Meet The Board of Directors
Founder/CEO- Nyene Baker
Nyene Baker has resilience and a deep-seated desire to empower others. A first-generation Liberian, Nyene wears many hats: Founder of Visionary Philanthropy Group Inc., Nerds With Swag, and Baker International Publishing LLC. He works full time for his own nonprofit, VPG, and is a partner with breakbeatcode, a program that teaches youths and adults how to code through music in the under-served communities. Nyene is also the Chairman of The Trenton Prison Branch of the NAACP and he is a new student at the American College of Financial Services studying to be a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy.
Nyene’s passion for community impact stretches far back. While serving an 180 month federal sentence for drug trafficking, he self-published his real estate book, “Tax Lien Certificates”, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to personal growth and knowledge sharing. Now, through VPG, Nyene strives to make financial literacy, tech opportunities, and his own Violence Prevention and Intervention Program cornerstones of underserved communities. His goal is simple: to make a difference, one step at a time.
Beyond his philanthropic pursuits, Nyene seeks connection and growth through organizations like the Freemasons, of which he is a member of the world’s oldest and largest fraternity, and he is a member of BNI, the world’s largest referral networking organization. These communities provide him with valuable support and a platform to amplify his message of empowerment.
Nyene Baker is a testament to the human spirit’s ability to overcome adversity and turn challenges into opportunities for service. He is a community leader, a visionary and a force for positive change, committed to paving the way for a brighter future for all.
Chairwoman- Liz Brinkerhoff Chairwoman
Liz Brinkerhoff is the Workforce Partnerships Senior Manager at The Alliance for Decision Education. Liz is deeply committed to education advocacy, and has over 20 years of experience making a difference through her work at nonprofits, government offices, and the private sector.
Before joining the Alliance, Liz led global efforts at Catalyst, an organization committed to make workplaces more inclusive for all. Liz previously also led recruiting efforts at Storyline Strategies, where she assembled executives, philanthropic leaders, educators, policy experts, and more to inform data science findings, political trends, and business strategies. She also previously served Senators Jon Corzine in his role as Senator and New Jersey Governor, and Senators Evan Bayh, and Mark Begich in their efforts to champion children, women, Veterans, the working poor, active duty service members,
and more.
Liz received her B.S. in Political Science and Government from Rutgers University. A New Jersey native, Liz lives in
Hackensack, NJ.
Vice Chairwoman- Laila Shareef Wilson-McCoy
Laila Shareef Wilson-McCoy is the Director of Development at Centurion in Princeton, New Jersey. She has more than 20 years of experience in various fund development and organizational operation roles, with a specialty in donor relations, fundraising, and process management. Prior to joining Centurion, Laila was the Resource Development Manager at Isles, Inc., and the Development Director at the Waldorf School of Princeton.
Her undergraduate degree is in Psychology and she has a certification in Financial Success for Nonprofits from Cornell University. Laila is a Board Member of the Princeton YWCA, a Review Committee Member for Cooperman College Scholars, and a member of Masjid Warith ud Deen Fundraising Committee. She is the mother of two children and resides in Mercer County with her husband.
Secretary- Edna Odukoya
Secretary
Edna Baker, Board Secretary and CEO of Royal Majesty HomeCare in Montgomery County Pennsylvania.
Edna was born in Liberia, West Africa and raised in Trenton, New Jersey where she attended Saint James Catholic Middle School in Trenton and McCorristin Catholic High School in Hamilton, NJ. She graduate from high school and went on to graduate from Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania with a Bachelors or Arts degree in Sociology. She has worked in the field of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities for over twenty-five years with children, youth and adults. She calls North Philadelphia home at this time. Edna enjoys singing in her church choir and listening to all genres of music.
Vice President of Business Development- Anthony Bush
Anthony Bush Assistant Vice President for Government Affairs at the Bank Policy Institute(BPI). In this role his portfolio will focus on consumer and small business issues and economic inclusion. Mr Bush previously served as a legislative assistant on the majority of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform where he was hands-on with legislative and policy work.
Prior to his work with the Oversight Committee. Bush served as a staff assistant to the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and a personal assistant on Rep Cummings’ congressional campaign.
Mr. Bush received an MBA from Morgan State University. He also completed his undergraduate at Morgan State University receiving a B.A. in political science and communications.
Board Advisor- Richard Achee
Richard Achée is a Business Development Lead at Google. For over 25 years, Richard has been working with organizations of all shapes and sizes to help them become more collaborative, creative, and innovative. As part of his role at Google, he works with companies to help build their product roadmaps and go-to-market strategies leveraging Google's technology, brand and partner ecosystems.
In 2017, he created BreakBeatCode which teaches students to code, collaborate and create by bringing together professionals in the music and tech industries, including singers, rappers, DJs, producers, entrepreneurs and tech coaches. BreakBeatCode works with organizations that support historically underserved communities to offer the free BreakBeatCode curriculum, teacher training and virtual hackathons. The program is supported by volunteers from Google and the broader tech and music industries. BreakBeatCode began as a 20% time project at Google, and it's been recently launched as a non-profit organization, Breakbeatcode Inc, to help achieve the goal of teaching 1.5M students by 2025. So far, BreakBeatCode has reached more than 10k learners in 20 countries.
Richard is also a board advisor and mentor for a number of high growth start-ups in the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific.