Collaborators

Gilda Montenegro-Fix (she/her) is a Costa Rican woman, mother, wife, adventurous world traveler and global citizen. She represented her country in two Olympic Games (Barcelona ‘92 and Atlanta ‘96), in the sport of whitewater slalom kayak, being the only woman from all Latin America to compete in this discipline. This Olympic experience was the culmination of 10 years of outdoor leadership work.

Gilda studied Psychology at the University of Costa Rica, she worked as a bilingual/bicultural family advocate with multicultural low-income families for 10 years in Hawaii and Oregon, and later became a certified trainer in Cultural Competency. Gilda is the founder and senior consultant of Celebrate Diversity! a Cultural Agility consulting and training company. Having worked in early childhood education, family support services, cross cultural communication and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, she is passionate about facilitating understanding, cultivating harmony and building bridges that connect us all.

www.CelebrateDiversity.co

Gilda’s Olympic Story video

Iva Torres (she/her) has been in movement-building work for almost a decade. She has had many roles across organizational development, program management, administrative operations, and research projects. From growing relationships with incredible organizers, activists, and comrades across the country, Iva has learned many lessons, developed her skills and held brave revolutionary moments with others. Making social justice spaces accessible is what guides her work and she is always designing, writing, and researching with that in mind.

Iva is committed and passionate about shifting systems within traditional institutional structures that have built their base and values off of white supremacy, capitalism, and anti-Blackness. Iva has worked with a range of organizations, including Women's Foundation of Oregon, Community Alliance of Tenants, Coalition of Communities of Color, Portland State Center for Women's Leadership, Meyer Memorial Trust, City of Portland Office of Equity and Human Rights, Action St. Louis, ArchCity Defenders, Demand Progress, and The Ops Collective.

Jenni Kotting (she/her) is a Communications consultant and graphic designer who devotes her career to supporting culture shift and grassroots organizing for political change. She brings more than a decade of experience in collaboratively producing strategic messaging, branding, narrative change, and innovative media through a strong racial justice lens. Jenni has been behind the scenes in crafting the brands, websites, and graphics for many organizations and networks doing work in reproductive, racial, youth, and birth justice.

She defended her PhD in Cultural Geography at the University of Minnesota in 2012 and her academic background inspires her commitment for social justice. Jenni is a multi-talented self-starter, an engaging facilitator, and a productive collaborator. Her professional background includes a proven ability to build organizational strategy, and execute and complete projects with resourcefulness and attention to deadlines. She's just as powerful in rapid response mode as in long term, big picture planning.

Jenni makes ideas real, bringing your visionary thinking from ether to earth. Find her at https://www.jkotting.com/ and https://www.torresmontoyakotting.com/

Lukas 'louie' Soto (they/them) (Ojibwe/Mapuche) is a shapeshifting two-spirit healer, visionary, death doula, polymath, and all-around baddie. A tried-and-true West Coast baby, they split their time between Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.

Professionally, louie has nearly a decade in consulting on a variety of topics centered around community, justice, and healing. They have utilized their own journey as an autoethnographic experiment in exploring how transformation, healing, and accomplishing the impossible is made possible. louie has worked with a variety of clients on local, regional, national, and international stages to achieve racial equity and social justice.

Most recently, their work has been focused on suicide prevention in Black and Indigenous communities, BIPOC mental health, trans housing advocacy, queer data research and policy work, capacity building for Trans & gender-non-conforming (TGNC) leaders, TGNC immigrant and refugee advocacy, and collective community healing. To learn more visit: www.lukasmsoto.com

Sirius Bonner (she/her) identifies as a Black, fat, queer, cis-woman nerd. She is a passionate social justice leader and a noted presenter and facilitator. Sirius’ work focuses on the intersections between social justice issues such as racial oppression, reproductive justice, fat activism, queer rights, health equity, educational equity, poverty, sexism, and liberation, recognizing that as we begin to untangle one issue, we can untangle them all. Her work was recognized with the Compass Award for achievements in equity and inclusion efforts, and she was recently featured in an interview in Forbes.

Sirius currently works at Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette as the Vice President of Equity and Inclusion, bringing her leadership on equity initiatives. Previously, Sirius led institutional equity work in higher education. Sirius gained her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Reed College. She is currently an alumni board member of Reed College and serves on the board of the North by Northeast Clinic.

Suk (she/her) is a practiced organizational strategist who takes a human-centered approach to navigate complexity within organizations and collaborative efforts for social change. Her approach focuses on transforming ourselves to transform the conditions around us, embedding renewal within structures and practice, and strengthening the connections within the ecosystems that sustain us. Her most enduring contributions have been built upon the dignity and safety required for values-based relationships that sustain organizational, policy, structural, and broader systems change.

Suk has prioritized multi-racial organizing and the leadership of communities of color, immigrant and refugee, and many other self-identifying communities which has led to roles across a range of conditions that shape community well-being: civic engagement, community self-determination, health, environmental and economic justice, and more. These roles have added to Suk’s own lived experience to inform a deep, evolving understanding of the fractal nature and generational impact of complex systems on our lives.

Trina Stout (she/her) is a communications strategist and storyteller for social good. She crafts and implements strategies to help clients change minds, policies, and behavior. What really animates her is changing narratives and culture too. Trina’s life work is to be a part of the transition from systems of domination and oppression to systems of collaboration and care. She knows that getting there will require reshaping the public imagination—massive shifts in the stories at the heart of our cultures. In her free time, Trina can be found walking her dog, gardening, cooking, making pottery, or camping. Trina holds an M.A. in Public Communication from American University and a B.A. in Economics from Pomona College. Trina Stout Strategies has been certified as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) and an Emerging Small Business (ESB) by the Oregon Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity (COBID). trinastout.com