NPAG Seeking Executive Director for the California Youth Defender Center
May 20, 2026 – Executive search firm NPAG has been selected by the California Youth Defender Center (CYDC) to lead in its search for a new executive director. This search is being led by Ellen LaPointe and Phuong Quach. This is a unique opportunity to lead a respected and influential organization at a pivotal moment, shaping the future of youth justice in California and ensuring that all young people have access to the support and opportunities they deserve.
The next executive director will cultivate strong relationships with staff, the board of directors, partners, and stakeholders, while fostering collaboration across California’s youth justice ecosystem. This role requires a hands-on, values-driven leader with strong management and fundraising experience and a deep commitment to equity and justice reform. The ideal candidate will bring a track record of leading impactful change, building high-performing teams, and navigating complexity with integrity, adaptability, and vision.
CYDC seeks a strategic, relational leader with strong executive presence, fundraising acumen, and a deep commitment to youth justice and related systems reforms in California. The next executive director will join CYDC at a critical moment in the organization’s evolution, ensuring ongoing stability while shepherding a long-term vision for impact. The organization currently has a staff of three, and this role requires someone who is both hands-on and a visionary, with the skills to strategically and sustainably build and grow the organization.
Candidates should have a proven track record of cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major grants from philanthropic and government institutions and securing major gifts from individual donors. They must have experience designing/overseeing long-term fundraising strategies, cultivating new donors and funder relationships.
The California Youth Defender Center is a non-profit organization that focuses on advancing justice and equity for young people involved in the legal system. The organization works with public defenders, policymakers, and community partners to support youth defense practices through training, advocacy, research, and policy initiatives. Its efforts center on improving legal representation and promoting approaches aimed at reducing the long-term impact of juvenile justice involvement on young people and their communities.
Since 2002, NPAG is a national executive search and consulting firm dedicated to supporting justice movement leadership. The firm has partnered with a broad range of foundations and non-profits working in racial and gender equity, LGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive health, democracy preservation, public health, economic justice, climate, and other social justice movements. They are a women-owned and women-led firm with a diverse team of 20+ professionals, and have completed over 1,400 searches – including many hundreds at the CEO/executive director level – nationally and globally over nearly 25 years. In addition to search, NPAG provide bespoke training and capacity building, outplacement, board facilitation and development, and both team and individual leadership coaching services.
Related: NPAG Retained by Proteus Fund to Lead Search for New President and CEO
Ms. LaPointe, managing director, is a seasoned non-profit executive who has held C-suite and other senior leadership roles in organizations focused on LGBTQIA+/HIV health care, research and advocacy; philanthropy; technology-centered approaches to advancing well-being; law; and intersectional equity and social justice throughout her career. Her national practice at NPAG includes retained executive search in philanthropy and in legal and health-focused non-profits, board and executive level strategic advisory services, succession planning, executive coaching, and outplacement support. Most recently, Ms. LaPointe was CEO of Fenway Health, a $145 million, 600-person non-profit that advocates for and delivers innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education to over 33,000 LGBTQIA+ people and people from other underserved communities annually.
Ms. Quach, principal, brings over 20 years of experience into this role with expertise in building community and networks, as well as a unique understanding of the landscape of challenges and assets in the field of philanthropy. In addition to executive search, she is also supporting philanthropic-serving organizations and networks on strategic growth and program design. Ms. Quach previously served as VP of member engagement at Northern California Grantmakers.
Horizons Foundation Search
NPAG was also recently retained by Horizons Foundation to lead in its search for a new CEO. The next CEO will bring strategic clarity, fundraising acumen, community insight, and a demonstrated commitment to justice, equity, and LGBTQ belonging. This leader will navigate a rapidly evolving social, political, and philanthropic landscape—modernizing systems, expanding the donor base, stewarding the growing endowment, and reinforcing Horizons’ essential role as a champion for LGBTQ communities at a time of both significant challenge and opportunity.
As the world’s first community foundation of, by, and for LGBTQ people, Horizons is a national leader in LGBTQ philanthropy, granting over $12 million annually and stewarding more than $70 million in assets. Horizons has served for more than 45 years as a wellspring of support to San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofit organizations, a trusted philanthropic anchor for social justice causes, and a national leader in community investment.
Related: Navigating Uncertainty: How Non-Profit Executive Search is Evolving
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
