Governing Board
Heart to Heart is a 501(c)3 volunteer-driven charity organization,
led by a governing board of directors. Board members provide organizational oversight to
ensure consistent programmatic and financial accountability. They all share a strong belief
in the effectiveness and value of developing self-sustaining heart centers to save children
born with heart defects.
Given the long-term objective of our mission and the complexity of
cardiac medicine, board continuity is key. Most current members have provided more than a
decade of continuous service. The Board functions as a team; decisions are made by consensus
and then implemented by a combination of board members, office staff, and medical volunteers.
The Board works closely with the executive director to allocate resources, maximize donor
ROI, and build our own organizational sustainability.
Lizbeth Hasse, Esq., Legal Counsel
1989–present
1989–present
“
I went with the very first team on the medical mission in 1990
to help raise Soviet media and other public interest in the program because of my experience
and contacts in the Soviet media at the time. I couldn't resist the project and began doing
legal work and advising for it. I was invited to join the Board during that first year, and
I have been Heart to Heart's legal counsel for over twenty years now. I am very pleased with
the maturity, inclusiveness, and remarkable sustainability of Heart to Heart's medical programs.”
Lizbeth Hasse is a senior partner of Creative Industry Law Group, LLP,
in San Francisco. She practices in the fields of business law, intellectual property law
(copyright, trademark, licensing and trade secret), media, entertainment and commercial
law and negotiations on an international basis. Much of her legal work is for media and
technology clients in the software, motion picture, publishing, ecommerce, digital media,
and telecommunications industries. Liz serves as a neutral mediator in her areas of expertise
and has recently mediated cases involving Adelphia, Enron, race discrimination issues in Los
Angeles area schools, Intel, and human rights cases involving major corporations.
Liz has served as chief legal counsel for international joint venture
projects based in Russia, Ukraine and Senegal, as well as the U.S. She served as election
monitor and mediator in the Fergana Valley region of Kyrgyzstan during 2001 elections. She
also consulted in the mediation of disputes over the distribution of the first private
broadcasting licenses in Moldova and assisted in setting up the criteria for resolution of
similar broadcast licensing disputes for the initial distributions of independent broadcast
licensing in the former USSR.
While Director of the Communications Law Project in the 1990's, she
helped draft copyright, trademark and communications legislation in several Eastern European,
African and Asian countries. Her advisory work has been supported by the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation, Soros Foundation, Rockefeller Fund, and Washington Research Institute.
Liz also consults as a Rule of Law and Democratic Governance Specialist and in 2001- 02 surveyed
countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus to provide an assessment for the U.S. government of
Rule of Law Programs in those regions. She was active in the early 90's on Piracy Commissions
set up by the Ministries of Culture and Communications for USSR/Russia.
She also currently serves on the Boards of Directors of TRACK II Center
for Citizen Diplomacy and the Presidio World College. She previously served on the Board of
The Russian-American Center (formerly The Soviet-American Center) for seven years. Liz speaks
fluent French, comfortable German, and describes both her Russian and Spanish proficiency as
"functional."
