Los Cien taps board chair’s son as new executive director after 2-year vacancy

By now, Sonoma County Office of Education Board Trustee and consultant Herman G. Hernandez is used to getting confused with his father, Herman J. Hernandez, a leader within the Latino leadership nonprofit Los Cien.

As of this month, however, those who make the mix-up won’t be too far off.

Hernandez, 36, has been tapped to serve as the organization’s next executive director, a position he started June 1. In the role, he’ll oversee the 13-year organization that his father, Los Cien’s board chair, helped start in the backroom of a Mary’s Pizza Shack with other community members.

Since then, the group has gained a reputation for convening community conversations on some of the most important issues facing the Latino community and Sonoma County residents at large, ranging from housing and mental health to candidates in local races.

Those gatherings, most of which have been hosted virtually in recent years due to the coronavirus pandemic, have increasingly included some of Sonoma County’s most influential figures. It’s not uncommon to find elected leaders sitting alongside local business owners and nonprofit heads at Los Cien events.

Under his leadership, Hernandez said he hopes to expand the nonprofit’s board and those who attend their events to include more members of Sonoma County’s Black and Indigenous communities, as well as other people of color, a group sometimes referred to as BIPOC.

“My vision for Los Cien is larger than just our Latino community,” Hernandez said. “I’m making it one of my personal goals to engage our (BIPOC community) … so we’re all working together.”

His hiring fills a seat that has gone vacant at the nonprofit since summer 2020.

Magali Telles, who was hired in 2018 as the nonprofit’s inaugural executive director, left the post to pursue a job as the head of what at the time was the city of Santa Rosa’s new community engagement division.

Following Telles’ departure, the Los Cien board hired a membership services manager but held off on selecting a new executive director, Los Cien Vice Chair Lisa Carreño said. The board first wanted to fine tune its strategic plan and bylaws, as well as reassess the operational needs of the organization and the executive director’s role, she said.

A job posting for the executive director position was shared on social media and other platforms this spring. It garnered several local applicants, as well as folks from elsewhere in Northern California and outside of the state, Carreño said.

The hiring panel, which included members of the Los Cien board and a longtime consultant for the group, considered three finalists, Carreño said. The elder Hernandez was not involved in the selection process, she added.

Hernandez’s varied work experience and success in past leadership and managerial positions made him a standout, Carreño said.

His resume includes experience at local nonprofits Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County and Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Sonoma County, as well as a public affairs representative post with Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

He was a field manager for two elected officials, Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, and most recently has operated his own consulting business.

“He has a very strong understanding of what it takes for any organization to be profitable and stable so that it has the resources it needs to affect its mission,” Carreño said.

Among Hernandez’s other goals for the nonprofit are establishing programs that help develop people in the community who are interested in participating in local boards and commissions, he said.

He also wanted to draw more attention to the group’s Latino Economic Scorecard, which highlights gains and gaps in the Latino community’s wealth and financial well-being.

“(Los Cien) has always been really good at engaging the community and bringing them together, but there are other things that we can do better,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez, the Los Cien chair, said he was confident his son was prepared to take the nonprofit into a new era.

“The new vision here is to be able to … really bring to the table the BIPOC community,” Hernandez said, “to be able to strengthen our voice, united.”

Hernandez’s annual salary is set at $115,000 and the nonprofit’s budget was $330,000 this year, Hernandez said. He’ll free up his roster of clients at his consultant business until he gets a better sense of the workload that comes with the executive director job, he added.

The announcement of his hiring was paired with news of four additions to Los Cien’s board of directors, including Angie Dillon-Shore, the First 5 Sonoma County executive director; Mercedes Hernandez, an entrepreneur who owns Bow N Arrow Clothing; Matthew Henry, CEO of Sonoma County Family YMCA; and Patrick McDonell, a housing attorney with Legal Aid of Sonoma County.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.