Desi Danganan
Executive Director
Desi is a serial entrepreneur. As the managing director of Plinth Agency, he has successfully grown businesses through strategic branding, design, and crowdfunding. He brings 15+ years of experience creating, funding, and branding unique business concepts which span the food, music, technology spaces.
His past achievements include the Summit SF, one of the nation’s first café and co-working spaces and the Poleng Lounge, a Filipino restaurant and nightclub which was named one of SF’s Top 10 New Restaurants in 2006.
As a dedicated community advocate, Desi is currently chair leading the economic development of SOMA Pilipinas, a newly designated cultural district in San Francisco. He believes community consciousness and culture are the keys to developing today’s thriving commercial ecosystems.
Gina Mariko Rosales
Event Producer
Gina Mariko Rosales is an events enthusiast, #Pinayista, efficiency nerd, dancer, and nonprofit advocate. Prior to founding Make it Mariko, Gina spent 10 years doing corporate & nonprofit event planning, administration, and operations. She was the first Administrative Business Partner for the Google Self-Driving Car Team, and the first Head of Marketing Events at X, the moonshot factory (formerly Google X) where she planned large scale tech event activations, press, and public policy events. Gina was former Executive Director of the award-winning, nonprofit performing arts organization, Funkanometry SF and did youth outreach work with SF & Oakland schools. She is the Co-Founder of the UNDISCOVERED SF Creative Night Market in SOMA Pilipinas, as well as the Founder of Pinayista – a nonprofit community of Filipino women dedicated to building sisterhood in the hustle. Gina’s personal mission is to create magical, meaningful moments that help remind us of the beauty and interconnectedness of life.
RJ Navalta
Stage Producer
RJ is a veteran event producer, entrepreneur, Dj, and dancer who has created both intimate and epic experiences that move people.
RJ is the founder of the Creative Transit Agency that utilizes a unique blend of creativity, strategy, and execution to create memorable moments.
Julia Lin
Food Curator
Julia is your jack of all trades, soon to be mistress of all. By day, she’s a chaos coordinator in the local ecosystem of small businesses. By night, she’s a fitness coach focused on holistic wellness, and a self-proclaimed hyphy events specialist grounded in pleasure activism. For Julia, homegrown is the name of the game, and that’s exactly what she achieves when she’s on the hunt for community talent.
Having contracted for festivals like Outside Lands and Off the Grid, Julia has found her niche in the food realm of event production. She couldn’t be more excited to watch the city’s post-pandemic culinary world transform and be able to spotlight this talent in Undiscovered Season 7.
Kaithleen Apostol
Marketing Manager
Kaithleen is passionate about community building and being a cheerleader for small, local businesses. Through her agency Binibini Kreative, Kaithleen works with minority-owned, women-led businesses to nail their brand story-telling. Kaithleen is very thankful for the chance to work with Kultivate Labs and come back to the Bay Area to help grow the SOMA Pilipinas community she grew up in.
PapaLoDown Agency
Public Relations Team
The PapaLoDown Agency is a boutique public relations company specializing in BIPOC owned businesses and organizations. Through publicity and brand awareness campaigns the PapaLoDown team amplifies the unique stories behind each project; that in turn will create buzz, increase conversion rates, and build lasting relationships in the communities their clients serve. The company’s well rounded background in the arts, entertainment, restaurant & retail industries provides clients with over 30 years of experience, and a diverse network of resources. The company was founded by Paloma B. Concordia in 2009, and is located in both Northern and Southern, California.
Nicole Salaver
Balay Kreative Manager
Nicole is the Program Manager at Balay Kreative. She is a San Francisco native with a long family history of activism and community work in the Filipino American arts and culture scene. Nicole's own work has spanned over twenty years in the events, creative and theater realm from solo performance, new media production, filmmaking, screenplay writing and event production. She believes that elevating the culture and helping heal generational trauma through art is part of her legacy.
Mogli Maureal
Resident Photographer
Anthony “Mogli” Maureal was born on the island of Cebu, in the Philippines. When he was 10 years old, his family immigrated to San Jose, California, where he discovered his passion for extreme sports and a wide array of music. He began drumming at the age of 13 and developed his chops playing in the drumline for his high school’s award-winning marching band. Mogli majored in Sound Arts at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts. Since graduating, he has been working all over the Bay Area and now internationally as a visual artist, sound artist, composer, and musician. In addition, Mogli has been featured in numerous outlets such as, Quartz, California and is a founding member of the Oakland based band MAD NOISE, as well as the music producer and photographer for the award winning theater, music and film squad RADIX Troupe.You can check out his work at www.themogli.com
Make it Mariko
Make it Mariko (pronounced MAH-ree-ko) is a San Francisco experiential events agency led by women of color that creates magical, meaningful moments for the community. They are proud to be the Co-Founders & Event Producers of @undiscoveredsf with Kultivate Labs.
Make it Mariko are experience curators, community activators, corporate planners, nonprofit advocates, and event enthusiasts. They are committed to curating creative, inclusive, and diverse spaces in the events industry, to challenge the status quo, and pave the way for a new generation of event experience curators.
The team is so excited for our 7th SEASON of Undiscovered SF! It’s been a whirlwind of an event to produce for 7 years straight, and we’re so thankful for all the community we have built in @SOMAPilipinas and the entire Fil Am Bay Area community.
Stephanie Gancayco
Retail Curator
Stephanie Gancayco is an Oakland-based creative director, designer and DJ whose work is rooted in bridge-building, healing, and community. They’re the founder & editor-in-chief of Hella Pinay, a fashion and subculture magazine celebrating Filipina/o/x identity; you can currently find them creating content, producing events, and managing a global team of contributors from Honolulu to Manila to Toronto. You can also catch them at the clurb spinning (mostly) modern house and techno from the Philippines and diaspora under the moniker deep th0ts, and co-hosting Hella Pinay Radyo every third Thursday on Lower Grand Radio. In a recent past life they lived in NY where they worked in design and product development for designers like Anna Sui and Jen Kao.
Having previously served as Undiscovered’s Merchandising Manager in Seasons 2 & 3, Steph is excited to bring her love for fostering authentic connections and uplifting AAPI creatives to her new role.
Jon Reyes
Music Curator
A DJ & producer based out of San Francisco.
A staple of the Bay Area nightlife scene, Jon holds residencies in San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento. In the metaverse, Jon hosts a weekday morning Twitch mixshow, Per My Last E-Mail, where listeners listen to uninterrupted, live DJing during their workday.
An experienced mobile and corporate DJ, Jon’s clients include brands like Everlane, Shake Shack, Converse, Guitar Center, TEDx and the San Francisco Food Bank. Consistent with his ethos of community building through music, Jon is also one of the founders of San Francisco's ColdCutz! Music Club, a social club dedicated to the celebration and preservation of record culture.
Jon’s music production work has over one million plays on SoundCloud and has been featured on influential platforms such as KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, Soulection Radio, and NTS Radio. As a solo artist and as 1/2 of electronic hip-hop duo DLRN, Jon has been featured on various publications and websites such as TIDAL, Okayplayer, Earmilk, and URB Magazine.
Kultivate Labs
Kultivate Labs is a Non-profit Economic Development and Arts Organization. They create thriving commercial ecosystems by accelerating businesses that preserve culture and community. They provide space and opportunities for the arts to flourish so that commercial activities are activated and reflect the community at large.
Kultivate Labs activates spaces where relationships are central and where Filipinx culture is relevant, inspired, and ever-evolving as they discover their unique role in the diaspora. They create thriving commercial ecosystems by accelerating businesses that preserve culture and community, and where development and improvements are possible without displacement. They advance art programming rooted in our shared history that reflects the community at large.
Jimmie Gabiola
Marketing Coordinator
Jimmie is a Bay Area-based multidisciplinary artist. With 7+ years in the digital marketing space and helping entrepreneurs develop their brand strategies and launch campaigns. Bridging the psychology of marketing and visual communication through art and design, Jimmie's passion is seeing campaigns come to life with strategic intuition. Jimmie is part of the inaugural cohort of the Brownthought Academy, a marketing internship where he learned all aspects of marketing from email campaigns, social media, website maintenance, paid social media, and the fundamentals of socially conscious economic development.
Creative Transit Agency
Creative Transit Agency was founded in 2016 with the goal and vision of representing talent, understanding clients' needs, all while contributing to the rich creative arts culture of the Bay Area. The CTA team consists of Talent & Project Managers, Event Producers and Performing Artists; designing experiences is embedded in our lifestyle. From Strategic Consultation, Event Production & Media Documentation; CTA orchestrates moments that inspire movement.
Andre Sibayan
Creative Director
Andre has a passion for curiosity, discovery, and fun. He excels in solving problems through thoughtful design and creative strategy. Andre brings 15+ years of professional design experience creating work for clients like Target, Old Navy and the McCANN Worldgroup.
Andre brings that rare blend of artistry and business savvy. He is believes every creative decision, every design is built to move a brand forward.
When he's not working, he enjoys eating and making good food with friends, creating digital tools for artists and designers. He’s also known for having legendary living room dance parties with his wife and son.
Genevieve Roja
Genevieve Roja is a San Francisco native, former community organizer-turned-event planner with 20 years of experience. In 2009, she founded Lily Spruce, a planning company serving rule-breaking Bay Area wedding couples and clients who wanted to add nontraditional spice to their events. Lily Spruce has produced La Cocina’s first-ever Night Market at the historic Alemany Market in San Francisco; Bernal Heights’ Fiesta on the Hill, and Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s annual galas.
In addition to planning over 100 California-based weddings from Boonville to Big Sur, Lily Spruce was most proud of employing women and men of color, serving LGBQTIA+ couples, and working alongside women-led and minority-owned small businesses to produce their events. They were also honored to produce galas and fundraisers for SOMA Pilipinas, The Watershed Project, and Youth Enrichment Strategies, often taking on clients whose missions focused on social change work, environmental protection, and youth.
Prior to her career in events, Genevieve was a sportswriter, an editor at AlterNet, and freelance writer for Hyphen and the Filipino art and fashion book arkiteknik, by Anthony Cruz Legarda and edited by Olivia Ongpin.
In 2023, Genevieve joined Make it Mariko as Event Director, continuing her personal mission to train and lead the next generation of POC event planners. She’s proud to have been a vendor coordinator for Undiscovered Season 1, and staffing manager for Season 6. Now in Season 7, Genevieve is most excited to experience a season from start to finish, squaring away logistics and operations, managing the workforce for the day, and supporting the core team in executing this uniquely Bay event.