Marta Urquilla
President
Marta Urquilla is the founding president of Centri Tech Foundation. She brings over twenty-five years of experience leading solutions to strengthen the lives of low-income people and communities of color. Previously, she was chief program officer at Education Design Lab, directing new models to connect education to the future of work. As deputy director at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University, she co-led the center’s establishment as a vehicle for driving impact at scale. Marta served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and as Senior Advisor for Innovation at AmeriCorps. She launched the first Social Innovation Fund in the U.S. government, a model adopted across federal agencies.
An Echoing Green Fellow, Marta is a social entrepreneur who has worked nationally and locally to design human-centered solutions. She created One Economy’s Digital Connectors, a national program to connect low-income youth and communities to the digital economy, and founded Sister to Sister/Hermana a Hermana, an organization to build the leadership capacity of girls and young women of color in Washington, DC. Other community development models have focused on improving public health outcomes through community organizing and policy change, facilitating youth-led solutions to neighborhood safety, and advocating for equity in housing and education on behalf of children, youth and families. She serves on the board of Urban Alliance, a national workforce development organization. Marta is a graduate of Duke University.
John Horrigan
Senior Fellow
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Our Team
Board of Directors
Kendra Hills
Program Director, Digital Advancement Initiatives
Kendra Hills leads the Centri Tech Foundation’s digital advancement initiatives, which focus on using technology and data to drive economic opportunity for individuals and communities. She is an urban planner dedicated to strengthening the connection between technology, cities, data and design through an ethical and analytical lens. She is passionate about leveraging data and civic innovation to help cities solve some of their most pressing challenges. As a Future of Cities Fellow at Econsult Solutions, Center for Future Cities in Philadelphia, she focused on smart city projects, conducted market research, and authored articles on topics such as electric vehicles, infrastructure funding, and big data in city government.
Kendra served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, where she helped launch the community-led project Laboratorio de Innovación to promote economic autonomy for young women in partnership with Plan Internacional. Prior to her Peace Corps service, Kendra worked as a Housing and Client Support Specialist at The Austin Resource Center for the Homeless in Texas, where she leveraged client data to improve resource allocation and case management services.
Kendra holds a Master's degree in City and Regional Planning with a concentration in Smart Cities from the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a full tuition merit scholarship.
Rey Ramsey
Chair
Clyde Edwards
Member
District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development
Wendell Brown
Member
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David Saunier
Senior Vice President, Centri Life
David Saunier leads the development of Centri Life, a national digital services platform designed to help low-income people build wealth, improve their health, and maximize educational and career opportunities.
David has spent much of his career working in service of low-income and under-served populations. A degree in Architecture led him to one of the nation’s most respected organizations working in the field of low-income housing, the Enterprise Foundation (now Enterprise Community Partners). As Director of Online Services, he maximized the burgeoning World Wide Web to fulfill the organization’s mission and contribute to its legacy, ultimately producing one of the most respected and used community development websites and transforming the way in which Enterprise executed its work.
Building on that success, David went on to co-found One Economy Corporation in 2000. A tech-led, anti-poverty organization dedicated to promoting the power of the internet to improve people’s lives and help them join the economic mainstream, One Economy began its work in dozens of cities around the U.S. and grew its impact to reach a total of 17 countries. Over the course of David’s 13-year tenure, and eventually under his leadership, One Economy’s award-winning online information and tools, including thebeehive.org, were used more than 25 million times by people all over the world.
Following his tenure at One Economy, David went on to serve as partner and creative director of two design and technology agencies, based in Baltimore and New York. He co-founded the for-profit Centri Tech to connect U.S. households to the transformative potential of technology.
David holds a BS in Architecture from the University of Maryland where he graduated with honors.
Join Our Team
Analyst
Start: Spring 2024 | Fully-Remote
Compensation: $18/hour, undergrad or equivalent, 12 weeks
Graduate Data Analyst
Start: Spring 2024 | Fully-Remote
Compensation: $20-25/hour, graduate or equivalent, based on experience 12 weeks
Steven Teplitz
General Counsel
Steven Teplitz serves as General Counsel to the Centri Tech Foundation, and Chief Operating Officer of Centri Tech, CTF’s affiliated for-profit. He has a wide range of professional experience, including work as a law firm associate, as Senior Counsel in AOL’s legal department, as Associate General counsel at Time Warner Inc., and Senior Vice President at Time Warner Cable. In the public sector, Steven served as a legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate, and as an attorney-advisor at the Federal Communications Commission.
Steven holds a JD from the George Washington University Law School and a BA in Government from Colby College.
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Michael Staples
Head of Finance and HR
Michael Staples oversees the treasury, corporate governance, compliance, and administrative functions of the Centri Tech Foundation. He is a Certified Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis Professional and a graduate of Liberty University. In addition to impact investing and affordable housing related private equity, his professional experience comprises a variety of industries including technology consulting and telecom products manufacturing, primarily in executive management level positions within start-up and growth stage companies. He has a passion for impact and mission-oriented ventures and specializes in enterprise systems, financial modeling and optimizing organizational infrastructure for scalability and operational efficiency.
Keara Rodriguez
Program Intern Analyst, 2024-2025
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Janna Sakson
Managing Director, Content Creation and Curation
Janna Sakson directs content development for Centri Life, a digital services platform designed to help low-income people build wealth, improve their health, and maximize educational and career opportunities.
Janna has devoted her working life to the study, teaching, and practice of writing, with an eye to helping people improve their lives. Prior to joining the Centri Life team, she taught writing and literature at public and private colleges and universities including SUNY Purchase and Syracuse University; at middle schools including Bi-Cultural Day School; and at a pre-K through post-grad reading program designed to help new, struggling, and advanced readers. Eventually she transitioned to creating and managing educational and informative content for audiences of students, teachers, parents, extended families, youth organizations, adult learners, and others, with organizations including Weekly Reader, Adweek, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She also volunteered with Girls Write Now, Vera House, and Sunrise Senior Living.
Janna holds a bachelor’s degree in writing from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in writing from Goddard College.