Will Baker - Chief Executive Officer
Will has twenty-four years of experience in nonprofit management, debate coaching, and marketing. For the last twenty years, he’s helped young urban students express themselves, think critically, and use words rather than fists to settle conflicts through the transformative power of debate.  As an advocate for youth, education reform and religious freedom, his methods return debate to classrooms & school districts while extending the model into community-based organizations, religious venues, the corporate sector, prisons and the public square.   In 2008, he was elected as the Executive Vice President of the American Forensics Association.  He was a finalist in the Ford Foundations Leadership for a Changing World competition and is a past winner of the Paul Slappy Award for Diversity and the Barkley Forum Award for Distinguished Service. He is listed in the Marquis Who's Who in the World. As head of Baker Consulting Services International, he has provided management consulting services to major foundations, corporations, United Nations agencies and nearly one hundred nonprofit organizations. He is a Past President of the Committee of Religious Non-Governmental Organizations at the UN and served as the UN Representative for the International Association for Religious Freedom. Will was elected president of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA), the largest intercollegiate organization sponsoring policy debate. He is a former Assembly District Leader for the 27th District in Queens. Mr. Baker serves as special consultant to the President on the International Public Policy Forum at NYU and as the Director of Debate at NYU. Baker was the first African American director to capture an intercollegiate debate championship since Wiley College in 1935. 

Tess Gilman, Chief Management Officer

Tess holds her MS in management of social services from Columbia University School of Social Work, and her BA in philosophy and math from St. John's College. She most recently worked at the National Association of Social Workers where she conducted advertising and development outreach, helped organize the 2009 Annual Meeting, coordinated the NASW-NYC Diversity Committee and facilitated overall coordination of issues of the Currents publication on immigrants and refugees and social work and disabilities, including developing protocols and outlines based on extensive interviews with experts in the field. She has also worked as a clinical counselor at a Harlem foster care agency, and founded the Green Caucus at Columbia University to help organize students around environmental racism and justice issues. Tess is a returning member of the IMPACT staff; she served one year as an Americorps VISTA volunteer in 2006 .

Emmanuel Villaneuva - General Manager
Emmanuel is a graduate of New York University with a degree in nutrition. He developed a comprehensive datamanagement system used in tracking tournament results and ranks, novice and advanced student performance, teacher and alumni info as well as tournament and institute attendance. He is a former regional sales and training manager for a major recreational retailer.

Ashely Howey - Tournament Coordinator

Ashley Howey graduated with a degree in Political Science and International Studies from Brigham Young University Idaho. She completed a stint with the United Nations Department of Public Information.before coming to IMPACT.  Ashley Howey first participated in policy debate when she joined her high school debate team in Sitka, Alaska. This initiated a lifelong love of the sport as she travelled throughout the islands with the team for debate tournaments. She was part of the first all-female team to win the policy portion of the State tournament in 2004.  While at BYUI, she orchestrated an on-campus volunteer program that provided a large variety of service opportunities for several hundred college students.

Bridgette DeFelice, Webmaster and Administrative/Network Support

Ms. Defelice is an alumna of the University of Texas, a former policy debater, and a graduate of the New York University School of Law. She majored in history with a focus on early modern Latin America and a concentration in biology.