Condace Pressley is an award-winning journalist.  She is a two-time Hall of Fame member – inducted in 2019 into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters and in 2016 into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. 

As Director of Community Affairs for WSB-TV, Condace drives the Family 2 Family Project and leads the station’s community efforts across its broadcast platforms including WSB-TV and the company’s four radio stations. She’s executive producer of People 2 People on WSB-TV and interviews community leaders weekly during the People 2 People “One on One” segment.

Condace began her career in radio, first in Athens while studying journalism and political science at The University of Georgia and later in Atlanta at WGST, the Georgia News Network, WSB, KISS104.1 and B98.5.  For more than 30 years she’s hosted the Sunday morning public affairs program “Perspectives” where she’s interviewed hundreds of community and thought leaders.

The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication honored Pressley with the John H. Drewry Outstanding Young Alumna Award in 1992.  In 2015, The Grady College named Pressley to its Centennial Class of Journalism Fellows - the college’s highest honor.  She has been profiled by The HistoryMakers, the world’s largest African American oral video history archive for her significant contributions to media. Condace is a former President of both the National Association of Black Journalists (2001-2003) and Atlanta Association of Black Journalists (1991-1995).  She was the chapter’s 2012 Pioneer Black Journalist. She is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta.

Condace has passion for community and is strongly committed to the empowerment of women and girls.  Her volunteer efforts include service on the boards of the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Crime Stoppers Atlanta, Project Healthy Grandparents and Day 1 - The Alliance for Christian Media.   Condace loves travel and supports the arts.

Lovette Twyman Russell is a senior consultant with Coxe Curry & Associates. In this role, she provides strategic consultation to nonprofits to strengthen their capacity in the critical areas of board development, volunteer engagement, and fundraising. 

A native of Atlanta, Lovette is committed to community service. Passionate about children’s causes, she currently serves on the boards of Zoo Atlanta, GEEARS (Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students) and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation. 

Having chaired or co-chaired many of the city’s leading events, including the Mayor’s Masked Ball, the Atlanta History Center’s Swan House Ball, Zoo Atlanta’s The Beastly Feast, Park Pride’s 25th Anniversary Gala and the inaugural Grady Hospital Gala, she was named the 2012 Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. That same year, she received the 11Alive Boisfeuillet Jones Community Service Award and was named the Mary Caan Volunteer of the Year by the Lupus Foundation. Previously, both the YWCA of Greater Atlanta and Atlanta Woman Magazine recognized her as a Woman of Achievement. Lovette received the Trailblazer Award from the NAACP in 2013. Most recently, Lovette was honored by the naming of the emergency department at Hughes Spalding Hospital as the Lovette Twyman Russell Emergency Department.

A graduate of Spelman College, Lovette is an active alumna and currently serves on the College’s Board of Trustees. In addition, she chairs the Hughes Spalding Hospital Community Foundation and is a member of Buckhead Cascade City Chapter of The Links, Incorporated and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

An experienced triathlete, Lovette has completed a number of triathlon events, in addition to the Honolulu Marathon, and has trained groups of women and inner-city children to compete in triathlons.

Lovette and her husband, Michael Russell, CEO of H.J. Russell & Company, are the proud parents of two children—Michael, coordinator, Global Partnerships at National Basketball Association (NBA), and Benjamin, who is doing graduate studies at the University of South Carolina.

Michael Smith currently serves as Director of Youth Opportunity Programs and Executive Director of the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Alliance at the Obama Foundation. MBK Alliance leads a national call to action to build safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of color where they are valued and have clear pathways to opportunity. Michael was part of the team that designed and launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, and was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs for My Brother’s Keeper, managing the initiative and interagency Task Force at the White House.

Prior to joining the White House team, Michael was director of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), Senior Vice President of Social Innovation at the Case Foundation, and helped build national initiatives aimed at bridging the “digital divide.” Michael is an Atlantic Institute Racial Equity Senior Fellow and a member of Boys and Girls Clubs of America’s Alumni Hall of Fame, the highest honor bestowed by the organization.

www.obama.org/MBKA
@MBK_Alliance
@msmithDC

Paul Schmitz builds the collective leadership of organizations and communities to achieve greater social impact through his roles as Senior Advisor at The Collective Impact Forum and CEO of Leading Inside Out. He is also the author of Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up, and the former CEO of Public Allies, where he helped more than 5,000 diverse young adults begin careers working for community and social change. Paul is a faculty member of The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, was a social innovation advisor to the Obama White House, and has been named three separate years to The Nonprofit Times list of the 50 most influential nonprofit leaders in America. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife and five children.