Advisory Board

Jimmy Santiago Baca
James Catterall
Jimmy Collins
Nora Ephron
Rafe Esquith
Eric Fischl
Dana Goodyear
Richard Hansen
Carol Muske-Dukes
Jeanette Pavini
Ed Pearl
Tim Robbins
Michael Zomber

Board of Directors

Richard Hansen, Chairman of the Board, is a founding Partner of Hansen Seto, LLP. After graduating from college he worked for five years as an industrial engineer and contract administrator in the aerospace industry. After graduating from law school, Mr. Hansen worked in private industry for ten years during which time he became General Counsel and Vice President of a New York Stock Exchange company that was very actively engaged in mergers and acquisitions of technology companies. Following his years in private industry, Mr. Hansen became a partner in a prominent Los Angeles law firm, continuing his practice in corporations, mergers and acquisitions. He subsequently formed his own law firm to focus on start-up and emerging technology companies and corporate securities. Richard was a founder and Board Member of the Software Council of Southern California (now Technology Council of Southern California). He has served on the Boards various private companies and the following of nonprofit corporations: Electronic Commerce Organization, The Business Network, the Organization of Chinese American Entrepreneurs and Association for Women in Technology.

Miles Beller is an editorial board member of the Carl Jung Institute’s Psychological Perspectives, and is currently working on a biography of Robert E. Sherwood. His novel, Dream of Venus (Or Living Pictures,) was recommended by Publisher’s Weekly as well as Book Magazine. Miles was appointed the Joan Nordell Fellow at Harvard University’s Houghton Library in 2000 while a Scholar in Residence at Harvard’s Cabot House. Recently the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute awarded Miles a grant for the Sherwood biography. He is a co-editor of American Datelines; a journalism anthology of notable reporting from 1700 to the present. Miles is also a long-standing board member of The Wonder of Reading, a nonprofit that rebuilds libraries in public elementary schools and helps youngsters become enthusiastic readers.

Eric Fullilove is the CFO of Audit, Evaluation and Risk Management at World Vision International. Eric has also worked as Vice President of Financial and Audit for Scholastic, Young & Rubicam, and Teach For America. He is a MIT graduate, CPA and published author of fiction.

Natalie Geld is an actor in notable television series and commercials. She is founder of educational programs empowering the minds & spirits of our youth, including PEN in the Classroom – a cross – curricular writers-in-residence program in over 30 high schools in the LA Unified District and the Strong Point Program in the Bay Area, both offering at risk youth innovative hands-on experience and a leg up into brighter, more successful futures. As an educator, she taught Effective Communication Seminars at the New Teachers Institute, which she also co-founded. As a former news producer, her segments and interviews appeared on worldwide news and entertainment networks.

Paul Jablon is President of The Jablon Group, Insurance & Financial Services. Jablon specializes in counseling high net worth individuals and families in the areas of estate planning, business succession and charitable planning. A graduate from California State University at Northridge with a degree in Kinesiology, Paul started his career as a physical education educator. After earning his California Lifetime Teaching Credential, he taught biology and physical education. He was a Master Teacher for the graduate students at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Paul draws on his teaching experience to explain and communicate difficult, complex estate planning issues to his clients and their advisors.

Diane Luby Lane is Founder/Executive Director of Get Lit-Words Ignite, Los Angeles’ leading nonprofit presenter of literary performance, education and teen poetry programs, and the Get Lit Players, an award-winning classic teen poetry troupe, who perform for over 10,000 teens each year. Get Lit partners with the Magic Poetry Bus, the official project of California Poet Laureate, Carol Muske-Dukes. Lane is author of Words of Women, a compendium of original monologues for women published around the world and has appeared in numerous films, television shows, and national commercials. Her critically acclaimed one-woman show, Deep Sea Diving (AKA Born Feet First), has toured high schools and colleges across America with poet Jimmy Santiago Baca. In recognition of her work as an educator and creator of Get Lit’s ground-breaking literacy curriculum, Lane received the James Patterson Page Turner Award for promoting literacy and the KNX Hero Award. In 2012, Lane was honored as a recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Volunteer Service Award.

Heidi Neitert is responsible for creating teams to provide comprehensive wealth management advice to high net worth individuals and families, entrepreneurs, business owners and foundations and endowments throughout the United States. Her professional experience with prestigious banking organizations includes most recently Vice President of Wells Fargo Private Bank/Beverly Hills. Prior to joining Wells Fargo Private Bank, Heidi served as a Director at Willmington Trust. She holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Arizona and is actively involved in a variety of professional organizations, including President elect of the British American Business Council, International Circle of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and Board member of Get Lit and the American Freedom Alliance. Her philanthropic efforts include serving as a Board member of the Barlow foundation.

Tamara Powers, though retired since having kids, worked originally in marketing, market research and strategy. With a BA and MBA from Stanford, Tamara has been involved in strategic planning and development work with several non-profits. She is a past Board member and member of the Executive Committees of Planned Parenthood, Los Angeles and the Wonder of Reading, and has led both Parent groups and other school efforts at Chadwick School, in Palos Verdes. Tamara served on the Stanford Business School Fund Advisory Board for several years, and has chaired or been involved in multiple fundraising campaigns for Stanford. She currently sits on the Boards of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor, The Children’s Partnership and Get Lit, along with serving as Vice Chair of the parcel tax oversight committee in her local community.

Jose (Platao) Rocha is Vice President of Broadcast Operations and Production at DIRECTV Latin America. Born in Brazil, he holds a BA in Journalism from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and an International Executive MBA from Vanderbilt University/University of Sao Paulo joint program. An avid reader himself, Platao is the proud father of Daniela, one of our former Get Lit Players.

Jill Rosenthal is a practicing attorney for 20 years, though often “moonlighting” as a journalist, public speaker and writer. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, she spent several years as a journalist covering political, legal and feature stories and writing a popular weekly humor column. Jill received her law degree at Georgetown University and began her legal career in the business litigation department of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. After several years, she moved to Kinsella, Boesch, Fujikawa & Towle, where she practiced entertainment-related litigation. After the birth of her daughter, she left law firm life for an in-house position as General Counsel and Vice President of Legal Affairs at The Sports Club Company, Inc.