GREEN LEADERSHIP TRUST

LEADERSHIP

STAFF

Take a look at our team, they are willing to help you at any time.

EMIRA WOODS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

DANY SIGWALT
Managing Director

FRANCISCO “PACO” OLLERVIDES
Membership Director

MARIA BELTRAN
VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMS

SARAH KISSEL
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS

DIANA ALONSO
DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT

CO- CHAIRS

There are three Co-Chairs who serve as the executive committee of the GLT Steering Committee.

 

ARTURO GARCIA-COSTAS
(CO-CHAIR)
Friends of the Earth

MICHAEL GELOBTER
(CO-CHAIR)
Natural Resources Defense Council & Ceres

DIANNE DILLON RIDGLEY
(CO-CHAIR)
Population Connection

Steering Committee

The steering committee serves as an advisory board for the Green Leadership Trust.

 

ALLISON CHIN
SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION

AYAKO NAGANO
Friends of the Earth

TYKEE JAMES
AMPLIFY THE FUTURE

PALLAVI PHARTIYAL
AMERICAN RIVERS

MICHAEL DORSEY
Center For Environmental Health

EMIRA WOODS

Emira Woods (Pronouns She/her)

Emira Woods is a global justice strategist and advocate focused on people and the planet. She brings an intersectional lens to her work as an environmentalist and political activist specializing in social impact and innovation.

Emira uses her skills to advance human dignity and social justice.

As the Executive Director of Green Leadership Trust, Emira works at the nexus of race, governance, and climate justice.  Green Leadership Trust  strengthens environmental organizations and foundations by building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive governing boards and senior leadership across the sector.   Together, we are building a more just and sustainable world.

Prior to this role, Emira served as  Senior Advisor at the Shine Campaign, a community of practice with philanthropists, faith and values-driven agencies catalyzing investment in women-led, community based  renewable energy initiatives around the world.  Committed to feminist leadership, Emira established Shine’s Energy Access Women Leadership Council.  She also worked to co-create and manage Shine’s Energy Access COVID Recovery Fund.

Emira previously worked in the private sector as Director of Social Impact at ThoughtWorks, a global technology firm. Her work forged strategic relationships linking social movements to innovative technology, funding, policymakers and other resources. Originally from Liberia, Emira led ThoughtWorks’ efforts to bring more robust technology solutions to the Ebola crisis and other global social impact initiatives.

Ms. Woods worked for 11 years as a public scholar and Director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the progressive think tank, The Institute for Policy Studies.  She remains an Associate Fellow of the Institute, providing thought leadership on issues related to peace, justice, and the environment. Emira has also served as Africa Program Officer at Oxfam America and Manager of Development Policy and Practice at InterAction, the U.S. network of international development and humanitarian organizations.

Emira is a trusted advisor and Board Member to many organizations and initiatives. She is currently a Trustee of two trailblazing foundations – the Wallace Global Fund and the Janelia Fund, where she is Vice-Chair.  Emira is honored to be Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace, and Dignity, a network of African social movements working to build peace, seek justice and manifest dignity on the African continent and throughout the diaspora. In addition, she serves as a Mentor at the Fighters’ Table supporting feminist leadership in Black and Brown communities.  She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars and is a board committee member of ActionAid International.

Ms. Woods is an analyst on CNN’s One World with Zain Asher.  She also is a regular commentator on Voice of America, BBC and  National Public Radio, among others.  Emira is widely published on a range of issues from climate change, trade and investment to U.S. military policy. Ms. Woods completed her undergraduate studies in Political Science at Columbia University and her graduate studies in Political Economy and Government at Harvard.

dany sigwalt

Dany is an organizer, writer, and network weaver and is passionate about building organizing models that reflect the world that we’re trying to build, centering Black queer feminist approaches.

Before joining Green Leadership Trust as their inaugural Managing Director, Dany worked as Executive Director at Power Shift Network working to build a home and resources within the national climate movement for Black and Indigenous and multiply marginalized youth to be able to engage meaningfully in the climate movement and build power.

While at Power Shift Network, she supported the development and growth of numerous powerhouse organizations including Sunrise Movement, Zero Hour, and DivestEd.

Under her leadership, Power Shift Network doubled its membership base to more than 120 organizations and quadrupled its staff size. Before joining the climate movement, Dany worked as a youth worker, anti-war activist, housing justice advocate, solidarity childcare organizer, and a hip hop education advocate, among other things. She’s the author of This Book Will Save the Planet, a climate justice primer for young changemakers, and her writing has been featured in the New York Times, TruthOut, and Yes! Magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Macalester College and received a certificate in Nonprofit Executive Leadership from Georgetown University, she’s a proud Public Allies Alum, and is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity.

Dany is from Washington, DC and currently lives in Knoxville, TN with her preschooler and partner where she enjoys spending her time baking, woodworking, bicycling and weightlifting.

FRANCISCO “PACO” OLLERVIDES

Francisco Ollervides is better known as “Paco,” a common nickname in Mexico where he was born and raised. For over 21 years, Paco has worked in the nonprofit world, specifically developing leadership, and building capacity of individuals in environmental and conservation organizations in USA and throughout Latin America. He served as the first Executive Director for Green Leadership Trust. This is a network of people of color and indigenous people who serve on environmental boards and proactively build the environmental movement’s power. Prior he worked for River Network as leadership development manager helping leaders in the Great
Lakes region think and act strategically, equitably, and inclusively by improving their efficiency and efficacy. Paco served as Senior Field Coordinator with the Waterkeeper Alliance advising
numerous nonprofit advocacy groups throughout Latin America. He has also served as Director
of the School for Field Studies (Center for Coastal Studies) in San Carlos, Mexico. He has been a resident lecturer and adviser in the areas of Economic and Ethical Issues in Sustainable
Development, Coastal Ecology, and Resource Ecology and Management (Boston University).

 

Paco’s main interest is marine conservation and strengthening individuals to ensure organizations’ continuity and success in the areas of strategic planning, fundraising, board development, and succession planning. He has participated in and presented at numerous
professional and academic conferences, both in the U.S. and internationally. Paco is a
biochemical engineer and marine bio-acoustician by training. He has conducted field work assessing the impacts of boat noise on gray whale behavior. Paco holds both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences Department at Texas A&M University. Paco is based near Columbus, Ohio. In his free time, he likes to go on long walks in the woods with his entire family, travel, and savor local cuisine and history.

MARIA BELTRAN

Maria Beltran Bio 

As a Director in our Issue Campaigns practice area, María Beltrán is a connector who believes in the power of strategic communications to ensure all communities have access to vital resources and to inform policy. She brings strong skills in communications, analytical writing, stakeholder engagement, program development, community outreach, and partnership building to The Raben Group and her clients.

Prior to Raben, María served as the National Director of Latino Engagement at Enroll America, the nation’s leading healthcare enrollment coalition. There, she worked to engage Latinx communities across the country to ensure their access to quality and affordable healthcare through innovative initiatives, coalitional partnerships, and diverse outreach strategies. During her tenure at Young Invincibles, María established the Spanish media department, and was featured on Univisión, La Opinión, ImpreMedia, and Telemundo both locally and nationally to discuss their national outreach and education campaigns. She has also worked at EducationUSA, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Spitfire Strategies, and the Aspen Institute.

A Los Angeles native, María is a first-generation college graduate who holds a B.A. in Global & International Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also holds a Master’s in Intercultural & International Communication from American University, where she was elected as the Vice President of Communication for the graduate student government, representing more than 3,500 students and connecting them to resources at the school. María is a native Spanish speaker with extensive experience working in Latin America as well as with Spanish speaking populations domestically.

Sarah Kissel Bio

Sarah Kissel is a senior associate in The Raben Group’s Issue Campaigns and Movements practice area, where she contributes her experience in nonprofit program management, advocacy, and strategic planning.  

Prior to joining Raben, Sarah was part of The Petey Greene Program team, where she trained volunteers to provide tutoring and career support for incarcerated students. She also supported the leadership team at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, developing strategic planning materials and senior staff visioning retreats. 

Sarah holds a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) with a concentration in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Harvard Divinity School, where she conducted projects that examined the influence of religion on the United States’s criminal legal system, labor market, and social welfare programs. She is particularly fascinated by the ways in which religious commitments cohere and motivate communities and institutions, and further advance narratives around responsibility, punishment, redemption, and individualism that are foundational to US society. 

While at Harvard, Sarah was involved in several organizing groups that seek to address and end the harms of the prison-industrial complex. She was also a member of the MTS Curriculum Committee, where she evaluated the success of HDS’s MTS program, developing a framework of goals and assessment metrics alongside faculty and administrators. 

Sarah also holds bachelor’s degrees in religious studies, political science, and English literature from Indiana University. While at IU, she completed an honors thesis on Reformation-era Protestant theology and the poetics of George Herbert, and served as the Panhellenic representative on the University’s task force to manage University-Greek relations. She also served on an advisory board to former IU President Michael A. McRobbie, where she conducted a year-long evaluation of the state of student healthcare on IU’s Bloomington campus and provided recommendations in preparation for the construction of the $557 million IU Health Bloomington Hospital. Upon graduation, Sarah received the Kate Hevner Mueller Award for leadership and service to the University. 

Diana E. Alonzo Watkins

I am a cause-driven professional with more than 15 years of non-profit experience, having worked with small and large non-profits, financial companies, and most recently privately consulting and volunteering as a Board Member @Diversecityfund. My work experience has a steadfast focus on working at places that are trying to make a difference in today’s world for women of color and immigrants.

ERIK PRIETO

Erik Prieto is an associate in the communications area. With a solid experience in communications and development in digital projects from his Anomi organization. From his experience, he proposes what the organization wants to project.

Before creating his own company Anomi, he was coordinator of the engineering project for the Colombian university UNILATINA from which he managed software development, augmented reality, academic programs and mobile application development.

A native of Bogota, Colombia, Erik became involved in working with youth communities and music, his work and certain social circumstances established him in 2018 in the United States.

ARTURO GARCIA-COSTAS

Arturo manages the New York Community Trust’s national and New York City environmental grantmaking program. He came to the Trust from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, where he oversaw the environmental justice grant program and chaired the State’s Sea Level Rise Task Force Community Resilience Work Group. Before that, Arturo worked with the United Nations Development Program, where he ran a global funding initiative focused on helping developing countries implement the Rio Conventions. He has also promoted sustainable development in the Americas with several nonprofits including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. Over the course of his career, Arturo has worked for Congress and for a Clinton appointee at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C. He earned an undergraduate degree from the City University of New York in International Affairs and Theater, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he focused on international and environmental law.

MICHAEL GELOBTER

Michel has over 25 years of experience in energy, sustainability, and social justice work in policy-making, research, advocacy, and business. He is presently working with the Packard Foundation on sparking innovation in climate policy-making, and was most recently a founder of BuildingEnergy.com, a cloud-platform for the world’s building energy data. Prior, Michel Gelobter served as the Chief Green Officer for Hara, the leading enterprise energy and environmental management software startup, and remains Chairman/Founder of Cooler (www.climatecooler.com), a company whose mission is to connect every purchase to a solution for global warming.

Michel also has a long history in research and teaching, policy, and advocacy. He is a lecturer at U.C. Berkeley and presently serves on the Boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Ceres, as well as the Advisory Board of Vice-President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. He led Redefining Progress in designing the world’s most aggressive climate legislation (AB32 — signed into California law in August of 2006 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger), was a Congressional Black Caucus Fellow with the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee; Director of Environmental Quality for the City of New York, and founder and director of the Environmental Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He also served as Issues Director for Mayor Dinkins’ first and successful bid for Mayor of New York.

DIANNE DILLON-RIDGLEY

Environmentalist and Human Rights Activist, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley has worked for thirty years on issues of the environment and sustainability, and gender and CSR, both domestically and internationally. Since 1997 she has been a director at Interface, Inc., global manufacturer of modular carpet and a leader in sustainable design. She was a director at Green Mountain Energy for the first six years and still chairs the Environmental Integrity Committee for the company.

For eighteen years she was affiliated with Population Connection/ZPG, serving as both President and Board Chair ( four times). Currently she is in her second year as chair of the CIEL Board and her second term on the NWF Board. She is founding chair Emerita of PLAINS JUSTICE, an environmental law center for the Great Plains and currently ED of WNSF (the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future).

Allison Chin

Allison Chin (she/her, they/them) is based in Los Angeles, CA. They are a retired biologist and, since 2008, have been immersed in non-profit governance, and organizational development. Allison is particularly excited about working with organizers, activists, change makers and non-profit boards to facilitate the deep individual and group work that is transformational and long-lasting. Past experience includes service as director and board chair for both Sierra Club and Sierra Club Foundation. They are currently serving on the Training for Change Board and Women in Conservation Leadership Advisory Committee. Allison is nourished by being outdoors, gardening, and carving wooden spoons.

Ayako Nagano

Aya serves on the Boards of Common Vision, which installs school gardens across California; Transition Berkeley, a local Transition Town initiative to bring neighbors together to build a more equitable, sustainable, resilient future for Berkeley; Clean Water Fund, to develop strong grassroots environmental leadership and to bring together diverse constituencies to work cooperatively while focused on health, consumer, environmental and community challenges; and the Mycelium Youth Network, empowering youth with skills in the age of climate change. In 2019, Aya was appointed as council member to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). Aya is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Legal Studies, received a J.D. from Fordham Law School, and a L.L.M. in Tax from Golden Gate University. She is licensed to practice law in CA and NY, and is Managing Attorney at Midori Law Group, P.C.

TYKEE JAMES

Starting in his hometown of Philadelphia, PA, Tykee James was introduced to birding as a job and with that responsibility he learned how to build trust, power, and coalition in his own neighborhood. He has been a part of the birding community for a decade. Recently he earned recognition as the of the organizers of the first Black Birders Week in 2020 and later co-founded Amplify the Future to create opportunities for equity, justice, and joy in the birding community, STEAM, and the conservation movement.

Three years ago Tykee moved to the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples, the District of Columbia, to begin his employment at the National Audubon Society as the government affairs coordinator. There he has been grounded in his specialized role: organizing bird walks with members of Congress and congressional staff!

Tykee is a highly motivated visionary leader. He co-founded Birder’s Fund and the Freedom Birders project, two feature programs of Amplify the Future, and is President of the DC Audubon Society, while sitting on the board for the Wyncote Audubon Society, the Birding Co-op, and Justice Outside, and serves as an elected councilor for Wilson Ornithological Society.

Before moving to D.C. he was an environmental policy advisor for a State Representative and a field director for the state house election. He continues to develop himself as a leader through his membership in the Environmental Leadership Program and the Green Leadership Trust.

In his personal time he loves to cook, dance, and he is a producer for Wildlife Observer Network, a wildlife media project he started with some wildlife-friendly friends in Philly, co-hosting two podcasts: Brothers in Birding and On Word for Wildlife.

PALLAVI PHARTIYAL

Pallavi Phartiyal serves as the Deputy Executive Director at Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve forests, protect the climate and uphold human rights. RAN achieves its mission by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic corporate campaigns including research and public pressure. Pallavi oversees the overall management of the organization and guide RAN’s racial equity and justice commitment in its operations, programs and campaigns.
Prior to joining RAN, Pallavi helped launch the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), where she advocated for science-based decision-making in the democratic system. Earlier, she was the project director and senior program associate at the Research Competitiveness Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) where she worked with research and policy professionals to provide review and guidance for higher
education academic institutions and federal agencies.
Pallavi holds a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.S. in agronomy from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a B.S. in agriculture from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in India. Pallavi has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and spoken on issues concerning science policy and diversity in the environmental movement at national and international conferences. She serves on the steering committee of the Center for Science and Democracy and on the board of American Rivers.

MICHAEL DORSEY

Dr. Michael K. Dorsey is an environmental scientist, advocate, scholar, and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder and principal of Around the Corner Capital, an energy advisory and impact finance platform. He served on the Sierra Club board of directors for 11 years in three periods, as a petition candidate supported by reform-activists known as the John Muir Sierrans. Dorsey has contributed op-eds to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.