Our Team
Jenny Kassan
Founder
Jenny has over 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises. She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors and raised over $2 million for her own businesses.
She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017).
Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jenny co-founded the Force for Good Fund, an impact investment fund managed by Community Ventures, a nonprofit organization that Jenny founded in 2008. She also co-founded Crowdfund Mainstreet, a licensed portal for Regulation Crowdfunding. Most recently she co-founded Opportunity Main Street, an impact investment fund that owns a mixed-use building in Baltimore which serves as a hub for supporting under-represented entrepreneurs and providing education about community-based investing.
Jenny’s legal practice, The Kassan Group, provides legal services, coaching, and consulting for mission-driven companies, investors, and intermediaries and includes educational programs for entrepreneurs (the Capital on Your Terms program) and investors of all levels of wealth and income (Angels of Main Street).
Jenny served on the Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. She submitted the petition to the SEC that led to the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act and was present at the White House signing ceremony.
Before becoming a securities lawyer, Jenny worked for eleven years at a nonprofit community development corporation in Oakland called the Unity Council, where she served as staff attorney and managed community economic development projects including a $100 million transit-oriented development project and the formation and management of several social ventures designed to employ and create business ownership opportunities for low-income community residents.
Jenny co-founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal information to support sustainable economies. Jenny is also a fellow at Democracy Collaborative. She is on the board of directors for CfPA (Crowdfunding Professional Association) and formerly served as a director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Jenny is certified as a coach by the International Association of Women in Coaching. In 2020 she was named to the list of World-Changing Women in Conscious Business by SOCAP Global.
Michelle Thimesch
Senior Attorney
Michelle has over two decades of closely-held business consulting experience as an estate and succession planning attorney. She has helped her clients create legacy and philanthropic planning goals that ensure the continuation of business and community involvement for the next generation. Michelle is the founder of East Bay Revitalization, Inc., a nonprofit that addresses the scarcity of affordable housing and economic opportunities for working families. She is also the CEO of Crowdfund Mainstreet, a regulated investment crowdfunding platform.
Rana Abu-Ragheb
Director of Operations
Rana has over fifteen years of national and international experience in finance, human resources, and operations management. Prior to joining Jenny Kassan Consulting, she managed the operations of several SMEs across several industries including sustainability consulting and software development. Rana co-founded and managed a social impact venture that aimed to provide access to books in underserved communities in Jordan. She holds an MBA from American University in Washington, DC.
Africa Archield
Director of Insights and Strategy
Africa is the founder and owner of Africa Archield Strategies, a business coaching firm and consultancy. She has over a decade of experience working with entrepreneurs and small businesses helping them streamline and scale.
Africa earned her EdS in Organizational Development & Change and MA in Adult & Developmental Education. She taught in higher education for over 20 years and spent over 10 years in the finance industry.
Michelle Richardson
Accountant
Michelle Richardson is the founder and owner of Leverage, a boutique cloud-based accounting firm for freelancers, startups and small to mid-size businesses. A senior accountant with over 15 years of experience, she is recognized as an early adopter of cloud technology for accounting and other businesses. Her areas of expertise include software integration, systems creation, complex reconciliations and financial reporting. Before launching Leverage, she worked in a wide variety of industries including publishing, wine import/distribution, online education, technology, digital media and non-profits.
In addition to her training in accounting, she received a BA in International Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. As a French-American, she is a board member of an association for developing the local French community, Los Angeles Accueil. A proponent for women’s education, she sponsors schools in Guatemala and is an avid supporter of women entrepreneurs in the tech industry.
Marin Dell
Attorney
Marin Dell has been a member of the California Bar since 2003 and has been on the law faculty, and an adjunct faculty member, of several US law schools for the past 15 years. She has an LLM in Taxation from the University of Florida Levin School of Law and graduated from California Western School of Law with honors.
Natalya Morgan
Chief of Staff
Natalya Morgan brings over eight years of program development, partnership management, and operations experience to Jenny Kassan Consulting. As Chief of Staff, Natalya manages Jenny’s meetings and events and provides support in marketing, client engagement, and communication. Prior to joining Jenny Kassan Consulting, Natalya worked at the intersection of experiential education and international travel, living in Tanzania and developing service-learning programs that focused on access to public health and education.
Logan Yonavjak
Consultant, Investor Relations
Logan Yonavjak is a financial services professional, social entrepreneur, author, and angel investor. Her work in financial services involves researching, developing, and advising on ways to channel capital into impactful investments across public and private markets. Logan has worked with venture capital firms, private equity firms, endowments, private wealth firms, and family offices. She has also developed new financial models and tools, particularly focused on land conservation and restoration, and has written extensively about how to invest for people, planet, and profit. She also advises a variety of impact-oriented startups, on both raising capital and reporting impact metrics. Logan holds a Master of Forestry from the Yale School of the Environment and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She also holds a B.A. with Distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Recent Blog Posts
Building an Inclusive Workforce with Second-Chance Hiring
Working Fields Offers a Path to Employment and Confidence to Formerly Incarcerated People and Those in Recovery Mickey Wiles is the CEO and Founder of Working Fields, a mission-driven staffing agency that helps individuals overcome barriers to employment —...
Episode 58: Raising Capital for Co-ops with Greg Brodsky
In this Capital Insight Podcast episode, Greg Brodsky shares his journey promoting socially just cooperative business funding.
The Evolution of Investment Crowdfunding, and Where We Go from Here
In 2009, I got together with Janelle Orsi to cofound a new nonprofit called Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC). The mission of SELC was to bring legal knowledge and support to those who are working to make our economy regenerative, healthy, just, and...
