Welcome Deputy Director Christina Shimizu and new board members!

Dear Sage Community,

I’m thrilled to introduce four women stepping into new leadership roles at Sage: Christina Shimizu as our Deputy Director and Jody Olney, Kasi Perriera and Jennell Hicks as new members of our Board of Directors.

Collectively, these four women of color bring deep connection with our community partners, a shared vision for our future and decades of community leadership. Below I share more about what they bring individually to our team.

Please take a moment to virtually meet these leaders and join me in welcoming them to the Sage community! And stay tuned for another announcement next week, as we begin recruiting for our permanent Executive Director.

Building sustainable executive leadership

At Sage, we have been reflecting on what it means to create an organizational structure and culture where the brilliant women of color leaders on the frontline of our movement can step into leadership – and stay there.

One step is to create shared leadership models where teams of leaders share the work of running an organization. With that model in mind, our first step towards permanent leadership at Sage, was to create a new Deputy Director role and to recruit movement powerhouse Christina Shimizu into it.

Christina Shimizu (she/her) is committed to expanding community participation in creating lasting social change. She has ten years of experience in the nonprofit sector spanning advocacy, civic engagement, direct service, and resource development. Most recently, Christina was the Director of Individual Giving at the Wing Luke Museum where she helped resource the cultural heartbeat of Seattle’s Chinatown-international District. She is the former Board President of Asian Pacific Americans for Civic Empowerment Votes (APACE) where she worked to improve AAPI representation in democracy across Washington State and launched APACE’s first racial justice framework, legislative agenda, and lobby training program. She is a co-founder of Community Centric Fundraising, a decentralized space for non-profit staff to examine how systems of power exist within philanthropic engagement while working to develop more equitable solutions.

Christina is born and raised in Seattle on the cultural, ancestral and unceded land of the Duwamish Tribe. She is a daughter, sister, grandchild, and proud auntie who draws strength from cultural pride in her queer, mixed, Japanese heritage. Christina believes that change must occur in our hearts and institutions simultaneously and that our fight for racial and economic justice must center Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty.

Chrissy’s first day at Sage will be Monday, April 26 and we can’t wait for you to meet her.

Jody Olney is a member of Puget Sound Sage’s Community Real Estate Stewardship Team cohort and the Deputy Director of United Indians of All Tribes. She is the former Executive Director of the Seattle Indian Services Commission, a government entity that was formed to carry out programs to expand housing, job and income opportunities, enhance recreational and cultural opportunities, and improve the overall living conditions of American Indians and Alaska Natives in King County. She grew up on the Yakima Nation, and has lived in Seattle for 20 years.

She is a graduate of the University of Washington and former staff member to Senator John McCoy in the Washington State Legislature. More on Jody in this Q&A with her. 

 

Kasi Marita Perreira is an organizer, artist, loving partner and mama of two. She recently joined the Washington State Labor Council team as Director of Racial and Gender Justice after 15 years of organizing working people from the Bay Area to North Carolina with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and a lifetime of advocating for social justice. As Organizing Director at UFCW 21, she focused on member-led, equitable leadership development and helped to bring thousands of members into her union.

Today, her focus is on supporting the next generation of the labor movement, one that centers Black, Indigenous, communities of color and leaders who are unafraid to challenge the status quo.

 

Jennell Hicks is an organizer of people, a leader in her community and an alum of Sage’s Community Leadership Institute. She serves as Program Manager II/CEA Capacity Builder with King County Coordinated Entry for All. She has completed her certificate with King County in Equity and Social Justice with King County and Serves on Committees in Department of Community Health services to make equity and social justice a reality at King County. She served on the board of Washington Women in Need for six years and is a current trustee of Local 17 PTE at King County, the Healthcare for the Homeless Governance Board and on the Martin Luther King Labor Board for King County.

Jennell has a Bachelors in Public Administration from Seattle University and a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Washington. She is a lifelong learner and enjoys learning new things and taking on new challenges and takes advantage of every opportunity to make the community better.