Leadership Pasadena Is Training 23rd Cohort of Community Leaders

Community leadership nonprofit Leadership Pasadena has selected members of its 23rd cohort of leaders from across the Greater Pasadena area to participate in its program focused on growing the impact and collaboration potential of community leaders through immersive personal leadership development and a curriculum that explores community engagement..

The organization’s six-month program provides participants with the skills and knowledge they need to make a difference in the community.

Acting as a community classroom, Leadership Pasadena is the only local leadership development program that brings together public, private, and NGO sectors for shared peer learning and perspective building. 

Past participants have gone on to serve in elected positions and on commissions and boards in Pasadena. 

Encouraging its participants to continue learning and positively impacting their communities, Leadership Pasadena’s hope is to build local leadership capacity to serve future community and business leadership needs. 

“We believe that relationships drive the community,” says Board President Johanna Atienza. “If we get everyone together to learn with and from each other, we have a better chance of assessing where we as individuals can contribute to more equitable and resilient businesses and communities. There are few places where you can spend a significant amount of time with people whose lived experiences are as diversely represented as our participants. That doesn’t happen in a workplace or naturally in our lives.”

Participants in the program undergo a series of executive level leadership assessments, engage in roundtable discussions with community guests around quality of life, education, city governance, and economics. 

They are also asked to initiate community impact projects within small groups. 

This year’s class, which kicked off in January 2023, is tackling building and keeping wealth within the Pasadena community, responding to extreme heat, and improving communication within city and community channels.

2023 cohort participants include: Ariel Arzate, Stella Clingmon, Sara Goldman, Sasha Grimes, and Natalie Ouwersloot from the City of Pasadena; Christiaan Miller from the Pasadena Fire Department; Nonprofit Executive Directors Michelle Matthews (Arlington Garden), Josh McCurry (Flintridge Center), Nely Meza-Andrade (Casa Treatment Center), and Kim Olpin (Jericho Road); Nonprofit staff Bobbie Ferguson (Pasadena Media), Aida Mucino (Tournament of Roses Foundation), Lindsey Reed (Friends In Deed), and Joyce Ybarra (Weingart Foundation), Real Estate agents Jeromy Robert (The Agency) and Deon Shorter (Keller Williams); Education staff Sydney Garstang (Caltech), Keith Miller (Caltech), Brian Stanley (Rose City High School); and Business staff Crystal Aceves (Der Wolf Restaurant and Bar), Julia Hernandez (Macy’s Inc), Howard Tan (Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

Sponsors of participants include Pasadena Federal Credit Union, Pasadena Educational Foundation, Capital Group, Huntington Hospital, Fletcher Jones Foundation, Buigues DiVito Group, and the WHH Foundation.