leadership coordinator, Jessica will be working closely with both NextLA and SCLN to ensure their success with recruitment and events programming. She will also be working as a liaison between NextLA board of directors and staff.
Jessica Comes from a diverse background, most recently working in the legal sector and with nonprofits in sustainability and education. She has also previously collaborated with the National Park Service and leadership organizations to promote “Encuentra tu parque.” She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Literatures and Cultures from UC Merced where she was also able to study in Washington D.C. and South America. In her spare time, she likes to travel, watch sporting events and play with her dog Bucket.
Kauleen Menard
Kauleen Menard manages seminar logistics, as well as assists with the curation and development of SCLN’s fellowships and alumni programming.
Kauleen joins SCLN with 10+ years of experience working in non-formal education, youth development and civic engagement. Most recently, Kauleen fostered corporate citizenship through Los Angeles’ premier volunteer action center L.A. Works through planning and executing corporate days of service. During this time she also engaged high school students on experiential learning trips focused on college exploration, community service and leadership. She earned her B.A. in Sociology from University of California, Los Angeles where she spent a year abroad in Brazil. Since her first experience abroad she has made it a personal and professional goal to experience different cultures, ideas and perspectives. This led her to working in youth development in Hawaii and health education in Cameroon, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. While working towards her M.A. in International Education Development at Teachers College she helped a small international non-profit strengthen their education strategic plan through field research in Burundi. She returned to Los Angeles in 2015 after developing community engagement strategies and managing project logistics for Sesame Workshop’s international initiatives. Kauleen looks forward to continuing her work in civic engagement and leadership, working towards a more dynamic and prosperous California.
Blanca Zarate
Blanca Zarate manages SCLN’s fund development strategy in partnership with the executive director, leads the recruitment and selection activities for all SCLN fellowships exceeding recruitment goals for the past two years.
Prior to joining SCLN Zarate worked with Jumpstart, an educational organization focused on pre-K literacy and kindergarten preparedness. At Jumpstart, she coordinated recruitment and retention of students and AmeriCorps members. Zarate also provided administrative support to help increase family involvement and promoted skill building through classroom assistance. While attending University of California, Irvine, Zarate worked for the admissions office of the Executive and Health Care Executive MBA Programs at the Paul Merage School of Business where she assisted in the admissions process of potential and incoming students.
Zarate has served for more than five years as a recruitment specialist and has plenty experience in the nonprofit sector. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in business administration with a specialization in general management and a minor in international studies. Zarate also holds a certificate in fund development from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Zarate is passionate about giving back to the community and enjoys traveling.
Erin Tanenbaum
Erin Tanenbaum oversees the design of relevant and creative content, speaker recruitment and implementation of SCLN fellowships. Tanenbaum also leads the development of SCLN Alumni programming and serves as the liaison to the SCLN Alumni Council and Program Committee.
Tanenbaum joins SCLN with more than 15 years experience in providing leaders from the public, private and community sectors with opportunities to best leverage their human and financial resources as stewards of change. Most recently, she served as associate director of business and program development at the Milken Institute where she conceived, planned and implemented initiatives to engage leaders and cultivate support to address issues ranging from aging to global health to food insecurity to enhancing job growth in California. Tanenbaum has also developed awareness campaigns, raised funds, and created strategic partnerships for various organizations, including the California Community Foundation, International Medical Corps, Southern California Grantmakers and the Venice Family Clinic. She earned a BA in political science from the University of California, San Diego and has completed coursework at the Masters level in holistic nutrition and human development. Tanenbaum began her career running summer respite programs in Croatia for children who survived the Bosnian war. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband Todd, whom she shares a passion for politics, policy and civic engagement, and their boxer Orchid.
Senior Consultants
Kevin Groves, PhD
Kevin S. Groves is an assistant professor of management at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, and the founder and managing principal of Talent Management Solutions, a consultancy that helps organizations develop talent through leadership assessment, development, and succession planning systems. Groves’s ongoing consulting work helps organizations design customized solutions for enhancing leadership bench strength, creating viable succession plans, reducing high potential turnover, and maximizing employee engagement. Prior clients include Kaiser Permanente, FritoLay, Inc., Mayo Clinic, PepsiCo, Midland College, and Witt/Kieffer, Inc, among others.
Groves teaches a range courses at the Graziadio School, including leadership competency development, organizational behavior, organization design, and organization development and change. His prior experiences in academia include a stint as Director of the PepsiCo Leadership Center at California State University, Los Angeles, where he managed a $1.45 million PepsiCo Foundation grant for the purposes of developing the leadership competencies of students, community members, and local business leaders.
An active leadership scholar, Groves currently holds the Julian Virtue Professorship at the Graziadio School, which supports his research on leader values and exemplary leadership practices. He is widely published in the business management journals, including Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Human Resource Development Quarterly, and Journal of Management Development. Groves is currently working on a book that summarizes his research on talent management best practices in the healthcare industry.
Groves received a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Claremont Graduate University. He and his wife reside in Hermosa Beach.
Jeremy Hunter, PhD
Jeremy created The Practice of Self Management, a series of challenging and transformative executive education practices and programs dedicated to managing oneself. He teaches in the Executive Management and MBA programs at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, where he has been affiliated since 1999.
Hunter’s courses are among the first to introduce mindfulness practice, a rigorous form of mental discipline, attention training and emotional management, in a management context. They incorporate state of the art findings in neuroscience, psychology, medicine and the arts. Hunter’s work is informed by his life experience of living with a supposedly terminal illness for 17 years. When told he needed life saving surgery, more than a dozen of his former students came forward as organ donors. He received a new kidney from one of them in December of 2008.
He is also a founding partner of CoreWorks Consulting, with Drucker alumnus Scott Scherer. Coreworks coaches and consults with professionals and organizations to develop their managerial capacities. They help their clients perform more effectively, have greater clarity and resolve in decision making, as well as manage reactive emotions and improve the quality of their professional relationships.
His clients have included Toyota Motor Sales, Northrup Grumman, the Los Angeles Police Department, John Laing Homes, Starbucks, The Museum of Contemporary Art, First AME Church of South Central Los Angeles, Red Mountain Retail Group, Kaiser Permanente, Southern California Housing Development Corporation, The University of Southern California and the California Well Being Institute. He has lectured at Brown University, the University of North Texas, the University of California at San Francisco, University of Southern California, and Wittenberg University. He is also an Executive Coach with Corporate Coaching International.
Hunter received his Ph.D. from University of Chicago, an M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Wittenberg University. He consults internationally, speaks Japanese, and loves to eat. He lives in Los Angeles.
Stanley J. Ward
Stanley J. Ward holds a PhD in leadership studies and serves as both the dean for capstone studies at Claremont Lincoln University and the director of CLU’s Center for Action Research, which promotes action research based on mindfulness, dialogue, and collaboration that lead to positive social change. He is also a co-editor of Ethical Leadership: A Primer (due for release this fall).
Outside of his work in academia, Dr. Ward is founder and principal of Influence Coaching, a leadership coaching business that provides both individual and team leadership development. He is certified in change management through Prosci, and a member of both the International Leadership Association and the International Coach Federation.
