Margie Johnson Reese has a 30-year portfolio as an arts management professional and has contributed to public policy in areas of public participation in the arts, public art policy and practice, community development, and cultural master planning and her career has included arts leadership in Dallas and Los Angeles.  She has been an advisor to the nation’s most diverse communities. She has worked directly with artists and other creative professionals to enhance their employment and business opportunities, in both the nonprofit and commercial sectors. She has guided the development of numerous cultural facilities and managing architectural design, budget and staff to guarantee that pubic service is a priority.

She served as a grant maker for the Ford Foundation in their Office for West Africa as the Program Officer for Media, Arts and Culture. In that capacity, she cites among her major accomplishments funding the restoration of the slave castles in Ghana and Nigeria and providing funding to preserve the ancient Arabic manuscripts of Timbuktu in Mali.

Margie formed MJR Partners, LLC in 2010, and provides professional arts management services and guidance to communities for planning, stabilizing and implementing inclusive public policy. Her clients have engaged her services to assist in stimulating strategic partnerships between the cultural sector and government agencies, foundations, corporations, and academic institutions to advance cultural understanding. She is a professor at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, teaching Cultural Policy in the Arts in the graduate Arts Administration program. A graduate of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington with a BS in Speech and Theater, Margie holds an MFA in Theater from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Website: http://www.margiejohnsonreese.com/

Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. As a writer, he served as the Executive Editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, and the Huffington Post. He was the Director of Programming for IVY, the founding General Manager of the Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, and was the General Manager for Armitage Gone! Dance and Youth America Grand Prix. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance, and is on the advisory committee for the Parsons Dance Company. He also serves on the Leaders of Color steering committee at Americans for the Arts. He has given talks at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the 92Y, the Guggenheim's Works & Process, the Museum at F.I.T., the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Purchase College, the Joffrey Ballet School, among others, and has collaborated with Ballet West, Pennsylvania Ballet, Arena Stages, and New York City Center.

Websites: www.yellowface.org 

Instagram: @philschan | @finalbowforyellowface

Twitter: @philschan

Roberto Bedoya is the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland where he most recently shepherded   the City's Cultural Plan. - "Belonging in Oakland: A Cultural Development Plan". Through-out his career he has consistently supported artists-centered cultural practices and advocated for expanded definitions of inclusion and belonging in cultural sector. His essays ““Creative Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-Belonging” ; “ Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City” and “ "Poetics and Praxis of a City in Relation"  has reframed the discussion on cultural policy to shed light on exclusionary practices in cultural policy decision making. He is a Creative Placemaking Fellow at Arizona State University.

Website: http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministration/d/economic-workforce-development/o/cultural-affairs/index.htm

Lucas became the Conservancy’s first Public Art Curator in 2014. Previously he directed the Public Art Program for the Maryland State Arts Council, where he spearheaded the passage of legislation requiring all state-funded capital project to include public art in their construction, and was the Senior Curator of Exhibits for Millennium Park and the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture in Chicago, IL. He has curated and managed dozens of public art commissions and exhibitions of work by artists such as: Mark di Suvero, Jun Kaneko, Thomas Sayre, Shinique Smith, Sui Jianguo and Lawrence Weiner. Cowan has served on juries and panels across the United States, and has consulted on cultural park planning for cities such as San Francisco and Chicago. Cowan previously served on the board of trustees for the International Sculpture Center, publishers of Sculpture magazine, and is a founding member of the Advisory Council for Cold Hollow Sculpture Park in Vermont. Cowan holds degrees from the Maryland Institute College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Website: https://www.rosekennedygreenway.org/     

Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham is an agent for arts and culture, forever in a state of exploration, investigation, preservation, and creation. She has practiced inquiry-based learning methodologies as a museum educator and has also taught arts education at the tertiary level as a lecturer. Her experience has informed the creation of Museum Hue, an arts organization that she co-founded and serves as Creative Director, advocating for people of color throughout museums in particular and the arts world in general. Stephanie’s endeavors also inspired the creation of the Hueniversal Flag, a melanin infused color spectrum representing, resilience and resistance for people of color. As a recent United Nations Human Rights Fellow, she has incorporated the UN systems and mechanisms in her pedagogy to increase recognition of and protection for people of color’s artistic practices, historical narratives, and cultural contributions. Stephanie utilizes the arts as a catalyst for societal change and racial equity.

Website: www.museumhue.com and www.stephaniecunningham.com

Twitter: @museumhue and @stephaniecunning 

Lindsay So is an arts administrator dedicated to helping arts, culture, and non-arts sectors serve as effective allies for one another. Her experiences in the field have shaped her community-minded approach to developing cultural programs and solutions to benefit Philadelphians. She joined the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) in 2013 as the Research & Policy Associate, and now serves as the Assistant Director. In this role, she provides oversight and guidance for all OACCE programs, works to integrate arts, culture and creativity into City activities, and leads staff in the implementation of arts education, community arts, and creative industry initiatives. Prior to OACCE, So developed the organizational systems for CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia, the city’s first Comprehensive Fiscal Management Services program for the cultural community. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and a master’s in arts administration from New York University and Drexel University, respectively. She is a member of the Americans for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Council, and the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation Board of Directors. She has presented at conferences and written on issues facing the non-profit arts sector, including the value of data and evaluation, the role of culture in community development, and cultural equity.

Website: http://creativephl.org 

Twitter: @CreativePHLand @lindsaytso