Exploring the Sector: Panel Discussion and Q&A

This event is open to current UT Austin students only. Please register with your utexas email address to receive the Zoom link.

Dr. Ken Gladish is the retired President/CEO of the Seton Foundations in Austin Texas. Seton is an affiliate of the national Ascension Healthcare ministry. Ascension/Seton is the largest and most comprehensive non-profit hospital/healthcare provider in central Texas. At Seton Ken led fundraising, volunteer services, and endowment development for the entire Seton system. This work included annual, sustaining, capital campaign and charitable initiatives. In this work, Ken also served as acting leader for Seton’s mission and ethics efforts and related departments on several occasions. Thru four affiliated volunteer led foundations Ken helped engage more than a hundred volunteer directors and more than fifteen hundred direct service volunteers.

During a nonprofit leadership career spanning forty years, Ken has also served as President/CEO of two major community foundations ( Indianapolis, IN & Austin, TX ); a state based NEH affiliated humanities council ( Indiana Humanities); and a major national nonprofit ( YMCA of the USA). During his career Ken has served as a volunteer, director, trustee, committee member and donor with many non-profit organizations at the local, state, national and international levels. He continues this work as a volunteer in his retirement. As Adjunct Professor Ken continues to teach at the LBJ School and its RGK Center at the University of Texas.

Fedora Galasso is the Executive Director of the Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS) where she leads the organization in strengthening services for Texas youth and young adults. Prior to joining TNOYS she was the Southern Regional Director for Young Invincibles, a national, nonpartisan policy research and advocacy organization committed to amplifying the voices of young adults and expanding their economic opportunity.

Fedora has extensive state government experience. At the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, she managed statewide programs that fostered public and private partnerships to expand access to health, education and economic supports for Texans. At the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Fedora worked as a senior policy analyst and Child Protective Services investigator and legal liaison. She has also worked at Ascend at the Aspen Institute and the Texas Council on Family Violence, researching, implementing, and evaluating family economic security programs.

Fedora graduated with dual master’s degrees in Public Affairs and Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin where she specialized in social and economic policy with a focus on innovative child and family social policy and programs. She received her bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University – Commerce. Fedora was born and raised in Guyana, South America, and has lived in Texas for the past twenty years.

Dulari Gandhi has spent over a decade working in social impact, with particular passion for strategy and communications. Currently, she is a program officer for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation focused on poverty alleviation in Central Texas and Boston. She is also the founder of D. Gandhi Communications, a strategic communications firm that aims to help nonprofit organizations and social impact entrepreneurs communicate clearly in a complicated world. Dulari's passion issues are civic engagement, civil rights, homelessness, and the environment. She is an active member of the Austin community as the Curriculum Chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network and as a community volunteer with Foundation Communities, Senior Access, and the Central Texas Food Bank. In her spare time, Dulari loves to read, cook, be outside, and spend time with her family, two dogs, and cat.