Board of Directors

Dan Cardinali is president and CEO of Independent Sector, the only national membership organization that brings together a diverse set of nonprofits, foundations, and corporations to advance the common good.

Before joining IS in 2016, Dan served on the IS Board of Directors and several IS member committees. He also led IS member, Communities In Schools, the nation’s largest and most effective dropout prevention organization, for 12 years after working in other positions at the organization. As a thought leader in the field of public education, Dan was credited with fostering the growing national trend toward community involvement in schools through partnerships with parents, businesses, policymakers, and local nonprofit groups. As the president and CEO of IS, he believes strongly in the power of nonprofits, foundations, and other organizations to work collaboratively to improve life and the environment for individuals and communities around the world. Dan is known for his commitment to performance management to drive evidence-based programs and high impact organizations.

Early in this career, Dan worked as a community organizer in Guadalajara, Mexico organizing a squatter community to secure land rights, running water, and public education. He then returned to Washington, DC for a research fellowship at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Dan was a 2007 Annie E. Casey Children and Families Fellow, serves on the board of Child Trends and the advisory boards of Harvard Business Schools’ Social Enterprise Initiative, the Conference Board’s Center on Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy, and Project Evident. He is also a trustee of The Fetzer Institute. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University.

Mark has over 25 years experience building teams and growing organizations with a focus on using data and analytics to improve business results and to create new technology products. He has built and led teams of product managers, UX designers, and data scientists in rapidly growing tech companies with data intensive products.

Mark was previously Senior Vice President of Product and Business Planning at DreamBox Learning, a leading K-8 digital math platform. He has also held senior roles at Applied Predictive Technologies and Accenture. He holds a BS in Physics with Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rhonda is a specialist master with Monitor Institute by Deloitte where she co-leads the impact measurement program. She has more than a 15 years of consulting experience in environmental and social issues and extensive experience in rating and standards development for financial and non-financial metrics. Rhonda holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Institute for Labor and Employment.

Kelly is a committed social innovator. Previously she served as Vice President/Chief Program and Strategy Officer at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) where she lead policy innovation, evaluation, grantmaking and the early capital aggregation pilot. Prior to EMCF, she co-founded Leadwell Partners and New Profit Inc., and held senior leadership positions in nonprofit organizations, and served on several foundation and social sector boards and advisory committees. Kelly currently serves as a Leap Community Ambassadors and is a member of Results for America’s Invest in What Works Federal Standard of Excellence Advisory Committee. A graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Fitzsimmons holds an MBA from Boston University.

Archie Jones has spent more than 20 years leading and maximizing the impact of high-growth, innovative enterprises in the private and social sectors. Mr. Jones currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer of NOW Corporation (NOW).

In the social sector, Mr. Jones has served as a Partner at New Profit and a board member of Year Up National. He currently serves as a board member of the Taly Foundation; the Mickey Leland Kibbutzim Foundation; First Choice Credit Union and is also a founding board member and Vice Chairman of Year Up Greater Atlanta (YUGA).

Over the last two decades, Mr. Jones has led private equity, privately-held and publicly-traded companies and has served on the Board of Directors of several corporate and non-profit organizations. Mr. Jones is a Certified Public Accountant. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University and is a graduate of Morehouse College.

Ms. Petty brings to board service the expertise of combining technology and her vast experience across industries and countries in the world of global finance and audit, especially in highly regulated industries. As a trusted advisor to company presidents, especially those in highly regulated industries, she has managed their risk and audit functions and liabilities, her results include issue free compliant auditing and dramatic reductions in payroll– upwards of 40% across all business sizes, structures and international footprints.  

Experience has broadened Ms. Petty’s regulatory background beyond the U.S.  She led the external audit activity for 13 entities under US GAAP rules, IFRS, and Mexican GAAP principles. Under her leadership, she reduced audit time 50% which led to $172K in audit cost savings for her company.  She is fluent in English, Spanish and Dutch having experience in the Dutch Caribbean, the Netherlands, as well as having managed others in Puerto Rico, Mexico and Panama.

Ms. Petty graduated summa cum laude from St. John’s University with a Master’s in Business Administration in Finance and was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma honors society.  She has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration in Accounting from Hofstra University.  She’s a member of OnBoard, the leading authority and catalyst for women in the boardroom for Georgia companies and was in their board development group. Ms. Petty enjoys traveling, watching sports and facilitating marriage workshops with her husband. They live in Charlotte North Carolina.

Paul is the Northwest’s leading expert on activating social change agents and a global thought leader on how individuals can be the most effective philanthropists. He is the Founding President of Social Venture Partners International—a global network of thousands of social innovators, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and business and community leaders that fund and support social change agents in nearly 40 cities and 8 countries. In 2011 and 2012, he was named one of the “Top 50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector” by The NonProfit Times, and in 2013, was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Future in Review. In 2015, he received the 2015 Microsoft Alumni Integral Fellow Award.

Idara is a results-oriented, decisive, and seasoned executive with 20 years of broad-based experience leading strategy, operations, marketing, change management and partnership development in high-profile nonprofit, for-profit, and state/federal organizations. She possesses extensive experience and knowledge in healthcare policy and the intersection of public health and primary care. Prior to her current role as Senior Vice President for Partner Success and Strategy at DispatchHealth, Idara worked as VP & Chief Growth Officer at Adfinitas Health, Founder & Principal of Public Sector Strategies LLC, and Chief of Staff & VP of Communications & Partner Development at Counterpart International. During the Obama administration, she served as Director of Budget & Performance and later as Chief Investment Officer at the Corporation for National and Community Service.