Biography
Christa serves as a Coach and Consultant, Special Advisor to Stanford’s Center for Racial Justice, and as the Founder of Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY), the organization she created with incarcerated youth in 1998 with a Soros Justice Fellowship. Christa led FLY as its CEO for 22 years on its mission to partner with youth to unlock their potential, disrupt the pipeline to prison, and advance justice in California and beyond. While serving as FLY’s CEO, Christa completed Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management Program. In 2012, she was inducted as an Ashoka Fellow, one of the first in the field of Juvenile Justice in the U.S. In 2018, she was a Social Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University. In 2020, she co-founded the Leadership Transition Community (LTC) to build a community of social sector Founders and Long-Term CEOs to support one another through their leadership transitions. With LTC, Christa co-facilitates leadership cohorts and provides coaching to leaders and boards in various stages of transition. Christa earned a B.S. in sociology and law and society from UC Santa Barbara. She graduated with honors from Stanford Law School, and is a member of the California Bar. Christa brings to her work various perspectives she gained over the last two decades. As she built FLY, she was also a medical advocate for a husband with a chronic illness, an educational advocate for a daughter with numerous learning differences, and a coach and co-founder of a youth basketball program.
