Guayana Páez-Acosta is a sustainability and wellbeing professional, entrepreneur, facilitator, yogini, student and teacher. With more than 20 years of experience in the field of sustainability, she has worked in Latin America and the United States with academic, philanthropic and civil society organizations, businesses, and multisector alliances. Guayana earned a master’s degree in Environment and…
Alyssa Smaldino (she/her, they/them) is an anti-racism organizer, facilitator, and coach supporting leaders and organizers to build thriving communities grounded in courage and care. They have nearly 15 years of multifaceted, cross-sector experience that enables her to imagine and build toward a more equitable future. In addition to running a coaching and facilitation practice, Alyssa…
Deirdre Maloney is an international leadership and communication trainer, experienced facilitator, coach and published author. Her direct approach, combined with practical tips, relatable anecdotes, and a smidge of humor helps people enhance their leadership, their teams, their communication, their effectiveness, and their peace of mind. Through her trainings, Deirdre has presented sessions around the world…
Judy Watts is a doctoral candidate in the school of communication at The Ohio State University where she studies the persuasive effects of entertainment and narratives on individuals. More specifically, she studies children’s learning from educational media and adult attitudes on social topics as a result of media exposure. Judy is primarily a quantitative researcher…
James Gutierrez is an award-winning, international business professional, working in executive positions with various leading organizations across 5 continents. He is the Founding Partner of Slate Inc., a people development and executive consulting firm, and previously was the Managing Director for Fullbridge, a global education company teaching 21st Century professional skills. James has taught 50,000+…
Paola is a Social Communicator with a MSc in NGO management and social development from The London School of Economics and Political Science. She has been facilitating processes the last 18 years working with diverse communities, conflicts and objectives mostly in Asia, Japan, China, Latin America, Mexico and the Caribbean, USA, Canada and London. Her experience…
Deb is the President and Founder of ICG Strategies, a boutique firm that nurtures communities and groups through inquiry, change, and growth. Deb is passionate about building community, and her work centers on facilitating multi-sector collaboration to achieve a common purpose. Deb nurtures groups of all sizes – from broad community outreach endeavors to intimate team-building retreats. …
Angela has over ten years of experience cultivating relationships in state government, academia, and community development sectors where she specializes in facilitating conversations at the intersection of race, gender, policy, and organizational change. As a facilitator for racial equity, she leads with authenticity and humility. Angela believes that embracing a philosophy of liberation is complex…
LaShauna Austria is the owner and principal operator of Seeds of Change Consulting and Kindred Seedlings Farm. She possesses a demonstrated record of collaborating with rural communities and both faith-based and secular organizations to address race, food justice, land ownership, and equity issues. Building on her substantial experience in leadership, management, and administrative roles with for-profit…
We are expert facilitators from around the world united by our passion for making collaboration work when “messy human stuff”—egos, cultural differences, miscommunication—creates silos that put your mission at risk.
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Alexandra (Alex) Gaspar Martins Teixeira (she/her) is a collective intelligence enthusiast, master facilitator and technical strategist with over 25 years of experience designing and facilitating participatory meetings and convenings for high-performing teams and organizational collaboratives including FHI 360, Ipas, MSI Reproductive Choices, the Urgent Action Fund, the World Health Organization and UNFPA among others.
Prior to consulting, Alex spent 11 years advancing access to safe abortion at Ipas where she partnered with global teams and led organization-wide initiatives as a Senior Advisor for Technical Innovation and Excellence, the Associate Director for Community
Engagement and Policy Advocacy and as the Senior Advisor for Organizational Learning. Alex has also served as the Philanthropic Partnerships Officer for the Astraea Foundation, as a Global Research & Policy Advisor for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (now OutRight Action International) and as a Program Fellow with the Global Fund for Women. She has served on the board of directors of the Safe Abortion Action Fund (UK), The Stone House (NC), the Third Wave Foundation (NY) and Resource Generation (NY).
Alex has designed and led over 70 high-stakes participatory workshops, retreats and convenings for over 2000 stakeholders across Africa, Asia and North America. She is among the most seasoned facilitators, globally, of Abortion Values Clarification for Action & Transformation (VCAT) Workshops where she has led community members, activists, health care providers, ministry officials, multilateral donors and embassies—all with wide ranging positions on abortion—through a process that shifts their orientation from one of contentious debate to an opportunity for empathy and principled collaboration to advance bodily autonomy. She has trained and mentored over 150 emerging facilitators
and team leaders globally on designing and facilitating inclusive, liberatory and participatory meetings.
With two decades of experience advancing equity and justice through philanthropy and global health programming, Alex approaches facilitation as a strategic opportunity to practice high-impact, equity-based collaboration skills that live on beyond our convenings. Alex brings skillful attention to transforming personal, interpersonal and systemic barriers to meaningful participation. She is passionate about helping groups connect, navigate principled disagreement, prioritize, focus, and align towards powerful actions that advance justice, joy and wellbeing in the world.
Alex is a recipient of the Wildacres Leadership Initiative William C. Friday Fellowship (2014-2016), holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and French Literature from Connecticut College and a master’s degree in International Affairs with a focus on gender, sexuality and international human rights from Columbia University. As the first member of her family to attend university, she is humbled to stand on the shoulders of self-taught entrepreneurs, savvy dissidents, survivors of Portuguese dictatorship and lovers of learning. She currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, in the Southeastern United States, in a beloved cross-class, multi-racial intentional community of gorgeously imperfect humans trying to build deep interdependence.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION, CHANGE MANAGEMENT, CULTURE CHANGE TEAMBUILDING
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Systems change, Change management, Culture change
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Change management; Culture change; Strategy; Teambuilding
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION, STRATEGY SYSTEMS CHANGE, PRODUCT OR SERVICE DESIGN
Ángel Zambrano Cobo is Communications Specialist at UFacilitate. As a communicator and cultural manager based in Caracas, Venezuela, he collaborates with groups and organizations that seek to build community and generate change through projects of social innovation, cultural action and human rights.
He is also a founding member of Ciudad Laboratorio (@ciudlab), a civil association that seeks to influence urban experience and transformation through observation, art and pedagogy. In 2017 he was part of the founding team of Labo Ciudadano, a social innovation lab focused on human rights, social fabric and nonviolent mobilization. Until mid-2022 he was co-general coordinator of this organization, and today he is part of its advisory board.
Leigh’s expertise in business process management has been shaped by her diverse professional journey. Starting as a customer care representative while still in college, she steadily progressed.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in business management from Central Philippine University, Leigh transitioned into roles with increasing responsibility. She began as a virtual assistant for US professionals, where she efficiently supported top-tier management with various tasks including managing company materials, workflows, training, and finance.
Leigh’s career path led her to management roles overseeing teams across industries like real estate, medical, construction, and cleaning. Her hands-on experience in these sectors provided her with a solid understanding of business operations and management practices.
Additionally, Leigh demonstrated her skills in sales and marketing as a successful sales executive, closing service deals. Her role as an events support generalist at a KPO company further broadened her skill set, contributing to delivering services to clients worldwide.
Leigh’s diverse background and proactive approach make her an asset in optimizing business processes and driving success.
Aparna is Chief Facilitator Builder at UFacilitate, helping to select and onboard high-quality facilitators to the UFacilitate family. For the last 7 years, she has been working with early growth stage impact startups across India, South Africa, and Latin America, helping them identify the business models and value propositions, create a growth strategy, raise funds and measure their impact. During her time working with education nonprofits in India, she learned about the critical role that good facilitation plays in ensuring meaningful engagements and also got trained by the Facilitators Network Singapore. While working with an accelerator in Latin America, she created a facilitator’s handbook for online and offline engagements, equipping the reader with the basic tools and thinking steps.
Aparna’s aim through UFacilitate is to take the simple handbook many steps ahead and help leaders in the impact space innovate effectively, make decisions, and build projects that involve multiple stakeholders and have large-scale impact.
