Expert Advisors
Gratitude Expert Advisors are talented subject matter experts.
Our 60+ past and present Expert Advisors are accomplished individuals with diverse backgrounds who are passionate about the Gratitude mission of supporting on-the-ground Leaders with specific organizational and operational challenges.
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
— Margaret Fuller
Expert Advisor Perspective
Areas of Expertise
Strategy: business modelling, vision-mission planning, annual planning
Sales & Marketing: sales management, channel planning, go-to-market, social media, branding
Business Development: partnerships, scalability and growth, corporate partnerships, measuring impact
R&D: product development, project management, new products
Legal & HR: organization development, team development, hybrid tax models
Fundraising: process, presentation, major donors,development, Corporate and Private Foundation submissions
Finance: financials, annual budgeting
Leadership & Management: Board development and management, crisis management, time management and prioritization, team building and support
Expert Advisors
Meet a few of our 60+ Expert Advisors.
Angie Carmignani
Angie Carmignani
Values the importance of working with & learning from others. Is continuously looking for ways to connect with others to share information, ideas, successes, and solutions.
Since taking over the reigns of Executive Director of The Taylor Family Foundation, The Foundation has continued to exceed their fundraising goal of raising $1 million at our annual Day in the Park fundraiser held the last Sunday in August. By training and enabling a multi-skilled, dynamic staff to make good decisions, and delegating successfully, Angie is allowed the time to work with more than 35 non-profit organizations to build partnerships for the foundation.
In her spare time, she enjoys being a mentor to others working in the non-profit industry, helping them to create solution-based environments for their staffs and modeling how to be a fair and honorable Executive Director.
Jim Lynch
Jim Lynch
A builder of people, teams and companies. A multiplier, a connector and a problem solver with over 20 years in the technology field focused on strategy, planning, portfolio management, startups, large scale projects, M&A Integration, IT management, operations and business development. I enjoy building / developing people, companies and groups within larger organizations.
Skilled at driving $100M SW development projects for digital transformation, eCommerce, ERP and business applications. Experienced at building strategy, business cases, roadmaps as well as working cross functionally to deliver concept to commit to execution. Jim likes challenges and doing things that have never been done before. One aspect of building that he enjoys the most is the coaching and mentoring of young talent.
He is also an investor and board member with several startups in the SF Bay Area covering enterprise and consumer business models.
Ray Nieto
Ray Nieto
Ray is a seasoned leader and coach, helping individuals and teams grow to peak performance. He has held multiple engineering and program management roles in large high-tech companies. He has developed multi-level agile teams working together around the globe. He helps his organizations establish the balance between structure and agility as they grow. Ray’s approach is to help define and drive a culture to create a drama-free workplace. He is a founder and former executive for a professional development non-profit company and has been a member of multiple boards serving various community needs. In Ray’s career, he has been recognized for his work with executive leadership of a Fortune 500 company to define and drive their diversity strategy throughout the organization.
Bill Sumerlin
Bill Sumerlin
Bill assists start-ups, small and medium size businesses in developing and executing early, mid and late stage business, engineering and operational strategies, plans and procedures in a business and technical capacity. He enjoys challenging problems and taking businesses to the next level. He has worked world-wide.
• 30+ years in management, enterprise architecture, technical and product development, business consulting, sales and customer support;
• 10+ years working with start-up companies with leading edge ideas and technologies;
• Extensive knowledge and world-wide experience in the high technology, business intelligence, telecommunications, networking, and financial services industries;
• Developed more than dozen products and services, written more than a million lines of code, developed numerous business plans, papers, articles, manuals and patents; and
• Developed a number of company and product specific call/contact centers, web sites and business processes that helped reposition organizations to better communicate and serve their customers.
Some key clients: 3Com, Adobe, Airtouch, Aspect Telecomunications, BancOne, BofA, Cadence Design Systems, Candle, Cisco, CSAA, Deluxe Checks, General Electric, GNA, IBM, Kaiser Permanente, NASA, Neckermann (Belgium, Netherlands, France), Pacific Bell, PBA, PeopleSoft, PG&E, ProBusiness, Progress Software, Raychem, Siemens (US & Germany), Sun Microsystems, Unisource, Wells Fargo
Requirements of Being an Expert Advisor
We are presently seeking a diverse group of Expert Advisors who:
- Have 10+ years of in-depth experience in a given field
- Understand global issues
The Expert Advisor Commitment
- Work closely with the Gratitude Leader’s assigned Coach to provide a “care team” approach
- Work with the assigned Gratitude Leader for 2-4 sessions to ensure he or she is carrying out advice
- Each Expert Advisor engagement with a Gratitude Leader is approximately 5 volunteer hours over a several week period
Get Involved
Interested? Apply to join our roster of Expert Advisors. Find out more about how it works, including timing and logistics of matching your expertise to our Gratitude Leadership Program