National Board of Directors
Marlene Canter - Board Chair
Former LAUSD Board President
Marlene Canter has spent the majority of her career in education: first as a special education teacher, then co-founding and helping to run a teacher training company (Canter and Associates, now Laureate Education, Inc.) for 25 years, and, finally, serving eight years on the LAUSD School Board as a policy maker. She retired in 2009. She is currently the Board Chair for Green Dot Public Schools National and serves on the Board at City Year Los Angeles. Marlene divides her time between her chaplaincy studies, her leadership roles in education reform, and being with family and friends. Ms. Canter is now in school at the Academy for Jewish Religion where she is pursuing an MA in Jewish Studies and a Chaplaincy degree. She was motivated to take this path as a result of watching the challenges that people faced in their day to day life and was interested in becoming more skillful at helping people to find meaning in their lives. Ms. Canter has two married children and two beautiful granddaughters. She resides in Los Angeles.
Roy Romer
Former Governor of Colorado and Superintendent of LAUSD
Roy Romer was the 39th Governor of Colorado, serving from 1986 to 1998. From 2001 to 2006 he served as Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. A veteran business and political leader and a national leader in education policy, Gov. Romer also served as Colorado State Treasurer from 1977–87 and a member of the Governor’s Cabinet. He served in the Colorado House from 1958–62 and the Colorado Senate from 1962–66. He has also served a general chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 1999. Governor Romer received a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from Colorado State University in 1950, and a law degree from the University of Colorado in 1952. He also studied ethics at Yale University. A member of the U.S. Air Force, he was a military prosecutor in Germany.
Paul Miller
Senior Consultant/Practice Manager
Paul Miller is a Senior Consultant/Practice Manager. Previously he was a Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to that he was a Program and Policy Development Specialist in the Human Resources Department of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Paul Miller joined LAUSD after serving as Chair of the transition team for Superintendent John Deasy. Prior to joining LAUSD Paul Miller served Teach For America as Executive Director of the Los Angeles region from 2009-2011. Paul Miller came to Teach For America after spending the previous two years leading economic development efforts in Camden, New Jersey, first as President of the Cooper Grant Neighborhood Association, and subsequently, as President of the Board of Directors and Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Camden Empowerment Zone Corporation. Paul has worked and studied in the UK, earning an M.S. at the London School of Economics and pursuing a Ph.D. in International Studies at Cambridge University. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California where he earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Psychology.
Timothy Wahl
Faculty Member, Cal State Northridge
Timothy Wahl has more than 40 years’ experience as an attorney specializing in banking and finance, business law and compliance issues in both the private and public sectors. Mr. Wahl currently serves as a faculty member at California State University at Northridge teaching an advanced course in business law. Prior to this, he was a consultant to a private equity firm and earlier, served Fidelity Capital Market Services as Vice President for Capital Markets compliance. Previously, Mr. Wahl was General Counsel for Citigroup Capital Strategies and earlier served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for First Nationwide Bank and General Counsel for Citigroup’s consumer bank. His background includes the position of senior attorney at several U.S. government agencies, including the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, the Justice Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Mr. Wahl also serves on the Board of Directors for Green Dot Public Schools. Mr. Wahl earned a B.A. from Villanova University, an M.B.A. from Rutgers University and a law degree from California Western School of Law.
Carole Smith
Digital Marketing, Verizon
Carole Neal is a member of the Verizon Marketing organization. Her responsibilities include developing the digital marketing and branding strategy for a $4 Billion product portfolio and working with the Product teams to launch new services. She is actively involved within the community through the Verizon Foundation, and has served as a volunteer in leadership roles with City of Hope, Taproot Foundation, UCLA and Girl Scouts. Carole has an undergraduate degree in Business and French from Hood College in Frederick, MD, a MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and holds her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
Ly Cecilia Nguyen
Co-founder and CEO of Leigh & Siena
Larry Jacobs
West Region Sales Director, Shell Oil Company
Larry Jacobs is the West Region Sales Director for Shell Oil Company, accountable for a $250MM budget. He has more than 20 years of domestic and international experience with Shell Oil across a variety of leadership and business development roles. Larry attended UCLA and earned a BS in Applied Mathematics. While in college he worked for the Young Black Scholars – an organization dedicated to preparing high school students for college. He believes this opportunity was invaluable and spurred his passion for educational youth programs. Early in his professional career he also mentored college students through the Black Executive Exchange Program (BEEP) — an organization committed to exposing college students to corporate executives in hopes of gaining career insights and opportunities. Years later a friend invited him to participate in career day at Green Dot. Larry was impressed with the students’ drive and the school’s ambition. He soon after became an ambassador and helped support Green Dot through personal and corporate philanthropy. Larry values diversity in corporate America and believes education to be the greatest equalizer. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, working out and playing the bass guitar.
Board Meetings
The Green Dot National Board meets bi-monthly. These meetings are free to attend and open to the public.
To access our board meeting agendas and minutes from August 1, 2019 on, please visit our board meeting platform.