About Us

Elizabeth Cushing is the CEO of Playworks, a national organization leveraging the power of play to transform children’s well-being. Recognizing that play is vital in learning to relate to each other, Cushing works to ensure all kids have equitable access to a safe and healthy recess experience at school every day. Elizabeth joined Playworks in 2004 and was named CEO in 2020. During her tenure, she has played a lead role in designing Playworks’ national scaling strategy, growing from a San Francisco Bay Area focus to a national organization reaching nearly 1 million children every year. For more than 30 years, Elizabeth has served in leadership roles in nonprofit organizations focused on youth development, children’s advocacy, and women’s issues. Elizabeth is a product of Oregon public schools, Stanford University, and the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs.

Ali’s first film as director and producer, Close to Home, was an award-winning documentary that premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. It aired on the Discovery Health Channel and was featured for ten years on the Oprah Winfrey Show. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Ali brought extraordinary sensitivity and empathy to her work with the participants in Close to Home. She is currently in post-production on a new documentary, Take Good Care, exploring the long-term impacts of childhood sexual abuse, revisiting the original participants from the film.

Ali co-directed and produced The Third Monday in October, a feature documentary following 12-year-old kids campaigning to lead their middle school student councils during the 2004 national presidential election. The film won several major film festival honors, aired on the Sundance Channel, and was part of President Obama’s inaugural youth events in Washington, DC in 2009 and 2013. Ali also directed three short films for Marian Wright Edelman’s Children’s Defense Fund, featuring Beat the Odds Scholarship recipients.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Ali co-founded the Mark McGwire Foundation for Children, where she spent five years, four of them as Executive Director. In that role, she executive-produced and co-wrote the foundation’s acclaimed public service announcements, Think Again and Help. In the early 2000s, Ali served on the national board of Prevent Child Abuse America and rejoined the board in 2026. She recently shared her lived experience at the World Child Foundation/Economist Out of the Shadows Index event in Washington, DC.

Ali holds a BA from UCLA, where she was a varsity volleyball player. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband James and their three teenagers.

Sarah Marikos, MPH, is an epidemiologist with a background in public health and an understanding of health inequities and their root causes. As the Executive Director of ACE Resource Network, Sarah led the launch of NumberStory.org, the first national public awareness and education campaign on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), childhood trauma, and other forms of childhood adversity that increase the risk for poor health outcomes and educational challenges. Sarah has a master’s in public health in epidemiology from San Diego State University; two bachelor’s degrees in Interdisciplinary Studies and Geography from UC Berkeley; and is also a Human Impact Partners’ health equity fellow.

Aarti Shahani is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She spent her 20s organizing immigrant prisoners, then, in 3 years flat, pivoted to business journalism. She enjoyed a meteoric rise at NPR as Silicon Valley correspondent, leading the network’s coverage of Google, Meta/Facebook, Uber, and many others. On her hit podcast Art of Power (a co-production with WBEZ), Aarti sits down with luminaries to ask: how does power work in the real world? How has your exercise of power transformed you? Her eighth guest is a guy from Hawaii named Barack Obama. Aarti’s first book, Here We Are (Macmillan), chronicles her unlikely journey from an undocumented child in Queens, New York, to a national voice on the frontlines of the most powerful industry on earth.

Aarti regularly hosts Forum, the Bay Area’s leading live daily news show (KQED/NPR).  Her reporting has received an Edward R. Murrow Award, an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award, and an award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Her very first newsroom was ProPublica. She’s had the honor of guest-hosting All Things Considered and CNN’s Amanpour & Co.

Aarti graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a full scholarship from the university and additional support from the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She completed her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. She was among the youngest recipients of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University. She is an alumna of The Brearley School, which she also attended on a full scholarship.

Aarti lives in San Francisco with her partner and son.