Felicia Appenteng is a Ghanaian-American executive with more than 15 years of experience in strategy, transformation and operations. Before becoming President and CEO, she worked as Program Architect at the Africa-America Institute, designing and co-creating programs across all four of AAI’s impact pillars, ensuring they deliver maximum impact.

She previously served as an Advisor to the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, where she worked focused on entrepreneurial ecosystems across growth markets. When Appenteng was the Vice President for the Gender Centers of Excellence at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), she spearheaded efforts to transform the Asia and Africa offices into independent, sustainable and connected entities within the ICRW affiliate network.

Before ICRW, Appenteng worked for IE University (formerly Instituto de Empresa) of Madrid as the founding Chair of the IE Africa Center and Managing Director of The IE Fund. She served as trustee of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Appenteng has a BA from Wesleyan University’s College of Letters with honors, and an MA in History from the City College of New York.

Dr. Cheryl Grills is a Clinical Psychologist with a current emphasis in Community Psychology. A President’s Professor and Full Professor in the Department of Psychological Science, she has been on the faculty of LMU for 36 years and is Founder and Director of its Psychology Applied Research Center.

Dr. Grills is a national Past President of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi). In her leadership role in the ABPsi, she was a founding member of the Alliance of National Psychological Associations for Racial and Ethnic Equity. She co-designed the racial stress and trauma Emotional Emancipation (EE) Circles—a community self-help model established by The Community Healing Network and implemented in partnership with the Association.

Dr. Grills served on the CA Reparations Taskforce, appointed by the Governor of CA (2021-2023) and is a commissioner on the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). She also serves as a Commissioner on the Los Angeles County Sybil Brand Commission for Institutional Inspections, which focuses on conditions and practices within County jails and correctional facilities. Most recently, Dr. Grills was appointed to the Governing Council of the Global Pan African Movement and is member of the International Planning Committee for the 8th Pan African Congress to be held in 2024. Dr. Grills has also recently been appointed as commissioner on the 400 Years of African American History Commission, a federal commission under the Department of the Interior.

Dr. Grills’ research interests, publications, and projects include African Psychology, African Centered models of treatment engagement with African Americans; community psychology; community mental health; mental health disparities; community organizing as a public health strategy; community defined mental health intervention strategies; positive youth development; and program evaluation.

Dr. Grills is regularly called upon as a keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant within the field of mental and behavioral health.

Enola G. Aird is an activist mother, and Founder, President Emerita, and Elder Griot
of Community Healing Network. Launched in 2006, CHN is the only organization focused exclusively on mobilizing Black people to heal from, and
extinguish, the root cause of anti-Blackness: the lie of white superiority and black inferiority.
Under Aird’s leadership, CHN put into place key initiatives to build the global grassroots
movement for freedom from the lie, including:
1. The annual celebration of Community Healing Days.
2. The Emotional Emancipation Circle self-help support group process; and
3. The Valuing Black Lives Global Emotional Emancipation Summit.
CHN is working to make 2021 to 2030 the Decade to Defy the Lie of Black Inferiority
and Embrace the Truth of Black Humanity—to put the issue of freedom from the lie at
the top of the agenda for Global Africa by the end of the year 2030. CHN’s contributions
have been recognized by the MacArthur Foundation through a 2021 Equitable
Recovery Grant. Aird is Co Lead of the Healing Cohort of the MacArthur
Foundation-supported Global Circle for Reparations and Healing, which is advancing
an international agenda for organizing, engagement, and advocacy for Africa and its
Diaspora. In that capacity, she has conceptualized and is organizing the Global Circle's
groundbreaking March 26-28, 2025, Accra II Summit on Centering Healing for Africans
and the Global African Diaspora in the Context of the African Union Theme of the Year
2025 on Reparations.
Among Aird’s publications are: “Recreating the Circle: A Collective Vision for Radical
African Healing in Community” (with Cheryl Grills, Evan Auguste, et, al.), forthcoming in
American Psychologist (2024); “Toward a Renaissance for the African American Family:
Confronting the Lie of Black Inferiority,” 58 Emory Law Journal, 7-21; (2008-2009);
“Breathe, Baby, Breathe: Clearing the Way for the Emotional Emancipation of Black
People” (with Cheryl Grills and Daryl Rowe), Journal of Cultural Studies, 16 (3) (2016);
and “African Psychology and the Global Movement for Freedom from the Lie of Black
Inferiority” (with Cheryl Grills and Patrick Frierson), Alternation Journal, 27, 1 (2020), South Africa.
Aird is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Barnard College, and earned her law degree from
Yale University, where she chaired the Yale Moot Court of Appeals. A former corporate
lawyer, she has worked at the Children’s Defense Fund and is a past chair of the
Connecticut Commission on Children. Born in the Republic of Panama of Caribbean
heritage, Aird attributes her vision, passion, and commitment to the movement for
emotional emancipation to stories passed down in her family about her maternal
great-grandfather, Samuel Alleyne, a loyal follower of the Jamaican Pan Africanist
Marcus Mosiah Garvey.