City Hall Fellows

In 1998, our founder Bethany Rubin Henderson was selected to participate in the New York City Urban Fellows Program -- an experience that forever changed her life. As a Special Assistant to the Commissioner of New York City's information technology and telecommunications department, Bethany played an integral role in developing New York's first city-wide information technology strategy, which was designed to ensure that City agencies effectively utilized modern technology to provide services to and communicate with City residents. Bethany's experience opened her eyes to the importance of a capable local government -- not just for providing routine services, but also for designing and implementing public policy.

While Bethany really enjoyed her time working for New York City, she often wished she could have participated in a similar program in her native Louisiana, so that she could have worked on public policy issues in a community near and dear to her heart. She noticed that no other cities offered programs comparable to New York's. Throughout Harvard Law School and developing a successful career as a business litigator at a top-tier national law firm, Bethany developed a vision for training a new cadre of public leaders -- a national service corps of recent college graduates who spend a year serving in and learning about local government in their own home communities. In March 2007, Bethany founded City Hall Fellows to make this vision a reality.


Bethany Rubin Henderson, Founder & Executive Director; Chairwoman of the Board
Jason Alexander Hayter, Director of Curriculum Development; Founding Board Member
Daniel J. Liss, CFO & Operations Manager
Rich Leimsider, Founding Board Member
Jeffrey Gersick, San Francisco Program Director
Nancy C. Brainerd, Houston Program Director



National Advisory Boards


Governor Michael S. Dukakis, former Governor, State of Massachusetts (D-MA); Distinguished Professor, Northeastern University and University of California Los Angeles
Mickey Edwards, Member of Congress 1976-1992 (R-OK); Vice President, The Aspen Institute; Director, Aspen-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership
Carl Fillichio, Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications, Lehman Brothers
Russ Finkelstein, Associate Director, Action Without Borders / Idealist.org
Sigmund G. Ginsburg, Executive Vice President & Director, NonProfit Practice, DHR International; Founder and First Director, New York City Urban Fellows Program (1969-1972)
George R. Hedges, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP
Andy Kopplin, Executive Vice President for Growth Strategy and Development, Teach for America
Laurel McFarland, Executive Director, National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration

C. Corina Monzon, Project Manager, Office of the Controller, City and County of San Francisco
Ayan L. Rubin, Strategic Vice President, DRW Consultants, LLC



Dr. David Grossman, Director, Civic House, University of Pennsylvania
Ira Jackson, Henry Y. Hwang Dean of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University
David Jung, Professor of Law & Director, Center for State and Local Government Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law
Dr. Don Menzel, President, Ethics Management International and Professor (Courtesy) Department of Government & International Affairs, University of South Florida
Dr. Michael Leo Owens, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emory University
Dr. Costas Panagopoulos, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and the graduate program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University
Robert Tobias, Director, Public Sector Executive Programs, Director Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation and Distinguished Adjunct Professor in Residence, American University
Local Leadership Councils

Houston Leadership Council

James Grace, Jr., Chair, Partner, Baker Botts
Ed Allday, Consultant - Non-Profit Management
Charles Bacarisse, Vice President for Advancement, Houston Baptist University
Hon. Caroline Baker, Judge of the 151st Civil District Court of Harris County
Dr. Jill Caroll, Executive Director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University & Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Rice University
Hon. Jacquie Baly Chaumette, City Council Member-at-Large, Position Two, City of Sugar Land; Founder & President, Baly Projects
Renee Cross, Associate Director, University of Houston Center for Public Policy
Dr. Franklin Jones, Chair & Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Affairs, Texas Southern University
John R. Pitts, Attorney at Law
Dr. Robert Stein, Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science & Faculty Director, Center for Civic Engagement, Rice University
Dr. Adolfo Santos, Department Chair of Social Science, University of Houston Downtown
Dr. Jon Taylor, Chair and Professor - Political Science, Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, The University of St. Thomas, Houston
Hon. Ken Wise, Judge of the 152nd Civil District Court of Harris County


San Francisco Leadership Council

Gwyneth J. Borden, Manager Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs Northwest U.S.,IBM Corporation
Dan Cohen, Founder, Full Court Press Communications
Dr. Ted Egan, Chief Economist, City and County of San Francisco & Adjunct Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley
Jim Lazarus, Senior Vice President, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
Cindy MacKenzie, Executive Vice President, MacKenzie Communications
Raymond Marshall, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP
Professor Patrick Murphy, Director, Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco
Emily Rosenberg, Associate Manager - Sierra Team, The Trust for Public Land
Staci A. Slaughter, Senior Vice President, Communications, San Francisco Giants
Peg Stevenson, City Services Auditor Division Director, Controller's Office, City and County of San Francisco