This is the second of a five-part series. Part One is here.
Adam Clausen serves as the Senior Leader of Life Center Madison, a non-denominational, multi-cultural church. He co-founded a grassroots community organizing effort of service providers, the Southeast Community Network, that serves the southeast side of Madison, which collaborates with one of Madison’s NRTs. He currently serves out of the Office of the Superintendent for MMSD, in addition to a number of boards, committees, and councils that advocate for justice, youth engagement and empowerment, and community collaboration, including the Foundation Board for One City Schools.
Lisa Imhoff is associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy. She is also a licensed therapist and social worker providing services through Evolve Wellness and Consulting. Prior to taking on the D&I role at the School of Pharmacy in 2019, she was a mental health clinician and substance abuse services coordinator at the university and spent 10 years as an evaluator and therapist at UW Health. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and women’s studies at UW-Madison, as well as a master’s degree in social work.
Maneesh Arora is founder and CEO of Elephas, a Madison-based company that is developing an imaging platform technology to assess how live tumor fragments respond to cancer therapies. Prior to founding Elephas in 2020, Maneesh was CEO of Farcast Biosciences, a venture-backed cancer diagnostics company focused on improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients. Before joining Farcast, Maneesh served as Chief Operating Officer of Exact Sciences Corporation for ten years where he helped lead the growth of the company from 3 employees to over 3,000 at the end of his tenure there. Exact Sciences’ focus is the early detection and prevention of colon cancer. Exact’s lead product, Cologuard, was developed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and is now widely available in the US as a front-line screening method for colorectal cancer, reimbursed by both Medicare and all major insurers. Prior to joining Exact, Maneesh worked for Third Wave Technologies, Inc., a molecular diagnostics company, from 2003 until its acquisition by Hologic, Inc. in July 2008. During his time at Third Wave, he was responsible for business strategy and commercial operations before being promoted to Chief Financial Officer in January 2006. Maneesh earned a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Crystal Potts is the Director of State Relations for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her role, she serves as the point-of-contact for state government relations, including the governor’s office, state legislature, and state agencies. She also assists in the creation and implementation of a statewide advocacy effort on behalf of the university. Crystal previously served as the chief of staff to Wisconsin State Senator Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green). In this capacity, she also supported the legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee as the senate staff lead on tax and local government issues. She also served as the research assistant and staff clerk to the Committee on Ways & Means in the State Assembly early in her career at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Originally from the Twin Cities, Crystal is a proud graduate of UW-Madison with a BA in political science and Chinese. She lives in Fitchburg with her husband, two sons, dog, and two cats.
Kabby Hong is an English teacher at Verona High School, and was named Wisconsin’s Teacher of the Year for 2022. With over 20 years teaching experience, he has given several presentations for The New York Times on argumentative writing. He has received awards from Stanford University and the University of Chicago for his effectiveness as a teacher. Over the past two years, he has used his platform as a prominent educator to speak out about the sharp increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans. The sone of Korean immigrants and born in Los Angeles, he received his bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism from the University of Missouri – Columbia and went on to get a master’s degree in secondary education from the University of Colorado – Boulder.
Tina Chang is the Chair and CEO of SysLogic, Inc, serving clients for over 26 years in the areas of Technology Strategy & Digital Transformation, Information Management & Business Intelligence, Cybersecurity/Enterprise Risk and Software Development. SysLogic is dedicated to driving clients’ growth by leveraging leading-edge technology and sound business processes. During SysLogic’s 26 years, she has leveraged the company to spin off two technology start-ups (SysSpark, LLC, and Cyberspect, LLC). Tina serves on the boards of several non-profit and community organizations including: Alverno College, Children’s – Wisconsin, Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, Midwest Cybersecurity Alliance, Milwaukee Public Schools Foundation, Wisconsin Policy Forum, Teach for America, Waukesha County Business Alliance, and the YMCA-Metro Milwaukee. Tina previously served in board leadership positions at Ascension-WI, United Performing Arts Fund and United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha.
Mai Yang Krenzke is a program manager at Oshkosh Corporation, a job she was promoted to two and a half years ago after more than four years as a senior principal engineer in the company’s quality and continuous improvement area and another eight years in various roles rapidly ascending the corporate ladder. She has also been a real estate investor as co-owner of Prime Properties for more than five years. She has volunteered as a Continuous Improvement Coach with Poverty Outcomes Improvement Network Team and a teacher with Junior Achievement. She earned a degree in finance from UW-Oshkosh in 2005.
Part Three coming tomorrow!
