Kataly Foundation Welcomes Four New Team Members
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Earlier in 2024 at our State of the Spend Out webinar, we shared that we would be expanding the Kataly team this year.
As a foundation that was created to spend out within a timeline of 10 to 15 years, we intentionally began with a small team. Knowing that we would not exist in perpetuity, we wanted a lean start-up model that embraced cost-effectiveness, iterative processes, and rapid experimentation.
But as we ramped up our grantmaking, there was less time for innovation and creativity, and greater burn out amongst our team. Fundamentally, there was a mismatch between our internal resources and the amount of money we were moving every year.
To meet the needs of the Foundation, we re-examined our structure, our capacity, and our culture, and decided to expand our team. Now, we are excited to introduce and welcome the four newest members of Kataly:
- Hans How, Integrated Capital Officer
- Michelle Mascarenhas, Senior Program Officer for the Environmental Justice Resourcing Collective
- Kemi Role, People and Culture Manager
- Lindsey Moriguchi Wong, Capacity Building Officer
These new roles will allow the Foundation to better answer the calls to action we hear from social movements. By growing our capacity in these areas, we will strengthen our ability to be responsive to grantee partners, share learnings with the philanthropic field, and cultivate a culture that allows us to more intentionally practice our values
Learn more about each of our new team members and their roles below!
Hans How, Integrated Capital Officer
Hans How is the Integrated Capital Officer for the Kataly Foundation’s Restorative Economies Fund (REF), where he evaluates, underwrites, and manages the REF portfolio. With extensive expertise in impact investing, finance, philanthropy, and community development across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, Hans is dedicated to mobilizing capital and resources to empower impacted communities.
Before joining Kataly, Hans served as Program Manager for Meta/Facebook’s $1 Billion Housing Initiative, where he led the deployment of catalytic loans and grants alongside nonprofit partners to address California’s housing crisis. Previously, as a Senior Investment Associate at New Island Capital, he managed a global, multi-asset impact portfolio aimed at fostering regenerative social, ecological, and financial systems through investments in community development, sustainable agriculture, and alternative energy. Early in his career, Hans was a founding member of Impact Value Partners, an impact fund focused on affordable housing and transformative projects nationwide.
Beyond his professional work, Hans co-founded Proposition C, a San Francisco charter amendment that empowers noncitizens to serve on commissions and participate in local government. He also serves on the board of InReach, a tech nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to life-saving resources for LGBTQ+ communities. Originally from Malaysia and now based in San Francisco, Hans holds a BA in Economics from Wesleyan University. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, discovering hidden culinary gems, and taking long walks in nature — often with a coffee in hand.
Michelle Mascarenhas, Senior Program Officer for the Environmental Justice Resourcing Collective
As the Senior Program Officer for the Environmental Justice Resourcing Collective, Michelle provides leadership for movement-led grantmaking that advances collective healing, collective infrastructure, and community land strategies, while strengthening movement power. This strategy addresses environmental and climate justice through a root cause analysis and vision for regenerative economies that protect life.
Michelle was a co-founding co-director at Movement Generation (MG) for 15 years until 2001. Most recently, they served as the Senior Fellow of Movement Alignment at Taproot Earth. Prior to that, she was the National Director of Campaigns at the Sierra Club.
As an MG collective member, Michelle played critical roles in MG’s Just Transition curriculum development & training, strategic planning & organizational development, and funder organizing. She led the first MG Just Transition retreat for funders in 2015 and was instrumental in launching Shake the Foundations, a space for funders to practice non-extractive movement-aligned investment.
In her role at MG, Michelle was a founding co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and helped to launch Reinvest in Our Power which works to reinvest stolen wealth into community-controlled economic transition. Michelle is a Kellogg Food Policy Fellow and Ashoka Fellow, and recently authored a piece in SSIR: How Movement Organizations Organized Funders.
Born and raised on Tongva land in Southern California, Michelle is a mama who has nurtured queer family and movement community on Ohlone land (aka Berkeley) over the last 20 years. She loves to kayak with her paddle pals, watch plants grow, heal with somatics, and read speculative fiction.
Kemi Role, People and Culture Manager
Kemi Role is the People and Culture Manager at the Kataly Foundation. In partnership with team members, Kemi focuses on developing and executing a transformative people strategy centered on Kataly’s culture and shared values. This includes: developing values-aligned policies, procedures, and programs; supporting staff development, engagement, and political education; and ensuring a thoughtful and holistic transition for staff as Kataly moves towards spend-out.
Kemi has spent more than 20 years working in spaces building toward racial justice, gender and reproductive justice, health equity, and worker power. Prior to Kataly, Kemi worked in workers’ rights advocacy, leading a team focused on removing barriers to employment for people with records; addressing employment discrimination and segregation for Black, immigrant workers; and expanding structural solutions that center Blackness.
Previously, Kemi was in executive leadership at a community-based health clinic in San Francisco, where she focused on direct clinical services, innovative workforce and community engagement, developed curricula and trainings for a variety of audiences, and led the clinic’s racial equity transformation. Kemi also has an extensive and varied research background focused on cognitive attention and learning, student learning styles, and maternal mortality.
Kemi received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and her M.P.H. from UCLA. Kemi is restored by the warmth of Caribbean water, her generous and beautiful family and community, and the easeful solitude of solo travel.
Lindsey Moriguchi Wong, Capacity Building Officer
As Program Officer for Capacity Building, Lindsey supports the strengthening and sustaining of all of Kataly Foundation’s grantee partners through direct programming, resource sharing, and investing in practitioners who are supporting efforts led by Black and Indigenous people, and other communities of color.
Lindsey comes to Kataly with nearly 15 years of experience moving resources, coaching leaders, and developing programs. She most recently served as the Director of Strategy at Raise for Good, a social impact advisory and one of Kataly’s capacity building programming partners. During her tenure, Lindsey worked to shift power dynamics in philanthropy and build the capacity and sustainability of nonprofit leaders of color. Prior to Raise for Good, she raised funds and built development systems for a decade at Summer Search, a national youth development organization that helps young people reach their potential through mentoring and transformative experiences. She is forever grateful for the lessons of courage, resilience, and trust that these young people taught her, and are still teaching her.
Lindsey received her B.A. from UC Berkeley in Political Economy and deepened her commitment to social justice while living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 15 years. Now residing in the Los Angeles area, she spends her time with her toddler and husband at the nearest park or library and cheering for the LA Dodgers!
