Dianne M. Millner obtained her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa) and her law degree from Stanford University Law School. She recently completed a Fellowship at the Stanford University Distinguished Careers Institute (2018) which sparked her interest in advancing the work of the Stanford University Center on Longevity- with a focus on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in the Longevity field.

Ms. Millner currently serves as the senior strategic advisor, real estate consultant, and legal counsel to Minority Television Project, Inc. (“MTP”), a 35-year-old educational entity that operates KMTP-TV Channel 32, Digital Channel 33- an educational station with a broadcast signal carried by substantially all the cable television systems in the nine-county San Francisco Bay area and DirectTV, reaching approximately 1.9 million households over the air, via satellite and cable. Ms. Millner has represented MTP since its startup phase in the 1980’s through to successful sale of a portion of its digital assets in 2017 pursuant to a Federal Communications Commission Auction that resulted in MTP receiving approximately $90,000,000 in sales proceeds.

She also advises the MTP-sponsored Wade Scholarship Program that provides full scholarships for underrepresented master’s degree engineering students, and the Wade Institute of Technology, a new  STEM college (in organization) based in Palo Alto, California.

For over twenty years, Ms. Millner led the real estate and economic development divisions of the City Attorney’s Office of Oakland, CA. During that time, she helped jumpstart the revitalization of the city’s underused downtown, handled the approximately $1 Billion proposed development of a former military site, and represented the City in negotiations involving its sports teams, including the A’s baseball team, the Warriors basketball team, and the Raiders football team.

She currently chairs a committee affiliated with the Stanford University Distinguished Careers Program that assists nonprofits in Oakland, California; serves on the Self-Determination Local Advisory Committee of the Regional Center of the East Bay serving persons with developmental and other disabilities; and is a proud member of the Stanford University Alumni Association, the Stanford University National Black Alumni Association, the Stanford Law School Black Alumni Association, and the UC Berkeley Black Alumni Association.

She previously served as a California Governor Jerry Brown appointee to a disability advocacy organization; and acted as both Chairperson and President of the Board of Directors of Disability Rights California, the nation’s largest legal rights disability advocacy organization.

Ms. Millner has been recognized as a legal trailblazer for co-founding in 1980 what became the then- largest African American owned law firm in the Western United States (and one of very few minority women law firm owners at that time). Her work led her to be honored by the Women’s Division of the National Bar Association, the nation’s largest organization of Black attorneys.

Her current interests include developments and ethical issues in the fields of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and quantum mechanics;  astronomy; reading history, historical fiction, biographies, and autobiographies; travel; gardening; and hiking.