Meet new Board Member Brian Monje!
Brian may be Director and Senior Counsel for Netflix, but the impact of his early career days working in education and youth development never left him. The passion for empowering and developing youth recently brought him to LAEP’s Board of Directors.
Brian’s career started with a lot of exploration: Consulting. Teaching English in Brazil. Working with the Brazilian Ministry of Education on their English language curriculum. Creating and implementing youth development programming in Chicago, where work included service-oriented projects, starting the city’s first hip hop arts program for youth, and even helping to implement the restorative justice clinic that still operates today in Chicago public schools.
Brian really enjoyed his education and youth development roles, but Northwestern Law School was calling him. After graduation and some time at a large law firm, Brian jumped at an in-house counsel position at Google, where he found his professional sweet spot.
In eight years at Google, Brian scaled its in-house legal department during major company growth. Then Netflix tapped Brian to do the same thing for them, bringing Brian, his wife, and their two young sons to Los Angeles.
“Because of my experiences working in youth development and nonprofit, I still maintained interest in that area. I wanted to get back into it. Mentors of mine mentioned that being a board member is a way to maintain a connection to that world while still maintaining your current career.”
Brian researched LA-area nonprofits and decided LAEP’s work was a good fit for his interests. He also appreciated the diverse professional makeup of the organization’s Board.
Brian is looking forward to being a member of the Board’s Fundraising Committee, an area he doesn’t know much about but is eager to learn. “Fundraising is so important, because you can’t do the important work if you don’t have the funds to do it.”
As LAEP grows and evolves, and as the world continues to change, Brian hopes his professional skillset will be valuable to have on the organization’s Board. “I hope to share a unique perspective on how to manage change and make the organization more adaptable to both internal and external forces that might bring about change. It’s about the ability to grow and adapt but still hold tight to your core values and stay true to your mission.”
Thank you, Brian!