News

New York, NY – The Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) announced today that Melissa Bradley and Daniel Tellalian will become the foundation’s newest Independent (non-family) Trustees.

Melissa is the founder and managing partner at 1863 Ventures, a business-development company and family of venture funds that delivers content and connections to New Majority entrepreneurs to foster responsible entrepreneurship and change the support and narrative around their potential and needs. Daniel is the founder and CEO of Angel City Advisors, an impact-investment consultancy that connects community voice and social enterprise to catalytic capital.

“Melissa and Daniel are rock stars in their fields,” said Rebecca Gregg, co-chair of the board’s Independent Trustee Search Committee. “We welcome their strong, independent voices and know that they both bring a fantastic combination of skills and experiences for helping the foundation use the totality of its assets to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice.”

Melissa has dedicated her professional career to supporting historically marginalized communities to create wealth via business growth and scale. She has done so in the public, private, and social sectors. She has also done so in her ongoing role as a professor of practice at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where she teaches about impact investing and related topics.

During her tenure in the Obama Administration, she served as chief strategy officer for AmeriCorps, worked in the Partnerships Office for the Department of Education, served on the intergovernmental task force for My Brother’s Keeper, and directed the White House Social Innovation Fund. During her tenure in the Clinton Administration, she served in the Treasury Department and researched small-business access and individual development accounts as well as regulated minority depository institutions. In the nonprofit sector, she founded several nonprofit organizations focused on asset and economic development and served as CEO of Tides Inc., where she managed more than $500M in assets. Melissa graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration from American University.

“NCF invested in my organization last year, and our partnership has been very successful,” said Melissa. “As a result, I was eager to put my hat in the ring to join the NCF board. I’m excited to take on this new role as a fiduciary and lend my diverse experiences along the foundation’s pursuit of justice.”

Daniel is already part of the NCF community. Since 2020, he has served—and distinguished himself—on the foundation’s Investment Committee. He has more than two decades of experience in investing, entrepreneurship, business mentoring, financial transactions, and community economic development. Angel City Advisors is his fourth startup. First recognized by Echoing Green as a social entrepreneur for his work in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Daniel now proudly manages the Signal Fund, an early-stage catalytic fund for the Echoing Green fellowship. He also spent 13 years as principal and partner at Emerging Markets, Inc., an economic development consulting firm that assisted the private sector to responsibly pursue business opportunities within place-based community development initiatives nationwide. Daniel was also a founding member and managing partner of Avivar Capital, an advisory firm focused on impact investing. He has investment and operational knowledge across a number of sectors including food, life science, climate, and real estate. Daniel holds a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School; an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business; and a JD from UC Berkeley’s School of Law. He is a licensed CPA and attorney in California.

“It’s an honor to step up my engagement with the foundation and the family,” Daniel said. “In my three years working alongside the family and Investment Committee, I’ve been impressed—and touched by—the trustees’ and staff’s humility and ideals. In this new capacity, I can give the foundation the benefit of everything I’ve learned about using the power of people and markets to advance equity.”

For additional information about this announcement, please contact Candice Wynter, at Candice.wynter@nathancummings.org.