Whether helping entrepreneurs get access to capital or creating resources for families affected by dementia, these impactful Virginians are changing the commonwealth for the better.
Akosua Acheamponmaa
Director, Norfolk State University Innovation Center, Norfolk
Since Akosua Acheamponmaa launched the Norfolk State University Innovation Center in 2019, she estimates the center has helped about 3,000 entrepreneurs who’ve attended its business forums and networking events. One of the reasons Acheamponmaa started the center at the public HBCU was to provide more resources to Black entrepreneurs, who statistically only get about 1% of venture capital funds.
“We wanted to try and do something about that,” she says. Originally from Ghana, Acheamponmaa came to the United States in 2004 when she was 12, because her mother wanted her to be educated here. An alumna of Old Dominion University, in 2025 Acheamponmaa wants to keep growing the center, building relationships and working on her own innovation projects. She wants to help more students and keep finding opportunities for them, such as working with NASA patents.
Parker Agelasto
Executive director, Capital Region Land Conservancy, Richmond
A decade ago, Parker Agelasto made a career pivot from museum curation to land conservation, but he says it was a natural progression.
“Land conservation is in my blood,” says Agelasto, whose family put a conservation easement on 200 acres in Nelson County while he was completing master’s degrees in art history and business administration at the University of Virginia. “Just like art is stewarded in perpetuity for educational purposes, conservation work puts land in the public trust so natural and historic resources are protected and preserved for future enjoyment,” he says.
Under Agelasto’s direction, the Capital Region Land Conservancy has conserved about 2,400 acres of publicly accessible lands in Richmond and surrounding counties. A former Richmond city councilor, Agelasto previously worked at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Gabrielle Cash
Capital access navigator, Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, Staunton
An entrepreneur herself, Gabrielle Cash brings a unique perspective to her position with the Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, a nonprofit entrepreneurial support organization serving the Shenandoah Valley.
As an advocate for underserved communities, she helps entrepreneurs with unlocking and competing for financing opportunities by serving as a resource connector. A big part of her job is listening and learning from people who don’t think their opinions and experience are worth sharing.
After earning their trust, Cash not only advocates for these entrepreneurs, but connects them with support organizations offering resources to help them succeed. Cash is doing this work at SCCF as an Economic Recovery Corps fellow, a national program that promotes economic development in urban, rural and tribal communities.
She sees her work as sowing seeds for change in policy, procedures, perspectives and mindsets through helping others and speaking up: “I’ll continue entrepreneur advocacy and support in the Valley, because someone needs to be here to help harvest.”
Anna Copplestone
Arborist, Roots Arbor Care, Bedford County
Although she first received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and social work and worked in IT, Anna Copplestone entered the world of tree care when she started volunteering with the Roanoke Tree Stewards. The double Hollins University graduate earned an environmental studies degree in 2015, and then as executive director led the nonprofit Roanoke Community Garden Association’s move under the Local Environmental Agriculture Project’s umbrella.
Although she’s climbed trees up to 80 feet high, Copplestone mainly stays grounded these days, working in a consulting role as a sales arborist at Roots Arbor Care. An International Society of Arboriculture-certified arborist, she lives in Troutville with her husband and teenage son. Both she and her husband sometimes teach classes at the Mountain Shepherd Adventure School.
Joann DiGennaro
President, Center for Excellence in Education, McLean
Joann DiGennaro was working as an attorney with the U.S. International Trade Commission when she met Navy Adm. Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy, at a party. He encouraged her to help him launch the Center for Excellence in Education, and she’s led the organization since 1983, expanding to multiple countries around the globe.
CEE helps provide access and education to talented high school and university students free of charge in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), with programs including its flagship Research Science Institute, and also trains educators. DiGennaro has served on several boards, including as chair of the Army War College Board of Visitors.
“If you can help another person or students to maximize their ability, what could be better?” she asks.
Cindia Elkins
Administrator and assistant vice president, Lee County Community Hospital and Lonesome Pine Hospital, Norton
In 1992, Cindia Elkins came home to Southwest Virginia to work as a pharmacist. At age 25, she was one of the first women in the area to do that job.
Elkins remembers a couple of customers asking “if they had to wait until the man got back” for their medicine, but everyone quickly adapted. In 1995, Elkins went to work as a pharmacist for the now shuttered St. Mary’s Hospital and later at Norton Community Hospital. In 2015, Elkins began supervising pharmacists at hospitals around the region.
Ballad Health tapped Elkins to be administrator of Lee County Community Hospital and Lonesome Pine Hospital earlier this year. Elkins describes the new role as “a joy,” praising how it allows her to “serve on a much larger scale.”
Mary Anne Holbrook
Vice president of development, EO, Abingdon
Travis Staton, the former president and CEO of the United Way of Southwest Virginia, labeled Holbrook a job hopper when she started work at the nonprofit as director of community relations in 2016.
He wasn’t wrong, Holbrook says. In the past, she’d work somewhere for a year or two and move on when the job felt stale.
But Holbrook stayed at the United Way of Southwest Virginia for eight years. When Staton left to lead EO, a nonprofit spun off from the United Way with a mission of creating change in Southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, Holbrook followed, taking on the role of vice president of development.
What’s held her interest at these jobs, Holbrook says, is getting the opportunity to regularly tackle new projects, which all serve real-world needs. “I have never, ever gotten bored,” she says.
Nate Kreoger
Chief operating officer, RP Professional Services, Ashburn
An internship program in the U.S. General Services Administration in Kansas City, Missouri, gave Nate Kreoger experience in contracting and program management and eventually lead him to Washington, D.C., where he continued that work before moving over to the White House. After working on the transition team as a liaison for the outgoing Obama administration, Kreoger stayed on, advancing through numerous leadership roles to become chief of staff and a senior adviser in the Executive Office of the President, where he managed a $760 million portfolio.
Since 2022, Kreoger has worked as chief operating officer for federal contractor RP Professional Services. In 2024, he launched The Werk Room, a quarterly networking event for LGBTQ+ individuals in federal contracting in the region that he hopes to expand in the new year.
Lee Anne Myslewski
Vice president of opera and classical programming, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Vienna
A former opera singer, Lee Anne Myslewski has helped cast the past 13 seasons of Wolf Trap Opera, hearing more than 10,000 auditions since 2006 and bringing in more than 15,000 people to attend an opera or other classical music performance at the Vienna music venue. She’s also forged partnerships with other theaters and performance groups to expand access to opera in the region.
Also, as of September, Myslewski is board chair for Opera America, stepping up from vice chair. The organization represents more than 600 opera companies with 40,000 staff members.
In addition to opera programming, Myslewski is responsible for Wolf Trap’s chamber music series, a nationally syndicated radio show and the venue’s partnership with the National Symphony Orchestra.
Megan Parks
Executive director, United Way of Southwestern Virginia, Bristol
Megan Parks has worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the YWCA in Bristol, but now she’s in the top spot at the United Way of Southwestern Virginia. The Bristol, Tennessee, native started her new role in June and has been “learning a whole lot,” she says. “Really what led me to United Way was the versatility of what United Ways do.”
Parks, who earned her bachelor’s at East Tennessee State University and her master’s from Syracuse University, began her career as a case manager. One of her main focuses has been disaster recovery after Hurricane Helene, which hit the Southwest Virginia region hard in September. Parks is also a foster parent, which she says takes up 98% of her time outside work, and she’s a big fan of reading and podcasts.
Annie Rhodes
Director, Virginia Memory Project, Richmond
While pursuing a doctorate in health science at Virginia Commonwealth University, Annie Rhodes asked a simple question about how many Virginians had dementia and neuro-degenerative diseases and how many caregivers there were. No one knew.
In response, she launched the Virginia Memory Project, one of only four U.S. dementia disease registries, in June 2022 with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, VCU and the Virginia Department of Health. Starting in 2025, a new state law codifies the project in perpetuity, providing resources and policy support informed by the data gathered. Bipartisan support demonstrated how many people know someone impacted by dementia.
Anyone affected can join VMP by completing a two-minute survey. “We give data, resources and education to anyone who needs them,” Rhodes says. “We’re happy to collaborate at any time because it takes a village.”
Carlos Rodriguez
President, Peninsula Bicycling Association, Hampton
Carlos Rodriguez is the first to tell you that cycling saved his life.
Injured in a Scud missile attack in the first Gulf War, he was left with post-traumatic stress disorder and injuries to his back, knees, arms and shoulders. A doctor suggested he add cycling to his physical therapy sessions to cope with his injuries.
As president of the Peninsula Bicycling Association since early this year, Rodriguez shows others how cycling can save their lives, too.
Riding a recumbent bike due to his injuries, Rodriguez logs over 10,000 miles a year, most of them accrued on benefit rides for disabled veterans’ groups, some on the weekly Saturday morning rides he leads out of Hampton. His motivation to help other veterans achieve a better quality of life draws directly from what cycling has done for him.
Brian Schools
President and CEO, Chartway Federal Credit Union; Transition Board chair, America’s Credit Unions, Virginia Beach
America’s Credit Unions was born at the beginning of 2024 through a merger between the National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). Brian Schools, who had previously served as vice chair of the NAFCU board, was tapped to be the first board chair for the new organization.
Merging the associations into one organization made sense, Schools says, because it allows the new entity to have a united voice and be a “much more powerful and robust machine.”
Since 2008, Schools has led Chartway, the seventh largest credit union based in Virginia with more than 230,000 members, $2.9 billion in assets and branches in Utah, Texas and Virginia. In his free time, he enjoys Virginia Tech football and his family, which includes two golden retrievers: Goose and Griffin.
Donna Smith
CEO and general manager, Citizens Telephone Cooperative, Floyd County
Donna Smith’s grandfather Maynard Hylton worked at Citizens, a membership cooperative that began offering telephone service in Floyd County in 1914, for more than four decades. Her dad, Donald Hylton, buried copper line as a contractor for Citizens for 35 years.
After Smith earned her accounting degree from Virginia Tech in 2001, she followed in their footsteps, taking a job with the communications provider that offers telephone, internet and television services to Floyd and surrounding communities.
The cooperative’s leader since 2022, Smith manages more than 60 employees.
In August, Citizens hosted a party to celebrate 100% of homes in Floyd being passed by a fiber network. Even a downpour couldn’t dampen that festivity. “We just shut the doors and kept on partying,” says Smith.
Sandy Williams IV
Artist and assistant professor of art, University of Richmond, Richmond
In February, Sandy Williams IV installed a 6-foot wax replica of the Lincoln Memorial at a Washington, D.C., school. The sculpture, which gradually melted over months, was a statement, Williams said, about impermanence and how memorials remain static while the world changes around them.
Now, Williams, who directs the sculpture practice within the University of Richmond’s art department, is working on a permanent memorial for Roanoke College entitled “Authors & Architects,” 1,000 bronzed books to honor the legacy of people enslaved by the college and its donors.
“Be it skywriting or bronzed books, my projects are about creating awareness of the stories and histories of marginalized people that have gone underappreciated but are so fundamental to our story as Virginians, Americans and global citizens,” says Williams.
Stephanie Zeiber
Director of advanced practice provider development, Sentara Health, Virginia Beach
Stephanie Zeiber is one of two directors of advanced practice provider development at Sentara, a role she added in December 2023 after joining the health system 12 years ago.
A physician assistant as well, Zeiber focuses on primary and urgent care; she’s working on improving the onboarding process for new advanced practice providers, or APPs — a field that includes physician assistants and nurse practitioners — as well as improving education and training opportunities for them. She also was recognized in 2021 with the Virginia Academy of Physician Assistants’ Humanitarian of the Year award.
Sentara has about 170 APPs on the primary care side, a number that the system has said it plans to double in three years. Zeiber also is working on her doctorate in medical sciences at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
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