Kennedy Chizek

Posted: Thursday, March 6

Program Coordinator, St. Francis de Sales

Kennedy Chizek is a dedicated professional from Omaha, Nebraska with over a decade of experience working for public schools and nonprofit organizations. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a deep commitment to empowering youth voices and fostering community development. Kennedy’s work with organizations such as Omaha Girls Rock has shown her passion for helping young people build confidence, leadership skills, musicality, and create positive social change. She has been teaching music since 2015, with a background in guitar, bass, and drums. In September of 2024, Kennedy joined POP as an Exploratory Teacher, helping our youngest students build the foundations of music. She looks forward to growing with Play on Philly and continuing to advocate for her new community in Philadelphia, driven by a vision of inclusive and equitable opportunities for all youth in music!

Oliver Ryder

Posted: Thursday, February 6

Development Manager

Originally from New South Wales, Australia, Oliver has been working in a combination of cooperate and non-profit project management roles since moving to Philadelphia. He has a passion for fundraising and has supported events around the city for organizations such as The Welcoming Center, the Associated Services for the Blind, Visit Philadelphia, and more. Oliver also served on the leadership team for TEDxPhiladelphia 2019, where he researched, recruited, and provided presentation coaching for speakers at the 2019 conference. Before joining Play On Philly, Oliver worked as a Project Manager at Vanguard where he produced national marketing campaigns that focused on highlighting the stories of Vanguard’s clients. Now that he is with POP, Oliver is excited to bring his love for serving local communities to the table.

Tim Roe

Posted: Friday, January 3

Director

Tim’s passion lies in helping early-stage companies navigate growth from 0-1 and tackle significant challenges. With 15 years of experience in finance, venture capital, and company building, he brings operational know-how and empathy for acting on big ideas. Tim graduated with a degree in finance from Temple University and is a proud owl. He started playing the drums in 5th grade in a rock band and then joined the school marching band and orchestra in the percussion section. He enjoys outdoor adventures, traveling, and learning guitar during his downtime. One of his favorite quotes is “No one was ever wise by chance,” from Stoic philosopher Seneca.

Diego Villamil Gómez

Posted: Friday, October 11

Director of Education

Diego Villamil Gómez is a violinist who is devoted to teaching, especially young artists. He believes in the transformative role of music in the improvement of social justice. He is currently the Director of Education at Play On Philly. Before that, Diego was the Orchestra Teacher at New Brunswick Middle School and adjunct faculty at Rowan University. In addition to his teaching activities within the United States, Diego was violin lecturer at the Escuela Superior de Música of UJED (México) and chamber music coordinator at the Austria Music Festival. He also has been invited to collaborate with Colombian organizations that strive for social impact through music such as Batuta and Alla Corda. Diego is also an active performer who has served as concertmaster in several ensembles including The Center City Chamber Orchestra (Philadelphia), the Vienna Summer Music Festival Orchestra, UNT Concert Orchestra, USM Symphony Orchestra, and the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Colombia. As a baroque violinist, Diego was principal violin and soloist for the UNT Baroque Orchestra and Fantasmi Baroque Ensemble and played with the baroque ensembles of the Dallas area, including American Baroque Opera Co. and the Orchestra of New Spain. Diego holds a B.A in violin performance from the National University of Colombia and M.M in violin performance from the University of Southern Mississippi and Rowan University, and DMA from the University of North Texas. 

Ares Headley

Posted: Tuesday, July 30

Program Coordinator, Impact Charter School West

Ares has a background in a variety of nonprofit, service-oriented spaces and public programming for all ages. They studied sociology, English literature, and gender studies at Ohio State University and ecology at the University of Delaware. In his roles with public food access organizations from local food pantries to larger food banks like Philabundance, he learned how abstract policies make material impacts on our communities. He’s also worked with public institutions training Educators to deliver informative, inspiring, and fun tours and programs for children and adults alike.

Ares is skilled at curriculum building and does freelance editing, writing, and teaching work. Some of the works they are most proud of are Naturecultures (a series of interdisciplinary cultural competency lessons), Creatures & Cryptids (a guided adventure activity for kids ages 8-12 featuring local folklore), and their natural poetry workshop series. As a former band kid and bassoon enthusiast, Ares is stoked to be working with POP to support the music education of our students.

Lauren J. Walker

Posted: Monday, March 25

Director

Lauren J. Walker is a Business Affairs Executive at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in New York. In this role, Lauren negotiates commercial endorsement deals for social media offers, client appearances and brand partnerships. Prior to working at CAA, Lauren worked in local government in a number of roles ranging from Special Assistant to the Mayor to Deputy Chief of Staff. In these roles, Lauren worked to increase community coordination efforts between government entities and the communities they served. Prior to working in local government, Lauren served as an Americorps Vista in the Mayor’s Office of Civic Engagement and Volunteer Service. Lauren is originally from Philadelphia and attended the Baldwin School and Howard University for both her undergraduate and law school degrees. Lauren is a graduate of Leadership Philadelphia and has an interest in using her skills to enhance the city that she calls home. 

Adam Robinson

Posted: Monday, March 25

Director

Adam Robinson is the Senior Corporate and Government Partnerships Officer for the Museum of the American Revolution. He is a Philadelphian with two decades of local, state, and national experiences building partnerships and engaging diverse stakeholders to drive civic progress. Adam earned an MPA from the University of Pennsylvania, and both a BA in Political Science and a Certificate in Business from the University of Wisconsin. A member of Leadership Philadelphia’s Core Class of 2024, Adam has also served as a Buchholz Fellow with Committee of Seventy. From fourth grade through college, Adam performed as a percussionist in a variety of ensembles, including the University of Wisconsin Jazz Big Band. He also led the Wisconsin Union’s Student Performance Committee and created the University’s first Arts Opportunities Fair.

Dr. Jason Karlawish

Posted: Wednesday, November 15

Director

Jason Karlawish is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He was educated at Northwestern University, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and the University of Chicago. He is co-associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and co-director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients and their families. Dr. Karlawish also directs the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB). A writer, Dr. Karlawish is committed to translating science into society. He’s the author of The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture and Politics Turned a Rare Disease Into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It and the novel Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont. His essays on ethics and aging have appeared in publications such as The Hill, The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, StatNews and The Washington Post. In addition to POP, he serves on the Board of Directors for The Greenwall Foundation, a grant making foundation dedicated to expanding bioethics knowledge to improve clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy and practice.

David Esqueda

Posted: Wednesday, November 15

Director

David Esqueda is a Managing Director at Accenture within the Infrastructure Engineering practice where he advises clients as they embark in large transformations of their technology infrastructure including cloud, network, digital workplace, and IT service management. Over the last ten years, his primary area of focus has been Merger and Acquisition programs within IT and Security organizations, having being part of over 30 transaction teams in that period of time. Prior to joining Accenture in 2011, David held a number of engineering roles in the Aerospace and Data Center Facilities industries. He graduated from Penn State University, where he studied Electrical Engineering. Prior to that, he attended Valley Forge Military Academy and College where he also served as a member to the Board of Trustees of Valley Forge Military Academy (2012-2019). While growing up in Caracas, Venezuela he participated in El Sistema at the Conservatorio de Musica Simon Bolivar, and later was a member of the Orquesta Sinfonica Pre-Juvenil de Chacao, and the Chacao Youth Strings Orchestra as a violinist. David is currently a member of Orchestra Concordia in Wayne, PA.

Trina Smith

Posted: Monday, October 16

Director

Trina Smith is a Director at PFM Financial Advisors, where she advises governments and 501(c)(3) organizations on the issuance of debt to fund capital projects. She specializes in higher education but has worked with many other sectors, including utilities and municipal governments at the state and local level in the mid-Atlantic area.She holds a B.S. in Economics with a concentration in Accounting from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Public Administration from Rutgers University. She has a lifelong interest in music, and started playing the piano at 8 years old.