Author: Alfredo Casuso

NACD Northern California Celebrates LGBTQ Diversity in the Boardroom

Written on October 9, 2020.

In Honor of National Coming Out Day, NACD Northern California Chapter Celebrates LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors and Diversity in the Boardroom

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (October 9, 2020) – The NACD Northern California Chapter, the advocate for the profession of directorship in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley and Sacramento, released a video series documenting the experiences of LGBTQ+ corporate directors in anticipation of this Sunday’s National Coming Out Day.

“Diversity of thought and experience is an imperative in the boardroom,” said Kim Box, chair of the NACD Northern California Chapter. “Leaders who build strong boards must drive progress to ensure diversity is a priority. It will serve to broaden representation, creativity, and business oversight. The time is now to advance this agenda. It will result in better overall governance as we move into the future.”

The NACD Northern California Chapter’s traditional gatherings celebrating diversity in the boardroom are being converted to a virtual environment this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Viewers will be able to enjoy prerecorded interviews with prominent LGBTQ+ directors in a presentation designed to spark conversation about diversity in the boardroom. It is also intended to inspire a cohort of future directors and advance their connectivity with the board community in the year ahead.

The presentation is introduced by David Eugene Perry, board member of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, board president and founder emeritus of the Rainbow Honor Walk, and CEO of DP&A Inc. The video features directors including Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez, board member of Recology, Pacific School of Religion, and Ignite Institute for Leadership Innovation Leadership Council; Vasudev Bailey, board member of Eko, Unnatural Products, Aether, IDbyDNA, Freenome, Climax Foods, Lemonaid Health, Association for Women in Sciences, Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering, and The Trevor Project;Torrence Boone, board member of Macy’s, Finish Line, and Pond5, and vice president of Google;Laurence Colton, board member ofRecology, Digicom Learning, and The Palm Springs LGBTQ Center; Matt Fust, board member of Atara Biotherapeutics, Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical; Dr. Sandra Hernandez, board member of Covered California, and president and CEO of California Health Care Foundation; Dr. Vivienne Ming, board member ofOptoCeutics, andfounder and executive chair of Socos Labs; andTodd Pierce, board member ofDignity Health and Rock Health, and president of Good Group.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 979 (AB-979)on September 30, 2020. The bill requires all publicly held companies headquartered in California to have at least one underrepresented community represented on its corporate board by December 31, 2021, and potentially up to three by December 31, 2022. An underrepresented community refers to an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

NACD studies find that boards and investors agree that diversity in the boardroom is a business imperative. Seventy-four percent of private company respondents to an NACD survey report that diversity is an imperative for board success, and 69 percent see value in increasing diversity on their own board. Further, 93 percent of board members report that the primary value they see in board diversity is the broader perspective and expertise it fosters. The NACD Resource Center on Diversity and Inclusion and the NACD Directorship Power of Difference offer further insights about advancing diversity in the boardroom.

The NACD Northern California Chapter program page offers details about the virtual program and its speakers. Individuals interested in networking and discussions about issues impacting corporate boards with a diverse group of participants are encouraged to sign up and participate in future discussions.

About the NACD Northern California Chapter

NACD Northern California provides a forum for NACD members to exchange knowledge and discuss leading boardroom practices in the Bay Area. NACD’s 20+ chapters enhance the value of NACD membership by providing directors with a local forum to address governance challenges in order to elevate their board’s performance. Members enjoy peer-to-peer dialogue about critical boardroom issues such as cyber risk, CEO succession planning, activism, and leadership. To learn more about NACD Northern California, please visit northerncalifornia.NACDonline.org.

About NACD

The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) empowers more than 21,000 directors to lead with confidence in the boardroom. As the recognized authority on leading boardroom practices, NACD helps boards strengthen investor trust and public confidence by ensuring that today’s directors are well prepared for tomorrow’s challenges. World-class boards join NACD to elevate performance, gain foresight, and instill confidence. Fostering collaboration among directors, investors, and corporate governance stakeholders, NACD has been setting the standard for responsible board leadership for 40 years.

To learn more about NACD, visit www.NACDonline.org. To become an NACD member, please contact us at Join@NACDonline.org or 571-367-3708. If you are already a member, contact your NACD Membership Advisor at MembershipAdvisor@NACDonline.org to ensure that you are receiving the best value from your membership.

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For further information please contact:

Lisa Spivey
programs@NorthernCalifornia.NACDonline.org
(415) 333-6800

Washington Square Lighting and Italian Heritage Weekend Kickoff

Written on October 8, 2020.

David Perry & Associates, Inc., David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com

WHAT: Washington Square Lighting and Italian Heritage Weekend Kickoff

WHO: San Francisco Italian Heritage Parade and Festival President Bill Mastrangelo

District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani

District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin

Consul General Lorenzo Ortona

Maria Pignati will perform the Italian national anthem

WHEN: Friday, October 9, 2020: 6pm – 6:45pm PDT

WHERE: Washington Square Park, outside of the San Francisco Italian

Athletic Club, 1630 Stockton St.

NOTE: There are no large scale public gatherings or official

performances. Anyone singing outside is reminded that

wearing a mask is MANDATORY and to observe social

distancing protocols

WEB: sfitalianheritage.org/parade #sixfeetofpasta #italianheritage

WHY: To honor the contributions of Italian Americans to San Francisco

and kick-off Italian Heritage Month.

DETAIL: The kickoff to Italian Heritage Parade and Festival Weekend as well as Italian Heritage Month. We will raise the Italian flag honoring contributions of Italian Americans to San Francisco, countdown to light up the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club and St. Peter and Paul’s Church and Washington Square park in the red, white and green of the Italian flag. Live accordion music will be played at street level. A full outdoor bar and food will be available for purchase from SFIAC Porta Via restaurant. Speakers and performers will connect with the community from the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club balcony and include:

San Francisco Italian Heritage Parade and Festival President Bill Mastrangelo

District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani

District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin

Consul General Lorenzo Ortona

Maria Pignati will perform the Italian national anthem

Supervisors Stefani and Peskin will announce new legislation that will create San Francisco’s first Italian American Cultural District in North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Dezart Performs Wins 6 Desert Stars Awards for landmark productions Daniel’s Husband and Sweat

Written on October 5, 2020.

media contact: David Perry & Associates, Inc. (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com

Dezart Performs Wins 6 Desert Stars Awards
for landmark productions Daniel’s Husband and Sweat

www.dezartperforms.org

5 October 2020 – Palm Springs, CA: The Desert Theatre League has honored the critically-acclaimed 12^th season for Dezart Performs (www.dezartperforms.org) of Palm Springs with Six “Desert Star Awards” in the 33^rd annual occurrence for the theatrical high-point of the year. The emotionally-charged Daniel’s Husband exploring the legal and family dynamics of same-sex marriage took home four awards: Outstanding Production of a Comedy/Drama (Professional); The Michael Cruickshank Award for Outstanding Director of a Drama (Professional) for Darin Anthony; Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama (Professional) for David Youse and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama (Professional) for Deborah Harmon. The wrenching drama of a recessionary rust-belt town, Sweat, garnered two awards: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama for Desireé Clarke and Outstanding Props and Special Effects for Cecilia Orosco.

“We are so honored to be part of the Coachella Valley theatre community, never more than this challenging year,” said Dezart Performs Founding Artistic Director Michael Shaw. “We look forward to next year when hopefully we will be able to gather together onstage, backstage and in person for the 34^TH annual Desert Theatre League Gala.”

“I am thrilled that Daniel’s Husband touched the heart of Palm Springs,” said Darin Anthony, Los Angeles based director for the production. “Thank you Desert Theatre League. It was a true pleasure to work with such a talented company on this heart wrenching play.”

Dezart Performs, one of the Coachella Valley’s preeminent theatre companies, recognizes that the performing arts enrich the life and culture of a community, promote greater understanding and provoke insightful discussion. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theatre company, its mission is to provide an artistic home for bold and cutting–edge plays, creating an atmosphere of artistic growth for actors, writers, and directors who uniquely contribute to the diverse theatrical environment in the Coachella Valley.

For more information go online at www.dezartperforms.org, or call (760) 322-0179.

MAYOR LONDON BREED NOMINATES MANNY YEKUTIEL TO SERVE ON THE SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Written on October 5, 2020.

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR LONDON N. BREED SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, October 5, 2020

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

*** PRESS RELEASE ***

MAYOR LONDON BREED NOMINATES MANNY YEKUTIEL TO SERVE ON THE SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Yekutiel is a current Small Business Commissioner who owns a restaurant, café, bookshop, and civic gathering space in the Mission District

San Francisco, CA — Mayor London N. Breed today announced that she is nominating Manny Yekutiel to serve on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors. Yekutiel is the owner of Manny’s, a civic gathering space featuring a cafe, restaurant, and bookshop in the Mission District. He currently serves on the San Francisco Small Business Commission and is a board member of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association.

“I’m excited and proud to nominate Manny to serve on the SFMTA Board of Directors,” said Mayor Breed. “I am confident in his ability to bring a fresh perspective to the Board and represent the needs of San Francisco small businesses and residents alike. Manny knows how to bring people together and make sure everyone has a chance to share their diverse perspectives. He’s a regular rider of public transportation in our City, and understands how critical Muni is to everyone in our City, especially our workers. In response to COVID, Manny has played a huge role in transforming Valencia Street into a space that supports our residents and helps businesses thrive, and I know he will bring that same energy and commitment to the Board.”

“I am deeply humbled and honored to be considered to serve the City I love as a member of the board of the SFMTA,” said Manny Yekutiel. “Mobility is freedom and it’s my belief that a City like ours should aim to create access to that freedom to everyone, everywhere. Our transportation system can and should do that. The relationship between our transport system, streets, workers, and small businesses has never been more important. I’ve seen first-hand how decisions made by the SFMTA, in the case of temporarily closing streets to cars, has given small businesses a fighting chance to survive this crisis. If given the opportunity to serve, I promise to be a fierce advocate for all San Franciscans and will bring my perspective and my passion as a small business owner to the Board.”

Manny’s is known for its civic events space and engaging conversations on a range of topics. Manny’s is also a restaurant whose kitchen is run by the non-profit, Farming Hope, which hires formerly homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals and trains them in the food skills needed to work in the restaurant industry. As part of Manny’s programing, Yekutiel has hosted public forums across a broad range of issues including recent conversation on COVID-19, racial justice, climate change, and transportation. He has interviewed SFMTA Director Jeff Tumlin about transportation in San Francisco, facilitated a Cycling Town Hall, and has hosted conversations on congestion pricing with the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.

The Valencia Corridor Merchants Association worked with the City to close Valencia Street as part of the Shared Spaces program, an initiative created by Mayor Breed to help neighborhood businesses to share a portion of the public right-of-way for outdoor dining and other neighborhood retail activity. Manny also served on the SFMTA 16th Street Bus Improvement Project Mitigation Task Force.

“Manny would finally be the fierce advocate small businesses need to represent us on the board of the SFMTA,” said William Ortiz-Cartagena, Small Business Commissioner. “Not only does he see things from a small business owner perspective being a small business owner himself, everything Manny does and lives is through a lens of equity.”

“Manny is an extraordinary leader who understands the importance of working within the community, for the community,” said Gina Fromer, CEO of Children’s Council of San Francisco. “He is someone who breaks down barriers for the greater good of San Francisco by bringing all of the various micro-communities together to think critically about the state of the city and beyond.”

Yekutiel was raised in Los Angeles. He comes from a long line of small business owners; his grandparents owned a grocery store in Brooklyn and his father, who emigrated from Afghanistan, had a small business in Southern California selling tablecloths. Yekutiel is a graduate of Williams College, and was a public engagement intern focusing on the LGBTQ and Tribal communities under the Obama Administration. He currently lives in the Castro District in San Francisco.

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New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press Cracks Open Intimate Shells of LGBTQI Lives

Written on October 5, 2020.

Media Contact:
David Perry & Assoc., Inc/David Perry (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com / PR@gingkopress.com

New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press
Cracks Open Intimate Shells of LGBTQI Lives

52 Artists from Six Continents Explore Sex, Sensuality, Radicalism & Romance in Richly Designed Paean to Proud Celebration of Diversity

http://gingkopress.com/shop/new-queer-photography/

5 October 2020 – Berkeley, CA. If there is queer culture in Antarctica, count on editor Benjamin Wolbergs to find it — at the moment, that’s the only continent not represented in the rich, raunchy, romantic and radically real New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins from Gingko Press. In 304 wild and wickedly diverse pages we meet 52 artists — Rainbow Girls, Berlin Boys, Queens at Home, Queer Kids, Beautiful Freaks and numerous safe havens of body and soul welcoming Sexugees who flee Where Love is Illegal.

“These photographers have a rare gift and rare accessibility to intimacy,” said Wolbergs. “The works are raw, racy and unapologetic. It’s about queer people. No two of this collection’s artists are the same. Neither are the images or the perspectives.”

Wolbergs lives and works as an art director and editor in Berlin. His work as an art director includes over 100 books for art publishers such as Taschen, Gingko Press, Prestel, Distanz, Gestalten, Junius, Kettler and more. As an editor he is eager to find new inspiring themes in the field of art and design that have not yet been published. These book projects often turn out to be longer term projects — New Queer Photography in particular was developed over the last four years.

Besides the graphic and richly realized images, there are eloquent and revelatory texts spread throughout such as Edna Bonhomme’s “The Joys of Trouble making”, Shiv Kotecha’s “Call Me Heena” and noted author Alexander Chee’s “Queer Kids In America” where he writes movingly about “the dream of the heroic age of gay liberation, that became in turn the nightmare of AIDS.”

A balancing act between sometimes diametrically opposed aspects is at the heart of the message that New Queer Photography is trying to convey: focus on examplesof people on the margins of society whoare discriminated against, oppressed,and attacked because of their sexualityand gender identity.

“Living on the margins — under different circumstances — may often create the very conditions that enable people to throw off the shackles of social norms and spread their wings in total freedom,” writes Wolbergs in the introduction to the volume. “This book celebrates the exploration of gender

identity in all its fluidity and explores perceptions and alternative ideals of beauty. For the photographers represented in this book, working on the margins opens up unique opportunities.”

Films, series, and mainstream cultural appropriation suggest that society has largely embraced queer lifestyles. However, a number of documentary photographers provide evidence that being gay or lesbian can still lead to marginalization, isolation, stigmatization, and violence in certain countries and communities. Their works also take the regime of sexuality itself into account and show that many bans on same-sex contact have colonial origins. This carefully researched and richly designed book introduces contemporary photographic positions, including those of well-established photographers as well as plenty of unknown and less well-known talent.

As Gert Jonkers,cofounder of BUTT & Fantastic Man, writes: “Thisbook takes me back to my teens, to the thrill of photography, discovery, and sex.”

Artists in New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins (in order of presentation)

Dustin Thierry, Florian Hetz, Melody Melamed, Alexandre Haefeli, Maika Elan, Bradley Secker, Ralf Obergfell, M. Sharkey, Donal Talbot, Luis Venegas, Goodyn Green, Lasha Fox Tsertsvadze, Francesco Cascavilla, Bettina Pittaluga, Jan Klos, Laurence Rasti, Damien Blottière, Manuel Moncayo, Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert, Lia Clay Miller, Pauliana Valente Pimentel, Lissa Rivera, Julia Gunther, Soraya Zaman, Matt Lambert, Benjamin Fredrickson, Pepper Levain, Christopher Sherman, Mohamad Abdouni, Robin Hammond, Hao Nguyen, Milan Gies, Ashkan Sahihi, Lukas Viar, Jonathan Icher, Birk Thomassen, Shahria Sharmin, Kostis Fokas, Jordan Reznick, Laurence Philomène, Gianfranco Briceño, Daniel Jack Lyons, Maria Clara Macrì, Claudia Kent, Danielle Villasana, Brian Oldham, Red Rubber Road artists Ana Hell and Nathalie Dreier, Mark McKnight, Spyros Rennt, Gerardo Vizmanos and Michael Bailey-Gates.

9 ½” x 11 4/5” • 304 Pages • Hardcover

$65.00 Retail • ISBN 9781584237563
Releasing November 2020