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Dean Furbush is CEO and Cofounder of Kitchen to Kitchen, a digital Restaurant Group headquartered in New York City with a focus on creating restaurant concepts for delivery only. From 2007 to 2012, Dean served as President of College Summit (now PeerForward, and is a current Board Member), a non-profit organization that harnesses the power of youth to lead high school culture toward college success.
David Boardman is Dean of the School of Media and Communication at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, he was Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of The Seattle Times, the largest news organization in the Pacific Northwest.
David Bornstein, SJN’s co-founder and CEO, is a journalist and author who focuses on social innovation. He co-authors the “Fixes” column in the New York Times “Opinionator” section, which explores and analyzes potential solutions to major social problems.
J. Israel Balderas is an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist-turned journalism educator. He is also an attorney who provides pro bono support focused on First Amendment protection for newsgathering and access to public records. Balderas is currently an assistant professor of journalism at North Carolina’s Elon University, where his teaching and research focus on freedom of the press and access to public records influenced by artificial-intelligence technologies.
He is active in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and is a national board member for the Society of Professional Journalists, as well as chair for the organization's Legal Defense Fund. He was recently awarded SPJ’s President’s Award for “outstanding contributions of talent, truth and energy of the highest level for the betterment of the profession, the Society and its members.”
His pro bono work includes representing migrant children separated from parents at the U.S.-Mexican border and helping nonprofits during the Covid Crisis apply for financial aid through the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program.
Prior to teaching he worked as a reporter and anchor at local TV stations in Florida, North Carolina and Texas as well as national broadcast producer work with Brit Hume and Chris Wallace.
Balderas attended the Solutions Journalism Summit in 2019, where he tag-teamed with SJN CFO Maurisse Johnson as event photographer and participated in a full-day, pre-Summit training for educators. He was also awarded a Solutions Journalism LEDE fellowship for a student-centered project that elevated untold stories and unheard voices. This work also offered keen insights into how best to teach solutions journalism in the classroom, with student work selected for inclusion in the Story Tracker and highlighted on the SJN blog.
Marsha Cooke currently serves as vice president & executive producer for ESPN Films and 30 for 30. She is responsible for overseeing development, production, distribution, branding and strategy of all projects under the ESPN Films umbrella, including the 30 for 30 series.
Cooke joined ESPN from VICE Media Group, where she served as senior vice president of global news and special projects. In her role at VICE, Cooke developed and produced special news and entertainment projects across VMG digital and broadcast platforms, leading the youth media company in pushing the limits of broadcast news formats and playing a key role in integrating VICE’s forward-thinking values with its award-winning content.
Cooke was instrumental in leading VICE News’ first-ever live coverage of the 2020 Iowa Brown and Black Forum, the nation’s oldest and only non-partisan presidential forum dedicated exclusively to addressing issues facing communities of color. With unprecedented candidate attendance and a groundbreaking, engaging format, the program won a national news Emmy. Cooke also previously led IMPACT at VICE, where she directed social good and community engagement in order to build and strengthen VICE’s culture, partnerships, and social responsibility initiatives, with a focus on ensuring the company’s work would affect long standing change in local and global communities.
Prior to VICE, Cooke spent 24 years at CBS. She was the first Black Asia Bureau Chief, responsible for coverage across the continent, producing stories for various CBS News shows and she served as VP of news services, in charge of the Newspath newsgathering group serving 200 CBS affiliates nationwide and broadcasters around the world. Before that, Cooke was executive editor of content at CBSN, the 24-hour digital streaming news network, where she led the unit’s push into original documentaries and helped guide breaking news coverage, and also was a senior broadcast producer for “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.”
During her time at CBS, Cooke was the recipient of a News & Documentary Emmy Award and a Gracie Award. She is a graduate of Temple University, where she is also a recipient of the Lew Klein Media Award, an inductee of the Alumni Hall of Fame and the university’s Gallery of Success. She was featured in O Magazine in 2019. She is on the board of Solutions Journalism, Capital B, The City, an online, nonprofit newsroom, the Alliance of Women in Media and is a founding member of The Meteor.
Cooke lives in New York City where she is a voracious reader, ridiculous foodie, long-suffering NY sports fan and a proud first generation Jamaican-American.
T. Morgan Dixon is the co-founder and CEO of GirlTrek, the largest health movement for Black women in America. Prior to GirlTrek, Dixon served as Director of Leadership Development for one of the largest charter school networks in the country, Achievement First, and directed the start-up of six public schools in New York City for St. Hope and the Urban Assembly, two organizations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has served a trustee for boards of The National Outdoor Leadership School, Teach for Haiti and The Underground Railroad Historic Historic Byway, a $50 million tourism and preservation project in Maryland.
Chris Gee is a seasoned agency executive with extensive experience in corporate storytelling, digital advisory, executive positioning, and crisis management. Chris has held various high-level positions at numerous agencies and organizations throughout his career, including Chief Digital Officer, Managing Director, and Creative Director.
As Head of Digital, U.S. Corporate Affairs & Advisory Services at Edelman, Chris leads a team of innovative experts and partners with the firm's client teams across the U.S. to infuse digital strategy, lead client relationships and enhance Edelman's presence in the marketplace. He brings a data-driven approach to his work, confidently helping business leaders navigate the complex and ever-evolving media landscape.
Additionally, Chris is a key member of Edelman's A.I. task force, representing U.S. Corporate Affairs. He helps steer the agency's approach to utilizing A.I. technologies and tools for our clients and internally. His track record includes providing strategic counsel for digital campaigns to various tech and media clients like Hewlett-Packard, AOL, Comcast, and Microsoft during his time at agencies like Finsbury, Burson-Marsteller and Teneo. He has also advised technology startups and taught courses on Influencer Marketing at General Assembly, a leading education company in New York.
He holds a BFA in Graphic Design from The University of the Arts.
Barnaby Marsh works with the world’s most ambitious philanthropists to create positive change. Before co-cofounding Saint Partners, a philanthropy strategy firm, Barnaby was a senior executive at the $2 billion John Templeton Foundation, where he led the Foundation's grantmaking, communications, and philanthropic partnerships. In various capacities, he has guided more than $3 billion in philanthropic activities and currently specializes in helping philanthropists design and launch large capstone benefactions. Barnaby is the co-author of the popular book “How Luck Happens” (Dutton/Penguin), which has been translated into 6 languages and is currently working on a book on risk-taking in the context of philanthropy.
Courtney Martin, an SJN co-founder, is an author, blogger, and speaker. Her most recent book, The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream, published last fall.
Ron Nixon is global investigations editor at the Associated Press where he oversees the news agency’s investigative unit. Nixon received the inaugural 2021 News Leader of the Year award from the News Leaders Association. He has overseen investigations that have won a number of national and international awards including: A Pulitzer finalist in investigative reporting, the Worth Bingham Award for Investigative reporting, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the 2021 Joe and Laurie Dine Award from the Overseas Press Club and the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics, a Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award, the Society of Publishers in Asia award, and the Human Rights Press Award, to name a few.
Nixon is also co-founder of the Ida b Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a news trade organization with a mission of increasing the ranks, retention, and profile of reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting. In 2015, Ron co-founded TruthBeTold.news, a non-profit, non-partisan fact-checking website and digital network, run and edited from Howard University’s Department of Media, Journalism, and Film in the School of Communication. Ron is currently the visiting associate for Journalism and Media Studies at The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Tina Rosenberg, an SJN co-founder, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. She co-authors the “Fixes” column in the New York Times “Opinionator” section. She is a former editorial writer for the New York Times and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.
Trabian Shorters is a social entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in diverse fields including national service, technology, non-profit, philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. In 2011, he launched BMe Community, which builds caring and prosperous communities inspired by black men.
Dominic Rovano serves in an advisory role to the Finance and Audit Committee of Solutions Journalism Network. He is a member of the American Society of CPAs and the New York State Society of CPAs, serving as Vice Chairman of the NYSSCPA Employee Benefits Committee.
