Our Team

Tameka McNair was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her journey as the “first” of her family for many milestones and so often the “only” African American woman engineer in a corporate setting has had an indelible effect on her life philosophy, career aspirations, and personal mission – to empower every person to find their purpose and be their best self. Tameka is currently a director of program management in HR for the VivaHR Employee Experiences team at Microsoft. She draws from her diverse professional experience in a variety of industries, such as energy, retail, and manufacturing.

Mike Novasio was born and raised in Colstrip, Montana to a son of a coal miner and a waitress. With a strong desire to learn and see the world, he set off for his first trip beyond the borders of Montana in 1991 after graduating from Montana State University. He started at Microsoft in 1992 in Finance and worked through several different roles as he focused in on Microsoft’s Digital Transformation developing the teams, processes, and technical financial solutions to sell direct consumption-based services from Live Meeting to O365. After 27 years, he left Microsoft in 2022 as the Partner GM of Operations where he most recently focused on digital safety from content moderation to corruption and fraud detection.

Paul Sausville currently runs a management consulting practice focused on helping clients expand their business by developing new strategies and business plans. From his experience at Microsoft, AT&T, NCR and other companies, Paul has a strong focus on understanding customer needs, coupled with a demonstrated track record of developing strategic plans and delivering results. Paul worked with the Microsoft Alumni Network as a consultant in 2014. At the Microsoft Alumni Network, Paul helped to add Office 365 and Passport to the value proposition with new pricing, and launched a new integrated alumni website.

Dawn Trudeau spent over 20 years in the software industry and 14 years at Microsoft, where she led divisions in Database and Development tools as well as Consumer Products. For the past 10 years, Dawn has leveraged her skills to work with emerging nonprofits and build organizational capacity and sustainability. Dawn is passionately involved in women’s basketball, acting as a chairperson of the Women’s Basketball Club of Seattle, Seattle Storm Foundation, and Force 10 Hoops LLC. She also chairs the Board of the Economic Opportunity Institute, is a member of the University of Washington Women's Center Advisory Board and serves on the Board of Social Venture Partners International.

Akhtar was Senior Director of Citizenship and Public Affairs for Microsoft, where he led its global philanthropic efforts, global community investment and employee programs. Akhtar also managed Microsoft YouthSpark and the Unlimited Potential Community Technology Skills Program (CTSP). Prior to joining Microsoft, Akhtar was the CEO and President of Digital Partners Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to leverage the digital economy to benefit the poor. An active advocate for the global community, Akhtar now serves as a board member of Telecentre.org, Council on Foundations.

Chuck Hirsch co-led the development and launch of Microsoft's Actimates® product line, which revolutionized the interactive toy and early learning markets. Chuck went on to co-found Dare to Dream Intertainment, which was acquired by Microsoft, before becoming the Founding Partner of MHz International Group. Chuck’s longstanding commitment to helping the community started when he served three years as Chief of Staff of the Port Authority in New York and New Jersey. As Executive VP of the Amelior Foundation, he promoted volunteerism and launched numerous foundations around the east coast, including Michael Jackson’s Heal the World Foundation.

Marylou Brannan is currently doing consulting work for events and technology planning and implementation, and other projects that need wrangling. Marylou’s experience and expertise includes leadership roles in marketing, event and project management, technology and the nonprofit sector. She began her career in advertising, which was followed by 11 years in marketing at Microsoft. After taking a short break to “launch” two children and focus on nonprofit work, she returned to the technology industry to lead the Microsoft Alumni Network and Foundation from 2010 – 2018. She then joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation working as a senior program officer on the Philanthropic Partnerships team.

Rich joined Microsoft in 1990 as a Senior Architectural Consultant, making sure enterprise requirements were built into Microsoft products from the beginning. During Rich’s 25-year journey at Microsoft, he managed the Customer Satisfaction team, TechNet, the MSDN program, and Microsoft Press. Rich was also responsible for online safety in Windows and the company’s Y2K strategy. After nearly a year leading the Microsoft Alumni Network, it was evident that tighter integration between the Alumni Network and Microsoft had benefits for both sides. In Rich's current role as Employee Experiences Champion at Microsoft.

Mike Brewer joined Microsoft in 2004 and currently runs Microsoft’s Employee Giving Volunteer Program as part of the Microsoft Philanthropies group. Prior to his current role, he managed some of Microsoft’s most visible digital marketing channels including the Microsoft.com Home Page and formerly served in the Air Force from 1998-2003 before moving home to Seattle to start his career at Microsoft. Mike views it a privilege to help others realize their potential to make a difference in our local and global community. Each day he wakes up thinking about how Microsoft employees can better serve the growing needs of the nonprofit community with the gift of their time.

Kathleen Hogan joined Microsoft in 2003, beginning a long and fulfilling journey with the company. Before transitioning to her current role, Kathleen was Corporate VP of Microsoft Services, a team dedicated to helping businesses and consumers maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft technologies. Kathleen has also served as Corporate VP of Customer Service and Support. Kathleen contributes her personal and business perspective to the board of directors for the Puget Sound affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Technology Services Industry Association.

Ankur Kothari is an entrepreneur and technologist and the Founder & President of Olive + Goose, a technology and consulting services firm. Olive + Goose offers services to Microsoft as a strategic partner and vendor as well as to organizations of all size that wish to leverage Microsoft technology. Ankur has a long history in technology expertise and business growth. He’s been a leader, product visionary and innovator in the enterprise software industry for more than 15 years. Ankur's passion for technology and best-of-class product management has been continuously recognized by market leaders.

RJ Naugle has spent his entire career, after his military services as a post 9/11 Army paratrooper being an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and corporate executive in roles ranging from, the Microsoft governance risk & compliance officer and Microsoft military recruiting lead, KPMG information protection manager, Starbucks foundation program lead, and co-founder of REVTech, a national professional IT services firm. Throughout all of RJ’s career roles the theme of being purpose-driven is prominent in all he does and is most evident in his passion for serving underserved communities through technology enablement such as military veterans, and people experiencing homelessness.

Eddie Pate has more than 23 years of experience working across all industries, transforming communities and business in the realm of inclusion and diversity. Among the companies that Eddie has helped are Amazon, Avanade, Starbucks, and Microsoft, where he was a diversity manager for the Enterprise and Partner Group before becoming a director in the Global Diversity & Inclusion team where he was responsible for implementing Microsoft’s global diversity initiatives. Today, Eddie is the founder and chief inclusion, diversity and equity officer at Eddie Pate Speaking and Consulting Inc. where he continues to help leadership in organizations be intentional in their approach to ID&E.

David Pryor was born into an Arkansas political family and has a lifetime of political and campaign experience, which has shaped his life and career. He recently left Microsoft after 13 years as the director of Federal Government Affairs, initially managing relationships with Senate Democrats and later managing Microsoft’s third-party advocacy entity, Voices for Innovation. Previously, David was director of federal government affairs with FedEd Corp., deputy chief of protocol with the U.S. Department of State, worked on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign advance staff and in various public relations roles, including for political campaigns, conventions, and inaugural activities.

Brad Smith joined Microsoft in 1993 in Paris, heading up the European Legal and Corporate Affairs Group. He moved to Redmond in 1996, taking on international responsibility for the Legal and Corporate Affairs Group. Today, Brad is Microsoft’s Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer. Brad has championed Microsoft’s global philanthropic activities, establishing them worldwide. He is currently the Vice-Chair of the board for Washington STEM, on the board of directors for Washington Roundtable and also serves on several other committees. In 2010, Brad and his wife, Kathy co-chaired the annual campaign for the United Way of King County.

Chaitra is recognized as an Influential Business Leader with a passion to enable digital equity and access to achieve economic prosperity in our communities She is the co-founder and CMO of Meylah, focused on helping customers to modernize their business with cloud solutions. Vedullapalli is also the president and co-founder of Women in Cloud, sits on many boards and drives global conversations with the United Nations and top corporations throughout the U.S. Using the power of AI, Cloud, and IoT, Chaitra Is fiercely committed to empowering business owners to access the digital economy.

Business Development and Developer marketing, Growth Acceleration Partners Microsoft: 1985-2012 Until February of 2023, Dee Dee was vice president of marketing and business development at Mobilize.Net, a Bellevue, Washington-based automated migration technology company. In February, she and her cohort sold the company to Snowflake and its Application Migration Unit to Growth Acceleration Partners, where she is now the head of business development and developer marketing. She has spent her career in technology and has a long list of businesses and products that she launched including: Microsoft Store, and many versions of Microsoft developer tools including Visual Studio.