Speakers

Kseniya Benderskaya is an assistant vice president and community affairs officer in Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. She oversees the unit’s work to advance the economic resilience and mobility of low-income communities. Benderskaya is responsible for design and implementation of the Bank’s place-based initiatives to improve job preparation, job access, economic mobility, and financial stability for lower-income households and historically underserved populations.

Prior to joining the Dallas Fed, Benderskaya spent seven years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she led the first round of Working Cities Challenge, a grant competition to strengthen leadership and social innovation in New England’s smaller postindustrial cities. She has served as a senior associate at BlueWave Capital, a Boston-based commercial real estate and renewable energy firm.

Benderskaya represents the Dallas Fed on the North Texas Asset Funders Network steering committee and the Financial Inclusion Roundtable for North Texas. She also serves on the board of RAISE Texas.

She holds a master’s degree in urban planning from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University.

Roberto Coronado is a senior vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. He is responsible for the bank’s community engagement and development function.

Coronado leads the team that builds deep, strategic partnerships with community and business leaders to help shape the Dallas Fed’s understanding of the economy in Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Louisiana. The team’s conversations with people in the region inform the Dallas Fed’s policy views. The Dallas Fed also relies on these relationships to support community development initiatives focused on breaking down barriers to education and employment, particularly in low- and moderate-income communities.

As an economist, Coronado focuses his research on the Mexican economy, U.S.–Mexico economic integration, and the border economy, and he has written articles for Federal Reserve publications and academic journals in both the U.S. and Mexico. With this expertise, Coronado is a key adviser on regional economic conditions and a liaison between the Bank and stakeholders in Texas and Mexico.

Coronado serves as a board member for the National Association for Business Economics, Texas 2036 and the El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence.

He earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Houston, and he holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and economics and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Tom Foley began his career practicing law in New York, handling litigation and mergers & acquisitions. The deeper he got into the work, the more he saw the systemic barriers standing between people and opportunity — and he became convinced his advocacy skills and creative instincts were better spent breaking those barriers down than working around them. That conviction carried him from the courtroom into social entrepreneurship.

In 2016, Tom teamed up with Chef Tiffany Derry to found T2D Concepts, a hospitality company built on a simple idea: create great memories for guests and real impact for the community. Today, T2D's portfolio includes Roots Southern Table, Radici Wood Fired Grill, The Landing, and Roots Chicken Shak, alongside SHEF Food + Wine, the North Texas culinary festival Tom and Tiffany launched to spotlight top chefs, distillers, and winemakers while raising funds for culinary education through their nonprofit partner, Roots Impact.

As T2D's lead executive for operations, Tom leads the service team with one goal: make sure every guest feels like they belong the moment they walk through the door. That's not just a hospitality philosophy — it's one of T2D's core values, and it shapes how Tom builds the business.

Tom is also the architect behind T2D's most disruptive ideas. He designed the franchise model for Roots Chicken Shak, removing the net-worth and credit requirements that typically shut marginalized entrepreneurs out of franchise ownership.

Beyond T2D, Tom sits on the Board for Forest Forward as well as the Texas Restaurant Foundation. He also serves as an adjunct professor, teaching Business Law and Entrepreneurship.

Susybelle Gosslee is Episcopal Health Foundation’s Chief Administrative Officer. She provides executive leadership for the Foundation’s operations, finance, governance, and enterprise services, partnering closely with Foundation leadership, the Board of Directors, and the Episcopal Diocese of Texas to strengthen organizational effectiveness and advance the Foundation’s mission to improve the health of Texans. Her responsibilities include organizational operations, financial strategy and budgeting, governance, human resources, legal affairs, technology, artificial intelligence, and impact investing. She works across the Foundation to align people, systems, and resources with the organization’s strategic priorities.

Susybelle also serves as Co-Chair of the Texas Impact Capital Alliance (TICA), a statewide initiative launched in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to mobilize philanthropic, financial, healthcare, and community leaders to expand impact investing and improve community well-being across Texas.

Prior to joining Episcopal Health Foundation, Susybelle spent more than a decade leading business operations for law firms in Houston, Austin, and Dallas. Earlier in her career, she spent nine years as a political compliance consultant advising candidates and political action committees, including serving as Campaign Comptroller for Bill White’s three successful campaigns for Mayor of Houston.

She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and is a lifelong Episcopalian.

Tarsha Hearns is a nationally recognized expert in entrepreneurship and ecosystem building with over two decades of experience leading local and national initiatives. As founder of Economic Growth Strategies, she helps economic developers, and private organizations development initiatives to drive sustainable economic growth. Through her charitable organization, EGS Foundation, Tarsha's work advances equitable entrepreneurship across underserved and rural regions. She is the creator of an innovative impact investing mechanism mitigating risk for lenders so they can provide financing to undercapitalize communities. When she is not busy architecting ecosystems or advancing economic mobility, you can find her traveling to new destinations or eating out to explore local culinary experiences.

Patrick Kennedy is founder of The Human Ecosystem (THE.City), a start-up thinktank and consultancy for policy research, design intervention, and development implementation for human-scaled places, moving markets to value proximity, and building cities of upward mobility. He has 25 years of experience working at all scales of planning and design; sits on the board of directors for Dallas Area Rapid Transit where he chairs the Development Committee and teaches Masters of Sustainable Urban Development at SMU.

Kate is a social sector leader who leads impact investing field building work for Phillips Foundation and serves as their Sr. Director of the Impact Investing Programs. She holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Non-Profit Management from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kate is happiest building something at the corner of business and social good. She believes that innovation is a tool to help us develop smarter ways to improve the world around us, but that empathy is the key to finding the best solutions we weren’t even looking for.

As the founding director of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ Social Innovation Accelerator and then within her own consulting practice, Kate has spent over a decade leading and coaching social innovation startups in North Texas. She has counseled hundreds of innovators, coaching them on business models, social impact, fundraising, and operations – two of which she led to win the DCEO Social Enterprise of the Year award.

Kate lives in Dallas with her husband, her kids Annabel & Owen, and two crazy rescue pups. When not shopping her favorite social impact brands, you can probably find her trying a new ‘healthy’ recipe or listening to an audiobook while chauffeuring her kids between activities.

Nico Leone is the President and CEO of KERA — a nonprofit public media organization in North Texas reaching more than 5 million people each month.  Under Nico’s tenure, KERA has launched several journalism partnerships — including with the Fort Worth Report and the Dallas Morning News. Under Nico’s leadership, KERA has also successfully integrated three organizations into KERA’s services — the classical music station WRR 101.1; the Denton Record-Chronicle; and the NPR radio program From the Top. Nico also leads The Texas Newsroom, a first-of-its-kind journalism collaboration between NPR and the four largest public media newsrooms in Texas. Nico serves on the board of directors of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, the Fort Worth Forum, Station Resource Group and Greater Public. Nico grew up in small towns in Kansas. He has two degrees in Communications from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he met his wife, Nicole. They live in Dallas.

Dr. Lisette Nieves is a visionary leader and a steadfast advocate for public service innovation. As President of the Fund for the City of New York, she has dedicated her career to pushing boundaries and redefining what’s possible in government and nonprofit effectiveness. She leads one of the nation’s oldest and most respected civic research and innovation institutions dedicated to strengthening the effectiveness of government and nonprofit organizations. In this role, Dr. Nieves sets the strategic direction of the Fund, overseeing policy innovation, applied research, leadership development, and operational initiatives that improve public systems in New York City and beyond.

Through her leadership, countless initiatives have flourished, blending technology, policy, and human impact to uplift communities both locally and beyond. Under her leadership, FCNY advances solutions at the intersection of policy, practice, and technology. Signature initiatives include the Cash Flow Loan Program, which has provided more than one billion in interest-free loans to nonprofit organizations over the past two decades; the Partnership Program, which delivers essential back-office infrastructure and fiscal sponsorship to more than 100 diverse nonprofit organizations across the city; and the Community Planning Fellows Program, which places graduate students with New York City community boards to expand local planning capacity and civic engagement.

Driven by a passion for education and opportunity, Dr. Nieves is also a Distinguished Clinical Professor at New York University (NYU), where she co-founded a groundbreaking doctoral program in Leadership and Innovation at NYU Steinhardt. Her commitment to building a better future is evident through her co-founding of the Center for Youth and the Future of Work, where she not only advances leadership training and innovative research but also ensures that the voices of young people are at the forefront of shaping workforce development opportunities.

An accomplished author and thought leader, Dr. Nieves continues to inspire through her writing. Her most recent articles include A Marshall Plan for the Nonprofit Sector, which calls for bold, strategic investments to strengthen the sector’s infrastructure and workforce, and How Apprenticeships Can Give Employers an Edge, which advocates for leveraging apprenticeship programs to build a stronger, more adaptable workforce. She has also authored two influential books: Working for a Future: Equity and Access in Work-Based Learning for Young People (2024) and Working to Learn: Disrupting the Divide between College and Career Pathways for Young People (2020), both of which challenge outdated practices and offer transformative approaches to education and career readiness.

Brandon is an avid urbanist with 20+ years’ experience in mixed-use and transit-oriented development, downtown revitalization, and community engagement. His Triple Bottom Line approach focused on social, environmental, and economic responsibility has resulted in over 12 million square feet of newly entitled development opportunity while his client advisory work spans much of the U.S. and Mexico. Brandon recently launched a Co-Creative Placemaking Platform (www.cocreateourfuture.com), a web-based application that enables cities, developers, and community builders to undertake more mindful, meaningful, and impactful public engagement that builds support for places designed for people. He is also co-founder of a new urban-tech startup, Downtown Vital Signs (www.downtownvitalsigns.city) which is data-analytics program that utilizes 250 data points and 90 custom indicators to diagnose a downtowns’ strengths and weaknesses while prescribing fact-based policy and design cures that result in improved downtown health and performance.

A Lincoln Institute Vibrant Communities Fellow, Brandon’s industry stewardship includes his role as Chair of the Urban Land Institute DFW’s TOD + Placemaking Council, V.P. of Congress for the New Urbanism North Texas, and as a Steering Committee member for The Center for Zoning Solutions in Washington, DC.

Brenda has been leading The Stewpot, a community ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Dallas serving those in poverty or experiencing homelessness, since February 2018. The Stewpot celebrated its 50th Anniversary throughout 2025. In 2024, The Stewpot received the Trailblazer Award from the George W. Bush Presidential Center from President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush. In December 2025, The Stewpot purchased the former CitySquare campus on Malcolm X Boulevard in South Dallas/Deep Elum, moved the majority of The Stewpot programs to that campus, and continued the Food Pantry and Neighbor Resource Center operations that CitySquare had been operating.

Brenda’s career began as a Probation Officer in Oak Cliff, South and West Dallas, where she learned the challenges for folks born into poverty, setting her on a course of helping people in the inner city. She had a counseling practice as a L.P.C., was a therapist at a girl’s home, worked as marketing director for a psychiatric hospital and has been a Christian Educator/Youth Director. For the last 30 years Brenda has served in nonprofit leadership at a number of organizations: Girls Inc., Big Thought, YW, Our Friends Place, and Bentwood Trail Presbyterian Church.

Brenda has holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and counseling from Baylor University, as well as completed doctoral coursework in Social Work Administration from UTA. She is an alum of Leadership Dallas 2021, as well as Leadership Southwest 1991. Brenda was selected to participate in the Dallas Truth Racial Healing and Transformation – 2021 Racial Equity Now Cohort as well as selected for the first SMU/CFT Social Entrepreneurship Cohort led by Suzanne Smith. She is on the Advisory Board of Our Friends Place, and on the Board of Directors for Encore Park, the Dallas Street Choir and the All Neighbors Coalition (Housing Forward is the lead agency). She is the Chair of the All Neighbors Coalition, the collaborative arm of Housing Forward and the 150 organizations who are members of the continuum of care. A 2022 Each Moment Matters Honoree for Forefront Living, she was also selected as a 2024 CEO Finalist by D CEO magazine for large organizations.

Married for 33 years to David Snitzer, they have two adult sons (Ryan and Nathan), a daughter-in-law (Krysta) and two grandsons (Banks, age 3 and Ridge, age 1), as well as a large extended family. Her parents taught her to give back and her faith is the cornerstone of her belief, “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” Her guiding scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6. Brenda’s goal is to end homelessness and help lift Dallasites out of poverty! Brenda and David are members Bentwood Trail Presbyterian in North Dallas.

Dr. Michael J. Sorrell is the longest-serving President in the 153-year history of Paul Quinn College. During his 18 years of leadership, Paul Quinn has become nationally celebrated for its ability to find innovative ways of addressing the needs of today’s students and their communities.

Included among Paul Quinn’s numerous accomplishments during President Sorrell’s tenure are the following: improving graduation rates by more than 30%; reducing the average student loan debt by $30,0000; building the first new buildings on campus in 50 years; creating the Urban Work College Model; partnering with Dallas Independent School District and KIPP Charter Schools to open two secondary schools on the PQC campus; winning the HBCU of the Year, HBCU Student Government Association of the Year, and HBCU Business Program of the Year awards; demolishing 16 campus buildings; partnering with PepsiCo to transform the football field into the WE over Me Farm; achieving full-accreditation from the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS); creating the College’s first faculty-led study abroad program; and rewriting all institutional fundraising records.

Dr. Sorrell is one of the most recognized college presidents in America. Among the honors he has received are the following: the President George W. Bush Institute’s Trailblazer Citation; Fortune Magazine named him one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders; being the only three-time recipient of the HBCU Male President of the Year Award; winning Education Dive’s Higher Education’s President of the Year award; and being listed by Time Magazine as one of the “31 People Changing the South.”

Michael received his J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University and his Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Michael was a recipient of a Sloan Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which funded his studies at both Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (as a graduate fellow) and Duke University. He graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Government and captained the men’s varsity basketball team twice.

President Sorrell is a trustee for College Track and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Michael is also a member of the advisory boards of Advancing Black Pathways (JPMC), GSV, and Amegy Bank. He is a corporate director for Mainstay. Dr. Sorrell has served as the chair of the Board of Governors for the Dallas Foundation and co-chair for the Aspen Prize. He has also been a trustee for the American Council of Education.

President Sorrell is married to the former Natalie Jenkins. Natalie is an alumna of Spelman College and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. They have two children, Michael Augustus and Sage Louise-Sinclair.

Dr. Whitney Strauss is a trusted advisor, strategist, and speaker dedicated to helping organizations align people, purpose, and performance for lasting, systemic change. Her work centers on embedding human-centered leadership into strategy, culture, and community impact.

She is the Co-Founder of Strauss Marcus Group, a consultancy partnering with socially responsible organizations—particularly in education, philanthropy, and community systems—to strengthen leadership, organizational culture, and execution. Through this work, she helps organizations navigate complexity, scale impact, and translate values into how work actually gets done.

She also serves as Project Lead for the Dallas–Dallas County Food Plan Collaborative, guiding the development of a comprehensive, long-term strategy to strengthen the local food system in North Texas. In 2026, she carried this work to the global stage—speaking on food systems, equity, and climate at London Climate Action Week's inaugural Food Day and at Climate Week NYC—building on prior appearances at SXSW and on numerous podcasts. She is also the host of the Dallas Food Future Podcast, which explores the people and ideas shaping the future of food in North Texas.

Locally, she has been appointed as the Technical Panelist for Food Access on the City of Dallas Environmental Commission. In the philanthropic sector, Dr. Strauss leads grantmaking for the AdvoCare Foundation, directing funding to organizations that expand children's access to physical activity, nutrition education, and healthy food.

Dr. Strauss holds a Doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies (Behavioral Science and Human Rights) from SMU, with research focused on community-driven food systems and food insecurity. She is a frequent guest lecturer at SMU, holds EQ-i 2.0 certification, and serves as an advisor with the International Association for Sustainable Economy.

She currently serves on several nonprofit and civic boards, including the Turtle Creek Chorale, TACA, the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health, and the Global Advisory Board of Asante Africa Foundation.

A published, award-winning author, Dr. Strauss is currently writing her next book, Food Is Not the Fix, which reframes food insecurity through a systems lens. In her spare time she is an avid runner and a two-time NYC Marathon finisher. She lives in Dallas with her husband and their two sons.