Founders
David Castro
David Castro a graduate of Haverford College (1983) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1986). In 1993, following a successful career both in private practice and as a Philadelphia prosecutor, David was awarded a Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Program Fellowship. As a Kellogg Fellow he studied community leadership and its relation to improving quality of life. Based upon this work, working with his mentor and colleague Lynne Abraham, in 1995 David founded I-LEAD, Inc., a school for community leadership development that has served several thousand emerging leaders across Pennsylvania through its affiliation with Pennsylvania Weed and Seed, and its development of an accredited Associate Degree program in Leadership. David is also one of the founders of I-LEAD Charter School, a high school that combines leadership development with academic remediation serving at-risk high school age youth in the economically challenged city of Reading, Pennsylvania.
In 2002, in recognition of David‘s work on behalf of Pennsylvania communities, he was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship, which he used to study leadership and its impact on economic and community development in Turkey. In 2009, in recognition of David‘s work in community leadership and education, he was named an Ashoka Fellow by the Ashoka Global Funds for Social Change. Ashoka is an international community of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. David is a teacher at heart, frequently consulted as a speaker, serving on panel discussions and contributing regularly via blogs and articles posted through the Ashoka network, the Kellogg Leadership Alliance and the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal.
David is the author of Genership: Beyond Leadership Toward Liberating the Creative Soul, now available in print and e-book formats. He is also the host of Innovate Podcast, a biweekly podcast featuring dialogue with social entrepreneurs, writers, visionaries and researchers engaged in transformative thinking, action and creative collaboration. Innovate has featured renowned guests such as Kailash Satyarthi, winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Innovate is produced by Ashoka, the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance, the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal and I-LEAD. Innovate is sponsored by Arch Street Press.
Below is a collection of David’s recent essays on leadership published on his blog at genership.org.
Lynne Abraham
Former District Attorney Lynne Abraham served as the chief law enforcement officer for the City of Philadelphia since 1991. As DA, she was responsible for the prosecution of over 70,000 criminal cases yearly and oversaw a professional staff of 300 Assistant District Attorneys and 275 support staff.
Since graduating from law school, Judge Abraham has served the public in a variety of elected and appointed positions. Among those are as an attorney in the Regional Counsel’s office of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia; Executive Director of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority; Legislative Consultant for Philadelphia City Council; and Judge of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. Immediately prior to election to District Attorney, she was a Judge on the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia where she presided over homicide and major felony trials.
Because of her love of teaching, Judge Abraham served as a lecturer at Temple Law School from 1974 to 1994, as well as, lecturer at Temple University, Villanova University, the Institute of Paralegal Studies and La Salle University. She has also spoken thousands of times on subjects as wide ranging as Urban Terrorism, Leadership and Politics and Women’s Health Issues. The District Attorney belongs to many professional associations. For the past 16 years she has been the Legislative Chairperson of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. She is co-founder and Board Chair of I-LEAD, a community-based nonprofit institution of higher education, and has also served on the Boards of the Police Athletic League, Komen for the Cure, the National District Attorneys Association. Judge Abraham has received many awards and commendations for her dedication to the public good.