Board of Directors

LEAD Filipino’s Board of Directors is pivotal to the direction of our organization.  They provide guidance and stewardship, while offering hindsight (and insight) that informs the strategic and programmatic paths taken by our Organizers. The Board is composed of a small group of Filipina/x/o community leaders who have proven histories of organizing, engaging, and inspiring young Filipinas/xs/os in their area.

Dr. Jennifer Briscoe – Board Chair
Mental Health Professional
Chair

Jennifer Briscoe, LMFT (“Dr. B”), is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Administrator for Crisis Residential and Substance Use Treatment programs in San Jose. In this capacity, she provides executive oversight of services focused on mental health stabilization and substance use treatment for justice-involved adults, ensuring high-quality, trauma-informed, and recovery-oriented care.

A dedicated community leader, Jennifer has served as a Commissioner on the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women, where she advanced policies and initiatives promoting equity and opportunity. She is a 2017 New Leaders Council Silicon Valley Fellow and a 2022 graduate of the Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute’s Board Leadership Academy, reflecting her ongoing commitment to civic leadership and governance.

Jennifer’s service and leadership have been widely recognized. In 2019, she received Congressional Recognition from U.S. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and was honored as a Pinay Visionary by the Filipino American Historical Society of Silicon Valley. In 2021, she was named a Woman of Distinction by Assemblymember Ash Kalra. In 2024, she was recognized as one of the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Women of Influence. Most recently, in 2025, she received a Commendation from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, presented by Board President Otto Lee, in recognition of her decade of service on the Commission on the Status of Women.

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Meredith “Mer” Curry Nuñez
Northern CA College Promise Coalition (NCCPC)
Secretary

Meredith “Mer” Curry Nuñez is a long-time social justice advocate working at the intersection of operations, college access, and workforce development. She has worked for local and state nonprofits since 2000, is a product of all three of CA’s public higher education institutions, and is passionate about advancing systems change, education equity, and economic mobility. She joined the Northern California College Promise Coalition (NCCPC) in 2020. As the Executive Director, Mer works in partnership with organizations and leaders that are members of NCCPC, and those around the state, for collective impact to increase outcomes for multiply-marginalized underserved (MMU) students in college access, success, and career launch.

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Alexandria Chu
Google
Treasurer

Alexandria (Alex) Chu is a Program Manager for Google Maps. Prior to relocating to the Bay from her native New York City, Alex worked in Financial Services, focusing on investment banking compliance. As an alumnus of the leadership development organization, Prep for Prep, she had firsthand experience of the impact of access to opportunity and information. This drove her to establish free after-school computer science programs across the Bay, become the Filipino Googler Network’s (FGN) K-12 Global COO, and fly across the U.S. with Google’s CS First and Grow with Google programs to teach coding to students and adults. When Alex is not working or volunteering, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

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Merrell Botello
Nava Benefits

Merrell Botello is a people-first benefits strategist, community builder, and Partner at Nava Benefits. She brings employers, employees, and communities together by designing modern, inclusive benefits that work for real families and real life, while amplifying the voices of women and multicultural communities in the workplace. A proud Cal Poly Pomona alumna, she holds a B.S. in Business Administration, Management & Human Resources, is certified in Women in Leadership from UCR, and was named a “Leader of Influence in Her 40s” by the LA Business Journal. Outside of work, she’s a wife in a firefighter family and mom in a blended family of seven who loves camping, fishing, and eating her way through the world.

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Razelle Buenavista
Asian American Recovery Services-HR 360

Razelle Buenavista is the Divisional Director for Outpatient Services at HealthRIGHT 360, where she oversees the operations for Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. Razelle attended San Jose State University and College of San Mateo, where she studied Dance, Social Work, and Addiction Studies. For over two decades, Razelle has served the community as a social worker and youth advocate.

Most notably, she has been an advocate for ethnic specific and gender responsive services and is known for her work on the annual SISTER-to-SISTER: Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Women of Tomorrow Leadership Conference.  Razelle has been recognized for her commitment to empowering girls by the Asian American Women’s Alliance, San José City Council, former Congressman Michael Honda, and Assemblymember Alex Lee.

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With over a decade of experience in health policy and federal, state, and local safety net programs, Vaughn joined the AACI team in 2021 as the Director of Advocacy, where he is responsible for leading efforts to engage with elected officials and policymakers in support AACI’s various health, behavioral health, and wellness programs. Vaughn is also responsible for working with regional coalitions, organizational partners, and members of the community on efforts related to healthcare delivery, health equity, racial equity, social justice, and civic engagement. Prior to joining AACI, Vaughn served as Associate Director of Health Policy at Working Partnerships USA and worked in the Government Affairs Department at the California Primary Care Association (CPCA)—California’s statewide association of community health centers. Vaughn received both his bachelor’s degree in political science and his Master of Public Health with a focus on health policy and management from the University of California, Berkeley.