Board of Directors
Marco Ramirez
President
Marco Ramirez is a seasoned Community Development Strategist who partners with affordable housing developers, policymakers, residents, service providers, and members of the construction industry to create supportive, inclusive residential communities. After more than 20 years in the nonprofit housing sector, Marco knows how to build and manage action-oriented coalitions and what it takes to build trust among diverse groups of people. For Marco, it’s about finding meaning in work and how well groups align under a unifying vision. Marco has worked and volunteered for a variety of nonprofit affordable housing developers as either management staff or a member of their boards of directors, including BRIDGE Housing, Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation, LINC Housing, City of Pomona Housing Department, and Northtown Housing Development Corporation. In addition to his work in housing, Marco has extensive experience in organizational development and public-sector management. He has taught university courses in Urban Studies, Public Administration, Urban Planning, and Political Science. Marco holds a doctorate in Policy, Planning, and Development from the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
Renee Dake Wilson
Vice-President
Renee is an architect and thought-leader who has helped build homes, institutions, and communities throughout Southern California for the past twenty years. Renee is a Principal and co-founder of Frogtown-based Dake Wilson Architects, an architecture firm with an environmental focus and wide portfolio including single family residences, and commercial, civic, and institutional projects. An active member of numerous professional and civic organizations, Renee seeks the open collaboration and exchange of ideas that comes from working with diverse interest groups. Her organizing efforts focus on equality and the environment, and she is dedicated to making social change through great public spaces and community involvement. She previously served as the President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, and currently serves as the Vice President. Renee holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and is a LEED-accredited licensed architect.
Mott Smith
Treasurer
Mott is co-founder of Civic Enterprise, an L.A. firm that builds innovative, socially-conscious projects in emerging neighborhoods and provides innovative food manufacturing, parking and economic development solutions for cities and communities. CE’s most recent project is L.A. Prep, the first-of-its-kind wholesale food production complex for 54 small business tenants. He is very active in local, regional and state legislative issues. His built work has been honored by the Urban Land Institute, the L.A. Conservancy, and Architectural Record Magazine. He is a founding board member of the California Infill Builders Federation, teaches in USC’s Master of Real Estate Development Program and Planning Program in the USC Price School of Public Policy. Earlier, he was as Acting Director of Planning for the L.A. Unified School District after serving as founding Executive Director of New Schools-Better Neighborhoods. He also worked as editor/business manager of The Planning Report. Mott is past president of the Westside Urban Forum. He received a Master of Real Estate Development from USC and a bachelor’s in Linguistics from UCLA.
Shauna Nep
Secretary
Shauna Nep is the VP of Philanthropy at SB Projects, a diversified entertainment and media company with ventures integrating music, film, television, technology and philanthropy guided by the vision of founder Scott “Scooter” Braun. She also serves as the Executive Director of the Braun Foundation which invests in the movements, organizations, and individuals that are changing communities for the better with a focus on Los Angeles. Shauna began her career in social impact at Occidental College's Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, where she focused on deploying tactics in behavioral economics to increase access to healthful and affordable foods in LAUSD. As Director of Community and Innovation at the Goldhirsh Foundation, she helped build and launch LA2050, an initiative to create a better future for Los Angeles. Shauna is also a regional board member of Opportunity Fund and an Advisor to Good Today, a non-profit platform making it easy and meaningful to give charity daily to hundreds of new causes and organizations across the globe. Shauna graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in the History and Philosophy and Science and from New York University with a Masters in Bioethics. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
Vinit Mukhija
Vinit is Professor and Vice Chair of Urban Planning in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on informal or unregulated housing. His work also examines how planners and urban designers in both the Global South and the Global North can learn from each other, and from the everyday city. Mukhija is the author of Squatters as Developers? Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai (Ashgate), and the coeditor of The Informal American City (MIT Press). He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jennifer Samson
Jen works at the intersection of impact and real estate investing in the "PropTech" industry for Landed, a venture-backed, San Francisco-based company with a national presence whose mission is to help essential professionals build financial security near the communities they serve. Her current focus is scaling the pipeline and optimizing the customer experience for all Southern California markets, the company's largest region in both customer volume and revenue growth. She is a Dreamer/Do-er for innovative, community-enriching, and vital reimagining of access to and creation of public space and housing in Los Angeles. Prior to working at Landed, as the Director of Real Estate & Finance Operations at River LA she helped to define and build a new vision of the LA River. Jen has successfully managed $150M+ in real estate throughout various stages of the project development cycle. She has worked on both private and public transactions, ranging from ground-up affordable housing rentals to mixed-use, transit-oriented, for-sale communities to public-private-partnership open space, infrastructure, and facilities. Jen is a LEED accredited professional and holds both a Masters of Business Administration and Real Estate Development which she obtained from USC as a full-tuition fellow of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.