Board of Directors

Deepak is a Managing Director at Accenture where he is focused on advising clients on business transformation initiatives with a focus on Technology. Deepak holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science engineering from Bharathiar University (India) where he graduated at the top of his class.

Deepak grew up, and completed his education, in India, before moving to Houston in 2006 where he lives with wife Mekala and their two children. Deepak is very passionate about serving the community and has taken on various volunteering opportunities in the Greater Houston area over the years. He is especially interested in promoting the education and welfare of children.

Vice President of Texas Gas Operations, CenterPoint Energy.
Nathan oversees the service delivery of natural gas to 2 million Texas customers. He has been with the company for 7 years. Nathan first joined CNP in 2016 as the Division Manager of Field Operations in southwest Indiana before transferring to Houston in 2021. Before joining the company, he worked over a decade in the mining industry where he had progressive leadership responsibilities in engineering, operations and safety. Nathan holds a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering and economics from Missouri S&T, a Masters of Engineering from Missouri S&T, and a Master of Business Administration degree from University of Louisville. He is also a registered professional engineer in Indiana. Nathan joined the Board of Directors of Literacy Now in 2023.

Jasmine is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Afterschool Professional and Manager of Federal Programs and Compliance with the Harris County Department of Education in Houston. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a Master of Arts degree from Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, TX. Jasmine has spent over 17 years in youth development and out-of-school time programming. From front-line program work with the YMCA of Greater Houston to program accountability and design at the revered Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, Jasmine has acquired broad-based knowledge of how to make OST programs work. She is a dedicated member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc and has won various awards nationwide, including the National Afterschool Association’s Emerging Leaders of Color, PVAMU’s 40 Under 40, and the Keeper of Promise Award with Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc, to name a few. Jasmine joined the Literacy Now Board of Directors in 2020.

Fred serves as Managing Director and Chairman of energy investment banking at Simmons Energy, a division of Piper Sandler. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oxford University, where he was awarded an open scholarship and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Fred joined the Board of Directors of Literacy Now in 2019.

Lead Editor, Houston Landing.
Giselle was editor-in-chief of the Houston Business Journal (HBJ), where she oversaw the newsroom and the strategic direction of the HBJ’s online and print news products. Giselle earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the HBJ, Giselle served as manager of marketing communications at Kingwood-based Insperity. She has been in journalism for 20 years.

Giselle was recognized in 2018 as a Breakthrough Woman of the Year by the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce. In 2005, she was named Best Reporter by the Austin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and has received numerous accolades from American City Business Journals, the parent company of the HBJ. During Giselle’s tenure at the HBJ, the paper won several awards at the Texas Press Association’s annual awards ceremony, including first place for General Excellence in 2015. Giselle joined the Literacy Now Board of Directors in 2020.

John is a West Point graduate where he received a Bachelor of Science degree and then an MBA from University of Chicago. He is the Managing Principal of The Haley Consulting Group, LLC, a management consulting also providing interim executive fractional management services. John has also worked in the corporate health insurance space serving as VP of Operations to a health plan in Chicago, COO of a health plan in Dallas Texas, and most recently as COO of Community Health Choice in Houston Texas.

Monsterville Horton IV, CWE, was introduced and began to learn about the vast world of wine at a young age, growing up in the San Francisco Bay area. This childhood intrigue has developed into a passionate career allowing him to live, visit, and study in every major wine region of the world and has cultivated his palate into one of the most sophisticated in the industry.

Monsterville has earned the distinction as one of only 135 Certified Wine Educators in the world and has also received a D.E.L.E. Diploma in Spanish from the University of Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain. His resume includes sommelier, wine consultant, wine educator, wine buyer and judge. His efforts in the industry over the past sixteen years have been noticed nationally in The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, Wine & Spirits, and Gourmet magazines as well as locally on ABC, Fox and NBC and in Texas Monthly.

A native Houstonian, Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts. She received her Doctor of Jurisprudence in 2002 from South Texas College of Law Houston and currently works as the General Counsel of National Energy Services Reunited Corp. (NESR). She began her legal career in the Public Finance section of Vinson & Elkins, and prior to joining NESR spent 16 years at another publicly traded company in the oil and gas industry.

Paul serves as an Of Counsel attorney at Womble Bond Dickinson. He graduated from Westside High School in 2003, the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 with a B.A. in Philosophy, and the University of Houston Law School, magna cum laude, in 2011. Paul has served on the Literacy Now Board of Directors since 2013. In Paul’s words, “As someone who has always enjoyed reading and who understands the incredible power that knowledge holds, I am proud to support an organization like Literacy Now that puts such a strong emphasis on literacy initiatives.

Director, SCF Partners.
SCF Partners is a Private-Equity firm specializing in Oil Field Service investments. She spent her formative school years in India, Kenya, and Cambodia, before moving to the UK to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge. After graduating with First Class Honors, she spent several years at ExxonMobil, in a range of technical and operational roles. She subsequently joined the Boston Consulting Group as a management consultant, working on strategic and operational projects across several different industries. Deviyani then moved to Boston to pursue her MBA from the Harvard Business School, graduating in 2018.  Deviyani has loved reading all her life and knows how wonderful books can be to help open minds to different worlds, characters, and possibilities. She joined the Literacy Now Board of Directors in 2018.

Andy is Managing Partner of SCF Partners. He began a more than 35-year career in energy after earning a BSc degree in Civil Engineering from England’s Loughborough University and an MS degree in Environmental Engineering Science from California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He also attended Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA with High Distinction and was elected a Baker Scholar. Andy has served on the Board of Directors for Literacy Now since 2010. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Houston Partnership, where he recently served as Chair of the Public Education Committee, and the Board of Trustees for the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

After completing his engineering degree, he felt called to make a tangible difference rather than pursuing a traditional technical role. This led Abdul to work passionately as a social sector consultant, helping governments, NGOs, and corporations to maximize social impact. Abdul realized he wanted to gain international exposure and evolve as a consultant. He transitioned to business consulting in the last 2 years of his career, where he worked with a strategy healthcare firm. He came to Rice University to learn more about business and expose himself to diverse cultures. Additionally, Abdul desires to take an active part in the execution of his dream. He realized this when he co-founded a part-time enterprise to provide market linkages to handicraft artisans in India.

Dr. Sutton is a translational cancer biologist, where her research team leverages molecular imaging to develop and translate therapeutics and diagnostics for cancer and inflammatory diseases. As a native Texan, Margie grew up in San Antonio, where she obtained her Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemistry and Biology from The University of Texas at San Antonio prior to attending graduate school at the MD Anderson UT Health Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Houston, Texas. After completing her Doctor of Philosophy in 2017, Margie remained at MD Anderson Cancer Center for a postdoctoral fellowship and subsequently joined the faculty in 2022, where she is currently appointed as an Assistant Professor and Director of Education in the Department of Cancer Systems Imaging.

Dr. Sutton is an active community volunteer, who is passionate about supporting the well-being and education of children. She has volunteered with a number of organizations within the Houston community, including serving on the Board of Directors for The Junior League of Houston, Inc. and joining the Board of Directors for Literacy Now as a non-voting member in 2024. She is grateful for the opportunity to work alongside Literacy Now to address the literacy crisis in Houston and support the nearly two-decade long tradition of improving the long-term success of children by empowering them to read on grade level.