Our Board of Directors
Dr. Theresa Ashby, MBA
Vice President
Dr. Theresa Ashby is known as a Stratologist, savvy, provocative, and genuine individual, and widely respected for her business acumen.
Theresa is an international business and success consultant, advisor, speaker, author, and podcast host who is passionate about driving businesses forward, as this is what she believes helps grow the economy on all levels.
She has spent the past two decades studying what it takes to “Scale Your Business” and is identified by Forbes.com as the Business Scaling Expert. She is the author of Better Implementation Now! Eight Ways Great Strategies Fail and How to Fix Them and Exposing the eLearning Mystery: Secrets To Digitizing Your Business.
Theresa has impacted organizations through her delivery of groundbreaking speeches, consulting, and advisement. Her background includes thirty years of experience in various leadership roles, managing a $50 million budget, overseeing $1.7 billion of capital improvements, implementing operational strategies, serving as VP of operations for a leading healthcare organization, and oversight for nine departments at two hospitals.
She is currently the COO of Kaleidoscope Media Services; She consults companies and individuals on building e-learning courses, digital academies, membership & online community sites for business scalability and success. She works with her clients to systematize and automate their businesses so they can focus on their priorities.
Daryl Twerdahl
Treasurer
Daryl Twerdahl’s early career in Los Angeles was as a buyer at the famous department store, I. Magnin. From there she jumped, in 1982, into founding her own catering company, Village Catering, followed by founding the Los Angeles School of Etiquette & Protocol.
In 2002, Daryl sold her Catering company but continued to lead her Protocol team. In 1989, Daryl’s first association with St. Vincent Meals on Wheels began, first as a volunteer. For 13 years, she delivered meals weekly to homebound seniors, while continuing to run her own business, Village Catering Company. During this time she served as President of Cuisine a Roulettes, the financial support group of SVMOW and chaired the $30 million capital campaign for a new kitchen.
Daryl has served on the board of Meals on Wheels Los Angeles County, was a founding member of the Meals on Wheels California State Association, serving first as its treasurer and then as its president. In her capacity as President of Meals on Wheels California, she has worked directly with the California Department of Aging, the Los Angeles Department of Aging, as well as Los Angeles Homeless Services Association, the Hollywood Food Coalition and Task Force, Neighborhood Council Network and with Dr. Scott Kaiser and Maureen Feldman on the Isolation Committee at the Motion Picture Television Fund.
After “retirement” from St. Vincent Meals on Wheels, Daryl became Executive Director of Meals on Wheels California, the statewide membership association for all Meals on Wheels programs in the state.
Daryl has been a speaker and presenter at Meals on Wheels America, California Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Direct Marketing Association, and Meals on Wheels State Association Conferences.
Daryl serves on the Executive Board of Executive Service Corps of Southern California, the board of the Hollywood Coalition on Hunger, and of course, on the board of She Angels.
Debra Samlley
Secretary
Debra Smalley is one of the most dynamic and recognized real estate brokers in Los Angeles. Clients attribute Debra’s success to her high level of integrity and savvy negotiating skills. As a 3rd generation Los Angeles resident, she has a consummate understanding of the premiere neighborhoods in the L.A.
marketplace.
This vast knowledge sets Ms. Smalley apart from the rest.
She owned and operated her own commercial real estate company for 10 years before launching an extremely successful career in residential real estate. Her client list includes many corporations; Apple Inc., Paramount Studios, 20th Century Fox, Dreamworks, New Line Cinema and the William Morris Agency. In addition, Debra represents business managers, talent agents and attorneys for such talents as Bob Dylan, Elton John, Drew Cary, David Niven Jr. and The Art Linkletter Family Trust, among others.
Debra has worked with #1 nationally and world-renowned award winning teams at Coldwell Banker, Compass, John Aaroe and Pacific Union. Teams that continually broke sales records and managed high profile real estate transactions for celebrities and entrepreneurs. Debra’s transactions are in excess of $145 Million Dollars.
In 2019, Debra joined Core Real Estate Group where she currently represents both domestic and international buyers and sellers in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Brentwood, Hollywood Hills, West Hollywood, Venice, Encino and Sherman Oaks, as well as many areas located in greater Los Angeles.
Among Debra’s other accomplishments, she graduated and taught at the Center of Early Education before attending UCLA. Furthering her education at the Julian Ann Singer Clinic, Debra was certified to teach children with learning disabilities and behavioral problems, thus developing her strong character.
Debra’s passion for people is exhibited through her philanthropic contributions, supporting and being personally involved with City of Hope, Stop Cancer, The Jewish Home, Cedars Sinai Medical Center and she is a board member of The She Angels Foundation.
Debra Smalley is a consummate mover, shaker and your personal rainmaker.
Fonda Whitehead
Fonda Whitehead, MSLM, MPA has over 21 years of experience in nonprofit management. Her expertise lies in donor relations, board development, special events, online crowdsourcing, communications and marketing and fundraising.
She is highly qualified in directing programs with over fifteen years of experience in management, inner-city youth development, and community organizing. She also has knowledge and experience in running government, corporate and private grants and contracts.
Fonda established an exemplary reputation of achieving goals and advocating for the central Los Angeles community at the nonprofit P.F. Bresee Foundation, where she has worked for over nineteen years.
She was also one of the first students to attend the program and receive a college scholarship (first college graduate in her family). Fonda currently works as a Major Donor Representative at the Union Rescue Mission in Downtown Los Angeles.
Fonda attended Northwest Nazarene University, aided by a P.F. Bresee Foundation scholarship, and graduated with a degree in Social Work.
In the summer of 2013, Fonda obtained her Master’s of Science in Leadership & Management (MSLM) with a concentration in Human Resource Management in 2013 and a Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) with a concentration in Nonprofit Management from the University of La Verne in 2016.
Katie Chin
Katie Chin, award-winning cookbook author, television chef, food blogger, caterer and Culinary Ambassador to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, has a passion for Asian food and is committed to teaching the American public that the very best Asian cooking can be achieved in a real home kitchen by real people on real schedules.
After growing up working in the kitchens of her late mother Leeann Chin’s award-winning Minneapolis-area restaurants, Katie pursued a career in film and television marketing, but eventually left her executive position to return to her culinary roots.
Katie co-hosted the national PBS cooking series, Double Happiness, in conjunction with her mother and together they wrote Everyday Chinese Cooking. On her own, Katie wrote 300 Best Rice Cooker Recipes and the award-winning bestsellers Everyday Thai Cooking and Everyday Chinese Cookbook: 101 Delicious Recipes from My Mother’s Kitchen. Katie’s fifth cookbook, “Katie Chin’s Global Family Cookbook” was released in June 2021. She is recognized as a pan-Asian cooking expert and has been featured in many food and lifestyle magazines such as Forbes Magazine, Huffpost, O Magazine, Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, Elle, Real Simple, and Epicurious as well as The Wall Street Journal.
In 2016, Katie partnered with Macy’s on a six-city cooking and book signing tour to celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month where she was featured in a national print, radio and digital campaign.
Katie chronicled her late mother Leeann’s remarkable story on PRI’s The World on NPR in May 2016. She was also a featured chef at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2017.
Her numerous appearances on national television include The Kelly Clarkson Show, Live with Kelly & Ryan, The Today Show, The Real, Hallmark Channel, The Daily Buzz, Cooking Channel and as a guest judge on Food Network’s Iron Chef America. She has appeared as a chef contestant on Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, Beat Bobby Flay, Supermarket Stakeout, Battle of the Decades and most recently on Chopped.
As part of her emphasis on healthy food, Katie served as the Culinary Ambassador to City of Hope and its “super foods” initiative. She took the message of the cancer-fighting potential of certain foods directly to the White House under the Obama administration at the annual Easter Egg Roll where she demonstrated how to quickly and easily incorporate “super foods” into daily life.
In January 2021, Katie was named Culinary Ambassador to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation (NPCF). In this role, Katie helps raise awareness around NPCF’s mission to find less toxic and more targeted treatments for pediatric patients along with educating the American public about the role of healthy ingredients and cooking in potentially preventing and eradicating cancer. She appears monthly on Bloom TV on behalf of NPCF cooking alongside a pediatric cancer warrior demonstrating healthy recipes with cancer-fighting ingredients.
Katie performed her one woman show entitled “Holy Shitake: A Wok Star is Born” at AAPI Theater Mu’s New Eyes Festival in her hometown of Minneapolis in May 2023 - an excerpt from her show was published as an op-ed article in USA Today in May 2022. She made her sold outLA debut at Whitefire Theater’s Solo Fest in January 2024.
Based in Los Angeles, Katie divides her time running her businesses: Wok Star Catering and Fortune Cookie Divas, posting recipes to her blog, rehearsing as lead singer in her and her hubby Matthew’s band “Never Too Late” and caring for her 15 year-old twins, Dylan and Becca.
In addition to her Culinary Ambassador role for NPCF, she is passionate about supporting numerous philanthropic causes which include serving as co-chair of Mayor Karen Bass’ AAPI LA Task Force, serving on the board of #TEACHAAPI and serving as the SW Regional Ambassador to Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. In May 2023, Katie received a Certificate of Recognition from Mayor Karen Bass’ Office and a Congressional Certificate of Recognition from Congresswoman Sidney Kamlager’s Office for her work on behalf of the AAPI Los Angeles community. That same month, she received the Empowerment Leader Award from the Business Relationship Alliance Network.
Nita Whitaker
Nita Whitaker, former ICU Registered nurse, a former Miss Louisiana, and a Star Search Hall of Fame Grand Champion, continues to champion literacy through her 501(c)(3) non-profit.
In A World With Books (www.inaworldwithbooks.org) which has put 26,000 new books so far, in the hands of underserved children.
Nina lends her world class voice and talents to, Sophisticated Lady: The Songs of Natalie Cole; an exploration and homage to the legacy of Miss Cole’s music. Nita co-wrote the show with her director Kenneth L. Roberson.
She made her Broadway debut as Wiletta Mayers in Alice Childress’s Tony nominated play Trouble in Mind and was the 2019 NAACP Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mom Winans in the Broadway-bound musical Born for This. Nita has worked with and is a favorite singer of legendary producer David Foster, having sung with some of the most famous voices of our time.
From duets with Andre Bocelli, Michael Bolton, and Josh Groban, Nita also sang the original demos for Whitney Houston’s standards, “I Will Always Love You”, “I Have Nothing”, and “I Look to You”.
Having performed in four world premiere musicals, countless galas, television, private and concert venues, Nita also has recorded and co-produced four studio albums. Still the greatest delights of her life are her robustly talented daughters Skye and Liisi LaFontaine.
The best is yet to come.
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She Angels Foundation does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, or based on an individual’s status in any group or class protected by applicable federal, state or local law.
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