Sharon Cornu brings St. Mary’s Center decades of experience in management, advocacy and creating learning organizations. She has developed and executed winning strategies to increase investment in affordable housing; moved public support and political will to improve opportunity and security for seniors, small businesses, and working families; and developed innovative strategies for nurturing new leaders. Her interest in community development deepened as Deputy Mayor in Oakland and as Executive Officer of the Alameda Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Her writing has been published by the San Francisco Chronicle, Shelterforce, and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.  She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and earned a Masters of Science in Human Services at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, inspired by work at Nickerson Settlement House in Providence, RI. Cornu is a former adjunct professor at Mills College and lives in the East Bay.