Linda Asato is executive director of California Child Care Resource & Referral Network. She brings over 30 years of successful public sector, nonprofit management experience and a lifetime commitment to child and family advocacy to her role. She understands the dynamic early childhood environment and has extensive experience in community organizing, public administration, and organizational development. As executive director, she is at the forefront of leading the Network in its mission to champion, advance, and advocate for an equitable early childhood support system for all California families by working at the intersection of research, programs, and policy in partnership with member Resource & Referral agencies and human service organizations statewide. Prior to joining the Network, she served as the executive director of Wu Yee Children’s Services in San Francisco. She has a BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a master’s in public administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York.

Shannon McConville is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and a member of the PPIC Economic Policy Center. Her research interests include health care access, utilization, and outcomes among vulnerable populations and the impact of vocational training programs on economic mobility. Her current work focuses on examining safety net programs, assessing the effects of Medicaid coverage expansions on individuals involved with the criminal justice system, and analyzing the employment outcomes and economic returns of career technical education. Before joining PPIC, she was a research training fellow in the Health Services and Policy Analysis doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley; a senior research associate at the Department of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University; and a project manager at the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Daniel Payares-Montoya is a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California. He is a member of the PPIC Economic Policy Center, and he also contributes to the PPIC Higher Education Center. His research focuses on expanding economic opportunity through the labor market, the relation between the labor market and higher education, income inequality, climate-related jobs, and economic development. Before joining PPIC, he worked as a consultant for the World Bank, concentrating on green growth and green finance in developing countries, and as a researcher at the Center for Latin American Studies, University of California Berkeley, focusing on the socio-economic impact of globalization and industrialization in the Americas. He has also conducted research on productivity, education, and labor markets for Fedesarrollo, the Private Council on Competitiveness, and Proantioquia Foundation in Colombia. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Universidad de Chile and a master’s degree in development practice from the University of California, Berkeley.  

Abby Snay is deputy secretary for Workforce Strategy at the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. She has worked to increase economic mobility for immigrants and refugees, to create a new healthcare workforce initiative in partnership with the California Health and Human Service Agency, to expand apprenticeships in California, and to develop training and workforce opportunities through the state’s climate strategies. Previously, she served as CEO of Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) in San Francisco for over 35 years. Under her leadership, JVS built training and employment programs to help workers with employment challenges develop competitive skills and earn wages that will sustain their families. JVS programs in health care, water utilities, financial services, and youth employment have received national recognition for their innovation and impact. She recently completed an 11-year term on the board of directors of the National Skills Coalition, during which she served as board chair for 4 years, and she currently serves on the PPIC Economic Policy Center Advisory Council. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in counseling from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.