Board & Staff
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Yolande Cadore - Chair of the Board
Yolande Cadore - New York, NY - has spent the last twenty years working with grassroots organizations in New York City and nationally. Early in her career, she worked as an organizer with the Working Families Party, ACORN and New York State Tenants and Neighbors. Recognizing the correlation between degraded environments, including poor quality housing and poor health, led Yolande to WE ACT for Environmental Justice where she was the Director of Community Organizing for six years. As Director, she worked with West Harlem leaders to develop the organization’s outreach, organizing and advocacy campaigns. Additionally, she served as the National Field Director at The Praxis Project. From 2010 to 2015 she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Drug Policy Alliance. Yolande holds an undergraduate degree in Urban Policy and Advocacy, a certificate in Non-Profit Management from Columbia Business School–Institute for Not-for-Profit Management and is a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She recently completed a doctoral program at St. John Fisher College. |
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Elizabeth Norman - Vice Chair of the Board
Elizabeth Norman - Brooklyn, NY - is the Director of Budget and Planning for the International Rescue Committee’s International Programs, where she oversees a budget of $530 million. In addition to advising senior leadership on strategic decision making around the budget, she supports IRC country programs with budget training, business development and budget analysis and has completed deployments in over 10 country programs. Before joining the IRC, Elizabeth worked for the New York City Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget for nine years where she managed the budgets for Medicaid and the public hospitals. She also has prior experience serving on non-profit boards: she served as the Board Co-Chair of the New York City AIDS Housing Network (aka VOCAL-NY) as well as Secretary and Finance Committee member of Neighbors Helping Neighbors, where she helped oversee their merger with the Fifth Avenue Committee. She holds an MPA in Public Finance from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service and a BA in History from Oberlin College. |
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Ellie Baron - Secretary of the Board
Ellie Baron (she/her) is a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and has been involved in Action Corps since 2018. She is passionate about ending U.S. involvement in the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and has helped coordinate rallies to stop the war on Yemen. She served as Action Corps’ climate justice lead and was a core organizer of the March for Racial Justice Through Climate Justice in September 2020. She currently serves as an Action Corps organizer in Pennsylvania. |
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Nabil Ez-zaoui - Treasurer of the Board
Nabil Ez-zaoui - New York, NY - is a Moroccan American who is deeply passionate about human rights advocacy, geopolitics, and intercultural dialogue. Nabil has 15+ years of professional experience in the financial services sector. He currently serves as the head of Markets Advisory at Mizuho Americas. In this capacity, he advises global corporations and institutions on their macroeconomic risk management practices. Nabil holds a Masters in Mathematics of Finance from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from Ecole des Mines de Nancy in France. |
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Isaac Evans-Frantz - Executive Director
Isaac Evans-Frantz (he/him) - Brattleboro, VT - is the founding director of Action Corps and a former candidate for U.S. Senate in Vermont. He played a key role in passage of bipartisan Yemen War Powers Resolutions in 2018 and 2019 to stop U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen. In 2020 he brought together over 100 U.S. faith-based, humanitarian and trade organizations advocating for global COVID response through the International Monetary Fund. This resulted in the largest issuance of emergency financial resources in the institution's history. In 2021, Evans-Frantz circulated a statement calling for a World Says No to War on Yemen Global Day of Action, which was signed by 400 organizations in 30 countries, making this the largest antiwar coordination since 2003. Isaac holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and Master in Public Administration, with a concentration in non-profit management, from the City University of New York. |
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Erica Johnson - Board Member
Erica Johnson - Brooklyn, NY - is a writer and award-winning actor who has performed at the Magnet Theater, Upright Citizens Brigade, and The Peoples Improv Theater. She is a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild. She's the founder and chief storytelling officer at Sir Carter Carter (Majer News), a news site focused on comedy, entertainment, culture, and news. She has written for The Washington Informer and TV One. She is the recipient of the Google News Initiative Fellowship and the T. Howard Foundation Scott Weiss Scholarship. She holds an MA in strategic communications from American University in Washington, D.C. |
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Brennan Frazier - Board Member
Brennan Frazier - Albany, NY - graduated from Ohio State University with a B.A. in Political Science and History. After graduation, he worked to develop mediation programs for underserved communities through AmeriCorps VISTA. He is based in Albany, NY and currently works with Mediation Matters to help his community peacefully resolve differences, and with the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) to help develop and support the broader community mediation field. Brennan previously served as a lead organizer of the former Oxfam Action Corps Columbus. |
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Sapana Thomas - Board Member
Sapana Thomas - Boston, MA - Whether working as a product manager in educational technology, developing social media campaigns to raise concern around human rights violations, or lobbying Congress to ask for support on policies helping those who live in poverty globally, Sapana strives to challenge and inspire others to join her in enacting change and implementing solutions. In addition to her product manager responsibilities in a previous job, she was also a corporate social responsibility ambassador and chapter co-leader of the company's Neurodiversity Employee Resource Group. Outside of work, her passion for fighting for human rights and equality led her to spend almost the last ten years on outreach, advocacy, and campaigning for long-term solutions to global poverty, hunger, and injustice, first as a Boston co-lead of the Oxfam Action Corps, and then as a co-founder and vice chair of Action Corps’ first governing body. |
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Brian Rawson - Board Member
Brian Rawson - Berkeley, CA - has extensive advocacy and communications experience with many global justice NGOs. He led grassroots advocacy mobilization for Oxfam America for more than a dozen years, including the creation of a national grassroots advocacy training program with teams in 15 US cities who conducted lobby visit delegations annually in Washington DC and local Congressional offices. This was the precursor to the now independent Action Corps. He currently lives in California where he provides training and facilitation services to mission-driven organizations and supports efforts for refugee and immigrant rights. |
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Simon Billenness - Board Member
Simon Billenness - Washington, DC - has been described by the New York Times as “a super-specialist” in human rights advocacy. He has over 20 years of experience helping investors, nonprofits, universities, communities, and unions use their power to lobby their governments and hold corporations accountable. As part of the Free Burma movement, Simon organized shareholder activism and the use of state and local selective purchasing laws to put pressure on corporations to withdraw from Burma. Simon co-authored the Massachusetts Burma selective purchasing law with Rep. Byron Rushing, and led the grassroots lobbying campaign to enact it. He also helped found the U.S. Campaign for Burma, and served on the Board of Directors and as Executive Director. He currently serves as the executive director of the International Campaign for the Rohingya. Simon holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from Loughborough University and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from Boston College. |
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Neda Saleh - Coordinator
Neda Saleh is a Yemeni-born peace activist located in the Bay Area of California. She is a volunteer with the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation and the founder of the youth organization, Hands Off Yemen. With Action Corps she has led rallies, secured meetings with key members of Congress, and organized national coalition meetings. Through her advocacy work she aims to help achieve peace and stability in Yemen. |
