Strategic Leader with 25+ Years of Experience in Scaling Social Impact, Innovation, and Collaborations

Skills

  • Strategic Vision & Execution

  • Organizational Culture Building

  • Values-Based Leadership

  • Philanthropic Partnerships & Grantmaking

  • Financial & Budget Oversight ($100M+ annual budgets)

  • Coalition Building & Stakeholder Engagement

  • Impact Assessment & Program Design

  • Public Speaking & Advocacy

  • Cross Functional Team Leadership

Professional Experience

Wend Collective

CHIEF STRATEGIST | 8/22-8/24

Wend was a quiet Social Impact and Philanthropy entity funded by James Walton with the goal to wayfind to a better world. It’s focus areas has been Education, Indigenous People, Voting Access, Social Justice, Arts & Culture and Forced Migration. The organization sunset in Fall of 2024.

  • Steered financial strategy, managing a $100M+ budget and aligning resources with the organization's vision.

  • Led strategic planning for multiple initiatives with Initiative Lead to maximize impact through building partnerships, seeking innovation edges and leading with heart and intention.

    Focus was on Education, Indigenous Language, Arts, International Forced Migrations and Social Justice.

  • Spearheaded continued cultivation of the organization culture through changes, distance and varied and disparate strategies and focus areas.

  • Key player in strategic planning on the sunsetting of Wend, ensuring a dignified and impactful transition for all.

Great Work Inc.

Executive Director | 9/15-11/22

GWI exists to be a trim tab, to incubate ideas that can lead to radical disruption to the systems around them. It pushes on the self-sustaining gravity of the current structures in youth development spaces which are not in service of respecting, elevating and honoring the wisdom, dignity and capacity of young people. GWI is an Initiative of the Wend Collective.

  • Focused the Board and led a strategic plan and restructure that resulted in expanding the team from 2 to 90, and budget from $500k to $7.5M.

  • Created and Launched 9 separate entities, either under GWI’s ownership or into independently governed organizations as part of a broad multi-faceted strategy to impact education systems.

  • Founded a learner centered middle school, embedded in real world coffee shop and bike as a beacon for what can be possible in education

  • Initiated and facilitated an international coalition to codify Montessori curriculum and training standards for Montessori at the adolescent level and secured adoption by Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)

  • Directed acquisition, development, and management of a $50M property portfolio, including 2 schools, commercial buildings, and a 1,100-acre former summer camp.

YMCA of San Diego

Associate Executive Director | 9/15-11/22

GWI exists to be a trim tab, to incubate ideas that can lead to radical disruption to the systems around them. It pushes on the self-sustaining gravity of the current structures in youth development spaces which are not in service of respecting, elevating and honoring the wisdom, dignity and capacity of young people. GWI is an Initiative of the Wend Collective.

  • Led a team of 300+ staff in the nation’s second-largest YMCA association

  • Shifted organizational culture to focus on programmatic impact while maintaining revenue growth.

  • Spearheaded a $15M capital campaign and facilitated the expansion of youth programs to new locations

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