LOS ANGELES, MARCH 5, 2023 – Outfest officially announced today the addition of seven new members to the Outfest Board of Directors. The new members include Angelica Ross, AJ Lee, B. Pagels-Minor, Garrett Morgan, Lucas Bailey, Sonia Mehta, and Yemi Adegbonmire.
From the boardroom to Broadway, Hollywood to Capitol Hill, Angelica Ross is a leading figure of success and strength in the movement for human rights advocacy focused on Transgender and racial equality. A fan favorite on FX’s award-winning hit POSE plus both the ninth and tenth seasons of Ryan Murphy’s FX hit American Horror Story. June 3, 2022 Angelica released her debut music video and single, ONLY YOU. Miss Ross recently announced her forthcoming untitled book and as she continues to blaze new trails, kick open doors, and build her own table with ample open seats.
AJ Lee is currently SVP, Growth at a marketplace technology startup. He has nearly a decade of experience building and leading sales, marketing, and operations teams at companies ranging in size from seed stage to some of the world’s largest ecommerce companies and has scaled startups from $0 revenue to $100M+ in the United States, EU, and Asia. In 2011, he completed a Program Fellowship at The White House with the Initiative on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, where he coordinated the first LGBTQ AAPI Youth Roundtable.
B. Pagels-Minor is an award-winning product strategist, podcast host, startup advisor and investor, executive coach, and a respected thought leader in agile technologies. B. is the first Black, trans VC lead and founder of DVRGNT Ventures. B.’s fierce drive to promote diversity in tech and impact authentic change continues to define their work and life outside of their work. B. gives back to various organizations by being the Vice Chair & Secretary on the Board of Directors at Howard Brown Health, Vice President & Secretary on the Board of Directors at the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, and Board of Directors of both the Northwestern Alumni Association and Outfest.
Garrett Morgan is currently Head of Global Strategy at Beyond Meat, a plant-based protein company on a world-changing mission to deliver real impact for human health, animal welfare, and the planet. In his role, Garrett helps set Beyond Meat’s long-term enterprise strategy; in addition, he supports Beyond Meat’s global offices in the Netherlands and China and leads strategic partnerships and initiatives, including new lines of business. Prior to joining Beyond Meat, Garrett was CEO of Half Past, an alcoholic beverages startup.
Lucas Bailey is a marketing attorney at Netflix, where he provides legal counsel for scripted dramas, comedy series, and events and festivals. Prior to Netflix, Lucas spent 8 years as an attorney at Peacock and NBCUniversal, where he handled such titles as Bel-Air, They/Them, and Queer as Folk, as well as supporting Universal Pictures’ video games business. Lucas also served for 3 years as co-chair of NBCUniversal’s Global Legal Diversity Committee, focusing on pipeline activities to recruit and mentor LGBTQ+ attorneys and attorneys of color. Lucas has also been a fundraiser, community builder, and “cocktail designer” for Lambda Legal in the LA community and is a co-founder of Lambda’s long-running “Summer Sendoff” event.
Sonia Mehta has worked in Media for close to 10 years with a focus on Business Strategy & Analytics. She currently works at The Walt Disney Company supporting Business Operations for Advertising across all platforms. In her past, she has led Strategy & Analytics teams at Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Paramount.
Yemi Adegbonmire is a top 100 Black Lawyer and a back-to-back finalist for LA Business Journal’s Nonprofit General Counsel of the Year Award. As a former legal executive at The Walt Disney Company, Yemi advised clients on regulatory issues arising from digital marketing, privacy, and global content distribution. As a filmmaker, Yemi won “Best Score” at the LA Web Fest in 2009 and produced her first short just before the pandemic. Yemi also served on the board of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and is a former member of GLAAD’s Los Angeles Leadership Council. Yemi currently sits on the advisory board of film preservation nonprofit Vidiots and is in her 5th year of service on Lambda Legal’s board of directors.
You can find the whole list of Outfest’s current Board of Directors here.
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Press@outfest.org