Our Team

CHRISTINA GUILBEAU, FOUNDER

As a former middle school teacher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, our founder, Christina Guilbeau, saw the impact of the lack of accessible mental health services in our schools firsthand. 

She also experienced the difficulties of navigating the mental health care system as a Black woman whose struggles began in adolescence. Christina came to understand the challenges of the licensure process for mental health clinicians when her close friends and family members began to pursue various graduate degrees in the field, and she felt they were an under-leveraged resource given the insufficient amount of providers in our country. She was then motivated to virtually connect adolescents in need of accessible mental health support with highly-motivated and supervised clinician interns in need of licensure hours.

Christina holds a B.A. in Psychology from Amherst College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned a Certificate in Social Innovation and Public Management. She was one of two students to receive the Stanford Social Innovation Fellowship in 2019, which provided her with the funding to launch Hopebound.

Outside of work, Christina enjoys exploring Atlanta, traveling, and spending time with her friends and family, including her husband Logan and their young son Cooper.

TENIJAH HAMILTON, CHIEF COMMUNITY OFFICER

As Chief Community Officer, Tenijah Hamilton stewards the growth and development of the Hopebound community through relationship building and partnership cultivation. A seasoned strategist and storyteller, Tenijah is also charged with building out the narrative framework of the organization to further evangelize the important work Hopebound undertakes.

Since earning her Bachelors in Mass Communications, Creative Writing and Film and Media studies from the University of West Georgia, Tenijah has worked at the intersection of youth and social impact. Most recently she led the very first youth facing program for NOVA on PBS, the longest running primetime science documentary series, further cementing her dedication to empowering the next generation.

In addition to her work at Hopebound, Tenijah hosts and produces a podcast called Bring Birds Back about conservation efforts by formal and citizen scientists that are impacting birds, through the lens of intersectionality and environmental justice. In her spare time she can be found hanging out with her partner Ryan and their very chatty cat Aotearoa, in Atlanta where they live.

IAN SMITH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Ian brings over a decade of experience in education and nonprofit management with a strong focus on operations, team culture, project and event management, and executive support. Ian began their career in the classroom, working as an English teacher at the high school and college level (and briefly at the early childhood and elementary level), but they fell in love with all things operations during their tenure as Chief of Staff for Teach For America Memphis, where they did everything from leading an office move and design project to revamping and designing all-team engagements like staff meetings and retreats. Outside of that work, Ian helped raise Teach For America Nashville’s alumni engagement efforts to the second highest in the network during their tenure as Manager of Alumni Engagement, acted as founding Director of College Counseling at Carver Collegiate in New Orleans, and taught for City University of New York’s CUNY Start program. Most recently, Ian has served as a chief of staff consultant through vChief, working with nonprofit clients like Jeremiah Program and Teach For America on drafting and communicating COVID-19 policies and return to office plans, designing and managing each stage of the hiring and onboarding processes, and project managing multimillion-dollar grants.

Ian is motivated by creating a work culture where everyone feels joyful and open to bringing their whole selves to the table, where humor and fun thrive, and where folks feel known and loved within operational systems, which is why they are so excited to join the Hopebound team. Hopebound’s mission and vision immediately inspired Ian; growing up queer in the South, strong mental health supports would have been revolutionary, and Ian dreams of a world where all kids– especially those most marginalized– have the tools to best love and care for themselves.

As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Ian is passionate about our empowerment and advocacy; one of Ian’s proudest accomplishments (pun intended) was starting two first-in-the-district Gay Straight Alliances in Georgia (as a student) and Tennessee (as a teacher). Ian also enjoys cooking, horror films, food and wine, drag queens and drag scenes, and writing everything from poetry to screenplays to their first novel.