Board Of Directors

Board of directors

Sheila Aharoni

President

Learn More

Sheila joined the HomeRise board in 2015 and served as Treasurer for six years before she was elected President in 2024.

Sheila is a global technology leader who built, grew, and transformed businesses for 30+ years. As a Revenue Operator in public and private start-up companies, she was successful in scaling sales and turning around struggling businesses. Her career foundation was refined at Fortune 50 market bellwethers– GE, Motorola, and Black & Decker. She leveraged her big company learnings in two software startups, launching sales from scratch, scaling pre and post-sales, customer success, and sales engineering. Sheila is an advisor for SkyDeck, UC Berkeley’s startup incubator.

Sheila earned her BS from Georgia Tech and MBA at GA State and Indiana University.

Derek Barnes

Vice President

Learn More

CEO, East Bay Rental Housing Association (EBRHA)

Derek Barnes has over 15 years of executive leadership transforming organizations through all stages of a business’ lifecycle – startup, rapid growth, business turnarounds, and M&A. Derek’s expertise includes building strategy, global organizations, and new technologies in highly competitive markets. He has worked within high-tech, nonprofit, telecom, financial services, real estate, healthcare, and retail sectors.

Derek is CEO at EBRHA and responsible for developing programs and services to support the organization’s growing membership, who own and operate over 45,000 rental homes accross the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa.

He is also Senior Advisor at Ignition Point Consulting, supporting clients such as Fremont Bank, Homebridge, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and TeleNav.

Previously, he’s held positions as COO/CTO and co-founder at g-dii Enterprises, COO at Executive Networks, Global Operations Director at Openwave, and VP of Technical Services and Operations at PlanetOut/Here! Media.

Neil Sims

Treasurer

Learn More

Neil Sims joined the HomeRise board in 2021 after retiring as Managing Partner and Technology Sector Practice Leader for the San Francisco office of Boyden Global Executive Search. Throughout his adult life, Neil has served in voluntary leadership roles within his community. His most recent contributions include Board President and long-standing board member for Openhouse, a pioneering non-profit offering low income housing and services to LGBT seniors in San Francisco. He also served as a Commissioner for the San Francisco Department of Disability and Aging Services.

John Fisher

Secretary

Learn More

John joined the HomeRise board in 2015 and has served as Secretary since 2018. John is a native San Franciscan and currently lives in the city’s Mission District with his young family. Since 2014, John has worked in real estate development and investment.

Tom Azumbrado

Learn More

Tom Azumbrado’s career has focused on housing, including working at HUD for over 30 years, concluding as the Regional Director for the Multifamily West Region. The jurisdiction includes 14 states, and has a portfolio of 5000 projects, with billions of funding per year. Tom grew up in public housing in Brooklyn, NY, but has also lived and worked in a multitude of environments, including rural Alaska. He has worked on large urban projects to small rural houses and village planning. Tom was a commissioner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for 16 years. He designed and built houses in Mexico with a youth group, including his 2 daughters, for 11 years. He is a licensed architect in Alaska and California. He’s walked many cities’ streets and has walked the Appalachian Trail.

He enjoys the varied cultures and peoples throughout the world, none more or less important than others. He buys into HomeRise’s goals and aspirations and wants to contribute to making it even more successful.

Heidy Braverman

Learn More

Heidy joined the HomeRise board in 2022. She has a longtime interest in the problem of housing and the issue of low rates of voter engagement in the United States. Currently, she is also serving as President of the Board of Foundation for Quality Housing Opportunities in addition to being a partner in the development of both Senior and Family Affordable Housing. She is retired from a 40 year career in the concrete repair and strengthening industry. Previously, she served on the Board of Directors for the International Concrete Repair Institute as well as many American Concrete Institute Technical and Development Committees.

Juthaporn Chaloeicheep

Learn More

Juthaporn joined the Board in 2020, having been a HomeRise resident at Arnett Watson Apartments since 2016. Twenty years of lived experience with drug addiction and homelessness enable her to bring a fresh new lens and perspective to her role as resident board member. She understands what it means to go from being homeless to having a home. Because her life was stabilized through permanent supportive housing, she has been able to establish work, graduate from San Francisco State University, and raise her now six-year-old son, all while continuing to stay clean and sober. She is a community leader who believes in going big or going home. Her success is the success of the core mission of HomeRise: housing gives hope to the hopeless.

Missy S. Mastel

Learn More

Missy S. Mastel is an enthusiastic resident of San Francisco for more than 30 years. She has raised children here, participated actively in the public school system, owns real estate, and walks her pet pig regularly in her neighborhood. Every morning, she walks down to Starbucks and back up to her home on the hill, greets her neighbors and their dogs and picks up their blown over trash cans. She believes strongly that this is the best city in the world and is honored to have a chance to work on its sustainability long into the future.

A licensed CPA, CGMA and a CFO with a specialization in nonprofits and Environment, Social and Governance sustainability, Missy is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Said Business School at Oxford with degrees and certification in Accounting, International Management and Theology. In audit service with KPMG, Missy has traveled to Australia and Europe as a specialist in operational efficiency and design. Her innovative philosophies about accounting as a language and impact as the culmination of lifelong planning are promulgated in two bestselling books and a bevy of keynotes, articles and corporate talks. If organizations live and die by the numbers, it is because they know how to use them effectively to get their goals achieved.

Missy is excited about getting involved with mitigating the housing crises here and appreciates the Housing First initiative as a proven methodology. She hopes to add value by uncovering ways that we can tweak the program/message/efforts so that larger San Francisco and the world can understand all the good work and results HomeRise is contributing to San Francisco

Heidi Haller Groshelle

Learn More

Heidi Haller Groshelle joined the HomeRise board in 2023. She is a Public Relations expert focused on introducing groundbreaking technologies. Her clients span multiple countries and sectors. Over 200 technology startups and established companies have benefited from her strategic PR skills and deep international connections. In addition, Heidi has represented music and film industry innovators who founded or led influential companies including Colossal Pictures, DigitalDomain, LucasFilm, and Pixar. She has also worked as a volunteer helping families needing housing and educational services in San Francisco and previously served as a board member of Traveler’s Aid and Compass Community Services.

Tyler Kyser

Learn More

Originally from Toledo, OH and growing up in Chandler, AZ, Ty has lived all around the Midwest and the Bay Area. They come from a background of electoral organizing and building power in the Midwest and Northern California with an emphasis on shining a light on poverty and helping lead the fight for dignified and equitable services/housing for low income, unhoused, and BIPOC communities. Ty is committed to making long-lasting change for Black and Brown folks across the Bay Area.

John Avalos

Learn More

John Avalos is the Executive Director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, one of the founding organizations of HomeRise and San Franciscan’s long-time convenor of affordable housing developers and providers. John is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a social worker, and a community and labor organizer with over 25 years of experience in building coalitions inside and outside of public office to develop public policy, pass people-oriented budgets, support tenants, and develop successful revenue measures to build affordable housing in San Francisco. John has been part of years of struggle for racial equity and affordable housing that has led to dramatic changes in how City Hall relates to and addresses the needs of working-class and BIPOC communities. As a community organizer with community nonprofits and later as a legislative aide and member of the Board of Supervisors, John played a pivotal role in making City Hall more accountable and accessible to everyday people, working with labor and community to create policies, resources, and structures to address inequality in San Francisco.

Ancel Romero

Learn More

Ancel Romero has devoted his over 20-year career to affordable housing as an executive of leading organizations in both the non-profit and for-profit segments of the profession. Today, under the banner of his own firm, Ancel continues to serve affordable housing stakeholders in the critical areas of operations, advocacy, development consulting and strategic planning.

Ancel began his career in the accounting department of G&K Management, one of the largest privately held real estate companies in CA where he became Director of Property Management. He later joined American Baptist Homes of the West (ABHOW, a HumanGood legacy organization) and eventually became President of its affordable housing division. He received ABHOW’s highest honor, the Presidential Citation Award, in recognition of his role in expanding the company’s mission and strategic growth.

ABHOW has since affiliated with two other non-profits and is now known as HumanGood. Ancel oversaw the operations of one of the largest non-profit affordable housing providers in the United States. HumanGood is now the seventh-largest nonprofit senior living provider in the country with more than 100 affordable housing communities across five states serving over 9,200 residents.

Ancel earned an AB Economics degree from Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila, Philippines. He is a Certified Property Manager (CPM) as designated by the Institute of Real Estate Management. His professional certifications include the Specialist in Housing Tax Credit Management (SHCM) and National Affordable Housing Professional- Executive (NAHP-E) designations. He is also a Fair Housing Coordinator accredited by the National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA).

Ancel is a Past President of the Affordable Housing Management Association of Northern California and Hawaii (AHMA-NCH) and served as board member of Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. Before leaving HumanGood, he also served on the Leading Age Board of Directors and on the Business Strategy Council of Leading Age National. He is on the Board of Directors of Center for Elders’ Independence and is a Senior Consultant for Sympara (sympara.org).

Patrick Schmalz

Learn More

Patrick (Pat) Schmalz, currently the CEO for St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco (SVDP-SF), has more than 30 years of experience in leadership and financial roles. As CEO, he leads SVDP-SF operations and partners with the Board of Directors on strategic planning, fundraising, and policy matters. Previously, he served as the CFO of Meals on Wheels San Francisco (MOWSF) for seven years. During his time at MOWSF, he led financial initiatives that significantly impacted the organization’s growth, including facilitating $8 million in tax credit financing that helped to build the Sangiacomo Flynn Kitchen & Distribution Center. Pat brings residential knowledge of the local community and a passion for service to the HomeRise Board. Pat earned a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Loyola University Maryland, as well as an inactive CPA credential from the state of Maryland. Pat also serves on the Board of Directors of the Bella Primary Care Clinic in San Francisco.

Don Falk

Learn More

Don Falk served as Chief Executive Officer of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) from 2005 to 2021, after previously serving as Director of Housing Development from 1994 to 2005. During his tenure as CEO, TNDC’s housing portfolio doubled to more than 4,000 homes, and its staff grew to 500.

Before joining TNDC, Don spent a decade at Jubilee West, a nonprofit housing and social services organization in West Oakland, where he held roles including Director of Housing Development, Deputy Director, and Co-Executive Director.

Don holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Economics and Urban Studies from Oberlin College. He has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Insight Housing, SPUR, and the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California.

Give Today

$100

$250

$500

$1000

Other