Katy Mamen
Katy Mamen is a creative and collaborative systems change consultant and facilitator helping leaders, organizations and networks find strategic clarity and build collaborative leadership. Recognized as a highly effective and culturally competent facilitator, systems change capacity builder, and nonprofit & philanthropic strategist with a track record of success working with diverse stakeholders to design aligned strategies for an equitable and regenerative future. Katy is principal and founder of Water Bear Collaborative, a consultancy that supports leaders in the climate change, food and agriculture, and water sectors to envision and implement system-informed strategies in service of social justice and ecological health. Katy is particularly skilled at cultivating the wisdom of the whole, whether that’s an organizational team or leaders spanning a field, creating the conditions for all voices be heard and honored while tending to power dynamics, group culture, and results. Her clients in the philanthropic sector have included Water Foundation, the Energy Foundation, UNFI Foundation, Garfield Foundation, and Lumpkin Family Foundation. Katy is a Fellow of the Academy for Systems Change and previously managed multi-stakeholder policy roundtables and led the California Food System Alliance Network as Director of Programs at Ag Innovations. Before turning to process work, Katy studied emergence in complex systems and the role of traditional knowledge in sustainable agriculture while pursuing her MSc in the UK. She also worked with an international think tank researching the impacts of the international mining sector on indigenous communities and supported traditional agrarian communities in Central and South America, Asia, Europe and North America. Katy currently lives in a rural, consensus-based intentional community in northern California, where she honed her group process skills over the past 20 years.
Jessi Bellama
Jessi Bellama is a strategy and design leader with 20 years’ experience creating direction from uncertainty for growing and changing organizations using Human-Centered Design and a shared value lens. She deeply believes in creating a world where organizations embody human and societal thriving to achieve purpose-driven goals. Jessi has crisscrossed the private, public and nonprofit sectors – and the world – which has enabled her to develop a well-rounded and diverse skill set to facilitate the design and implementation of action-oriented strategy, building values-aligned cultures, and guiding teams through growth and change. She has a particular knack for cultivating and strengthening teams, partnerships and networks to build momentum across cultures, as well as across sectors that may speak different languages such as healthcare, financial services, and sustainable development. Her career journey has included: developing an independent business model for LAUNCH, a partnership between Nike, NASA, USAID and the U.S. Department of State to support system-disrupting entrepreneurs in sustainability; spearheading a practice to drive corporate reputation through social impact at Booz Allen Hamilton; launching Wellington Management Company’s first global employee engagement program with 700 employees in the first year; developing an employee engagement strategy for a recognized fashion brand to launch and embed a newly developed purpose-driven mission; designing and delivering a course on human-centered project management and consulting for an African start-up technology design firm; and embedding a circular economy nonprofit’s organizational values by aligning operations, processes and behaviors to build the desired culture through a period of rapid growth. As a ‘Third Culture Kid,’ Jessi appreciates the opportunities to be found in ambiguity. She grew up in Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe, and South Africa and has direct cross-cultural work experience in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Belgium and Georgia. She speaks (to varying degrees of fluency) and has worked in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Bangla and Georgian. She also speaks German, though has never lived or worked in Germany. Jessi holds an MBA in global strategy from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and an BA in Sociology and International Studies from Kenyon College. She is a level 2 certified CrossFit Coach, because she believes in fostering physical, mental and emotional wellness in all our human realms.