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  8. Cristina Pacheco

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    Cristina Pacheco is a creative strategist and facilitator. She is the founder and CEO of FRCE, a boutique consulting firm that designs innovative events and provides transformational organizational coaching. She has been a member of the HARNESS community from its very beginning stages and has worked with HARNESS on a number of programs and campaigns including the HARNESS 2023 Retreat, 2020 Census Campaign Be Counted, The BREATHE Act art campaign, and other salon events.

    Cristina has served as an executive at The Underground Museum in Los Angeles; NationBuilder, a global tech company; and is the co-founder of Cale & Cael, an ethical fashion brand. Cristina’s experience in design work is rooted in the arts and justice movements. She has produced large-scale activations including INTO ACT!ON, embRACE LA: 100 Dinners on Race, the Women’s March LA, and more. She spent her early career creating programs and expanding impact for nonprofit organizations. She was formerly the Director of Programs at Arts for LA, a regional arts advocacy organization serving Los Angeles County where she founded the ACTIVATE Arts Advocacy Leadership Program, training hundreds of community arts advocates in areas of policy, leadership, coalition building, and communication. She is also a former teaching artist with SDYS’ Community Opus Project, making music education accessible for students in Chula Vista, California. She has served on many nonprofit boards including the Executive Boards of The Underground Museum and Get Lit – Words Ignite. 

    In addition to her consulting work, Cristina produces international wellness retreats and has a robust movement and breathwork practice. She is dedicated to the lifelong work of storytelling to advance justice. www.cristinapacheco.com

  9. Marya Bangee

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    Marya Bangee is the Vice President of the RISE (Representation, Inclusion Strategies and Engagement) team at the Walt Disney Studios. In this role, she works as a creative thought partner with the heads of the different studios under the Disney umbrella, including Marvel, Lucas, Pixar, 20th Century, and Searchlight, on telling culturally representative stories through film and television that are seen by billions of people globally. Her team is responsible for furthering representation across the Studios through content advisement; market strategies; talent acquisition and retainment; and Disney’s Launchpad, which is an incubator for diverse emerging filmmakers.

    Previously, Marya was the Executive Director of Harness, an organization started by America Ferrera, Wilmer Valderrama, and Ryan Piers Williams to center the stories of
    underrepresented communities in Hollywood. Through her work at Harness, Marya worked with networks, studios, and culture shapers to promote new narratives within
    popular culture. 

    She also ran her own company, SILA Consulting, which advised on film and television projects, including acting as the lead consultants on Disney’s live-action Aladdin and Ms. Marvel.

    Marya Bangee is passionate about helping build communities. She started her journey as a community organizer in the Muslim American community where she often represented the community in national media like the New York Times and NPR. She was a Dean’s Merit Scholar at USC and a Ford Foundation Fellow. 

  10. Tamara Hamdan

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    Tamara’s primary area of support of Harness is in the dimension of Financial Stewardship.

    Born and raised in California to parents of Palestinian descent, Tamara graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. She later moved to New York, beginning a career in Management Consulting that evolved into a role leading a unit of Columbia University’s Finance division which administered $1BN, or a quarter of the University’s operating budget, annually. Tamara earned her M.B.A. from Columbia University, and later led Finance at a Tech and Nutraceuticals startup. She currently holds the title of Vice President of Operations at a Tech startup, where she oversees Finance as well.

    Tamara fancies herself a spreadsheet ninja, and has helped several companies set their paths to financial triumph. She’s seasoned both in organizational transformation and in setting business infrastructure for explosive scale. She resides in Mexico, where she frequently indulges her love of travel, food, art and culture.