BIPOC Women: from Manager to C-suite and everything in between
Description: What are the pathways and barriers to organizational leadership for women of color? How do we as women of color and allies work to open opportunities in different sectors? The first half of this session will be a panel discussion with women of color in leadership positions from different sectors. In the second half of this session you will work with others to discuss how to remove barriers and create pathways for women of color. We will have a special breakout group just for women of color.
Moderator: Desireé Wilkins Finch, LT’20
Panelists: Ameila Ransom, HLT, Janice Zahn, LT’17, Betti Fujikado, and Roxana Norouzi.
Speaker Bios
Desireé Wilkins-Finch, LT’20, was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. As a graduate of The Ohio State University, she earned a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences. As a firm believer in the collectivism of faith and community, Desireé has spent 20 years as an organizer spreading a message of hope, action, and transformation. This set of beliefs led Desireé to pursue a MA in Leadership with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle University.
Desireé is the owner and principal consultant for RiseLWP (leadership with purpose), a consulting firm committed to helping clients achieve their mission and deepen their impact by offering organizational development solutions with an equity framework. Desireé is dedicated to helping communities transform as they access their strength, convert it into power, and take action. Her coaching centers on how leaders drive values, values drive behaviors, and behaviors drive a community. Only then are communities strengthened to take action, which is power.
Desireé also teaches as a clinician and community partner at University of Washington and University of Puget Sound, a Board member of Symphony Tacoma and Communities for a Healthy Bay. She is also a recipient of Puget Sound Business Journals 40 under 40 for 2021, an alum of Leadership Tomorrow (LT 20) and American Leadership Forum (ALF XXVII). In her spare time, she is a flautist and enjoys spending time with her family, studying improv and traveling with her son.
Amelia Ransom, HLT, SPHR is Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Smartsheet. She is responsible for driving strategy and initiatives that impact, solidify and improve company culture. She also leads Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the organization. Amelia has over 30 years of experience building and executing strategy within Human Resources and Business Operations in a world class and customer-centric organization. In addition to DEI, her areas of expertise include leadership development, early in career engagement and executive level mentorship and advisement.
Before joining Smartsheet, Amelia was the Sr. Director of Engagement and Diversity at Avalara. She created the company’s first DEI strategy and was responsible for improving company engagement scores each year. Prior to that, she held multiple regional and company-wide leadership positions at Nordstrom including store management, Diversity and Inclusion and Learning and Development
Amelia serves on the boards of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Evergreen Goodwill of Northwest Washington, The YWCA Seattle, King and Snohomish and The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.
Janice Zahn, LT’17, is Director of Engineering at the Port of Seattle and a Bellevue City Council member. Bio coming soon!
Betti Fujikado creates spaces for voices from historically underrepresented communities. A Japanese American woman who navigated executive leadership roles and as an entrepreneur, Betti is passionate about applying her professional and personal experiences in her current work.
She is the co-founder of Success Cohorts, a coaching and community-building company serving early career, first-generation college graduates. In late 2020, she co-developed Seattle Unite’s Democracy Cup that gathered the six professional sports teams—Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Kraken, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Storm, and OL Reign—in a grassroots effort to reach communities of color to complete the 2020 Census and vote. In May 2021, Betti, along with four other Seattle-based Asian women business leaders, created Our Stories Are Your Stories for AANHPI Heritage Month.
Happily married at 40. Graced with twin daughters at 41. At 42, Betti co-founded Copacino Fujikado, a Seattle advertising agency. Clients included Seattle Mariners, Seattle Children’s, Premera Blue Cross, Seattle Aquarium, REI, and Chateau Ste. Michelle.
Betti has been a Trustee at Western Washington University and a long-time MBA mentor at the University of Washington. She has been a Junior Achievement Washington Hall of Fame Laureate, PSBJ Woman of Influence, AAF WA Silver Medalist, AABDC 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business, and a University of Washington Foster School Distinguished Leader.
As the daughter of Japanese American parents incarcerated during World War II, Betti uses her voice to promote diversity in the Seattle business community.
Roxana Norouzi is the Executive Director of We Are One America. Roxana has 20 years of experience in organizing, advocacy and social justice work with immigrant and refugee populations. Now serving as OneAmerica’s Executive Director, Roxana started with the organization 12 years ago, first as an organizing intern and then in 2012 as the Education Policy Manager.
In her role leading education work, Roxana built and developed a strategy to improve education for immigrant children and families through local and state policy advocacy, community organizing and leadership development with parents and youth. Which resulted in many policy wins and millions of dollars in additional funding for multilingual education. Over the last decade she moved OneAmerica through a transformational process to get further rooted in grassroots organizing, strategic policy campaigns and political power.
In addition to her role at OneAmerica she is also a clinical instructor at the University of Washington in the School of Public Health. In 2010, after earning her Masters in Social Work at the University of Washington, Roxana was awarded the Bonderman Fellowship which allowed her to travel to twenty countries exploring post-conflict regions, migration trends, and identity. Roxana’s experience as a first generation American informs her passion and commitment to racial equity and immigrant justice.