SOLD OUT: YPIN International Women’s Day Speed Mentorship 2019

(This event is sold out.)

Back by popular demand, the Young Professionals International Network (YPIN) will host its 7th annual International Women’s Day Speed Mentorship event sponsored by Atlas Workbase. Mentees will rotate through mini 10-minute tailored mentorship sessions with the Northwest’s top female leaders.

This event is perfect for early career women seeking to enhance their leadership potential, or mid-career professionals looking to make a career change or accelerate their current trajectory. You will be exposed to new businesses, vocations, and opportunities, and have the chance to network with all mentors and mentees in addition to one-on-one conversations with a handful of mentors selected just for you.

Check-in begins at 9:30 AM.

We have a limited number of sponsored tickets for this event so if you are interested in attending, but are unable to purchase a ticket, please reach out to ypin@world-affairs.org and let us know.

*Important note to mentees: after you register, please send a list of your top seven women you would like to be paired with, a short bio, and a headshot to ypin@world-affairs.org

Keynote:

Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno, Co-Founder, Future for Us

Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno is the co-founder of Future for Us, an initiative dedicated to accelerating the advancement of women of color through community, culture & career development. Sage is also a passionate pay equal advocate and diversity, equity and inclusion champion. She has provided over 4,000+ women with salary negotiation tools and resources they need to advocate for themselves at work.

Sage has spoken on panels for the Seattle Women’s March, the American Advertising Federation, University of Washington at the Foster School of Business, Hired Equal Pay Panel, Microsoft's global DISHA program, Starbucks for Women’s History Month and more.

Her drive and enthusiasm to fight for pay equity, especially for women of color, has launched her to the forefront of the the women’s rights movement and she continues to advocate for the advancement for women in the workplace.

About the Mentors:

Denise Aguilar is a first-generation Colombian-American serial entrepreneur and former co-founder of a local automotive startup. Her body of work lies in multiple industries such as health and wellness, tech, automotive, and fashion. In New York, Denise worked for top high fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, and Vogue. Denise is currently utilizing her broad range of marketing experiences to build memorable brands and open opportunities for women of color.

Denise has her bachelors and masters from Fairleigh Dickinson University in business and organizational communications; focusing on crisis communications and women in the workplace.

Karen Aliabadi is the Chief Human Resources Strategist at Delta Dental of Washington. As an expert in organizational strategy, Karen leads collaborative enterprise initiatives to shape the workforce to meet business priorities.

Karen is a Human Resources executive who is passionate about providing companies with the perfect balance of human capital expertise and business acumen. She joined Delta Dental in 2015 after working in Human Resources for many industry-respected companies, including Fisher Communications and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle. With over 20 years of industry experience and strategic insight, she has a solid understanding of people dynamics and builds strong talent management capabilities. Directly prior to starting at DDWA, Karen was the President and owner of the consulting firm, Passio, where she helped clients make sustainable performance improvements through culture.

Karen is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources from the HR Certification Institute. Karen holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Training and Development and a Bachelor’s of Arts in Education from Southern Illinois University. She also completed the Master of Sustainable Business Practices program at Green Mountain College, attaining her MBA while serving as the Vice President of Corporate HR at Fisher Communications.

Maya Babla Appiah is a senior program manager within Microsoft's Global Talent Acquisition team, where she develops strategies to recruit amazing talent from all over the world. She previously worked at LinkedIn in San Francisco, where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies on their hiring strategies in her core role, and supported LinkedIn's refugee program, Welcome Talent, as a volunteer.

Maya co-chairs the City of Seattle's Immigrant and Refugee Commission and is on the Leadership Council for Upwardly Global, a national nonprofit that supports immigrants & refugees to rebuild their professional careers in the US.

Maya's driving force is to find creative ways to have a positive social impact, and in particular, to use technology and cross-sector partnerships in order to do so at a global scale.

Originally from Palestine, Majd Baniodeh joined the Starbucks Global Social Impact team in 2016 as a fellow on the Ethical Sourcing team. Shortly after Starbucks made a commitment to hiring 10,000 refugees globally, Majd was hired to lead the U.S. implementation of the initiative. In addition to leading partner engagement opportunities, grant giving to refugee agencies, and the internally led- Welcoming Refugees Alliance, Majd manages Starbucks relationships with external U.S. refugee stakeholders to support hiring efforts, promote awareness, and build a network influencers. Majd holds an MA and a BA in International Relations.

Rebekah Bastian is Vice President of Community & Culture at Zillow Group, leading efforts around Equity & Belonging, Social Impact Products, and Cultural Engagement. Rebekah was one of Zillow's first employees, coming over from Microsoft in 2005, and spent her first 12 years leading product development across many areas of the company. Rebekah serves on the Board of Directors of Bellwether Housing and the Advisory Board for the University of Washington School of Mechanical Engineering. She has been recognized in the Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40 and the Inman 33 People Changing the Real Estate Industry. Rebekah earned her Masters of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. She is also mother to two boys, a writer, and an aerial acrobat.

Prior to joining Spectrum Dance Theater as the Executive Director, Tera Beach is best known for her career working in the office of US Representative Jim McDermott, where she served the Seattle community and aided the legislative process for nearly two decades. Her ability to compassionately and authentically intersect with people across all dynamics of background, ethnicity, socio-economic status, power and privilege, has provided our community with a trusted and highly respected advocate. Among her many professional accomplishments, Tera was the key congressional staff member assigned to work with the Wing Luke Museum toward its designation by former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar as a National Park Service Affiliated Area-a rare recognition of an Asian Pacific American site as one of America’s cultural treasures. Beach was also dedicated to the legislative initiative to restore honor of 43 African American veterans of Fort Lawton, who were unjustly court martialed in 1944. Tera has a long track record of supporting the health and growth of our community arts and cultural resources.  She is a Trustee for the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American experience and Humanities Washington. She was recently appointed by King County Executive Dow Constantine to the 4Culture Task Force.

Eleanor Bell, Ph.D. currently serves as Director, Planning for Technical Operations at Tableau Software, where she is responsible for strategic planning, employee engagement, and business operations within IT. Prior to Tableau, Eleanor has held multiple leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, and Group Health Cooperative (now Kaiser Permanente of Washington). She has led a wide variety of functions including strategy, measurement, Business Intelligence and analytics, Project Management Office, and operations. Eleanor is passionate about building and leading learning organizations where people can do their best work. She earned her doctorate in Sociology and masters in Demography from University of California – Berkeley and is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College.

Judy Blair is a white woman doing transformational racial equity work in Seattle. Her approach is extremely relational, focusing on helping people find their own power and figure out concrete responses to the racial oppression they see or experience every day. Judy's background is varied, winding through medical offices, coffee purveyors, English classrooms overseas, robotics classrooms in Seattle, a nonprofit boardroom, and a summer camp, just to name a few stops along the way. Once she entered her forties, Judy finally figured out what everything had been leading up to: She now runs her own independent facilitation practice and has been on the team at Diverse City LLC for over a year.

Jess Boyd is a Vietnamese Jewish Londoner who moved to Seattle to build family and invest in the Vietnamese American community. Before moving to Seattle, she worked at the NFL in the UK as the head of Gender and Community Development, creating a curriculum for college football players to become allies in the fight against domestic abuse and sexual assault. Today, she is a storyteller, editor, magazine founder, organizer, board member, nonprofit professional and intersectional feminist. In her free time, she's passionate about offering culturally competent birth support to Asian birthing parents and using Muay Thai to support API womxn step into their physical, emotional and ancestral resilience.

Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, ret. is the Founding President/CEO of the Center for Children & Youth Justice, a nonprofit organization she created in 2006 to reform Washington State’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. She served on the State Supreme Court from 2000 to 2008 and on the King County Superior Court from 1990 to 2000, where she was Chief Juvenile Court Judge for three years. She continues to chair the Washington State Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care. Before joining the bench, Justice Bridge was the first female partner at the Seattle law firm of Garvey Schubert Barer. She has been honored with numerous awards for her civic involvement, philanthropy, and service to children and youth.

Kipepeo Brown is the Chief Creative Officer for Strategies 360 and their creative agency, The Hilt, a role that integrates her experience in marketing, brand development and management, CRM and CEM, organizational strategy, communications, PR, advertising and community outreach together. Pep has worked for international, national and regional companies and non-profits across diverse B2B and B2C industries. She is a recognized leader of large and small multidisciplinary teams that execute strategic and creative results to drive engagement, thought-leadership and brand loyalty as well as profit and market share growth. With 20 years of experience spanning health care, architecture and design, public affairs and agencies among others, she has mastered the integration of creative services and business goals.

Additionally, Pep is an advocate for diversity in education and has volunteered and served on the boards of several non-profit organizations including The Martinez Foundation and currently, The Technology Access Foundation (TAF). She is a Seattle native with a young son as well as a proud Husky and graduate of the University of Washington with degrees in communications and ethnic studies. As a self-described adrenaline junkie away from work, she enjoys high-speed motorsports and any activity outdoors.

As Director of the Global Technical Team, Jessica Crawford oversees VillageReach’s technical capabilities and staffing strategy in order to ensure the appropriate resources are available to meet program needs and advance program portfolio toward improving access to quality healthcare at the last mile for underserved populations. She also leads VillageReach’s body of work focused on improving the performance of immunization supply chains in order to reach more children with life-saving vaccines. She has more than 15 years of experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of health system programs in the USA and overseas. She has led projects in Malawi, DRC, Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique and most recently served as VillageReach Malawi Country Director where she led a broad portfolio of work including human resources development, supply chain strengthening, mHealth, and community based health programs. Prior to joining VillageReach, Jess worked in Health Services Administration at the University of Washington specializing in quality improvement and previously served as a community health educator in Tanzania with the United States Peace Corps. Jessica holds a MPH in Health Services and a MA in Policy Studies from the University of Washington.

Kayla DeMonte is the Program Director at Citizen University, a Seattle based non-profit where she leads the program team on strategy and execution of a national slate of events focused on strengthening citizen power and renewing civic practices.

Prior to this role, she was Director of Programs & Partnerships at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, where she built and managed a roster of public programs including the Young Professionals Network and Women in Business & Leadership Initiative.

Kayla moved to Seattle in 2009 to take an internship with One Reel, the non-profit producer of Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, where she fell in love with large scale community events and the craft of celebration. She subsequently joined the One Reel team full time where she managed festival sponsorships, partnerships, and special projects. In addition to her years on staff at One Reel, Kayla has worked on the vendor relations and production teams for a variety of major festivals and events such as Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, and Folklife, and has been an event consultant for the Mayor Arts Awards for the past six years.

Currently serving as a board member for The Vera Project, she has held volunteer leadership roles with ArtsFund and the Community Development Committee of the Seattle Arts Commission. A resident of Capitol Hill, Kayla feels lucky to live in a neighborhood and city rich with cultural assets, and is happiest working on projects where community, celebration, and action collide.

Laura Espriu is a Diversity Advocate by heart and an accomplished Executive Coach with experience developing Leadership programs and D&I initiatives. Through her psychology and Executive Coaching practice, as well as her international and corporate experience, she has developed a powerful skill set which has allowed her to work as a Consultant, Coach, Speaker, and Trainer for leading organizations such as Columbia University, Expedia, Mitsubishi, Limeade, Chopt Creative Salad, Ellevate, Yesler Project line, General Assembly, ADA Developers Academy, among others in Mexico City, New York, Barcelona, and Seattle.

Laura is the founder of Laura Espriu Coaching & Consulting and has been focusing her work on leading initiatives focused on gender equality and underrepresented groups to drive intersectionality. She is also working as a Senior Global Consultant for IMPACT Group where she provides Executive Women for the Women In Leadership program to executive women from different companies and countries. Laura is part of the Leadership Team at Lean In Seattle and the founder of the Latinas Professional Circle. Laura’s approach is to make people reach their full potential by connecting with their strengths and boosting their confidence. In her free time she enjoys practicing hot yoga and tea tasting.

Gabrielle Fitzgerald is a global leader who believes that innovative approaches and catalytic coalitions are needed to solve the most challenging issues. Her focus is on designing and driving strategies that measurably impact people, organizations and countries.

Gabrielle is the founder and CEO of Panorama, an action tank dedicated to helping ambitious leaders solve global problems.

For more than two decades, she has led teams and collaborated with partners to spark global change. Most recently, she directed the $100 million Ebola Program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, investing in creative approaches to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Gabrielle previously served as the director of Global Program Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the team that advanced policy and advocacy agendas for 14 global issue areas. In 2014, she won the Gold Medallion award from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs for her leadership on malaria.

Prior to joining the Gates Foundation, Gabrielle led the public affairs strategy for HIV/AIDS at the U.S. Agency for International Development and served as the communications director for the U.S. Committee for Refugees. She started her career as a speechwriter for President Clinton at the White House.

Gabrielle holds a masters of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor of arts from American University in Washington, DC.

Michele Frix is Chief of Staff at the Seattle Foundation. She has a deep history at the foundation, previously working with Seattle Foundation’s key partner on global philanthropy, Seattle International Foundation (SIF). During her seven years with SIF, she launched initiatives and built programs with stakeholders to address poverty and inequality around the globe. She led their grantmaking strategy, overseeing more than $17 million in grants in over 65 countries. Prior to SIF, Michele worked as a Research Analyst for the Technology and Social Change Group at the University of Washington, conducting field research on Microsoft Community Affair’s social investments in employability and technology for marginalized communities throughout Latin America.

Michele is a board member of Splash, an international nonprofit committed to providing clean water for kids across Asia and Africa. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, with a minor in Human Rights. In 2015, Michele was named an American Express NGen Fellow, and a member of the inaugural class of Henry M. Jackson Leadership Fellows. In 2017 she represented Seattle in the Young American Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.

Harini Gokul is a technology leader focused on customer digital transformation and business growth. Harini’s experience and passion is in translating technology for human impact. Her global portfolio of experiences at Microsoft includes creating new businesses, building partnerships and driving programs to accelerate cloud adoption and growth.

Her diverse background includes strategy consulting, financial services and working across emerging and developed markets to incubate ideas and create programs for global impact.

Her work includes Customer Lifetime Value research published in the book Driving Customer Equity (Vanderbilt University). Harini actively sponsors and invests in organizations and communities to accelerate the advancement of women in technology, including the Female Founders Alliance and Future For Us.

Alejandra Gonza is Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Washington’s School of Law. An Argentine lawyer, Gonza served as an attorney at the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court, and has litigated before both institutions. She has published on several topics on human rights, such, freedom of expression, personal liberty, indigenous rights and property rights. Recently she was a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Mónica Guzmán is co-founder and director of The Evergrey, a daily newsletter that helps thousands of Seattleites make the most of their city. She is a former columnist at The Seattle Times, GeekWire, The Daily Beast, and The Columbia Journalism Review. She studied ways to build closer connections between journalists and the public as a 2016 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Mónica is the author of the influential 2016 API strategy study "The best ways to build audience and relevance by listening to and engaging your audience". She has served as vice-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee and was as a juror for the 2013 and 2014 Pulitzer Prizes. Mónica's a big fan of chocolate, karaoke, and nerdy board games. She lives in Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood with her husband, Jason Preston, and their two kids.

As Partner Content Strategist at Microsoft, Emily Hendrickson drives the overall partner content strategy across web, community, social, and email to help Microsoft partners grow their businesses. Prior to joining Microsoft Emily worked at Insights, a learning and development company, for over five years. Emily held a variety of roles at Insights; her last being Field Marketing Manager. In this role, she led an award-winning, global team to develop and execute innovative and targeted marketing strategies. Emily has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a Marketing Concentration from Western Washington University and is currently pursuing her MBA with Leadership Formation Certificate at Seattle University.

Danielle Hill is the Chief Operating Officer of The Riveter, a network of coworking and community spaces built by women, for everyone. For more than 15 years, Danielle's approachable, results-driven leadership has yielded significant results with high-growth startups like Remitly and Amazon, as well as established companies such as Progressive and Farmers Insurance. She has scaled teams from as small as 10 to as large as 550 people, all while focusing on corporate culture and a collaborative work environment as a top priority. Danielle has developed voice of the customer programs to inform technology teams and enhance product offerings, and managed multi-million dollar budgets to efficiently forecast growth. As a human capital specialist, Danielle is passionate about helping The Riveter to redefine the future of work by including women in the vision.

Makeda Hope-Crichlow, MPA is a modern millennial who found her way to diversity consulting much like everything else in her life-- the path less taken. Makeda cares deeply about programs and policy, and how they interact with marginalized populations. She uses her MPA in the private sector to do work to ensure that marginalized communities are hired equitably, treated fairly, and developed equally to their peers in the workplace. As a first generation immigrant, a woman of color, and a person typically younger than her peers, Makeda uses the intersections of her identities to bring a dynamic understanding of DE&I to the organizations she partners with. Makeda has been with Diverse City for about 18 months.

Keisha Jackson serves as Digital Communities Manager on Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner team, part of the Worldwide Commercial Business organization. In this role, she works on a team that markets Microsoft’s products and services to over 300,000 businesses.

Prior to her role at Microsoft, Keisha spent 11 years in nonprofits and higher education. She was the Assistant Director of the Consulting and Business Development Center at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business where she worked on projects designed to engage, support, and grow small businesses owned by women and minorities across Washington State in the areas of management and leadership development, access to money, and expanding to new markets. Her early career began with CSF where she worked as Program Associate for the College and Alumni Services Department.

Keisha earned her BA in Communication and Sociology from Western Washington University and MA in Student Development Administration from Seattle University. She has served on the College Success Foundation (CSF) Board of Directors and was appointed by City Council as a commissioner for the City of Seattle Women’s Commission. She has been selected as Education Chair for the Leadership Team of the Women of Seattle University Alumni Chapter and as a member of the Young Professionals Board for Treehouse for Kids.

In early 2018, Vanessa Laughlin, MBA and Founder of Banister Advisors, left a career in management consulting to focus full time on developing Banister Advisors.  Banister is a new type of professional services firm that helps clients navigate life's most overwhelming challenges, such as health crises and bereavement.  Her 15+ year professional background spans a variety of functional areas, including strategy development, implementation planning, business process improvement, product marketing, technology implementations, organizational design, and change management.    Vanessa holds an MBA with distinction from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and a BA in Economics from Tufts University.  When she's not building spreadsheets to plot out home improvement plans or volunteer activities, she might very well be found in her sewing room working on a creative project or spending time with her husband, two young sons, and beloved chocolate lab.

Diane Lowry Oakes is President & CEO of Arcora Foundation. She has been with the Foundation since 2007, overseeing the seniors initiative and most recently, as Deputy Director. She has been instrumental in the development of Arcora Foundation’s oral health initiatives, which include a nationally recognized program that has increased dental care access for lower income children, significant expansion of Community Health Center dental clinics, and successful advocacy to restore dental coverage for low-income adults. Previously, Diane was a prevention specialist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also has held several roles in organizations that advocate for healthy communities.

Diane holds Master degrees in Public Health and Social Work from the University of Washington. When Diane isn’t diving deep into oral health, she is running around with her two rambunctious boys.

Jennifer Malloy began her work with refugees in Vietnam in 1992 where she taught English to those designated for U.S. and Canadian resettlement. She has worked with refugees and immigrants in Washington State since 1995, where her focus has been on refugee resettlement and English language instruction. She has worked for a variety of agencies including the former Catholic resettlement agency, International Rescue Committee and Literacy Source. She now works as the Administrator for the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance (ORIA), which is the state agency tasked with the distribution of federal Office of Refugee Resettlement dollars. ORIA has fourteen programs providing an array of services to refugees from employment & training to naturalization.

Rebecca Mann is the deputy director for Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she leads on strategy, financial planning, and operations.

Rebecca joined the foundation in 2012. In her previous role, she led research for the FSP team focusing on the optimal design and regulation of a wide range of fintech products and payment services which can be offered digitally and used at low cost. Previously, she was an attorney in the public law and financial services regulation group at Herbert Smith Freehills in London, UK.

Rebecca graduated from the University of Sydney with bachelor degrees in economics and law. She also holds a master of public administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is currently studying for a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Oxford, writing about the political economy of technology reform and public service delivery in developing countries.

Nisha Nariya is a graduate of the University of Washington and Georgetown University Law Center. She currently practices at Perkins Coie LLP where she counsels clients in both the tax and non-tax aspects of estate planning, with a specific focus on estate planning strategies to minimize taxes through the creation of wills, trusts, business entities, and charitable organizations and the use of gifts, sales, and other wealth-transfer strategies. Nisha’s practice also includes advising tax-exempt organizations on a wide range of legal issues affecting charitable giving, formation, and maintenance of tax-exempt status. Prior to entering the legal profession Nisha worked at Deloitte Consulting. In addition to her professional career, Nisha enjoys being active in the community. She has volunteered on political campaigns and currently serves on the University of Washington Honors Advisory Board.

ChrisTiana ObeySumner is the owner and principal Social Equity Consultant for Epiphanies of Equity, and the Founding Executive Director of the Eleanor Elizabeth Institute for Black Empowerment. In their work as an advocate and professional educator, they enthusiastically combine historical context, social anthropology, and social psychology to explore the existential question of "Why are humans?" Their top three areas of expertise lie in the philosophy and theoretical concepts of social equity and human empathy, critical race theory and the constructs of antiblackness, and intersectional disability justice. They are co-chair of the Seattle Disabilities commission, a member of the Seattle Renter's commission, and now serve on the county Transit Advisory Commission.

Julie Pham is Vice President of Community Engagement and Marketing at Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), which helps tech companies solve problems together they cannot solve on their own. She leads the WTIA Ion Program, a collaboration incubator. Julie is particularly passionate about increasing opportunities for those from underrepresented communities to enter and thrive in the tech industry. Prior to WTIA, she worked in marketing at Microsoft and Avidian Technologies. She earned her real life MBA by running Northwest Vietnamese News, the region's largest Vietnamese newspaper, which she co-owns with her family.

Currently, Julie serves on the Leadership Tomorrow Curriculum Committee and the City of Seattle Community Involvement Commission. She is a PSBJ 2011 ’40 under 40’ honoree and a 2015 German Marshall Memorial Fellow. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, where she studied history.

Joy Portella is the president and founder of Minerva Strategies, a mission-driven company that inspires positive change through smart communication.

Minerva helps a range of nonprofits, foundations, and social enterprises hone their brands, messages, and communication plans, as well as engage their audiences with creative and compelling content. Minerva's clients have included the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Schultz Family Foundation, and Northwest Harvest. Prior to Minerva, Joy spent more than five years as director of communications at the international humanitarian agency Mercy Corps, and she previously worked for more than a decade at leading communication firms in New York and Washington, DC.

Joy lives in Seattle with her husband Mark and their fierce feline Agata. She is slowly and steadily training for a triathlon and learning Italian.

Tamara Power-Drutis provides strategic communications for leaders and organizations with transformative concepts. She is the former Chief of Staff of Amplifier, the visual design lab that flooded the streets with messages of hope during the 2017 Inauguration and Women’s March on Washington. Prior to Amplifier, she served as the Executive Director of Northwest news site Crosscut Public Media, leading a successful merger with PBS member station KCTS9. While at Crosscut, Tamara was named a Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow, conducting applied research on dialogue with news consumers, and leading a team to develop and publish the free online tool Opt-In, which enables stronger and more strategic newsletter engagement. Tamara was an inaugural Henry M. Jackson Foundation Leadership Fellow in 2016-2017. She now serves on the Henry M. Jackson Leadership Council, working to develop thoughtful next generation leaders that foster a bipartisan approach to challenges in the fields of international affairs, human rights, environment and natural resources management, energy, and public service. She previously served as the Communications Coordinator for the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education and began her career as a Research Associate at Ross Strategic. Tamara holds a B.A. in Political Science from Pacific Lutheran University where she conducted applied research as a Sustainability Fellow and served as the Vice President of the Associated Student Body. She is a product of Washington State and a proud card-carrying member of the U.S. National Parks.

Elizabeth Scallon is the Head of WeWork Labs, Northwest. WeWork Labs is a global entrepreneurship program connecting global innovation hubs, while providing fierce local support for startups and entrepreneurs. Startups in the NW are able to leverage the WeWork Labs global platform in order to accelerate their growth. Previously Elizabeth lead CoMotion Labs at the University of Washington, a multi-industry, multiple location incubator system hosting over 90 startups from both inside and outside the University of Washington community. Ms. Scallon received her Global Executive MBA from Georgetown University and ESADE, where she studied global innovation, entrepreneurship, and incubation with in country residences in Spain, Brazil, Argentina, China, India, and the US. She has her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities from Seattle University.

Kiana Scott is Program Director for Raise Wages Now, a soon-to-be-launched national membership organization dedicated to supporting workers and working families. She completed her PhD in political communication at the University of Washington in 2017, studying American political communication, and wrote her dissertation about the 2016 presidential election. Governor Jay Inslee appointed her to the UW Board of Regents from 2013-2014, where she was confirmed by the Washington State Senate. Previously she was the Director of External and Alumni Relations at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at UW. She earned her MA in communication in 2014, and her MPA from the Evans School in 2012, where she focused on legislative processes. Beyond her professional work, Kiana is active in promoting civic engagement and committed to electing more women to public office.  She serves on the boards of Common Purpose, training Seattle-area volunteers to work on campaigns around the state and country, the Center for Women and Democracy, and the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington. Prior to graduate school, Kiana worked on political campaigns for the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and President Obama’s 2008 campaign, both in Washington and around the country. Kiana graduated from Williams College in 2007 with degrees in art history and history with honors. Now a proud resident of Ballard, Kiana grew up on San Juan Island and is happiest either getting out the vote or traveling.

In February 2017, Alice Shobe joined Amazon as its first Director of Amazon in the Community. For over 25 years she’s worked in public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sector roles to address complex social issues like homelessness and equitable community development. Alice has served as the CEO of three nonprofit organizations in Washington State (Building Changes, Philanthropy Northwest, and Impact Capital) and as Director of Sound Families, a $40-million-dollar public-private partnership created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which ultimately tripled the supply of housing for homeless families in three counties. She started her career as a city planner in suburban Seattle. Alice was awarded and completed the Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellowship, a national cross discipline 18-month executive leadership program. She holds a BA in Urban Policy from Michigan State University.

Nicky Smith is the Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee in Seattle. IRC in Seattle provides opportunities for refugees, asylees, victims of human trafficking, survivors of torture, and other immigrants to thrive in America. She has more than 25 years of progressively responsible professional experience with Non-Governmental Organizations in crisis affected countries; of which 12 years have been spent in a conflict and post conflict setting. Nicky is a member of the Civic Council of the Masters of Arts in Applied International Studies Program at the Jackson School of Business, University of Washington. She is also a member of the City of Seattle’s Census Taskforce, and the Washington Advisory Committee for the US Global Leadership Coalition. Prior to her role as Executive Director, Nicky was responsible for establishing and managing new country programs for the IRC. Her areas of expertise include emergency preparedness and response, country-program management, refugee policy and advocacy, and strategy and change planning.

Nicky joined the IRC in 2003. From 2007 to 2010, she was a member of the IRC’s Washington, D.C. office, working to educate policy makers and the public about the importance of providing resources for humanitarian and development assistance in Africa and Asia, and promoting programs that prevent violence against women and girls. From 2003 to 2007, she worked in some of the organization’s most sensitive situations, including managing the IRC’s single largest country program, Sudan, and serving as the IRC Country Director in Liberia during a key moment in the peace process. Before joining the IRC, Nicky worked for almost 10 years with Doctors Without Borders and Children’s Aid Direct in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Nepal, amongst other countries.

Sarah Studer is the assistant director at the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington's Michael G. Foster School of Business. In her role at the Buerk Center, Sarah manages the Dempsey Startup Competition (formerly the BPC) and the Jones + Foster Accelerator, two programs designed to help UW students grow as entrepreneurs.

Prior to joining the Buerk Center, Sarah was the managing director at Impact Hub Seattle, a locally rooted and globally coworking space focused on innovation and social impact.

Sarah is passionate about civic engagement and believes that voting, volunteering, and donating blood are the three most important things you can do to support the health of our community. In addition, Sarah is engaged with Seattle City Club, serving on the board of governors and will be stepping up her involvement as president-elect in 2019, and president of the board in 2020.

Sally Lacy Sundar is the Senior Director of Health Integration and Transformation at both the YMCA of Greater Seattle and the Washington State Alliance of YMCAs. Ms. Sundar holds a master’s degree in International Development and Global Health and brings seven years’ experience working on multi-sector public health improvement projects in both domestic and international contexts.

At the YMCA she established and facilitates the Washington YMCA Clinical Integration Steering Committee, through which she oversees partnership building between Washington YMCAs and clinical care systems, population health improvement teams, public health and government agencies, public and private payers of health care, and health research institutions. Her team’s work across Washington is regularly shared throughout the YMCA of the USA network as a national example of how YMCAs and other community-based organizations can work collaboratively within the health care sector to pursue true system-level transformation related to clinic-community linkages.

Previously Ms. Sundar worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Public Health Associate, stationed in the Richmond City Health District (VA) where she facilitated the creation of a multisector collaborative focused on creating a collective-impact strategy to identify and respond to distinct health disparities in the city’s north side, and helped facilitate the process of creating a Health in All Policies infrastructure within city government. She also held briefer positions supporting the Health Communications Team in the CDC Country Office during the Ebola epidemic response in Conakry, Guinea; supporting research on the Pandemic Preparedness Team at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland; and supporting youth development programming for the Diocese of Durgapur in West Bengal, India.

Kajoli Tankha is a consumer insights professional who is passionate about all data- big and small. She has spent 18 years in applying consumer understanding to helping businesses make better decisions. Currently she is a Senior Director at Microsoft, running consumer insights for brands like Surface, Office, Windows, and new products. She has an undergrad in economics and a Masters in Marketing Research. Kajoli’s special interests include Autism and helping young women starting their career journey.

Neena Viel has over five years of experience in development, communications and volunteer management. Neena is currently the Community Engagement Director at Seattle Education Access. Neena has also held positions at College Access Now, and the Clinton Foundation. Neena holds a Masters in Public Service from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Sarah Worley is a Project Manager in Worldwide Operations Talent Acquisition at Amazon, focusing on workforce development and community/employee engagement. Sarah is a passionate advocate for community building and serves as a volunteer leader for Connect@Amazon in Seattle; a volunteer led employee resource group at Amazon that supports employees in building robust networks and connecting within the Greater Seattle community. She creates strategic initiatives to bridge together employees with ideas, people, and opportunities to volunteer, as well as, explore and learn about the city they live and work in. She spends her free time painting, reading, and shark diving.

Christina Yi is the Chief Operating Officer at Dendreon Corporation, a biotechnology company that harnesses the power of the body’s immune system to extend the lives of patients battling cancer. An adaptive and principles-driven operations leader, Ms. Yi offers 20 years of experience and a proven track record of success across various aspects of pharmaceutical operations. Leveraging modern operational approaches and data to deliver consistent, high-impact results, Ms. Yi has successfully brought innovative products to market through strategic planning, efficient process design and regulatory compliance.