Board of Directors
Yolanda Arias
Managing Attorney, East Office, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Gary Blasi
Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA, active public interest lawyer and advocate
Jan Breidenbach
Board TreasurerAdjunct Associate Professor, Housing & Community Development, Occidental College
Juan De Lara
Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California
Daniel Flaming
PresidentDan has been with the Roundtable since 1991. Before that he worked for Los Angeles County, coordinating delinquency prevention, managing community development and affordable housing programs, and administering job training and research programs. He has a Ph.D. in urban studies and has led more than 50 research projects at the Roundtable.
Ruthie Gilmore
Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences; Associate Director, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; Critical Resistance Organizer, California Prison Moratorium Project
John Grant
President of UFCW Local 770, member of the United Food and Commercial Workers since 1976
Betty Hung
(Stepping down from the ERt board fall 2021; transitioning from the UCLA Labor Center, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment to the U.S. Department of Labor.)
Jennifer Ito
Board ChairResearch Director, USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute (ERI)
Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi
Strategic Partnerships Consultant; Board Vice Chair (on leave)Kokayi has partnered with the Economic Roundtable since 2014. He coordinated the historic Raise the Wage Campaign that helped push the City and County of Los Angeles to pass a $15 minimum wage. Kokayi also helped draft and pass LA’s Paid Sick Days policy and a city-wide initiative to increase access to affordable housing and good jobs. As a political leader for LA Labor, he has helped elect numerous pro-worker candidates to federal, state and local office. Kokayi is an alum of UCLA and have been involved pro-worker movements ever since.
Joan Ling
Real Estate Advisor and Urban Planning Policy Analyst
Ali Modarres
Director and Professor, Urban Studies, University of Washington Tacoma
Yasmin Tong
Principal of CTY Housing, committed to creating and preserving livable communities that enable people to stabilize and grow
Abel Valenzuela
Professor of Chicano Studies and Urban Planning and Director of UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
