Our Team
FOUNDEr & CEO
Daniel Tellalian is the Founder and CEO of Angel City Advisors. Angel City was created to provide an accessible platform for investors, entrepreneurs, policy leaders, and community voices to come together in pursuit of a better world. It is a place where market-oriented solutions can be designed and executed to address complex issues. Daniel comes to Angel City with over two decades of experience in impact investing, social entrepreneurship, business mentoring, financial transactions, and community economic development.
Mónica Carlos | Project Manager
Monica Carlos is a seasoned project manager and community developer. With 30 years of track record in Southern California communities, Monica engages up close with local leaders to design and construct street-level improvements in underinvested neighborhoods. Her urban planning, facilitation, construction, and project management skills are elements of local capacity building initiatives and catalytic projects throughout Greater Los Angeles.
JT Trujillo | Associate
JT is an investor and operator focused on deploying capital for impact. Prior to Angel City Advisors, he founded RoJo Ventures, a micro-VC fund investing in diverse-led startups and mission-driven businesses, leading deals in sectors like FinTech, AI, and healthcare. He previously worked at Open Opportunity Fund a venture capital fund focused on backing Black and Latino founders, where he contributed to portfolio strategy, investment research, and the development of a high-profile mentor network. Earlier, he managed post-accelerator portfolio support at Goodie Nation, guiding diverse founders in securing capital and scaling their ventures.
Kiara Vandergriff | Virtual Office Manager
Kiara Vandergriff is a New York native, Marine Corps veteran and proud mom raising three beautiful children as part of an on-base Marine family. She has adapted her professional skills to virtual business management, supporting small businesses in operations, systems, team-building, and special projects.
Kiara earned a Business Administration degree with focuses on Marketing and Management from the University of Hawaii West Oahu. Aiming to equip clients for success, Kiara’s provides online business management support for Angel City Advisors.
Theresa Wilson | Fractional COO
As a mission and community investing professional, Theresa is passionate about leveraging market-based solutions and innovative partnerships to accelerate economic development, alleviate poverty, and facilitate social justice. Theresa has 10+ years of experience working with small businesses, supporting the development of strategic investing portfolios, conducting debt, equity, and fund investment due diligence, and monitoring strategic investment portfolios.
Troy Foster | Legal Counsel
Troy Foster is the firmwide chair of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice at Perkins Coie and is Angel City Advisors’ general counsel. He has focused on emerging companies and venture capital law for his entire career, and has substantial experience taking private companies through early stages in route to mergers, sales, and public offerings.
Our Due Diligence Bench
Ariel Jaduszliwer
For nearly a dozen years, Ariel has been Managing Partner at Brainstorm Ventures, a generalist venture capital firm that invests at the earliest stages in some of the most exciting tech startups in the Americas. Past and present unicorns include OpenTable, Zappos, KIO Networks and Turing. Ariel serves on the board of Defy Ventures, a nonprofit that provides entrepreneurship training to incarcerated people. Ariel is a Kauffman Fellow and has been a Mentor to three more recent Fellows. Ariel also serves as Mentor for Techstars Miami, Unreasonable Mexico, and SomosVC.
Zsolt Pethe
Zsolt Pethe is a seasoned impact investing professional with over two decades of experience in business development, banking, and management consulting across the private and nonprofit sectors. His investment perspective is informed by his endeavors in the realm of social entrepreneurship.
Brian Wasige
Brian leads firm diligences on specific innovation areas, including medtech, process improvement plays, and East African entrepreneurship. Brian is the founder and CEO of Patrium Health, an AI-driven company transforming home-based healthcare delivery. Before launching Patrium, he was an Advisor at Avivar Capital—supporting the team with investment diligence, thematic research, and analysis—and represented the firm in the T3 Innovation Network, which funds and explores innovative Web 3.0 technologies to reinvent the future of work.
Our Advisory Network
Dr. Susan Windham Bannister
Dr. Susan Windham-Bannister is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in biopharma innovation, market access and market optimization strategies. During her 30+year as a strategy consultant to life sciences industry leaders, she crafted the launch strategies for numerous “block buster” drugs, biologics and diagnostics. She is the 2024 winner of the Henri Termeer Award for outstanding leadership in the lifesciences and has been recognized by Biosphere as one of the 10 most prominent African American life science leaders, by the Boston Globe as one of the “10 Most Influential Women in Biotech,” and by Boston Magazine as one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Boston.”
BELINDA (LIN) BARDWELL
As a proud tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of the Odawa Indians, Belinda (Lin) Bardwell has spent her adult life working to improve the lives of Native Americans. She believes in integrating traditional teachings with today’s principles to see Native Americans excel. In order to accomplish this, she values cultural exchange so that non-Natives get a better understanding of Indigenous culture and knowledge.
farahnaz forozan
Over the past two decades, Dr. Forozan has built a spectrum of expertise and experience pertaining to pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics, clinical trials, and CRO/Central lab industries with specialized expertise in oncology, immuno-oncology, neurology, and microbiomes through an array of roles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Genzyme, LabCorp/Covance, and Bristol Myers Squibb.
Linda Griego
Linda Griego currently serves on the board of directors of media and entertainment conglomerate Paramount Global (CBS and Viacom merger). She previously served on the boards of AECOM, Granite Construction, American Funds, Southwest Water Company, City National Bank; and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (Los Angeles director). She is the founder of the non-profit MLK Health and Wellness Community Development Corporation focused on health care infrastructure projects on the MLK Medical Campus in South Los Angeles. She serves on the board of directors of Exposition Park Foundation tasked with revitalizing the 160-acre urban park that is home to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and will be highlighted during the 2028 Olympics.
Elwood Hopkins
Elwood Hopkins is a national expert on place-based initiatives, funder collaboratives, and urban policy. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Emerging Markets, Inc. and Executive Director of its nonprofit counterpart, Emerging Markets Development Corporation. For nearly two decades, the double-bottom line hybrid organization has assisted major banks and financial institutions in carrying out place-based initiatives in low-income neighborhoods across the nation. Recently exploring various models of neighborhood investment trusts as a Kresge Presidential Fellow, you can read some of his thinking in an article recently published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Vikram Jadhav
Vikram is a process modernization and change management leader working to improve the way institutions approach their engagement practices. Working across a range of disciplines, he designs and implements low cost and scalable solutions that drive internal collaboration, member and employee engagement, and ROI.
Yscaira Jimenez
Yscaira Jimenez is an innovator, investor and entrepreneur at the intersection of education and work. She splits her time between helping learners and earners reach their full potential, coaching entrepreneurs, and investing in promising early stage ventures. Her most recent entrepreneurial endeavor was as founder and CEO of LaborX, the LinkedIn for the LinkedOut, where she was linking people who are currently linked out of the knowledge economy to good jobs. Yscaira has a passion for social entrepreneurship. A 2014 Echoing Green Fellow and an Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT, she is also advancing scholarship on the unique nature of social entrepreneurship.
Kacy Keys
Kacy Keys is a real estate development executive, and land use and transactional real estate attorney, who has made her career specializing in urban infill and transit-oriented development projects. She has overseen the development of over $1 billion in real estate assets with experience in residential, retail, office and mixed-use product types. She is currently active as an independent developer in the Southern California market through Praxis Development Group.
Mary Lee
Mary M. Lee consults with community-based organizations, public officials, government agencies and philanthropy to dismantle racially biased systems and structures and build just and equitable neighborhoods. Her expertise includes research, strategic planning, technical assistance, and training. She has co-authored reports and journal articles on access to healthy food, the built environment, and the impact of place and race on health.
Jason Neville
Jason Neville is running a place-based NOLA nonprofit revitalizing the Lafitte Greenway. Jason is a redevelopment professional and affordable housing innovator who’s passion is working with people to make cities better. Jason has fifteen years’ experience designing and delivering catalytic, inclusive revitalization projects in underinvested neighborhoods, including experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in Los Angeles and New Orleans. Jason recently published a popular 1-hour course on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on Planetizen.
IMANI Nicole
Imani Nicole is a creative chameleon, community bridger and builder who keeps a pulse on LA culture. She utilizes her background in marketing, communications and copywriting to convey mission, vision, and values of socially impactful organizations across Los Angeles. As a consultant, she has conducted market landscape analyses for enterprises such a legacy children’s advocacy organization, as well as ecosystems such as the social innovation sector within Los Angeles County. Imani has also consulted and assembled partnerships for wellness brands, food businesses, and other social enterprises in the LA area.
Bonnie Oliva-Porter
Bonnie Oliva-Porter is a human capital strategist dedicated to building high-performing organizations that serve, advocate for, and build equity for underserved communities. Bonnie has over 15 years of experience across multiple industries, from tech and VC to non-profit and government. Previously, she was a founding team member at Tala, a mobile technology and data science company providing financial products and services in emerging markets.
Marc Rand
Marc Rand is the Managing Partner of Community Capital Advisors, a strategic investing consultant focused on place-based foundations. While he has experience across a broad array of investment solutions, Marc has particular expertise in designing and managing community loan funds.
Jennifer Samson
Dynamic and results-driven executive with over 15 years of experience in project managment, strategic operations, and customer success across various industries, including real estate, technology, and healthcare. Jennifer is a Senior Director, Special Projects at Metro. As an executive focused on technology, customer success, community-driven development and innovative urban solutions, she brings hands-on experience transforming ambitious civic visions into reality.
Sonal Sharma
Sonal Sharma is a student at Brown University, majoring in Computer Science-Economics. She believes that community challenges can be best addressed with innovation and creativity. After a successful summer internship, Sonal has continued her work with the firm over consecutive fall and winter internships while pursuing her formal studies. Sonal contributes as an associate, providing both primary and secondary research towards Angel City business plans, strategic frameworks, and investment due diligences. She is starting at Premier, a health consulting firm, later this year.
Thomas Tseng
Thomas Tseng is Principal of Sengo Insights, a market research agency with global capabilities extending from the U.S. to the Asia Pacific. With over 20 years of industry experience, Thomas is a seasoned market research professional and has amassed a long track record delivering actionable consumer insights for a diverse range of clients spanning Fortune 500 clients, non-profit organizations, academia, and government agencies.
