Board of Advisors
Pangea is lucky to have a team of brilliant mentors and partners with diverse backgrounds and expertise. The following have formally joined our Board of Advisors:
Angela Chan, Bill Ong Hing, Christine Stouffer, Cynthia Ponce Hartman, Jon Rodney, Mark Silverman, Raha Jorjani, Ryan Stahl, Vivek Maru, and Zahra Billoo.
Read more about them below.
Angela F. Chan
Angela F. Chan is a legal director and senior staff attorney managing the Criminal Justice Reform Program at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (AAAJ-ALC) in San Francisco, which is the nation’s oldest legal and civil rights organization serving the low-income Asian and Pacific Americans. Angela represents immigrant families who have youth caught in the juvenile justice system, and youth who are harassed or discriminated against in the K-12 education system. She also works on policy reforms to disentangle local police from immigration enforcement. She co-led the campaign to pass the TRUST Act (AB 4), a state bill which was signed into law and went into effect in January 2014, to set a statewide minimum limit on detentions in response to ICE hold requests. Angela joined AAAJ-ALC in 2006 with a Soros Justice Fellowship. She was named a Local Hero by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, given a Monarch Award by the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition, and given a 40 Under 40 Leadership Award from the New Leaders Council for her work assisting immigrant families.
Angela also served on the San Francisco Police Commission, which is a chartered city civilian commission that adjudicates officer disciplinary cases and sets policies for the police department. Angela was an instructor for the Raza Department at San Francisco State University, teaching courses on race, crime, and justice. In addition, she was a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Napoleon A. Jones in the Southern District of California. Angela earned a J.D., from Harvard Law School and a B.A from Occidental College.
Bill Ong Hing
Bill currently serves as a Law Professor and Dean’s Circle Scholar at the University of San Francisco School of Law. He has pursued social justice through a combination of community work, litigation, and scholarship. He is the author of numerous academic and practice-oriented publications on immigration policy and race relations, including Ethical Borders—NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration (Temple University Press, 2010), Deporting Our Souls-Morality, Values, and Immigration Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Defining America Through Immigration Policy (Temple University Press, 2004), and Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy (Stanford University Press, 1993). His bookTo Be An American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation (NYU Press, 1997) received the award for Outstanding Academic Book by the librarians' journal Choice. At UC Davis, Bill directed the law school clinical program
Bill was co-counsel in the precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court asylum case, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987). He is the founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco and continues to volunteer as general counsel for this organization. He serves on the board of Southeast Asian Refugee Action Center in Washington, D.C. A recipient of many Awards and Accolades, Bill has received the Asian American Achievement Award by the Organization of Chinese Americans (2013) and the Lifetime Achievement Award by Centro Legal de la Raza (2011), among others.
Christine Stouffer
Christine strongly believes in clients having all the information they need to make a well-informed decision. She strives to help clients know and understand their rights in terms of the ever changing and complex immigration laws.
Christine decided to be a lawyer because she had the sense that she could "translate" law so that her clients would feel they have access to their rights in order to make informed decisions. Years ago she needed the help of an attorney and was relieved to find a person with whom she could relate on a human level. This attorney, who was a great role model, painted a clear picture of her rights in terms easily understandable that felt like a path out of a difficult situation.
Christine cites a variety of experiences in several different careers over the years that led her finally to immigration law. She has traveled extensively and spent time living abroad in Morocco and France. To her legal practice, she brings her past experiences interacting with many different types of people and her ability to manage pressure-filled situations with grace. Christine's mother is an immigrant in the United States and she has been an immigrant overseas. For these reasons, it means a lot to her to give back to the immigrant community. She loves having the chance to meet people from all over the world and finds it an honor to work with clients and get to know their histories.
Christine is a licensed member of the California State Bar and is licensed to practice in the Federal District Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is the recipient of the Award for Achievement in Public Interest Law From Golden Gate University (2005) and the Rising Star Award from the San Francisco Minority Bar Association.
CYNTHIA PONCE HARTMAN
Cynthia is an HR Leader at Johnson & Johnson, most recently focused on Corporate Internal HR Consulting. She has developed & implemented diverse solutions designed to organize Teams & People in the most effective way possible to offer employees healthy, productive, and fulfilling careers.
Cynthia has spent over four years at J&J working with teams in Medical Devices (Robotics) and Pharmaceuticals; previously, she spent ten years working in HR leadership roles in the hospitality industry. Cynthia has direct experience working with M&A (including foreign acquisitions), Employee Relations, Benefits, Workers Compensation, Recruiting, and has specialized in Learning & Development and Change & Culture Management.
Born & raised in Mexico City, Cynthia is an active participant in the Hispanic Organization for Leadership and Achievement (HOLA) group at J&J where she works to make an impact and provide opportunities for leadership & growth within the Hispanic & Latin community.
Cynthia earned her BA in Hotel Management from Kendall College, Les Roches School of Management and later obtained her MS in Learning & Organizational Change from Northwestern University.
GEORGE MADRIGAL
George is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Penserra, an institutional financial services company. George has led the firm since it was founded in 2007, creating innovative products, developing precise solutions, and focusing on effective recruiting is at the forefront of his leadership. George also leads the Board of Directors as Chairman for his firm, which sets the strategic direction of the company. He also works across all the business lines to ensure that Penserra is focused on our client’s most critical trading and investment objectives. Penserra services some of the largest and most sophisticated corporations, asset managers, retirement plans, and foundations in the country.
Prior to founding Penserra, George spent fourteen years at Barclays Global Investors (“BGI”), which is now part of BlackRock. As a Global Equity Portfolio Manager at BGI he led a team of investment professionals that managed a wide range of international equity strategies. Later as Head of Transition Management he led an implementation team that provided for multi-asset class portfolio restructuring using derivatives to inoculate risk while underlying physical securities are traded opportunistically. During his tenure at BGI, George was also involved with firm-wide technology initiatives, accounting, risk management, and investment committees. Prior to BGI, George held position at Baxter Healthcare and Conagra focused on accounting and marketing statistics.
George earned a bachelor's degree in business administration, majoring in accounting from the California State University, Fullerton. He also earned MBAs from UC Berkeley with a focus on entrepreneurship and from Columbia University with a focus on capital markets.
Jon Rodney
Jon is the California Immigrant Policy Center’s Communications Manager, based in Oakland, California. He uses his passion for language to lift up the voices of immigrant communities in the media. During his tenure, he has developed communications strategies which have secured hundreds of pro-immigrant news hits. He has also provided training and support to many grassroots groups. Jon previously managed communications and development at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Jon is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Spanish Language and Literature, and speaks both Spanish and modern standard Arabic.
Raha Jorjani
Raha is the Immigration Defense Attorney for the Office of the Alameda County Public Defender and is directing California’s first public defender immigration representation project. Before joining the Public Defender’s Office full-time, she was a Clinical Professor at the UC Davis School of Law where she taught in the Immigration Law Clinic for 7 years. In the fall of 2014, she taught the first course offered at the UC Berkeley School of Law dedicated to “Crimmigration” or the study of the intersection between Immigration and Criminal Law. Since 2005, Raha has provided pro bono representation and legal assistance to hundreds of immigrants – most of them detained - before the Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals, and California state courts. Raha recently litigated the Israel O. case before the California Court of Appeal for the First District, which resulted in the first published opinion in California to uphold the availability of one-parent claims to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for children in juvenile delinquency proceedings. Raha regularly conducts local and national trainings for immigration attorneys, criminal defense attorneys, and state court judges, on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions.
Ryan Stahl
Ryan is an Associate at Scherer Smith & Kenny LLP, where he is active in all aspects of civil litigation, with a focus on employment litigation and counseling. Ryan’s practice includes work in various forums, including California state court, federal district court, federal bankruptcy court, and administrative bodies such as the California Labor Commissioner’s Office. He is also a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Legal Ethics Committee. Prior to joining Scherer Smith & Kenny LLP, Ryan was a Law Clerk for the Honorable Richard M. Clark and the Honorable Gerald M. Etchingham in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
A resident of the Bay Area since 2009, Ryan grew up in Indiana and attended Purdue University where he studied mechanical engineering. He also attended Indiana University, where he studied English and received a bachelor’s degree with distinction in 2001. Following his graduation from Indiana University, Ryan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine. He received his law degree from the University of California, Davis, where he was elected as Editor in Chief of the UC Davis Law Review and served as treasurer of the King Hall Legal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
In addition to repairing his home and cycling, Ryan spends an inordinate amount of his free time reading about finance, markets, and value investing.
Vivek Maru
Vivek founded the international non-profit organization, Namati, in 2011 to build the movement for legal empowerment around the world.
He cut his teeth on law and empowerment in Sierra Leone. From 2003 to 2007, Vivek co-founded and co-directed the Sierra Leonean organization Timap for Justice, which has been recognized by the International Crisis Group, Transparency International, and President Jimmy Carter as a pioneering model for delivering justice services in the context of a weak state and a plural legal system. Namati now works with Timap and other organizations in Sierra Leone to scale up paralegal services there. While in Sierra Leone Vivek also supervised the human rights clinic at Fourah Bay College.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as senior counsel in the Justice Reform Group of the World Bank. His work focused on rule of law reform and governance, primarily in West Africa and South Asia. Before moving to Sierra Leone Vivek worked at Human Rights Watch and clerked for Hon. Marsha Berzon on the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1997-1998 he lived in a hut of dung and sticks in a village in Kutch, his native place, working on watershed management and girls’ education with two grassroots development organizations- Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangethan and Sahjeevan. Vivek graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Yale Law School. His publications include Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Justice Services in Sierra Leone and Worldwide in the Yale Journal of International Law and Allies Unknown: Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability in the Harvard Journal of Health and Human Rights.
Vivek serves on the international advisory council of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the advisory board of the evaluation firm ID Insight, and the governing board of the public entrepreneurship organization Res Publica. He was an affiliate expert with the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment , and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2008, Vivek received the Pioneer Award from the North American South Asian Bar Association.
Zahra Billoo
Zahra serves as the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) chapter, striving to promote justice and understanding at local and national levels.In 2009, Zahra joined CAIR-SFBA and immediately embraced her roles as community organizer and civil rights advocate. She frequently provides trainings at local mosques and universities as part of CAIR’s efforts to empower the community, while building bridges with allies on key civil rights issues. Zahra also represents victims of discrimination and advocates for positive policy changes that uphold civil rights for all.
In March 2011, at her direction, CAIR-SFBA filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice challenging their warrantless use of GPS tracking devices to target American Muslims. Her work with CAIR-SFBA has been highlighted in local and national media outlets including KTVU, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. Most notably, she made waves when she appeared on FOX News’ O'Reilly Factor in Fall 2010 to discuss invasive TSA practices.
A 2010 recipient of the San Francisco Minority Bar Coalition's Unity Award and a 2011 recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California's Public Interest Attorney of the Year Award, Zahra has been a devoted labor rights advocate for several years. While in college, she worked with the California Faculty Association on issues including faculty salaries and the defunding of public higher education. While in law school, Zahra was awarded the Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship to work with the National Employment Law Project.
Zahra graduated Cum Laude from California State University, Long Beach with degrees in Human Resources Management and Political Science. She earned her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and was admitted to the California Bar in 2009.