Cynthia Dannels is a deputy state treasurer for the state of South Carolina. She oversees administration and information technology as well as the state’s unclaimed property program. She also is administrator for the Future Scholar College Savings Program and the ABLE Savings program, a program which allows those with disabilities to invest and save money while remaining eligible for government benefits. 

 

Dannels has also worked for other state agencies including the Department of Commerce, the state Housing Finance and Development Authority and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. 

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Dannels earned a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of South Carolina. She is a certified public manager and has served as president of the state Society of Certified Public Managers. She has also served on the board of the State Government Improvement Network.

Neil Jones is senior vice president and chief financial officer for Colliers International – South Carolina, handling accounting and financial reporting for the company’s three South Carolina offices. Colliers is a worldwide real estate and investment management company with 18,000 employees.

 

Neil received his bachelor’s in corporate financial management from Clemson University and did post-graduate work at the University of South Carolina.

 

A certified public accountant and certified information technology professional, Neil is a 2014 graduate of Leadership South Carolina and a graduate of Leadership Columbia where he served on the executive board. He previously worked at Bauknight Pietras & Stormer, a Columbia accounting firm.

 

Neil is on the board of South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities and has served on the boards of the Lexington County Sheriff’s Foundation and Columbia Opportunity Resource, a non-profit leadership organization. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the South Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants, the South Carolina Captive Insurance Association, and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association.

Josh Dix is the government affairs director for the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. Josh’s responsibilities include representing the association’s policy positions with local, state, and federal officials. 

 

He also acts as a political consultant to the organization’s board which represents the group’s 4,000 members. Josh has a political science degree from Clemson University and previously worked on the staff of U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, as political director for the Jim DeMint for Senate campaign and on Gresham Barrett’s 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign.

 

Josh’s community involvement includes working with the Lowcountry Affordable Housing Trust initiative to bring more affordable housing to the Charleston area. He also participated in the Dutch Dialogues, which grew out of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. Through the dialogues, leaders from South Carolina, New Orleans and the Netherlands held discussions on ways to mitigate the effects of climate change and sea level rise on vulnerable coastal communities.

Matthew Myers is a senior vice president and city executive for South State Bank in Spartanburg. South State, which started as a small rural bank in 1934, now has more than 2,500 employees at almost 170 locations in the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia. It is the largest bank headquartered in South Carolina. 

 

Matthew, who largely focuses on commercial and private banking, oversees, as city executive, a team of bank employees in Spartanburg. Matthew, who has a degree in finance and marketing from the University of South Carolina where he graduated from the Honors College, previously worked in commercial banking at First Citizens, BB&T and Arthur State Bank.

 

Matthew, a graduate of Leadership Spartanburg, is chairman of the board of the Housing Authority of Spartanburg which is currently transforming its housing from public housing to rental vouchers under a Housing and Urban Development program. He is a co-founder of the St. Luke’s Free Medical Clinic and serves on the Spartanburg Regional Hospice Advisory Board among other charitable and civic endeavors.

Carter Deupree is a shareholder in the Charleston office of the Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd law firm. The Park Hills, Kentucky, native represents individuals, businesses and institutions in real estate and corporate transactions, governance issues and financing. The law firm has about 120 attorneys in offices across the state of South Carolina and roots dating to the late 1800s.

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Carter, who earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Washington and Lee University, is a 2018 graduate of Leadership South Carolina. Prior to joining Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, Carter interned for the Senior U.S. District Judge Sol. Blatt Jr. in Charleston.

 

In addition to service on the Leadership South Carolina Board, Carter also serves on the board of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. He is a graduate of Leadership Charleston, Leadership Greenville, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce LeadSC program and served on the board of the Greenville Chautauqua Society. He is also active in the Urban Land Institute.

Mike Jackson is the Director of Federal and State Government Strategy for the SC Ports Authority. He is the former research and budget analyst for the Ways and Means Committee of the South Carolina House of Representatives. His job involves reviewing, for the benefit of the committee, state agency budgets and budget requests to determine impacts on state spending and policy. He also tracks proposed legislation to determine such impacts.

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Mike has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Stillman College and a master’s in management and leadership from Webster University. Prior to working for the House, Mike worked for the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, as an administrator at South University and at Enterprise. 

 

Mike has been a speaker at national conferences of GEAR UP, which provides grants to help low-income students complete high school and post-secondary degrees. He is also a board member of the Midlands Fatherhood Coalition which provides community programs and support groups for fathers.

Brent Weaver is Wells Fargo & Co.’s vice president for government banking in South Carolina and Georgia. He oversees accounts and maintains relationships with the bank’s government clients in the two states. The bank, which has 7,400 locations around the globe and is the 10th-largest public company in the world, has more than a quarter-million employees serving one in every three households in the United States.

 

Brent who has also worked as a financial consultant and investment advisor, has a bachelor’s degree from Newberry College is a certified treasury professional, and has previously served as deputy treasurer for Richland County.

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Brent is a 2010 graduate of Leadership South Carolina and is a member of the board of South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities. He also has served as a commissioner for the Lexington Soil and Water Conservation District.

Madison Felder is a tax attorney with the Greenville office of the Parker Poe law firm. His practice involves state, local and federal tax issues, economic development matters, corporate law and alcohol licensing issues. He has represented businesses on income tax issues before the state Department of Revenue, property tax issues before local governments and license tax matters before out-of-state agencies. Parker Poe has more than 225 attorneys serving clients from eight offices in the Carolinas, Georgia and in Washington, D.C.

 

Madison has an economics degree from Wofford College and earned his law degree at the University of South Carolina. He has a master’s of law in taxation from the University of Florida.

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Madison is active in the Upstate SC Alliance, which works to bring new economic development to ten counties is the northwest corner of South Carolina. He is also a member of the Haynsworth Perry Inn of Court, the Greenville area chapter of the national association of lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals.

Amanda Taylor is regional director of external affairs for ATT-South Carolina. She represents the company with elected officials and residents in the Upstate on issues involving ATT including new technology and job creation. ATT is the largest telecommunications company in the world with more than 200,000 employees and 2021 revenues of almost $170 billion. Amanda has worked for ATT-South Carolina since 2002, starting in customer care and later in various management positions. 

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Amanda has a psychology degree from the University of Phoenix and is a graduate of Leadership Greenville. She leads AT&T’s Believe SC initiative, addressing the problems of hunger and food insecurity and works to promote economic equality in South Carolina. Amanda is active in community organizations including sitting on the boards of the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce, the Oconee Economic Alliance, and the Tri-County Technical College Foundation. She also serves on the boards of the Upstate SC Alliance, Serve and Connect, the Greenville Chamber and Communities in Schools of South Carolina.

Pamela Benjamin is the Chief of Staff for the City of Columbia which is the state’s second-largest city with a population of about 132,000 people. She is responsible for managing the Human Resources Department, the Safety & Risk Department, and the Municipal Court for the City with approximately 2,500 employees. For more than a decade she served as director of Human Resources overseeing 22 departments, 2200 employees and 640 retirees in all aspects of employment.

 

Pamela, a native of Rock Hill, is a 2018 graduate of Leadership South Carolina and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina. She is also a graduate of the South Carolina Certified Public Manager Program. She has over 23 years of experience working in government for several state agencies including SC Law Enforcement Division, Probation, Parole & Pardon Services, The Department of Administration (formerly the SC Budget & Control Board) and the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

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Pamela’s professional activities include membership in the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, the South Carolina Society for Human Resource Management and the South Carolina Society of Certified Public Managers. She is also active in the Richland County alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Jason Bristol is the area executive for TD Bank in the Midlands of South Carolina. TD bank, with more than 1,200 locations serving 9 million customers on the East Coast, is a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Canada, one of the top 10 financial services companies in North America.

 

Jason’s develops new commercial relationships for the bank and provides leadership for bank’s commercial and small business bankers. He manages a diverse portfolio of commercial, treasury, and wealth relationships.

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A 2016 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, Jason earned a bachelor’s in finance and accounting from the University of Michigan-Flint. A veteran of more than two decades in banking, he previously worked as a senior portfolio officer at Bank of America and as a commercial banker at Citizens Republic Bancorp.

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A past as vice chairman of the board of Leadership South Carolina, Jason volunteers with several non-profit organizations including serving on the board of the Children’s Trust of South Carolina. He is a past chairman of the Financial Stability Council for United Way of the Midlands.

Chris Christiansen is the president of the business division of the R.L. Bryan Company, which dates to 1844 and is considered the oldest company in Columbia. The company began as a modest newsstand and over the decades expanded into printing, office furniture and equipment and with providing educational materials and textbooks to schools across the state. 

 

For more than 60 years R.L. Bryan has served as the state of South Carolina’s book depository which oversees the warehousing and distribution of textbooks and materials. 

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Chris is a 2007 graduate of Leadership South Carolina and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina-Aiken.  Long involved in community affairs, Chris has served on the board of Healthy Learners, a non-profit that works to connect impoverished children with medical screenings so that poor health is not a bar to their education. Healthy Learners has programs in 150 schools across South Carolina. Chris has also served on the board of the Indian Waters Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Jay Jordan represents South Carolina House District 63, which includes sections of downtown Florence and areas of the city’s western suburbs. Jay is an attorney with his own practice in Florence and handles cases throughout the Pee Dee region of the state.

 

A 2017 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, Jay earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston and his law degree from the Charleston School of Law. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2015.

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Jay has served as chairman of the Florence County Election Commission and Voter Registration Board, on the City of Florence Planning Commission and is active with Family Promise of the Pee Dee, a nonprofit that works to address homelessness. He is active as a youth football and baseball coach and as a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Florence Baptist Temple.

Grayson Kelly is vice president of government and community relations at Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative. Blue Ridge Electric serves over 70,000 customers in five upstate counties of South Carolina with reliable electric service and broadband, high-speed internet through its subsidiary, Upcountry Fiber. In his role, Kelly is responsible for providing strategic direction for the company’s government, community, and philanthropic engagements.

 

Previously, Kelly served as vice president of institutional advancement at Tri-County Technical College. In addition, Kelly also served as executive director of the Tri-County Technical College Foundation – the state’s largest technical college foundation with assets of more than $32 million – and its real estate holdings company and research subsidiary.

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Kelly serves on the board of the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce, Imagine Anderson and the Tri-County Entrepreneurial Development Corporation. He is currently chairman of Leadership South Carolina and secretary of the Anderson County Transportation Committee. He is past president of the Rotary Club of Easley and former vice chair of the Anderson-Oconee-Pickens Mental Health Center Board.

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Kelly is a member of the inaugural class of Forty Under 40 presented by GSA Business Report in 2020 and received the prestigious 20 under 40 Emerging Leaders award in 2015 from the Anderson Independent-Mail, he was also honored with a prestigious Jefferson Award by the Multiplying Good program in 2021. Kelly has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Lander University and a Master of Business Administration from Anderson University. 

Kristen Beckham is the governmental affairs director for Pine Gate Renewables, a developer and owner-operator of utility scale solar and energy storage projects across the United States. Pine Gate’s headquarters are in Asheville, NC

 

She is the former external affairs manager for Dominion Energy Carolina Gas. She represents the company with state lawmakers, local elected officials and the public on issues of importance to the company which operates 1,500 miles of transmission pipelines that provide gas to wholesale and industrial customers statewide. The firm’s parent company, Dominion Energy, provides electricity and natural gas to nearly 7.5 million customers in 18 states.

 

Kristen, a 2017 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston and an MBA from the University of Georgia. She previously worked as finance director of the South Carolina Republican Party, a field director for the Republican National Committee and at Pruitt Health.

 

She is participating in Dominion Energy’s Emerging Leaders Program and has served on the board of the Central South Carolina Region of the American Red Cross. She is active in the Junior League, Rotary and the United Way of the Midlands.

Hamid Reza Mohsseni is president and CEO of the Anderson Restaurant Group in Anderson, S.C. The company operates two full-service restaurants – Tucker’s Restaurant and Bar and Carson’s Steakhouse – and a restaurant management and commercial leasing operation.

 

A native of Tehran, Iran, Hamid came to the United States in 1977, earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Clemson University. He previously was general operating partner of Kelsey’s Restaurant in Hendersonville, N.C.

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A 2005 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, Hamid served as chairman of the LSC board for two years and is a graduate of Leadership Anderson.

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A member and former chairman of the Anderson County Economic Development Board, he has participated in overseas economic development missions, including missions to China and Ireland.

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He serves on the boards of Anderson University, the Tri-County Foundation and the local Salvation Army. He has also served on the boards of Region’s Bank, the Anderson Chamber of Commerce, the Anderson YMCA, United Way of Anderson County and the Anmed Hospital Foundation.

Demier Richardson-Sanders leads the statewide 4-H Youth Development Program of South Carolina State University’s 1890 Research and Extension. The 1890 program grew out of the Farmers Institute for Negroes which provided agricultural services in rural areas in the late 19th Century. It now includes urban areas with five outreach programs: 4-H and youth programs, community development, educational, nutrition and health programs and sustainable agriculture.

 

Demier has devoted a quarter century to improving communities across the state, developing summer camps and after-school activities for school kids and adult education programs for seniors. Demier has a degree in elementary education from South Carolina State and a master’s degree from Cambridge College.

 

She has been active for more than two decades with the Alpha Kappa Alpha service sorority and has served as sorority advisor on the SC State campus. A 2014 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, Demier volunteers with the annual Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade and SC State alumni activities. She was honored in 2013 with the 1890 Excellence in Extension Award from the nationwide Association of Extension Administrators. 

Tim Self is the executive director of the AnMed Health Foundation. The AnMed Health system serves residents of eight counties in upstate South Carolina and northeast Georgia and employs about 3,600 people. The health system is the largest employer in Anderson County. Tim administers the system’s not-for-profit foundation that each year raises millions of dollars for community and AnMed Health programs.

 

Tim, a 2019 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, has a degree in political science and nonprofit management from Maryville College in Tennessee and a master’s in health care administration from Southern Wesleyan University. He earned professional certificates from the University of Wisconsin and Central Missouri State University. He previously worked in business development roles at the University of Tennessee Medical Center and Dale Carnegie Training andworked for the National Kidney Foundation.

 

Tim is a graduate both East Tennessee Regional Leadership and Leadership Blount County in Tennessee.

Mike Smith is the director of budget, billing and pricing for Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility. Created in 1934 as a rural electrification and public works project under the New Deal, the utility provides electricity, either wholesale or retail, to 2 million South Carolinians. Mike leads employees responsible for producing the utility’s annual budget, for monthly bills for industrial, municipal, and wholesale customers and for electric rates for Santee Cooper customers.

 

Mike has an engineering degree from the United States Naval Academy and an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta. He served in the Navy as a nuclear submarine officer and has held a variety of positions at Santee Cooper. He previously worked for utilities including Georgia Power and Southern Company. 

 

Mike also worked as finance and administration director at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. He is a member of the Church at Lifepark in Mount Pleasant where he serves as a prayer minister. In Atlanta, he organized Southern Company employees who built a Habitat for Humanity house and served meals to the homeless.

Lauren Stanton serves as Executive Director of the Education Foundation and Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Francis Marion University.

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A proud Francis Marion alumna, Lauren earned both a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Master of Business Administration from the university. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to leadership, education, and community service.

 

Lauren's civic and professional involvement has included service on the Pee Dee Workforce Development Board, Junior Leadership Florence Board, Francis Marion University's Young Alumni Advisory Council and Alumni Board, the Hannah-Pamplico Youth League, and the Hannah-Pamplico Elementary/Middle School PTO. She is a graduate of Leadership Florence, a McLeod Fellow, and a graduate of Leadership South Carolina. In recognition of her professional achievements and service, she received the Benjamin Wall Ingram III Young Alumnus Award and Biology Alumnus of the Year from Francis Marion University.

 

Lauren currently serves on the Leadership South Carolina Board, where she continues to support the development of leaders across the state.

Ed Sutton is the owner of Simply Commercial Real Estate in Charleston and serves in the Air Force Reserve instructing pilots to fly C-17s. Simply Commercial is a boutique development company focusing on restoring historic structures and building mixed used developments.

 

Ed has a degree in business administration from The Citadel and a master’s in military operations from the Air Force Air Command and Staff College. After graduating from The Citadel, he served nine years on active duty flying C-17 cargo planes. Ed joined the Air Force Reserves in 2015 and continues to fly C-17 missions worldwide. In 2021, he and his crew flew a C-17 into Kabul during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, evacuating nearly 1,000 Afghan refugees.

 

Ed is a graduate of the leadership program at the Air Force Squadron Office School and is a Roper St. Francis Foundation Fellow. He is on the board of Art Forms and Theater Concepts, an African American theater company in Charleston, and is active with the Rotary Club of Charleston. Ed is a former president of the Reynolds Avenue Merchants Association, a nonprofit working to revitalize an area in North Charleston that took an economic hit with the closing of the Charleston Naval Base in the mid-1990s.  

Quenton Tompkins is the government affairs manager for the Medical University of South Carolina. Quenton represents the university in working with lawmakers, local officials and community leaders across the state on legislation and other issues that affect MUSC. The university in Charleston has a student body of almost 4,000, including doctors is residency, and has more than 17,000 employees.

 

Quenton, a 2019 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, is also on the planning committee for MUSC’s annual Inclusion to Innovation Summit. The summit works to strengthen the network of diversity leaders across the state and throughout the Southeast.

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Quenton holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in public health, both from the University of South Carolina.

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Prior to coming to MUSC, Quenton served as executive director of the Salvation Army Community Center in Greenville, senior vice president of the United Way of Anderson County and chief executive of Partners for a Healthy Community in Anderson.

Maj. Christopher Turner is the operations planner for the 263rd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, an Army National Guard unit based in Anderson. The unit supports the Army in defending against terror and missile attacks directed at the homeland. 

 

Christopher is a liaison officer between the unit and the 601st Air and Space Operations Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which provides planning for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. He also assists with Operation Vigilant Shield, an annual drill of homeland preparedness conducted jointly by the United States and Canada. Christopher previously was a site manager for Voith Hydro which manufactures components for hydropower plants worldwide. 

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A graduate of The Citadel and as a youth, an Eagle Scout, Christopher is working on a master’s in education. He has completed various advanced military training courses, serves on the executive council of the National Guard Association of South Carolina and is a member of the Washington Light Infantry in Charleston. He is currently participating in the Liberty Fellows program located at Wofford University.

Tiger Wells is the South Carolina government affairs director for Duke Energy. Duke provides electricity to 7.7 million retail customers is six states, 760,000 of them in the Greenville and Myrtle Beach areas of South Carolina. Tiger works with state lawmakers, local leaders and community groups on issues and legislation concerning energy and the power company.

 

A graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta and of the University of Virginia School of Law, Tiger is a 2016 graduate of Leadership South Carolina. He worked previously at the Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd law firm and as director of governmental affairs for the Municipal Association of South Carolina.

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Tiger is a graduate of the Riley Institute at Furman University and is the board chairman of Academic Angels, a non-profit helping at-risk students achieve academic success. He is also active in the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, a bipartisan coalition of Republicans, Democrats and independents working for criminal justice reform.

Dr. Evans Whitaker is the twelfth president of Anderson University. Since he arrived in 2002, the university in Anderson, S.C., has doubled its enrollment to 3,500 students while the school has added 23 graduate programs and quadrupled the size of its campus, adding nine new buildings. Evans also founded the South Carolina School of the Arts and the Undergraduate Center for Cancer Research.

 

A native of Shelby, N.C., Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Gardner-Webb University and a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University, where he also earned his Ph.D.

 

Evans has served as chairman of the Presidents’ Council of the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, on the board of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities and has chaired the of the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities, among other positions. He has served on the boards of Brookgreen Gardens, the South Carolina Tuition Grants Commission and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education.

Courtney White is director of development at Tri-County Technical College Foundation. Tri-County serves more than 9,000 students pursuing 70 majors at four campuses in Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens counties. 

 

The foundation raises funds for the ongoing work of the college and in 2021 was able to raise more than $901,000 to support students and educational programs. Courtney has served as development director since 2014, after coming to the foundation six years earlier as manager of donor relations. In her current job she works to identify and solicit donations from major donors. Courtney has a bachelor’s degree in tourism management from Clemson University and is a graduate of Leadership Anderson. She previously worked as director of marketing for the Discover UpCountry Carolina Association, a regional tourism promotion agency. 

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Courtney is the president of the Anderson Special Needs Foundation and serves on the United Way of Anderson Campaign board. She is a past chair of the board of Anderson Interfaith Ministries and has served on the board of the Anderson Sunshine House, which provides temporary shelter to families in need.