Joanna Adler is Vice President of Intuition Productions, an independent feature film and television production company.  Prior to joining Intuition, she worked on the Sony Classics and John Calley film, The Jane Austen Book Club.  Her first job in the industry was at Revelations Entertainment, Morgan Freeman’s production company. While there she worked on the film 10 Items or Less and was involved with the development and launch of Clickstar, a digital entertainment service, founded by Intel and Revelations.

Joanna produced a documentary about homelessness in Los Angeles, Without a Home, and a theater show, The Mistakes Madeline Made.  Without a Home, screened as a work-in-progress at the 2009 Durango Independent Film Festival winning the Jury Commendation Award for Best Feature Documentary.

Hailing from New York, Hollywood is Joanna’s second career.  Previously, she worked for four years at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as manager of the outpatient Thoracic Service and at the New York Organ Donor Network.

Joanna’s interests extend well beyond the entertainment community.  She is actively involved in philanthropic endeavors including The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (running a marathon on their behalf), Hollywood Hill, Common Cause, Cure Autism, School on Wheels, and Los Angeles World Affairs Council.  She attended Georgetown University for three years, did a year stint at Yale University, and then graduated from NYU. 

The Honorable Linda J. Briskman was elected to the Beverly Hills City Council in March 2001. She served as Mayor in 2005. Prior to being elected as a council member, she was a City commissioner for 11 years.

Linda is a retired business executive with a 30-year professional career in the apparel industry. She has provided an active leadership role in many business, educational, civic, cultural and philanthropic organizations and groups. She has served as Chair/President of The Beverly Hills Education Foundation and The Maple Counseling Center.  

In 2006, former Mayor Briskman was honored in Sacramento by Assemblyman Paul Koretz as "Woman of the Year" for the 42nd Assembly District.  Linda and her husband Gary have resided in Beverly Hills for 30 years and have five children and two grandchildren.

Samantha Coker has spent most of her life cultivating a career that exists at the cross section of art and social change.  After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College, she began a career in the music industry. Always working with bands that have some social consciousness, she wove her way through the industry, touching almost every corner of it.

In 1999, Samantha was recruited by the Seattle based, Frank Geary/Paul Allen music museum, The Experience Music Project.  After spending three years managing their revenue, cash management, and financial database and reporting system, she left for The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). There she helped build new database systems and produce their annual Auction/Awards show fundraiser. This lead her to Seattle University, which pioneered one of the first Master’s Programs specifically for Non-Profit executives.

After receiving her degree at Seattle University, she moved to Los Angeles and has spent her time helping produce commercials and films. Samantha traveled to DR Congo in January with Lysa Heslov as part of Children Mending Hearts’ arts exchange between students at Inner-City Arts and the children in Congo.

Grant Heslov is the producer and co-writer of the George Clooney directed good night, and good luck, which was nominated for six Academy Awards.  Grant served as director and executive producer of the critically acclaimed series Unscripted, and was co-executive producer of K Street, both for HBO.  He also served as producer on the recently released film Leatherheads.  

Grant is currently directing the feature film The Men Who Stare at Goats.  Along with producing, writing, and directing, Grant has had a long career as an actor.  Some of his feature credits include roles in The Scorpion King, Dante's Peak, The Birdcage, Congo, and True Lies.

Founder & Executive Director Lysa Heslov was born in Savannah, Georgia.  After moving to Los Angeles, Lysa became a successful independent film producer. Lysa’s humanitarian efforts began with Hurricane Katrina when she and her husband opened their home for 5 months to a family who had lost everything in the hurricane.  She continued her support for causes raising $40,000 for cancer research after the death of her best friend and sister-in-law.

Lysa traveled to Darfur’s refugee camps in late 2007 where she led a kite-building workshop, which culminated in the first ever Darfur Kite Festival.  Her experiences in Darfur compelled her to create Children Mending Hearts, in an effort to use the creative arts to help children suffering from conflict.  In January 2009, Lysa traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to conduct an art exchange between at-risk children in the U.S. and their brothers and sisters in Africa. 

Lysa is studying for her Masters in Child Development.  She and her husband, writer/director/producer Grant Heslov, have two children.

Robert K. Maloney, M.D., MA (Oxon) is a former Rhodes Scholar and Summa Cum Laude graduate of Harvard University. He completed his education at Oxford University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Dr. Maloney was the first surgeon in western North America to perform LASIK surgery as part of the original FDA clinical trials. He is clinical professor of ophthalmology at UCLA and director of the Maloney Vision Institute in West Los Angeles, California.

He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, and has published more than 100 articles, abstracts, and reports in professional journals and has delivered more than 200 invited lectures on five continents.

Dr. Maloney has appeared frequently on television as the exclusive LASIK surgeon for the ABC hit series Extreme Makeover. He has been interviewed by the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, NBC's Extra, ABC's 20/20 and Prime Time Live, PBS's Life and Times, and CNN's The World Today. He has also been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers.

Joe Marchese is co-founder and President of SocialVibe, a social media company that empowers people to raise money for charity by interacting with and sharing brands on social networks. Prior to SocialVibe, Joe built the online media strategy division at a boutique management/consulting firm.  He developed and guided the group to provide Fortune 1000 clientele research and online strategy development focused on digital media.  Before consulting, Joe was a business analyst for Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster.com.

Joe is a well-known thought leader in the social media and advertising industry, writing weekly for MediaPost publications. He has also keynoted various digital advertising and media summits including, OMMA, iMedia, Digital Hollywood, American Association of Advertising Agencies, as well as having contributed to a number of national publications as an expert on new media, such as BusinessWeek, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Post and The Boston Globe.

Carson Meyer is a 10th grade student at Malibu High, a public school in Malibu, California.  At her school she started The "Lend A Hand" club, which helps to organize students to support causes they believe in through volunteerism and fundraising. To date, projects range from helping the National Adoption Day organization to volunteering at the Veteran's Administration. She recently traveled to Kenya, Africa where the young people of the Samburu tribe personally moved her. In November 2009, Carson received the Optimist Award for her community service. Her interests include fashion, photography, music and dance.

Carson is the Teen Advisor to the CMH Board of Directors.

Terry Wood is President, Creative Affairs and Development, CBS Television Distribution, a unit of CBS Corp.  In her position, Terry oversees all new program development and production for the most prolific distributor in television.

Terry spearheaded the development and production of Rachael Ray, talk show hosted by Food Network phenomenon and author, Rachael Ray, which won the 2008 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show.  Terry also oversees production of Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown, and shepherds brand extensions for these properties.

Before the 2006 merger of King World and CBS Paramount Domestic Television into CTD, Terry was President, Creative Affairs and Development for both companies.  She spearheaded the development, production and launch of Dr. Phil in 2002.  Terry was recognized as part of the team inducted with Entertainment Tonight into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2006.  She was chosen as one of TelevisionWeek's "12 to Watch" in 2005 and featured in The Hollywood Reporter's "Women in Entertainment: Power 100" list in 2006 and 2007.

Prior to joining Paramount, Terry served as Executive Director of Development at Harpo Entertainment, where she produced the award-winning special Dinner With Oprah as part of the launch of the Oprah Book Club.  Early in her career, Terry garnered multiple Emmy Awards for her work as a producer with CBS News.