Team
Frank Liu
Founder
Reconciling his multi-layered identities ignited Frank's passion for justice-focused brand identity work. His love for visual communications came out of necessity when he drew to communicate with other kids in middle school because he was not able to speak English. Frank grew up in an immigrant Christian family from Taiwan. He studied art in college, came out, moved to New York City to pursue a career as a painter and worked as an advertising Art Director.
Just like people, every organization has a unique set of complex identities. Figuring out how to simplify them into a unifying identity that’s clear and authentic is what fuels Frank.
Frank is an award winning creative strategic thinker with over 35 years of experience. He has done work for for-profits and nonprofits including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Chase, American Express, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, KinderCare, Hennessy, Robin Hood Foundation, Fountain House, SAGE, Breaking Ground, CUNY (City University of New York), NYC Affordable Housing, New American Leaders, FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology, Easterseals, Capalino, Women’s Democracy Lab, ParentChild+, NPR, Leading for Children, Womankind, to name just a few.
As the founder of the Dinner Guys Giving Circle, he and his friends fund under-resourced AAPI LGBTQ+ organizations. He was named by AAPIP (Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) as one of the top 25 Leaders in Action.
He studied at Cornell University and School of Visual Arts. He is a former board member of the Stonewall Community Foundation. He currently serves on the Board of SeaChange Capital Partners. He has exhibited his art globally and is an avid lover of contemporary art.
Dr. Yasmene Mumby
Strategy. Storytelling.
Purpose-driven teams invite Dr. Yasmene Mumby and her firm, The Ringgold, to consult and collaborate on their communications and equity initiatives. She reserves select space to coach (mostly) women in leadership roles who want to thrive yet are burning out, stretched thin, and producing from a place of force instead of creating from a place of ease.
Dr. Mumby writes about leadership, culture, and wellbeing. She co-authored “Empowering School Leaders to Thrive” with the Principal Impact Collaborative. The research focused on holistic leadership development and the conditions school leaders need to manage their wellbeing. Her piercing essay Amplify Black Voices: Yoga, you can do better is assigned reading in several yoga teacher trainings. She created the NPR hosted audiodocumentary, Higher Purpose, about an organization that supports people with legal system records to gain livable wage employment in Baltimore. Her sound art piece Ahimsa is an audiomemoir on yoga, wellness, and Black Lives. Creative Capital featured her upcoming audio project Daughters of the Yam and the Mothers they Become on their On Our Radar list.
She began her career teaching over 14 years ago in her hometown, Baltimore. Frustrated by the inequities impacting the achievement and wellbeing of students and teachers every day, she channeled her deep grief in schools as a trained Organizer through the Industrial Areas Foundation. Yasmene led numerous advocacy and organizing victories with over 3,000 parent, teacher, and student leaders, from securing filtered lead-free water for students to organizing teachers in an unprecedented contract negotiation to stopping $150 million in operational budget cuts to securing up to $1 billion to rebuild schools.
Yasmene's completed over 1500 hours of training in vinyasa, meditation, yin, and prenatal yoga and teaches with HealHaus and Ompractice.
A graduate of the McDonogh School, Yasmene earned her Bachelor’s in International Studies and Master’s in Teaching from the Johns Hopkins University, a JD from University of Maryland School of Law and a Doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Thomas Palatucci
Strategy, Operations, and Finance
Thomas started his career in banking and rose to the position of Vice President, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, at Citicorp/Citibank, N.A. After 10+ years in the for-profit sector, Thomas decided to apply his business skills in the non-profit world, initially at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Over time, his role expanded to include clinical operations and Thomas eventually served as administrator for several ambulatory care sites in the New York metropolitan area. In this capacity, his responsibilities included budgets, new programs and facilities, human resources, legal affairs, and regulatory compliance.
At Columbia University in the City of New York, Thomas was Chief of Administration for Columbia Health, providing health services to the students of the university and nearby affiliated schools. Included in this role was responsibility for the student health insurance plan. Thomas oversaw the transition to the Affordable Care Act and negotiated coverage, networks, and pricing with insurance carriers.
Thomas later joined The Bronx Defenders as Chief Operating Officer. The Bronx Defenders is a model public defense and legal services program recognized across the United States and abroad. In this capacity, Thomas also served as Chief Financial Officer working closely with the board, senior managers, and the finance team on revenue forecasting, grants administration, and financial reporting. Thomas also oversaw the organization’s retirement plan and managed the transition to a new fiduciary agent.
Most recently, Thomas returned to healthcare and served as Vice President of Operations for Planned Parenthood Mid-Hudson Valley, based in Poughkeepsie, New York with several locations in the surrounding area. Thomas and his team introduced transgender medical services, providing a local resource for this community, and also piloted the introduction of telemedicine.
In addition to a Batchelor of Arts from Rutgers University, Thomas holds
a Master in Business Administration from Columbia Business School, Columbia University, and a Certificate of Health Care Management from New York University’s School of Continuing Education. Thomas is a member of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
Larenz Brown
Writing. Strategy.
Larenz is a a lifelong writer, a proponent of human-centered design, and a believer in the power of a sociological approach to identify and solve organizational problems. He has experience building brands from the ground up, b2b and b2c marketing, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) leadership, internal comms strategy, and organizational design. He has worked at innovative tech companies including Openbox, Rhino, and MANTL.
He also headed up DEIB committees at Rhino and MANTL and built out DEIB programming and initiatives. Larenz truly understands the power of combining storytelling with products that truly democratize access to essential resources.
Larenz graduated from New York University with a degree in sociology and creative writing. He’s an experimental poet, a dog person, a secret cat person (as of recent), an avid reader, and a soccer fan. When he’s not working, he’s spending time with family and friends and writing silly
little poems about life’s big things.
Dreamers House
Our Creative Content Production Partner
The Dreamers House is a visionary collective of writers, performers, shooters, editors, artists and creators gathered for a combination of community and opportunity. They offer an authentic and unique creative voice and perspective to assure DEIB is at the center of every project. The Dreamers develop, produce, and distribute dynamic content —including video, audio and photo production—for social media, digital campaigns, events/environmental experiences and more.
Alex Morse
side•sea - Our Digital Agency Partner
Alex is the CEO and Co-Founder of our digital agency partner, side•sea. We collaborate on website design and development, fundraising strategy, and software and app development.
Alex has 13+ years of experience in business development, leadership, and event production & marketing. In late 2012, Alex helped launch a nonprofit, and shortly thereafter, developed and co-founded a fundraising application called Hopsie that today helps over 1200 organizations fund-raise online worldwide. In 2015, he launched side•sea, a full service digital agency serving nonprofits. Since 2012, Alex has dedicated himself to innovation in the nonprofit sector, with a heavy emphasis on leveling the playing field between non & for-profit organizations.
Craft & Commerce - Our Integrated Marketing and Media Partner
Craft & Commerce is a modern digital marketing and paid media agency serving nonprofits and purpose-driven organizations, with a track record of delivering smarter, more agile campaigns that yield meaningful, measurable outcomes.
At C&C's core, they turn the knobs and pull the levers that power campaign success. But what’s mission critical in today’s dynamic, evolving media landscape isn’t just knowing how to push the buttons, it’s knowing when and why to push them, and which ones to push next. That is what truly sets them apart, and is the beating heart of the work that they do. Their clients have referred to them as a “force multiplier”— not simply an agency resource, but a strategic thought partner and dot connector in navigating the modern marketing era.
Brand Justice and C&C have partnered on many successful projects and we always deliver on our clients' "desired outcomes".