Michele McGeoy

Founder

With 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and founder of both technology startups and nonprofits. Michele is committed to closing the digital gap for women, blacks and latinos, through StrideLabs’s hands-on tech training and paid internships with non-profits. Michele’s first endeavor into the tech space was founder and developer of Tailored Solution a database application for law schools. Over 40% of the law schools around the country used her software, with clients including Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. She sold the company and with proceeds from the sale, founded a nonprofit to address the mounting digital divide by providing work opportunities to inner-city youth by running a data entry and web development enterprise. Michele then founded Solar Richmond and served as the Executive Director to bring the economic advantages of the emerging green economy to her community. Michele holds a degree in computer science.

Kandea Gandhi

Co-Founder

An accomplished general and program manager with over 15 years of experience, Kandea has a strong background in social enterprise management in the solar, workforce development and nonprofit sectors. A visionary pragmatist, Kandea thrives in organizational environments where she can tap into skill sets she’s developed over the years as a nonprofit manager, strategic thinker and leader to collaboratively steer the implementation of bold ideas. Before becoming a social entrepreneur, Kandea worked as a journalist and as a daily newspaper reporter in New York. She received her BA from UCLA and MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, and has received professional and academic awards for outstanding service and achievement. She serves as Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of California and President of the League of Women Voters Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville. Kandea was recognized by the League of Women Voters of California during Women’s History Month in 2022 and by the Black graduate student association in 2024 at Cornell University. Kandea strongly believes in the StrideLabs mission and is proud to be one of its cofounders.

Lhamo Sharzhur

Salesforce Administrator

Lhamo is a Salesforce Associate Consultant at StrideLabs who began her journey through the StrideLabs Salesforce Apprenticeship last year. She graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Science and Technology Studies and a minor in Psychology. She has helped streamline clients’ Salesforce systems in Nevada by leading data migrations, building automations, and creating reports that simplify daily operations. She specializes in Salesforce solutions for nonprofits, managing permissions, and working with tools like FormAssembly and Stripe. She’s developed donation pages, automated fundraising processes, and guided organizations transitioning from older systems, helping nonprofits better serve their communities. Beyond client work, Lhamo coaches Salesforce Business Analyst interns at StrideLabs, leading training sessions, creating materials, and managing projects to help cultivate new talent in the Salesforce ecosystem. She’s passionate about using technology to simplify processes, increase efficiency, and empower nonprofits to focus on their missions – a vision that aligns deeply with StrideLabs’ commitment to creating positive social impact through innovative solutions.

Alise Liu

StrideLabs Intern 

Alise was a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is currently attending Southern New Hampshire University, pursuing her BA in Game Art and Development. As a StrideLabs intern, Alise has been learning how to align her professional interests and talents with knowledge of Salesforce administration. She is also working with StrideLabs clients in using UX and UI principles to construct new websites and logo designs. She spends her free time illustrating and working with clients to fulfill artwork commissions.

Lana Smorodina

Board Director

Lana brings a significant understanding of traditional fundraising as well as business system analysis, optimization and environment support. Having spent the last 8+ years working at the JCCSF (with the Development team before moving into Business Systems); Lana’s time is divided between managing cloud-based SaaS applications; testing and optimizing enhancements to the Salesforce and MindBody; understanding and translating business requirements into platform features; designing and creating the underlying data structure and data flows to support apps and integrations; overseeing UAT/QA for on-going development; performing regression testing; creating and supporting fields, views, reports, dashboards, campaigns and other Salesforce.com objects and functions; monitoring project development; leading training through webinars and onsite sessions for staff and customers; optimizing client system performance, promoting client programs and implementing and maintaining policies and practices around client confidentiality. Lana is a Salesforce Administrator with an Advanced Certification. She is unmatched in her ability to thoroughly understand, document and test system changes.

Irina Hayrapetyan

Board Director

Irina Hayrapetyan serves as StrideLabs Salesforce expert. She is a 10XCertified Salesforce Business Analyst/Salesforce Administrator and is capable of creating and optimizing processes in Salesforce. Irina is a Trailhead enthusiast who is proficient in troubleshooting Salesforce processes and able to work with a variety of data importing tools. Passionate about helping others, Irina not only dedicates her time to StrideLabs but to other nonprofits as well.

Orrian Willis

Board Director

Orrian Willis is a Senior Workforce Development Specialist and Manager of the TechSF initiative at the City of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. As a first-generation college graduate, Orrian understands the barriers faced by many students and job seekers firsthand and keeps this perspective front of mind when working to solve for workforce system challenges. Today, Orrian and the TechSF team work diligently to create stronger Public-Private Partnerships which result in hundreds of job placements per year for under-represented job seekers into tech careers. These efforts have culminated in the development of a registered apprenticeship program that increases access to education and gainful employment for Californians, all while supporting the talent sourcing and upskilling needs of regional businesses. As a Board Member for StrideLabs, Orrian seeks to bring the skills, connections and strategies he has developed through working around the Bay Area, to the StrideLabs community. Although a semi-savvy traveler, he has always called the Bay Area his home – proudly.

ADVISORS

Mireily Backus

IT Leader at Cloud for Good

Lucas Peterson

Co-Leader at Serviceblazer User Group

Mairenys Matos

Enterprise Solution Engineer at Toast

Briana Stout

Senior Salesforce Administrator at EBSCO Information Services

Corliss Sims

Senior Program Architect at Salesforce

Deondra Harriott

Consultant

Brittney Mims

Salesforce Analyst at NEO Philanthropy