Board of Directors – re:imagine/ATL

MEET OUR BOARD

Brendan Doherty

Brendan is a recovering lawyer and former diplomat whose career spans six continents at the highest levels of private, public, and nonprofit sectors.

This cross-sector experience is his biggest strength: striking valuable alliances. His partnerships have helped diverse clients grow business, raise capital, and earn media. From the common to the unconventional, he’s united the Vatican with impact capitalists, platinum artists with nextgen wealth holders, African governments with Fortune 50 tech companies, and ex-warlords with civil rights nonprofits. Today he’s managing partner of KNGDM Group, a real estate development company leveraging financial and cultural capital to equitably revitalize communities. He cofounded Forbes Impact, an influential community and media group in Forbes Media focused on positively transforming capitalism. He’s also the founder of Big & Chewy, a business strategy and growth agency, and Inward Point, an experiential marketing agency. He’s an Advisor to the Lela Goren Group, a women-led real estate development company; an Executive Producer to the show One City One Block; a Founding Partner of the Laudato Si’ Challenge, a Vatican-backed impact investing nonprofit; and the board chair of Re:Imagine/ATL.

Brendan leads with heart and scales with mind. He lives in Atlanta with his fiancé, y’all.

Linnea Geiss

Linnea is the Chief Operating Officer, PDI Software. Linnea joined PDI in 2018 and brings over 15 years of global experience spanning operations, investing, strategy and corporate development. Linnea oversees all product management and professional services operations and is responsible for developing and executing strategies and offerings to drive growth and competitive positioning across global markets.

Prior to joining PDI, Linnea served as an independent adviser to several private equity firms and management teams. She also spent several years in operating roles with Radiant Systems, as a venture capitalist with Arcapita and most recently served as head of Strategy and Corporate Development for NCR Corporation. Linnea is actively involved in the Atlanta community and serves on the Board of Directors for Venture Atlanta and re:Imagine/ATL.

Tyler Edgarton

Tyler has nearly 30 years of experience in the Atlanta real estate market. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in Real Estate and Accounting and a minor in Finance.

After graduation Tyler joined the Price Waterhouse’s Atlanta Real Estate Taxation Group. During that time he attained the CPA designation. Tyler left public accounting for real estate in 1992.

In 2012, Tyler Edgarton, John Raulet and Paul Raulet acquired their first property to use as a facility specifically for movie and television production. http://mailingavenuestageworks.com

Mailing Avenue Stageworks has been home to Major feature films (Last Vegas, Divergent, Insurgent) and television shows (Necessary Roughness, MacGyver)

Tyler and his partners have now expanded the Stageworks platform to 3 stages totaling nearly 400,000 sf.: Mailing Avenue Stageworks (Grant Park), Eastside Stageworks, (Conyers), Westside Stageworks (Fulton Industrial).

Tyler is also the financial partner behind GA PropSource https://gapropsource.com/GA-Prop-Source a 55,000 sf Hollywood style prop house that has been open since 2014.

Tyler is on the board of multiple organizations that serve the entertainment industry: Georgia Studio and Infrastructure Alliance, Atlanta Film Festival and Atlanta Film Society, Lifecycle Building Center, and Reimagine/ATL.

Cara Elizabeth Yar Khan

Cara is an entrepreneurial humanitarian and disability advocate who has excelled the past decades in an invigorating career, spanning ten countries.

Her many years with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) started in Private Sector Partnerships. When she also took on the role of disability focal point during the Earthquake Emergency Recovery Operation in Haiti it launched a successful public speaking career.

With a masters degree from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Cara is gifted in languages, fluent in Spanish, conversational in basic Mandarin Chinese and has working knowledge of French and Portguese. Born in India and raised in Canada in a multi-ethnic family of Indian Muslim, British Anglican and Chinese Buddhist immigrants.

At the age of 30, Cara was diagnosed with a rare muscle wasting disease, called HIBM that leads to quadriplegia. Since then she has used her platform to break glass ceilings. As part of her advocacy work, she is also producing a documentary film and writing her first memoir.

Today Cara lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband, U.S. Army SSG. (Ret.) John Masters and Southern cat, Bubba.

Cheryl Naja

Cheryl Naja is the Director of Pro Bono and Community Service for the law firm of Alston & Bird and has served in her current role for over fifteen years. Cheryl is one of the co-founders of GAIN, the Georgia Asylum & Immigration Network, where she serves as the co-chair of the Advisory Board. She is an active member of the Atlanta Pro Bono Roundtable, the Atlanta Immigration Working Group, Advisory Board of the GA PATENTS Program, Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta, United Way of Great Atlanta’s Public Policy and Advocacy Committee and on the Global Corporate Leadership Board of United Way Worldwide. She also serves on the boards of HOPE Atlanta, an organization that provides stability by addressing homelessness, and re:Imagine/ATL, an organization dedicated to developing the next generation of digital storytellers. Cheryl serves on the GO Team for Paul H. Dunbar Elementary School, an Atlanta Public School. She is a Past-President of the Corporate Volunteer Council of Atlanta and a proud graduate of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Regional Leadership Institute’s Class of 2016. A graduate of Berry College, Cheryl is a former high school teacher and began her legal career as a law librarian.

Jewel Burks Solomon

As Head of Google for Startups in the United States, Jewel Burks Solomon works to level the playing field for diverse startup founders and communities by connecting them with the best that Google’s products, skills, and people have to offer.

In addition to her role at Google, Jewel is an advocate for representation in and access to the technology industry. She currently serves as Managing Partner at Collab Capital, an investment fund to connect Black founders to the financial and social capital they need to build profitable businesses. From 2013 to 2016 Jewel was CEO and co-founder of Partpic, a startup that was acquired by Amazon, which streamlines the purchase of maintenance and repair parts using computer vision. Before founding Partpic, Jewel served in management, enterprise sales, and strategic diversity roles at McMaster-Carr Industrial Supply and Google, Inc.

Jewel is a native of Nashville, TN and graduate of Howard University. She is a member of the 2019 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.

Lisa Ferrell

Lisa is the current Past President of the Georgia Production Partnership, serves on the Board of Directors for Film Impact Georgia, is the Director of Education for the Milledgeville Film Festival and serves on the Advisory Board of ASIFA South.

Currently, Lisa works as a Producer / PM in emerging technology, i.e., Motion Capture, Volumetric Capture, AR / VR for Georgia State University’s Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII).

Lisa Ferrell has worked in series and tele-film development for such companies as CBS, Lifetime Television/Hearst Entertainment, NBC and TBS. While at motion capture studio Giant Studios/Profile, she was involved in the post production of films that include New Line Cinema’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and Sony Imageworks animated holiday feature “Polar Express” directed by Robert Zemekis and starring Tom Hanks. She was also instrumental in creating the pilot episode for the long-running “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” series for TBS among many other projects.

Lisa has served as Executive Producer for several of Atlanta’s foremost post production, motion capture and VFX facilities, including the Toronto-based SPIN VFX, and has helped create creative for some of the foremost advertising agencies and brands in the world. After starting Lisa Ferrell Productions in 2016, Lisa worked on numerous projects that for such clients as J Walter Thompson Inside New York, Hartsfield Jackson Airport, CARE USA, Toys R Us, music videos, a number of short indie films and concept pitch projects.

Patti Davis

Patti’s roots in Atlanta run deep. Moving to Atlanta from Florida in 1992, she worked with Piedmont Hospital in 1994 as part of their Development and Fundraising efforts and served as the Partnership and Public Relations Director for the Atlanta Foundation for Public Spaces in 2011, which produces the Chastain Arts Festival, the Buckhead Spring Arts & Crafts Festival, the Festival on Ponce and the Piedmont Park Summer Arts & Crafts Festival. In 2017, she chaired the Inaugural Gala for re:imagine/ATL and raised $40,000 in one night.

In 2012 Atlanta Movie Tours was created by an idea Patti had that was shared with her business partner, Carrie Sagel Burns. They launched their first tour on March 31, 2012, with no outside investors and to date the company has welcomed more than 70,000 guests to their movie location tours.

Patti and her husband, Eric, have lived in Adair Park since 2004.

Pola Changnon

Pola Changnon is the general manager of Turner Classic Movies (TCM). In her role, Changnon oversees the day-to-day operations of TCM, including all strategy, business development, marketing, branding, digital initiatives, programming and on-air campaigns. Changnon is charged with growing and developing the TCM brand by implementing strategic, innovative and revenue-generating business initiatives that secure the network as a preeminent lifestyle brand. Changnon’s oversight includes implementation of dynamic and immersive brand extensions such as TCM Classic Film Festival and the TCM Classic Cruise, growing cross-platform digital opportunities, development of TCM’s first podcast, The Plot Thickens, and cultivating the network’s passionate fan base.

Prior to her current role, Changon served as senior vice president of marketing, studio production and talent for TCM where she oversaw brand management, creative vision and design, as well as strategic marketing, talent recruitment and studio production. Changnon was responsible for the development of strategic, integrated marketing and social media plans and lead the creation of all image and design of experiential elements, products, premiums and marketing for TCM’s brand extensions such as the TCM Classic Film Festival, TCM Wine Club, and TCM Backlot, official fan club of the network. She also oversaw all of TCM’s studio shoots for on-air hosts, guest programmers and original specials, including the creative process from conception to execution of each production.

Previously, Changnon served as vice president, brand creative director and on-air for TCM where she was responsible for managing and directing all on-air production and oversaw all creative brand management for the network. Changnon spearheaded the creation of the network’s new brand campaign and tagline, “Let’s Movie,” which highlights TCM as the ultimate movie lover destination.

Before joining TCM, Changnon was vice president of on-air and executive producer of program production at Cartoon Network. In this capacity, she was responsible for all on-air production for both Cartoon Network and Boomerang. Changnon came to Turner from San Francisco-based Colossal Pictures, where she was a producer. She also consulted on projects for Nickelodeon, CBS, Viacom and Hanna-Barbera. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology from Duke University and a master’s degree in film studies/screenwriting from Northwestern University.

Richard Dunn

Richard Dunn is an Atlanta native, serial entrepreneur, and driver of Atlanta’s arts & culture scene. In 1998, Dunn co-founded Groovement Inc., an artist management and event production company that focused on the soul scene and was the launching pad for the career of four-time Grammy winning vocalist India.Arie, singer/songwriter Anthony David and soul singer Donnie. His entrepreneurial endeavors include, co – owner of Sugarhill an legendary live venue in Underground Atlanta. The Muddy Water Group, a creative services and live concert production/promotion company, and founding partner of the popular Atlanta restaurant Tom Dick and Hank. Richard also serves as the Vice President of Business Development at The Atlanta Voice Newspaper, one of Atlanta’s longest running African-American newspapers founded by his grandfather J.Lowell Ware.

Tirrell D. Whittley

Tirrell D. Whittley is a filmmaker, entrepreneur and the visionary media executive leader of LIQUID SOUL. Since founding the company in 2001, it has grown into one of the nation’s leading brand marketing agencies specializing in advertising, marketing, social media, influencer marketing, branded content and publicity for entertainment, sports and corporate brands. Recognized as an expert in millennial and multicultural marketing, Mr. Whittley has become a trusted advisor for brands looking to find impactful ways to target consumers.

Under his leadership, LIQUID SOUL, has developed marketing and distribution campaigns for an astounding slate of films and television shows, including such legendary properties and blockbuster hits as Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, 42: The Jackie Robinson Story, War of the Planet of the Apes, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Fast & Furious 6, Black-ish, The Voice, EMPIRE, Power, and numerous others. To date, the agency has delivered results for over thirty #1 box-office films and more than 150 films that have generated over $3 Billion at the box office. The company’s corporate clients include such iconic brands as Salesforce, McDonald’s, Walmart, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Home Depot and AT&T.

As a filmmaker, Mr. Whittley executive produced the documentary film, COPWATCH which premiered during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Additionally, he is a producer of the Aretha Franklin music documentary film AMAZING GRACE and Executive Producer of the feature film BRIAN BANKS starring Aldis Hodge, Sherri Shephard, Greg Kinnear and Morgan Freeman. Mr. Whittley is currently working with MGM and BRON Studios on the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic RESPECT starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald and Mary J. Blige. RESPECT is set to be released theatrically in December 2020.

Among his many distinctions, Mr. Whittley is a 2019 NAACP Image Award Winner, member of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences, recognized as the Atlanta Business League’s “Entrepreneur of the Year”, Florida A&M University’s “School of Business & Industry (SBI) Hall of Fame” Inductee and is lauded among the Who’s Who in Atlanta and Atlanta Tribune’s “Top 25 Architects of Success”.

Mr. Whittley is a cum laude graduate of Florida A&M University, with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He is an ordained deacon in his church and resides in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two daughters.