Mission Asset Fund Staff

Jose Quinonez, MAF's founding Executive Director, is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. Jose’s background includes working as a legislative assistant for Congressman Ruben Hinojosa. He later went on to work as a lobbyist for various nonprofit organizations in Washington, D.C., advocating on a variety of issues including immigration, hunger, and welfare reform. After moving to California, Jose worked for the Center for Responsible Lending, advocating against predatory mortgage and payday lending practices that strip assets from hard-working families, and the Asset Policy Initiative in California where he worked to develop a state-wide coalition to move an asset-building policy agenda in Sacramento.

Rhea L. Serna, Community Investment Program Director, helps low-income Mission residents and non-profit organizations access affordable investment opportunities to allow them to live, work and stay in the neighborhood. Before joining MAF, she worked for the California Reinvestment Coalition as a Senior Policy Advocate where her responsibilities focused on bank mergers, consumer issues, asset development, and educating communities about the high costs of a two-tiered financial system. Before coming to California in 2003, her professional and educational experiences included empowering underserved communities in the areas of land use planning and affordable housing in her home state of New Mexico.

Daniela Salas, Assets and Savings Program Director, connects Mission area residents to appropriate financial services and a broad range of asset-building programs. Ms. Salas leads MAF's financial coaching, match-savings accounts programs (IDAs), and La Red (Resources for Economic Development). Before joining MAF, she worked for Operation Hope, a worldwide leading nonprofit social investment banking and financial literacy empowerment organization. While in Chicago she worked at the Lion’s Club and the Rotary International Foundations. Her work involved the management and implementation of humanitarian projects in Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America. A native speaker of Spanish and Portuguese, Ms. Salas has traveled extensively and lived for over 17 years in Chile and Brazil.

Alex Nerguizian, Financial Coach, is a consultant to MAF through his company Financial I.Q. Consulting. He assists MAF by connecting with the Mission community through the Financial Coaching program and the Financial Management Training classes he teaches through the organization. Most of the time, however, he works in developing culturally relevant teaching material to educate financial concepts to individuals. Alex was born in Argentina and lived there for 13 years. He attended UC Davis and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Managerial Economics. He spent 7 years in banking where he specialized in wealth management and credit.