Honorees

Presenting our annual Drum Major for Justice Awards to:

Melody Barnes

Melody Barnes is the President’s Domestic Policy Advisor and the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, which coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House.

Before joining the White House, Barnes served as the Senior Domestic Policy Advisor to President Obama’s campaign. Prior to joining the campaign, she was the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress. From 1995 to 2003, she served as Chief Counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In those capacities, and as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and assistant counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, she worked extensively on civil rights and voting rights, women’s health, religious liberties, and commercial law.

Barnes received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received her law degree from the University of Michigan. She began her career as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling in New York City, and is a member of both the New York State Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar Association.

Rafael E. Cestero

Rafael E. Cestero was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in March 2009. From 2004 to 2007, Commissioner Cestero had served as HPD Deputy Commissioner for Development, where he helped develop the City’s $7.5 billion New Housing Marketplace Plan and innovative programs to create affordable housing, including the retooled inclusionary zoning program. He also helped establish the NYC Acquisition Fund which makes it easier for developers to create affordable housing by providing them with faster access to equity and predevelopment capital. The fund recently was awarded the Harvard Kennedy School of Government “Innovations in American Government” Award and has been adapted for use by other major cities across the country. For most of his 19-year career, Commissioner Cestero worked at Enterprise Community Partners where he most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer overseeing the organization’s national programs related to housing production, income targeting and quality of life measures. He earned his Master of Urban Planning degree with a specialization in community development from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his Bachelor of Sciences degree from Cornell University.

Ana L. Oliveira

Ana Oliveira became the President & CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation in February 2006, on the eve of its 20th Anniversary. In three and a half years of Ana’s leadership at NYWF, the Foundation has grown in several dimensions, including creation of a new strategic plan, the Communications Department; sponsored landmark research reports, increased visibility and public awareness of the Foundation’s presence in NYC; dramatically increased revenue and fund-raising goals, putting the foundation on track to achieve $5 million in grant-making in its 25th year, in 2012.
Ana has worked in the health and human services field for over 22 years, developing programs for vulnerable populations throughout NYC. She served as the first woman and Latina Executive Director of Gay Men’s Health Crisis for over seven years, overseeing a complete turn-around of the agency. Before working at GMHC, Ana directed innovative community-based programs at Samaritan Village, the Osborne Association, Kings County and Lincoln Hospitals. Ana was a member of the New York City HIV Planning Council and was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg to the New York City Commission on AIDS in 2004. She served on the HIV Advisory Board to the Administration of Children’s Services and was just named by Mayor Bloomberg to chair the NYC Commission for LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth.

Ana is a co-chair of the board of the Women’s Funding Network, and is a board member of The LGBT Center and The New York Foundation. She was a member of the New York Times Nonprofit Excellence Awards Selection Committee during its first three years.

In 2005, Ana was profiled in Newsweek as “America’s Best,” a series highlighting ordinary individuals using their extraordinary vision on behalf of others.
Her awards feature: Mutual Welfare League Certificate, (Osborne Association); Liberty Award, (Lambda Legal & Education Defense Fund); Community Service Award (Empire State Pride Agenda); the Rosie Perez Fuerza Award, (Latino Commission on AIDS), and the Master’s Award (Association of Women Business Owners).

Ana was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and resides in Manhattan. She has an M.A. in Medical Anthropology from the New School for Social Research and is a Licensed Acupuncturist.