ADVISORY PANEL

Kimberly K. Brandon
GFTA Advisory Panel Chair
Metta Fund, Board Chair

Kimberly K. Brandon is the board chair of the Metta Fund, a private foundation dedicated to advancing health and equity in aging. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President with The Brandon Group at Morgan Stanley. She is the first African-American woman to be appointed to the San Francisco Port Commission and currently serves as Vice President.  She is also Immediate Past Chair of SF State Foundation’s board, and past board chair of the Museum of African Diaspora.

Brandon has received numerous awards and proclamations throughout her career, including the Business Times Most Influential Woman in Business Award, SF Chapter NAACP Business and Professional Award and the A. Philip Randolph Institute’s Rosa Parks Award.

Debra Walker
GFTA Advisory Panel Vice Chair
Artist and Commissioner at San Francisco Arts Commission

Debra Walker is an internationally recognized painter and printmaker and a Commissioner at the San Francisco Police Commission at the City and County of San Francisco. She is experienced in advocacy, business and production management, organizing and motivating workers and creative solutions. She has run organizations with 300+ members, has chaired several task forces charged with and producing policy and procedure recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and the mayor of San Francisco, and has worked for decades as an artist in San Francisco. She has served as business and production manager, project accountant, and political candidate. Walker has served as the chair on the San Francisco Arts Task Force.

David Duckworth
Artist and Independent Curator & Cultural Historian

David Duckworth is an artist, an independent curator, and cultural historian and carries a Masters of Art History from Hunters College. As a curator of contemporary art exhibitions, Duckworth has curated or co-curated group exhibitions for Bluedahlias Gallery and Studios, San Francisco and Works/San Jose, and for LaborFest, San Francisco, at City College of San Francisco, SOMArts Cultural Center, Expressions Gallery, Berkeley, and ILWU Local 34 Hall, San Francisco. Duckworth has also been an instructor for various institutions, including The Arc San Francisco, Free University of San Francisco, City College and Hunter College, The City University of New York, and Mercy College/Hudson Link for Higher Education at Sing Sing Correctional Facility; also, instructor at Hudson Guild, New York, Los Angeles Children’s Museum, and The Riverside Church, New York.

Marcus Shelby
Composer and Educator

Marcus Anthony Shelby is a composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work focuses on the history, present, and future of African American lives social movements and music education. In 1990, Marcus Shelby received the Charles Mingus Scholarship to attend Cal Arts and study composition with James Newton and bass with Charlie Haden. Currently, Shelby is the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz, an artist in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and a past resident artist with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

Shelby has composed several oratorios and suites including “Harriet Tubman”, “Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio”, “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues”, “Green and Blues”, and a children’s opera “Harriet’s Spirit” produced by Opera Parallel 2018. Shelby also composed the score and performed in Anna Deavere Smith’s Off-Broadway Play and HBO feature film “Notes from the Field” (2019). Shelby is also the voice of Ray Gardener in the 2020 Oscar-Winning Disney Pixar film “SOUL”.  Shelby has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission since 2013 and has worked with the Equal Justice Society for over 20 years.